The History of the Ancient Civilizations. Duncker Max

the desire to find more fruitful pastures in the neighbourhood of the Nile, or want of corn, as the tradition says, might have induced the sons of Jacob to leave the borders of Canaan for the borders of Egypt. The tribes, or families of shepherds, who pastured their flocks in the neighbourhood of Canaan, may have been accustomed to purchase corn when their own cultivation was insufficient, from the corn-growers in Canaan. A blight in Canaan would therefore compel them to turn to the abundance of corn in Egypt. And to a shepherd tribe, which sought her protection, and submitted voluntarily to her rule, Egypt would be the more inclined to give up the pastures beyond the Nile, if this tribe was in unfriendly or hostile relations to the Semitic tribes in the neighbourhood.

If we attempt to fix the date at which the tribe of Jacob may have exchanged the pastures on the border of Canaan for the more fruitful regions on the Tanitic arm of the Nile, it soon becomes clear that the accounts of the Hebrews cannot be maintained. The older text puts 215 years between the time when Abraham entered Canaan and the arrival of the sons of Jacob into Egypt, and exactly twice this amount between their arrival in and exodus from Egypt. The fixed proportion between the two numbers, and the further circumstance that tradition can only mention a few generations of the sons of Jacob,[612] leads to the conclusion that those numbers do not spring from any record or actual remembrance, but have been invented upon reflection. The date of the exodus also is fixed by a round sum; from the exodus to the building of the temple 480 years are said to have elapsed.[613] The Hebrews reckoned 40 years to the generation; hence they put twelve generations between the exodus and the building of the temple, and fixed the interval on this computation; yet their scriptures could only mention by name nine or ten generations in this period.[614] Hence the dates 2140 B.C., and 1925 B.C., which are deduced from the older text for the entrance of Abraham into Canaan, and of Jacob into Egypt, if the beginning of the building of the temple is fixed according to traditional assumption in the year 1015 B.C., must be given up, as well as the year 2115 B.C. for the entrance of Abraham into Canaan, and the year 1900 B.C. for the settlement of Jacob in Egypt, which results from the fixing the beginning of the building of the temple in the year 990 B.C. The only fact in the ancient tradition which admits of an approximate date is the campaign of Kudur-Lagamer of Elam, mentioned in the Ephraimitic text. This campaign we ventured to place about the year 2000 B.C. Genesis represents him as defeating the nations on the east and south of Canaan, and the Horites on Mount Seir, while at the separation of Esau and Jacob Mount Seir is no longer the abode of the Horites, but of the tribe of Esau. But we must contest the claim of tradition to bring the history of Abraham into connection with this campaign of the Elamites to the west. On the other hand we may regard it as settled that the tribe of Jacob did not arrive in Egypt at the time when the valley of the Nile was under the dominion of the Hyksos, i.e. in the period from 2101 B.C. to 1591 B.C., which we have assumed for this dominion, and that during this time it did not dwell in Egypt. The tradition of the Hebrews was not likely to forget that their ancestors came to the Nile, not as fugitives, but as kinsmen of the ruler of Egypt, or that their race had once shared in the rule over Egypt, and thus they might have dropped the slavery and imprisonment, and the position of Joseph in Pharaoh's service. And if these grounds are not held to be sufficient—if the tribe of Jacob was in Egypt under the dominion of the Hyksos, it must have been involved in their overthrow and expulsion.

      Thus it may be assumed as proved that the admission of the sons of Jacob into Egypt did not take place till after the complete expulsion of the Hyksos, i.e. till Tuthmosis III. had forced the shepherds to leave the region to which they were at last confined, i.e. till after the year 1591 B.C. And it can hardly have taken place immediately after this event. We cannot suppose any inclination among the Egyptians, immediately after the expulsion of foreign shepherd tribes, to admit shepherds of the same nationality to the Nile. But when Tuthmosis III. had carried his weapons as far as the Euphrates, and received yearly tribute from the Syrians, the Cheta, and the Retennu, there would be no scruples felt about allotting pastures on the edge of the desert to an inconsiderable shepherd tribe. Hence the settlement of the sons of Jacob in Goshen may be placed about the middle of the sixteenth century B.C.

The tradition of the Hebrews informed us that their ancestors were compelled to build the two treasure-cities Pithom and Ramses for Pharaoh. This statement is in the Ephraimitic text, while the Judæan text calls the land given to the Hebrews Ramses.[615] The ruins of Pithom and of Ramses we found on the canal which Sethos I. and Ramses II. intended to carry from the Nile at Bubastis into the Arabian Gulf, and which was completed as far as the Lake of Crocodiles (p. 157). The depression of the Wadi Tumilat, which the canal followed, crosses the land of Goshen. Cities could not be founded here till the canal from the Nile had provided water in sufficient quantity. A city of the name of Pa-Rameses, i.e. abode of Ramses, could only be founded by a prince of that name. Being situated on the canal of Ramses II. and further to the east than Pithom, the city could only have been built by the prince whose reign we have placed from 1388 B.C. to 1322 B.C. As a fact his image is found here on a block of granite in the ruins between the gods Ra and Tum, and the bricks in the remains of the outer walls are mixed with cut straw, the use of which in moulding the bricks for these buildings is mentioned by the revision.[616] This city of Ramses must have been of considerable importance for the district allotted to the Hebrews, as the whole region was called after it. Hence the sons of Jacob were in the land of Goshen in the reign of Ramses II. The tradition allows them to remain unmolested in Egypt for a long time—"not till the land was full of them," so runs the older text, without ascribing any other motive, "did the Egyptians force the children of Israel to work in clay and brick, and in the fields."[617] In the former class of works comes the building of these two cities. Hence the Israelites must have reached Goshen before the time of Ramses II.

The desired evidence of the presence of the children of Jacob in Egypt could be obtained from Egyptian writings and monuments if it were certain that a name used in them referred to the Hebrews. On a hieratic papyrus (now at Leyden) an officer intreats his superiors to give him corn "for the soldiers and the Apuriuu who drag stones to the great fortress of the house of Ramses, beloved of Ammon," i.e. king Ramses II.[618] In other places in the same papyrus the name occurs as Apruu. Another papyrus observes under date of Ramses III. (p. 163)—"2083 Apruu at this place" i.e. at Heliopolis.[619] In an inscription in the quarries at Hamamat it is said that 800 Apuriu or Apriu are mentioned as workmen.[620] But is the Egyptian name of the Hebrews really Apru or Apuriu? The wife of Potiphar, it is true, calls Joseph "the Hebrew servant" (p. 421); but did the sons of Jacob really bear the name of Hebrews—i.e. men of the other side—when they came to Egypt? Does not the meaning of the name in the places quoted seem rather to be of a general kind, than to denote any one particular stock?

The kings Sethos I. and Ramses II. (1439–1322 B.C.) were engaged in battle, as we have seen, with the Schasu, i.e. the shepherd tribes between Egypt and Canaan, with the Hittites, who possessed the south of Canaan, and other tribes of Syria (p. 150). Even though they obtained successes over these nations, and Sethos I. once forced his way to the Euphrates, and Ramses II. as far as the coasts of the Phenicians, yet the Schasu, like the Cheta, continued to be dangerous enemies of Egypt. If this were not so, why should Sethos have hit upon the plan of protecting the eastern frontier from Pelusium to Heliopolis, by a vast fortification? What induced Ramses, after several campaigns in Syria, to conclude a peace with the Cheta in the year 1367 B.C. (p. 152), in which the advantage was not with Egypt? Ramses III. had again to fight with the Schasu,