The History of the Ancient Civilizations. Duncker Max

in the narrative of Joseph, so here, all that is said of Egypt agrees with what we know from other sources of that country. As the Hebrews were settled to the east of the Tanitic arm of the Nile, the locality of the exposure in the meaning of the Ephraimitic text must be sought in the neighbourhood of Tanis. We saw above that Ramses II. erected considerable buildings in this district (p. 134). The name Moses, which the king's daughter is said to have given to the rescued boy, may be connected without violence with the Egyptian messu, i.e. the child. The plagues too which tradition represents as coming upon Egypt are suited to the nature of the land. Even now the water of the Nile becomes at times red and disagreeable in smell; often after the inundation swarms of frogs cover the fields, and at the same time myriads of marsh-gnats and flies rise out of the mud, and locusts from time to time in thick devastating swarms cover the fields in the valley of the Nile.[636] Eruptions of the skin also occur after the inundation, and sometimes grow into large boils. Storms of hail, though not entirely unknown, are yet extremely rare in Egypt, and storms from the south-west, which in the spring blow over the great desert, are one of the worst plagues in Egypt; they bring with them violent heat and thick dust, which darkens the sky.

      If we attempt to ascertain the historical value of these narratives, it follows from the helpless position of the Hebrews in regard to the Egyptians which we have already described, that the idea of rescuing them from the dominion of Egypt could only have been entertained by a resolute spirit, and the undertaking begun by a leader who was prepared to make the highest venture in order to preserve the highest prize—nationality and religion. Among the Hebrews there could be no other thought but to leave the borders of Egypt in order to resume the old mode of life in the deserts of Syria, and there to worship their old God in the old manner. In harmony with the situation the Ephraimitic text represents the resolution to make an exodus as growing up after long hesitation and grave thought in the soul of a man who, owing to the oppression of his people, had come into the sharpest conflict with Egypt, had fled into the desert in order to save his life, and there had again seen and lived the free life of the kindred tribes. If the Hebrews intended to leave Egypt it was necessary to know certainly that the tribes of the desert, or at least a part, would receive them, and that they would not one and all oppose them. By combination with the Midianites the conditions most needed for the exodus could be supplied. If of the Midianites and the Amalekites, the desert tribes who dwelt nearest to Egypt, the first were gained for the Hebrews, and from them support, assistance, and alliance in repulsing an Egyptian attack might be expected, then it was possible to hope for success in the venture. The Ephraimitic text represents the Hebrews as choosing that moment for carrying out the exodus in which there was a change of the succession in Egypt, and it is obvious that a change of this kind, the commencement of a new and perhaps contested dominion, secured better prospects for the Hebrews than an established rule when obedience was unchallenged.

According to the older text the Israelites gathered together near the city of Ramses (Abu Kesheb) for the exodus. We have seen that this city was built on the canal, nearly in the middle of the district allotted to the Hebrews; it was therefore the natural place for meeting. From this the Israelites took a southern direction towards the north-west point of the Arabian Gulf, which is known to the Hebrews as the reed-sea. This was the shortest way of reaching the deserts of the peninsula of Sinai and the pastures of the Midianites, and on this line the Hebrews had the Bitter Lakes at hand, from which could be obtained what water was absolutely necessary. When they had passed Succoth, Etham, Pihahiroth, and had reached the corner of the reed-sea, as the first text describes, the pursuit overtook them, which Pharaoh had begun with a hastily-collected force. Southward of the extreme point of the reed-sea, in the neighbourhood of Suez, there are firths which can be crossed at the ebb, especially if a strong north-east wind drives back the waves to the south-west. By a strong east wind, blowing through the whole night, Jehovah caused the sea to retire, and turned it into dry land; and the water became a wall on the right hand and the left, as we learnt from the oldest account. The extreme point of the reed-sea, i.e. the sea on the left of the firth, is too deep to be crossed, on the right the wind and the ebb kept the waters back.[637] Thus it was not in itself impossible that the Hebrews reached the other shore, i.e. the peninsula of Sinai, by passing through the firth and cutting off the extreme point of the sea; and not impossible that the Egyptian army in their eagerness to overtake the Hebrews, or afraid that the marshes at the head of the sea would detain them so long that they could not come up with them before the desert made pursuit very difficult, attempted to cross the sea when the water had already returned. The narrative is supported to some extent by the ancient song of victory (p. 446). This song, it is true, cannot be proved to belong to that period, but it is nevertheless of very ancient origin.[638]

The account which the Egyptians and Manetho give of the exodus of the Hebrews has been already related. According to it the Hebrews are impure and leprous Egyptians whom Pharaoh had banished to the quarries east of the Nile, and made to work there, like other Egyptians employed in that task. That the Hebrews are Egyptians, and leprous Egyptians, in the Egyptian tradition, need excite no astonishment; white leprosy was a disease from which the Israelites frequently suffered. We cannot contest the number of the lepers, which Manetho puts at 80,000, though we have already seen that the Hebrews at the time of the exodus could hardly have approached this number of men capable of work. The Hebrew tradition in both texts represents the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, the descendants of Joseph and an Egyptian woman, as growing up during the settlement in Egypt; the revision adds that a "number of strangers" left Egypt with their forefathers. Moses, the leader of the lepers, is described by Manetho as an Egyptian priest of Heliopolis, of the name of Osarsiph. We saw that Heliopolis was the nearest centre of Egyptian religious worship to the land of Goshen, and that the second text gives the daughter of a priest of Heliopolis to Joseph to wife. According to this text also Moses is brought up by the Egyptians, and the revision calls him an "Egyptian."[639] Hence we can at once accept the statement of Manetho that the leader of the Hebrews was skilled in the wisdom of the Egyptian priests.[640] On the other hand the more detailed narrative of Manetho is in itself far more improbable, more full of contradictions and impossibilities, than the account of the Hebrews. It does not agree with the tenor of Manetho's narrative when we find Pharaoh giving over the fortified city of Avaris to the leprous Egyptians whom he had banished to the stone quarries. In that city the lepers rebel, there they make the priest of Heliopolis, Osarsiph, their leader, and Osarsiph gives them the law, to worship no god, to eat the most sacred animals, and to have dealings only with their confederates. From hence he summons the Hyksos, who had been driven out of Avaris a long time before, and had meanwhile built Jerusalem. Pharaoh goes with an army of 300,000 of the best warriors of Egypt against the conspirators, 80,000 unclean persons and 200,000 shepherds, yet turns back voluntarily, and flies towards Ethiopia, while the confederates desolate Egypt without pity for thirteen years. It is hardly credible that a king of Egypt should abandon his kingdom without a struggle to lepers and the descendants of the Hyksos. And if anyone is inclined to assume that the Hebrews did actually combine, not with the supposed Hyksos of Jerusalem, but perhaps with the Midianites, and conquer Egypt and force the king into Ethiopia, and so rule over Egypt for thirteen years—their tradition would not have forgotten or suppressed such a glorious achievement of the nation, such a proof of the power of Jehovah. Compared with this wholly purposeless exile of the king, the account of the Hebrews seems far more credible—that Pharaoh did make the attempt to stop the migration, but that the attempt was without success.

It remains to fix the date at which the Hebrews succeeded in escaping from the dominion of Egypt, and resuming their old mode of life in the deserts of Syria. It has already been proved that Sethos I. and Ramses II. were the Pharaohs who oppressed the Hebrews; and it is in harmony with the whole situation to assume that the attempt to escape from this oppression would be made under a less powerful successor. If, as is shown above (p. 159), the