Chapter XIV · THE HISTORIC CONNECTIONS OF MOSES WITH PHARAOH AND EGYPT.

THE thread of our history having now reached a point where we leave Egypt and have seen the last of that one particular Pharaoh, it is in place to take a final review of the questions—Who was this Pharaoh? Can he be identified in the annals of Egyptian antiquities? Have any points of chronological contact between the records of Egypt and the records of Moses been fixed reliably so that the one system can be laid alongside of the other and positive correspondence be made out?

Comparing the Hebrew records with Egyptian monuments and history, the following points of coincidence may be regarded as established.

1. That (as already observed) the kingdom of Egypt was thoroughly organized, was powerful, and had, apparently, the ripeness of age, in the times of Joseph and of Moses. In all these respects it was far in advance of the adjacent populations of Northern Africa and of South-western Asia.

2. That the state of the arts, the attainments of the learned in science, the usages of the people, the reign of law and of social order, indicated a state of civilization much in advance of any thing else known in that age.

3. That all the minute references in sacred history to the common life of the people, to their occupations, to their skill in the arts, to the productions of the country, to their political relations with outside powers, are abundantly verified in the numerous monuments and authorities which testify what the Egypt of that age really was. The reference to many of these points in the history of the ten plagues admits of most ample verification from the ancient Egyptian authorities.

4. Particularly we find in Egyptian history the means of explaining how a new king might arise who “knew not Joseph” (change of dynasty being a chronic infirmity); and how the monarch of an empire so magnificant, wielding a sway so despotic, might be tempted to defy Jehovah and proudly scorn to obey his command to “let the people go.”

5. Yet again as to the sort of labor exacted unmercifully of the Hebrew people the evidence from Egyptian antiquities is fully corroborative. “They built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Rameses,” and were put to the severest toil in making brick; in the erection of buildings, including the transportation of the heaviest materials; and to “all manner of service in the field” (Ex. 1: 11, 14).――These treasure cities are identified with a high degree of certainty; and proximately some of the very kings by whom this service was exacted. Mons. Chabas34 thinks he has found the Hebrews under name in official Egyptian records. He argues well that it must be in vain to look in the public monuments [e. g. in their temples] for any thing disastrous to the king or to his people—those monuments being consecrated to the triumphs and glories of the kingdom—official bulletins for this very purpose. This consideration rules out the ten plagues; the escape of the Hebrews; the overthrow of the Egyptians in the Red Sea. Events so disreputable and disastrous to Egypt need not be looked for on her sacred monuments.――But the records on papyrus, consisting of both official and private correspondence, military reports, surveys of public works, financial accounts, etc., may furnish their name. The Hebrews were an important colony, held forcibly upon the soil of Egypt, employed largely upon her public works. Consequently some notice of them may be reasonably looked for in the class of documents pertaining to the business of the realm.――Mons. Chabas maintains very sensibly that we should look for this people under the name “Hebrews;” not “children of Israel”—this being rather a religious than an ethnic designation; not “Israelites”—this name not having then come into use; not Jews, this name being first used many centuries later.

Three documents have been recently discovered which speak of a foreign race under the hieroglyphic name “Aperiu.” On principles of comparative philology, Mons. Chabas makes this word the equivalent of Hebrew.――In the first document the scribe Kanisar reports to his superior: “I have obeyed the command which my master gave me to provide subsistence for the soldiers and also for the Aperiu who carry stone for the great Bekhen of King Rameses. I have given them rations every month according to the excellent instructions of my master.”35――The second is similar: “I have furnished rations to the soldiers and also to the Aperiu who carry stone for the sun of [the temple of] the sun, Rameses Meriamen, to the south of Memphis.”

Furthermore, Egyptian records show that they put their prisoners of war to such labors; for their kings record on the temples the number of captives they have taken to labor upon the temples of their gods.

Two of these documents on papyri belong to the reign of Rameses II, whom Mons. Chabas assumes to be the king whose daughter adopted Moses and whose son and successor, Mei-en-ptah, experienced the ten plagues and fell in the Red Sea. (Bib. Sacra, Oct., 1865, p. 685.)

6. It is a well-established fact of history that at one period—not yet located definitely—Lower Egypt was subdued and held by a Shepherd race, called by Josephus, “Hyksos,” supposed to have come from adjacent provinces of Arabia or from Phenicia or both, and to have held the country from 350 to 500 years—a Vandal race, savagely desolating the noble monuments of Egyptian art and civilization, and known by the native Egyptians as “the Scourge.” This Shepherd race was ultimately driven out by the kings of Upper Egypt (a Theban dynasty)—probably before the age of Moses; perhaps before Jacob went down into Egypt. It may be considered certain that Josephus and others err in confounding them with the Hebrew people.――Geo. Rawlinson [in Aids to Faith, p. 293] says—“The period of the Shepherd Kings is estimated variously as continuing 500, 600, 900, and even 2,000 years; that historic monuments were generally destroyed during their dominion; that no reliable historic records exist older than the beginning of the eighteenth dynasty which expelled the Shepherd Kings; and that previously to their times, ‘Association’ in Royalty was practiced, two or even three kings sitting on the same throne at the same time, dividing its labors and its honors between themselves.”

As to the date of this Shepherd rule, the diversity in opinion among the best informed students of Egyptian antiquity is by no means comforting or assuring. Dr. Lepsius and others have placed their invasion of Egypt directly after the twelfth dynasty (B. C. 2101), and their expulsion about B. C. 1591. In his chronology, Jacob went down into Egypt B. C. 1414; Moses led the people out B. C. 1314—neither date having the least regard to the scripture chronology.――Mons. Mariette dates it in the eighteenth century B. C., i. e. between B. C. 1700 and B. C. 1800. With this we might compare the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt from B. C. 2033 to B. C. 1603; or on the chronology of Usher, from B. C. 1706 to B. C. 1491.――Brugsch dates their incursion B. C. 2115, and supposes them to have been Arabs from Arabia Petraea.――Bunsen’s latest recension places their invasion B. C. 1983; their expulsion, B. C. 1548; and the Exodus of the Hebrews B. C. 1320—the last date being certainly wide of the truth.――The evidence is conclusive that their expulsion preceded the resplendent eighteenth dynasty whose kings ruled over all Egypt, and among whom was the Pharaoh “who would not let the people go.” Dr. Thompson argues at considerable length that the entire occupation of Lower Egypt by the Hyksos must have preceded the residence of the Hebrews there; but feels the difficulties of the problem. He says—“As yet the terminus a quo remains in obscurity” [the point at which their occupation begins]; “while the terminus ad quem is beginning to take a fixed place in history.” The date of their expulsion is mostly relieved of doubt. The war which resulted in their expulsion was begun by Seneken-Ra, about the commencement of the 18th dynasty of Thebes [Upper Egypt], and was prosecuted by Ahmes I, otherwise called Nebpeh-Ra, in whose fifth year they were finally expelled. The reign of Ahmes I is proximately assigned to the 17th century B. C., i. e. from B. C. 1600 to B. C. 1700.――A curious inscription has recently been discovered by Mons. Dumischen, referring to a brilliant triumph over the Lybians, achieved by a certain king Menephtah—this war being dated nearly 400 years after the expulsion of the Hyksos. The scribe appended the remark—“One could not have seen the like in the time of the kings of Lower Egypt when the country of Egypt was held by the ‘Scourge,’ and the kings of Upper Egypt could not drive them out.”――This authority seems to prove that the Hyksos held only Lower Egypt; that Upper Egypt was under another dynasty, for a time unable to expel the Shepherd race, but ultimately successful, and subsequently attaining much greater military power; also that the Hyksos people were accounted a savage and barbarous race.

In conclusion I am constrained to say that the study of Egyptian antiquities, though richly remunerative and satisfactory in regard to almost every thing else, is still very dubious and perplexing in the point of definite chronology. The views of the ablest scholars are widely conflicting; the original authorities still wait for some master mind to put them into system, or what is perhaps nearer the truth, for the discovery of competent data from which a system can be constructed which shall harmonize all the authorities in the case. We want to know the Pharaoh to whom the Lord sent Moses, whose reign synchronizes with the Exodus. We find a series of powerful monarchs in the eighteenth dynasty and also in the nineteenth; but which of them answers to this particular Pharaoh, it seems yet impossible to determine with satisfactory certainty. Rameses II, all agree, was a powerful king; built immense public works; reigned at least sixty, perhaps sixty-six years;—but some authorities place him in the eighteenth and some in the nineteenth dynasty, and the extreme difference in the assigned dates for his reign is three hundred years.

The difficulties that invest Egyptian dates and dynasties seem at present to be aggravated rather than relieved by the progress of modern discoveries. Thus we find in the Bib. Sacra, Oct. 1867, (pp. 773 and 774) four parallel lists of the first three Egyptian dynasties, viz: (1.) That of Manetho; (2.) The Turin Papyrus; (3.) The Tablet of Sethos; (4.) The Tablet of Sakharah or Memphis. Compared with Manetho, the last three are of quite recent discovery. They are somewhat defective; yet it is not specially difficult to discover a striking similarity and in many cases an obvious identity in the names given. But the names in Manetho’s list almost utterly lack even similarity; much more do they refuse to come into identity. The authority of the last three must, it seems to me, be decidedly greater than that of Manetho.――The same difficulty appears when we compare Manetho’s names in the later dynasties (e. g. 18th–20th) with names constantly coming to light in recently discovered Egyptian monuments. I know not how this fact affects other minds. It can not but lessen my confidence in the lists of Manetho. It certainly goes far to lessen their practical value.――It is somewhat disheartening that these chronological difficulties clear up so slowly. It still remains to be hoped that light will yet break in and that conclusions will be reached in which all important authorities will be shown to concur.36

It would be a very great acquisition historically if we might know what Egypt was doing while the Hebrews were wandering in the wilderness forty years. Various circumstances conspire to favor the opinion that during this period her king made a vast military crusade upon Palestine and the regions farther north, occupying several years and greatly crippling the powerful tribes [kingdoms so called] then in possession of the land of Canaan. Both Josephus and Herodotus give accounts of a great military expedition of this sort—leaving, however, the main chronological problem When? to be determined.――As to the great power of the kings of Canaan, the Lord said to Moses, “I will send a hornet before you to drive them out,” i. e. to break down their power and facilitate the subjection of the country before the arms of Joshua. The original word translated “hornet” does not suggest the insect now commonly known by that name; but is equivalent to scourge, yet not precisely defining of what sort. It is supposable that Egypt and her next kin after the Exodus, were more maddened than subdued by the escape of Israel and by the humbling disaster at the Red Sea; that this great expedition was inspired by the expectation of finding the Hebrew people in Canaan and of punishing them there; that God’s providence shielded them with perfect protection in the great Arabian desert where no Egyptian host could follow them or even subsist; and then with that marvelous wisdom which so often turns the wrath of man to his own praise, used their prowess in arms to break down the military strength of Canaan and prepare that land for easy conquest before the arms of Joshua. It seems obvious that in point of military strength a great change had come over the tribes of Canaan between the visit of the spies and the conquest by Israel. Did the Lord use the chariots and horsemen of Egypt to produce this result? To have done so would be quite in keeping with that great law of his operations in this sinning world under which he so often turns the wrath of wicked men to account most signally and even gloriously to promote the ends of his own kingdom.