Note 103 — Chapter XV · RAMESES THE GREAT.

If the exodus took place, however, during the opening years of the reign of Menepthah, it becomes necessary either to remove the birth of Moses to a correspondingly earlier date, or to accept the amendment of Bunsen, who says “we can hardly take literally the statement as to the age of Moses at the exodus, twice over forty years.” Forty years is the mode of expressing a generation, from thirty to thirty-three years. “Egypt’s Place in Universal History,” Bunsen, London, 1859, vol. iii, p. 184. That Meneptah did not himself perish with his host, seems certain. The final oppression of the Hebrews and the miracles of Moses, as narrated in the Bible, give one the impression of having all happened within a comparatively short space of time; and cannot have extended over a period of twenty years. Neither is it stated that Pharaoh perished. The tomb of Menepthah, in fact, is found in the valley of the tombs of the kings (tomb No. 8).