... It is difficult not to believe that Ben Sira’s selection of this particular incident in Joseph’s story was calculated and deliberate; for in the Genesis account, Joseph’s bones and his death are directly related to the drama of Israel’s redemption from Egypt through use of this verbal stem meaning “visit”. Genesis says nothing about Joseph’s bones or body being visited; rather, God will visit the Israelites, to bring them out of slavery and give them the land promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Now Ben Sira had treated of these patriarchs at some length (Manuscript B 44:19-23), but very specifically in terms of the covenant that God had granted them, a covenant involving blessing, progeny, and inheritance. By speaking of Joseph in the way that he does, Ben Sira contrives to prove that the covenant oath sworn to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was in very truth preserved intact and honored by the Almighty, in that Joseph’s corpse, conveyed out of Egypt to the land of Israel, “was visited” in other words, visited by God. ...