It was a fair country.

Where could his people find a more delightful home?
It was only the circumstances under which they had lived there which had been intolerable.

Happier times were now in store.

The tribes were given the choice between returning to Goshen, or settling on the lake land west of the Nile, with whose fertility and ample supply of water he was well acquainted.

No one would have a right to reduce them to bondage, and whoever gave his labor to the service of the state was to have for overseer no stern and cruel foreigner, but a man of his own blood.
True, he knew that the Hebrews must remain under subjection to Pharaoh.
But had not Joseph, Ephraim, and his sons, Hosea's ancestors, been called his subjects and lived content to be numbered among the Egyptians.
If the covenant was made, the elders of the tribes were to direct the private concerns of the people.