the rules of slavery, the free man acted in accordance with
the dictates of freedom.[351] And in a son that thing would
have been unseemly which was becoming in a slave.[352]

When Joseph swore to bury his father in Palestine, he
added the words, "As thou commandest me to do, so also
will I beg my brethren, on my death-bed, to fulfil my last
wish and carry my body from Egypt to Palestine."[353]

Jacob, noticing the Shekinah over the bed's head, where
she always rests in a sick room, bowed himself upon the
bed's head,[354] saying, "I thank thee, O Lord my God, that
none who is unfit came forth from my bed, but my bed was
perfect."[355] He was particularly grateful for the revelation
God had vouchsafed him concerning his first-born son