It is plain from the context that Arphaxad must signify Chaldea; and this conclusion is verified by the fact that the name might also be p.r.o.nounced Arpa-Chesed, or "border of Chaldaea." Chesed is the singular of Casdim, the word used in the Old Testament to denote the inhabitants of Babylonia. The origin of it is doubtful, but, as has been suggested above, it most probably represents the a.s.syrian _casidi_, "conquerors," a term which might very well be applied to the Semitic conquerors of Sumir and Accad.
The Greek word Chaldeans is derived from the Kalda, a tribe which lived on the sh.o.r.es of the Persian Gulf, and is first heard of in the ninth century before our era. Under Merodach-Baladan, the Kalda made themselves masters of Babylonia, and became so integral a part of the population as to give their name to the whole of it in cla.s.sical times.
Aram, the brother of Arphaxad, represents, of course, the Aramaeans of Aram, or "the highlands," which included the greater part of Mesopotamia and Syria. In the later days of the a.s.syrian Empire, Aramaic, the language of Aram, became the common language of trade and diplomacy, which every merchant and politician was supposed to learn, and in still later times succeeded in supplanting a.s.syrian in a.s.syria and Babylonia, as well as Hebrew in Palestine, until in its turn it was supplanted by Arabic.
Lud seems to be a misreading; at all events, Lydia and the Lydians, on the extreme western coast of Asia Minor, had nothing to do with the peoples of Elam, of a.s.syria, and of Aram. What the original reading was, however, it is now impossible to say.
In the midst of all these geographical names we find a notice inserted relating to "the mighty hunter" Nimrod, the beginning of whose kingdom, we are told, was Babylon, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh in the land of Shinar. His name has not yet been discovered in the cuneiform records.
Some a.s.syrian scholars have wished to identify him with Gisdhubar, the hero of the great Chaldean epic, which contains the account of the Deluge; but Gisdhubar was a solar hero who had originally been the Accadian G.o.d of fire. It is true that Gisdhubar was the special deity of the town of Marad, and that Na-Marad would signify in the Accadian language "the prince of Marad"; such a t.i.tle, however, has not been found in the inscriptions. Erech, called Uruk on the monuments, is now represented by the mounds of Warka, far away to the south of Babylon, and was one of the oldest and most important of the Babylonian cities. Like Calneh, the Kul-unu of the monuments, it was situated in the division of the country known as Sumir or Shinar. Accad, from which the northern division of the country took its name, was a suburb of Sippara (now Abu-Habba), and, along with the latter, made up the Sepharvaim or "Two Sipparas" of Scripture.
The Accadian form of the name was Agade, and here was the seat of a great library formed in remote days by Sargon I, and containing, among other treasures, a work on astronomy and astrology in seventy-two books.
The translation of the verse which follows the list of Nimrod"s Babylonian cities is doubtful. It is a question whether we should render with the Authorised Version: "Out of that land went forth a.s.shur," or prefer the alternative translation: "Out of that land he went forth to a.s.syria." The latter is favoured by Micah v. 6, where "the land of Nimrod" appears to mean a.s.syria. But the question cannot be finally decided until we discover some positive information about Nimrod on the monuments.
If, however, little light has been thrown by modern research on the person of Nimrod, this is by no means the case as regards Abraham. Abu-ramu or Abram, "the exalted father," Abraham"s original name, is a name which also occurs on early Babylonian contract-tablets. Sarah, again, is the a.s.syrian _sarrat_, "queen," while Milcah, the daughter of Haran, is the a.s.syrian _milcat_, "princess." The site of Ur of the Chaldees, the birthplace of Abram, has been discovered, and excavations have been made among the ruins of its temples. The site is now called Mugheir, and lies on the western side of the Euphrates, on the border of the desert, immediately to the west of Erech. The chief temple of Ur was dedicated to the moon-G.o.d, and the Accadian inscriptions on its bricks, which record its foundation, are among the earliest that we possess. It was, in fact, the capital of one of the oldest of the pre-Semitic dynasties, and its very name, Uru or Ur, is only the Semitic form of the Accadian _eri_, "city." It is probable that it had pa.s.sed into the hands of the Semitic "Casdim" before the age of Abraham; at all events, it had long been the resort of Semitic traders, who had ceased to lead the roving life of their ancestors in the Arabian desert. From Ur, Abraham"s father had migrated to Haran, in the northern part of Mesopotamia, on the high road which led from Babylonia and a.s.syria into Syria and Palestine. Why he should have migrated to so distant a city has been a great puzzle, and has tempted scholars to place both Ur and Haran in wrong localities; but here, again, the cuneiform inscriptions have at last furnished us with the key. As far back as the Accadian epoch, the district in which Haran was built belonged to the rulers of Babylonia; Haran was, in fact, the frontier town of the empire, commanding at once the highway into the west and the fords of the Euphrates; the name itself was an Accadian one signifying "the road"; and the deity to whom it was dedicated was the moon-G.o.d of Ur. The symbol of this deity was a conical stone, with a star above it, and gems with this symbol engraved upon them may be seen in the British Museum.
The road which pa.s.sed through Haran was well known to the Chaldean kings and their subjects. Sargon I of Accad, and his son Naram-Sin, had already made expeditions into the far west. Sargon had carved his image on the rocks of the Mediterranean coast, and had even crossed over into the island of Cyprus. The campaign, therefore, of Chedor-laomer and his allies, recorded in the fourteenth chapter of Genesis, was no new thing.
The soil of Canaan had already felt the tramp of Babylonian feet. We can even fix the approximate date at which the campaign took place, and when Abraham and his confederates surprised the invaders and recovered from them the spoils of Southern Palestine. For twelve years, we are told, the tribes in the neighbourhood of the Dead Sea had served Chedor-laomer, king of Elam, and then they rebelled; but the rebellion was quickly followed by invasion. Chedor-laomer and "the kings that were with him,"-Amraphel, king of Shinar, Arioch, king of Ellasar, and Tidal, "king of nations,"-marched against the revolters, overthrew them in battle, and carried them away captive. The name of Arioch is actually found on the cuneiform monuments.
Bricks have been discovered engraved with the legend of Eri-aku, king of Larsa, the son of Kudur-Mabug the Elamite. Eri-aku means in Accadian "the servant of the moon-G.o.d," and Larsa, his capital, is now represented by the mounds of Senkereh, a little to the east of Erech. Kudur-Mabug is ent.i.tled "the father of Palestine," and it would, therefore, seem that he claimed supremacy over Canaan. His name is an Elamite one, signifying "the servant of the G.o.d Mabug," and is closely parallel to the Biblical Chedor-laomer, that is, Kudur-Lagamar, "the servant of the G.o.d Lagamar."
Lagamar and Mabug, however, were different deities, and we cannot, therefore, identify Chedor-laomer and Kudur-Mabug together. But it is highly probable that they were brothers, Chedor-laomer being the elder, who held sway in Elam, while his nephew Eri-aku owned allegiance to him in Southern Babylonia. At any rate, it is plain from the history of Genesis that Babylon was at this time subject to Elam, and under the government of more than one ruler. Amraphel would have been king of that portion of Sumir, or Southern Chaldea, which was not comprised in the dominions of the king of Larsa; and the fact that the narrative begins by stating that the campaign in Palestine was made in his days, seems to imply that the whole account has been extracted from the Babylonian archives. As for "Tidal, king of nations," it is very possible that we ought to read Turgal (Thorgal), with the Septuagint, while Goyyim or "nations" has been shown by Sir Henry Rawlinson to be a misreading for Gutium, the name given to the tract of country northward of Babylonia, which stretched from Mesopotamia to the mountains of Kurdistan, and within which the kingdom of a.s.syria afterwards arose.
Now, the a.s.syrian king a.s.sur-bani-pal tells us that an image of the G.o.ddess Nana had been carried away from Babylonia by the Elamite king Kudur-Nankhundi when he overran Chaldea 1635 years before his own time, that is to say, in 2280 B.C. It is possible that this invasion of the country by Kudur-Nankhundi was the beginning of Elamite supremacy in Babylonia, and that Kudur-Mabug and Chedor-laomer were descendants of his.
If so, we shall have an approximate date for the rescue of Lot by Abraham, and consequently for the age of Abraham himself.
The fourteenth chapter of Genesis is the last in the Book that relates to Babylonia. The history now turns to Egypt; and it is, therefore, from the monuments of Egypt, and not from those of Babylonia and a.s.syria, that we henceforth have to look for light and information.
No traditions of a deluge had been preserved among the Egyptians. They believed, however, that there was a time when the greater part of mankind had been destroyed by the angry G.o.ds. A myth told how men had once uttered hostile words against their creator Ra, the Sun-G.o.d, who accordingly sent the G.o.ddess Hathor to slay them, so that the earth was covered with their blood as far as the town of Herakleopolis. Then Ra drank 7,000 cups of wine, made from the fruits of Egypt and mingled with the blood of the slain; his heart rejoiced, and he made an oath that he would not destroy mankind again. Rain filled the wells, and Ra went forth to fight against his human foes. Their bows were broken and themselves slaughtered, and the G.o.d returned victorious to heaven, where he created Paradise and the people of the stars. This myth agrees with another, according to which mankind had emanated from the eyes of Ra, though there was a different legend of the creation, which a.s.serted that all men, with the exception of the negroes, had sprung from the tears of the two deities Horus and Sekhet.
When Abraham went down into Egypt the empire was already very old. Its history begins with Menes, who united the independent states of the Nile valley into a single kingdom, and established his capital at Memphis. The first six dynasties of kings, who reigned 1,478 years, represent what is called the Old Empire. It was under the monarchs of the fourth dynasty that the pyramids of Gizeh were built; and at no time during its later history did the art and culture of Egypt reach again so high a level as it did under the Old Empire. With the close of the sixth dynasty came a period of disaster and decline. When Egypt again emerged into the light of history it was under the warrior princes of the twelfth dynasty. The capital had been shifted to the new city of Thebes, in the south, a new G.o.d, Amun, presided over the Egyptian deities, and the ruling cla.s.s itself differed in blood and features from the men of the Old Empire. Henceforth Egyptian art was characterised by a stiff conventionality wholly unlike the freedom and vigour of the art of the early dynasties; the government became more autocratic; and the obelisk took the place of the pyramid in architecture. But the Middle Empire, as it has been termed, did not last long. Semitic invaders from Canaan and Arabia overran the country, and established their seat at Zoan or Tanis. For 511 years they held the Egyptians in bondage, though the native princes, who had taken refuge in the south, gradually acquired more and more power, until at last, under the leadership of Aahmes or Amosis, the founder of the eighteenth dynasty, they succeeded in driving the hated foreigners out. These foreigners are known to history as the Hyksos or Shepherds, Hyksos being the Egyptian _hik shasu_, "prince of the Shasu," or "Beduins." The name which they bear upon the monuments is Menti.
It must have been while the Hyksos monarchs were holding their court at Zoan that Abraham entered the land. He found there men of Semitic blood, like himself, and speaking a Semitic language. A welcome was a.s.sured him, and he had no need of an interpreter. But the Hyksos kings had already begun to a.s.sume Egyptian state and to adopt Egyptian customs. In place of the Semitic _shalat_, "ruler," the t.i.tle by which their first leaders had been known, they had borrowed the Egyptian t.i.tle of Pharaoh. Pharaoh appears on the monuments as _pir-aa_, "great house," the palace in which the king lived being used to denote the king himself, just as in our own time the "porte" or gate of the palace has become synonymous with the Turkish Sultan.
By the time that Joseph was sold into Egypt there was little outward difference between the court at Zoan and the court of the native princes at Thebes. The very names and t.i.tles borne by the Hyksos officials had become Egyptian; and though they still regarded the G.o.d Set as the chief object of their worship, they had begun to rebuild the Egyptian temples, and pay honour to the Egyptian deities. Potiphar, to whom Joseph was sold, bore a purely Egyptian name, meaning "the gift of the risen one," while the name of Potipherah, the high priest of On, whose daughter, Asenath, was married by Joseph, is equally Egyptian, and signifies "the gift of the Sun-G.o.d." The Sun-G.o.d was the special deity of On; to him the great temple of the city was dedicated, and the name by which the place was known to the Greeks was Heliopolis, "the city of the sun." It was the city whose name is played upon in Isaiah xix. 18, where the prophet declares that in the day when Egypt shall be converted to the Lord, "the City of the Sun"
(_"ir ha-kheres_) shall become "the city of the destruction" of idols (_"ir ha-heres_). Jeremiah, too, plays similarly upon the name, when he says that Nebuchadnezzar, "shall break also the images of Beth-Shemesh (the house of the Sun-G.o.d) that is in the land of Egypt" (Jer. xliii. 13); while Ezekiel changes the Egyptian word On into the Hebrew _aven_, "nothingness," and prophesies that "the young men of Aven shall fall by the sword" (Ezek. x.x.x. 17). The ruins of On are within an afternoon"s drive of Cairo: but nothing remains of the city except mounds of earth, and a solitary obelisk that once stood in front of the great temple of the sun, and had been reared by Usertasen I, of the twelfth dynasty, a thousand years before the daughter of its priest became the wife of Joseph. The name of this daughter, Asenath, is the Egyptian "Snat.
We are told that when the Pharaoh had made Joseph "ruler over all the land of Egypt" he gave him a new name, Zaphnath-paaneah (Gen. xli. 45).
According to Dr. Brugsch, this name is the Egyptian _Za pa-u nt pa-aa-ankh_, "governor of the district of the place of life," that is, of the district in which the Israelites afterwards built the towns of Raamses and Pithom, and in which the land of Goshen seems to have been situated.
In after times Egyptian legend confounded Joseph with Moses, and changing the divine name which formed the first element in his into that of the Egyptian G.o.d Osiris, called him Osar-siph. The Jewish historian, Josephus, has preserved for us the story which made Osar-siph the leader of the Israelites in their flight from Egypt.
The seven years" famine, which Joseph predicted, is a rare occurrence in Egypt. In a country where rain is almost unknown, the fertility of the fields depends upon the annual inundation of the Nile when swollen by the melting snows of Abyssinia. It is only where the waters can penetrate, or can be led by ca.n.a.ls and irrigating machines, that the soil is capable of supporting vegetation; but wherever this takes place the mud they bring with them is so fertilising that the peasantry frequently grow three luxuriant crops on the same piece of ground during the same year. For the inundation to fail in any single year is not common; for it to fail seven years running is a most unusual event. The last recorded time when there was a seven years" failure of the river, and a consequent famine, was in A.D. 1064-1071, under the reign of the Khalif El-Mustansir Billah. A similar failure must have taken place in the age of the twelfth dynasty, since Ameni, an officer of King Usurtasen I, who has engraved the history of his life at the entrance of his tomb among the cliffs of Beni-Ha.s.san, states that "no one was hungry in my days, not even in the years of famine. For I had tilled all the fields of the district of Mah, up to the southern and northern frontiers. Thus I prolonged the life of its inhabitants, and preserved the food which it produced. No hungry man was in it. I distributed equally to the widow as to the married woman. I did not prefer the great to the humble in all that I gave away."(2)
Another long famine of the same kind happened at a later date, and may possibly be that against which Joseph provided in Northern Egypt. The sepulchral tablet of a n.o.bleman, called Baba, far away at El-Kab in Southern Egypt, informs us of the fact. In this the dead man is made to say: "When a famine arose, lasting many years, I distributed corn to the city each year of famine."
Baba is supposed to have lived shortly before the establishment of the eighteenth dynasty; and this would agree very well with the date which we must a.s.sign to Joseph. As we shall see in the next chapter, we now know the exact period of Egyptian history at which the Exodus must have taken place; and if we count 430 years, "the sojourning of the children of Israel who dwelt in Egypt" (Exod. xii. 40), back from this, we shall be brought to the reign of the Hyksos king Apophis or Apepi, the very king, in fact, under whom, according to ancient authors, Joseph was raised to be the _adon_, or second ruler of the state. It was not until the Hyksos were driven out of the country, and Aahmes, the founder of the eighteenth dynasty, was pursuing with bitter hatred both them and their friends that "there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph."
The earlier history of Joseph in the house of Potiphar finds a curious parallel in an old Egyptian romance, known as the Tale of the Two Brothers, which was composed by a scribe named Enna in the thirteenth century B.C. Anepu, it is there said, sent his younger brother, Bata, from the field where they were working, to fetch corn from the village. "And the young brother found the wife of his elder brother occupied in braiding her hair. And he said to her, "Rise up, give me seed-corn, that I may return to the field, for thus has my elder brother enjoined me, to return without delay." The woman said to him, "Go in, open the chest, that thou mayest take what thine heart desires, otherwise my locks will fall by the way." And the youth entered into the stable, and took thereout a large vessel, for it was his wish to carry away much seed-corn. And he loaded himself with wheat and grains of durra, and went out with it. Then she said unto him, "How great is the burden on thine arm?" He said to her, "Two measures of durra and three measures of wheat, making together five measures, which rest on my arms." Thus he spake to her. But she spake to the youth and said, "How great is thy strength! Well have I remarked thy vigour every time." And her heart knew him!... And she stood up and laid hold of him, and she said to him, "Come, let us enjoy an hour"s rest. The most beautiful things shall be thy portion, for I will prepare for thee festal garments." Then the youth became like the panther of the south for rage, on account of the evil word which she had spoken to him; but she was afraid beyond all measure. And he spoke to her and said, "Thou, O woman, hast been to me like a mother, and thy husband like a father, for he is older than I, so that he might have been my parent. Why this so great sin, that thou hast spoken to me? Say it not to me another time, then will I not tell it this time, and no word of it shall come out of my mouth about it to any man whatsoever." And he loaded himself with his burden, and went out into the field. And he went to his elder brother, and they completed their day"s work. When it was now evening, the elder brother returned home to his dwelling. And his young brother followed behind his oxen, which he had laden with all the good things of the field, driving them before him, to prepare for their resting-place in the stable in the village. And, behold, the wife of his elder brother was afraid because of the word which she had spoken, and she took a jar of fat, and she made herself like one to whom an evil-doer had offered violence. She wished thereby to say to her husband, "Thy young brother has offered me violence." And her husband returned home at evening, according to his daily custom, and entered into his house, and found his wife stretched out and suffering from injury. She gave him no water for his hands, according to her custom. And the lamp was not lighted, so that the house was in darkness. But she lay there and vomited. And her husband spoke to her thus, "Who has had to do with thee?
Lift thyself up!" She said to him, "No one has had to do with me except thy young brother; for when he came to take seed-corn for thee, he found me sitting alone, and he said to me, "Come, let us make merry an hour and rest! Let down thy hair!" Thus he spake to me; but I did not listen to him (but said), "See, am I not thy mother, and is not thy elder brother like a father to thee?" Thus I spoke to him; but he did not hearken to my speech, and used force with me, that I might not make a report to thee. Now, if thou allowest him to live, I will kill myself." "(3) Anepu then took a knife, and went out to kill his brother. The cows, however, warned Bata of his danger, and the Sun-G.o.d came to his aid, and set a river full of crocodiles between himself and Anepu. When Anepu eventually learned the real truth, he hurried back to his house, and put his wife to death.
No name like that of Goshen, where the Israelites were settled by order of the Pharaoh, has as yet been discovered upon the monuments. Goshen, however, could not have been far from the north-eastern frontier of Egypt, and from Genesis xlvii. 11, we learn that it was in the land of Rameses.
Now, Dr. Brugsch has shown that Ramses, or Rameses, was the t.i.tle given to Zoan by Ramses II, when he raised it anew from the ruins in which it had lain since the expulsion of the Hyksos, and filled it again with stately edifices. Goshen consequently must have been in the neighbourhood of Zoan, as, indeed, we might expect, since Joseph"s family would naturally be settled not far from the capital and the residence of the powerful minister. It was from hence that Jacob"s body, after being embalmed, as was customary in Egypt, was carried to the old family tomb at Hebron; and we can therefore understand why Zoan and Hebron were brought into such close relation in the well-known pa.s.sage of Numbers (xiii. 22) where it is said that "Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt." Hebron and Zoan were the two points around which centred the patriarchal history which is set before us in the Book of Genesis.
CHAPTER III. THE EXODUS OUT OF EGYPT.
_Egypt during the sojourn of the Israelites.-The travels of an Egyptian officer through Palestine before the time of Joshua.-Recent excavations at Tel el-Maskhuta.-Discovery of the treasure-chambers built by the Israelites.-Date of the Exodus fixed.-Origin of the word Jehovah.-The rite of circ.u.mcision.-Origin of the name Moses.-Ill.u.s.trations of Hebrew law and ritual from Phnician and a.s.syrian monuments.-Tablet describing the duties of a priest of Bel.-The sacrificial tariff of Ma.r.s.eilles.-Phnician texts found in Cyprus._
The expulsion of the Hyksos conquerors of Egypt, while it brought oppression and slavery to their Semitic kindred who were left behind, inaugurated an era of conquest and glory for the Egyptians themselves. The war against the Asiatics which had begun in Egypt was carried into Asia, and under Thothmes III and other great monarchs of the eighteenth dynasty the Egyptian armies traversed Palestine and Syria, and penetrated as far as the Euphrates. The tribes of Canaan paid tribute; the Amorites or "hill-men" were led into captivity; and the combined armies of Hitt.i.tes and Phnicians were defeated in the plain of Megiddo. On the temple-walls of Karnak at Thebes, Thothmes III (B.C. 1600) gives a list of the Canaanitish towns which had submitted to his arms. Among them we read the names of Zarthan and Beroth, of Beth-Anoth and Gibeah, of Migdol and Ophrah, of Taanach and Jibleam, of Shunem and Chinneroth, of Hazor and Laish, of Merom and Kishon, of Abel and Sharon, of Joppa and Achzib, of Beyrut and Accho, of Heshbon and Megiddo, of Hamath and Damascus. One of the conquered places bears the curious name of Jacob-el, "Jacob the G.o.d,"
while mention is made of the Negeb, or "southern district," which afterwards formed part of the territory of Judah.
Two centuries later, when the troublous times which saw the close of the eighteenth dynasty had ushered in the nineteenth, the same districts had again to be overrun by the Egyptian kings. Once more victories were gained over the powerful Hitt.i.tes, in their fortress of Kadesh, on the Orontes, and over the tribes of Palestine. Seti I, the father of Ramses II, records among his conquests Beth-Anoth and Kirjath-Anab(4) in the south, as well as Zor or Tyre. Ramses II himself, the Sesostris of the Greeks, battled for long years against the Hitt.i.tes on the plains of Canaan, and established a line of Egyptian fortresses as far north as Damascus. The tablets which he engraved at the mouth of the Dog River, near Beyrut, still remain to testify to his victories and campaigns. Representations were sculptured on the walls of Thebes of the forts of "Tabor, in the land of the Amorites," of Merom and of Salem; and the capture of the revolted city of Ashkelon was celebrated both in sculpture and in song.
But the most interesting record which has come down to us from his reign is the account given by a _mohar_, or military officer, of his travels through Palestine, at a time when the country was nominally tributary to Egypt. The _mohar_ made his tour during the latter part of the reign of Ramses II, the oppressor of the Israelites, so that the account he has given of Canaan shows us what it was like shortly before its conquest by Joshua. He journeyed as far north as Aleppo in a chariot, which is more than a traveller in Palestine could do now, and describes how his clothes were stolen one night, and how his own groom, or "muleteer," joined the robbers. Among the places he visited were the Phnician cities of Gebal, famous for its shrine of Ashtoreth, Beyrut, Sarepta, Sidon, and Tyre, which he says was built on an island in the sea, drinking-water being conveyed to it in boats. Old Tyre, on the continent opposite, seems to have been recently burnt. Hamath, Timnah, Hazor, Tabor, Horonaim, and perhaps Adullam, were also visited, and mention is made not only of the ford of the Jordan, near Beth-Shean, but also of "a pa.s.sage" in front of the city of Megiddo, which had to be crossed before the town could be entered. Joppa, the modern Jaffa, was surrounded with gardens of date-palms, which have now been supplanted by oranges. The road, however, was not always good. In one place the _mohar_ had to "drive along the edge of the precipice, on the slippery height, over a depth of 2,000 cubits, full of rocks and boulders;" while at another time his groom broke the chariot in pieces by driving over a slippery path, and necessitated the repair of the injured carriage by "the iron-workers" at the nearest smithy. Already, therefore, it is clear, Palestine possessed plenty of smithies at which iron was forged.
That Ramses II was the Pharaoh of the oppression, has long been suspected by Egyptian scholars. The accounts of the wars of himself and his predecessors in Canaan show that up to the date of his death that country was not yet inhabited by the Israelites. Not only is no mention made of them, but the history of the Book of Judges precludes our supposing that Palestine could have been an Egyptian province after the Israelitish conquest. It must have ceased to be tributary to the Pharaohs before it was entered by Joshua. Moreover, the name of the city of Ramses (Raamses) built by the Israelites in Egypt points unmistakeably to the reign of the great Ramses II himself. As has already been observed, the name was given to Zoan after its reconstruction by this monarch, whose grandfather, Ramses I, was the first Egyptian king who bore the name. As Ramses I reigned but a very few years, while his successor, Seti I, a.s.sociated his son, Ramses II, with him on the throne when the latter was but twelve years old or thereabouts, it could only have been during his long reign of sixty-seven years that Ramses II brought the name by which he had been christened into vogue. It is possible that those Egyptian scholars are right who see the Hebrews in a certain cla.s.s of foreigners called Aperiu, and employed by Ramses II to work at his monuments; if so, we should have another proof that the Exodus could not have taken place until after his death. The identification, however, is rendered very doubtful by the fact, that long after the time of Ramses II, a doc.u.ment of the reign of Ramses III speaks of 2,083 Aperiu as settlers in Heliopolis, and describes them as "knights, sons of the kings, and n.o.ble lords of the Aperiu, settled people, who dwell in this place." If, therefore, the Aperiu were really the Hebrews, we should have to suppose that some of them who had obtained offices of honour and influence in Egypt remained behind in Heliopolis, the city of Joseph"s wife, when their poorer and oppressed kinsmen followed Moses and Aaron into the desert in search of the Promised Land.
However this may be, the question as to the date of the Exodus, and consequently as to the Pharaoh of the oppression, has now been finally set at rest by the excavations recently undertaken at Tel el-Maskhuta. Tel el-Maskhuta is the name of some large mounds near Tel el-Kebir and other places which were the scene of the late war; and M. Naville, who has excavated them for the Egyptian Exploration Fund, has found inscriptions in them which show not only that they represent an ancient city whose religious name was Pithom, while its civil name was Succoth, but also that the founder of the city was Ramses II. In Greek times the city was called Heroopolis, or Ero, from the Egyptian word _ara_, "a store-house,"
reminding us that Pithom and Raamses, which the Israelites built for the Pharaoh, were "treasure-cities" (Exod. i. 11). M. Naville has even discovered the treasure-chambers themselves. They are very strongly constructed, and divided by brick part.i.tions from eight to ten feet thick, the bricks being sun-baked, and made some with and some without straw. In these strawless bricks we may see the work of the oppressed people when the order came: "Thus saith the Pharaoh, I will not give you straw."
The treasure-chambers occupy almost the whole area of the old city, the walls of which are about 650 feet square and 22 feet thick. Its name Pithom-in Egyptian Pa-Tum-signifies the city of the Setting Sun; and since it had another name, Succoth, we can now understand how it was that the Israelites started on their march not from Goshen, but from Succoth (Ex.
xiii. 20), that is, from the very place where they had been working.
Etham, their next stage, seems to be the Egyptian fortress of Khetam, while Pi-hahiroth (Ex. xiv. 2), is probably Pi-keheret, which is mentioned in an inscription found at Tel el-Maskhuta as somewhere in the neighbourhood of the ca.n.a.l that led from the Nile to the Red Sea.
The Pharaoh under whom the Exodus actually took place could not have been Ramses II himself, but his son and successor, Meneptah II, who ascended the throne about B.C. 1325. His reign lasted but a short time, and it was disturbed not only by the flight of the Children of Israel, but also by a great invasion of Northern Egypt by the Libyans, which was with difficulty repulsed. This took place in his fifth year. Three years later a report was sent to him by one of his officials stating that "the pa.s.sage of tribes of the Shasu (or Beduins) from the land of Edom had been effected through the fortress of Khetam, which is situated in Succoth (Thuku), to the lakes of the city of Pithom, which are in the land of Succoth, in order that they might feed themselves and their herds on the possessions of the Pharaoh." The lakes of Pithom must be those of Balah and Timsah, on which Ismailia now stands, not far from Tel el-Maskhuta, and Khetam is the Etham of Scripture. It is possible that Timsah, "the lake of crocodiles,"
is the _yam suph_, or "sea of papyrus reeds," of Scripture, which the translators of the Septuagint erroneously identified with the Red Sea.
Among the incidents connected with the deliverance of the Israelites are two which especially deserve notice. When G.o.d appointed Moses to his mission of leading his enslaved brethren out of Egypt, He at the same time revealed Himself by the name of "Jehovah," the special name by which He was henceforth to be known to the Children of Israel. It is unfortunate that this sacred name has descended to the readers of the Authorised Version of the Old Testament in a corrupt and barbarous form. The Hebrew alphabet was designed to express consonants only, not vowels; these were supplied by the reader from his knowledge of the language and its p.r.o.nunciation. As long as Hebrew was still spoken, there was little difficulty in doing this; but the case was changed when it ceased to be a living language. A traditional p.r.o.nunciation of the sacred records was preserved in the synagogues; but it necessarily differed in many respects from the p.r.o.nunciation which had actually been once in use, and was itself in danger of being forgotten or altered. To avoid such a danger, therefore, the so-called Masoretes, or Jewish scribes, in the sixth century after the Christian era, invented a system of symbols which should represent the p.r.o.nunciation of the Hebrew of the Old Testament as read, or rather chanted, at the time in the great synagogue of Tiberias in Palestine.(5) It is in accordance with this Masoretic mode of p.r.o.nunciation that Hebrew is now taught. But there was one word which the Masoretes of Tiberias either could not or would not p.r.o.nounce. This was the national name of the G.o.d of Israel. Though used so freely in the Old Testament, it had come to be regarded with superst.i.tious reverence before the time when the Greek translation of the Septuagint was made, and in this translation, accordingly, the word _Kyrios_, "Lord," is subst.i.tuted for it wherever it occurs. The New Testament writers naturally followed the custom of the Septuagint and of their age, and so also did the Masoretes of Tiberias. Wherever the holy name was met with, they read in place of it _Adonai_, "Lord," and hence, when supplying vowel-symbols to the text of the Old Testament they wrote the vowels of _Adonai_ under the four consonants, Y H V H, which composed it. This simply meant that _Adonai_ was to be read wherever the sacred name was found. In ignorance of this fact, however, the scholars who first revived the study of Hebrew in modern Europe imagined that the vowels of _Adonai_ (_a_ or _e_, _o_, and _a_) were intended to be read along with the consonants below which they stood. The result was the hybrid monster _Yehovah_. In pa.s.sing into England the word became even more deformed. In German the sound of _y_ is denoted by the symbol _j_, and the German symbol, but with the utterly different English p.r.o.nunciation attached to it, found its way into the English translations of the Old Testament Scriptures.
There are two opinions as to what was the actual p.r.o.nunciation of the sacred name while Hebrew was still a spoken language. On the one hand, we may gather from the contemporary a.s.syrian monuments that it was p.r.o.nounced _Yahu_. Wherever an Israelitish name is met with in the cuneiform inscriptions which, like Jehu or Hezekiah, is compounded with the divine t.i.tle, the latter appears as _Yahu_, Jehu being _Yahua_, and Hezekiah _Khazaki-yahu_. Even according to the Masoretes it must be read _Yeho_ (that is, _Yahu_) when it forms part of a proper name. The early Gnostics, moreover, when they transcribed it in Greek characters, wrote _Iao_, that is, _Yaho_. On the other hand, the four consonants, Y H V H, can hardly have been p.r.o.nounced otherwise than as _Yahveh_, and this p.r.o.nunciation is supported by the two Greek writers Theodoret and Epiphanios, who say that the word was sounded _Yave_. The form _Yahveh_, however, is incompatible with the form _Yahu_ (_Yeho_), which appears in proper names; and it has been maintained that it is due to one of those plays on words, of which there are so many examples in the Old Testament. The spelling with a final _h_ was adopted, it has been supposed, in order to remind the reader of the Hebrew verb which signifies "to be," and to which there seems to be a distinct allusion in Exod. iii. 14.(6)
We must now turn to a second incident which is specially connected with the deliverance out of Egypt. This is the rite of circ.u.mcision, which was observed in so solemn a manner at the moment when the Israelites had at last crossed the Jordan and were preparing to attack the Canaanites. It was a rite which had been practised by the Egyptians from the most remote times, and had been communicated by them, according to Herodotus, to the Ethiopians. Josephus tells us that the rite was also practised by the Arabs, to whom Herodotus adds the Syrians of Phnicia, as well as the Kolkhians and the Hitt.i.tes of Kappadokia. A similar rite is found at the present day among many barbarous tribes in different parts of the world, and distinguishes not only the Jew but the Mohammedan as well.
The name of Moses seems to be of Egyptian derivation. It would correspond to the Egyptian _mes_ or _mesu_, "son," which is borne by more than one Egyptian prince at the period of the Exodus, and forms part of the name of Ramses, or Ra-mesu, "the son of the sun." The Hebrew spelling of the word with a final _h_ is designed to recall the Hebrew _mashah_, "to draw out"
or "deliver," just as the spelling of the Septuagint, Moyses, was influenced by the etymology given by Josephus, which made it a compound of the Egyptian _mo_, "water," and _yses_, "to rescue from a flood." Such plays upon words are common in ancient literature, and are still in favour in the East, and we must be on our guard against ascribing to them a scientific value which they do not possess. The name _mesu_, "son," would be an appropriate one for a child who had been adopted by an Egyptian lady, and who was brought up at the court of the Pharaoh in "all the wisdom of the Egyptians."
This chapter would be incomplete unless something were said of the ill.u.s.trations of the law and ritual of the Israelites afforded by the monuments of the nations around them. These ill.u.s.trations are to be found among the Phnicians and the a.s.syrians. Among both we find traces of sacrifices and inst.i.tutions which offer many parallels to the ordinances of the Mosaic Law. Besides the Sabbaths already spoken of, the Babylonians and a.s.syrians had various festivals and fasts, on which certain rites had to be performed and certain sacrifices offered; they knew of "peace-offerings" and of "heave-offerings," of the dedication of the first-born, and of sacrifices for sin. The G.o.ds were carried in procession in "ships," which, as we learn from the sculptures, resembled in form the Hebrew ark, and were borne on men"s shoulders by means of staves. In front of the image of the G.o.d stood a table, on which s...o...b..ead was laid; and a distinction was drawn between the meal-offering and the animal sacrifice.
Certain unclean kinds of food were forbidden, including the flesh of swine and "creeping things;" and in the outer courts of the temples were large lavers called "seas," like the "sea" of Solomon"s temple, in which the worshippers were required to cleanse themselves. Many of these regulations and rites came down from the Accadian period.
As a specimen of the rites which had to be performed, we may quote a portion of a tablet which prescribes the duties of the priest in the great temple of Bel at Babylon. The tablet begins: "In the month Nisan, on the 2nd day, two hours after nightfall, the priest must come and take of the waters of the river, must enter into the presence of Bel, and change his dress, must put on a ... robe in the presence of Bel, and say this prayer: "O my lord, who in his strength has no equal, O my lord, blessed sovereign, lord of the world, speeding the peace of the great G.o.ds, the lord who in his might destroys the strong, lord of kings, light of mankind, establisher of trust, O Bel, thy sceptre is Babylon, thy crown is Borsippa, the wide heaven is the dwelling-place of thy liver.... O lord of the world, light of the spirits of heaven, utterer of blessings, who is there whose mouth murmurs not of thy righteousness, or speaks not of thy glory, and celebrates not thy dominion? O lord of the world, who dwellest in the temple of the sun, reject not the hands that are raised to thee, be merciful to thy city Babylon, to Beth-Saggil thy temple, incline thy face, grant the prayers of thy people the sons of Babylon." "
Our knowledge of the Phnician ritual is largely derived from a sacrificial tariff discovered at Ma.r.s.eilles in 1845. The stone on which it is engraved is unfortunately not perfect, but what is left of it runs thus: "In the temple of Baal (the following tariff of offerings shall be observed), which was prescribed (in the time of) the judge ... Baal, the son of Bod-Tanit, the son of Bod-(Ashmun, and in the time of Halzi-Baal), the judge, the son of Bod-Ashmun, the son of Halzi-Baal and (their comrades). For an ox as a full-offering, whether it be a prayer-offering or a full thank-offering, the priests (shall receive) ten shekels of silver for each beast, and if it be a full-offering the priests shall receive besides this (300 shekels" weight of flesh). And for a prayer-offering they shall receive (besides) the small joints(?) and the roast(?), but the skin and the haunches and the feet and the rest of the flesh shall belong to the offerer. For a bullock which has horns, but is not yet broken in and made to serve, or for a stag, as a full-offering, whether it be a prayer-offering or a full thank-offering, the priests (shall receive) five shekels of silver (for each beast, and if it be a full-offering) they shall receive besides this 150 shekels" weight of flesh; and for a prayer-offering the small joints(?) and the roast(?); but the skin and the haunches and the feet (and the rest of the flesh shall belong to the offerer). For a sheep or a goat as a full-offering, whether it be a prayer-offering or a full thank-offering, the priests (shall receive) one shekel of silver and two _sar_ for each beast; and in the case of a prayer-offering they shall have (besides this the small joints (?)) and the roast(?); but the skin and the haunches and the feet and the rest of the flesh shall belong to the offerer. For a lamb or a kid or a fawn as a full-offering, whether it be a prayer-offering or a full thank-offering, the priests (shall receive) three-fourths of a shekel of silver and (two) _zar_ (for each beast; and in the case of a prayer-offering they shall have) besides this the small joints(?) and the roast(?); but the skin and the haunches and the feet and the rest of the flesh shall belong to (the offerer). For a bird, whether wild or tame, as a full-offering, whether it be _shetseph_ or _khazuth_, the priests (shall receive) three-fourths of a shekel of silver and two _zar_ for each bird; and (so much flesh besides). For a bird, or for the offering of the first-born of an animal, or for a meal-offering or for an offering with oil, the priests (shall receive) ten pieces of gold for each.... In the case of every prayer-offering which is offered to the G.o.ds, the priests shall receive the small joints(?), and the roast(?) and the prayer-offering ... for a cake and for milk and for fat, and for every offering which is offered without blood.... For every offering which is brought by a poor man in cattle or birds, the priests shall receive nothing ... anything leprous or scabby or lean is forbidden, and no one as regards that which he offers (shall taste of) the blood of the dead. The tariff for each offering shall be according to that which is prescribed in this publication.... As for every offering which is not prescribed in this table, and is not made according to the regulations which (have been published in the time of ... Baal, the son of Bod-Tanit), and of Bod-Ashmun, the son of Halzi-Baal, and of their comrades, every priest who accepts the offering which is not included in that which is prescribed in this table, shall be punished.... As for the property of the offerer who does not discharge (his debt) for his offering (he also shall be punished)."
The words that are wanting in the doc.u.ment have been partially supplied from the fragments of another copy of the tariff found among the ruins of Carthage. It will be observed that there is no mention in it of the sacrifice of children, which, as we know, once played a large part in the ritual of the Phnicians. This is explained by the fact that the tariff belongs to that later age, when Greek and Roman influence had prevailed upon the Phnician colonists in the west to give up the horrible practice.
The place of the child is taken by the _"ayyal_ or stag.
The tariff of Ma.r.s.eilles and Carthage has lately been supplemented by some Phnician texts found in the island of Cyprus, and written in black and red ink upon small pieces of marble. One of these has both faces inscribed, and a translation of its contents is worth giving. On the first face we read: "Expenses of the month Ethanim: On the new-moon of the month Ethanim, for the G.o.ds of the new-moon two.... For the architects who have built the temples of Ashtoreth, for each house.... For the guardians of the sanctuary and the overseers of the temple of Resheph 20.... For the men (who tend) the cattle in the presence of the Holy Queen on this day.... For two boys two ... For two sacrifices ... For two bakers who have baked the cakes for the (Holy) Queen.... For the barbers, for their work, two.... For the ten masons who have built the foundations and the temples of the Sun-G.o.d ... To Ebed-Ashmun, the princ.i.p.al scribe, who has been sent on this day, three.... For the dogs and their young...." On the other face we have: "On the new-moon of the month Peulat: For the G.o.ds of the new-moon two.... For the masters of the days, incense and peace-offering.... For the images of the temple of the Sun-G.o.d and the other G.o.ds.... For Ebed-Bast of Carthage.... For the man who has bought the withered plants(?).... For the shepherds of the country two.... For the _"almath_ and the 22 _"alamoth_, with a sacrifice.... For the dogs and their young three...."