a suspicion of another contemplated invasion; and that the viceroy, in charging his brethren with being spies, only echoed the popular feelings of his subjects. To this he would be prompted by a variety of considerations, beside the desire to test the strength of their filial affection for Benjamin. Duty to his king, policy and prudence, imperatively demanded this from him. It was necessary for him to satisfy himself of the rectitude of their intentions, and to allay in the minds of the Egyptians all fear of his being in league with the hateful shepherds ;-a suspicion that would have ruined his interest at the court of Pharaoh, and might have cost him his life. These considerations, also, would render that course of conduct just and necessary, which otherwise must have appeared very extraordinary. We have already shown, that the dates furnished by Manetho, Censorinus and Theon, enable us to fix the Exodus in the reign of Ramses, Amenephes, or Menephes, the last king of the 18th dynasty, and that it took place thirteen years before the end of his reign, or in the 27th year of it; but Champollion and Greppo, by reasoning more satisfactory to us, have attempted to fix it ten years earlier. We therefore follow this calculation as being the most probable, and we feel ourselves obliged to understand literally the prophecy made to Abraham, that "his seed should be a stranger in a land that was not theirs, and should serve the inhabitants thereof, and be afflicted and oppressed by them four hundred years ;" and consequently, we suppose, that they were in Egypt from the descent of Jacob to the time of the Exodus, 408 years. We say 408 years, because the prophecy assures us, that * Gen. xv. 13. + This supposition is opposed to the common notion, that the affliction spoken of in the prophecy, began with the sojourn of Abraham in that country. It is not entirely without its difficulties, but where there is one objection to our hypothesis, to us it seems that there are several to the other. We cannot now devote time to a critical examination of this point, and if we could, the brief space of a single note would not furnish sufficient scope for doing so. We can therefore only mention a few of the reasons why we adopt the one and reject the other. We have, then, in favor of our interpretation, the fact, that it gives a clear, consistent, and rational interpretation of the prophecy in question; accounts for all the strange revolutions in Egyptian customs and manners, which took place at that time; and furnishes time in which seventy souls might have increased to a million and a half, the smallest possible number which could have furnished "603,550 men, from twenty years and upwards," ready to go forth to battle. To the other hypothesis we object. 1. That it makes Abraham suffer in person the affliction of his seed, and that too from a king with whom he was in alliance, and when in a foreign country. 2. That for nearly two hundred years of this period, the children of Abraham had no communication with the Egyptians, and therefore could not be afflicted by them. 3. It allows less than two hundred years for an increase of seventy souls to more than 1,500,000, and which would require them to double not less then sixteen times. To the first two of these objections no answer can be given, but in reply to the last, it has been said, that the statement is possible when we recollect,-1. "The fruitfulness of the Hebrew. * the seed of Abraham should serve 400 years, and Moses expressly asserts, that the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was 430 years.' Now Joseph was seventeen years old when he was sold into slavery, and was thirty when he stood before Pharaoh. He had therefore been a servant thirteen years, which added to the seven years of plenty in which he was busied in collecting food, and the two years of the famine already elapsed, would make his service twenty-two years, in the second year of the famine, when his father went down to him. Dating the commencement of the 430 years from the beginning of the servitude of the children of Israel, in the person of Joseph, and the 400 years of the prophecy would commence ten years after Jacob's descent into Egypt, or three years after the end of the seven years of famine. If, then, with Champollion and Greppo, we assign the Exodus to the seventeenth year of Amenephes, the descent of Jacob took place 85 years before the accession of the 18th dynasty, or Diospolitan family, to the throne of Egypt, under whom the bondage of the Israelites continued with increasing severity for 325 years. Joseph lived 73 years after his father went into Egypt, he, therefore, "with all that generation, died" in the 85 years just spoken of, and consequently the first sovereign of the 18th dynasty "knew not Joseph." This conclusion, too, is in conformity with the statements of Josephus, that "another family had obtained the throne of Egypt." In the kings of this race, the characteristics of the oppressors of Israel would naturally, we had almost said necessarily, exist. Burning with hatred against their cruel oppressors, and especially those conquerors who had violated the tombs and temples of their fathers, we should expect to see them actuated by a spirit of revenge, which would be visited on every thing that received the approbation of the "Pastor-dynasty." The character, occupation, and institutions of the latter, would be held in aversion by the former; and the people who owed their situation to the kindness or assistance of the one, would be the first to feel the vengeance of the other. Indeed, we can imagine no trait more natural, than 2. The extraordinary fruitfulness of the Egyptians, four or five children being conceived at a birth. 3. The multitude of wives; and 4. The duration of life. (Poole Synop. in loco.) To this we rejoin, to the first, that the scripture acquaints us with no such extraordinary increase as this supposes, among the Hebrews or any other nation. 2. That the supposed fruitfulness of the Egyptians is not proved by authority on which any reliance can be placed, Pliny being of all men the most credulous. 3. That it is doubtful whether polygamy actually does any thing towards an increase of population. 4. That if the Israelites were the same in Egypt as before and after their sojourn there, the duration of life did not materially affect the increase of population. *Ex. xii. 40, 41. VOL. VIII. † Gen. xli. 46. that described in the brief but emphatic phrase: "And there arose a king in Egypt, which knew (or rather, who heeded not) Joseph." The character of shepherds,-the occupation of the Hebrews, still excited in the mind of an Egyptian a suspicion of enmity, and hence the king expresses his fear, "that in time of war they would join the enemy.' Doomed to slavery and the mines, the children of the patriarch were now compelled to assist in rearing those towering columns, ponderous walls, and mighty pyramids, which attest the wealth, the ambition, and the power of the monarch that built them; and which, like the nation of slaves that labored at their foundation, still remain to testify to the truth of the sacred history. Surely no human foresight could have imagined, that the labors of this afflicted people would have remained more than 3,500 years, as if witnesses of their own history. But such is the fact; and to this day, the Hebrew, with the physiognomy of a modern Egyptian Jew, and in a dress like all the representations of ancient Alexandrian ones, may be seen sculptured on the massive walls they helped to build, "making bricks and working in the quarries, under the superintendence of Egyptian task masters, and whose bricks, according to their delineation, are precisely the same which may be found in the walls whose date is assignable to that era."† Such coincidences between the Mosaic and Egyptian records could not have been the result of accident; nor can the things they relate be the production of fancy, but they prove incontestibly the truth of both. There is also another point in this part of the scripture history, which in our opinion receives strong confirmation from the Egyptian; but which requires a construction of a passage of scripture different from the common one. "And they built for Pharaoh treasure-cities, Pithom and Raamses." "Pithom and Raamses,' in this passage, are generally supposed to be the name of two treasure-cities which the Israelites built for Pharaoh, but which we suggest were rather names of two Pharaohs who oppressed the children of Israel, and for whom these treasure-cities, or, more properly these magazines were built; or it is possible that they were the names both of the kings who caused them to be built, and of the cities when built. This last, however, we think rather improbable. We have already supposed the Exodus to have taken place in the seventeenth year of Amenephes, the last king of the 18th dynasty. His predecessor was Ammesses, Rammesses, or Ramses Meiamoun, called also Aegyptus, who reigned, according to Jahn, 40 years, but according to Josephus, 60 years. He was pre * Ex. i. 10. § Man. Dyn. + For. Q. Rev. ubi. sup. Art. 3. + Ex. i. 11. ceded by Armes, called also Danaus, who reigned four or five years, and who was himself preceded by Cherus, or Acencherus, and whose monumental name was Petamon. If we suppose the medium between Jahn and Josephus to be the probable duration of the reign of Raamses, then "Moses, who was 80 years old when he stood before Pharaoh,"* was born in the seventh year of the reign of Petamon, and his visit to his brethren, and his flight from that country, which took place when he was 40 years old,† was in the twenty-seventh year of the reign of Raamses. It was probably, therefore, Petamon who issued the cruel mandate "to kill all the male children of the Hebrews ;" and from which edict Moses was saved by a stratagem, which served to introduce him to the court of Pharaoh, and to the schools and colleges of the Egyptians. Upon this supposition, two of the most important events in the life of Moses, his birth and flight, occurred in the reign of Petamon and Raamses, and hence also a good reason why they should be commemorated in the writings of Moses, to the exclusion of all others. In accordance with this view of our subject, we should render the verse in question,-" And they built magazines for Pharaoh Pithom and Raamses;" i. e. " for kings Pithom and Raamses." If this translation be objected to as unauthorized, we might propose others, which are sanctioned by the best grammars and lexicons, and which agree precisely with the above in sense, if not in words. Thus,if with Parkhurst and the old lexicons, we render n by the; the passage will read: "And they built magazines for Pharaoh, the Pithom, and the Raamses ;" the particle being emphatical and equivalent to the expression, "for Pharaoh, the one called Pithom, and for the one called Raamses."S Again, if with some of the best modern lexicographers, we understand Pharaoh to signify " a mere title of royality," and translate it accordingly, and render n (eth) "under the care of,"¶ the passage will then read: "And they built magazines for the king, under the care of Pithom and Raamses," that is, "under the reigns of Pithom and Raamses," the cities themselves being the property of the nation, not of the kings.** Either of these renderings, if correct, is decisive of the question in our favor. * Ex. vii. 7. † Acts vii. 23. Ex. i. 16. § Park. Heb. and Chal. Lex. Moore's Heb. Lex. Wilson's introduction to the Heb. language. Gen. 1. n 4. 8vo. Phil. 1812. Gibb's Manual Lexicon Gesenius, in loco. This translation receives countenance from, if it is not authorized by, the historical fact, that all the kings of Egypt, before the time of Ptolomy Lagus, were called Pharaoh, which we know to have been more than 1,400 years. Ibid. ** It had been long ago supposed by some, that the magazine or city of Raamses, was named from the reigning sovereign, and it has been suggested that Pithom might have been the name of his queen, but the order in which they are mentioned is an objection to that supposition, though it favors ours. Besides, it is not known that Raamses had any queen, or if he had, what was her name. Patrick Com, in loco. The supposition, that these words were the proper names of the kings of Egypt, is also strengthened by the etymology of the words themselves. Thus the Do Raamses of Moses, omitting the points, is identically the same word as the Ramses of Manetho and the monuments. In Pithom and Petamon the identity is not as visible; but rejecting the points from the Hebrew, and the vowels from the Egyptian word, neither of which originally belonged to either language, and the on Ptm of the Hebrew, and the Ptmn of the Coptic, leave no doubt of their referring to the same thing or person. This view of the subject, removes the difficulties under which the learned have for a long time labored in their search for the city of Pithom, and which has led to an insertion of a multiplicity of names in the various versions, no one of which is supported by a single Hebrew manuscript.1 The only city which has ever been found to answer in the least to Pithom, is the Patumos of Herodotus, which, according to his statement, was a "small town in Arabia on the borders of the Red Sea," and of course beyond the limits of Egypt, and probably out of the kingdom of the Pharaohs. It is not possible, therefore, that the Patumos of Herodotus should be the same as the Pithom of Moses; nor is it probable that powerful monarchs like Petamon and Raamses, with the temples of Karnac before their eyes, would bestow their own names upon a mere magazine of corn. We therefore conclude, that the words in question were the names of men and not of cities, and that the opinion which has so long prevailed, that the name of no one of the Pharaohs, until after the days of Solomon, is mentioned in scripture, is altogether unfounded. We can also imagine a great variety of reasons besides the ones already enumerated, why these kings should be mentioned and all others omitted, among which may be reckoned the fact, *In cases like this we do not consider the vowel points as of any authority, regarding them only as the commentary of the Masorites whose invention they were. + There are several various readings of Pithom. Of the manuscripts examined and numbered by Dr. Kennicut, 80, 84, 132, and 226, read "D. No. 4, 5, 6, 17, 75, 89, 99, 108, 111, 155, 184, 190, 193, 223, 244, 248, 260, had D פתים 152 and The Targum of Jerusalem, has "Tanis and Pelusium." The LLX, Pithone and Ramses, and On which is Heliopolis, and with this agrees the Coptic version. The Samaritan and Syriac have Pithone, while the translators of the Arabic have inserted Phaine and Ain-Semesh. Walton's Polyglot. These important variations have arisen from an attempt to fix the locality of a city which never existed. § B. 2, c. 158. Sir John Marsham, and after him many others, have declared it their opinion, that from the description of Herodotus, it is impossible that Patumos and Pithom should be the same place, and hence they have preferred the reading of the Targ. Jerus. Tanis or Tunis and Pelusium. Patrick Com. in loco. and Poole Synop. |