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Divisio7i . . .  /«4iZ).  .>r/  .w . .  1 ..  I 
Section    ...i.(br...0j.2... 
Number .V..v..«* 


mt^^m^^m^im 


Hours  with  the  Bible 


THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  LIGHT  OF  MODERN  DISCOVERY 
AND  KNOWLEDGE 


CUNNINGHAM  GEIKIE,  D.D 

■     AUTHOB  OF  "  THE  LIFB  AJSTD  WOaDS  OF  OHBIST  " 


VOL.  n. 

FROM  MOSES  TO  THE  JUDGES 


WITH  ILLUSTRATIONS 


NEW  YORK 

JAMES  POTT,  PUBLISHER 

13  AsTOR  Place 

1881 


INSCRIBED 

WITH   MUCH   RESPECT 

TO 

THE   RIGHT   HONOURABLE   AND   RIGHT   REVEREND 

JOHN    JACKSON,    D.D., 

ONE    HUNDRED    AND    SEVENTH    BISHOP    OP   LONDON, 

IN  GRATEFUL  ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

OF   COURTESIES   EECEIVBD   AT   HIS   HAND. 


..  FEB  IBl 

THEOLOGIG&L 

CONTENTS, 


CHAF.  'AGS 

I.  The  Land  op  Goshen   .        .        .        .        •        °        •  1-27 

n.  Egypt  before  the  Hebrew  Sojourn    .        •        •        •  28-58 

in.     The  Oppression  in  Egypt 59-86 

IV.    Moses 87-114 

V.    The  Plagues  of  Egypt 115-152 

VI.  The  Tenth  Plague  and  the  Exodus  .        •        •        .  153-183 

VII.    The  March  to  Sinai 184-224 

Vni.    Still  on  the  way  to  Sinai 225-260 

IX.    At  Sinai 261-286 

X.    Still  at  Sinai 287-312 

XI.    The  Wilderness 313-346 

XII.    The  Eve  of  the  Conquest 347-381 

Xm.    The  Conquest  of  Canaan 382-435 

XIV.    The  Time  of  the  Judges 436-455 

XV.    The  Judges 456-482 

XVI.    Gideon  to  Samson 483-508 

Index 509-520 


ILLUSTKATIONS. 


FAGB 

Temple  of  Esneh •        ♦.21 

Egyptian  War  Prisonebs 49 

The  Colossi  at  Thebes.     Statues  of  Amenophis  III.  ...  63 

The  God  Thoth,  the  Scribe  of  the  Gods 62 

Sevek-Ea 6^ 

The  God  Amon 65 

Anubis ^^ 

Slaves  in  the  Egyptian  Brickfields.   From  Tomb  of  A  bd-el-Qurndh.  84 

The  Papyrus .  92 

Egyptian  Chairs 98, 99 

View  from  the  Summit  of  Sinai.      From  Photograph  by  Prof. 

Palmer 112 

Egyptian  War  Chariot.  From'' L'Egypte"—Antiquites.  .  .  174 
Arab  Encampment  in  the  Wady  Sheik,  in  Sinai.      From  Baron 

Taylor's  "  La  Syrie^ 206 

Entrance  to  Wady  Mokatteb.    From  Photograph  by  Prof.  Palmer,  235 

View  in  the  Wady  Mokatteb 237 

Eas   Sasafeh,   from  the   Plain.      From  a  Photograph  by  Prof. 

Palmer 251 

Ancient  Dwellings  in  Wady  el  Biyar,  Sinai.    From  a  Photograph 

by  Prof.  Palmer 258 

Bronze  Figure  of  Apis.     Wilkinson 280 

Egyptian    Priests    bearing    the    Shrine    of    a    God.      From 

''UEgypte:' 295 

Egyptian  Priests.     From ''VEgypte.'* 302,303 

Egyptian  High  Priest.     From  "  UEgypte.'* 304 

Tabor,  from  the  summit  of  Jebel  Duhy.      From   Water   Colour 

by  Lieut.  Conder,  R.E 471 


,Hta  FEB  1882 

HOUS§  WITH  THE  BIBLE. 


CHAPTER  I. 


THE    LAND    OP    GOSHEN. 


THE  district  of  Egypt  ^  whicli  was  to  be  tlie  cradle  of 
the  Hebrew  nation,  lay  on  its  nortb-east  frontier, 
and  was  thus  at  once  nearest  Canaan,  from  wbicb  their 
fathers  had  come,  and  most  isolated  from  the  Egyptian 
population,  to  whom  the  presence  of  foreign  nomadic 
shepherds  ^  was  at  all  times  distasteful.  Shepherd  races 
allied  to  the  Hebrews  had,  moreover,  already  largely 
settled  in  it,  and  were  thus,  virtually,  a  protection  to 
the  side  of  the  Nile  Valley  lying  open  towards  Asia, 
which  had  no  other  safeguard  than  the  fortified  wall 
between  Suez  and  the  Mediterranean.  The  precise  posi- 
tion of  Goshen  is  not  mentioned  in  the  Bible,  but  it  is 
certain,  on  various  grounds,  that  it  lay  as  above  stated. 
Thus,  Joseph's  brethren  were  required  to  halt,  on  enter- 
ing it,  till  Pharaoh  had  been  seen  and  had  expressed  his 

^  Lengerke  derives  Egypt  from  Sanscr,  Aguptas  =  "The  pro- 
tected."    Kenaan,  p.  361. 

2  The  Coptic  word  for  shepherd  means  also  a  "disgrace." 
Dictionary  of  the  Bihle,  art.  Goshen.  The  Copts  are  the 
descendants  of  the  Ancient  Egyptians, 

VOL.    II.  ^  B 


52  THE   LAND    OF   GOSHEN. 

pleasure  concerninpf  them;  and  there  is  no  mention  of  the 
Nile  having  been  passed  to  reach  it,  or  of  the  Hebrews 
having  re- crossed  that  river  at  the  Exodus.^  They  were, 
moreover,  near  the  Red  Sea,  for  a  few  marches  brought 
them  to  it.  Further,  the  Egyptian  "nome^'  or  district 
Qesem — a  name  almost  identical  with  Gesen  or  Gesem, 
used  for  Goshen  in  the  Greek  version — in  the  region 
otherwise  suggested  as  that  assigned  to  Jacob  and  his 
tribe,  lay  on  the  distant  north-east  of  the  country. 

According  to  Ebers,^  the  limits  of  this  tract  stretched 
southwards  in  a  narrow  tougue,  almost  to  the  present 
Cairo,  on  the  west  side  of  the  Tanitic  branch  of  the  Nile, 
which  formed,  in  fact,  its  western  boundary  to  the  sea. 
On  the  south,  on  the  other  hand,  it  bent  north-eastwardly 
from  Cairo  to  the  line  of  the  present  Suez  Canal,  which, 
however,  it  presently  crossed,  reaching  the  Mediterrauean 
at  Pelusium,  where  the  ancient  fortified  wall  from  Suez 
abutted  on  the  shore.  But  any  exact  knowledge  of  the 
boundaries  is  perhaps,  as  yet,  impossible,  if  we  may 
iudge  from  the  controversy  respecting  them.^ 

Goshen  is  praised  by  Pharaoh,  in  the  audience  granted 
to  Joseph,  as  ranking  with  the  best  of  the  land,^  which 

*  Other  proofs  are  given  in  Durch  Gosen,  pp.  505  ff. 

2  Map,  in  Burch  Gosen,  p.  72. 

3  Ebers  and  Brugsch  think  that  the  name  Gesem  or  Gesen  is 
still  traceable  in  the  Arab  village  Faqus,  called  Phakousa  by  the 
ancients.  It  is  equivalent,  in  Ancient  Egyptian,  to  the  word  Qos, 
with  the  article,  and  Qos  is  part  at  least  of  Gosh-en.  The  Greek 
Bible  calls  Goshen  *'  Gesem  of  Arabia,"  that  is,  of  the  Arabian 
nome,  or  the  nome  bordering  on  Arabia,  on  the  north-east  of 
Egypt,  and  Faqus  was  anciently  the  capital  of  this.  Bat  Qesem, 
the  old  Egyptian  name  of  a  nome,  is,  as  has  been  said  above, 
apparently  that  of  the  Hebrew  district.  Ebers,  Burch  Gosen, 
pp.  503  ff.     Brugsch,  History  of  Egypty  vol.  ii.  p.  339. 

4  Gen.  xlvii.  6,  11. 


THE    LAND    OF    GOSHEN.  3      ~~ 

/ 

implies  its  extreme  fertility;  but  it  must  also  have 
been  well  suited  for  pasture.  Long  neglect  has  now 
reduced  it  to  a  barren  desert  of  sand  and  loose  stoae, 
powdered  with  a  salt  efflorescence  from  the  soil ;  but  the 
proof  of  its  ancient  richness  is  seen  along  the  banks  of 
the  freshwater  canal,  led  by  Lesseps  from  the  Nile  to  the 
great  Suez  Canal.  Wherever  water  reaches,  by  irriga- 
tion from  this,  Goshen  blossoms  into  wild  beauty ,i 
showing  that  moisture  alone  is  needed  to  make  the 
whole  landscape  a  succession  of  luxuriant  meadows  and 
golden  cornfields.  Nothing  could  better  illustrate  the 
force  of  Napoleon^s  remark,  that  under  a  good  govern- 
ment the  Nile  invades  the  Desert,  but  under  a  bad  one 
the  Desert  invades  the  Nile.  Thus  the  "field  of  Zoan,'' 
that  is,  the  country  round  about  the  city  of  Rameses-Tanis, 
in  this  region — a  district  anciently  so  fertile  and  "  well 
watered''  as  to  recall  to  the  Hebrews  the  glories  of  the 
garden  of  Eden  2— is  now  a  desolate  sandy  plain,  covered 
with  gigantic  ruins  of  columns,  pillars,  sphinxes,  and 
stones  of  buildings.^  By  a  singular  good  fortune,  a 
letter  of  an  Egyptian  scribe  has  been  preserved,  which 
describes  it  as  it  was  in  the  time  of  the  Hebrew  oppres- 
sion. "I  arrived,''  says  the  writer,  "at  the  city  of 
Rameses  Miamun,  and  found  it  a  very  charming  place, 
with  which  nothing  in  or  round  Thebes  can  compare. 
The  seat  of  the  court  is  here.  It  is  pleasant  to  live  in. 
Its  fields  are  full  of  good  things,  and  life  passes  in 
constant  plenty  and  abundance.  It  has  a  daily  market. 
Its  canals  are  rich  in  fish :  its  lakes  swarm  with  birds  :  its 
meadows  are  green  with  vegetables :  there  is  no  end 
of  the  lentils,  and  melons  which  taste  like  honey  grow  in 
its  irrigated  fields.    Its  barns  are  full  of  wheat  and  durra, 

1  Durch  Gosen,  p.  21.  ^  Gen.  xv.  10. 

^  Brugsch's  Egypt,  vol.  ii.  p.  352. 


4  THE    LAND    OF   GOSHEN. 

and  reach  as  higli  as  lieaven.  Onions  and  leeks  grow  in 
bunches  in  the  enclosures.  The  vine,  the  almond-tree 
and  the  fig-tree  grow  in  the  gardens.  There  is  plenty 
of  Bweefc  wine,  the  produce  of  Egypt,  which  they  mix 
with  honey.  The  red  fish  is  in  the  Lotus  canal ;  the 
Borian  fish  in  the  ponds;  many  kinds  of  Bori  fish,  besides 
carp  and  pike,  in  the  canal  of  Pu-harotha:^  fat-fish  and 
Kephli-pennu  fish  in  the  pools  of  the  inundation  :  the 
Hanaz  fish  in  the  full  mouth  of  the  Nile,  near  Tanis. 
The  pool  of  Horns  furnishes  salt,  the  Panhura  lake 
nitre.  Their  ships  enter  the  harbour;  plenty  and  abund- 
ance are  perpetual.  He  rejoices  who  has  settled  here. 
The  reedy  lake  is  full  of  lilies :  that  of  Pshensor  is  gay 
with  papyrus  flowers.  Fruits  from  the  nurseries  :  flowers 
from  the  gardens:  festoons  from  the  vineyards;  birds 
from  the  ponds,  are  dedicated  to  the  feasts  of  King 
Rameses.  Those  who  live  near  the  sea  come  with  fish. 
Feasts  in  honour  of  the  heavenly  bodies  and  of  the  great 
events  of  the  seasons  interest  the  whole  population. 
The  youth  are  perpetually  clad  in  festive  attire,  with 
fine  oil  on  their  heads  of  freshly  curled  hair.  On  the 
day  when  Rameses  II. — the  war  god  Mout,  on  earth — 
came  to  the  city,  they  stood  at  their  doors  with  branches 
of  flowers  in  their  bands,  and  garlands  (on  their  heads). 
All  the  people  were  assembled,  neighbour  with  neigh- 
bour, to  bring  forward  their  complaints.  Girls  trained 
in  the  singing  schools  of  Memphis  filled  the  air'  with 
songs.  The  wine  was  delicious :  the  cider  was  like 
sugar :  the  sherbet,  like  almonds  mixed  with  honey. 
There  was  beer  from  Galilee  (Kati)  in  the  port,  (brought 
in  ships  from  Palestine)  :  wine  from  the  vineyards  :  with 
sweet  refreshments  from  lake  Sagabi :  and  garlands  from 

^  One  of  these  fish  is  said  to  come  from  the  river  Picharta — the 
Euphrates — of  course  salted. 


THE   LAND   OF   GOSHEN.  5 

the  orcliards.  They  sat  there  with  joyful  heart,  or  walked 
about  without  ceasing.  King  Rameses  Miamun  was  the 
god  they  celebrated  thus.''"'  ^ 

Such  was  one  part  of  Goshen  at  the  time  of  the 
Exodus ;  but  thirfcy-six  centuries  have  seen  a  wonderful 
transformation  of  the  scene^  once  so  full  of  warm  life  and 
natural  beauty.  On  the  banks  of  the  sweet-water  canal, 
which  now  runs  eastwards  through  the  Wady  Tumilat 
to  the  Suez  Canal — at  a  spot  where  the  vestiges  of  an 
ancient  canal  still  remain,  near  Maschuta,  there  stands 
an  immense  block  of  granite,  representing  on  its  front 
face,  in  relief,  a  Pharaoh  sitting  between  the  gods  Ra  and 
Tum.  It  is  no  other  than  Rameses  II.,  for  his  name 
occurs  six  times  in  the  inscription  on  the  back  of  the 
block.  The  remains  of  innumerable  bricks  made  of 
the  mud  of  the  Nile,  mixed  with  straw,  and  stamped 
with  his  cipher,  lie  around — the  wreck  of  the  old  wall 
of  the  City  of  Rameses.  The  identification  leaves  no 
room  for  doubt,  but  the  solitary  stone  and  the  dust 
of  the  once  proud  town  are  all  that  remain  to  fix  its 
site. 

Egypt,  as  Herodotus  truly  said,  is  '^  the  gift  of  the 
Niie.-'^  The  fertilizing  mud  deposited  by  the  yearly  over- 
flow of  the  great  river,  and  its  quickening  waters,  led 
everywhere  over  the  soil,  have  from  the  remotest  ages 
created  a  long  ribbon  of  the  richest  green  along  the 
banks  ;  in  many  places,  especially  in  Upper  Egypt,  not 
more  than  two  miles  across,  and  seldom  more  than  ten, 
including  the  river,  which  is  from  2,000  to  4,000  feet 
broad. 2    A  few  miles  north  of  Cairo,  however,  the  magni- 

1  Anastasi  Papyrus,  III.  plate  i.  11.  Translated  by  C.  W. 
Goodwin,  M.A.,  m  Records  of  the  Past,  vol.  vi.  pp.  11-16 ;  and 
by  Brugsch,  History  of  Egypt,  vol.  ii.  pp.  96  fF. 

2  English  Cyclo.,  art.  Egypt, 


6  THE   LAND   OF   GOSHEN. 

ficent  stream,  after  a  course  of  over  4_,000  miles/  entering 
a  wide  low  plain,  whicli  from  its  resemblance  to  the 
triangular  Greek  letter  Delta,  A,  has  received  tliat  name, 
presently  divides  into  the  Eosetta  and  Damietta  branches, 
which  determine  the  shape  of  the  cultivated  land  by  their 
course ;  though  fertility  extends,  east  and  west,  beyond 
them,  as  far  as  their  waters  are  led  by  irrigation.  In  the 
days  of  the  Hebrew  settlement  in  Egypt,  the  Pelusiac 
branch  of  the  river,  which  formed  the  western  boundary 
of  Goshen,  parted  from  the  main  stream  at  a  point  higher 
up  than  that  at  which  the  Damietta  branch  leaves  it, 
but  it  is  now  in  a  great  measure  choked  up,  though 
it  still  serves  in  some  degree  to  water  the  land  on  its 
edges. 

Four  thousand  years  ago,  the  rich  landscape  of  the 
Delta,  created  in  the  course  of  ages  by  the  mud  left 
each  year  on  the  retiring  of  the  Nile  waters — though  of 
less  extent  than  at  present — must  have  been  everywhere 
the  scene  of  busy  life  and  high  civilization.  The  first 
Egyptian  monarchy  had  had  its  seat  at  Memphis  ages 
before  Jacobus  day,  and  the  kings  of  the  Old  Empire  who 
flourished  there,  had  left  monuments  of  their  greatness, 
which  were  old  in  [the  times  of  the  patriarch,  and  still 
astonish  the  world.  Huge  dykes,  like  those  of  Holland, 
were  made  by  them,  to  keep  the  Nile  from  flooding 
the  cities,  which,  themselves,  were  built  on  artificial 
mounds,  raised  high  above  the  level  of  the  annual  inun- 
dations. The  turquoise  mines  of  the  Sinai  peninsula  had 
been  discovered  and  were  vigorously  worked.  The  forced 
labour  of  tens  of  thousands  had  built  the  gigantic  masses 
of  the  pyramids,  of  limestone  from  the  quarries  of  the 
neighbouring  Arabian  hills,  cased  with  huge  blocks  of 
granite  from  Assouan  at  the  first  cataracts,  far  up  the 
*  Diimichen's  GescMclite  des  alien  ^gyptens,  p.  8. 


THE   LAND   OP   GOSHEN.  7 

river;  wonderfally  polished,  and  cut  witli  an  exactness 
wliicli  modern  skill  still  envies.^  A  vast  series  of  tombs, 
hewn  out  of  the  rock,  beneath  the  soil,  stretched  far  and 
wide  on  the  plateau  of  the  Lybian  Hills,  a  league  west  cf 
Memphis — above  the  reach  of  the  inundation — a  series  of 
subterranean  palaces,  which  already  awed  the  patriarch 
Job,  as  the  '^  desolate  palaces  ^  which  kings  and  coun- 
sellors of  the  earth  had  built  for  themselves."  The  land- 
scape, everywhere,  had  been  intersected  with  canals  of 
irrigation,  and  lines  of  dykes,  along  which  traffic  might 
continue  to  pass  freely  during  the  inundations.^  But 
the  Ancient  Empire  had  passed  away  some  hundreds 
of  years  before  Jacob  settled  in  Goshen,  and  dynasties 
had  succeeded  it  under  which  Egypt  steadily  advanced 
in  population,  wealth,  and  general  development;  till,  in 
the  centuries  of  the  Hebrew  settlement,  civilization  in 
its  highest  forms,  as  understood  in  the  valley  of  the 
Nile,  surrounded  the  immigrants  on  every  hand. 

The  dead  level  of  a  river  delta  must  always  have  made 
the  landscapes  of  Goshen,  in  some  respects,  monotonous. 
But  even  a  flat  surface,  when  broken  by  towns  and  vil- 
lages, and  diversified  by  trees  rising  from  amidst  a  pros- 
pect of  varied  fertility,  may  have  quiet  charms  of  its  own, 
as  we  see  in  not  a  few  views  of  town  and  country  in 
Holland. 

The   year  was  virtually  divided   into   three  seasons; 

*  The  causeway  to  bring  the  stone  to  the  Great  Pyramid,  from 
the  Nile,  employed  100,000  men,  relieved  every  three  months,  for 
ten  years,  or,  in  all  4,000,000  men,  and  twenty  years  more  were 
spent,  with  the  labour,  in  each,  of  360,000  men,  in  building  the 
pyramid  itself.  Thus,  in  all,  7,000,000  men  toiled  in  forced  labour, 
to  rear  this  amazing  monument.     Maspero,  Histoire  Ancienne. 

2  Job  iii.  14.  Olshausen.  Ewald  and  Merx  translate  it  "  pyra- 
mids ;  "  De  Wette,  "  funeral  monuments." 

^  Birch,  Ugy^tfrom  the  Monuments,  chap.  i. 


8  "  THE   LAND   OP   GOSHEN. 

that  in  wliicli  the  cities  and  hamlets  rose  like  islands 
above  the  universal  sea  of  Nile  waters,  with  the 
dykes  and  elevated  roads  stretching  out  like  threads 
between :  then,  the  months  in  which  the  fields  and  pas- 
tures were  in  their  glory  :  and  finally,  a  time  of  scorch- 
ing heat  and  dusty  hardened  ground,  when  the  moisture 
of  the  yearly  inundation  had  been  dried  up  by  the  sun. 
But  even  at  this  season,  Egypt  had  charms  all  its  own. 
The  morning  was  deliciously  cool,  and  through  the  day 
the  sun  poured  a  flood  of  dazzling  splendour  from  a 
cloudless  sky  of  the  deepest  azure,  while  the  transparent 
air  brought  out  even  distant  objects  with  wondrous 
clearness,  through  an  atmosphere  trembling  as  if  heated 
over  a  flame.^  Both  at  morning  and  evening,  the  play 
of  the  light  shed  countless  tints  of  gold,  or  rose,  or 
violet,  on  the  clouds  or  on  the  Arabian  hills.  A  sunset 
at  Suez,  described  by  Ebers,  was  doubtless  like  many 
gazed  at  with  wonder  by  the  Hebrews  in  the  Delta. 
"  The  water  quivered  in  still  lovelier  colours  than 
at  noon,  and  the  finely  formed  Ataka  hills  on  the  west 
shore,  stretching  away  to  the  south  till  they  seemed 
to  fade  into  the  glowing  horizon,  were  bathed  in  blue 
and  violet  mists,  which,  after  a  time,  gave  place 
to  a  splendour  of  colour  that  I  never  saw  else- 
where on  the  Nile.  The  mountains  looked  as  if  they 
were  a  molten  mass  of  blended  pomegranate  and  ame- 
thyst, and,  as  such,  mirrored  themselves  in  the  waves 
which  ran  up  to  their  feet — ebbing  and  retiring,  moment 
by  moment.^''  ^ 

But  even  night  in  Egypt,  compared  with  that  of  other 

^  TJarda,  vol.  i.  p.  60. 

*  Burch  Gosen,  p.  67.  Burton  no  less  glowingly  paints  the 
colours  of  the  atmosphere  in  Egypt,  at  sunset  and  sunrise. 
Filgrimage  to  Meccah,  p.  109. 


THE    LAND    OF    GOSHEN.  9 

lands^  is  a  dream  of  beauty,  for  the  moon  shines  out  with 
wondrous  brightness,  and,  in  her  absence,  unnumbered 
stars  make  the  heavens  white  with  glory. 

The  villages  and  hamlets  of  the  Delta  in  Jacob's  day, 
as  now,  were  built  on  mounds  raised  high  enough  to  pro- 
tect from  the  yearly  inundation,  the  mud  huts  of  which 
they  consisted.  Canals,  led  from  the  Pelusiac  branch 
of  the  Nile,  and  subdivided  into  numberless  lesser  chan- 
nels and  rivulets,  covered  the  landscape  with  a  vast  net- 
work of  irrigation,  and  made  it  impossible  to  pass  from 
one  place  to  another  except  along  the  dykes ;  which  at 
once  regulated  the  admission  of  the  yearly  flood  and 
supplied  the  country  with  practicable  roads.  Creaking 
water-wheels,  turned  by  buffaloes,  asses,  or  camels,  raised 
water  night  and  day  into  the  canals,  from  the  lower  bed 
of  the  Nile.  High  palms  marked  from  a  distance  the 
raised  hamlets,  lofty  dovecots,  always  near  each  other, 
serving  as  a  second  characteristic ;  for  the  huts  of  to-day 
are  indistinguishable  till  one  approaches  them,  and  in  a 
country  so  unchanging  they  have  doubtless  been  always 
the  same.  Simple  in  the  extreme,  they  consist  of  only 
two  rooms,  except  in  rare  cases,  and  are  built  only  of  the 
mud  dried  into  bricks  in  the  hot  sun — a  few  days  sufficing 
to  raise  them  from  the  ground  to  the  roof.  Such  a  land- 
scape is  inevitably  monotonous,  but  it  is  relieved  by  the 
variety  of  the  produce  on  every  hand ;  and  canals,  palms, 
water-wheels,  villages,  camels,  flocks  of  birds  in  the 
waters  and  meadows,  and  the  almost  naked,  sunburnt 
fellahs — poor  and  wretched  beyond  measure,  amidst  the 
infinite  bounty  of  nature — keep  awake  the  interest  of  the 
modern  traveller.* 

The  condition  of  the  peasantry  seems  always  to  have 
been  miserable  in  Egypt,  though  it  may  have  been  much 
*  Ebers,  Lurch  Gosen,  pp.  19-20. 


10  THE    LAND    OP   GOSHEN. 

less  SO  among  tbe  Hebrews  in  an  isolated  district  like 
Goshen.  But  even  as  far  back  as  the  time  of  Cheops, 
the  builder  of  the  Great  Pyramid,  long  before  Abraham 
visited  the  Nile  Valley,  there  had  been  a  huge  clamour 
of  the  oppressed  against  the  oppressor,  from  one  end  of 
the  land  to  the  other ;  a  cry  of  anguish  and  bitter  agony 
which  since  that  time  has  often  risen  from  Egypt.  The 
will  of  the  tyrant  has  always  ruled,  whether  it  ordered  the 
building  of  the  Great  Pyramid  or  the  making  a  barrage 
for  the  Nile.^  The  land  may  have  changed  its  religion, 
its  language,  and  its  population;  the  lot  of  the  fellah 
has  been  always  the  same  whether  a  Pharaoh,^  a  Sultan, 
or  a  Pacha  reigned.  No  wonder  that  statues  of  Cheops, 
broken  and  dishonoured,  have  been  discovered  in  our  day 
near  the  Temple  of  the  Sphinx,  in  deep  wells,  into  which 
they  had  been  ignominiously  thrown,  ages  ago,  in  popular 
risings  against  his  tyranny.^  In  the  days  of  Abraham  it 
was  the  same  as  in  the  then  long  vanished  Ancient  Empire. 
The  capital  had  been  transferred  from  Memphis,  in  the 
north,  to  Thebes,  in  the  south,  but  the  working  classes  as 
well  as  the  peasants  had  still  a  very  hard  lot.  Shrinking 
before  the  stick  of  the  taskmaster,  which  was  constantly 
over  them,  they  had  to  toil  from  morning  to  night,  to  gain 
a  meagre  support  for  themselves  and  their  households. 
A  letter  of  this  era,  from  a  scribe  to  his  son,  trying  to 
induce  him  to  follow  learning  rather  than  a  trade,  paints 
the  condition  of  the  blacksmith,  the  metal-worker,  the 
stone-cutter  and  the  quarry-man,  the  barber,  the  boat- 
man, the  mason,  the  weaver,  the  maker  of  arms,  the 
courier,  the  dyer,  and  the  shoemaker  as  alike  to  be  pitied ; 

*  Osburn,  Monumental  nistory  of  Egypt,  vol.  i.  p.  275. 
^  The  name  Pharaoh  is  now  equivalent,  among  the  Arabs,  to 
**  tyrant."     Burton. 
^  Mariette,  Lettre  d  M.  le  Vicomte  de  Bouge,  p.  7. 


THE    LAND   OF   GOSHEN. 

but  it  may  be  tliat  the  portraits  are  overdrawn.^  Yet 
Ebers  has  given  us  a  sketch  of  the  crowd  at  Thebes  in 
the  time  of  Moses,  which,  in  part  at  least,  corroborates 
the  scribe.  ''  Under  a  wide-spreading  sycamore/'  says 
he,  '^  a  vendor  of  eatables,  spirituous  drinks,  and  acids 
for  cooling  the  water,  had  set  up  his  stall,  and  close  to 
him  a  crowd  of  boatmen  and  drivers  shouted  and  disputed 
as  they  passed  the  time  in  eager  games  of  morra.  Many 
sailors  lay  on  the  decks  of  the  vessels,  others  on  the 
shore :  here  in  the  thin  shade  of  a  palm-tree,  there  in  the 
full  blaze  of  the  sun ;  from  whose  burning  rays  they  pro- 
tected themselves  by  spreading  over  their  faces  the  cot- 
ton cloths  which  served  them  for  cloaks. 

'^Between  the  sleepers  passed  bondmen  and  slaves, 
brown  and  black,  in  long  files,  one  behind  the  other, 
bending  under  the  weight  of  heavy  burdens,  which  had 
to  be  conveyed  to  their  destination  at  the  temples,  for 
sacrifice,  or  to  the  dealers  in  various  wares.  Builders 
dragged  blocks  of  stone,  which  had  come  from  the 
quarries  of  Chennu  aud  Suan,  on  sledges,  to  the  site  of  a 
new  temple ;  labourers  poured  water  under  the  runners 
that  the  heavily  loaded  and  dried  wood  should  not  take 
fire. 

"  All  these  working  men  were  driven  with  sticks  by 
their  overseers,  and  sang  at  their  labours ;  but  the  voices 
of  the  leaders  sounded  muffled  and  hoarse,  though,  when, 
after  their  frugal  meal  they  enjoyed  an  hour  of  repose, 
they  might  be  heard  loud  enough.  Their  parched  throats 
refused  to  sing  in  the  noontide  of  their  labour.  Thick 
clouds  of  gnats  followed  these  tormented  gangs,  who 
with  dull  and  spirit-broken  endurance  suffered  alike  the 
stings  of  the  insects  and  the  blows  of  their  drivers.''''  * 

^  Maspero,  p.  123.    This  letter  is  there  given  in  full. 
^  Uarcla,  vol.  i.  p.  61. 


12  THE   LAND   OF   GOSHEN. 

The  cMldren  of  the  poor  lived,  to  a  great  extent, 
on  the  pith  of  the  papyrus  plant  and  bread  made  of  the 
pounded  seeds  of  the  lotus  flower/  and  radishes,  onions 
and  garlic  were  the  staple  food  of  their  parents.^  But  in 
Goshen  at  least  the  Hebrews  had  fish  for  the  catching,  and 
cucumbers,  melons,  and  leeks,^  which  are  still  the  food  of 
the  humbler  Egyptians,  though  the  fish  now  used  is  salt.* 
The  Nile  indeed  was,  and  still  is,  wondrously  rich  in  fish, 
and  in  no  country  do  melons  and  other  fruits  and  vege- 
tables of  the  climate  grow  more  luxuriously.  When  the 
river  shrinks  back  into  its  bed,  all  useful  grains  and 
plants  grow  up  with  marvellous  rapidity  and  vigour. 
Wheat,  barley,  spelt,  maize,  haricot  beans,  lentils,  peas, 
flax,  hemp,  onions,  scallions,  citrons,  cucumbers,  melons, 
almost  cumber  the  ground.  The  lotus,  in  Joseph's  day, 
floated  on  the  waters,  and  innumerable  waterfowl  built 
their  nests  among  the  papyrus  reeds  along  the  banks. 
Between  the  river  or  its  branch,  and  the  far-off  desert, 
lay  wide  fields.  Near  the  brooks  and  water-wheels  rose 
shady  sycamores  and  groves  of  date-palms  carefully 
tended.  The  fruitful  plain,  indeed,  watered  and  manured 
every  year  by  the  inundation,  was  framed  in  the  desert  like 
a  garden  flower-bed  within  its  gravel  path.^ 

^  Uarda,  p.  197.  Diodorus  says  that  a  child  did  not  cost  its 
parents  20  drachmae,  about  fifteen  shillings,  for  food  and  clothing 
till  it  was  a  good  size.  The  lotus  and  papyrus  grew  wild  in  vast 
quantities,  and  children  ran  about  naked. 

2  Uarda,  vol.  i.  p.  303.  1,600  talents  =  £360,000  worth,  were 
consumed  during  the  building  of  the  Great  Pyramid.  Herod., 
ii.  125.     Plin.,  N.  H.,  xsxvi.  17. 

^  Num  xic  5. 

^  Lane's  Modern  Egyptians,  vol.  i.  p.  207.  Burton  says  that 
garlic  and  onions  are  always  specially  in  favour  in  lands  liable 
to  fevers  and  agues,  as  natural  preventives.  Filgrimage  to 
Meccah,  p.  23. 

5  Uarda,  vol.  i.  p.  6. 


THE    LAND    OF    GOSHEN.  13 

Memphis,^  the  capital  of  tlie  Empire  in  the  time  of 
Joseph,  lay  on  the  west  side  of  the  Nile,  about  12 
miles  south  of  the  present  Cairo,  and  about  20  south  of 
the  great  Temple-  and  University-city  of  On  or  Helio- 
polis ;  the  Jerusalem  of  Egypt.  Protected  on  the  east  by 
the  Nile  against  attacks  from  Arabia,  Assyria,  Persia,  and 
even  Scythia,  to  which  that  frontier  was  always  exposed, 
it  had  on  the  west  only  the  feeble  Libyan  tribes,  separated 
from  it  by  a  range  of  hills,  and  was  thus  comparatively 
safe.  The  plain  on  which  it  was  built,  though  resting 
on  the  limestone  rock,  was  originally  a  marsh  ;  but  an 
embankment  raised  in  remote  antiquity  by  Menes,  the 
founder  of  the  Ancient  Empire,  cut  off  the  overflow  of  the 
Nile,  and  the  swamps  were  drained  into  neighbouring 
lakes,  which,  with  the  river,  surrounded  the  city  with  a 
strong  defence  of  water. 

The  area  of  Memphis,  like  that  of  all  eastern  cities,  was 
large  in  proportion  to  its  population,  embracing  a  cir- 
cuit of  at  least  15  miles,^  but  in  this  was  included  much 
open  ground  laid  out  as  gardens,  besides  space  for  public 
buildings,  temples,  and  palaces,  and  the  barracks  of  the 
garrison,  in  the  quarter  known  as  the  White  Castle. 
Within  the  wall,  with  its  ramparts  and  bastions,  which 
formed  the  fortifications  of  the  city,  stood  the  old  palace 
of  the  kings,  a  stately  structure  of  brick,  with  courts, 
corridors,  chambers,  and  halls,  without  number;  verandah- 
like out-buildings  of  gaily  painted  wood;  and  a  magnifi- 
cent pillared  banqueting  hall.  Verdurous  gardens  sur- 
rounded it,  and  a  whole  host  of  labourers  tended*  the 
flower  beds  and  shady  alleys,  the  shrubs  and  the  trees ; 

*  Eine  ^gijpt  Konigstochter,  vol.  i.  pp.  55—57,  210,  212. 
Memphis  was  dedicated  to  the  goddess  Ptah ;  tho  word  means 
"  The  home  of  Ptah."     LengerJce,  p.  350. 

*  Diodorus,  i.  50.     150  stadia. 


14  THE    LAJHD    OF    GOSHEN. 

or  kept  the  tanks  clean  and  fed  the  fish  in  them.^  The 
mound  which  curbed  the  inundations  of  the  Nile  was  so 
essential  to  the  very  existence  of  the  city,  that  even  the 
Persians,  who  destroyed  or  neglected  the  other  great 
works  of  the  country,  annually  repaired  it.^  The  climate 
was  wonderfully  healthy,  and  the  soil  beyond  measure 
fertile,  while  the  views  from  the  walls  were  famous  among 
both  the  Greeks  and  Romans.  Bright  green  meadows 
stretched  round  the  city,  threaded  everywhere  by  canals 
thick  with  beds  of  the  lotus  flower.  Trees  of  such  girth 
that  three  men  could  not  encircle  them  with  outstretched 
arms,  rose  in  clumps ;  the  wide  gardens  supplied  Rome 
with  roses  even  in  winter,  and  the  gay  vineyards  yielded 
wine  of  which  poets  sang,^  Its  position,  moreover,  in 
the  "  narrows  '^  of  Egypt,  where  the  Arabian  and  Libyan 
hills,  hitherto  girding  in  the  narrow  valley  of  the  river, 
begin  to  diverge  and  form  the  Delta,  gave  Memphis  the 
command  of  all  the  trade  of  the  country  both  up  and 
down  the  stream. 

It  may  have  been  surpassed  in  the  grandeur  of  its 
temples  by  Thebes,*  the  capital  of  the  Middle  Empire, 
in  southern  Egypt,  but  that  city  had  fewer  of  them, 
and  it  had  no  such  public  or  commercial  buildings.  A 
spacious  and  beautiful  temple  in  Memphis  honoured  the 
goddess  Isis,  while  that  of  the  sacred  bull.  Apis,  famous 
for  its  colonnades,  its  oracle,  and  its  processions,  was  the 
cathedral  of  Egypt,  attracting  countless  worshippers  and 
maintaining  a  numerous,  rich  and  learned  priesthood. 
Apife,   or    Hapi — to    the    Egyptians,    the    most    perfect 

1  Ebers,  The  Sisters,  vol.  i.  p.  130. 

2  Eerod.,  ii.  99. 

3  Diodor.,  i.  96.  Plimj,  xiii.  10;  xvi.  21.  Martial,  vi.  80. 
AthencBus,  i.  20. 

*  Thebes  =  No  Amon  =  Home  of  Amon.     Ges.  Tlies. 


THE    LAND   OF   GOSHEN.  15 

expression  of  divinity  in  an  animal  form — had,  moreover, 
a  second  temple,  also,  in  the  necropolis, — afterwards 
enlarged  and  called  the  Serapeion — in  which  was  the 
Nilometer,  for  recording  the  yearly  rise  of  the  inundation. 
But  the  Temple  of  Ptah,  the  Egyptian  Vulcan,  to  whom, 
the  scarabseus  beetle  was  sacred,  was  the  most  ancient 
local  shrine.  Its  great  northern  court  had  been  erected 
before  Joseph's  day,  and  Eameses  the  Third  afterwards 
raised  in  it  six  colossal  portrait  statues,  of  himself,  his 
queen,  and  their  four  sons.  One  of  these,  45  feet  high, 
still  lies,  overthrown,  near  a  thicket  of  palms,  among  the 
mounds  of  ruin,  in  a  pool  of  water  left  by  the  inundations, 
which  always,  year  by  year,  cover  the  spot — its  back 
upwards  and  the  name  of  Eameses  on  the  belt — the  last 
memorial  of  the  great  king.  Spacious  and  magnificent 
eastern,  western,  and  southern  courts  were  added  in 
later  but  still  ancient  times.  It  was  at  Memphis  that 
Herodotus,  nearly  1,500  years  after  Joseph's  death,^  made 
his  longest  stay  in  Egypt,  and  thither  came,  from  time  to 
time,  many  of  the  sages  of  antiquity  to  learn  the  sciences 
and  philosophy  for  which  its  priests  were  famous.^ 

The  remains  of  the  city  cover  many  hundred  acres, 
but  consist  only  of  blocks  of  granite,  broken  obelisks, 
and  the  fragments  of  columns  and  colossal  statues;  for 
successive  generations  have,  age  after  age,  used  its  ruins 
as  a  great  quarry  for  their  own  structures.  But  the 
plain  is  still  wide  and  fertile,  with  a  succession  of  palm 
groves,  running  along  the  river's  edge,  and  springing  in 
many  spots  from  green  turf.  "  Behind  these  palms,  and 
beyond  the  plain,  rises  the  white  back  of  the  African 
hills.  Behind  that  again,  ''as  the  hills  round  about 
Jerusalem,'  the  pyramids,  the  mighty  sepulchres  of  the 

^  Joseph,  b.  B.C.  1912.,  Bih.  Lex.    Herodotus,  died  circa  B.C.,  400 
^  Diet,  of  Geog.,  art.  Memphis. 


16  THE   LAND   OF   GOSHEN. 

kings  of  Lower  Egypt,  surround  Mempliis ;  while,  in  the 
sandhills  at  their  feet,  are  the  vast  sepulchres  of  the 
citizens.  For  miles  you  walk  through  layers  of  bones, 
and  skulls,  and  mummy  swathings,  sometimes  near 
the  surface,  but  often  deep  down,  in  shaft-like  mummy 
pits,  among  which  are  vast  galleries  once  filled  with 
mummies  of  ibises,  in  red  jars,  but  now  in  many  cases 
despoiled.  Lastly,  are  long  galleries  hewn  in  the  rock — 
only  discovered  recently — and  opening  from  time  to  time, 
say  every  fifty  yards,  into  high  arched  vaults,  under  each 
of  which  reposes  the  most  magnificent  black  marble 
sarcophagus  that  can  be  conceived — a  chamber  rather  than 
a  coffin — sculptured  within  and  without,  more  grandly 
than  any  human  sepulchres  elsewhere/''^  They  are  only, 
however,  the  resting  places  of  the  successive  corpses  of 
the  god  Apis — the  sacred  Ox.  At  first  each  sacred  animal 
had  a  separate  tomb  in  the  part  of  the  necropolis  after- 
wards known  as  the  Serapeion,  but  towards  the  middle 
of  the  reign  of  Rameses  II.,  while  the  Hebrews  were 
yet  in  Egypt,  a  common  cemetery  was  begun.  A  gallery, 
hewn  out  for  125  feet  in  the  living  rock,  was  pierced,  suc- 
cessively, on  each  side,  with  fourteen  spacious  chambers ; 
other  galleries  and  other  chambers  being  added  as  they 
were  needed.  The  mummy  once  laid  in  its  place,  the 
entrance  to  the  chamber  was  walled  up,  but  worshippers 
still  came,  to  engrave  their  names,  and  prayers  to  the  dead 
Apis,  on  the  wall,  or  on  the  rock  close  by.  Abraham  had 
perhaps  seen  the  processions  of  this  strange  worship, 
for  it  was  already  ancient  in  his  day,^  and  it  survived  to 
the  last  periods  of  Egyptian  history,  when  Christianity, 
having  dispersed  the  priests,  the  tombs  were  abandoned 

1  Stanley's  Sinai  and  Palestine,  p.  lii. 

2  It  was  established  by  the  second  king  of  the  Second  Dynasty. 
Maspero,  p.  60. 


THE   LAND    OP    GOSHEN.  17 

after  having  been  violated,  and  were  tlien  gradually  buried 
beneath  the  sands  of  the  desert.  It  was  reserved  to 
M.  Mariette  to  bring  them  again  to  light  in  1851,  after 
an  oblivion  of  more  than  1,400  years.  ^ 

On,  or  Heliopolis,  the  City  of  the  Sun,  according  to 
Ebers,  marked  the  southern  limit  of  Goshen,  as  Zoan  or 
Tanis,  its  northern,  on  the  west  side.  It  was  there  that 
Joseph  found  his  Egyptian  bride,  the  daughter  of  the 
high  priest  of  its  great  temple,  and  it  was  as  the  priest 
Osarsiph,  of  this  sanctuary,  that  Moses  was  handed  down 
by  the  Egyptians  m  their  traditions.^ 

That  Hebrews  lived  in  On  in  the  times  of  the  oppres- 
sion can  hardly  be  doubted,  for  a  papyrus  still  gives  us 
the  names  of  the  civil  and  military  officers  charged,  in 
the  reign  of  Rameses  III.,  about  one  hundred  years 
after  the  Exodus,  with  the  oversight  of  2,083  Hebrews 
residing  there ;  descendants,  very  probably,  of  some 
who  failed  to  make  their  escape  with  their  brethren,  or 
chose  to  remain  behind.  It  was  in  some  respects  the 
very  metropolis  of  Egyptian  religion  and  "  wisdom,^^  for 
the  most  famous  University  of  the  land  flourished  in  it, 
and  the  old  Sun-god  Ra  was  the  local  divinity  of  the 
Heliopolitan  "nome";^  the  name  On  meaning  "the  sun.''^^ 
The  setting  sun,  Tum,  was  however  also  worshipped  as 
the  luminary  of  the  Nether  World,  with  Shu,  the  son 
of  Ra,  and  Tafnet,  his  h  on-headed  daughter,  Osiris,  Isis, 
Hathor,  and  the  cat-headed  divinity.  Bast.     Nor  did  even 

^  Mariette,  Memoire  sur  la  Mere  d'Apis,  1856. 

2  Jos.,  c.  Apion,  i.  26. 

*  Eiiio  JSgypt.  Konigstochter,  vol.  i.  p.  223. 

^  This  name  is  giveu  it  in  Jeremiab  xliii.  13,  in  the  Hebrew 
fornl,  Beth  Shemesh — "the  House  of  the  San."  Heliopolis  is 
only  the  Greek  rendering  of  "  City  of  the  San."  Bragsch 
ex|)lains  On  as  meaning,  "The  pomted  colamns,"  "the  obel- 
isks."    History  of  Egypt,  vol.  i.  p.  128. 

VOL.   II.  C 


18  THE    LAND    OE   GOSHEN. 

these  exTiaust  tlie  pantheon  of  On.  It  was  also  the  seat 
of  the  worship  of  the  phoenix,  an  imaginary  bird,  famous 
in  Egyptian  mythology,  and  of  the  sacred  calf  Mnevis,^ 
the  rival  of  the  sacred  bull  Apis,  of  Memphis,  which  was 
said  to  have  sprung  from  it.  It  had  had  its  shrine 
at  On  since  the  long  past  days  of  the  Second  Dynasty. 
Sacred  lions  were  also  worshipped,  in  honour  of  the 
goddess  Tafnet.  Worse  than  all,  however,  in  Joseph's 
time,  and  till  after  the  expulsion  of  the  Hyksos,  human 
sacrifices  of  red-haired  foreign  captives  were  offered  to 
Typhon,  the  red  god  of  evil,  and  to  Sati.^ 

The  temple  was  in  its  full  glory  in  the  days  of  Joseph 
and  during  the  centuries  of  the  Hebrew  sojourn. 
Great  colleges  of  priests  lived  in  chambers  specially 
built  for  them  within  its  holy  precincts,  and  besides 
taking  charge  of  the  sacred  animals,  attended  to  the 
services  of  the  many  gods  honoured  in  its  worship.  In 
addition  to  these,  there  were  numbers  of  learned  priests 
connected  with  the  medical,  theological,  and  historical 
faculties  of  the  temple;  the  special  depositaries  of  the 
science,  religious  and  secular,  for  which  Egypt  was 
renowned.  The  observatory  of  the  temple  was  famous, 
and  it  is  to  its  priest-astronomers  we  are  indebted  for  the 
exact  computation  of  the  length  of  the  year.  Of  the  four 
great  Temple  Universities  of  the  land — Memphis,  Thebes, 

^  Merx  and  Pressel  speak  of  Mnevis  as  black,  but  Ebers  says 
it  was  bright-coloured,  which  seems  to  agree  better  with  the 
Israelites  making  a  "golden  calf"  in  imitation  of  it,  if  that  idol 
were  really  intended  to  be  so. 

2  Ahmes  I.,  the  conqueror  of  the  Hyksos,  abolished  human 
sacrifice,  which  the  Hyksos  had  perhaps  introduced  from  Syria, 
substituting  wax  figures  of  men,  of  which  three  were  offered 
daily.  It  is  noteworthy,  that  though  native  Egyptian  monuments 
do  not  speak  of  human  sacrifice,  the  design  on  the  "offering  seal" 
used,  is  a  man  bound,  with  a  sword  at  his  throat. 


THE    LAND    OF   GOSHEN.  19 

Sais,  and  On — that  of  On  held  the  first  rank.  Its  high 
priest  came  next  in  dignity  to  the  Pharaoh  himself^  and 
was  a  prince  of  the  empire — the  Piromis,  "  the  noble 
and  the  good '' — and  thus  the  marriage  of  Joseph  to  the 
daughter  of  so  august  a  dignitary  at  once  secured  his 
position  in  the  state.  From  its  higher  pries ts^  moreover, 
no  fewer  than  ten  members  of  the  great  priestly  council 
of  Pharaoh  were  chosen — that  is,  one-third  of  the  whole. 
No  centre  of  Egyptian  influence  more  powerfully  or 
abidingly  affected  the  Hebrews  than  this  great  centre 
of  Egyptian  thought  and  worship. 

Heliopolis,  or  On,  now  stands  in  the  midst  of  green 
fields  of  corn  and  clover,  varied,  as  one  approaches  it 
from  Cairo,  by  clumps  of  tamarisk,  fig-trees,  and  acacias. 
Roads  along  the  top  of  dykes,  raised  high  above  tho 
champaign  around,  to  secure  communication  duriag  the 
yearly  inundation,  form  still,  as  of  old,  the  connecting 
threads  with  other  districts,  while  quickening  rills  poured 
by  water-wheels  from  canals,  fall  at  every  turn  into  lesser 
channels  along  the  roadside,  and  branch  off  into  the 
fields.  At  the  edge  of  the  cultivated  ground  are  the 
ruins  of  On,  now  only  a  wide  enclosure  of  earthen 
mounds,  partly  planted  with  gardens,  in  which  are  the 
most  noticeable  vestiges  left  of  the  great  temple.  Among 
these  is  the  sacred  Spring  of  the  Sun,  to-day  almost 
choked  by  luxuriant  vegetation,  but  famous  in  antiquity 
for  its  healing  powers,  and  apparently  the  cause  of  the 
selection  of  this  remote  spot  for  the  renowned  sanctuary. 
Close  by  is  an  obelisk,  the  last  still  standing  of  the  many 
which  rose  at  the  great  gateways.  The  vast  temple 
of  Baalbek,  or  Heliopolis,  in  Syria,  originally  a  priest 
colony  from  On,  is  built  in  the  same  way  near  a  spring 
sacred  to  the  sun,  though  obelisks  were  not  raised  there 
as  in  the  mother  city. 


20  THE   LAND   OP  GOSHEN. 

In  the  time  of  the  Hebrew  sojourn  in  Egypt,  a  visitor 
having  reached  the  artificial  platform  on  which  all  Helio- 
polis  was  built,  and  wishing  to  visit  the  great  sun- temple, 
passed  first  under  the  cool  shade  of  a  sacred  grove, 
planted  on  the  edges  of  the  sacred  lake  in  its  grounds. 
A  pavement  of  stone,  cemented  with  asphalte,  about  a 
hundred  feet  broad  and  three  or  four  times  as  long, 
now  opened  before  him,  lined  on  each  side  with  huge 
sphinxes  of  yellow  marble,  placed  at  regular  distances. 
This  brought  him  to  the  great  gates  or  pylons;  huge 
structures  standing  quite  apart  from  all  else.  He  then 
passed  under  the  immense  chief  gate,  adorned,  like  that 
of  all  Egyptian  temples,  with  a  broad  winged  disk 
of  the  sun.  The  widely  opened  doors  were  flanked 
on  each  side  by  a  forest  of  lofty  obelisks,  intended  as 
emblems  of  the  solar  rays,  and  nowhere  else  so  numer- 
ous as  here,  where  they  fittingly  adorned  the  entrance  of 
the  great  Temple  of  the  Sun.  Huge  flagstaflPs,  from 
which  fluttered  long  red  and  blue  streamers,  contended 
with  these  in  height.  A  great  stone-flagged  court, 
bordered  to  right  and  left  with  a  portico  resting  on 
lines  of  pillars,  came  next — its  centre,  the  sacred  spot 
on  which  offerings  were  presented  to  the  god.  The 
whole  front  of  the  temple-proper  was  now  seen  rising, 
fortress-like,  at  one  side  of  the  court ;  its  surface  covered 
with  brightly  painted  figures  and  inscriptions.  Inside 
the  porch  was  a  lofty  hall  of  approach ;  then  the  great 
hall,  the  roof  of  which,  sown  over  with  thousands  of 
golden  stars,  rested  on  four  rows  of  gigantic  pillars. 
The  shafts  and  lotus-formed  capitals,  the  side  walls  and 
niches  of  this  immense  chamber,  indeed  all  objects 
around,  were  covered  with  many-coloured  paintings  and 
hieroglyphics.  The  huge  pillars,  the  roof  immensely 
high  and  proportionally  broad  and  long,  filled  the  mind 


21 


22  THE    LAND   OP   GOSHEN. 

with  awe,  while  the  air  was  loaded  with  the  odours  of 
incense,  and  of  the  fragrant  gums  and  spices  of  the 
laboratory  of  the  temple.  Soft  music  from  unseen 
players  seemed  never  to  cease ;  though  broken  now  and 
then  by  the  low  of  the  sacred  ox,  or  of  the  sacred  cow  of 
Isis,  or  the  screech  of  the  sparrow-hawk  of  Horus,  which 
were  housed  in  neighbouring  chambers.  As  often  as  the 
bellowing  of  the  ox  or  cow  was  heard,  or  the  shrill  cry  of 
the  hawk,  the  kneeling  worshippers  touched  the  stone 
pavement  of  the  forecourt  with  their  brow.  Meanwhile 
all  eyes  eagerly  gazed,  ever  and  anon,  into  the  hidden 
interior  of  the  temple,  where  numerous  priests  stood  in 
the  holy  of  holies,  a  chapel-like  structure  formed  of  a 
single  vast  stone.  Some  of  these  wore  high  ostrich 
feathers  over  their  bald  heads,  others  the  skins  of 
panthers  over  white  linen  robes  ;  some  bowed  or  raised 
themselves  as  they  sang  or  murmured  litanies,  others 
swung  censers  or  poured  out  pure  water  from  golden 
vessels,  as  libations  to  the  gods.  Only  the  most  favoured 
Egyptians  dared  enter  the  gigantic  hall,  and  then,  the 
eye,  the  ear,  and  even  the  breathing  were  surrounded 
by  influences  farthest  from  those  of  everyday  existence, 
contracting  the  bosom  and  agitating  the  nerves.  Over- 
whelmed and  cut  ofi*  from  the  outer  world,  the  worshipper 
had  to  seek  support  outside  himself,  in  the  divinity 
whom  the  voices  of  the  priests,  the  mysterious  music, 
and  the  sounds  of  the  holy  animals  appeared  to  indicate 
as  close  at  hand.^ 

^  Ebers,  Fine  ^gj/pt.Kdnigstocliter,  vol.  i.  p.  109.  Other  author- 
ities, however,  describe  Egyptian  temples  somewhat  differently. 
Thus  Schaafe  writes  :  "  Egyptian  temples  were  so  constructed,  as 
to  intensify  the  earnestness  and  enthusiasm  of  the  worshipper  by 
chambers  continually  smaller  and.  lower.  The  turns  to  be  taken 
were  all  pointed  out,  no  going  in  another  way  was  allowed,  and 


THE    LAND   OF   GOSHEN.  23 

Dean  Stanley^s  description  of  this  great  temple  is 
striking.  "Over  the  portal  we  can  hardly  doubt,  was 
the  figure  of  the  sun-god;  not  in  the  sublime  indistinct- 
ness of  the  natural  orb,  nor  yet  in  the  beautiful  imper- 
sonation of  the  Grecian  Apollo,  but  in  the  strange 
grotesque  form  of  the  Hawk-headed  monster.  Enter, 
and  the  dark  Temple  opens  and  contracts  successively 
into  its  outermost,  its  inner,  and  its  innermost  hall ; 
the  Osiride  figures  in  their  placid  majesty  support  the 
first,  the  wild  and  savage  exploits  of  kings  and  heroes 
fill  the  second ;  and  in  the  furthest  recess  of  all,  under- 
neath the  carved  figure  of  the  sun- god,  and  beside  the 
solid  altar,  sate,  in  his  gilded  cage,  the  sacred  hawk, 
or  lay  crouched  on  his  purple  bed  the  sacred  black  calf 
Mnevis,  or  Urmer;  each  the  living,  almost  incarnate, 
representation  of  the  deity  of  the  Temple.  Thrice  a 
day,  before  the  deified  beast,  the  incense  was  oS*ered, 
and  once  a  month  the  solemn  sacrifice.  Each  on  his 
death  was  duly  embalmed  and  deposited  in  a  splendid 
sarcophagus.  One  such  mummy  calf  is  still  to  be  seen 
at  Cairo.  The  sepulchres  of  the  long  succession  of  deified 
calves  at  Heliopolis  corresponded  to  that  of  the  deified 
bulls  at  Memphis.*'  ^ 

no  mistake  was  possible.  Yisitors  wandered  full  of  awe  between 
the  rows  of  sacred  beasts.  The  gates  rose,  afar,  high  and  vast : 
then  came  another  court;  the  walls  were  closer,  the  courts  on 
a  smaller  scale,  the  floor  was  higher.  All  was  subordinated  to 
one  end.  Going  on  farther,  the  dissipation  of  thought  natural 
to  the  open  air  passed  away  amidst  the  solemnity  of  the  building, 
and  the  holiness  of  the  symbols  and  pictures  with  which  all  ob- 
jects were  covered.  The  consecrated  walls  closed  in,  ever  nearer, 
round  the  worshipper,  till  at  last  only  the  priestly  foot  could 
enter  the  lonely,  echoing  chamber  of  the  god."  Kunstgeschichte, 
vol.  i.  p.  394. 

'  Jewish  Church,  vol.  1.  p.  88. 


24  THE   LAND   OP   GOSHEN. 

Strabo  visited  Heliopolis  about  the  time  of  the  birth 
of  Christ,  and  found  the  town  deserted,  and  the  temple, 
tliough  still  standing,  a  mere  desolate  memorial  of 
greatness  passed  away.  The  neighbouring  canals,  long 
neglected,  had  formed  broad  marshes  before  it,  and  the 
fanatical  barbarism  of  Cambjses,  which  had  wreaked  itself 
on  the  obelisks  and  the  sacred  buildings  more  than  five 
hundred  years  before,  still  showed  many  traces.  Priests 
and  philosophers,  canons  and  professors,  alike  were  gone 
from  the  spacious  mansions  round  the  cloisters  of  the 
vast  courts.  Only  a  few  lower  priests  and  vergers  lin- 
gered about,  to  maintain  what  still  remained  of  wor- 
ship, or  to  show  strangers  over  the  silent  quadrangles 
and  deserted  cloisters  ;  but  they  still  pointed  out  the 
house  where  Plato  had  lived  for  years  when  studying  in 
their  schools.  Now,  the  solitary  obelisk  still  standing, 
and  great  mounds  full  of  fragments  of  marble  and  granite, 
and  the  wreck  of  a  sphinx,  alone  recall  the  site.  The 
water  of  the  Nile  overflows  it  each  year,  and  rises  nearly 
six  feet  up  the  stalk  of  the  obelisk.^ 

The  only  other  town  of  Goshen,  or  on  its  borders, 
to  be  noticed  till  later,  was  Tanis,  the  Zoan  of  the  Bible, 
a  place  built  only  seven  years  after  Hebron,  in  Palestine.^ 
The  frontier  town  of  Goshen  on  the  north-west  lay  far  to 
the  north  of  On — on  the  right  bank  of  the  old  Tanitic 
mouth  of  the  Nile,  which  found  its  way  to  the  Mediter- 
ranean through  the  Menzaleh  sea.  This  stream  over- 
flowed the  fields  of  the  Hebrews,  year  by  year,  to  the 
envious  regret  of  the  Egyptians,  who  regarded  a  blessing 
enjoyed  by  foreigners  as  a  misfortune  to  themselves. 
Mythological  fables  expressed  this  feeling,  by  stigmatiz- 
ing these  waters  as  those  by  which  Typhon  floated  out 
the  corpse  of  the  murdered  Osiris  to  the  ocean ;  but  their 
*  Jewish  Cliurcliy  vol.  i.  p.  88.  '  Num.  xiii.  22. 


THE    LAND   OP   GOSHEN.  25 

real  antipathy  was  from  the  channel  winding  through 
the  lands  of  Semitic  settlers.  Tanis  had  been,  ap- 
parently, founded  by  old  Phenician  colonists,  and  was 
already  a  residence  of  the  Pharaohs  before  the  invasion 
of  the  Hyksos,  or  Shepherd  Kings,  with  their  allied 
Canaanitish  and  Arabian  tribes.  The  Hyksos  themselves 
also  lived  in  it,  as  shown  by  various  mounuments  still 
surviving ;  and  when  they  were  driven  out,  the  Pharaohs 
came  back  to  it  and  rebuilt  it,  to  awe  by  their  presence 
the  mixed  population  of  this  region.  The  occasional 
presence  of  the  majesty  of  Egypt,  honoured  as  a  god, 
could  not  but  promote  loyalty,  since  fortune  depended 
on  his  favour.  The  town,  moreover,  was  in  effect  a 
fortress  as  well  as  a  royal  residence ;  for  no  measures  of 
precaution  seemed  too  great  to  prevent  a  second  Hyksos 
invasion,  or  to  keep  down  a  district  related  to  that  people 
in  blood. 

The  name  itself  strangely  corroborates  the  presence 
of  a  large  foreign  population  in  Tanis,^  for  the  sign 
behind  it  in  the  hieroglyphic  inscriptions  marks  that 
one  existed — and  these  foreign  citizens  must  have  been 
Semitic.  The  city  had,  indeed,  no  less  than  seven  names, 
connected  with  the  gods  worshipped  in  it,  for  the  Egyp- 
tians gave  their  towns,  in  this  way,  many ;  sometimes, 
as  in  the  cases  of  Edfii  and  Dendera,  several  hundreds. 
But  of  the  seven  borne  by  Tanis,  two  are  Semitic ;  nor  is 
it  unworthy  of  notice  that  one  is  "  The  Field  of  Zoan,"  the 
exact  name  of  the  town  in  one  of  the  Psalms.^  Another 
is  :  "  The  Town  of  Eameses,"  for  it  was  rebuilt  and  em- 
bellished, doubtless  by  Hebrew  forced  labour  in  part,  by 
Eameses  II. — though  it  is  not  the  city  specially  known  in 
the  Bible  as  '^  Eaamses,^'  described  on  an  earlier  page.'^ 

*  Tanis  =  Lowlying.     Lengerhe  p.  350; 

2  Ps.  Ixxviii.  12.  3  gee  page  3. 


26  THE    LAND    OF   GOSHEN. 

Eameses-TaniSj — "  The  place  of  departure  '*  for  Pales- 
tine— is  especially  important  as  tlie  scene  of  the  wonders 
wrought  by  Moses  before  the  Exodus.^     It  appears,  next 
to   Thebes,  to  have   been  the  spot  most  liked   by  the 
Oppressor — the  greatest  of  all   the  Pharaohs — aud  was 
chosen  by  him  as  his  home  both  before  and  after  his 
wars  with   the   Asiatic   races,   who  could    be    so   easily 
reached  from  it.     No  place  in  Egypt  is  more  striking  in 
its  ruins.     The  great  temple  of  the  town  enclosed  a  huge 
space.     Twelve   obelisks    of   polished   granite,   brought 
from  distant   Syene,  stood  before   it;   eleven  of  which, 
bearing  the  name  of  Rameses,  still  lie  around  in  broken 
fragments,  attesting  the  ancient  grandeur  of  the  sanc- 
tuary which  they  adorned.     There    had   been   a   temple 
from  early  times,  but  so  many  obelisks,  columns,  pillars, 
and  statues,  now  shattered,   and  scattered  far  and  wide, 
bear  the  name  of  the  great  king,  that  it  seems  at  first  as 
if  he  had  created  it  wholly.     The  town  itself  was  very 
large,  even  so  late   as  the  days  of  Christ,  and  rose  on 
artificial  mounds  round  the  temple,  though  a  series  of 
grey  hills   of  rubbish,  full  of  fragments  of  bricks  and 
pottery,  are  now  its  only   memorials.     From  these,  the 
houses  are  seen  to  have  been  built  of  sun-dried  bricks  of 
Nile  mud,  small  alike  in  themselves  and  in  their  rooms, 
which,  however,  were  often  numerous.     A  sweet-water 
canal  which  occupies  the  ancient  bed  of  the  river  branch 
still  floats  pretty  large  fisher-boats,  which  ply  their  trade 
on  the  neighbouring  Menzaleh  sea ;  and  it  is  curious  to 
notice,  that   even  to-day  the  fishermen  and  peasants  of 
the  district  are  essentially  diff"erent  in  their  figures  and 
features   from  the   common  Egyptian  fellah.     They  are 
shorter  in  stature,  and  the  side  face  is  not  so  good,  but 
the  likeness  to  the  profiles  of  the  sphinxes  left  by  the 
1  Ps.  Ixxviii.  43. 


THE    LAND    OP   GOSHEN.  27 

Hyksos  is  unmistakeable.  Tanis  was  the  local  capital 
and  the  seat  of  government,  to  which  the  Semitic  popula- 
tion round  had  free  access,  while  Memphis  and  Thebes 
were  more  or  less  secluded  from  strangers.  But  all 
around  is  now  a  barren  waste,  which  the  canal  passing 
through  does  not  fertilize ;  a  resort  of  wild  beasts  and 
reptiles,  dotted  with  swamps  which  breed  malignant 
fevers.^ 

*  The  authorities  for  this  chapter  are,  among  others,  Sepp's 
Jerusalem  und  das  Heilige  Land.  Ebers'  Durch  Gosen.  Schenkel's 
Lexicon.  Riehm's  Handw'drterhuch.  Herzog's  Encykloiiddie. 
Knobel's  Exodus.  Smith's  Bible  Dictionary.  The  Dictionary  of 
Geography.  Stanley's  Lectures,  and  Sinai  and  Palestine.  Ebers' 
TJarda  and  Eine  ^gyptische  Konigstochter.  Brugsch's  L'Exode 
et  les  Monuments  Egyptiens,  Wilkinson's  Ancient  Egyptians, 
etc.,  etc. 


CHAPTER  II. 

EGYPT    BEFOEE    THE    HEBEEW   SOJOURN. 

WHEN  JosepTi  was  led  by  his  Islimaelite  owners  as 
a  slave^  to  the  bazaar  of  Memphis,  for  sale,  fourteen 
dynasties  had  already  flourished  and  passed  away  in 
Egypt.  Of  these,  ten  had  reigned  in  Memphis  and  four 
at  Thebes,  in  the  south,  but  a  fifteenth  had  now  risen — 
that  of  the  Hyksos,  or  Shepherd  Kings,  who  had  invaded 
and  conquered  Lower  Egypt,  and  set  themselves  on  the 
throne  of  the  Pharaohs.  Mena  or  Menes,  "the  con- 
sta,nt/'  the  founder  of  Memphis  and  of  the  Egyptian 
nation,  had  obtained  a  site  for  his  proposed  city,  by 
changing  the  course  of  a  branch  of  the  Nile.  Building 
a.  huge  dyke,  he  turned  the  river  from  its  old  bed  and 
then  filled  up  the  old  channel.  Temples,  reared  first, 
were  followed  by  a  large  population :  the  wonderful 
necropolis  was  begun,  and  pyramids  were  erected.  From 
the  beginning  society  seems  to  have  been  thoroughly 
organized.  The  Memphian  high  priests  were  great 
personages  in  the  young  state :  the  king  was  already 
the  Perao,  or  Pharaoh — "the  Great  House ^^ — with  his 
queen,  his  harem,  and  his  children.  There  were  nobles 
and  serfs ;  an  elaborate  organization  of  court  ceremonial  ; 
and  vast  numbers  of  officials  and  slaves  who  ministered 
to  the  royal  wants  or  glory.      There  was  a  keeper   of 


EGYPT  BEFORE  THE  HEBREW  SOJOURN.        29 

the  royal  wardrobe^  a  court  hairdresser  and  nail-trimmer, 
and  court  musicians  and  singers.  High  officials  took 
charge  of  the  royal  domains,  the  granaries,  the  cellars, 
the  oil- chamber,  the  bakery,  the  butchering,  and  the 
stables.  There  were  overseers  of  the  public  buildings, 
and  numerous  scribes,  to  record  all  public  and  private 
affairs.  But  amidst  all  this,  there  were  taskmasters, 
from  the  first,  over  the  wretched  common  people,  who 
toiled  at  forced  labour  under  the  blows  of  the  stick. 
The  army  was  fully  organized,  but  there  were  also 
men  of  science  to  study  the  heavens  for  religious  and 
other  ends,  and  to  measure  the  fields,  and  raise  the  great 
structures  in  which  the  king  delighted.  The  successors 
of  Mena  followed  in  his  steps.  Arts,  laws,  science  and 
religion,  were  zealously  promoted.  The  worship  of  the 
bull  Apis  and  the  calf  Mnevis  was  introduced,  mines  were 
opened  in  the  peninsula  of  Sinai,  and  fresh  pyramids 
were  built :  those  of  Gizeh  among  others.  Then  came 
Cheops,  the  builder  of  the  Great  Pyramid  raised  near 
the  mysterious  Sphinx;  the  work  of  some  earlier,  un- 
known king.  The  third  pyramid  followed,  and  then 
others.  Literature  grew  apace;  sculptures,  perfect  as 
those  of  the  Greeks,  as  seen  by  some  relics  still  left, 
showed  the  highest  culture  of  genius ;  gorgeous  tombs 
were  multiplied,  and  the  mines  of  Sinai  were  worked  with 
vigour.  The  name  of  one  of  the  first  kings  of  the  Sixth 
Dynasty,  Merira  Pepi,  is  found  on  the  oldest  monuments 
at  Tanis,  and  his  public  works  can  be  traced  all  over 
Egypt.  His  campaigns  extended  so  far  to  the  south  that 
negroes  were  enlisted  in  his  armies.  Before  long,  ships 
sailed  down  the  Eed  Sea  to  Punt  or  Somauli  land,  on 
the  east  of  Africa,  and  returned  with  the  products  of 
that  region.  The  whole  country  was  full  of  activity  of 
all  kinds. 


30  EGYPT   BEFOEE   THE   HEBREW   SOJOUEN. 

Tlie  capital  was  now  transferred  to  Thebes,  where 
monuments  of  the  Twelfth  Dynasty  still  remain.  Amen- 
emhat  I.  extended  the  empire  still  farther  to  the  south, 
and  after  waging  wars  in  all  other  directions,  left  the 
record  of  his  victories  on  the  walls  of  temples  built  by 
him  in  every  part  of  Egypt.  Usurtasen  I.,  his  successor, 
founded  On,  and  raised  its  great  Sun  Temple,  with  its 
obelisks.  Gold  flowed  in  from  Nubia,  and  turquoises  from 
the  mines  at  Sinai,  to  which  a  caravan  road  led  from 
the  Nile.  Fortresses  were  built  far  south,  against  the 
negroes,  and  the  glory  of  the  empire  increased  on  all 
sides.  The  tombs  of  Benihassan,  with  their  wonderful 
pictures  of  Egyptian  everyday  life  and  work,  date  from 
the  reign  of  Usurtasen  II.,  who  lived  about  the  time  of 
Abraham.  A  later  king  constructed  Lake  Moeris,  on  the 
Libyan  edge  of  the  desert,  as  a  vast  reservoir  of  the  Nile 
inundation,  of  priceless  worth  to  the  land,^  and  also  built 
the  wonderful  palace  known  as  the  Labyrinth,  with  three 
thousand  halls  and  chambers,  half  of  them  above  ground 
and  the  rest  below  it,  with  twelve  covered  courts.  Hero- 
dotus and  Strabo  alike  speak  of  it  as  an  amazing  work : 
the  latter  stating  that  it  was  a  representation  of  the 
whole  kingdom,  with  a  palace  for  each  of  the  twenty- 
seven  nomes.  Unfortunately  for  our  knowledge  of 
details,  however,  the  province  in  which  it  stood  wor- 
shipped the  god  Sebek,  or  Set,  whose  tutelary  animal 
was  the  crocodile,  on  which  account  both  it  and  its 
inhabitants  were  hated  and  ignored,  for  Sebek  was  the 
Satan  of  Egyptian  mythology. 

1  In  the  time  of  the  Eleventh  Dynasty  the  average  height  of 
the  Nile  inundation  was  nearly  7i  yards  above  that  of  our  times. 
Brugsch,  History  of  Egijpt,  vol.  i.  p.  167.  This  may  in  part  be 
accounted  for  by  the  elevation  of  the  land,  since,  by  the  Nile 
deposits. 


EGYPT  BEFOEE   THE   HEBREW   SOJOURN.  31 

Egypt  had  now,  more  fban  ever,  become  the  centre  of 
civilization.  Its  schools,  under  the  priests,  were  famous, 
and  intellectual  life  in  every  form  abounded.  Sculpture 
and  painting  reached  high  perfection,  and  books  on  all 
subjects  were  numerous ;  temples,  pyramids,  and  tombs 
were  extended  in  number ;  the  country  was  everywhere 
improved  by  public  works ;  boundaries,  public  and  private, 
were  minutely  fixed;  public  registers  kept;  industries 
of  all  kinds  multiplied  ;  commerce  with  Libya,  Palestine, 
and  other  regions  covered  the  roads  with  caravans,  and 
the  waters  with  vessels ;  gold  and  minerals  were  largely 
obtained  from  Sinai,  and  the  general  prosperity  attracted 
a  great  immigration  of  Libyans,  Ciishites,  and  Asiatic 
Bhepherd  tribes. 

But  prosperity  in  the  case  of  Egypt,  with  a  religion  so 
debased  and  a  people  enslaved,  was  no  security  against 
revolution,  when  the  central  despotism  fell  into  weak 
hands,  as  it  did  ere  long.  Civil  wars  broke  out  and  petty 
kingdoms  rose,  each  claiming  independence.  Meanwhile, 
events  on  the  Euphrates  were  destined  to  send  a  wave 
of  invasion  as  far  as  the  valley  of  the  Nile,  and  substitute 
foreign  for  domestic  rulers.  The  Chaldean  empire  of 
early  ages  had  fallen,  generations  before,  under  the  at- 
tacks of  nations  advancing  from  inner  Asia — apparently, 
Scythians — and  its  populations  had  been  largely  forced 
to  seek  new  homes.  In  the  obscurity  of  a  period  so 
remote,  little  definite  is  known  beyond  the  fact  that  the 
nomadic  races  of  Western  Asia  and  Syria,  driven  forward 
by  pressure  from  behind,  and  attracted  by  the  richness 
of  the  Nile  Valley,  united  with  the  Phenician  colonists  of 
the  northern  coast,  and  having  settled  in  ever  greater 
numbers  in  the  Delta,  at  last,  taking  advantage  of  the 
internal  troubles  of  Egypt,  rose  against  the  Fourteenth 
native  Dynasty,  which  then  occupied  Xois,  its  capital,  in 


82  EGYPT    BEFOEE    THE    HEBEEW   SOJOUEN. 

the  centre  of  the  Delta,  and  overthrew  it.  For  a  time 
all  was  misery.  Fierce  and  uncultured,  the  rough  shep- 
herd warriors  harried  and  devastated  the  land.  Towns 
and  temples  were  alike  pillaged,  burned,  or  destroyed; 
the  inhabitants  who  escaped  massacre  sinking,  with  their 
wives  and  children,  into  slavery.  After  the  taking  of 
Memphis,  however,  and  the  conquest  of  the  whole  Delta, 
the  barbarians  fortunately  elected  a  king  who  proved 
able  to  re-establish  a  settled  government. 

Two  dangers  were  to  be  guarded  against :  the  possible 
efforts  of  the  Egyptian  princes  at  Thebes,  in  the  south, 
to  organize  a  national  resistance ;  and  the  risk  of  invasion 
on  the  north  by  the  tribes  of  Canaan,  Syria  and  Elam. 
But  the  new  king  was  equal  to  the  occasion.  Establish- 
ing a  series  of  fortified  posts  in  the  Nile  Valley,  to  the 
south,  and  guarding  the  Isthmus  of  Suez  with  a  strong 
force,  he  secured  himself  from  both  perils.  He  further 
established  at  Avaris,  or  Pelusium,  at  the  extreme  north- 
east edge  of  the  Delta,^ — on  the  line  of  the  great  Egypt- 
ian wall, — a  vast  entrenched  camp,  in  which  no  fewer 
than  240,000  soldiers  could  be  quartered.  This  he  and 
his  successors  permanently  maintained,  as  at  once  their 
supreme  safeguard  against  invasion  at  the  one  point  from 
which  it  could  threaten,  and  as  an  inexhaustible  depot 
from  which  to  draw  soldiers  to  defend  the  southern  borders 
from  attack  by  the  native  princes,  and  to  overawe  the 
population  at  large.  Such  vigour  ere  long  naturally 
resulted  in  the  conquest  of  all  Egypt. 

The  Egyptians  gave  the  name  of  Shous,  or  Shasou, — 
the  "  shepherds,^^ — to  the  nomadic  tribes  of  Syria,  the 
Bedouins  of  their  times,  and  this  name  they  applied  to 

*  See  the  proofs  of  its  position  in  the  paper  of  Lepsius,  Monats- 
her.  der  h.  Ahad.  der  Wissenscliaften  zu  Berlin,  Mai,  1866,  and 
Ebers'  ^gypten  und  die  Buclier  Mose's,  pp.  82,  211. 


EGYPT  BEFOEE  THE  HEBREW  SOJOUEN.        33 

these  conquerors,  distinguisliing  their  king  as  the  Hyk, 
or  chief;  whence  their  later  Greek  name  of  Hyksos. 
They  were  also  known  as  "  the  archers/^  and  as  "  the 
thieves ''  and  "  robbers/'  Nor  can  their  invasion  have 
been  unmarked,  at  first,  by  terrible  harshness,  for  the 
tradition  of  it  wakes  the  bitter  indignation  of  Manetho  in 
the  recital,  twenty  centuries  later,  and  the  hatred  of  the 
conquered  population  vented  itself  at  the  time  by  fixing 
the  vilest  epithets, — ^Hhe  lepers,' '  "the  pestilence,-"  "the 
accursed,'' — on  their  masters.  But  the  influences  of  the 
civilization  around  soon  told  on  them,  and  ere  long  the 
conquerors  were  vanquished,  as  regarded  their  barbarism, 
by  the  conquered.  Despite  their  greater  political  and 
military  ability,  they  felt  themselves  inferior  to  their 
subjects  in  moral  and  intellectual  culture.  Their  kings 
soon  found  that  it  was  better  to  develop  the  country 
than  to  plunder  it,  and  as  they  themselves  could  not 
manage  the  fiscal  details  of  the  revenue,  Egyptian  scribes 
were  admitted  into  the  departments  of  the  exchequer, 
and  of  the  public  service.  Ere  long,  the  advancement  in 
civilization  was  striking.  The  court  of  the  Pharaohs 
reappeared  round  the  Shepherd  Kings,  with  all  its  pomp 
and  its  crowd  of  functionaries,  great  and  small.  The 
religion  of  the  Egyptians,  without  being  oflBcially  adopted, 
was  tolerated,  and  that  of  the  Hyksos  underwent  some 
modifications  to  keep  it  from  offending,  beyond  endurance, 
the  sensibilities  of  the  worshippers  of  Osiris.  Sutekh, 
the  warrior  god  of  Canaan,  and  the  national  god  of  the 
conquerors,  was  identified  with  the  Egyptian  god  Set. 
Tanis  became  the  capital  of  the  country,  and  saw  its 
palaces  and  temples  rebuilt  and  increased  in  number. 
Sphinxes  sculptured  at  this  period  enable  us  to  realize 
the  characteristics  of  the  race ;  for  the  face  differs  widely 
from  both  the  Egyptian  and  Semitic  types.     The  eyes 

VOL.    II.  D 


34  EGYPT   BEFORE   THE    HEBEEW   SOJOUEN. 

are  small,  tlie  nose  large  and  arched,  while  at  the  same 
time  comparatively  flat ;  the  chin  is  prominent,  the  lips 
thick,  and  the  mouth  depressed  at  the  extremities.  The 
whole  countenance  is  rude,  and  the  thick  hair  of  an 
enormous  wig,  as  it  would  appear,  hangs  round  the  head 
like  a  mane,  and  appears  to  bury  the  face.^  The  beard 
is  worn  long,  in  rows  of  small  curls,  but  the  upper  lip 
is  shaved.  Such  were  the  new  conquerors,  with  their 
foreign  lineaments,  and  their  rough  earnestness,  who 
held  Egypt  in  subjection  for  perhaps  five  hundred 
years. 

It  was  apparently  under  one  of  this  race,  whose  name 
has  come  down  to  us,  that  Joseph  became  grand  vizier — 
an  honour  which  a  foreign  Shepherd  King  would  be  more 
willing  to  show  to  a  member  of  a  shepherd  tribe  than  a 
native  Pharaoh  would  have  been.  Known  as  Apopi  in 
Egypt,  he  was  the  Aphobis  of  the  Greeks ;  and  as  he 
seems  to  have  been  the  restorer  of  Tanis,  and  the  king 
under  whom  its  rows  of  sphinxes  were  set  up,  it  is  not 
unlikely  that  in  their  striking  features  we  may  have  his 
own  portrait. 

Of  this  king,  a  papyrus  in  the  British  Museum  fortu- 
nately preserves  a  few  notices.^  *^It  came  to  pass,'' 
says  this  precious  document,  ''that  the  land  of  Egypt 
fell  into  the  hands  of  the  plague-like  men,  and  there 
was  no  king  in  Upper  Egypt.  When  Sekenen-Ra — the 
ruler — ^was  king  of  the  south  land,  the  impure  became 
masters  of  the  fortress  in  the  district  of  the  Amu  (the 
Semitic  races  of  the  Delta).  Apopi  was  king  in  the 
city  Avaris,  and  the  whole  land  appeared  before  him  with 
tribute;  doing  him  service  and  delivering  to  him  all  the 

1  Mariette,  Lettre  a  M.  le  Vicomte  de  Eouge,  p.  9,  Chabas,  Les 
Pasteurs,  p.  17. 

2  Sallier  Papyrus,  p.  1. 


EGYPT   BEFORE    THE    HEBREW   SOJOURN.  35 

fair  produce  of  tlie  Delta.  And  Apopi  chose  for  himself 
the  god  Set  as  his  lord^  and  served  no  other  god  which 
was  in  Egypt.  And  he  built  for  him  a  temple^  in  noble, 
enduring  work.  And  when  he  appeared  in  the  temple 
to  celebrate  a  festival  and  to  offer,  he  wore  garlands  as 
men  do  in  the  temple  of  Ra-Hormachuti.'"  Determined 
to  pick  a  quarrel  with  the  Egyptian  prince  of  Thebes,  he 
had  demanded  that,  like  himself,  he  should  give  up  the 
worship  of  his  gods  and  honour  Am  on  Ra  alone  ;  but  Ra- 
Sekenen,  while  yielding  all  else,  had  declined  to  pledge 
himself  to  this.  A  new  message,  however,  was  now 
contrived  and  sent  off  by  Apopi,  on  the  advice  of  his 
''experts"  or  scribes,  and  delivered  to  the  governor  of 
Thebes,  the  city  of  the  south.  This  dignitary,  on  the 
arrival  of  the  messenger,  who  had  hurried  to  him  without 
resting  day  or  night,  asks  him,  "  Who  sent  thee  here  to 
the  south  country?  Why  hast  thou  come  as  a  spy?'' 
"Then  the  messenger  answered,  '^  King  Apopi  it  is  who 
sent  me  to  thee,  and  he  says  "  Give  me  up  the  well  for 
cattle  which  is  in  the  .  .  of  the  land.  .  .  ."  ^  ^  Then 
the  ruler  of  the  south  was  troubled  and  knew  not  what 
to  say  to  King  Apopi. ^^  He  nerved  himself,  however, 
and  returned  an  answer,  unfortunately  lost,  to  the  mes- 
senger, who  then  went  back  to  Apopi's  court.  Mean- 
while Ra-Sekenen^  "called  together  the  ancients  and 
the  nobles  of  the  south  country,  and  the  chief  men  and 
captains,  and  told  them  the  message  which  king  Apopi 
had  sent.  And,  behold,  they  cried  out  with  one  mouth  : 
'  It   is   great   wickedness ! '      Yet   they  knew  not  what 

*  Brugsch  translates  the  words  as  referring  to  the  stopping  of 
a  canal. 

2  There  were  three  Ra-Sekenens,  who  also  bore  the  name  of 
Tau,  and  are  known  as  Tan  I.,  Tau  II.  the  Great,  and  Tau  III. 
the  Brave. 


36  EGYPT  BEFOEB   THE   HEBEEW   SOJOUEN. 

answer  to  send,  whether  good  or  bad.    Then  King  Apopi 
sent/^ — but  here  the  document  abruptly  ends.^ 

In  this  glimpse  of  Egypt  under  the  Hyksos  we  have 
apparently  the  beginning  of  an  account  of  the  great  war 
of  liberation,  from  the  Egyptian  side.  Apopi  is  still  all 
powerful,  and  sends  a  messenger  to  the  sub-king  of  the 
native  race  in  the  south  of  Egypt,  dictating  to  him  as 
a  master  to  a  dependent ;  but  the  chief  men  round  him 
resent  such  humiliation,  and  a  flame  of  national  en- 
thusiasm is  thus  kindled,  which  ended  in  expelling  the 
Hyksos  from  the  valley  of  the  Nile.  All  the  Egyptian 
under-kings  seem,  after  a  time,  to  have  taken  part  in  this 
national  uprising,  which  struggled  on  with  sullen  reso- 
lution for  a  hundred  and  fifty  years.  In  the  end  "  The 
Shepherds  ^'  were  driven  back  at  every  point  from  their 
fortresses  in  Middle  Egypt,  and  forced  to  make  a  stand 
under  the  walls  of  Memphis,  which  was  taken  after  a 
fierce  and  bloody  struggle.  Expelled  from  the  Delta, 
they  gathered  for  a  final  effort  to  regain  the  ground  they 
had  lost,  at  their  great  entrenched  camp  at  Avaris  or 
Pelusium,  on  the  frontier  wall,  at  the  extreme  north-east 
of  Egypt,  and  maintained  themselves  there  for  a  long 
time  against  all  the  attacks  of  the  Egyptians.  Gener- 
■  ations  indeed  passed  before  the  siege  was  successful,  but 
patient  determination  triumphed  in  the  end,  for  Aahmes 
I.,  in  the  fiftieth  year  of  his  reign,  at  last  stormed  the 
city,  and  drove  the  enemy  out  of  Egypt  into  Syria. 
The  valley  of  the  Nile  was  thus  finally  delivered  from  a 
foreign  yoke,  from  the  Cataracts  to  the  Mediterranean, 
after  a  subjugation  of  at  least  500  years.^ 

1  Brugsch,  vol.  i.  p.  241.  Ebers,  JEgypten,  p.  206.  Records  of 
the  Past,  vol.  viii.  p.  3. 

^  Maspero  says  "more  than  600,"  p.  176.  The  authorities  for 
this  epoch  are,  amongst  others,  Lepsius,   Chronologie.    Maspero, 


EGYPT   BEFORE    THE    HEBREW    SOJOURN.  37 

Strange  to  say,  the  narrative  of  one  who  took  part  iu 
the  closing  scenes  of  this  long  struggle,  and  was  present 
at  the  storming  of  Avaris  and  other  Hyksos  towns,  has 
come  down  to  us,  and  shows  how  unsettled  the  times  of 
the  Hebrew  sojourn  must  have  been  throughout.  Eighty 
years  of  oppression  followed  the  birth  of  Moses,  and 
many  others  may  have  preceded  it ;  but  before  these, 
successive  generations  of  the  Hebrew  settlers  had  seen 
the  storms  of  war  sweeping,  now  here,  now  there,  over 
the  land.  It  is  quite  possible,  indeed,  that  they  took 
sides  more  or  less  with  the  Shepherds,  with  whom 
they  were  connected  by  race,  and  perhaps  this  may 
have  embittered  the  persecution  to  which  they  were 
subsequently  exposed.  A  vigorous  and  warlike  people, 
which  had  shown  a  leaning  towards  the  hated  foreigners, 
would  be  peculiarly  dreaded  by  the  new  native  dynasty, 
and  specially  obnoxious  to  it. 

The  story  that  has  come  down  to  us  from  this  far-off 
age  is  that  of  Aahmes,  "the  chief  of  the  Egyptian  navy,'' 
or  "  Captain- General  of  Marines,"  and  is  written  on  the 
walls  of  his  tomb  on  the  east  side  of  the  river,  above 
Thebes,  in  sight  of  the  ancient  city  of  El  Kobs.  The 
dead  man  had  had  a  stirring  and  adventurous  life,  and 
wore  no  fewer  than  eight  gold  chains,  the  equivalents  of 
our  war  medals,  put  round  his  neck  by  the  Pharaoh, 
for  his  bravery  in  battle.  He  was  born  in  the  city  of 
Eilethya,  and  was  the  son  of  a  naval  officer,  in  whose 
good  ship.  The  Golf,  young  Aahmes  made  his  first 
acquaintance  with  the  service,  in  the  reign  of  Aahmes  I. ; 
after  whom,  very  likely,  his  father's  loyalty  had  had  him 
named.     He  was  still  only  a  lad,  too  young  to  be  married, 

Histoire  Ancienne.  Birch,  The  Papyrus  Ahlott  Chabas,  Les 
Pasteurs  en  Egypt  Eine  uEgypt.  Kdnigstocliter^  vol.  i.  pp.  Ill, 
222.     Trans.  8oc.  Bib.  Arch.,  vol.  i.  p.  265. 


38         EGYPT  BEFOEE  THE  HEBREW  SOJOUEN. 

and  was  entered  among  the  cadets.  After  a  time,  how- 
ever^ lie  took  a  wife,  and  settled ;  but  the  old  spirit  came 
on  him  again  and  he  was  appointed  to  a  post  on  the  ship 
called  The  North,  to  take  part  in  the  war  against  the 
Shepherd  Kings.  His  special  duty  was  complimentary 
to  his  birth  and  prowess,  for  it  was  to  follow  the  king,  on 
foot,  when  he  went  out  in  his  chariot.  The  final  siege  of 
Avaris  came  on  presently,  and  Aahmes  fought  so  stoutly 
at  it,  before  the  Pharaoh,  that  he  was  promoted  to  the" 
command  of  the  man  of  war  Croiuned  in  Memphis.  In 
this  ship  he  saw  service  on  lake  Pazetku,  near  Avaris, 
and  won  his  first  golden  collar  of  valour,  by  killing  and 
cutting  off  the  hand  of  an  enemy  in  a  hand-to-hand  fight, 
mention  being  made  of  the  fact  to  the  head  scribe,  who 
reported  it  to  Pharaoh.  After  that,  a  second  battle  took 
place  in  the  same  neighbourhood,  and  in  it  also  he  fougbt 
well  and  cut  off  a  hand  from  another  enemy,  which 
secured  him  a  second  golden  collar.  Then  came  fighting 
at  Takem,  to  the  south  of  Avaris,  and  he  carried  off  a 
living  man,  after  a  struggle  in  which  he  had  to  swim 
with  his  prisoner  to  a  distant  part  of  the  shore  so  as  to 
avoid  the  road  to  Avaris.  This  brought  him  a  third 
collar,  for  it  also  was  made  known  through  the  head 
scribe  to  the  king.  At  the  storming  of  Avaris  he  was 
even  more  fortunate,  for  he  there  took  a  grown-up  man 
and  three  women,  prisoners,  and  had  them  given  to  him 
as  slaves  by  the  Pharaoh.  In  the  sixth  year  came  the 
siege  of  the  town  Sharhana,  which  could  not  resist  his 
Holiness  the  king,  after  the  fall  of  Avaris.  Two  women 
prisoners  and  one  hand  of  a  slain  enemy,  rewarded  his 
bravery,  and  these  women  also  were  given  him  as  slaves. 
But  now  the  Shepherds  were  finally  crushed,  and  Aahmes 
found  himself  engaged  in  a  war  with  the  Phenician  popu- 
lation of  the  sea  coast  of  Palestine,  who  were  ere  long 


EGYPT   BEFORE   THE    HEBEEW    SOJOUEN.  39 

subdued.  The  eastern  frontier  was  forthwitli  protected 
against  new  invasions  by  a  line  of  additional  fortresses, 
and  piping  times  of  peace  might  have  come,  but  that  King 
Aahmes  proclaimed  war  against  the  Nubians  in  the  far 
south.  Thither,  however,  we  will  not  follow  the  story,  be- 
yond saying  that  Aahmes  won  more  slaves,  and  got  grants 
of  land  for  his  valour.  Under  Kings  Amenophis  I.,  and 
Thothmes  I.,  he  had  as  warlike  a  career,  and  was  at  last 
raised  by  the  latter  to  the  high  rank  of  Admiral  of  the 
Fleet,  or  Captain-General.  Fortunately,  his  last  campaigns 
brought  him  back  to  regions  more  interesting  to  us,  for 
war  broke  out  against  Syria.  There,  he  was  fortunate 
enough  to  attract  the  notice  of  the  king,  when  he  was  at 
the  head  of  his  force,  by  carrying  off  a  chariot  of  war, 
with  its  horses  and  the  men  in  it,  and  leading  them  to 
him ;  his  valour  was  recognised  once  more  by  the  gift  of 
his  eighth  collar.*     Here  his  interesting  story  ends. 

During  the  long  dominion  of  the  foreigners  the  temples 
had  fallen  into  decay,  but  now  that  peace  was  restored, 
and  Egypt  once  more  free,  the  king,  to  prove  his 
gratitude,  began  the  work  of  restoring  them  in  more 
than  their  original  splendour.  The  deserted  quarries  in 
the  Arabian  hills  were  re-opened,  and  limestone  blocks 
brought  from  them  to  rebuild  the  sanctuaries  of  Memphis, 
Thebes,  and  other  cities — a  rock  tablet  in  the  quarries 
still  showing  them  on  their  way ;  each  dragged  on  a  kind 
of  sledge  by  six  yoke  of  oxen.  But  Egyptian  temples 
were  too  vast  to  be  quickly  completed,  for  the  inscription 
in  that  of  Edfou  shows  that  180  years  3  months  and  14 
days  elapsed  between  its  foundation  and  its  completion. 
The  work  of  restoration,  therefore,  must  have  been  going 
on  as  long  as  the  Hebrews  were  in  Egypt. 

1  Brugsch,  vol.  i.  p.  249.  Page  Eenouf,  in  Records  of  the  Past, 
vol.  vi.  pp.  7-10. 


40  EGYPT   BEFOEE   THE    HEBEEW   SOJOUEN. 

Before  leaving  the  period  of  the  Shepherd  Kings,^  a 
curious  fact  in  connection  with  their  exclusive  worship  of 
the  god  Set  deserves  notice.  That  god  had  been  hon- 
oured from  the  earliest  times  in  Egypt,  having  had  a 
temple  in  Memphis  as  far  back  as  the  Fifth  Dynasty,  and 
abundant  traces  of  the  reverence  paid  him  occurring  in 
the  times  of  the  Fourth  Dynasty,  that  is  eight  dynasties 
before  the  days  of  Abraham.  But  the  name  Sutekh 
or  Set  is  the  Egyptian  word  for  Baal,  and  is  represented 
by  the  same  sign;  a  strange  fact,  which  supports  in 
the  most  striking  way,  from  its  incidental  character,  the 
statement  of  Genesis  as  to  the  common  origin  of  the 
peoples  of  Egypt  and  Canaan.^  ^^  The  comparative  study 
of  the  form  of  the  language  of  ancient  Egypt ;  ^'  says 
M.  de  Rouge,  ^^  the  sacred  traditions  of  a  neighbouring 
people  j  and  the  fact  that  one  and  the  same  religion  wa3 
common  from  the  first  to  certain  peoples  of  Syria  and  the 
Delta;  all  bring  us  back  toward  the  primitive  kindred 
of  Mizraim  and  Canaan ;  a  kindred  which  various  traits 
indicate  to  us  as  also  existing  between  these  two  races 
and  their  Arabian,  Libyan,  and  Ethiopic  neighbours.^'  ^ 

Manetho's  pictures  of  the  wild  ruin  spread  by  the 
Hyksos  over  Egypt  on  their  first  arrival — the  sacking  of 
temples,  burning  of  cities,  and  oppression  of  the  people 
— have  been  fancied  by  modern  students  to  be  greatly 
exaggerated.  It  is  at  least  certain  that  the  Egyptians, 
including  even  the  priests  of  the  Theban  god  Amon, 
were  accustomed,  in  the  time  of  the  Hyksos  and  after 
their  expulsion^  to  give   their  children  Semitic  names, 

^  Hofmann  has  a  long  article  in  the  Studien  u.  Eritihen  (1839, 
pp.  393-348),  to  prove  that  the  Hyksos  were  the  Israelites. 

2  Tomkins,  Life  and  Times  of  Ahraham,  p.  145.  Brugsch, 
Egypt,  vol.  i.  p.  212.     Eine  ^Egypt.  Konigstochter,  vol.  i.  p.  231. 

^  De  Rouge,  Six  Frem.  Dyn.,  p.  9. 


■5GTPT  BEFOEE   THE  -HEBEEW   SOJOURN.  41 

borrowed  from  tlie  language  of  tlie  Shepherd  hordes, 
and  that  they  voluntarily  offered  homage  to  their  god. 
The  native  Egyptian  princes,  who  had  lost  their  throne 
by  the  invasion,  naturally  hated  them  and  strove  to 
blacken  their  memory,  but,  in  the  opinion  of  Brugsch,^ 
there  are  no  traces  of  anything  like  a  permanent  and 
ineradicable  abhorrence  of  them  on  the  part  of  the 
nation,  beyond  the  aversion  of  an  exclusive  and  cere- 
monially strict  race  for  a  people  counted  *^  unclean/' 

The  fall  of  the  Shepherds  introduced  the  Eighteenth 
Dynasty,  of  which  Aahmes,  or  as  he  is  sometimes  called, 
Amosis,  was  the  first  king.  He  reigned  twenty-five 
years,  and  was  succeeded  by  his  queen,  as  regent  for 
their  son.  From  her  appearing  in  some  cases  in  the 
paintings  as  black,  it  has  been  assumed  that  she  was  a 
negress,^  but  as  she  is  represented  in  others  with  the 
usual  yellow  complexion  of  Egyptian  women,  it  may 
be  that  the  black  is  only  introduced  in  her  case,  as  it 
frequently  is  in  similar  ones,  in  allusion  to  her  having 
passed  to  the  dark  regions  of  the  grave  .^  Her  son 
Amenophis  I.,  on  his  assuming  the  crown,  continued  his 
father^s  policy  of  extending  the  empire.  The  military 
spirit,  roused  by  the  long  war  of  independence,  developed 
itself,  in  fact,  from  the  times  of  Aahmes,  in  a  lust  of 
foreign  conquest.  Long  oppressed,  the  Egyptians  now 
resolved,  in  their  turn,  to  oppress.  Vast  numbers  of  the 
"  Shepherds,^'  preferring  slavery  in  the  valley  of  the 
Nile,  to  banishment  to  the  desert  or  to  other  lands,  had 
to  bear  the  degradation  which  they  had  hitherto  imposed 
on  others — to  hew  the  stones  of  the  quarry  and  to  mould 
the  bricks  of  temples  and  cities ;  toils  and  humihations 

1  Briigsch,  vol.  i.  pp.  255  ff. 

2  Birch,  Egypt,  etc.  p.  81.     Maspero,  p.  176, 
8  Brugsch,  vol.  i.  p.  279 


42  EGYPT   BEFOEE   THE    HEBREW   SOJOUEN. 

wMcli  the  Hebrews,  and  otlier  races,  had,  sooner  or  later, 
also,  to  undergo.  Outside  the  empire,  expansion  was 
most  easy  on  the  north-east ;  the  desert,  and  perhaps  the 
poverty  of  the  inhabitants,  discouraging  aggression  -on 
the  south  or  west.  To  make  future  invasion  impossible 
from  Syria  and  the  countries  beyond,  the  Egyptian 
legions  were  marched  into  Palestine,  as  the  high  road  to 
Asia.  Henceforth,  for  five  hundred  years,  the  national 
records  are  little  more  than  a  roll  of  victories  and 
conquests,  from  the  sources  of  the  Blue  Nile  to  those 
of  the  Euphrates,  over  all  Syria  and  Ethiopia.  The 
Hebrew  tribes  in  the  Delta,  became  familiar  with  tri- 
umphal processions  of  generals  and  princes  returning 
from  the  various  seats  of  war.  One  day,  the  spoils  of 
southern  victories  were  seen,  in  long  trains  of  negro 
prisoners,  giraffes  led  in  halters,  chained  apes  and 
baboons,  tame  panthers  and  leopards.  On  another,  the 
barbarians  of  the  north,  as  they  were  called,  were  led 
along  in  similar  triumphs,  with  strange  headdresses, 
sometimes  of  the  skins  of  wild  beasts,  the  edges  float- 
ing over  their  shoulders,  and  their  own  fair  skins  set  off 
by  painting  or  strange  tatooing.  A  victory  over  the 
Rutenni  in  Syria,  or  the  taking  of  some  centre  of  the 
Syrian  trade,  on  still  another  day,  filled  all  mouths,  or 
there  had  been  a  victory  over  the  Libyans  and  their 
allies  west  of  the  Delta.  The  flourish  of  trumpets,  and 
the  rolling  of  drums  in  these  grand  military  displays 
became  familiar,  and,  doubtless,  many  of  the  sons  of 
Israel  were  often  among  the  noisy  multitude  that  rent 
the  air  with  their  acclamations,  drowning  the  measured 
chants  of  sacred  choirs  heading  the  regiments  as  they 
marched.  It  was  a  time  of  rapid  fortunes  to  some,  but  of 
great  suffering  to  the  people,  who  had  to  bear  the  con- 
scription for  the  endless   wars.     Aahmes,  the  son  of  a 


EGYPT  BEFORE  THE  HEBREW  SOJOURN.        43 

sea-captain^  could  hope  to  return  a  great  man,  though  he 
began  as  a  humble  cadet,  but  in  the  hut  of  the  peasant 
there  was  mourning  over  the  strong  man  fallen  on  a 
distant  field.^ 

The  monuments  fortunately  preserve  some  details  of 
these  years,  which  farther  light  up  the  period  of  the 
Hebrew  sojourn,  and  help  us  to  know  what  subjects  were 
talked  of  in  the  cabins  of  the  Tribes,  while  still  on  the 
Nile.  The  queen  of  Aahmes,  they  would  hear,  was  pro- 
claimed a  goddess  before  her  death,  as  founder  of  the  new 
Eighteenth  Dynasty,  and  her  son  Amenophis  I.  for  the 
first  time  among  Egyptian  kings,  had  himself  painted 
on  the  temples,  in  a  wheeled  chariot,  drawn  by  horses.^ 
He  had  also  built  a  mighty  temple  in  Thebes,  and  he 
waged  wars  in  Ethiopia  and  Libya,  but  an  interval  of 
peace  marked  the  closing  years  of  his  reign.  Then  came 
his  son,  Thothmes  I.,  "  the  child  of  the  god  Thoth,''  the 
holy  scribe  of  the  gods,  the  first  king  of  Egypt  who 
carried  its  standards  to  the  distant  Euphrates.  Bat  he 
bore  them  also  as  far  south  as  four  degrees  inside  the 
tropic,  or  fully  700  miles  south  of  the  Mediterranean, 
where  his  presence  is  still  recorded  in  rock  tablets  near 
Tombos.  This  far  reaching  glory  was  not  without  its 
efiects  at  home.  The  plunder  of  Syria  and  of  the  south 
was  succeeded  by  a  steady  flow  of  their  wealth  in  the 
more  peacefal  channels  of  commerce.  Richly  laden  ships 
floated  down  the  Nile  from  the  tropics,  bearing  cattle 
and  rare  animals,  panther  skins,  ebony,  costly  woods, 
balsam,  sweet  smelling  resins,  gold  and  precious  stones, 
and  negroes  in  vast  numbers,  prisoners  of  war,  now 
doomed  to  slavery.     In  the  mines  of  Wawa,  in  Nubia, 

^  See  Maspero,  p.  179;  also  Uarda,  passim. 
2  Birch,  p.  82.     The  horse  itself  is  first  mentioned  in  the  reign 
of  Aahmes. 


44  EGYPT   BEFOEE   THE   HEBEEW   SOJOURN. 

captives  and  slaves  dug  gold-bearing  quartz  from  tlio 
rocks  of  tlie  scorching  gullies,  and  after  crushing  it  in 
mills,  with,  deadly  toil  washed  out  the  particles  of  goM, 
under  the  eyes  of  Egyptian  soldiers.  The  wretchedly 
barren  Nubian  valleys  paid  the  penalty  of  their  mineral 
riches  in  the  misery  of  their  people.^  From  Ethiopia 
the  tide  of  war  turned,  next,  against  the  north. 
Palestine,  Lebanon,  and  Syria  in  the  widest  sense,  felt 
the  shock  of  invasions ;  to  be  repeated  for  five  hundred 
years,  as  a  war  of  vengeance  against  these  countries, 
to  wipe  out  the  humiliation  of  Egypt  in  the  times  of 
the  Shepherd  Kings.  Nothing  would  content  Thothmes 
till  he  had  ^*  washed  his  heart,^^  that  is,  cooled  his  anger, 
by  a  victory  in  Mesopotamia,  and  this  he  gained,  after 
advancing  triumphantly  through  Palestine,  northwards. 
Nor  are  we  to  think  of  the  Kheti  or  Hittites,  and  other 
tribes  of  Canaan  and  Syria  whom  he  conquered,  as  in- 
glorious foes;  the  varied  and  lavish  booty  taken  by  the 
Egyptians  from  them,  as  recorded  in  the  monuments, 
reveals  a  high  civilization  and  prosperity.  Chariots  of 
war,  blazing  with  gold  and  silver ;  splendid  coats  of  mail  ; 
weapons  of  all  sorts,  finely  made ;  gold,  silver,  and  brazen 
vases;  household  furniture  of  every  kind,  down  to  tent 
poles  and  footstools;  with  countless  objects,  besides, 
which  only  civilization  could  produce,  disclose  an  amazing 
development  of  artistic  skill  and  social  refinement  in 
Canaan  and  Western  Asia,  centuries  before  the  Hebrew 
conquest  under  Joshua.  Even  their  military  organization 
taught  Egypt  lessons.  Chariots  of  war  with  their  pairs 
of  horses,  thenceforward  took  a  prominent  place  in  tbe 
Egyptian  order  of  battle — the  horse  bearing  on  the 
monuments  the  Semitic  name  of  Sus,  and  the  charioteer 
the  Semitic  name  of  Kasan.  The  very  arrangement  and 
^  Brugscli,  vol.  i.  p.  289. 


EGYPT   BEFOEE    THE    HEBEEW   SOJOUEIT,  45 

composition   of   tlie   Egyptian  army  were  more  or   less 
moulded  after  Canaanite  and  Syrian  models.-^ 

Thothmes  died  early,  after  begmning  a  great  temple 
at  Thebes,  which  his  illustrious  son  Thothmes  III.  was 
to  extend  and  beautify  beyond  precedent.  His  favourite 
wife,  Hashop,  who  was  also  his  sister,  had  borne  him  a 
di.ughter  and  two  sons,  but  the  elder  of  these,  Thothmes 
II.,  was  cut  off  before  he  had  reigned  any  length  of  time, 
though  not  before  he  had  waged  war,  once  more,  on  the 
peoples  of  the  far  south.  Meanwhile  Hashop,  clever  and 
energetic,  had  a  series  of  royal  tombs,  the  like  of  which 
she  intended  should  never  again  be  seen  in  Egypt,  cut 
into  the  rocks  near  Thebes,  at  a  height  reached  only  by 
grand  flights  of  steps,  rising  stage  on  stage ;  and  there 
her  father,  Amenophis  I.,  and  her  husband- brother  were 
laid.  But  though  now  a  widow,  she  had  no  thought 
of  retiring  from  power.  Throwing  aside  her  woman^s 
veil,  she  appeared  in  all  the  splendour  of  Pharaoh, 
as  a  born  king,  in  man's  attire,  with  the  crown  and 
insignia  of  royalty,  and  seated  herself  on  the  throne  as 
sole  ruler ;  putting  her  brother,  Thothmes  III.,  a  minor, 
in  virtual  restraint.  Once  supreme,  her  first  act  was  to 
efface  all  traces  of  her  brother-husband  from  the  monu- 
ments, replacing  them  by  her  own  name  and  that  of  her 
father — she  taking  that  of  Ma  Ka  E-a  and  affecting  the 
title  of  king.  The  magnificent  temples  already  begun 
were  carried  on  vigorously,  but  this  did  not  satisfy  the 
bright  intelligence  of  the  man- woman.     She  planned  a 

^  Professor  Sayce  in  a  letter  to  The  Times,  January  23rd,  1880, 
and  in  the  Trans,  of  the  Soc.  of  Bib.  Arch.,  July  6th,  1880,  has  shown 
that  the  Hittite  empire  at  one  time  extended  from  the  Euphrates 
to  the  shores  of  the  Grecian  Archipelago,  at  the  west  extremity 
of  Asia  Minor.  It  was  thus,  in  its  day,  the  greatest  power  in  the 
world,  so  far  as  we  know. 


46  EGYPT   BEFOEB    THE    HEBEEW    SOJOUEN. 

voyage  of  discovery  to  the  land  of  "  Punt.^'  ^  A  fleet  of 
sea- going  vessels  was  prepared  for  the  long  and  dan- 
gerous venture,  which  was  safely  accomplished,  down  the 
Red  Sea  and  along  the  hitherto  unknown  coast  of  Africa, 
as  far  as  Cape  Guardaf ui,  at  the  extreme  point  where  the 
coast  turns  directly  south.  Pictures  on  Hashop's  Temple 
near  Thebes  still  remain,  describing  the  wonders  of  the 
enterprise;  long  inscriptions  adding  curious  details. 
The  adventurers  saw  the  terraced  mountains  on  which 
incense  trees  grew.  The  people  lived  in  huts  built 
on  piles,  a  ladder  being  needed  to  enter.  Cocoa-nut 
palms  lent  a  friendly  shade ;  strange  birds  showed  them- 
selves on  the  branches,  and  stately  herds  of  cattle 
reposed  around.  Rich  treasures  in  stones,  plants  and 
animals  rewarded  the  voyagers,  who  returned  with  their 
ships  safely,  bearing  thirfcy-one  incense  trees  in  great 
tubs,  samples  of  the  woods  of  the  country,  heaps  of 
incense,  ebony,  objects  in  ivory  inlaid  with  gold,  from 
Arabia  and  elsewhere ;  paint  for  the  eyes  ;  giraffes,  leo- 
pards, bulls,  hunting  leopards,  dog-headed  apes,  long- 
tailed  monkeys,  greyhounds,  leopard  skins,  gold,  copper, 
and  much  else,  besides  a  number  of  the  natives  of  the 
country  with  their  children.  A  grand  ceremonial  attended 
their  return,  particulars  of  which  we  may  be  sure  cir- 
culated through  Goshen,  as  elsewhere.  The  treasures 
brought  home  were  meanwhile  presented  to  the  god 
Amon,  under  whose  auspices  the  voyage  had  been  under- 
taken. A  new  festival,  moreover,  was  instituted  in  his 
honour,  the  king- queen  showing  herself  in  her  richest 
attire,  '^  a  spotted  leopard  skin  with  copper  clasps  on  her 
shoulders,  and  her  limbs  perfumed  like  fresh  dew.-"  The 
holy   bark  of  Amon  was   carried   on   the   shoulders   of 

^  Punt  or  Pount  seems  connected  with  Puni  or  Poeni — the  red 
men — the  Phenicians — as  originally  men  of  Cash. 


EGYPT   BEFORE    THE    HEBREW    SOJOURN.  47 

priests,  amidst  music  and  song,  and  a  long  procession 
of  court  officials,  warriors,  great  people  and  priests 
approached  his  temple  :  the  priests  bearing  offerings ; 
the  warriors  peaceful  branches;  and  the  vast  multitude 
shouting  for  joy. 

Hashop's  reign  was  splendid,  but,,  ere  long,  she  had  to 
allow  her  brother,  the  great  Thothmes  III.,  to  share  the 
royal  honours  with  her,  which  he  did  for  twelve  years. 

During  his  long  reign  of  fifty-four  years  in  all,  Thothmes 
proved  the  Egyptian  Alexander  the  Great,  and,  more- 
over, left  behind  him  a  world  of  monuments,  from  the 
grandest  temples  to  distant  rock  tablets,  inscribed  with 
his  name  and  deeds.  Egypt,  indeed,  became  the  chief 
power  of  the  world  for  a  time.  Its  arms  were  carried 
to  the  verge  of  the  then  known  earth,  south,  east  and 
west.  Countless  riches  were  laid  up  in  its  temples,  and 
commerce  flowed  into  it  from  all  lands.  Inscriptions  on 
the  grand  temple  halls  of  Karnak  recorded,  as  Tacitus 
informs  us,  "the  tributes  imposed  on  the  nations;  the 
weight  in  silver  and  gold,  the  number  of  weapons  and 
horses,  the  presents  in  ivory  and  sweet  scents,  given  to 
the  temples;  how  much  wheat  and  things  of  all  kinds 
each  nation  had  to  provide ;  in  truth  not  less  great  than 
at  present  the  power  of  the  Parthian  or  Eoman  mio-ht 
imposes.^' 

This  great  Pharaoh  had  to  toil  through  more  than 
thirteen  campaigns,  during  twenty  years,  before  he  had 
gained  his  ends.  The  tributary  nations  had  not  only 
refused  their  payments  during  the  reign  of  Hashop,  but 
had  leagued  together  against  Egypt,  and  needed  to  be 
subjugated  afresh.  Town  after  town  had  to  be  stormed ; 
river  after  river  crossed ;  country  after  country  traversed. 
The  first  efforts  were  directed  against  the  kings  and 
chiefs  of  Palestine,  and  ended  in  their  complete  over- 


48  EGYPT  BEFOEE   THE   HEBREW   SOJOURN. 

tlirow  at  a  battle  on  the  plain  of  Esdraelon.  The 
fugitives  made  for  the  fortress  of  Megiddo^  which  was 
presently  stormed,  active  resistance  being  thus  finally 
put  down.  A  rich  booty  rewarded  the  victors.^  Silver, 
gold,  lapis  lazuli,  turquoise  and  alabaster,  jars  of  wine,, 
flocks  for  the  use  of  the  army,  chariots  plated  with  gold, 
an  ark  of  gold,  924  chariots,  suits  of  brazen  armour,  200 
suits  of  armour  for  the  soldiery,  502  bows,  7  poles  of  the 
chiefs  pavilion  plated  with  silver,  1,949  bulls,  22,500 
goats,  besides  gems,  gold  dishes  and  vases ;  a  great  cup, 
the  work  of  Syria;  other  vases  for  drinking,  having 
great  stands ;  swords,  gold  and  silver  in  rings,  a  silver 
statue  with  the  head  of  gold  ;  seats  of  ivory,  ebony,  and 
cedar,  inlaid  with  gold ;  chairs,  footstools,  large  tables 
of  ivory  and  cedar,  inlaid  with  gold  and  precious  stones ; 
a  sceptre  inlaid  with  gold ;  statues  of  the  Canaanitish 
king,  of  ebony  inlaid  with  gold,  the  heads  being  of  gold  ; 
vessels  of  brass;  an  infinite  quantity  of  clothing ;  280,000 
bushels  of  corn  reaped  from  the  plain  of  Megiddo,  and 
a  vast  number  of  prisoners,  who  henceforth  became  slaves, 
are  comprised  in  the  long  enumeration.  Nor  was  this 
all.  The  tribute  of  the  Eutenni,  or  Syrians,  is  given 
as  including  a  king's  daughter,  adorned  with  gold — as 
a  wife  to  Thothmes.  It,  also,  comprised  ornaments  of 
silver,  gold,  and  lapis  lazuli,  slaves  male  and  female,  a 
hundred  gold  chariots,  a  chariot  of  silver  inlaid  with  pure 
gold,  four  chariots  covered  with  plates  of  gold,  six  chariots 
of  copper,  the  chest  of  agate;  1,200  oxen,  104  pounds 
weight  of  silver  dishes  and  beaten  out  silver  plates,  a  gold 
breastplate  inlaid  at  the  edge  with  lapis  lazuli,  a  brass 
suit  of  armour  inlaid  with  gold,  and  many  others  of  a 
plainer  kind,  823  large  jars  of  incense,  1,718  of  wine  and 
honey,  much  ivory,  a  vast  quantity  of  the  best  fire-wood 
^  Annals  of  Thothmes  III.,  Records  of  the  Fast,  vol.  ii.  p.  45. 


EGYPT   BEFORE    THE    HEBREW    SOJOURN,  49 

for  the  army,  and  a  quantity  of  wheat  so  great  that  it 
could  not  be  measured.  Some  of  these  particulars  may 
have  already  been  given,  but  this  fuller  list  shows  still  more 
vividly  the  remarkably  advanced  civilization  of  Palestine 
and  the  neighbouring  countries  in  these  early  ages.^ 

The  return  of  Thothmes  to  Egypt  after  his  Palestine 
campaigns  was  a  famous  event  in  local  history,  and  must 
have  stirred  the  Hebrew  community  hardly  less  than 
it  did  their  fellow-countrymen,  the  native  Egyptians. 
The  great  triumphal  procession  at  Thebes  would  probably 
be  rehearsed  first  in  Lower  Egypt,  which  was  always 
regarded  as  a  separate  "  world,^^  and,  if  so,  many  an 
Israelite  would  wonder  at  the  sight  of  the  captive  princes. 


EGTPTIAIf   WaB   PeISONEES, 

their  children  and  their  subjects,  following  the  young 
hero :  the  numberless  horses,  oxen,  goats,  and  curious 
animals  ;  the  strange  productions  of  the  conquered  lands, 
in  endless  variety ;  the  splendour  and  richness  of  the 
treasures  of  gold  and  silver  vessels  and  works  of  art ;  the 
precious  stones,  magnificent  robes  and  furniture;  the 
costly  woods  ;  the  grand  chariots,  statues,  coats  of  mail, 
and  much  else,  which  passed  before  him. 

The  addition  to  the  Great  Temple  at  Karnak  of  the 

^  The  list  is  from  Records  of  the  Past,  vol.  ii.  pp.  45  ff.,  and 
Brugsch,  vol.  i.  pp.  327  ff.  It  is  engraved  on  the  walls  of  part  of 
the  Great  Temple  of  Karnak. 

VOL.    II.  E 


60  EGYPT  BEFOEE   THE   HEBEEW   SOJOtJKN. 

famous  Hall  of  Pillars,  still  standing,  was  ere  long  begun, 
as  a  royal  tbankofFering  to  Amon.  Three  '^  feasts  of 
victory,"  of  five  days  each,  at  once  rewarded  the  army 
and  honoured  the  god,  and  the  priests  were  made  loyal 
by  the  vast  offerings  presented. 

Thothmes  III.  undertook  no  fewer  than  fourteen  cam- 
paigns against  the  inhabitants  of  Western  Asia,  between 
the  twenty-third  and  fortieth  years  of  his  reign;  Palestine 
and  Syria  bearing  the  brunt  of  most,  but  one,  at  least, 
extending  to  Mesopotamia ;  if  not,  indeed,  as  Dr.  Birch 
thinks  possible,  even  to  India.  Of  all  these,  exact  records 
were  inscribed  on  the  walls  of  the  temple  at  Karnak, 
with  wonderful  pictures  of  the  chief  incidents,  and 
even  of  the  productions  and  animals  of  the  different 
regions  conquered.  Water-lilies  of  gigantic  size,  plants 
like  cactuses,  all  sorts  of  trees  and  shrubs,  leaves,  flowers, 
and  fruits ;  oxen  and  calves ;  a  strange  creature  with 
three  horns,  herons,  sparrow-hawks,  geese  and  doves  are 
intermingled  in  the  great  battle-pictures,  to  give  an  idea 
of  the  animals  and  vegetation  of  the  countries  in  which 
triumphs  had  been  won.  Nor  were  paintings  and  in- 
scriptions the  only  memorials  of  the  great  conqueror. 
Poets  sang  his  praises  and  those  of  the  god  Amon,  who 
had  given  him  the  victory  :  a  custom  familiar  for  ages  in 
Egypt,  before  Moses  and  the  children  of  Israel  sang  their 
hymns  in  honour  of  the  true  God,  for  the  destruction  of 
Pharaoh  and  his  host  in  the  Red  Sea.^ 

The  temples,  palaces,  colossal  statutes,  obelisks,  and 
public  buildings,  erected  or  restored  by  Thothmes  in 
every  part  of  Egypt,  have  mostly  perished,  but  the 
Great  Temple  at  Karnak  and  some  of  his  colossi  still 
remain,  so  grand  in  their  decay  as  to  fill  the  mind  with 
awe.  What  wonder  if  his  idolatrous  contemporaries 
1  Birch's  Egyjpt,  vol.  ii.  p.  87.   Brugsch,  vol.  i.  p.  370. 


EGYPT   BEFOEE    THE    HEBREW    SOJOUEN.  51 

already  worshipped  him  as  a  divine  being  while  alive, 
and  transferred  to  him  after  his  death  the  still  higher 
honours  of  a  god  passed  to  heaven  ?  The  victorious 
conqueror  and  ruler  of  the  whole  world  as  then  known  : 
''  The  beautifier  of  the  land '' ;  "  The  always  fortunate  ;  " 
his  name  was  inscribed  on  thousands  of  little  images  and 
small  stone  scarab^ei,  which  were  used  as  rings ;  and  its 
invocation  was  held  to  be  a  charm  against  wicked  spirits 
and  magicians. 

Amenhotep  II.,  the  son  of  Thothmes,  was  a  man  of 
remarkable  powers,  but  his  fame  is  obscured  by  his 
father's  greatness.  He,  too,  led  the  Egyptian  armies  to 
Mesopotamia,  taking  Palestine  by  the  way,  and  also  to 
Nubia  in  the  south ;  filling  the  earth  with  blood  as  his 
father  had  done,  and  draining  the  country  of  its  sons. 
Thothmes  IV.,  the  next  king,  was  no  less  energetic,  for 
his  campaigns  embraced  twenty-two  degrees  of  longitude, 
from  Mesopotamia  in  the  north,  to  Ethiopia  in  the  far 
south.  It  is  worthy  of  note  that  the  Great  Sphinx,  beside 
the  pyramids,  having  already,  thus  early,  been  almost 
buried  in  the  drifting  sand,  was  cleared  by  him,  in 
consequence  of  a  dream  apparently  directing  him  to  do 
so.  The  whole  incident  is  curious.  Thothmes  had  been 
hunting  the  gazelle,  and  holding  a  spear-throwing  at 
targets,  for  his  pleasure,  near  Memphis.  But  as  noon 
approached  he  had  let  his  servants  retire  for  rest,  and 
had  himself  gone  to  the  temple  of  Sokar  in  the  necro- 
polis, to  bring  to  the  god  Hormakhu  ^  and  the  goddess 
Eamni,  an  offering  of  '^the  seeds  of  the  flowers  on  the 
heights,^'  and  to  pray  to  the  great  mother  I  sis.  The 
sphinx,^  close  at  hand,  was  held  to  be  the  likeliess  of 

*  The  sphinx,  worshipped  as  "The  Sun  on  the  Horizon." 
'  The  sphinx  is  a  figure  of  an  animal  form  with  a  human  head, 
hewn  out  of  the  living  rock,  so  huge  that  there  was  a  temple 


52         EGYPT  BEFOEE  THE  HEBREW  SOJOURN. 

Kephra,  or  Cheops^  the  builder  of  tlie  Great  Pyramid, 
wliom  the  flattery  of  the  multitude  worshipped  as  a  god 
• — indeed,  as  the  greatest  god  of  these  parts ;  "  To  whom 
the  inhabitants  of  Memphis  and  of  all  towns  in  its  district 
raise  their  hands,  to  pray  before  his  countenance  and  to 
offer  rich  sacrifices/'  "  On  one  of  these  days  the  prince 
in  his  wandering  had  stretched  himself  in  the  shade  of 
the  great  god  (the  sphinx),  when  sleep  overtook  him, 
and  he  dreamed,  exactly  at  noon,  and  it  seemed  as  if  the 
great  god  spoke  to  him  with  his  own  mouth,  as  a  father 
speaks  to  his  son,  in  these  words  :  ^  Behold  me,  look  at 
me,  thou,  my  son  Thothmes.  I  am  thy  father  Hormakhu 
(the  sphinx),  Kephra  (Cheops),  Ea  (the  sun),  Toum  (the 
setting  sun).  The  kingdom  shall  be  given  to  thee,  and 
thou  shalt  wear  the  white  crown  and  the  red  crown 
on  the  throne  of  the  earth- god  Set,  the  youngest  among 
the  gods.  The  earth  shall  be  thine  in  its  length  and  in 
its  breadth,  as  far  as  the  light  of  the  eye  of  the  Lord  of 
All  shines.  Plenty  and  riches  shall  be  thine.  .  .  . 
The  sand  of  the  district  in  which  I  have  my  existence 
has  covered  me  up.  Promise  me  that  thou  wilt  do  what 
I  in  my  heart  wish ;  then  will  I  acknowledge  that  thou 
art  my  son  and  my  helper. '  ■''  ^  After  this,  Thothmes 
awoke,  and  resolved  to  obey  the  dream,  which  he  did 
forthwith,  by  clearing  away  the  sand  from  the  sphinx. 
Such  a  significant  dream,  told  of  one  of  the  kings  who 
reigned  during  the  Hebrew  sojourn  on  the  Nile,  reminds 
us  of  those  in  the  story  of  Joseph. 

Thothmes  lY.  was  succeeded  by  Amenhotep  III.,  a 
king  well  nigh  as  great  as  Thothmes  III.,  if  we  may 
judge  from  the  number  and  beauty  of  the  monuments  he 

between  its  fore  paws.  It  is  190  feet  in  length  and  of  propor- 
tionate height,  but  is  in  great  part  buried  under  the  rolling  sand 
of  the  desert.  ^  Brugsch,  vol.  i.  pp.  415-417. 


EGYPT   BEFORE    THE    HEBREW    SOJOURN. 


63 


has  left  behind  him,  and  from  the  contemporary  records 
that  have  survived.  Mesopotamia  on  the  north,  and  the 
land  of  the  negroes  on  the  south^  were  the  boundaries  of 
his   empire.     Strong   and   courageous,  in   his   visits   to 


The  Colossi  at  Thebes.    Statues  op  Amenhotep  ITT. 


Mesopotamia  he  deh'ghted  in  hunting,  and  records  that 
he  speared  with  his  own  hand  no  fewer  than  two  hundred 
and  ten  lions.  In  war,  his  greatest  deeds  were  performed 
in  Ethiopia,  the  California  of  those  ages.     Two  colossal 


54  EGYPT   BEFORE   THE    HEBREW    SOJOURN. 

statues  of  him,  whicli  still  rise  seventy  feet  above  the 
sand  at  Thebes,  stood  originally  in  front  of  a  great  temple 
of  Amon  which  he  built,  but  which  is  now  entirely 
gone.  Besides  these,  he  left  temples,  rows  of  sphinxes, 
and  vast  rock  tombs  as  his  magnificent  memorials.  Above 
all,  his  wise  sayings  were  treasured  for  ages.  After  his 
reign  of  thirty-five  years  came  his  son  Amenhotep  IV., 
"  the  long  lived,''  whose  mother,  the  darling  wife  of  his 
father,  had  been  neither  of  royal  blood  nor  even  an 
Egyptian.  This  invalidated  his  title  to  the  throne,  and 
roused  the  jealousy  of  the  priestly  corporations  against 
him,  zealous  as  they  were  for  the  strictest  observance  of 
the  laws  of  royal  succession,  since  the  Pharaohs  were  not 
only  kings  but  gods.  He  had,  moreover,  learned — per- 
haps from  his  foreign  mother — to  slight  the  worship  of 
Amon,  the  great  God  of  Thebes,  and  of  the  other  Egypt- 
ian gods.  Hence,  though  he  built  temples  to  them, — he 
worshipped  only  the  ^' One  God  of  Light'' — the  sun — in 
honour  of  whom  he  went  even  so  far  as  to  change  his 
name  to  Khunaten — 'Hhe  splendour  of  the  sun's  disk." 
He  further  erased  the  name  of  Amon  and  of  his  divine 
wife  Mut  from  the  monuments,  and  proclaimed  himself 
"a  high  priest  of  Hormakhu,"  and  a  ''friend  of  the 
sun's  disk."  The  cry  of  "The  Church  in  danger"  rose 
from  the  priests  of  the  dishonoured  gods,  and  led  to  a 
rebellion,  on  account  of  which  Amenhotep  removed  his 
capital  from  Thebes  to  Middle  Egypt.  There  a  new  city 
— Khu-aten,  the  city  of  Aten,  the  sun — was  forthwith 
built;  with  a  grand  temple  to  the  sun-god  Aten,  in  a 
foreign  style,  and  palaces  and  public  buildings,  nearly 
all  of  granite,  laboriously  brought  from  Assouan  or 
Syene.  Though  soft  and  feminine  in  his  features,  and 
of  a  weak  unmanly  figure,  Amenhotep  was  far  from  being 
either  weak  or  irresolute  in  character.     Before  leaving 


EGYPT   EEFOEE    THE    HEEEEW    SOJOURN.  55 

Thebes,  he  had  compelled  the  dignitaries  of  the  empire 
to  unite  with  labourers  and  masons  in  building  a  huge 
pyramid  of  sandstone  in  honour  of  the  "  God  of  Light " ; 
the  noblest  lords,  including  even  the  specially  illustrious 
*' fan-bearers^^'  being  required  to  play  the  humble  part 
of  overseers  of  the  workmen  who  cut,  shipped,  and  put 
together  the  stone.  But  he  was  as  tender  and  faithful  in 
his  domestic  relations  as  he  was  proud  and  stern  towards 
his  opponents,  and  clung  zealously  to  his  new  faith; 
which,  indeed,  was  much  purer  and  loftier  than  the  creed 
he  had  discarded.  His  rupture  with  the  priests  must 
have  been  the  great  topic  of  the  times  in  Goshen  and 
over  all  the  land,  but  it  did  not  shake  his  throne,  for  he 
died  in  peace — leaving  seven  daughters  but  no  son — 
after  a  reign,  not  without  glory  from  the  deeds  of  his 
armies  abroad,  and  famous  for  his  honest  worth  at  home. 

The  husband  of  the  third  daughter  of  this  king  suc- 
ceeded him  on  his  throne,  and  has  had  his  memory 
preserved  by  a  remarkable  painting  in  the  tomb  of  a 
Theban  contemporary.  It  shows  us  the  king  on  his 
throne  receiving  the  homage  and  tribute  of  the  nations 
subject  to  him.  Kichly  laden  ships  bring  the  gifts  and 
dues  of  the  negro  populations,  and  with  them  appears 
a  negro  queen,  who  has  come  on  a  chariot  drawn  by 
oxen,  surrounded  by  her  slaves  and  officials,  to  visit  the 
Pharaoh  and  lay  rich  presents  at  his  feet,  as  the  Queen 
of  Sheba  in  a  later  age  came  to  Solomon. 

The  brown-skinned  kings  of  Palestine  are  also  painted 
in  rich  dresses,  their  black  hair  elaborately  curled ;  offer- 
ing to  Pharaoh  Syrian  horses,  led  by  red-bearded  men  of 
low  stature  ;  costly  and  beautiful  works  of  their  country, 
in  silver,  gold,  blue  stone  and  green  stone ;  and  all  kinds 
of  jewels ;  as  an  expression  of  their  wish  for  peace,  and 
of  their  respect.     But  Tut-ank-Amon,  as  the  king  called 


56  EGYPT   BEPOEE    THE    HEBREW    SOJOUEN. 

himself,  was  only  an  illegitimate  pretender,  for  his  queen, 
through  her  mother,  was  not  of  the  pure  blood  of  the 
Pharaohs ;  so  that,  although  he  returned  to  the  old  faith, 
and  thus  gained  the  outward  support  of  the  priests,  he 
failed  to  secure  their  warm  loyalty.  Hence,  when  he 
died  after  a  short  reign,  without  a  legitimate  successor, 
the  throne  was  seized  by  Khunaten's  former  Master  of 
the  Horse — "The  Holy  Father  Ai,^^  who  seems  to  have 
made  a  remarkably  good  king.  Gossip  about  him  must 
have  been  rife  from  the  Mediterranean  to  Nubia, — how 
his  wife  had  been  nurse  to  king  Khunaten,  the  heretic ; 
how  this  had  raised  Ai,  already  a  lord  of  the  court  and  a 
"holy  father ^^  of  the  highest  grade,  to  even  higher 
dignities ;  how  he  had  been  successively  "  fan-bearer 
on  the  right  hand  of  the  king,  and  superintendent  of  the 
whole  stud  of  Pharaoh,^*  and  "  the  royal  scribe  of  justice.^^ 
Nor  had  his  wife  fared  less  generously,  for  rumour  would 
justly  recount  how  "the  high  nurse,  the  nourishing 
mother  of  the  godlike  one,  the  dresser  of  the  king^^ 
increased  in  riches  and  honour,  year  by  year.  Wisely 
orthodox,  Ai  had  the  support  of  the  priests,  and  was 
allowed  by  them  to  prepare  a  tomb  for  himself  amongst 
those  of  the  kings  at  Thebes.  As  the  Pharaoh,  his 
armies  preserved  the  wide  limits  of  the  empire,  and  even 
won  great  victories,  but  he  had  no  heirs,  and  the  succes- 
sion to  the  throne  was  once  more  a  difficulty  at  his  death. 
Another  Pharaoh  had  to  be  discovered,  and  the  good 
fortune  fell  in  this  case  on  a  person  who  had  no  con- 
nection with  royalty  except  his  having  married  a  sister 
of  the  queen  of  Amenhotep  III.  His  name,  however, 
helped  him,  for  it  was  Horemhib,  or  Horus,  one  of  the 
great  gods.  An  inscription  records  the  strange  steps 
of  his  elevation.  In  his  youth  he  had  the  happiness 
of   being   presented   to   the  Pharaoh,  who   named   him 


EGYPT   BEFOEE    THE    HEBREW    SOJOURN.  57 

"guardian  of  the  kingdom."  "In  all  his  deeds  and 
ways/'  he  tells  us,  "  he  followed  in  the  path  of  the  gods 
Thoth  and  Ptah,  justice  and  truth,  and  they  were  his 
shield  and  his  protection  on  earth,  to  all  eternity."  He 
was  afterwards  raised  to  the  great  dignity  of  the  Adon 
of  the  land,  and  held  the  office  for  many  years.  This  was 
the  position  granted  to  Joseph,  and  hence  the  honours 
paid  the  son  of  Jacob  may  be  gathered  from  those  shown 
to  Horemhib  in  the  same  office.  "  The  great  men  at 
the  court  bowed  before  him,  and  the  kings  of  foreign 
nations  of  the  south  and  north  came  before  him,  and 
stretched  out  their  hands  at  his  approach,  and  praised 
his  soul,  as  if  he  had  been  god.  His  authority  was 
greater  than  that  of  the  king  in  the  sight  of  mortals, 
and  all  wished  him  prosperity  and  health." 

His  adoption  as  the  crown  prince  of  the  land  followed, 
and,  next,  his  selection  for  the  throne,  after  the  death  of 
"The  Holy  Father."  An  inscription  detailing  the  in- 
cidents of  his  coronation  throws  light  on  the  relations 
of  the  priesthood  to  the  Pharaohs  and  their  immense 
influence  in  Egypt.  "  The  noble  god  Amon  (that  is,  his 
priests,  the  most  powerful  corporation  in  the  land)  gave 
command  to  conduct  the  god  Horus  (the  intended  king) 
to  Thebes  .  .  to  deliver  him  his  royal  office  and  to 
establish  it  for  the  term  of  his  life."  Then  came  a  grand 
coronation  procession,  and  "Amon  Pa  was  moved  with 
joy."  The  daughter  of  the  late  king  was  forthwith 
given  to  him  as  queen.  ..."  Then  went  Amon 
(that  is,  his  image  was  carried  by  the  priests)  with  his 
son  (the  new  king)  before  him,  to  the  hall  of  kings, 
to  set  his  double  crown  on  his  head.  There  the  gods 
(that  is,  the  choirs  of  their  priests)  cried  out :  '  We  will 
to  invest  him  with  his  kingdom ;  we  will  to  bestow  on 
him  the  royal  attire  of  the  sun  god  Ra ;  we  will  to  praise 


58  EGYPT   BEFOEE   THE    HEBREW   SOJOUEN. 

Amon  in  him.  ,  ,  .'  And  the  great  name  of  tills 
godlike  one  was  settled  and  his  title  recorded/^  ^ 

*'  After  this  festival  in  the  southern  country  was 
finished^  Amon,  the.kiog  of  the  gods  (that  is,  the  priests 
bearing  the  image  of  Amon  with  them)  went  in  peace  to 
Thebes,  and  the  king  went  down  the  river  in  his  ship, 
like  an  image  of  the  god  Hormakhu.  Thus  he  had 
taken  possession  of  the  land,  as  was  the  custom.  He  re- 
newed the  dwellings  of  the  gods  (the  temples.)^  He  had 
all  their  images  re-sculptured,  each  as  it  had  been  before. 
He  set  them  up  in  their  temple,  and  he  had  one  hundred 
images  made,  one  for  each  of  them,  of  like  form,  and  of 
all  kinds  of  costly  stones.  He  visited  the  cities  of  the 
gods,  which  lay  as  heaps  of  rubbish  in  the  land,  and  had 
them  restored.  .  .  He  took  care  of  their  daily  festival 
of  sacrifice,  and  of  all  the  vessels  of  the  temples,  of  gold 
and  silver.  He  provided  the  temples  with  holy  persons 
and  singers,  and  with  the  best  of  the  bodyguards,  and 
he  presented  to  them  arable  land  and  cattle,  and  supplied 
them  with  all  kinds  of  provision  which  they  required,  to 
sing  thus,  each  morning,  to  the  sun-god  Ea :  '  Thou 
hast  made  the  kingdom  great  for  us  in  thy  son,  who  is 
the  consolation  of  thy  soul,  king  Horemhib.  .  .  /  '* 
The  great  pyramid  raised  by  the  heretic  king  Khunaten 
was  soon  after  destroyed,  its  stones  being  taken  to  raise 
an  addition  to  the  temple  of  Amon,  and  thus  the  triumph 
of  the  priests  was  at  last  complete.^ 

With  Horemhib  expired  the  Seventeenth  Dynasty. 
The  Eighteenth  was  that  under  which  the  oppression  of 
the  Hebrews,  and  their  deliverance,  took  place,  but  both 
were  still  some  generations  distant. 

1  Hymns  iu  which  the  Pharaoh  was  adored  as  the  sun-god 
are  still  extant. 

2  Pa'p.  Anastasi,  II.  v.  6.         '^  Brugsch,  vol.  i.  pp.  462-473, 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE   OPPRESSION   IN    EGYPT. 

OF  the  history  of  the  Jews  in  Egypt  we  know  nothing 
directly  except  in  its  last  period^  and  even  of  that 
we  have  only  a  few  brief  and  fragmentary  notices.  They 
evidently,  however,  by  degrees  laid  aside,  to  a  large 
extent,  their  tent  life  as  wandering  shepherds,  and 
applied  themselves  in  some  cases  to  agriculture ;  digging 
canals  from  the  east  branch  of  the  Nile  to  water  their 
fields  :  in  others  to  the  various  trades  and  arts  of  Egypt ; 
and  thus  passed  from  a  lower  to  a  higher  state  of  social 
development.  Reuben,  Manasseh  and  Gad,  indeed, 
alone  clung  to  the  old  shepherd  life  after  the  Exodus. 

No  country  in  these  early  ages  was  so  far  advanced 
in  civilization  as  Egypt ;  none  could  boast  so  grand  a 
history;  such  far  reaching  power;  such  splendour  of 
architecture;  such  knowledge  of  arts  and  sciences;  such 
royal  magnificence  in  its  government,  or  such  accumu- 
lated wealth  in  its  national  treasury  and  in  the  hands  of 
its  nobles  and  priests.  To  use  the  words  of  Ewald, 
Egypt — like  Athens  and  Eome  in  later  ages,  in  their 
relations  to  the  northern  races — was  a  magnet  which 
attracted  or  drove  from  it  the  less  cultured  peoples 
round — a  school  for  wandering,  conquering,  or  conquered 
nationalities,  from  which  none  went    away  as  they  had 

59 


60  THE    OPPEESSION   IN    EGYPT. 

come.^  A  community  settled  in  itj  as  the  Hebrews  had 
been^  for  over  four  hundred  years,  must  have  insensibly 
caught  more  or  less  the  modes  of  thought  and  special 
ideas  predominant  on  all  sides  round  them.  Above  all, 
they  must  have  been  largely  influenced  by  the  strange 
religion  prevailing.  Lofty  and  philosophical  in  theory  or 
in  the  secret  interpretation  of  the  initiated ;  splendid  in 
its  ritual  and  temples,  and  universally  honoured  in  the 
land;  it  had  doubtless  much  to  attract.  Traces  of  the 
great  primeval  revelation  of  the  One  living  and  only  God 
still  survived,  ^  though  veiled  and  confused  by  the  poly- 
theism which  had  sprung  up.  Thus  in  a  hymn  to  the 
god  Amen,^  we  find  the  lines  : — 

"  One  only  art  Thou,  Thou  Creator  of  beings, 
And  Thou  only  makest  all  that  is  created. 

He  is  one  only,  Alone,  without  equal, 
Dwelling  alone  in  the  holiest  of  holies." 

A  few  among  the  higher  priests  doubtless  whispered, 
as  a  mystery  trusted  only  to  themselves,  the  existence 
of  this  One  only  God,  self  existent,  ^'  His  own  Father  and 
Son,^^  "the  To-day,  Yesterday,  and  To~morrow,^'  the 
"  I  Am  whom  I  am ;  "  *  but  these  glimpses  of  the  august 
truth  were  so  thickly  veiled  and  shaded  by  the  countless 
and  varied  forms  of  the  Egyptian  pantheon,  as  to  elude 

^  Quoted  in  "[Thiemann's  IsraeUten  und  Hyhsos,  p.  2. 

2  Durch  Gosen,  p.  628.     Uarda,  vol.  i.  p.  45. 

^  Siilaq  Papyri,  p.  17.  Translated  by  Goodwin,  Trans.  So'3. 
Bih.  Arch.,  vol.  ii.  p.  250.  Records  of  the  Fast,  vol.  ii.  p.  129.  It 
has  been  translated  also  by  Grebaut  and  Stern.  See,  also,  Uarda, 
vol.  i.  p.  45. 

^  See  this  name,  afterwards  rightly  assumed  by  Jehovah  as 
due  only  to  Him — quoted  from  the  hieroglyphics,  in  Ebers'  Burch 
Gosen,  p.  528,  if,  indeed,  his  interpretation  be  right. 


THE   OPPRESSION  IN   EGYPT.  61 

the  recognition  or  comprehension  of  the  multitude.  In 
this  very  hymn  indeed.  Amen  is  said  to  be  begotten  by 
Pfcah,  the  local  god  of  Memphis.  But  to  breathe  even 
this  confused  vision  of  the  truth  beyond  the  small  circle 
of  the  instructed  few  was  an  impiety,  to  be  severely 
punished.^  To  the  world  at  large  in  the  Nile  Valley, 
there  were  seven  gods  of  the  highest  rank — Ra,  the  sun- 
god,  the  great  national  divinity,  and  Osiris  and  his  family. 
From  these  had  emanated  a  second  grade  of  twelve  gods, 
at  whose  head  stood  the  moon-god  Thoth,  and  from  these 
again,  a  third,  of  thirty  demi-gods.^  But  all  these  divini- 
ties took  so  many  names  and  forms  of  both  sexes,  that 
the  mind  could  not  retain  more  than  a  few.  Nor  was 
this  the  worst.  From  the  earliest  ages,  it  had  been  the 
strange  custom  in  Egypt  to  regard  certain  beasts,  birds, 
fishes,  and  even  insects  as  the  symbols  of  particular  gods.* 
The  crocodile,  the  goat,  the  sheep,  the  scarabseus  beetle, 
the  ox,  the  dog,  the  dog-faced  ape,  the  shrew  mouse,  the 
cat,  the  wolf,  the  ichneumon,  the  lion,  the  hippopotamus, 
the  ibis,  some  serpents,  the  sparrow-hawk,  some  fishes, 
and  some  vegetables,  were  sacred  in  wider  or  narrower 
districts,  and  although  perhaps  regarded  by  the  educated 
or  reflecting  few  as  only  symbols,  were  worshipped  by 
the  multitude  as  in  some  way  divine.  Offerings  were 
presented  to  the  sacred  animals;  priesthoods  maintained 
in  their  honour;  magnificent  temples  built  for  their 
reception;  grand  festivals  held  in  their  praise,  and 
public  lamentations  made  at  their  death;  whilst  to  kill 
one  of  them  was  a  capital  crime.  They  were  regarded 
as  incarnations  in  which  the  particular  god  had  veiled 
himself,  to  watch  the  better  from  this  disguise  the  lives 

*  TJarda,  vol.  i.  p.  46. 

2  Lepsius,  JEgypten,  Herzog,  vol.  i.  p.  142. 

*  J.  E.  Miiller,  in  Herzog,  vol.  xvi.  p.  49. 


62 


THE   OPPEESSION  IN   EGYPT. 


beast   tumbling 
a  carpet   of  purple."" 


of  his  worsbippers  and  the  current  of  events.  Clement 
of  Alexandria  aptly  expresses  the  feeling  of  the  outside 
world  towards  this  strange  religion.  "  The  holy  places 
of  the  temples/^  says  he,  '^  are  hidden  by  great  veils  of 
cloth  of  gold.  If  you  advance  towards  the  interior  of 
the  building  to  see  the  statue  of  the  god^  a  priest  comes 
to  you  with  a  grave  air,  chanting  a  hymn  in  the  Egyptian 
language,  and  lifts  a  corner  of  the  gorgeous  curtain  to 
show  you  the  divinity.  But  what  do  you  see  ?  A  cat,  a 
crocodile,  a  serpent,  or  some  other  dangerous  animal. 
The  god  of  the  Egyptians  ap- 
pears; it  is 
about   on 

The  multitude,  ever  incapable  of 
refined  distinctions  between  the 
idol  or  symbol  and  the  god  which 
had  veiled  himself  in  its  out- 
ward form,  paid  divine  honours 
directly  to  the  sacred  bird  or 
beast.  Nothing  more  degrading 
than  such  a  monstrous  faith 
could  be  conceived.  Thus,  the 
people  of  Thebes  worshipped  the 
crocodile,  which  was  killed  as 
hateful  farther  up  the  Nile.  A 
fine  specimen  having  been  caught,  the  priests  taught  it 
to  eat  from  their  hands,  and  carefully  tended  it.  Golden 
earrings  were  hung  in  its  ears  and  bracelets  set  on  its 
forefeet.^  Strabo  gives  an  account  of  a  visit  to  one.  "  Our 
host,^'  says  he,  "  took  cakes,  broiled  fish,  and  a  drink 
prepared  with  honey,  and  then  went  towards  the  lake  ^ 

1  Herod.,  ii.  69. 

2  The  sacred  lake  in  the  temple  grounds,  made  for  the  divine 
crocodile. 


The  God  Thoth.    The  Sceibe 
OF  THE  Gods. 


THE    OPPEESSION   IN   EGYPT. 


63 


with  ns.  The  brute  lay  on  the  bank,  whither  the  priests 
went  to  it.  Two  of  them  then  opened  its  jaws,  and  a 
third  put  into  its  mouth,  first  the  cakes,  then  the  fish, 
and  finally  they  poured  the  drink  down  its  throat.  After 
this,  the  crocodile  shambled  into  the  water  and  swam  to 
the  bank  on  the  other  side.  Another  stranger  having 
arrived  with  a  similar  offering,  the  priests  took  it,  made 
the  circuit  of  the  lake,  and  having  reached  the  crocodile, 
gave  it  to  him  in  the  same 
way.''^^  It  was  not  uncommon 
for  rich  people  to  spend  im- 
mense sums  on  a  splendid 
funeral  of  a  sacred  cat,^  dog, 
or  ram ;  ^  and  so  zealous  were 
the  multitude  in  their  wor- 
ship, that  even  so  late  as  a 
century  and  a  half  before 
Christ,  a  Roman  living  in 
Alexandria,  having  by  acci- 
dent killed  a  cat,  was  seized 
by  the  crowd,  on  the  fact  be- 
ing known,  and  put  to  death 
on  the  spot,  though  he  was  a 
Roman  citizen,  and  though 
the  king,  who  dreaded  Rome 
and  trembled  for  his  crown, 
implored  them  to  spare  the  unfortunate  man's  life.* 

Some  of  these  beast-gods  were  only  locally  famous ; 
others  were  honoured  by  the  whole  country.  The  ram 
was  honoured  at  Thebes,  where  the  great  god  Amon  had 
a  ram^s  head.     At  Mendes,  in  the  heart  of  the  Hebrew 


Sevek-ea. 


Eine  ^gyjpt.  Konigst.,  vol.  ii.  pp.  51,  212. 


^  Strdbo,  xvii.  1. 

^  Diodorus,  i.  84. 

''  Ihld ,  i.  83.     See,  also,  another  case,  vol.  i.  p.  15. 


64  THE   OPPRESSION   IN   EGYPT. 

district,  the  goat  was  sacred  to  the  god  Binebtat,  who 
was  represented  with  a  goat's  head  and  legs.  His  wor- 
ship, in  keeping  with  his  symbol,  was  wildly  fanatical, 
and  hateful  for  its  orgies  of  lust  and  impurity.^  At 
Kynopolis,  the  dog;  at  Lycopolis,  the  wolf,  and  perhaps 
the  jackal;  at  Bubastis,  the  cat;  at  Tochompso,  the 
crocodile  was  worshipped.  Every  household,  moreover, 
had  its  sacred  bird,  which  it  fed  during  its  life  and 
buried  with  the  family  after  its  death,  when  it  had  been 
carefully  embalmed.^  The  goddess  Pecht  had  the  head 
of  a  cat,  Hathor  that  of  a  cow,  and  Osiris  was  worshipped 
Tinder  an  obscene  symbol. 

The  goat  of  Mendes  was  "the  soul  of  Osiris ;''  the 
calf  Mnevis  of  On,  "  the  soul  of  Ra,''  the  great  sun-god. 
The  phoenix,  a  fabulous  bird,  was  an  incarnation  of 
Osiris,  as  the  ibis  was  of  Thoth  and  the  sparrow-hawk 
of  Horus.  But  the  ox  Apis,  at  Memphis,  not  far  from 
Goshen,  was  the  supreme  expression  of  the  divinity  in 
an  animal  form.  He  was  regarded  as  an  incarnation  of 
Osiris  and  Ptah,  together,  and  hence  was  honoured  as 
at  once  "the  second  life  of  Ptah,''  and  "the  soul  of 
Osiris."  ^  He  had  no  father,  but  a  ray  of  light  quickened 
him  in  the  womb  of  his  cow  mother  which  henceforth 
could  bear  no  other  calf.*  It  was  required  that  he  be 
black,  with  a  triangular  white  spot  on  his  forehead  ;  the 
figure  of  a  vulture  or  eagle  with  outspread  wings  on  his 
back,  and  that  of  a  scarab^eus  on  his  tongue.  Such 
marks,  it  need  hardly  be  said,  never  appeared,  but  the 
priests  had  symbols  which  they  accepted  in  their  stead, 

^  The  Hebrews  seem  to  have  been  drawn  away  by  this  idol 
and  to  have  sacrificed  to  him.  Lev.  xvii.  7.  Deut.  xxxii,  17.  In 
these  texts  the  word  "  devils,"  is  to  be  translated  "  goats." 

2  Creuzer's  Sijmholik,  p.  158. 

3  Straho,  xvii.  1.  *  Serod.,  iii.  28. 


THE    OPPEESSION   IN   EGYPT. 


65 


as  astronomers  fancifully  recognize  the  outline  of  a 
dragon,  a  bear,  or  a  lyre  in  the  positions  of  the  stars  of 
different  constellations.^  He  was  not  allowed,  however, 
to  live  more  than  twenty-five  years.  At  the  end  of  this 
period  he  was  drowned  in  the  sacred  fountain  of  the  Sun, 
and  his  embalmed  body  was  then  laid  with  great  public 
solemnities  in  a  magnificent  tomb.^ 

With  all  this  degradation,  however,  the  Egyptian 
religion  had  the  glory  of  maintaining  the  immortality  of 
the  soul  as  one  of  its  most 
cherished  doctrines,  and  with 
this  the  resurrection  of  the 
body;  though  they  linked 
the  continued  existence  of  the 
spirit  to  that  of  the  frail  tene- 
ment in  which  it  had  lived  on 
earth. 

In  the  midst  of  such  an 
idolatry  the  Hebrews  could 
for  themselves  see  its  results. 
Cherishiug  for  generations  the 
lofty  faith  of  Abraham,  they 
must  have  kept  very  much 
apart  while  the  pure  creed  of 
the  patriarchs  still  held  its 
ancient  place  in  their  hearts. 
They  saw  the  race  which  honoured  beast-gods  sunk  into 
degradation,  and  treated  as  slaves  by  their  kings  and  the 
higlier  castes.  There  was  no  reverence  for  man  as  man, 
no  recognition  of  the  personal  freedom  of  the  population 
at  large.  The  Pharaohs  boasted  of  descent  from  the 
gods   and   were   worshipped  even    during    their   life   as 

1  Mariette,  Bulletin  Arch,  de  VAthencBum,  1855,  p.  54. 

2  Page  16. 

VOL.   II.  V 


The  God  Amou". 


66 


THE   OPPEESSION   IN   EGYPT. 


divine,  and  the  whole  land  and  all  the  people  in  it  be- 
longed to  them.  If  a  portion  of  the  soil  were  left  to  the 
peasant  it  was  an  act  of  grace.  There  was,  in  fact,  no 
'^people''  in  Egypt;  only  slaves.  They  were  forced 
to  toil,  at  the  royal  will,  in  raising  temples,  pyramids, 
and  cities,  under  the  eyes  of  remorseless  "  drivers.'^  Nor 
was  any  sympathy  for  the  suffering  multitude  shown 
by  the  priests,  who  steadily  ranged  themselves  on  the 
side  of  power.     Thus^  sunk  in  political  degradation,  the 

multitude  sought  compensa- 
tion in  immorality.  Gentle 
and  patient  as  they  were,  the 
Egyptians  were  also  specially 
impure.  With  such  a  wor- 
ship, they  gave  the  reins  to 
the  baser  passions,  for  why 
should  a  man  be  better  than 
his  gods  ?  Unnatural  vices 
prevailed  on  every  side.^ 
Universal  and  open  impurity 
marked  their  great  yearly  re- 
ligious festivities  at  Bubastis 
and  Dendera,  ^  at  which 
700,000  people  sometimes 
were  assembled. 
It  would  have  been  astonishing  if,  amidst  such  corrup- 
tion, the  Hebrews  had  remained  un contaminated.  Yet 
the  wonder  is  they  were  not  worse  than  they  proved. 
Their  independence  and  separate  nationality,  long  re- 
spected, doubtless  shielded  them  in  part,  yet  they  had, 

^  Herod.,  ii.  46.  Lev.  xviii.  3  ff.  "After  the  doings  of  the 
land  of  Egypt  wherein  ye  dwelt  shall  ye  not  do."  See  especially 
ver.  23.     Comp.  with  Herod.,  ii.  60. 

2  Ebers,  Durcli  Gosen,  p.  483. 


Anubis. 


THE   OPPRESSION   IN  EGYPT.  67 

as  a  people^  lapsed  into  a  very  low  spiritual  condition 
when  Moses  appeared.  The  name  of  the  God  of  their 
fathers  had  been  forgotten,^  and  they  had  "  defiled  them- 
selves with  the  idols  of  Egypt,  ^  and  worshipped  a  calf, 
perhaps  the  symbol  of  the  god  Mnevis,  under  the  very 
shadow  of  Sinai.  They  would  appear  also,  as  already 
said,  to  have  sacrificed  to  the  sacred  goat  Mendes,^ 
which  was  so  much  honoured  in  Egypt  that  the  whole 
land  mourned  its  death.  Indeed,  after  the  conquest  of 
Canaan  they  still  clung  to  the  worship  of  Egyptian  gods.* 
Nor  was  idolatry  the  only  evil  learned  by  their  long 
sojourn  on  the  Nile.  Ezekiel,  so  late  as  the  time  of  the 
Captivity,  reminds  them  how  even  their  maidens  had 
yielded  to  the  impurities  of  Egypt,  and  had  given  them- 
selves up  to  shameless  sin.^ 

But  if,  on  the  one  hand,  the  Hebrews  were  thus  con- 
taminated by  the  religion  and  morals  of  the  Nile  Valley ; 
on  the  other  hand,  they  gained  much  in  their  social  and 
national  development  by  residence  there.  Surrounded 
by  the  highest  existing  culture,  they  gradually  became 
fitted  for  independent  national  life.  The  sciences,  arts, 
and  mode  of  life  of  their  neighbours  re-appear  more  or 
less  in  their  future  history;  in  the  medical  knowledge 
of  Israel,  its  civilization,  its  laws  and  customs,  and  even 
its  knowledge  of  writing.  Arithmetic,  geometry,  and 
acquaintance  with  the  heavens  were  unknown  to  them 
before  entering  Egypt ;  and  arts,  of  which  no  trace  exists 
in  the  patriarchal  times,  appear  among  them  immediately 
after  the  Exodus.  We  find  them  then  executing  delicate 
work  in  gold,  silver,  wood  and  stone ;  skilled  in  weaving, 


»  Exod.  iii.  13.  2  Ezek.  xx.  7,  8. 

8  Page  64,  n.  .  *  Josh.  xxiv.  23. 

^  Ezek.  xxiii.  8. 


68  THE   OPPRESSION   IN   EGYPT. 

embroidering  and  dyeing,^  and  able  to  cut,  set  and 
engrave  precious  stones.^ 

Nothing  is  told  us  of  their  history  in  Egypt,  but  an 
allusion  in  Chronicles^  may  refer  to  an  unsuccessful 
attempt  to  break  away  from  the  Nile  before  the  days  of 
Moses.  Their  families  grew  into  twelve,  thirteen,  or  four- 
teen tribes,*  and  these  maintained  a  steadfast  relationship 
through  common  descent  and  traditions.  To  the  Reuben- 
ites,  as  descendants  of  Jacob's  eldest  son,  the  leadership 
would,  under  ordinary  circumstances,  have  been  assigned, 
but  the  patriarch,  in  his  dying  words,  virtually  deposed 
their  forefather  from  the  rights  of  the  first-born.  "  Bub- 
bling over  like  water,''  in  his  unbridled  passions,  he  had 
"  defiled  his  father's  couch,"  and  '^  would  have  no  pre- 
eminence" such  as  his  birthright  promised.^  The 
Reubenites,  as  has  been  noticed  already,  were  and  re- 
mained nomadic  shepherds,  as  also  did  the  Gadites  and 
the  Eastern  half-tribe  of  Manasseh,  with  whom  similarity 
of  life  united  them ;  but  even  among  these  Reuben  took 
no  foremost  place.     In  tbe  same   way,  the  next  eldest 

*  Graetz,  Gescliiclite,  vol.  i.  p.  14.     Uhlemann,  Die  Israeliten,  p.  3. 
-  Proved  by  the  Urim  and  Thummira,  the   stones  on  the  high 

priest's  shoulders,  and  on  his  breastplate,  etc.  These  were  en- 
graved with  the  names  of  the  tribes.  But  the  mention  of  a  signet 
rmg  (Gen.  xxxviii.  18)  may  imply  the  knowledge  of  stone  engrav- 
ing at  an  earlier  period. 

3  1  Chron.  vii.  21. 

"*  The  number  of  the  tribes  is  usually  given  as  twelve,  Ephraim 
and  Manasseh  being  reckoned  as  two,  and  Levi  not  counted. 
Manasseh  however  broke  up  into  two,  that  on  the  east  and  that 
on  the  west  of  the  Jordan,  and  hence  there  were  thirteen  tribes, 
or  with  Levi,  fourteen.  Graetz  thinks  the  number  of  offerings  in 
Numbers  xvii.  13, — thirteen, — refers  to  thirteen  tribes,  (Geschichte, 
vol.  i.  p.  11),  but  if  so,  the  fourteen  offerings  that  follow  would 
include  Levi,  and  make  fourteen  tribes. 

*  Ges.  Thes.,  1098  h,  645  a.  Muhlau  u.  Volck,  under  the  word  Yathar. 


THE    OPPRESSION   IN   EGYPT.  69 

tribe,  Simeon,  remained  always  subordinate,  and  ended 
by  being  virtually  lost  in  that  of  Judah.  Over  them, 
also,  for  their  lawless  conduct  at  Shechem,  their  father's 
words  hung  like  a  blight,  for  "their  swords  had  been 
instrumeuts  of  violence.''^  ^  "0  my  soul/'  the  dying 
patriarch  had  added,  of  both  Simeon  and  Levi,  in  this 
connection,  "come  not  thou  into  their  council;  unto 
their  assembly,  mine  honour,  be  not  thou  united ;  for  in 
their  anger  they  slew  men,  and  in  their  selfwill  they 
houghed  oxen/'  ^  Both,  as  he  predicted,  were,  literally, 
"  divided  in  Jacob  and  scattered  in  Israel."  Judah, 
although  in  later  times  the  most  powerful  and  noted  of 
all  the  tribes,  was  long  in  taking  the  leadership,  which  in 
Egypt  and  for  ages  afterwards,  was  naturally  held  by 
that  of  Joseph;  including  from  the  first  its  two  great 
branches, — Ephraim,  long  supreme  as  the  representa- 
tive of  its  great  forefather,  and  spoken  of  as  "Israel," 
— and  Manasseh,  which  separated  into  the  eastern  and 
western  branches  of  Machir  and  Gilead.  The  other  tribes 
were  always  subordinate :  Benjamin,  Issachar  and  Zebulon 
connecting  themselves  in  a  measure  with  the  descendants 
of  Joseph;  Dan,  Asher  and  Napthali  choosing  a  more 
isolated  life,  comparatively  apart  from  their  brethren. 
The  tribe  of  Levi  held  a  peculiar  position.  Assuming 
the  moral  leadership  in  Egypt,  it  afterwards  rose  to  be 
the  priestly  and  ecclesiastical  head  of  the  nation. 

The  tribal  constitution  of  these  various  clans,  in  Egypt, 
was  simple.  They  had  no  common  chief,  but  lived  under 
the  rule  of  their  own  elders  or  sheiks.  This  simple 
patriarchal  form  of  government  they  retained  in  common 
with  their  related  nations,  the  tribes  of  Edom  and  those 
descended   from    Ishmael,^    and   with    the    Horites — or 

^  Gcs.  Thes.,  672  b.  2  Lit.  translation,  Gen.  xlix.  6. 

3  Gon.  XXV.  16;  xxxvi.  10,  11. 


70  THE   OPPEESSION   IN   EGYPT. 

Cave-men — wHo  lived  among  fbe  Edomites,  and  were  of 
Canaanitish  descent.^  As  the  Edomites  had  Allufim,  or 
''heads,"  the  Dukes  of  our  version,  the  tribes  of  Israel  had 
chiefs,  known  as  princes,  even  before  the  time  of  Moses, 
for  there  is  no  mention  of  their  having  been  introduced 
by  the  great  law-giver.  Under  these  "  princes ''  or 
"  elders,"  were  subordinate  chiefs  of  greater  and  lesser 
divisions ;  each  tribe  being  apparently  divided  into  twelve 
''  Families,"  or  clans,  and  each  clan  into  twelve  "  Houses 
of  the  Fathers."^  All  these  chiefs,  no  doubt,  ranked 
among  the  ^'  elders  '^  of  the  nation ;  but  it  is  impossible 
to  tell  whether  this  name,  the  Hebrew  Zaken,  an  elder — • 
like  the  Arab  Sheik,  the  Roman  Senator,  the  Saxon 
-Alderman,  or  the  modern  Siguier,  which  mean  the  same, 
was  simply  a  title  of  rank,  without  reference  to  age, 
or  is  to  be  literally  understood.  Nor  is  there  any  hint 
of  the  mode  by  which  the  heads  or  elders  were  elected 
in  cases  of  vacancy  in  their  number.^ 

Thus  we  have  to  think  of  Israel  in  Egypt  not  as  a 
mere  mob  or  multitude,  but  as  a  nation,  or  at  least  an 
organized  community,  of  which  the  unit  was  the  family, 
ruled  by  the  father,  with  very  extensive  power.  Separate 
households,  moreover,  grouped  together  into  a  minor 
clan,  made  a  "House  of  the  Fathers,"  and  a  number 
of  these,  spriuging  from  a  common  ancestor,  formed  a 
"  family,"  or  what  the  Romans  would  have  called  a 
''  gens,"  over  which,  as  a  greater  house,  was  also  set  a 
^'  father,"  or  "  head,"  or  "  prince."  The  different  tribes, 
however,  showed  very  different  characteristics.  Reuben, 
Gad  and  Simeon,  as  has  been  noticed,  clung  to  a  pastoral 

1  Gen.  xxxvi.  29,  30. 

2  Num.  i.  2.     Josh.  vii.  14,  17. 

^  Michaelis,  Mosaisches  Eecht,  vol.  i.  p.  263.  Ewald,  GescMcMe, 
vol.  i.  p.  619.     Ewald,  AUerthilmer,  pp.  321  fif. 


THE   OPPEESSION   IN   EGYPT.  71 

life,  while  Benjamin  was  famous  for  its  warlike  skill  and 
spirit.  Military  unions,  known  as  "thousands,'^  were 
common  to  all;  meaning,  it  may  be,  1,000  soldiers  from 
each,  or  bands  selected  from  1,000  households.*  From 
the  earliest  times,  also,  the  manhood  of  Israel  were 
accustomed  to  act  together;  consulting  and  determining, 
with  a  noble  freedom,  on  their  common  interests.  Every 
district  and  division  of  the  whole  people  took  part  in  these 
assemblies,  by  representation  or  otherwise,  and  nothing 
was  binding  on  them  which  had  not  been  voted  at  such  a 
general  parliament.  Thus  a  healthy  spirit  of  freedom, 
and  a  patriarchal  government,  obtained  from  the  first ; 
each  ^^  head ''  or  "  elder,^^  in  his  lesser  or  greater  sphere, 
representing  its  members  in  the  gathering  of  the  tribes, 
at  which,  in  later  times,  over  400,000  men,  fit  for  war^  in 
some  cases,  met.^  There  was  moreover,  under  Moses, 
and  apparently,  in  all  after  ages,  a  senate  or  council  of 
Elders,  numbering  seventy  or  seventy-two,  on  whom  lay 
a  special  responsibility  as  the  advisers  of  the  nation. 

But  notwithstanding  difi'erences  so  radical  between  the 
free  internal  organization  of  the  Hebrews  and  the  slavery 
of  the  Egyptian  people,  the  stay  of  over  400  years  on 
the  Nile  must  have  left  many  results  of  which  the  traces 
are  lost.  Some,  however,  which  are  still  known,  and 
have  already  been  named,  deserve  more  detailed  men- 
tion. Of  these  the  knowledge  and  use  of  writing  must 
rank  among  the  chief.  It  is  not  mentioned  in  connection 
with  the  patriarchs ;  but  Moses,  after  the  Exodus,  writes 
the  commandments  on  two  tables  of  stone,  as  he  had  seen 
done  so  often  in  Egypt ;  and  directions  to  write  separate 

^  Ewald  thinks  the  number  of  higher  and  lower  elders  (in- 
cluding princes)  was  1,728,  i.e.,  12  princes;  12  head  of  families  of 
each  tribe,  and  12  heads  of  "  houses  "  (in  the  collective  sense)  of 
each  family.  2  Judges  xx.  2. 


72  THE    OPPEESSION   IN    EGYPT. 

laws  in  a  book  are  of  frequent  occurrence.  Egyptian 
words,  also,  were  incorporated  with  the  Hebrew.  The 
Jewish  measures  are  called  by  Egyptian  names — the  log, 
the  ephah,  the  hin,  and  the  bath.^  The  local  name  for 
the  Nile, — Jeor,  meaning  at  once  a  ditch,  a  canal,  or  a 
river,  and  used  especially  of  the  Nile,  is  transferred  to  the 
Bible  text.  So  also  the  words  Achu — the  papyrus  reed- 
beds — is  the  Egyptian  word  used  in  Genesis  for  the  green 
edge  of  the  Nile,  from  which  the  cattle  in  Pharaoh's 
dream  ascended  to  the  shore.^  Gomeh, — the  word  used  for 
the  material  of  the  ark  in  which  Moses  floated — is  pure 
Egyptian  for  the  papyrus.  The  month  Adar  bears  the 
name  of  the  Egyptian  Athyr,  and  the  Nablium  or  ten- 
stringed  harp  is  common  to  both  languages.  Sus,  the 
Hebrew  word  for  horse,  was  adopted  in  Egypt.  Adon,  the 
name  for  the  "Ark^^  of  the  Covenant,  and  Tabah,  that 
of  the  '^  ark ''  in  which  Moses  was  preserved,  are  also 
both  Egyptian.  Still  more  curious,  it  appears  certain 
that  the  word  On, — the  cry  of  mourning  for  the  dead — 
was  only  the  perpetuation  in  Hebrew  of  the  lament  for 
''  On  "  the  winter  retiring  sun,  raised  yearly,  to  com- 
memorate the  death  of  Osiris,  when  thousands  of  Egyptian 
men  and  women  beat  their  breasts  as  they  walked  in  sad 
procession,  uttering  loud  cries  of  grief.^  The  hierarchy  of 
the  Levites  reminds  us  of  the  constitution  of  the  Egyptian 
priesthood;  the  divisions  of  the  Tabernacle  and  of  the 
Temple  were  similar  to  those  of  the  Egyptian  temples.* 

How  long  the  Hebrews  enjoyed  peace  and  indepen- 
dence after  the  death  of  Joseph  is  only  conjecture.  It 
is  very  probable  that  a  great  king  like  Thothmes  III., 
who  needed  such  multitudes  of  labourers  and  workmen 
for  his  vast  constructions,  pressed  into  his  service,  not 

^  Graetz,  vol.  i.  p.  369.     Ulilemann,  p.  62.  ^  (}qjx.  xli.  18. 

^  Graetz,  vol.  i.  p.  370.  ^  JJhlemann,  p.  4. 


THE   OPPRESSION   IN  EGYPT.  73 

only  Egyptians  and  prisoners  of  war,  but  Asiatic  races 
like  the  Hebrews,  living  on  the  Delta. 

But  it  was  left  to  Rameses  II.,  the  Sesostris  of  the 
Greeks — the  ninth  king  after  Thothmes  III.,  and  the 
third  monarch  of  the  Nineteenth  Dynasty — to  earn  for 
himself,  especially,  the  evil  distinction  of  the  Oppressor 
of  the  Hebrews.  The  Exodus  is  believed  by  Maspero  ^ 
to  have  taken  place  under  Seti  II.,  the  next  king  but 
one  after  Rameses,  but  De  Rouge,  Chabas,  Lenormant, 
Sayce,  Lepsius,  Brugsch,  Ebers  and  others,  agree  in 
assigning  it  to  the  reign  of  Menephtah  I.,  Rameses^  son 
and  successor. 

The  first  chapters  of  Exodus  imply  that  the  facts  they 
recount  took  place  under  kings  who  reigned  in  peace, 
for  had  they  had  defensive  wars  on  their  hands  they 
could  not  have  oppressed  the  Hebrews,  lest  they  should 
join  the  enemy.  Such  internal  peace,  as  we  shall  see, 
marked  the  times  of  Rameses  II.,  who,  though  in  the 
earlier  years  of  his  rule  engaged  in  foreign  wars,  passed 
the  longer  half  of  it  in  undisturbed  quiet.  The  Nine- 
teenth Dynasty  had  been  founded  by  Rameses  I.,  who 
had  been  succeeded,  after  a  brief  and  obscure  reign,  by 
his  son  Sethos  or  Seti  I.,  a  great  king.  Under  him  the 
'^  outer  nations  '^  on  the  north-east,  apparently  an  alliance 
of  the  remnants  of  the  Hyksos  with  other  related  peoples, 
had  once  more  overrun  the  Delta,  to  find  sustenance  for 
themselves  and  their  cattle  in  the  possessions  of  Pharaoh. 
Bat  they  had  been  driven  back,  and  Palestine,  their 
nearest  stronghold,  and  even  the  region  of  the  Orontes, 
had  been  invaded  and  conquered.  Wars  with  Libya, 
and  with  the  nations  south  of  Egypt  had  followed, 
but  they  had  been  succeeded  by  a  long  period  of  re- 
pose. 

^  Histoire)  etc.,  p.  259. 


74  THE    OPPEESSION   IN   EGYPT. 

New  temples  at  Thebes,  Memphis,  On,  and  elsewhere 
had  marked  Seti's  reign ;  but  the  immense  expenditure 
had  pressed  so  heavily,  that  attention  was  once  more 
given  to  the  careful  working  of  the  gold  mines  of  Nubia, 
to  fill  the  empty  treasury.  The  remembrance  of  the  dan- 
gers of  many  former  kings,  from  the  shepherd  races  and 
their  allies  on  the  north-east,  must,  however,  amidst  all 
their  glory,  have  caused  both  Seti  and  the  young  Rameses 
anxious  thoughts,  for  the  Hebrews  and  other  allied  races 
formed  the  bulk  of  the  population  of  the  Delta,  and  were 
likely  to  join  invaders  connected  with  them  by  blood. 
To  weaken  and  cripple  these  Asiatic  communities  inside 
the  great  wall,  must,  therefore,  have  long  been  a  settled 
aim  of  Egyptian  policy. 

Eameses  ^  was  undisturbed  by  any  troubles  in  Egypt, 
or  by  any  invasion,  though  his  wars  with  the  great 
Hittite  empire  of  Western  Asia  lasted  from  the  fourth  to 
the  twenty-first  year  of  his  reign,  and  ended  in  a  treaty 
gladly  made  on  both  sides,  after  a  struggle  in  which 
each  was  equally  exhausted.  An  offensive  and  defensive 
alliance  was  formed,  each  promising  to  come  to  the 
assistance  of  the  other,  if  attacked,  and  agreeing  to  give 
up  political  offenders,  criminals,  or  runaway  slaves  who 
had  sought  refuge  within  the  boundaries  of  either  empire.^ 
From  this  time  peace  reigned  on  the  Nile,  and  Eameses 
was  free  to  carry  out  his  policy  of  repression  towards  the 
Hebrews  and  their  related  fellow-settlers  of  the  north- 
east of  Egypt — at  once  to  utilize  their  labour  and  to 
break  their  spirit.  Such  a  period  of  quiet  did  not  recur 
under  his    successors,  who  were  disturbed    by  internal 

1  For  sketches  of  Eameses,  besides  Uarda,  see  Brugscli,  Trans, 
of  Soc.  of  Bib.  Arch.,  vol.  v.  p.  28.  Eine  ^gijpt.  Kdnigstocliter', 
vol.  i.  p.  229. 

2  Briigsch,  vol.  ii.  p.  68. 


THE    OPPEESSION   IN   EGYPT. 


75 


commotions,  and  tlius,  as  has  been  said,  Eameses  seems 
marked  out  specially  as  the  Pharaoh  of  the  Oppression. 

That  he  is  rightly  thought  so,  seems  further  established 
by  the  fact  that  the  incidents  related  in  the  beginning  of 
Exodus  demand  the  long  continuance  of  a  single  reign. 
Not  only  must  the  successive  persecutions  of  the  Hebrews 
have  required  a  number  of  years,  but  Moses,  on  his  return 
to  Egypt  after  his  residence  of  forty  years  in  Midian, 
found  the  same  king  still  on  the  throne.  No  Pharoah, 
however,  of  the  Nineteenth  Dynasty,  held  the  sceptre 
thus  long  but  Rameses  II.  The  son  of  one  who  was  not  of 
pure  royal  blood,  he  had  been  regarded  as  the  true  king, 
through  his  mother,  even  from  his  birth,  and  had  hence, 
from  childhood,^  been  associated  on  the  throne  with  his 
father ;  though  he  dates  his  reign  only  from  Seti's  death, 
when  he  himself  was  eighteen  or  twenty  years  of  age. 
Yet  he  lived  to  wear  the  crown  for  sixty-seven  years/  in 
wonderful  accordance  with  the  statement  that  "  after  a 
long  time  the  king  of  Egypt  died/'  ^  His  reign  there- 
fore answers  precisely  the  conditions  required  by  the 
Bible  narrative. 

The  monuments  of  this  great  king  still  cover  the  soil 
of  Egypt  and  Nubia  in  almost  countless  numbers,  and 
show  him  to  have  been  the  greatest  builder  of  all  the 
Pharaohs.^  There  is  not,  says  Mariette,  a  ruin  in  Egypt 
or    Nubia  that    does  not  bear  his  name.     Two    grand 

*  Lenormant,  Histoire  Ancienyie,  vol.  i.  p.  404. 

2  Brugsch,  vol.  ii.  p.  HO. 

3  Exod.  ii.  23  :  Laath's  Translation.  Allgemeine  Zeiiung,1S77f 
p.  429.  So,  De  Wette  and  Augusti.  Hitzig,  Geschichte,  p.  69, 
makes  Joseph  come  to  Egypt  under  Eameses  II.,  and  so  does 
Bertheau  (p.  233).  Mnnk,  more  justly  assigns  the  date  as  during 
the  reign  of  the  Hjksos.  Paldstina,  p.  264.  So,  writer  in  Trans. 
Soc.  Bib.  Arch.,  vol,  v.  p.  73. 

*  Ma^^ero,  pp.  225-6. 


76  THE    OPPEESSION    IN    EGYPT. 

temples  at  Ipsamboul,  hewn  out  of  tlie  hills,  with  four 
colossal  human  figures,  sixty-five  feet  high,  at  the 
entrances,  were  intended  to  perpetuate  the  memory  of 
his  victories  over  the  negroes  and  the  Syrians.  At 
Thebes,  the  great  temple  of  Amenhotep  III.  was  finished, 
and  adorned  with  two  huge  obelisks  in  granite,  one  of 
which  is  now  in  Paris.  The  second  huge  porch  or  pylon 
of  the  great  temple  of  Amon  at  Karnak  was  covered 
with  tableaux,  representing  the  wars  with  the  Hittites 
or  Kheta  of  Western  Asia.  The  temple  of  Gournou, 
begun  by  Seti,  was  finished  and  consecrated.  The 
Eamesseum  of  Thebes,  another  great  temple,  is  covered 
with  sculptures  also  commemorating  the  Hittite  wars. 
The  temple  of  Abydos,  built  in  honour  of  Seti,  shows 
that  king  sitting  on  the  throne  in  the  midst  of  the  gods  ; 
a  club  in  one  hand,  in  the  other  a  sceptre.  Gods  sit  on 
each  side,  and  in  rows  behind  him,  while  Eameses  off'ers 
homage,  in  front,  to  his -father,  as  to  one  of  their  number.^ 
Everywhere:  at  Memphis,  at  Bubastis,  at  tbe  quarries 
of  Silsilis,  and  at  the  mines  of  Si^^ai,  similar  memorials 
occur.  The  porch  of  the  temple  of  Ptah,  at  Memphis, 
had  a  porch  built  by  him  at  its  entrance,  at  the  sides  of 
which  were  placed  statues  nearly  fifty  feet  high,^  of 
himself  and  his  queen.  In  the  land  of  Goshen  he 
restored  and  beautified  the  vast  temple  of  Zoan-Tanis, 
neglected  by  the  sovereigns  of  the  Eighteenth  Dynasty ; 
the  city  itself  being,  besides,  well-nigh  rebuilt.  He 
founded  towns,  dug  canals,  and  filled  the  land  with 
colossi,  sphinxes,  statues,  and  other  creations.  Of  the 
thirty-two  obelisks  which  yet  exist  in  E^pt  or  else- 
where, twenty-one  were  either  in  whole  or  in  part  due  to 
him ;  and  of  the  eight  temples  which  still  remain  in  the 

^  Maspero,  p.  217. 

2  Herod.,  ii.  110.     Biocl.,  i.  57.     They  were  thirty  cubitB  high. 


THE   OPPRESSION   IN  EGYPT.  77 

ruins  of  Thebes_,  tliere  is  only  one  which  he  did  not  com- 
plete or  build  entirely.^  He  also  erected  a  chain  of  forti- 
fications along  the  entire  north-east  frontier  of  Egypt,  for 
160  miles,  to  defend  it  from  the  invasions  of  the  Syrians 
and  Arabs.  Cities  which  were  endangered  by  the  yearly 
inundations  he  protected  by  huge  earthen  dykes,  and  he 
intersected  the  entire  region  between  Memphis  and  the 
sea  with  channels  of  irrigation  so  wide  and  so  numerous, 
that  it  became  henceforth  impracticable  for  cavalry  or  war 
chariots,  for  which  it  had  before  been  especially  adapted. 
Herodotus  further  tells  us,  that  he  marked  off,  in  square 
blocks,  the  land  thus  reclaimed,  and  distributed  them 
among  his  Egyptian  favourites,  treating  the  Delta  as  a 
new  province,  now,  for  the  first  time,  incorporated  with 
the  rest  of  the  kingdom. ^ 

Bat  with  what  an  expenditure  of  human  misery  must 
all  this  have  been  attended !  It  fills  the  mind  with 
horror  to  think  of  the  thousands  of  prisoners  of  war, 
or  forced  labourers  and  workmen,  who  must  have  died 
under  the  blows  of  the  drivers,  or  under  the  weight  of 
privations  and  toil  too  great  for  human  endurance,  in 
raising  these  innumerable  creations.  When  slaves  could 
not  be  had  in  sufficient  numbers,  after  the  close  of  the 
Syrian  wars,  great  slave-hunting  razzias  to  Ethiopia 
were  organized,  to  harry  the  far  south  and  drag  off 
thousands  of  negroes  and  others,  in  chains,  to  toil  in 
the  brickfield,  the  quarry,  or  the  temple  precincts.  All 
the  foreign  tribes  of  Semitic  origin  who  had  settled  in 
the  Delta  were  oppressed  by  forced  labour.  Even  the 
native  population  had  to  suffer.  A  letter  of  the  period  is 
still  extant,  which  tells  how  '*  the  tax-collector  arrives 
(in  his  barge)  at  the  wharf  of  the  district,  to  receive  the 

^  Notes  on  OhelisJcSy  by  J.  Bonomi.  Trans.  Boyal  Soc.  Lit., 
vol.  i.  p^  158.  2  Osburn's  Israel  in  Egij^pt,  p.  201. 


78  THE   OPPRESSION  IN  EGYPT. 

government  share  of  the  crops.  His  men  armed  with 
clubs,  are  with  him,  and  his  negroes,  with  batons  of  palm- 
wood,  cry  out,  '  Where's  your  wheat  ? '  and  there  is  no 
way  of  checking  their  exactions.  If  they  are  not  satis- 
fied, they  seize  the  poor  wretch,  throw  him  on  the  ground, 
bind  him,  drag  him  off  to  the  canal  at  hand  and  throw 
him  in,  head  first ;  the  neighbours  running  off,  to  take 
care  of  their  own  grain,  and  leaving  the  poor  creature  to 
his  fate.  His  wife  is  bound,  and  she  and  his  children 
carried  off/'  ^  The  numbers  of  prisoners  taken  in  wars 
were,  indeed,  far  too  small  to  meet  the  demand  for 
labour  on  such  vast  and  countless  works  as  Rameses  un- 
dertook, for  in  the  records  of  each  campaign  the  returns, 
carefully  given,  are  singularly-  insignificant ;  men  pre- 
ferring death  to  the  horrors  of  slavery.^  He  could  only 
procure  the  toil  required  for  works  more  numerous  than 
those  of  all  the  other  kings  of  Egypt  for  2000  years,  by 
driving  off  to  them,  as  forced  labourers,  all  the  population 
he  could  venture  to  enslave,  the  Hebrews  among  them.^ 
The  tasks  to  which  they  were  set  included  all  that 
the  plans  of  Rameses  demanded.  They  were  doubtless 
marched  in  gangs  to  the  quarries  to  hew  out  huge  blocks 
of  granite  and  limestone,  and  then  set  to  drag  them  to 
their  respective  destinations,  or  to  ship  them  on  rafts  and 

^  Maspero,  Bu  Genre  JEjiistolaire  chez  lesAnciens  EgypHens.  Le- 
normant,  Manuel  de  VHist.  Ancienne  de  V Orient,  vol.  i.  p.  423.  The 
priests  told  Diodorus  that  no  native  Egyptian  had  had  to  work 
on  these  vast  constructions,  but  they  knew  well  that  this  was 
not  the  truth. 

2  Even  four,  ten,  or  fiffceeen  prisoners  are  carefully  noted. 
The  highest  number  taken  in  any  one  series  of  campaigns  is 
given  on  the  monuments  as  2,400. 

3  Homer,  in  the  Odyssey,  xiv.  272,  xvii.  441,  makes  Ulysses 
speak  of  the  Egyptians  as  killing  some  of  his  crew  and  driving 
off  the  rest  to  slave  labour. 


THE    OPPEESSION   IN  EGYPT.  79 

pilot  them  down  the  Nile.  They  would  be  employed 
in  digging  canals ;  in  making  bricks  and  mixing  mortar 
for  the  countless  erections  always  in  progress;  in  pain- 
fully raising  the  Nile  waters  into  the  canals  for  irrigation 
and  their  circulation  over  the  land,  as  we  still  see  it 
along  the  banks  of  the  river,  where  the  peasants,  naked 
under  the  burning  sun,  work  through  the  day,  like  pieces 
of  machinery,  drawing  up  the  buckets  of  water  from  the 
stream,  to  the  fields  above.  "All  manner  of  service  in  the 
field,"  in  short,  would  be  exacted  from  them,  "besides 
all  their  (other)  labour,  which  they  put  upon  them  with 
rigour.''^  ^ 

"  It  is  very  hard  to  make  the  smooth  road  on  which 
the  colossus  is  to  slide  along,"  says  an  inscription  of  the 
period;  "but  how  unspeakably  harder  to  drag  the  huge 
mass  like  beasts  of  burden."  There  was  no  machinery 
then ;  little  mechanical  help ;  the  strain  lay  almost  wholly 
on  human  thews  and  sinews.  '^  The  arms  of  the 
workman,"  continues  the  inscription  "  are  utterly  worn 
out.  His  food  is  a  mixture  of  all  things  vile :  he  can 
wash  himself  only  once  in  a  season.  But  that  which 
above  all  is  wretched  is  when  he  has  to  drag  for  a  month 
together,  over  the  soft  yielding  soil  of  the  gardens  of  a 
mansion,  a  huge  block  of  ten  cubits  by  six."  ^  Egypt 
in  all  ages  has  been  so  marked  by  the  oppression  of  its 
toiling  thousands,  that  one  of  the  crimes  from  which  an 
Egyptian  had  to  clear  himself  before  the  judge  of  the 
soul,  was  cruelty  to  them.     Thirty  thousand  men  died  in 

1  Exod.  i.  14 

^  About  17  feet  by  10.  Papyrus  Sallier,  ii.  6,  1.  Chabas, 
BechercJies  sur  la  XIX^  Dynastie,  p.  144,  120,000  men  died  in 
dig^^ing  out  a  canal  to  unite  the  Nile  and  tlie  Eed  Sea,  in  the 
reign  of  Pharaoh  Necho,  and,  after  all,  the  scheme  was  abandoned 
on  account  of  an  adverse  oracle. 


80  THE   OPPRESSION   IN   EGYPT. 

this  very  century  in  digging  out  the  Mahmoudieh  Canal 
with  their  hands,  without  picks,  or  spades,  or  wheel- 
barrows— falling  worn  out  with  toil  exacted  from  them 
by  the  blows  of  their  pitiless  taskmasters ;  and  the  monu- 
ments show  similar  misery  to  have  been  inflicted  from 
the  remotest  ages.  Doubtless  the  Hebrews  suffered  in 
the  same  way,  and  their  groans  and  murmurs  may  well 
have  taken  the  shape  of  those  of  the  wretched  fellahs  of 
our  own  day,  whose  songs  have  such  refrains  as^  '^  The 
chief  of  the  village,  may  the  dogs  tear  him,  tear  him, 
tear  him  :''  "  They  starve  us,  they  starve  us  :  '^  ^'  They 
beat  us,  they  beat  us  : " — '^  But  there^s  some  one  above 
who  will  punish  them  well,  who  will  punish  them  well.'^  ^ 
The  Bible  statement,  that  the  Hebrews  "  built  for 
Pharaoh  the  store  cities  Pithom  and  Raamses,''  ^  is 
strangely  corroborated  in  the  case  of  the  latter  by  contem- 
porary documents,  which  mention  the  Israelites  under  the 
name  of  Aperiu  or  Aberiu,  the  Egyptian  pronunciation 
of  their  own  way  of  naming  themselves,  as  the  '^Iberim,"^ 
or,  as  we  say,  Hebrews.  In  the  first,  a  scribe  called 
Kaonisar  writes  to  his  superior,  the  scribe  Bekenptah, 
thus  :  '^  For  your  satisfaction  I  have  obeyed  the  com- 
mand you  gave  me,  saying.  Deliver  their  food  to  the 
soldiers,  and  also  to  the  Aperiu  who  transport  the  stone 
for  the  great  Bekhennu — depots  and  fortified  magazines 
— o£  the  king  Rameses,  the  lover  of  Amon,  which  are 
under  the  charge  of  Ameneman,  the  chief  of  the  Mazai, 

*  Nassau  Senior's  Journalin  Egypt,  1856.  Stephens'  Incidents, 
vol.  i.  p.  22. 

2  By  "  store  cities  "  is  meant  depots  for  all  kinds  of  provision, 
war  material,  etc.,  perhaps  like  Woolwich.  Great  magazines  tor 
the  public  service,  in  short.     Lurch  Gosen,  p.  521. 

^  The  Egyptian  plural  ended  in  u  instead  of  the  m  of  the 
Hebrew. 


THE    OPPEESSION  IN  EGYPT.  81 

or  gendarmerie.  I  give  them  rations  eacli  montli  ac- 
cording to  your  excellent  instructions/^  ^  The  second 
document  is  from  another  scribe  to  his  superior,  Hiu,  a 
high  official  of  Eameses  II.  "  I  have  obeyed/^  says  he, 
"your  command  to  give  provision  to  the  Egyptian  sol- 
diers, and  also  to  the  Hebrews  who  transport  the  stones  '* 
— great  blocks  dragged  from  the  other  side  of  the  river 
— "  for  the  Sun-temple  of  Rameses-Miamun,  on  the 
southern  part  of  Memphis."  Mazai,  or  gendarmerie,  a 
corps  of  foreign  mercenaries  drawn  from  Libya,  and  thus 
in  no  danger  of  sympathy  with  the  oppressed,  filled  the 
hateful  office  of  the  under  taskmasters  who  punished 
the  wretched  gangs. ^ 

An  interesting  contemporary  account  of  Eameses 
Tanis,  the  Rameses  especially  mentioned  in  Exodus,  has 
already  been  given,  but  a  second,  also,  has  fortunately 
been  preserved.  ''His  majesty,  Rameses  II.,"  writes 
a  scribe  to  his  friend,  "has  built  for  himself  a  town, 
Rameses.  It  lies  between  Palestine  and  Egypt,  and 
abounds  in  delicious  food.  It  is  a  second  Hermouthis,  (a 
suburb  of  Thebes),  and  will  endure  as  long  as  Memphis. 
The  sun  rises  and  sets  in  it.  Every  one  leaves  his  town 
to  settle  in  its  district.  The  fishermen  of  the  sea  bring 
it  eels  and  fish,  and  the  tribute  of  their  lake.  The 
citizens  wear  festal  robes  each  day,  with  perfumed  oil 
on  their  heads,  and  new  wigs :  they  stand  at  their  doors, 
bouquets  in  hand — green  branches  from  the  town  of  Pa 

^  Papyr.  Eier.  of  Ley  den,  i.  348.  Ebers,  Durch  Gosen,  p.  602.. 
Chabas,  Melanges,  1st  series,  p.  44 ;  3rd  series,  vol.  ii.  p.  222.  This 
pai)yrus  was  found  in  the  tombs  at  Memphis.  Wheat,  meat,  fish, 
fresh  or  salted,  and  vegetables,  were  provided  by  government 
for  the  labourers,  but  the  quantity  was  at  times  so  insufficient 
that  the  works  had  to  be  suspended  from  the  weakness  of  tho 
starved  men.     Chabas,  Deux  Pa;p.  Eier.,  p.  24. 

2  Durch  Gosen,  p.  75. 

VOL.   II.  G 


82  THE    OPPRESSION    IN   EGYPT. 

Hathor — garlands  from  the  town  of  Paliour,  on  the 
day  of  Pharaoh's  comiog.  Joy  reigns  and  spreads  with- 
out bounds.  Rameses  Miamum,  life,  health,  strength  to 
him;  he  is  the  god  Mout^  of  the  two  Egypts  in  his 
speech :  the  sun  of  kings  as  ruler :  the  glory  of  Egypt, 
the  friend  of  Turn,  as  general.  All  the  earth  comes  to 
him.  The  great  king  of  the  Kheta — the  Hittites^ — 
sends  his  messenger  to  his  fellow-prince  of  Kadesh  (on 
the  Orontes),  saying,  'If  thou  be  ready,  let  us  set  out 
for  Egypt,  for  the  words  of  the  god  Rameses  II.,  are 
fulfilling  themselves.  Let  us  pay  our  court  to  him  at 
Tanis  for  he  gives  breath  to  him  whom  ^  he  loves,  and 
by  him  all  the  people  live.' ''  ^ 

Tanis,  or  "Rameses,''  named  after  the  king,  as 
Alexandria  was  after  Alexander,  or  Constantinople  after 
Constantino,  ranked  next  to  Thebes  in  the  preference 
of  its  second  founder.  He  could  easily  march  from  it 
against  the  Asiatic  peoples,  and  it  was  near  the  frontier, 
to  welcome  him  back  from  his  wars.  Hence  it  became 
his  special  residence.  Connected  with  the  sea  by  the 
Tanitic  branch  of  the  Nile,  then  broad  and  navigable, 
it  also  commanded  the  entrance  of  the  great  fortified 
road  to  Palestine,  and  thus  was,  in  the  fullest  sense,  the 
key  of  Egypt.  It  was  doubtless  for  this  reason  that 
Rameses  transferred  his  court  thither,  strengthened  its 
fortifications,  and  virtually  rebuilt  it ;  making  it  in  fact 
a  temple  city  of  the  great  gods  of  Egypt,  and  of  Baal 

*  One  of  the  three  gods  of  Thebes. 

2  By  the  way  it  is  curious  to  find  that  Barneses  used  blood- 
hounds to  hunt  down  his  foes,  in  the  Hittite  war.  Trans.  Bib. 
Arch.  vol.  ii.  p.  180. 

3  Maspero,  Du  Genre  Epistolaire,  etc.,  p.  102.  Chabas,  Melanges 
JEgyptologiques,  2nd  series,  p.  151.  For  the  divinity  of  the 
Pharaoh,  see  also  Maspero,  Histoire  Anc,  p.  9.  Records  of  the 
Past,  vol.  i.  pp.  6,  8. 


THE   OPPRESSION   IN   EGYPT.  83 

Sutekh,  the  god  ot  the  fiyksos>  In  its  glory,  as  Moses 
saw  it,  with  its  countless  statues,  obelisks,  sphinxes,  and 
other  monuments,  and  its  great  temples  and  majestic 
royal  palace,  it  must  have  been  imposing  in  its  magnifi- 
cence ;  especially  in  the  eyes  of  the  Hebrew  population, 
in  whose  midst  it  had  risen  like  a  city  of  enchantment, 
though  at  a  fearful  cost  of  suffering  to  themselves. 

The  city  of  Pi-thom,  '^  the  House  or  Town  of  the  god 
Tum,^'  has  not  received  the  same  notice  as  Tanis,  in  any 
Egyptian  document,  hitherto  discovered;  but  its  name 
frequently  occurs.  It  lay  near  Bubastis,  on  the  road 
from  On  to  Pelusium,  in  the  far  north-east.  Mounds  of 
ruins  still  mark  its  site,  and  near  them  are  still  some 
pools  mentioned  in  an  ancient  papyrus,  in  connection 
with  a  request  made  to  Menephtah,  the  king  of  the 
Exodus,  from  some  Bedouins  of  Idumea,  to  be  allowed 
to  pasture  their  herds  in  the  neighbourhood.^ 

An  old  writing  on  the  back  of  a  papyrus,  apparently  of 
the  date  of  Seti,  the  founder  of  the  Nineteenth  Dynasty, 
brings  vividly  before  us  a  picture  of  the  brickmaking, 
which  was  part  of  the  labours  of  the  Hebrews.  "Twelve 
masons,"  says  the  writer,  "  besides  men  who  are  brick 
moulders  in  their  towns,  have  been  brought  here  to  work 
at  house  building.  Let  them  make  their  number  of  bricks 
each  day.  They  are  not  to  relax  their  tasks  at  the  new 
house.  It  is  thus  I  obey  the  command  given  me  by  my 
master."  ^     These  twelve  masons  and  these  brickmakers, 

1  Brugsch^  vol.  ii.  p.  95. 

2  Chabas,  Melanges  Egypt.,  2nd  series  p.  155.  The  word  used 
for  the  pools  is  Barkabuta,  which  implies  the  residence  of 
Semitic  herdsmen  around,  for  it  is  evidently  connected  with  the 
Hebrew  word  for  a  pool,  Beraichah,  pZ.  Beraichoth. 

3  Papyrus  Anastasi,  back  of  pi.  3.  Chabas,  Melanges  Egypt.,  2nd 
series  p.  133. 


84 


THE    OPPRESSION    IN    EGYPT. 


thus  taken  from  their  own  towns  to  build  this  house^  at 
a  fixed  rate  of  task  work  daily,  may  not  have  been 
Hebrews,  but  their  case  illustrates  exactly  the  details  of 
Hebrew   slavery   given    in  Exodus.     It  is,  moreover,  a 


^S  E23J 
EZ3 


Slates  in  the  E&ypxian  Bbickfields.— From  Tomb  of  Abd-el-Qurnah. 

striking  fact,  in  connection  with  the  narrative  of  Moses, 
that  great  part  of  the  constructions  of  Rameses  II.  were 
of  brick,  as  seen  to  this  day  in  the  mounds  which  hide 


THE    OPPEESSION    IN   EGYPT.  85 

their  ruins.^  Huge  bricks  of  Nile  mud  dried  in  the 
suuj  some  mixed  with  stubble  and  others  made  without 
straw  ^ — the  remains  of  the  town  wall — still  mark  the 
site  of  Rameses.^  Nor  is  it,  in  the  opinion  of  so  calm  a 
mind  as  that  of  Ebers^  too  much  to  believe  that  they  were 
moulded  by  Jewish  hands.*  Indeed,  even  the  details  of 
brick-making  like  theirs  are  supplied  by  the  monuments. 
In  a  tomb  on  the  hill  Abd-el-Qurnah,  a  picture  of  the 
time  of  Thothmes  III.  has  been  preserved,  in  which 
prisoners  of  war,  set  to  build  the  temple  of  Amon, 
are  seen  toiling  at  the  bitter  labours  of  the  brickfield. 
Some  carry  water  in  jugs  from  the  tank  hard  by ;  others 
knead  and  cut  up  the  loamy  earth  ;  others,  again,  make 
bricks  in  earthen  moulds,  or  place  them  carefully  in 
long  rows,  to  dry ;  and  some  are  building  walls.  An 
accompanying  inscription  states  that  these  are  captives 
whom  Thothmes  III.  had  carried  away,  to  build  the 
house  of  his  father,  the  god  Amon.  The  ^'  baking  of  the 
bricks  ^'  is  for  a  new  provision  house  of  the  god.  Nor 
is  there  wanting  a  taskmaster;  for  the  overseer  watches 
the  workers ;  the  words  ^'  don't  idle,  the  stick  is  in  my 
hand,''  being  painted  as  on  his  lips.^ 

The  monuments  often,  indeed,  speak  of  brickmaking 
by  forced  labour,  and  in  the  various  paintings  which 
represent  this,  or  any  other  kind  of  '^  task  work,"  the 
overseer  with  his  stick  is  rarely  absent.  Thus,  among 
the  pictures  at  Beni  Hassan,  workmen  are  represented 

^  Brugsch,  Histoire,  p.  174  The  name  of  Eameses  is  stamped 
on  each  brick,  thus  :  "  Ra,  Lord  of  Truth,  the  Chosen  of  the  Sun- 
god." 

2  Burch  Gosen,  p.  76.     See  Exod.  v.  6-18. 

*  Ibid.,  p.  501 ;  Birch,  Egypt  from  the  Monuments,  p.  127. 

■*  Burch  Gosen,  p.  75. 

^  Bunsen's  TJrhunden,  vol.  i.  p.  114  Brugsch,  La  Sortie  des 
Hehreiix  d'Egypte,  pp.  14,  15.     Brugsch,  Histoire,  vol.  i.  p.  376. 


bb  THE   OPPEESSION   IN   EGYPT. 

being  beaten  severely  witli  sliort  sticks,  which  differed  from 
the  long  rods  of  office,  and  were  used  solely  to  bastinado 
the  unfortunate  labourers.  Some  of  these  are  seen 
thrown  naked  on  the  ground,  two  men  holding  the  arms 
and  another  the  feet,  while  the  taskmaster  showers  blows 
on  the  exposed  body.  There  is  even  a  picture  at  Beni 
Hassan  of  a  woman  being  thus  bastinadoed.^ 

^  The  task-masters  in  Exodus,  lit.  Chiefs  of  the  Tribute,  were 
dignified  officials,  apparently  over  large  divisions  of  the  corvee. 
Inferior  officers  were  placed  over  sections  of  these,  and  the 
zekanim,  or  elders,  and  the  shoterim,  or  scribes,  of  the  Hebrews 
themselves,  seem  to  have  been  responsible  for  the  work  to  be 
done  by  the  men  of  their  respective  localities. 


CHAPTER  IV, 

MOSES. 

HOW  long"  tlie  policy  of  oppression  had  been  in  force 
against  the  Hebrews  before  the  Exodus,  can  only 
be  conjectured.  As  far  back  as  the  days  of  the  great 
Thothmes  III.  we  have  seen  Asiatic  prisoners  of  war 
toiling  in  the  brickfields/  as  the  Israelites  had  to  do 
under  Rameses.  The  hostility  towards  all  the  Semi- 
tic races,  as  the  special  enemies  of  Egypb  for  ages,  and 
as,  for  centuries,  its  masters,  in  the  dark  days  of  the 
Hyksos,  would,  indeed,  naturally  direct  itself  against  the 
Hebrews,  their  brethren  in  race.  Whether  the  distrust 
and  hatred  had  been  deepened  by  the  parb  taken  by  the 
Asiatic  population  of  the  Delta  during  the  long  war  of 
liberation,  cannot  now  be  ascertained ;  but  even  if  they 
had  been  neutral,  any  favour  shown  them  would  have 
seemed  an  encouragement  to  the  common  enemy,  within 
Egypt  itself.  It  would  almost  appear,  moreover,  as  if  a 
clause  in  the  treaty  of  Rameses  II.  with  the  Kheta  or 
Hittites,  alluding  to  fugitive  subjects  who  were  to  be  sent 
back  from  Palestine,  hints  at  a  restlessness  in  the  Semitic 
races  still  in  Lower  Egypt,  which  needed  to  be  vigorously 
repressed.^  Nor  is  it  clear  that  the  Hebrews,  a- people 
full  of  young  life  and  energy,  and  rapidly  increasing  in 

*  Page  84.  2  Brugsch,  Histoire,  vol.  ii.  p.  74. 

87 


88  MOSES. 

numbers,  had  not  been  for  generations  plotting  their 
escape  from  the  banks  of  the  Nile;  for  the  flight  of 
bands  sufficient  to  lead  to  a  provision  for  their  extra- 
dition, in  the  Hittite  treaty,  must  have  represented  a 
state  of  feeling  far  from  settled.  That  they  were  fierce 
and  warlike,  even  while  in  Egypt,  and  that  they  often 
made  forays  into  Canaan,  is  hinted  at  in  various  passages 
of  the  Old  Testament.  Thus,  as  has  before  been  noticed, 
the  sons  of  Ephraim  are  said  to  have  made  an  inroad, 
during  their  father^s  life,  as  far  at  least  as  Gath,  to  drive 
off  the  cattle  of  the  Philistines.^  Sherah,  a  daughter  of 
Ephraim,  moreover,  is  said  to  have  built  the  upper  and 
lower  villages  of  Bethhoron — the  ''  Hollow  waj/' — the 
one  at  the  head,  the  other  at  the  bottom,  of  the  wild 
steep  pass  of  the  border  hills  of  Ephraim  and  Benjamin;* 
and,  also,  Uzzen  Sherah — Sherah's  inheritance — another 
village  presumably  in  the  same  district.^  The  grand- 
children of  Judah,  moreover,  were  not  only  famous  in 
after  ages  for  the  fine  linen  which  they  had  learned  to 
weave,  doubtless  in  Egypt,  but  also  for  having  held 
"  the  dominion  in  Moab."  *  No  wonder  that  the  Pharaohs 
should   have    been    alarmed    lest   such   a    race    should 

1  1  Chron.  vii.  21. 

2  Furrer's  Paldstina,  p.  14.     Bethhoron,  in  Biehm. 

3  1  Chron.  vii.  24. 

^  1  Cliron.  iv.  22.  The  word  Jashubi-lehem  is  understood  by 
Bertheau  Ktirzgefass.  Hmidbuch,  as  the  name  of  one  of  the  sons  of 
Sherah.  It  means  "  returning  to  the  bread,"  perhaps  an  abbre- 
viation of  Beth-lehem,  "returning  to  Bethlehem,"  as  Euth  did. 
By  some  scholars  the  words  "  held  the  dominion,"  are  translated 
"became  citizens  of."  So  Sept.,  Yulgate,  Schlottmann.  Bub 
Gesenius,  Bertheau,  Keil,  and  Hitzig  retain  the  meaning  in  our 
version.  Hitzig  translates  the  name  Jashubi-lehem  by  "and 
requited  them."  Ewald  makes  it  "  brought  them  home  wives:" 
fanciful  enough,  both ! 


MOSES.  oy 

multiply  still  more,  and,  joining  their  enemies,  fight 
against  Egypt  in  case  of  war,  and  *'  get  them  up,  out 
of  the  land,"  ^  where  slaves  so  hardy  and  enduring  were 
essential  for  the  public  works. 

But  while  the  mighty  kings  of  the  Nile  Valley  were 
bent  on  weakening  the  Hebrews  by  every  form  of 
tyranny  and  oppression,  they  were  themselves,  in  the 
Providence  of  God,  to  be  made  the  agents  in  preparing 
one  of  the  hated  race  to  become  in  due  time  its 
deliverer.  Jewish  tradition  touchingly  describes  the 
condition  of  these  ancestors  of  the  nation.  Joseph,  it 
tells  us,  had  been  almost  universally  loved  by  the 
Egyptians,  but  after  his  death,  though  the  Hebrews 
turned  so  much  towards  Egyptian  ways,  as  even  in  many 
cases  to  neglect  the  circumcision  of  their  children, 
popular  dislike  increased  against  them.  Taxes  and 
forced  labour  were  exacted,  instead  of  their  being  left 
free,  as  hitherto.  Fields,  vineyards,  and  other  posses- 
sions, given  them  by  Joseph,  were  taken  from  them,  and 
they  were  formally  enslaved.  They  had,  moreover,  to 
build  fortresses,  store  cities,  and  pyramids ;  to  lead  off 
the  Nile  waters  into  canals,  surround  towns  with  dams,  to 
keep  off  the  yearly  inundations ;  to  learn  all  kinds  of 
trades  that  they  might  work  at  them  i§v  their  masters, 
and  even  the  women  had  to  toil  in  many  ways.^  But 
help  was  now  slowly  preparing. 

Among   the   Hebrew  tribes  in   Egypt   that  of  Levi 

»  Exod.  i.  10. 

2  Beer's  Lehen  Mods,  p.  9.  The  Kabbis,  in  their  desire  to 
glorify  the  Hebrew  matrons,  gravely  say  that  six,  twelve,  or  even 
sixty  children  were  born  at  a  birth,  all  strong  and  well  formed  ! 
Ibid.,  p.  12.  The  allusion  to  the  neglect  of  circumcision  as  copied 
from  the  Egyptians,  is,  of  course,  an  error  on  the  part  of  the 
tradition,  as  also  is  the  reference  to  the  building  of  pyramids. 


90  MOSES. 

appears  from  tlie  first  to  have  specially  given  itself  to 
the  higher  culture  which  prevailed  around^  and  to  have 
held  the  foremost  place,  as  in  some  degree  a  priestly 
caste.  Other  tribes  doubtless  gave  themselves,  more 
or  less,  to  the  arts  and  sciences  which  flourished  in 
the  valley  of  the  Nile — the  painting,  the  sculpture,  the 
weaving,  the  dyeing,  the  working  in  precious  stones  and 
in  metals ;  but  to  Levi  the  whole  were  indebted  for  the 
adoption  of  writing  from  the  Egyptians,^  and  the  higher 
"  wisdom  ^^  was  apparently  left  to  their  study.  Among 
their  number  was  Amram — the  ^'  Kindred  of  the  Lofty 
One,'^ — and  Jochebed, — she  *'  whose  glory  is  Jehovah,^' 
— his  aunt,^  both  of  the  tribe  of  Levi* — and  of  the 
family  of  Kohath,  the  second  of  Levies  sons.  From 
the  marriage  of  these  two  sprang  the  great  leaders, 
Miriam,  Aaron,  and  Moses,  the  first  about  twelve  years 
older  than  her  second  illustrious  brother,  who  was  also 
younger  than  Aaron  by  about  three  years. ^  Their  mother^s 
name,  alone,  proves  that  her  family  had  remained  true  to 
the  hereditary  faith  of  their  race,  and  still  clung  to  the 
worship  of  the  God  of  Abraham,  Isaac  and  Jacob ;  keep- 
iug  far  from  Egyptian  idolatry  and  corruption.  Her 
children  must  have  grown  up  in  an  atmosphere  of  saintly 
morals  and  godliness,  to  have  developed  the  character 
they  afterwards  showed.  But  to  the  inspired  writers  the 
most  exalted  human  being  was  only  dust  and  ashes  in 
the   sight  of   the   Almighty,  and  details  are  studiously 

*  1  Sam,  ii.  27,  28.     These  verses   are  to  be  read,  not  inter- 
rogatively, but  as  statements  of  facts.     Graetz,  p.  14. 

2  Ch'aetz,  vol.  i.  p.  14. 

3  Exod.  vi.  20. 

"*  Sept.  and  Heh.    Exod.  ii.  1.     "  Son"  in  our  version  =  to  "de* 
Bcendant."     1  Chron.  vi.  2. 
^  Moses,  in  Biehm. 


MOSES.  91 

sliunned  wliicli  could  by  any  possibility  lead  to  a  bero 
worship  incompatible  with  the  absolute  and  undivided 
honour  due  only  to  God.  Hence  we  know  very  little  of 
the  personal  history  of  the  illustrious  household. 

Moses  appears  to  have  been  born  about  eighty  years 
before  the  Exodus^  for  that  was  his  age  when  he  returned 
to  Egypt  from  Midian.  Thus,  his  youth  runs  side  by 
side  with  that  of  Kameses  II.,  the  future  oppressor  of 
the  Hebrews,  but  the  national  hero  of  the  Egyptians, 
and  the  great  Sesostris  of  the  outside  world;  whom 
poetry  and  legend  delighted  to  surround  with  no  less 
than  divine  glory.  Exodus  tells  us,  that  at  the  time 
of  the  birth  of  Moses,  an  edict  to  put  to  death  all  new- 
born Hebrew  male  children  was  in  its  early  vigorous 
force,  so  that  it  was  only  by  concealment  Jochebed  could 
save  her  infant  during  the  first  three  months  of  his  life. 
At  that  time  his  birth  became  known  to  Pharaoh's 
police,  and  nothing  remained  but  to  let  him  be  put  to 
death,  or  to  trust  him  to  the  care  of  Providence  in  a  way 
of  which  she  may  very  likely  have  heard,  in  a  legend 
brought  by  her  ancestors,  from  their  ancient  home  in 
Chaldea.  There,  in  Abraham's  day,  a  great  king, 
Sargon  I.,  had  reigned,  the  creator  of  the  new  Chaldean 
idolatry,  from  which  the  Father  of  the  Faithful  had 
turned  away,  to  seek  a  purer  home  in  Canaan.  Strangely 
enough,  this  prince  had  caused  a  most  romantic  story  of 
his  own  birth  to  be  recorded  on  the  clay  tablets  of  the 
royal  library.     It  ran  thus  : — 

"I  am  Sargon,  the  great  king,  the  king  of  Agana. 
My  mother  was  of  the  masters  of  the  laud,  but  I  never 
knew  my  father.  I  was  born  secretly  in  the  city  of  Atzu- 
pirani,  on  the  banks  of  the  Euphrates.  My  mother  put 
me  in  an  ark  of  bulrushes  lined  with  bitumen,  and  laid 
me  in  the  river^  which  did  not  enter  the  ark.     It  bore 


92 


MOSES. 


me  to  tlie  dwelling  of  Akki,  tlie  water- carrier,^  and  lie, 
in  the  goodness  of  his  heart,  lifted  me  from  the  water, 
and  brought  me  up  as  his  own  son.  After  this  he  es- 
tablished me  as  a  gardener,  and  Ishtar  caused  me  to 
prosper,  and,  after  years,  I  came  to  be  king/'  ^  Acting 
either  on  the  hint  of  this  strange  legend,  or  led  in  a  like 

case  to  a  similar  course, 
Jochebed  prepared  a 
little  ark  of  papyrus,  and 
after  coating  it  with 
bitumen,  to  prevent  the 
water  from  reaching  the 
child,  put  him  in  it  j 
doubtless  with  many  a 
prayer.  She  then  laid  it 
among  the  papyrus  reeds 
on  the  edge  of  one  of  the 
broad  canals  8.t  Tanis, 
or  Rameses,  where  she 
lived,  and  set  the  in- 
fant's sister,  a  girl  of 
about  twelve,  to  watch 
his  fate  from  a  distance. 
An  inscription  found  by 
Ebers,  if  he  translate  it 
aright,  seems  to  point   to   Tanis,  "the   field  of  Zoan,'' 

^  A  labourer  of  the  lowest  and  meanest  class.  See  Josh.  ix.  21, 
23,  27. 

2  Smith's  Chaldoean  Genesis,  p.  299.  Fox  Talbot,  in  Trans, 
of  Soc.  of  Bib.  Arch.,  vol.  i.  p.  271,  and  in  Records  of  the  Pastf 
vol.  V.  p.  1.  Lenormant,  Les  Fremieres  Civilizations,  vol.  ii.  p.  104. 
Mr.  Talbot  translates  the  last  two  lines  thus :  "  He  placed  me 
with  a  tribe  of  Foresters  and  they  made  me  king."  He  supposes 
that  he  became  captain  of  this  band  of  rude  people  and  from  this 
rose  to  power.     Ishtar  was  the  Assyrian  Yenus. 


The  Papykits. 


MOSES.  93 

and  tlie  scene  of  Ins  future  ^'wonders/'  as  the  birth-place 
of  the  destined  law-giver.  In  this  case  his  exposure 
took  place,  not  on  the  broad  stream  of  the  Nile  at 
Memphis,  as  one  tradition  has  asserted,  bnit  far  to  the 
north,  among  the  Hebrew  population  of  the  Delta;  on 
one  of  the  flowing  canals  of  irrigation  which  spread  in 
a  network  over  the  land.  Rameses,  it  would  appear 
from  the  curious  document  in  question,  was  living  at 
Tanis  exactly  eighty  years  before  the  date  ^  which  has 
been  fixed  by  Lepsius^  as  that  of  the  Exodus — B.C.  1314.^ 
From  the  vast  numbers  of  the  Hebrews  who  left  Egypt, 
when  Moses  was  80  years  of  age,  it  is  not  likely  that  the 
command  to  destroy  the  male  infants  remained  long  in 
force,  but  it  could  only  have  been  given  under  the  in- 
fluence of  immediate  contact  with  the  evil  against  which 
it  was  directed ;  that  is,  while  Rameses  was  in  residence 
at  his  northern  Delta  capital — Tanis. 

According  to  the  custom  of  the  court,  his  family  doubt- 
less attended  him,  and  thus  the  presence  of  the  princess 
by  whom  Moses  was  rescued  is  explained.  In  those  days 
the  papyrus,  now  found  only  in  the  far  southern  White 
Nile,  must  have  grown  thickly  in  the  broad  canals  of 
Lower  Egypt.  In  its  pleasant  screen  the  little  ark  would 
be  protected  from  the  sun ;  while  the  privacy  secured 
would  attract  the  ladies  of  the  court  to  a  spot  so  suited 
for  the  frequent  bathing  demanded  alike  from  the  heat 
of  the  climate,  and  as  a  religious  requirement.  The  slow 
current,  and  limited  surface,  moreover,  would  prevent  any 
danger  of  the  ark  being  swept  out  of  sight,  as  it  might 
well  have  been  on  the  broad  bosom  of  the  Nile.* 

1  Durch  Gosen,  p.  82. 

2  Ghronologie  der  2Egypter,  vol.  i.  p.  314. 

3  Exod.  vii.  7.    Diestel  thinks  the  date  of  the  Exodus,  B.C.  1491. 
^  See  Syeaher's  Comment.,  vol.  i.  p.  255. 


94  MOSES. 

If  the  dates  on  which  Ebers  reh'es  be  correct^  Seti  I. 
must  have  been  still  reigning  when  Moses  was  born, 
and  with  him  his  young  child  Rameses_,  as  associated 
king ;  for,  as  already  said,  he  was  thus  honoured  from  his 
infancy,  on  account  of  his  pure  royal  descent  through 
his  mother.  The  daughter  of  Pharaoh  by  whom  the 
baby  was  saved  ^  must,  therefore,  have  been  a  sister  of 
Rameses.  Seti,  however,  in  accordance  with  Egyptian 
custom,  had  made  over  to  Rameses  in  his  early  youth,  as 
his  wives,  a  number  of  ladies  from  the  royal  harem,  and 
among  these,  it  is  more  than  likely,  the  rescuer  of  Moses; 
for,  as  we  have  already  seen,  a  marriage  of  brother  and 
sister  was  thought  in  Egypt,  as  in  Ancient  Persia,  the 
best  possible  for  a  prince ;  to  guarantee  the  purity  of  the 
divine  blood  of  the  royal  House.  The  practice,  indeed, 
prevailed  on  the  Nile  as  late  as  the  times  of  the  Ptolemies. ^ 

Though  not  given  in  the  Bible,  the  name  of  the 
"  daughter  of  Pharaoh ''  has  been  handed  down  by  tra- 
dition as  Thermouthis,^  and  also  as  Merris,*  both  which 
occur  in  the  inscriptions.  Thus,  Thermouthis  is  the 
name  of  an  Egyptian  town,  in  a  fragment  of  Stephen 
of  Byzance,^  and,  in  a  list  of  princesses,  the  monuments 
name  one  as  Meri,  which  is  evidently  identical  with 
Merris ;  ^  while  they  give  Thermouthis,  the  very  name  in 

^  The  gorojeous  dress  of  a  daughter  of  Pharaoh  is  described  in 
Ebers'  Uarda,  vol.  i.  pp.  63,  64,  297,  and  in  his  j^gypt.  Kdnigs- 
tochter,  vol.  ii.  p.  247. 

2  J^gijpt.  Konigstoclder,  vol.  iii.  pp.  122,  291.  That,  in  spite  of 
prohibition  by  the  law  (Lev.  xviii.  9, 11),  marriages  of  brothers  and 
sisters  were  not  unknown  in  Israel,  is  seen  from  2  Sam.  xiii.  13. 

3  Jos.,  Ant,  II.  ix.  6. 

^  Euseb.,  Prcep.  Evang.,  ix.  27. 

5  A  Greek  geographer  of  the  sixth  century,  who  wrote  a  great 
geographical  dictionary,  fragments  of  which  only  are  extant. 
*  Brugsch,  vol.  ii.  p.  112. 


MOSES.  95 

Josephus^  as  tliat  of  one  of  the  wives  of  Rameses.^  He 
had  also  a  favourite   dauo-hter   Bent   Anat — the  heroine 

o 

of  Ebers'  charming  story  "Uarda^^ — and  married  her, 
as  he  had  done  his  sister  Thermouthis.  So  low  was 
the  morality  of  the  Nile  Valley,  even  round  the  throne 
of  the  greatest  of  all  its  kings. 

A  curious  fact,  which  however  is  of  questionable  value, 
is  mentioned  by  Brugsch.  An  inscription  dating  from 
about  a  hundred  years  after  the  death  of  Rameses  II., 
the  great  Sesostris,  speaks  of  a  place  in  Middle  Egypt 
which  seems  to  refer  to  the  Hebrew  Lawgiver.  It  is 
called  T-en  Moshe — "the  island,^'  or  "the  river  bank 
of  Moses.''^  It  lay  on  the  eastern  side  of  the  river,  near 
the  city  of  the  heretic  king  Khunaten.^  But,  unfortu- 
nately, the  locality  does  not  suit  that  of  the  exposure  of 
the  infant  destined  to  be  so  illustrious. 

The  meaning  of  the  name  Moses  is  given  in  Exodus 
as  '*  drawn  out ''  (from  the  water) ;  and  this  is  supported 
by  the  fact  that  the  words  mo  and  shi,  respectively,  mean 
still,  in  Coptic,  "water,^'  and  "to  take.-''  That  it  is  a 
Hebraized  form  of  an  Egyptian  name  appears  certain, 
but  the  original  form  is  believed  by  modern  scholars 
to  have  been  Mesu,  which  often  appears  in  Egyptian 
writings,  and  was  written  "  Mosis  '^  by  the  Greeks.^ 
Josephus  *  derives  it  from  the  Egyptian  words.  Mo,  water, 
and  JJf^es,  "  the  saved  one ;  '^  and  this  was  evidently 
the   opinion   also,    before    his    day,   of  the  Alexandrian 

^  Lenormant  Histoire  Ancienne,  vol.  i.  p.  423.  Maspero,  i'7%- 
scription  Dedicatoive  du  Temple  d'Ahydos,  p.  29.  Ebei-s,  Durch 
Gosen,  p.  525.  Thermouthis  means  "Beloved  by  the  goddess 
Mub." 

2  Brugsch,  vol.  2.  p.  112. 

*  Lepsius,  Chronologie,  vol.  i.  p.  326.    Ebers,  Durch  Gosen,  p.  526. 

"  Ant,  II.  ix.  6. 


96  MOSES. 

translators  of  the  Bible,  wlio  give  tlie  name  as  M5uses. 
It  seems  reasonable,  therefore,  to  keep  to  the  old  ety- 
mology of  the  Bible,  since  it  was  thus  supported  even  in 
Egypt,  long  before  Christ.^ 

Handed  over  to  the  care  of  his  mother  during  his  tender 
years — thanks  to  the  quick  wit  of  his  sister  Miriam- 
Moses  became  a  permanent  inmate  of  the  palace  in  his 
early  boyhood.  Once  there,  he  was  adopted  by  Ther- 
mouthis,  and  received  the  care  and  training  of  a  king^s 
son ;  Rameses  the  Oppressor  becoming  unconsciously  his 
Protector  !  Ebers  has  given  us  an  idea  of  the  splendour 
amidst  which  the  wondering  child  must  thus  have  grown 
up.  The  Palace  of  Rameses,  he  tells  us,^  was  more  like 
a  little  town  than  a  house.  The  part  of  it  used  by  the 
royal  family  commanded  a  view  of  the  Nile,  from  which 
it  offered  to  the  passing  vessels  a  pleasing  prospect,  for 
it  stood,  amidst  its  surrounding  gardens,  in  picturesque 
buildings  of  various  outline,  not  as  a  huge  and  solitary 
mass.  On  each  side  of  a  large  structure  which  con- 
tained the  state  rooms  and  banqueting  hall,  three  rows 
of  pavilions  of  different  sizes  extended  in  symmetrical 
order.  These  were  connected  with  each  other  by  colon- 
nades, or  by  little  bridges,  under  which  flowed  canals 
that  watered  the  gardens,  and  gave  the  palace  the  aspect 
of  a  town  upon  islands. 

The  principal  part  of  the  palace  was  built  of  light  Nile- 

*  Delitzsch  and  Keil  adopt  the  derivation,  Mo  =  water:  udsche 
(soft  g)  =to  be  saved  from  ;  and  this  seems  on  the  whole  the  best. 
Both  words  are  Coptic.  Keil  u.  Delitzsch,  Komment.  Moadsche, 
they  suppose,  was  softened  into  Mosche,  the  Hebrew  form. 
Vol.  i.  p.  364. 

2  Uarda,  vol.  i.  p.  288.  The  palace  described  was  at  Thebes, 
but  it  none  the  less  helps  us  to  realize  the  splendours  that 
surrounded  the  childhood,  youth,  and  manhood  of  Moses,  till  he 
was  forty. 


MOSES.  97 

mud  bricks  and  elegantly  carved  woodwork,  but  tlie 
extensive  walls  which  surrounded  it  were  ornamented 
and  fortified  with  towers,  in  front  of  which  heavily  armed 
soldiers  stood  on  guard. 

The  walls  and  pillars,  the  galleries  and  colonnades, 
and  even  the  roofs,  blazed  with  many  colours,  and  at 
every  gate  rose  tall  masts,  from  which  red  and  blue  flags 
streamed  when  the  king  was  in  residence.  Tall  brass 
spikes  at  their  top  were  intended  at  once  to  add  to  the 
splendour  and  to  act  as  lightning  conductors.  On  the 
right  of  the  principal  building,  and  entirely  surrounded 
with  thick  plantations  of  trees,  stood  the  houses  of  the 
royal  ladies ;  some  mirrored  in  the  lake,  round  which 
they  stood  at  a  greater  or  less  distance.  In  this  part 
of  the  grounds  were  the  king's  store  houses,  in  long 
rows ;  while  behind  the  central  building  in  which  the 
Pharaoh  resided,  stood  the  treasuries,  and  the  barracks 
of  the  body-guard.  The  left  wing  was  occupied  by  the 
officers  of  the  household,  and  the  innumerable  servants, 
and  by  the  royal  horses  and  chariots. 

Two  rooms  of  this  palace,  in  the  ladies'  quarter,  are 
also  described  by  Ebers,  from  the  monuments,  and  help 
us  to  realize  the  associations  that  must  have  been  familiar 
to  the  early  life  of  Moses.  Passing  through  the  gardens 
in  which  a  hundred  gardeners  watered  the  turf,  the  flower- 
beds, the  shrubs  and  the  trees,  and  crossing  the  quad- 
rangles in  which  companies  of  guards  came  and  went, 
and  where  horses  were  being  trained  and  broken,  the 
princess  and  her  maidens,  on  returning  from  the  river, 
would  be  received,  as  her  litter  entered  the  gates,  by  a 
lord  in  waiting,  and  then  led  by  the  chamberlain  to  her 
rooms,  amidst  low  bows.  One  of  her  chambers  com- 
manded the  river,  to  enjoy  the  beauty  of  which  a  doorway, 
closed  with  light  curtains,  opened  on  a  long  balcony  with 

VOL.    II.  H 


98 


MOSES. 


a  finely  worked  balustrade,  to  whicli  clung  a  climbing 
rose  with  pink  flowers.  The  carpets  in  the  room  itself 
were  of  sky-blue  and  silver  brocade  from  Damascus ;  the 
coverings  of  the  seats  and  couches  had  been  richly 
embroidered  with  feathers  by  Ethiopian  women,  and 
looked  like  the  breasts  of  birds.  The  images  of  the 
goddess  Hathor,  which  stood  on  the  house  altar,  were 
of  an  imitation  of  emerald  called  Mafkat,  and  other  little 

figures  were  of  lapis-lazuli, 
malachite, agate,  and  bronze 
overlaid  with  gold.  On  the 
toilet  table  stood  a  collec- 
tion of  unguent  boxes,  and 
cups  of  ebony  and  ivory 
finely  carved — everything 
being  arranged  with  the 
utmost  taste. 

The  other  room  was  also 
worthy    of    such   a   kingly 
house.      It   was   high   and 
airy,  and  its  furniture  con- 
sisted of  costly  but  simple 
necessaries.   The  lower  part 
of  the  wall  was  lined  with 
cool  tiles  of  white  and  violet 
earthenware,    on    each    of 
Above  these,  the  walls  were 
material  brought  from  Sais, 
Chairs 


Egyptian  Chaib. 


which  was  pictured  a  star, 
covered  with  a  dark  green 

which  also  covered  the  long  divans  skirting  them. 
and  stools,  made  of  cane,  stood  round  a  very  long  table 
in  the  middle  of  the  room,  out  of  which  several  others 
opened;  all  handsome,  comfortable  and  harmonious  in 
aspect.  Rare  and  magnificent  plants,  artistically  ar- 
ranged on  stands,  stood  in  the  corners  of  many  of  the 


MOSES. 


99 


rooms.  In  others  were  tall  obelisks  of  ebony,  bearing 
saucers  for  incense,  which  all  the  Egyptians  loved,  at 
once  for  its  perfume  and  as  a  disinfectant.^ 

The  garden  stretching  below  the  windows  was  as  won- 
derful as  all  else.  A  famous  artist  had  laid  it  out  in  the 
time  of  Queen  Hatasu,  and  the  picture  which  he  had  in 
his  mind  when  he  sowed  the  seeds  and  planted  the  young 
shoots,  was  now  realized,  many  decades  after  his  death. 
He  intended  it  to  form  a 
carpet  on  which  the  palace 
should  seem  to  stand. 
Tiny  streams,  in  bends  and 
curves,  formed  the  outline 
of  the  design,  and  the 
shapes  they  enclosed  were 
filled  with  plants  of  every 
size,  form,  and  colour. 
Beautiful  plats  of  fresh 
green  turf  everywhere  re- 
presented the  groundwork 
of  the  pattern,  and  flower 
beds  and  clumps  of  shrubs 
stood  out  from  them  in 
harmonious  mixture  of 
colours ;  while  tall  and  rare 
trees,  which  Hatasu^s  ships 
had  brought  from  Arabia,  gave  dignity  and  impressive - 
ness  to  the  whole.^ 

A  few  more  extracts  from  the  same  wonderful  restor- 
ation of  Egyptian  life  at  the  time  of  Moses,  bring  before 
us  other  aspects  of  the  scene  amidst  which  his  early 
life  was  passed.  A  grand  temporary  banqueting  hall 
erected  at  Avaris  or  Pelusium,  on  the  frontier  wall 
1  Uarda,  vol.  i.  pp.  285,  288.  2  jUd.,  p.  292. 


Egtptiak  Chaib. 


100  MOSES. 

towards  Palestine,  when  Eameses  came  back  from  his 
wars  with  the  Kheta  of  Syria,  is  thus  described,  in  strict 
accordance  with  details  gathered  from  the  monuments. 
"  It  was  of  unusual  height,  and  had  a  vaulted  ceiling 
painted  blue  and  sprinkled  with  stars,  to  represent  the 
night  heavens.  This  rested  on  pillars  ;  carved,  some  in 
the  form  of  date  palms ;  some,  like  cedars  of  Lebanon. 
The  leaves  and  twig^  consisted  of  artfully  fastened  and 
coloured  tissue :  elegant  festoons  of  bluish  gauze  were 
stretched  from  pillar  to  pillar  across  the  hall,  and  were 
attached  in  the  centre  of  the  eastern  wall  to  a  large 
shell- shaped  canopy  over  the  throne  of  the  king,  de- 
corated with  pieces  of  green  and  blue  glass,  mother 
of  pearl,  shining  plates  of  mica,  and  other  sparkling 
objects. 

*'  The  throne  itself  had  the  shape  of  a  buckler,  guarded 
by  two  lions,  which  rested  on  each  side  of  it,  and  formed 
the  arms ;  and  it  was  supported  on  the  backs  of  four 
Asiatic  captives  who  crouched  beneath  the  weight. 
Thick  carpets,  which  seemed  to  have  transported  the 
seashore  to  the  dry  land — for  their  pale  blue  was  strewn 
with  a  variety  of  shells,  fishes,  and  water-plants — covered 
the  floor  of  the  banqueting  hall,  in  which  three  hundred 
seats  were  placed  beside  the  tables,  for  the  nobles  of 
the  kingdom  and  the  officers  of  the  troops.  Above  all 
this  splendour  hung  a  thousand  lamps  shaped  like  tulips 
and  lilies,  and  in  the  entrance  stood  a  huge  basket  of 
roses,  to  be  strewn  before  the  king  when  he  should 
arrive. 

"  Even  the  bedrooms  for  the  king  and  his  suite  were 
splendidly  decorated.  Finely  embroidered  purple  stuffs 
covered  the  walls,  a  light  cloud  of  pale  blue  gauze  hung 
across  the  ceiling,  and  giraffe  skins  were  laid,  instead  of 
carpets,  on  the  floors.      A   separate  pavilion,   gilt  and 


MOSES.  101 

wreathed  with  flowers,  was  erected  to  receive  the  horses 
which  the  king  had  used  in  the  battle,  and  which  he  had 
dedicated  to  the  Sun-god. 

"  Crowds  of  men  and  women  from  all  parts/'  of  whom 
Moses  may  have  been  one^  "  had  thronged  to  Pelusium, 
to  welcome  the  conqueror  and  his  victorious  army  on 
their  return,  and  every  great  temple  college  had  sent  a 
deputation  to  meet  him.  A  few  only  of  these  wore 
the  modest  white  robe  of  the  simple  priest :  most  were 
adorned  with  the  panther  skin  worn  by  the  prophets. 
Each  bore  a  staff  decorated  with  roses,  lilies,  and  green 
branches^  and  many  carried  censers  in  the  form  of  a 
golden  arm,  with  incense  in  the  hollow  of  the  hand,  to 
be  burnt  before  the  king.  Among  the  deputies  from  the 
priesthood  of  Thebes  were  several  women  of  high  rank, 
who  served  in  the  worship  of  Amon.     .     . 

"  Ere  long,  the  flags  were  hoisted  on  the  standards 
beside  the  triumphal  arches,  clouds  of  dust  rolled  up 
the  farther  shore  of  the  Nile,  and  the  blare  of  trumpets 
was  heard.  First  came  the  horses  which  had  carried 
E-ameses  through  the  fight,  with  the  king  himself,  who 
drove  them.  His  eyes  sparkled  with  joyful  triumph,  as 
the  vast  multitude  on  the  other  side  of  the  bridge 
hailed  him  with  wild  enthusiasm  and  tears  of  emotion, 
strewing  in  his  path  the  spoils  of  their  gardens — flowers, 
garlands,  and  palm  branches/'  .  .  .  The  scene  at  the 
banquet,  at  which  Moses  may  have  been  a  guest,  was 
in  keeping  with  all  this  pomp.  ^^  Hundreds  of  slaves 
hurried  to  and  fro  loaded  with  costly  dishes.  Large 
vessels  of  richly  wrought  gold  and  silver  were  brought 
into  the  hall  on  wheels,  and  set  on  the  side-boards. 
Children,  perched  in  the  shells  and  lotus-flowers  that 
hung  from  the  painted  rafters  and  from  between  the 
pillars  hung  with  cloudy  transparent  tissues,  threw  roses 


102  MOSES. 

and  violets  down  on  tlie  company.^  The  sound  of  harps 
and  songs  issued  from  concealed  rooms,  and  from  an 
altar  ten  feet  high,  in  the  middle  of  the  room,  clouds  of 
incense  were  wafted  into  space/^^ 

No  details  of  the  early  life  of  Moses  are  furnished  by  the 
Bible,  and  the  want  can  only  be  supplied  by  the  fanciful 
inventions  of  tradition.  Thus  Josephus  tells  us  that  he 
was  wonderfully  tall  when  only  three  years  old,  and  so 
beautiful  that  even  the  common  people  stopped  to  look 
at  him  as  they  went  by.  St.  Stephen,  indeed,  corro- 
borates the  statement  as  to  his  comeliness,  which  he 
describes  as  uncommon.^  A  short  extract  from  Man- 
etho  has  likewise  been  preserved  by  the  Jewish  historian, 
stating  that  Moses  was  born  at  On,  and  that  his  name 
was  originally  Osarsiph,  from  Osiris,  the  god  of  On,  but 
that  he  changed  it  into  Moses,*  and  that  he  was  a  priest 
of  Osiris  in  the  great  Sun-temple  of  his  native  city,  but 
was  turned  out  of  the  priesthood  for  leprosy.^  Josephus 
adds  that  he  was  appointed  general  of  an  Egyptian 
army,  which  marched  under  him  against  the  Ethiopians 
and  won  great  victories  j  but  all  this  rests  on  no  authority 
beyond  untrustworthy  legend.^  His  training  in  "all  the 
wisdom  of  the  Egyptians,^^  must  have  followed  as  a 
necessary  consequence  from  his  adoption  by  Thermouthis, 

*  In  the  story  of  Saneha  the  Pharaoh  is  described  as  having 
"a  pavilion  of  pure  gold."    Records  of  the  Past,  vol.  vi.  p.  147. 

2  Uarda,  vol.  ii.  pp.  236-252. 

3  Acts  vii.  20.     See  also,  Heb.  xi.  23. 

4  Contra  Apion,  i.  26-28.  «  Ihid. 

^  The  legend  of  Moses  having  led  an  army  to  Ethiopia  may 
have  risen  from  the  title  of  a  Son  of  Pharaoh  having  always 
been  Messi,  or  Massui — Prince  of  Ethiopia.  A  high  official 
is  also  called  so  on  a  rock  tablet  at  Assouan.  Ebers,  Durch 
Gosen,  p.  626.  Brugscli,  vol.  ii.  p.  530.  Lepsius,  Konigshuch,  J,  35, 
No.  469. 


MOSES.  103 

wliicli  itself  incorporated  him  into  tlie  royal  family  and 
into  the  priestly  caste.  Tradition  assigns  the  great 
Temple  of  the  Sun  at  On,  the  chief  university  of  Egypt, 
as  the  scene  of  his  education,  and  if  so  his  experience  of 
Egyptian  life  in  many  striking  aspects  must  have  been 
wide,  for  the  population  of  the  Temple  and  its  depend- 
encies was  well  nigh  that  of  a  small  town.  Shady 
cloisters  opened  into  lecture  rooms  for  the  students,  and 
quiet  houses  for  the  professors  and  priests,  in  their  many 
grades  and  offices ;  there  being  room  for  all  in  the  cor- 
ridors of  the  huge  pile.  Outside  these,  but  still  within 
the  precincts,  were  the  cottages  of  the  temple  ser- 
vants, keepers  of  the  beasts,  gate-keepers,  litter-bearers, 
water-carriers,  washermen,  washerwomen,  and  cooks; 
and  the  rooms  of  the  pastophoroi  who  prepared  the 
incense  and  perfumes.  The  library  and  writing  cham- 
bers had  their  host  of  scribes,  who  all  lived  in  the  temple 
buildings,  and  there  were  besides,  also  as  members  of 
this  huge  population,  the  officials  of  the  counting-house, 
troops  of  singers,  and  last  of  all,  the  noisy  multitude 
of  the  great  temple  school — the  Eton  or  Harrow  of 
the  time — from  which  Moses  would  pass  upwards  to  the 
lectures  of  the  various  faculties  of  the  university.^ 

Clement  of  Alexandria  has  fortunately  preserved  an 
account  of  one  of  the  man}^  religious  processions,  a  coun- 
terpart to  which  Moses  must  often  have  watched  issuing 
from  the  gates  of  this  vast  sanctuary.  It  was  in  honour 
of  Isis.  The  singers  came  first,  their  voices  accompanied 
by  instruments.  Then  followed,  carrying  a  palm  branch 
and  his  time-measurer,  the  horoscoper,  who  predicted 
the  future  from  the  stars :  then  the  holy  scribes,  with 
ink,  pens,  and  a  book.  The  first  was  required  to  know 
by  heart  thirty-six  of  the  forty-two  books  of  Hermes, 
1  Ebers,  The  Sisters,  vol.  ii.  pp.  32-34. 


104  MOSES. 

witli  the  hymns  to  the  gods,  and  the  rules  for  the  king  : 
the  second,  those  of  the  books  of  Hermes  which  treated 
of  astrology  :  the  third,  to  be  an  adept  at  hieroglyphics, 
geography,  the  structure  of  the  earth,  the  phenomena 
of  the  Nile,  and  the  details  of  measures  and  offerings. 
After  these  came  the  dressers  of  the  god,  carrying  "  the 
rod  of  righteousness,^'  and  a  vessel  for  the  drink  offer- 
ing. The  chief  of  these  was  required  to  be  skilled  in 
all  that  related  to  the  honouring  of  the  idol.  Next  came 
the  prophets,  the  foremost  bearing  a  sacred  vessel; 
others,  the  holy  bread.  The  chief  prophet  was  the 
president  of  the  temple,  and  had  committed  to  memory 
the  ten  books  of  the  priests.  The  pastophoroi^  or  sacred 
physicians  followed,  clad  in  their  robes  like  the  rest,  and 
honoured  as  having  by  heart  the  six  books^  of  medicine ; 
and  these  were  followed  by  others,  with  endless  display.^ 
In  what  the  ^'^  wisdom ''  in  which  Moses  was  trained 
consisted  is  not  easy  to  learn,  for  the  priestly  scribes  in 
their  written  allusions  to  it  which  are  still  extant,  speak 
so  metaphorically,  and  hide  their  meaning  so  studiously, 
that  it  is  always  more  or  less  uncertain.  They  held  it, 
indeed,  as  their  exclusive  treasure ;  to  be  communicated 
to  none  outside  their  circle.^  The  belief  in  one  supreme 
God  seems,  however,  as  is  shown  in  the  Book  of  the  Dead, 
to  have  been  the  kernel  of  these  secret  doctrines ;  but 
the  "  wisdom '^  must  have  included  much  besides  that 
was  lofty  and  attractive,  since  the  wisest  of  the  Greeks — 
Lycurgus,  Solon,  Thales,  Pythagoras,  Democritus,  Plato 
and  others — borrowed  from  it  many  of  their  principles  in 
politics,  geometry,  astronomy  and  physics.  It  included, 
also,  moral  and  even  medical  precepts,  and  to  these  Moses 
doubtless  owed  much.'*     For  it  is  striking  to  notice  that 

*  See  p.  103.  ^  Clemens  Alex.,  Strom.,  vi.  4. 

*  Uarda,  vol.  i.  p.  28.  *  TJlilemann,  p.  69. 


MOSES.  105 

tte  forty-two  mortal  sins  from  which  the  soul  had  to  clear 
itself  before  the  forty-two  judges  of  the  dead,  in  the  next 
world,  as  a  condition  of  a  happy  immortality,  embrace 
nearly  the  whole  Mosaic  moral  law ;  presenting,  in  fact, 
the  quintessence  of  that  universal  human  morality  which 
in  all  ages  has  made  mankind  justly  responsible  for  their 
conduct,  as  the  "law  written  in  their  hearts,^'  making 
them  "by  nature^'  a  "law  unto  themselves/'^  The 
ibis-headed  god  Thoth — the  scribe  of  the  gods,  known  to 
the  Greeks  as  Hermes  Trismegistos,  Hermes,  the  thrice 
greatest — was  given  out  by  the  priests  as  having  written 
six  books  on  medicine,  which  embraced  anatomy,  pa- 
thology, therapeutics,  and  treatment  of  diseases  of  the 
eye;  so  common  on  the  Nile.  These  books,  composed 
by  learned  priests,  would  be  of  great  value  to  a  mind  of 
such  comprehensive  genius  as  that  of  Moses.  Nor  must 
we  forget  that  it  is  to  Hermes  or  Thoth  that  the  sublime 
definition  of  God  is  ascribed,  as  being  a  circle  whose 
centre  is  everywhere  and  the  circumference  nowhere. 
The  library  of  the  Ramesseum  at  Thebes — over  the  gate 
of  which  was  seen  the  inscription,  "For  the  healing 
of  the  soul " — contained  20,000  books;  nor  is  it  without 
significance,  as  indicating  a  period  of  great  intellectual 
activity,  that  the  structure  thus  consecrated  to  knowledge 
was  built  by  Eameses  II.  Statues  of  Thoth,  the  god  of 
wisdom,  and  of  Safekh,  the  goddess  of  history,  adorned 
the  entrance,  and  we  even  yet  possess  some  priestly 
papyrus  rolls  dated  from  it.  The  library  is,  indeed,  often 
mentioned  in  Egyptian  book -rolls,  and  the  graves  of 
two  of  its  librarians  under  Eameses  II.  are  yet  to  be 
seen  at  Thebes.  The  two,  it  seems,  were  father  and 
son,  and  in  their  life  enjoyed  the  title  of  "  Chief  of  the 

^  •  Rom.  ii.  14, 15.     See  Eine  ^gypt.  Konigstocliter,  vol.  ii.  p.  254 ; 
vol  iii.  p.  271.     Lepsius,  Todtenbuch,  p.  125. 


106  MOSES. 

books."  ^  Nor  was  tbis  tlie  only  library  in  tbe  times  of 
Moses.  That  of  Osiris  Seb  is  mentioned  in  a  copy  of 
tlie  Book  of  the  Dead,  and  there  was  one  belonging  to 
the  temple  of  Ptah  at  Memphis,  in  which  medical  books 
were  included.  Another,  also,  existed  later,  in  the  Sera- 
peion  at  Alexandria.  The  temples,  like  our  own  monas- 
teries in  the  middle  ages,  were,  in  fact,  the  libraries  of 
the  times,  and  often  had  valuable  collections  of  books.^ 

It  is  not  probable  that  Moses  permanently  maintained 
associations  with  the  royal  family,  after  he  had  grown  to 
manhood.  His  absence  while  at  the  University  of  On,  if 
he  studied  there;  tbe  removal  of  the  court  to  distant 
Thebes,  which  took  place  periodically;  and,  above  all, 
his  sympathy  with,  his  own  race,  must  have  practically 
separated  him,  after  a  time,  from  the  splendours  of  the 
palace.  The  lowly  home  of  his  parents  would  have 
more  attractions  than  the  halls  of  his  princely  benefac- 
tress, grateful  as  he  might  be  to  her.  That  his  feelings 
were  intensely'  national  is  seen  by  the  one  incident 
recorded,  in  Exodus,  of  his  Egyptian  life.  In  a  sudden 
access  of  just  indignation  at  the  sight  of  a  native  over- 
seer cruelly  illusing  an  Israelite,  he  fell  on  the  oppressor 
and  slew  him,  and  as  death  was  the  inevitable  punishment 
should  the  homicide  be  discovered,  he  could  save  his 
life  only  by  a  basty  flight  from  the  country .^     His  guilt, 

*  Lepsius,  Chronologie-Einleitung,  p.  39. 

2  Eine  ^gyyt.  KdnigstocUer,  vol.  iii.  pp.  273-4. 

3  Besides  the  short  rods  for  the  bastinado,  the  "taskmasters" 
had  long  heavy  scourges  made  of  a  pliant  wood  imported  from 
Syria.  Chabas,  Voyage  d'un  Egyiotien,  pp.  119,  136.  Old 
Egyptian  proverbs  tell  of  the  fearful  cruelty  of  these  "  drivers." 
Thus,  '*  the  child  grows  up  and  his  bones  are  broken  like  the 
bones  of  an  ass."  *'  The  back  of  a  lad  is  made  that  he  may 
hearken  to  him  that  beats  him."  Chabas,  Voyage,  p.  136  n. 
Tapyrus  Anast.,  Y.  viii.  6. 


MOSES.  107 

indeed,  was  exceptionally  great,  for  lie  had  hidden  the 
body  and  thus  hindered  embalmment,  without  which 
the  soul  of  the  slain  man  would  never  enter  into  the 
Egyptian  heaven. 

The  direction  he  took  was,  in  all  probability,  straight 
for  Pelusium  or  some  other  town  on  the  line  of  the  great 
frontier  wall,  offering  escape  into  the  desert  beyond.  He 
would  breathe  freely  only  when  he  had  left  Egypt  behind 
him,  and  then,  no  course  was  open  for  him  but  to  turn 
south,  and  seek  refuge  in  the  mountainous  peninsula  of 
Sinai.  He  could  not,  like  Sineh,^  hundred  of  years 
before,  flee  to  Southern  Palestine,  for  the  Hittite  treaty 
of  Rameses  had,  as  we  have  seen,  an  extradition  clause, 
by  which  he  would  at  once  have  been  sent  back  to 
the  Nile.  But  we  can  well  fancy  that,  like  Sineh,  he 
suffered  not  a  little  on  his  far  longer  and  more  painful 
journey.  "  I  went  on  foot,''^  says  that  fugitive  of  the  age 
before  Abraham,  "  until  I  came  to  the  fortress  which 
the  king  had  made  to  keep  off  the  Eastern  foreigners, 
and  an  old  man,  a  herbseller,  sheltered  me.  But  I  was 
alarmed  at  the  sight  of  the  watchers  on  the  wall,  who 
were  changed  daily.  When  the  night  was  passed,  how- 
ever, and  the  dawn  came,  I  went  on  from  place  to  place, 
and  arrived  at  the  station  of  Kamur.  But  thirst  overtook 
me  on  my  journey,  and  my  throat  was  so  parched  that  I 
said  '  this  is  the  taste  of  death,'  till,  hearing  the  pleasant 
voice  of  cattle,  I  lifted  up  my  heart,  and  braced  my 
limbs.  Presently  I  saw  a  Bedouin,  who  asked  me 
whither  I  journeyed,  addressing  me  as  from  Egypt. 
He  then  gave  me  water,  and  poured  out  milk  for  me, 
and  I  went  with  him  to  his  tribe,  and  they  brought  me 
on  from  place  to  place  till  I  arrived  at  Atuua." 

^  Chabas,   Les    Papyrus    Hieratiques    de    Berlin,    pp.    36-51. 
Mas;pero,  p.  109.     Records  of  the  Fast,  vol.  vi.  p.  135. 


108  MOSES. 

Moses  betook  himself,  with  a  wise  foresight,  to  the 
southern  part  of  the  Peninsula  of  Sinai,  a  mountainous 
triangle  of  more  than  120  miles,  north  and  south,  from 
the  line  of  Suez.  The  north  of  the  peninsula  was  held 
by  the  Amalekites,  but  the  southern  portion  was  the 
district  of  a  part  of  the  great  tribe  of  Midian,  known 
as  the  Kenites,^  and  as  such  descended  from  Abraham 
throuo'h  Keturah.  The  bond  of  common  race  would  thus 
secure  the  fugitive  a  hearty  reception,  and  it  laid  the 
ground,  moreover,  for  a  possible  alliance  against  Egypt, 
when  the  Hebrews  should  make  an  effort  for  deliverance. 
Reaching  the  head  quarters  of  this  people,  which  were, 
as  usual,  near  a  famous  well,  he  received,  at  once,  a 
friendly  welcome  from  the  chief,  to  whose  daughters 
he  had  shown  a  kindly  courtesy.  The  simple  manners 
among  which  he  now  found  himself  breathe  of  the  early 
patriarchal  age.  His  host  was  both  the  sheik  and  the 
emir  of  the  tribe — its  civil  and  religious  head,  bearing 
as  the  former  the  name  of  Jethro, — "the  head  man,^' — 
and  as  the  latter,  Raguel, — "  the  friend  of  God.^'  Mar- 
riao*e  to  Zipporah, — "the  little  bird,^^ — one  of  Jethro's 
daughters,  of  whom  there  were  seven,  soon  followed. 
But  the  name  of  the  first  son  of  the  wanderer  showed 
that  his  heart  was  still  on  the  banks  of  the  Nile,  among 
his  oppressed  people,  for  he  called  him  Gershom,  in  his 
deep  and  abiding  feeling  that  he  himself  was  only  "a 
stranger  there." 

The  region  in  which  Moses  was  to  spend  many  years 
— that  of  the  Sinai  mountains — was  singularly  fitted 
at  once  to  shelter  him  by  its  seclusion  from  the  outer 
world,  and  to  train  him  by  its  influences,  for  the  high 
duties  which  lay  before  him.  The  white  limestone  of 
Palestine  and  of  the  Wilderness  of  the  Tih  stretches  into 
1  Jud.  i.  16;  iv.  11. 


MOSES.  109 

its  nortliern  portion.  Beyond  this,  towards  the  south, 
come  hills  of  sandstone,  usually  of  only  moderate  height, 
but  of  wonderful  variety  and  splendour  of  colour,  and 
grotesqueness  of  shape.  These,  however,  ere  long,  give 
way  to  the  mountains  of  Sinai,  which  fill  up  the  lower 
end  of  the  Peninsala — vast  masses  of  primitive  rock, 
rising  in  their  highest  summit  9,000  feet  above  the  sea. 
Memorials  of  the  earliest  age  of  creation,  their  crystalline 
masses  huve  remained  the  same  as  they  are-  to-day 
through  all  the  modifications  of  the  surface  of  the  world. 
'^  Their  granite,  porphyry,  mica  schist  and  greenstone 
shafts,  pinnacles,  and  buttresses  have  towered  from  the 
beginning  over  the  ocean,  undisturbed  by  the  change 
from  the  Silurian  age  to  the  Devonian,  from  the  Carbon- 
iferous to  the  Liassic ;  from  the  Oolite  to  the  Chalk/'  ^ 
No  vegetation  covers  the  bareness  of  the  vast  walls  of 
rock,  but  their  colours  are  so  varied  and  so  sharply  defined 
that  they  seem,  notwithstanding,  to  be  veiled  in  a  rich 
and  varied  world  of  plant  life.  The  light- effects,  more- 
over, in  the  dry  pure  air  and  under  the  deep  blue  of  the 
sky,  have  an  indescribable  power  and  beauty,  in  their 
varying  tints,  from  blinding  white  to  deep  violet.  To  one 
coming  from  the  rich  fields  of  the  Egyptian  Delta  all  this 
splendour  of  rock  and  sky  cannot,  however,  have  made 
up  for  what  he  had  left  behind,  and  must  have  seemed 
desolation.  Yet  in  the  days  of  Moses  the  whole  region 
was  much  less  barren  than  now.  The  destruction  of  trees 
age  after  age,  for  the  use  of  the  miners  of  ancient  Egypt, 
and  for  the  manufacture  of  charcoal,  which  is  still  carried 
on,  has  not  only  destroyed  the  forests,  but  has  intensified 
the  sterility  of  the  soil  by  diminishing  the  fall  of  rain. 
Many  a  valley  which  now  shows  only  a  few  stunted 
bushes  may  well  have  been  shaded  by  woods  3,000  years 
^  Fraas,  Aus  dem  Orieyit,  p.  7. 


110  MOSES. 

ago.  So  late  as  a.d.  400  an  eyewitness  tells  us  that 
tliere  was  great  plenty  of  wood  and  broom  over  tlie 
whole  region — the  wood  not  failing  in  any  part  of  it.^ 
Even  to-day  there  are  rich  oases  in  at  least  five  of  the 
Sinai  wadys,  and  no  valley,  in  the  very  heart  of  the 
mountains,  is  entirely  bare  of  vegetation.  Acacias  and 
tamarisks  grow  in  Wadys  Sheik  and  Gharandel  in 
great  numbers,  and  the  palm  groves  of  Wadys  Feiran, 
Kid,  Dahab,  Noweyba,  and  Tor  yield  a  rich  harvest  of 
fine  dates.  Broom  bushes  and  other  thorny  growths, 
and  a  great  variety  of  strong- scented  plants,  especially 
thyme,  nestle  in  the  cracks  of  the  steepest  precipices. 
The  broad-leaved  colocynth  grows  in  the  sandy  plains 
on  the  border  of  the  wilderness  of  the  Tih,  and  the 
bright  green  of  the  caper  plant  makes  a  striking  contrast 
to  the  dark  leaves  of  the  swallow-wort  or  asclepia  on 
many  a  wall  of  rock.  Thousands  of  goats  and  sheep 
find  sufiicient  pasture  daring  the  whole  year,  and  many 
chamois  and  mountain  badgers  frequent  the  almost 
inaccessible  gorges  of  the  heights.  Panthers  also  are 
met  with  in  these  upland  valleys.  Singing  birds  enliven 
the  copses  by  the  clear  cool  springs  of  the  mica  schist, 
and,  occasionally,  huge  flocks  of  quails,  wearied  by  their 
long  flight  from  the  west,  over  the  Red  Sea,  settle  for  the 
time  on  the  rocky  slopes  and  open  plains.  Wild  ducks, 
moreover,  abound  in  the  small  lakes  of  one  or  two  of 
the  Wadys.  Nor  is  the  land,  alone,  thus,  in  a  measure, 
astir  with  life.  The  dugong  seal  is  still,  at  times, 
caught  in  the  bays  on  each  side  of  the  Peninsula;  its 
thick  hide  being  much  prized  for  sandals  to  protect  the 
feet  from  the  many  acacia  thorns  in  every  path.  Even 
with  the  rude  appliances  of  the  Arabs,  moreover,  the 
take  of  fish  and  molluscs  from  the  neighbouring  Red  Sea 
^  Durch  Gosen,  p.  351. 


MOSES.  Ill 

is  very  large.^  Snakes  both  poisonous  and  harmless,  are 
numerous  in  some  parts. 

But,  as  a  whole,  the  Sinai  mountains  rank  among  the 
wildest  regions.  From  a  distance  they  rise,  red  and 
grey,  in  huge  masses  and  peaks  of  porphyry  and  granite. 
On  all  sides  lie  heaps  of  dark  ashes  of  burnt- out  volcanic 
fires,  or  of  fragments  of  porphyry,  red  as  wax.  Walls  of 
rocks,  with  a  green  shimmer,  rise  naked  and  threatening : 
uncouth,  wild  crags  tower  steeply  above  mounds  of 
black  and  brown  stones,  which  look  as  if  they  had  been 
broken  by  the  hammers  of  giants.  The  horizon  takes 
new  forms  with  every  short  advance,  as  one  closed-in 
valley  rises  above  another;  the  sublimity  of  the  land- 
scape increasing  with  the  ascent.  As  each  new  level  is 
reached  the  mountains  rise  in  huge  heights  around,  but 
as  the  journey  leads  on  to  the  next  plateau  they  seem  to 
shrink  into  tameness  before  the  new  giants  that  encircle 
the  way.-  "  Were  I  a  painter,^^  says  Ebers,  "  and  could 
I  illustrate  Dante^s  Inferno,  I  would  have  pitched  my 
camp-stool  here,  and  have  filled  my  sketchbook,  for  there 
could  never  be  wanting  to  the  limner  of  the  dark  abyss 
of  the  Pit,  landscapes  savage,  terribly,  immeasureably  sad, 
unutterably  wild,  unapproachably  grand  and  awful.'^  ^ 

The  influence  of  such  a  district  on  a  mind  like  that  of 
Moses  must  have  been  great.  No  region  more  favourable 
to  the  attainments  of  a  lofty  conception  of  the  Almighty 
could  have  been  found.  Nature,  by  the  want  of  water 
and  the  poverty  of  vegetation,  is  intensely  simple;  pre- 
senting no  variety  to  dissipate  and  confuse  the  mind. 
The  grand,  sublimely  silent  mountain  world  around, 
with  its  bold,  abrupt  masses  of  granite,  greenstone  and 
porphyry,  fills  the  spirit  with  a  solemn  earnestness  which 

1  Furrer,  Sinai,  in  Schenkel,  vol.  v.  p.  327. 

2  Dtivch  Gosen,  p.  131.  3  j^^-^.^  p^  132. 


112 


MOSES. 


the  wide  horizon  from  most  peaks  and  the  wonderful 
purity  of  the  air  tend  to  heighteuc  The  wanderer  looks 
down,  for  example,  from  the  top  of  Jebel  Musa,  the 
Mount  of  Moses,  with  a  shuddering  horror,  into  the 
abyss  below  ; — and  round,  on  the  countless  pinnacles  and 
peaks,  cliffs  and  precipices,  of  many  coloured  rocks;  white 


View  feom  the  Summit  of  Sinai. 
By  Permission.     From  Prof.  Palmer's  Desert  oj  the  Exodus. 

and  grey,  sulphurous  yellow,  blood  red,  and  ominous 
black ;  entirely  bare  of  vegetation.  To  the  north,  the 
desert  of  the  Tih  stretches  out  beyond  the  mountains  in 
endless  perspective.  On  the  east  and  west  the  reflection 
of  the  blue  sea  shimmers  up  from  the  depths ;  beyond 
it,  towards  sunrising,  are  seen  the  pale  sands  of  Arabia ; 
while  towards  sunset  the  mountains  of  Egypt  rise  half 


MOSES.  113 

veiled  in  the  blue  of  distance.  Such  a  place  was  far 
more  fitted  than  the  narrowly  hemmed-in  valley  of  the 
Nile,  or  than  Palestine,  to  call  forth  great  thoughts/'  ^ 

In  such  a  desert  region  we  take  refuge  in  our  own 
reflections  from  the  monotony  around ;  the  senses  are 
at  rest.  Undisturbed  and  uninfluenced  from  without_,  the 
mind  follows  out  every  train  of  thought  to  the  end,  and 
examines  and  exhausts  every  feeling  to  its  finest  shades. 
In  a  city  there  is  no  solitude :  each  is  part  of  a  great 
whole  on  which  he  acts,  and  by  which  he  is  himself 
affected.  But  the  lonely  wanderer  in  a  district  like  Sinai 
is  absolutely  isolated  from  his  fellows,  and  must  fill  up 
the  void  by  his  own  identity.  The  present  retires  into  the 
background,  and  the  spirit,  waked  to  intensity  of  life,  finds 
no  limits  to  its  thoughts.  In  a  lofty  spiritual  nature  like 
that  of  Moses,^  the  solemn  stillness  of  the  mountains  and 
the  boundless  sweep  of  the  daily  and  nightly  heavens 
would  efface  the  thought  of  man,  and  fill  the  soul  with 
the  majesty  of  God.  As  he  meditated  on  the  possible 
deliverance  of  his  people,  the  lonely  vastness  would  raise 
him  above  anxious  contrasts  of  their  weakness  compared 
with  the  power  of  Egypt,  which  might  have  paralysed 
resolution  and  bidden  hope  despair.  What  was  man, 
whose  days  were  a  handbreadth,  and  whose  foundation 
was  in  the  dust,  before  the  mighty  Creator  of  Heaven  and 
Earth — the  Eock  of  Israel  ?  ^  Even  less  lofty  spirits  than 
his  had,  indeed,  been  kindled,  age  after  age,  to  a  nearer 
sense  of  the  presence  of  God,  amidst  these  magnificent 
and  awful  solitudes;  for  Serbal  had  been  from  the  earliest 
times  sacred  to  the  worship  of  Baal,  and,  even  still,  the 

^  iFurrer,   Die    IBedeutung   der  Bib.    Geoqra'pMe  fiir    der   Bib. 
Exegese,  p.  5.     Ritter,  ErdJcunde,  vol.  xiv.  pp.  3,  544,  548,  584. 
2  Uarda,  vol.  ii.  p.  193. 

^  Geikie's  Life  and  Words  of  Christ,  vol.  i.  p.  382. 
VOL.    II.  I 


114  MOSES. 

wandering  Bedouin  sacrifices  lambs  within  stone  circles 
raised  on  it,  as  thank-offerings  for  any  special  blessing 
received.^  So  Horeb,  already  bore  the  name  of  ''  the 
Mount  of  God  "  when  Moses  came  to  live  near  it,^  and 
the  whole  group  of  mountains,  like  Ararat  or  the  Hima- 
laya, were  holy  among  the  tribes  around.^ 

In  this  sanctuary  of  the  hills,  awaiting  the  time  when 
the  advancing  purposes  of  God  had  ripened  Israel  for 
the  great  movement  of  its  deliverance,  and,  mean- 
while, unconsciously  preparing  for  the  mighty  task 
before  him,  Moses  spent,  as  St.  Stephen  informs  us,  no 
fewer  than  forty  years.*  His  wanderings  would  make 
him  acquainted  with  every  valley,  plain,  gorge,  hill, 
and  mountain  of  the  whole  region ;  with  its  population 
whether  native,  or  that  of  the  Egyptian  mines ;  with 
every  spring  and  well,  and  with  all  the  resources  of  every 
kind  offered  by  any  spot :  an  education  of  supreme 
importance  towards  fitting  him  to  guide  his  race,  when 
rescued  from  Egypt,  to  the  safe  shelter  and  holy 
sanctuaries  of  this  predestined  scene  of  their  long  en- 
campment. Still  more,  in  those  calm  years  every 
problem  to  be  solved  in  the  organization  of  a  people 
would  rise  successively  in  his  mind  and  find  its  solution; 
and  above  all,  his  own  soul  must  have  been  disciplined 
and  purified,  by  isolation  from  the  world  and  closer  and 
more  continual  communion  with  God.^ 

*  Sepp,  Jerusalem  u.  das  Heilige  Land,  vol.  ii.  p.  776. 

2  Exod.  iv.  27.  3  Ewald's  GescMchte,  vol.  ii.  p.  63. 

4  Acts  vii.  30. 

^  Bertheau  thinks  that  Moses  in  Midian  would  come  in  contact 
with  a  form  of  the  faith  of  Abraham,  preserved  in  Jethro's  tribes, 
purer  than  survived  among  the  Jews  in  Egypt.  Geschichte, 
p.  242. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE    PLAGUES    OF   EGYPT. 

THE  long  interval  during  which  Moses  lived  in 
Midian  as  a  humble  shepherd,  must  have  been  one 
of  ripening  progress  towards  future  deliverance  on  the 
part  of  the  Hebrews  on  the  Nile.  Parents  whose  home 
training  had  resulted  in  a  family  like  Miriam_,  Aaron_,  and 
Moses — true  to  the  God  of  their  fathers^  and,  as  such, 
filled  with  an  intense  aversion  to  the  religion  of  Egypt — 
could  not  have  been  the  only  instances  of  a.  hereditary 
loyalty  to  the  faith  and  aspirations  of  Israel.  Doubtless 
Amram  and  Jochebed  bore  in  their  names  ^  the  proud 
assertion  of  a  creed  cherished  by  not  a  few  of  their  race 
besides,  even  in  these  dark  times.  There  had  been,  it 
may  well  be  believed,  too  much  indifference  to  the 
memories  of  Bethel  and  Beersheba;  but  trouble  had 
quickened  the  religious  feelings  of  the  nation,  and  given 
a  value,  which  had  not  latterly  been  assigned  them,  to  the 
promises  made  by  Jehovah  to  Abraham  and  his  descend- 
ants.^ This  great  spiritual  revolution  was  brought  about, 
so  far  as  can  now  be  seen,  through  the  agency  of  the 
tribe  of  Levi,  to  which  the  parents  of  Moses  belonged, 
and  their  children  lived  to  be  its  chief  promoters.  But 
Amram  and  Jochebed  doubtless  received  from  others  of 

*  Gesenius,  8th  ed.    See  ante,  p.  90.  ^  Exod.  ii.  23. 

116 


116  THE    PLAGUES    OP   EGYPT. 

a  former  generation,  tlie  Puritan  impulse  wbicli  tlieir 
family  was  destined  to  spread  so  widely  and  to  conduct 
to  such  triumphant  results.  That  their  tribe  should 
hereafter  be  honoured  with  the  national  priesthood  was, 
therefore,  its  natural  inheritance.  It  was  through  it, 
in  Egypt,  that  its  brethren  turned  again  to  Jehovah, 
and  it  was  by  the  efforts  of  its  sons,  Aaron  and  Moses, 
that  they  became  a  people.  Pioneers  of  national  revival, 
religious  and  political,  perhaps  for  generations,  in  Egypt, 
the  tribe  of  Levi  was  designated  from  the  first,  alike  by 
its  past  services  and  its  special  fitness,  for  the  dignity 
ultimately  assigned  to  it. 

Aaron  was  doubtless  the  chief  agent  in  this  great 
work,  but  he  would  have  the  assistance  of  the  "  elders  " 
of  the  people;  that  is  of  the  heads  or  ''"princes"  of  tribes, 
of  clans,  of  subclans,  and  of  households,  in  spreading 
his  influence  through  the  whole  population.  To  do  so, 
however,  with  any  aid,  would  be  no  easy  task ;  for  the 
masses  are  slow  to  rouse  to  spiritual  ideas,  especially 
when  crushed  by  a  hard  life.  Yet  it  was  essential  they 
should  be  thus  quickened.  To  free  them  in  a  merely 
physical  sense  would  have  left  them  unfitted  for  their 
high  destiny  as  the  People  of  God.  The  foundation  of  a 
permanent  and  earnest  recognition  of  Jehovah  as  their 
national  God,  demanded  that  the  contrast  between  the 
true  and  the  false  should  be  brought  home  to  them  and 
burnt  into  their  hearts,  while  they  were  still  surrounded 
by  Egyptian  idolatry,  and  aglow  with  enthusiasm  against 
its  votaries,  as  their  oppressors.  Nor  is  it  without  signifi- 
cance that  the  Greek  Bible  speaks  of  God  as  gradually 
"  becoming  known  to  them.''^  ^  The  Hebrew  overseers 
in   charge  of  each    gang  of    their  brethren,    under   the 

*  The  words,  ch.  ii.  25,  "  God  had  respect  unto  them,"  are  in 
the  Sej)tuagint,  "  God  became  known  unto  them." 


THE  PLAGUES  OP  EGYPT.  117 

Egyptian  taskmasters,  doubtless  showed  tliem  a  sym- 
pathy whicli  extended  beyond  tbeir  physical  sufferings  ; 
for  these  overseers  or  "  officers  '^  ^  are  elsewhere  identified 
with  the  '^  elders/'  who  were  in  close  communication 
with  Aaron. 2  The  heads  of  each  clan  or  sub -clan  were 
evidently  made  responsible  for  the  behaviour  of  those 
connected  with  them,  and  tribal  communication  was  thus 
intimately  maintainedo  That  Aaron  should  have  gone  to 
Sinai  to  meet  his  brother  Moses  speaks,  moreover,  of 
his  work  being  at  last  ripe  for  great  results,  and  of  a 
correspondence  having  been  maintained  between  the 
two  through  the  years  of  their  separation;  if  only  by 
messages  carried  by  traders  passing  through  Jethro's 
district. 

The  preparation  of  Moses  for  his  great  task  must,  like 
that  for  all  high  aims  and  spheres,  have  been  gradual  and 
slow.  To  feel  oneself  summoned  to  play  the  part  of  a 
prophet  of  God  implies  an  elevation,  an  enthusiasm,  and 
a  concentration  of  soul  only  attained  by  degrees.  The 
outward  duties  of  such  an  office  must  indeed  be  the 
spontaneous  expression  of  profound  personal  conviction, 
rising  above  all  doubt  and  question  where  others  hesitate 

*  Exod.  V.  6, 14,  19.  The  word  is  shoterim.  Even  the  seventy 
elders  are  so  called,  Nam.  xi.  16.  So  are,  afterwards,  the  heads  of 
the  different  sections  of  the  tribes,  in  the  march  through  the  wil- 
derness. Deut.  XX.  9 ;  xxix.  9  ;  xxxi.  28.  Josh.  i.  10 ;  iii.  2  ;  viii. 
33;  xxiii.  2;  xxiv.  1.  The  municipal  dignitaries  of  the  towns  of 
Israel  also  bore,  in  after  days,  this  name.  Deut.  xvi.  18.  1  Chron. 
xxiii.  4 ;  xxvi.  29.  The  shoterim  seem  to  have  had  charge  of 
the  genealogical  records  of  the  tribes. 

2  Exod.  iv.  29.  It  is  noteworthy  that  Pharaoh  complains  of  the 
people  "  listening  to  lying  talk,"  about  going  off  to  sacrifice  in  the 
wilderness.  This  shows  that  their  leaders  had  access  to  them, 
and  we  may  feel  sure  that  they  had  long  used  this  privilege  to 
quicken  them  to  worthy  thoughts.     See  Exod.  v.  9, 


118  THE  PLAGUES  OF  EGYPT. 

most,  and  this  i§  necessarily  slowly  reached.  Every 
utterance  of  tlie  prophetic  impulse  ultimately  exhibited 
by  Moses,  implies  that  the  existence  and  continual 
presence  of  God,  as  the  supreme  directing  and  controlling 
force  in  all  human  affairs,  must  have  been  realized  by 
him  with  an  overpowering  vividness,  carrying  with  it 
his  whole  nature.  It  may  be  that  his  flight,  after  killing 
the  Egyptian  taskmaster,  was  the  first  step  towards 
this  lofty  inspiration,  by  breaking  off  every  tie  with 
Egypt,  and  committing  him  unreservedly  to  the  cause 
of  his  people.  For,  though  his  heart  had  always  been 
theirs,  even  amidst  the  learned  seclusion  of  the  temple 
cloisters  at  On,  or  the  splendours  of  the  palace  at  Tanis 
— and  though  he  had  often  stolen  away  to  mingle  with 
those  whom  he  loved  as  ^'  his  brethren,^^  and  to  sym- 
pathize with  them  in  their  "  burdens  ^' — his  flight  must 
have  first  set  him  free  from  an  embarrassing  position, 
and  left  him  wholly  at  their  service. 

The  prophet,  in  the  true  meaning  of  the  word,  is 
the  mouth  of  God  among  men,  whether  in  respect  to  the 
present  or  the  future.  Prediction  is  only  one  form  of  the 
Divine  communications  he  announces.  To  proclaim  the 
present  purposes  and  will  of  God  is  his  main  commission. 
But  to  rise  to  a  condition  of  mind  in  which  he  thus 
becomes  the  articulate  voice  of  the  Eternal  to  his  fellow- 
men  must  come  by  a  natural  advance.  Before  the  spirit 
can  thus  be  filled  with  the  Divine,  like  a  lamp  with  Hght, 
it  must  have  been  long  concentrated  on  it  to  a  degree 
unknown  to  other  men.  Earth  must  well  nigh  have  dis- 
appeared, before  the  heavens  thus  open  as  the  familiar 
home  of  the  thoughts.  The  Unseen  must  have  become 
the  great  reality,  before  which  the  visible  and  temporal 
rank  as  infinitely  subordinate.  In  this  sense  Moses  was, 
at  once,  the  first  and  the  greatest  of  the  prophets,  for  noj 


THE  PLAGUES  OF  EGYPT.  119 

one  before  Christ  has  spoken  in  the  name  of  God  with 
such  commanding  majesty,  or  shed  such  a  flood  of  light 
on  the  Divine  nature  and  laws.  All  future  prophets 
draw  their  light  from  his  central  splendour,  for  he 
established  in  the  hearts  of  his  race  the  great  truths 
which  his  successors  had  but  to  press  home  on  their 
contemporaries.  The  burning  bush  of  Horeb  was,  indeed, 
only  a  symbol  of  the  sacred  fire  which  glowed  through 
his  being,  and  kindled  in  the  world,  unextinguishably, 
the  light  of  the  true  religion.  But  what  long  wrestlings 
of  soul ;  what  ponderings  over  the  mysteries  of  nature  as 
seen  around  and  above  him ;  what  mental  struggles  with, 
the  teachings  of  his  Egyptian  masters ;  what  contrasts 
of  the  gods  of  the  Nile  Valley  in  all  their  higher  and 
lower  aspects,  with  the  traditional  faith  in  the  One  living 
and  true  God  of  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob,  must  have 
passed  through  his  soul,  before  Jehovah  stood  out  alone, 
supreme,  universal,  as  the  holy  Lord  God  of  heaven  and 
earth  !  To  think  one's  way,  even  with  all  supernatural 
aids,  to  such  a  stupendous  conclusion,  in  the  clearness 
and  intensity  with  which  it  rose  before  him,  sets  him 
apart  among  men;  for  the  God  of  Moses,  though  also 
the  God  of  Abraham,  is  revealed  with  infinitely  fuller 
circumstance,  in  His  relations  to  mankind  and  in  the 
disclosures  of  His  own  Being.  Eevelation  doubtless 
poured  into  his  soul  the  light  by  which  it  realized  such 
truths,  but  his  whole  nature  must  have  strained  towards 
that  light  with  a  grand  earnestness,  to  have  been  fitted 
for  such  communications.  In  spiritual  things,  it  is  ever 
to  those  only  who  have,  that  it  can  be  given. 

Apart  from  this  concentrated  Divine  enthusiasm,  how- 
ever, raising  him  slowly,  through  years,  to  the  conviction 
that  he  was  called  to  be  a  prophet  to  his  people,  and  to 
speak  to  them,  as  such,  for  God ;  the  vast  task  before 


120  THE  PLAGUES  OF  EGYPT. 

Moses  demanded  tlie  intellect  of  a  statesman,  a  legislator, 
and  an  organizer  on  a  grand  scale,  and  it  was  tbe  union 
of  these  with  his  supreme  authority  as  the  recognized 
mouthpiece  of  God,  that  qualified  him  supremely  for  his 
great  work. 

It  was  in  the  wilderness  of  Sinai,  the  Bible  tells  us, 
amidst  the  mountains  of  Horeb — "  the  dry,'^ — a  name  for 
the  vast  heights  of  the  Sinai  group  as  a  whole, — while  he 
was  feeding  the  flocks  of  his  father-in-law,  that  Moses 
was  first  honoured  with  the  Divine  communication  which 
transformed  him,  henceforth,  in  his  whole  nature,  by 
bringing  to  a  crisis  the  inarticulate  dreams  and  spiritual 
aspirations  of  the  past.  Tradition  has  fixed  the  spot, 
since  the  sixth  century,  in  the  deep  seclusion  to  which  he 
afterwards  led  the  children  of  Israel,  and  the  convent  of 
Justinian  is  built  over  what  is  held  to  have  been  the  very 
spot  where  he  was  commanded  to  put  the  sandals  from 
off  his  feet.  But  whether  this  ^^  valley  of  Jethro,"  or  the 
plain  at  Mount  Serbal,  was  the  scene  of  the  event,  the 
circumstances  around  were  equally  fitting.  The  awful 
majesty  of  the  hills  which,  as  Josephus  tells  us,^  had 
already  invested  them  with  a  special  sacredness  in  the 
eyes  of  the  Arab  tx'ibes  as  "  the  Mountains  of  God,^^ 
looked  down  on  the  wanderer  from  every  side.  He  had 
followed  his  flocks  of  sheep  and  goats  as  they  sought  the 
aromatic  shrubs  on  the  ledges  of  the  rock,  or  in  the  folds 
of  the  narrow  valleys,  or  by  the  side  of  chance  springs ; 
little  thinking  to  what  they  were  leading  him.  The 
wild  acacia,  the  seneh  of  the  Hebrew  Bible — a  gnarled 
and  thorny  tree,  not  unlike  our  solitary  hawthorn  in 
its  growth,^  dotted  the  bare  slopes  and  the  burning  soil 
of  the  ravines.  But  now,  suddenly,  a  glow  of  flame, 
like  that  which  was  consuming  Israel  in  the  furnace  of 
1  A7it,  II.  xii.  1.         2  Tristram,  Nat.  Hist  of  Bible,  p.  391. 


THE  PLAGUES  OF  EGYPT.  121 

affliction,  shines  fortli  amidst  the  dry  branches  of  one  of 
these  before  him,  and  yet,  as  he  gazes,  '^'^the  bush,'* 
though  "  it  burned  with  fire,''^  was  not  consumed.  Draw- 
ing near  to  *'  see  this  great  sight,''  a  voice  which  he 
instinctively  recognizes  as  Divine  sounds  from  its  midst, 
commanding  him  to  remove  his  sandals,  as  on  holy 
ground ;  ^  revealing  new  and  closer  relations  of  God  to 
His  chosen  people,  and  imposing  on  the  awed  shepherd  a 
unique  commission  as  His  prophet.  He  had  been  known 
to  their  forefathers,  and  was  known  by  themselves,  by 
names  more  or  less  used  by  related  peoples,  in  speak- 
ing of  their  gods — the  names  El,  or  Elohim,  or  Shaddai 
— "  the  mighty  One/'  They  had,  indeed,  also  used  the 
name  Jehovah,  but  its  wide  import  had  never  been  fully 
revealed  to  them.^  Henceforth,  the  gulf  between  the 
true  God  and  the  idols  of  Egypt  and  of  the  nations,  should 
be  marked  by  the  adoption  of  the  name  Jehovah  in  its 
full  significance,  as  expressive  of  the  One  only  Living 
God — the  true  '^  I  am  whom  I  am,''  the  mysterious 
FoQutain  of  all  Being.  "  Go  to  your  brethren,  thef 
children  of  Israel,"  continued  the  Divine  voice, ''  and  say 
to  them  '  Jehovah,  the  God  of  your  fathers,  the  God  of 
Abraham,  the  God  of  Isaac,  and  the  God  of  Jacob,  hath 
sent  me  unto  you.  This  shall  be  My  name  for  ever  :  so 
shall  you  call  Me  for  ever  and   ever.'  "  ^      All  other  gods 

^  "Our  habit  of  respect  is  to  take  off  the  hat:  theirs,  to  take 
off  their  shoes.  Consequently,  they  never  enter  their  places  of 
worship,  or  generally  their  own  rooms,  without  taking  them  off 
and  leaving  them  at  the  doors." — Mill's  Samaritans,  pp.  107,  225. 

2  Oehler,  in  Herzog,  vol.  vi.  p.  460. 

'  Gesenius,  Lex.,  8th  edition,  art.  Zdcher,  p.  239.  It  is  striking 
how  this  supreme  name  of  God  had  its  echoes  in  other  nations 
than  Israel— perhaps  from  the  first  age  of  innocence.  lao  was 
at  times  the  name  assigned  by  the  Greeks  to  the  highest 
God   (Macrob.,    Saturn.,  i.  18).      The  Chaldeans  spoke    of   lao, 


122  THE  PLAGUES  OP  EGYPT. 

were  mere  Elilim^ — ^'nothings'' — had  no  existence,  but 
were  only  inventions  of  man.  He  alone,  by  tlie  very 
name  Jehovah,  proclaimed  Himself  as  the  One  Living 
God.  Moses  was  to  tell  his  brethren  that  this  mighty 
Being — mindful  of  His  covenant  with  Abraham — was 
about  to  deliver  them  from  oppression,  and  gather  them 
beneath  the  mountains  where  the  Yoice  then  spoke ; 
that  He  might  give  them  their  future  laws  as  His  people, 
and  afterwards  lead  them  to  the  good  land  which  He 
had  promised  to  their  fathers. 

Instinctively  shrinking  from  an  oflBce  at  once  so  lofty 
and  so  difficult,  Moses  naturally  craves  special  assur- 
ances of  God^s  presence  with  him,  before  he  can  face 
the  majesty  of  Pharaoh,  or  hope  to  rouse  the  apathy  of 
a  down-trodden  race.  But  these,  also,  are  given  him. 
Overpowered  with  the  vision,  and  yet  divinely  exalted  in 
soul;  shrinking  in  humility  as  he  thinks  of  himself,  but 
strong  in  a  holy  trust  as  he  remembers  Jehovah,  he  turns 
back  to  his  flocks  another  man.  Henceforth,  he  is  in 
the  fullest  sense  inspired,  and  rises  to  the  height  of  the 
great  enterprise  committed  to  him.  If  he  be  slow  of 
speech,  has  not  Jehovah  said  that  Aaron  would  speak 
for  him  to  Pharaoh  and  to  the  people ;  he  himself  actmg, 
through  him,  as  the  representative  of  God.  It  would  thus 
be  his  to  indicate  :  Aaron  would  put  his  instructions 
in  fitting  words.  To  himself  it  was  vouchsafed  to  stand 
to  the  people  in  the  place  of  God;  to  Aaron  he  would  be 
as  God  is  to  a  prophet  whom  He  inspires.^     Did  he  wish 

and  the  Ichthyophagi  are  said  to  have  used  the  name  lao 
Sabaoth,  as  a  charm  or  spell  in  their  fishing.  See  Knobel's 
Exodus,  p.  29.  Perhaps  these  nations  borrowed  the  name  from 
the  Hebrews,  ^  Ps.  xcvi.  5. 

2  Knobel's  Froylietismus,  vol.  i.  p.  104.  Ewald's  Geschichie, 
vol.  ii.  p.  86. 


THE    PLAGUES    OF   EGYPT.  123 

a  symbol  of  his  high  office  ?  Had  not  the  shepherd's  rod 
in  his  hand  been  already  made  the  instrument  of  Divine 
power.  His  task  was  to  be  performed  by  no  mere  human 
aid.  Had  he  been  required  to  front  the  majesty  of  Egypt 
by  raising  an  insurrection  and  trusting  to  military  success, 
he  might  well  have  despaired ;  for  how  could  the  multi- 
tudes of  an  enslaved  population  win  the  day  against 
disciplined  armies  ?  But  the  peaceful  symbol  he  bore — 
the  staff  with  which  he  had  guided  his  kinsman's  flocks 
— spoke,  as  the  wonders  he  had  already  seen  wrought  by 
it  showed,  of  an  invisible  Power  before  whom  the  might 
of  the  Pharaohs  availed  nothing.  In  the  modest  humility 
of  such  an  emblem  he  could  go  forward,  assured  that 
Jehovah  who  had  sent  him  would  also  fight  the  battle  for 
Israel.^     For,  had  not  this  simple  rod,  at  the  bidding  of 

^  The  incident  of  the  circumcision  of  Gershom,  the  son  of  Moses, 
at  the  caravanserai,  on  the  way  to  Egypt,  is  striking.  Moses  had 
neglected  to  perform  the  rite  and  was  suddenly  struck  by  severe 
illness,  which  he  traced  to  this  oversight  of  his  duty.  Zipporah, 
learning  the  fact,  forthwith  circumcises  the  child,  and  Moses 
presently  recovers  ;  on  which  Zipporah  tells  him  that  she  has  won 
him  again  for  her  bridegroom  by  the  child's  blood;  that  his  life 
is  spared  on  account  of  it,  and  she  has  him,  as  it  were,  given 
to  her  anew— now  this  duty  is  fulfilled.  Exod.  iv.  24-27.  That 
the  *'  sons  "  of  Moses  should  be  set  on  an  ass,  implies  that  they 
were  of  tender  years,  so  that  his  marriage  must  have  taken 
place  long  after  his  going  to  Midian,  or  the  birth  of  his  children 
must  have  been  long  delayed.  Herodotus  says  that  the  Arabs 
were  wont  to  confirm  covenants  by  cutting  their  middle  finger 
with  a  sharp  stone  (iii.  8).  In  the  case  of  Moses  it  was  fitting 
that  the  covenant  made  with  Abraham,  and  now  virtually  re- 
newed with  himself,  should  be  solemnized  by  the  sign  divinely 
appointed  at  its  first  institution.  But  it  marks  strikingly  the 
extent  to  which  the  patriarchal  faith  had  passed  from  the  com- 
mon Hebrew  mind,  that  even  Moses  should  have  neglected  to 
circumcise  his  children.  Gesenius  quotes  with  approval  the 
statement  of  some  Jewish  expositors,  that  a  mother  called  her 
son  '*  spouse"  when  he  was  circumcised.    Thesaurus  p.  639. 


124  THE   PLAGUES   Of  EGYPT. 

God,  turned  to  an  angry  serpent,  the  symbol  of  death, 
and  had  not  the  hand  that  held  it  been  alternately  with- 
ered and  restored  by  the  same  Voice  ?  Had  not  the 
vision  of  the  burning  bush  shown  that  though  thorns 
could,  not  of  themselves  resist  the  shining  flames,  but 
were,  rather,  the  very  thing  that  would  most  easily  fall 
a  prey  to  them,  a  Power  was  at  hand  who  protected 
even  what  was  so  frail  ?  Israel  might  be  unable  in  itself 
to  oppose  Egypt,  but  its  Redeemer  was  mighty.  As  God 
was  in  the  flame  of  the  bush  and  hindered  its  consuming 
that  in  which  it  glowed,  so  He  was  with  His  people  in 
their  trials,  and  would  keep  them  from  being  destroyed. 
They  would  be  saved,  not  by  the  skill  or  intellect  of  any 
leader,  but  only  by  the  power  and  loving-kindness  of 
Jehovah  Himself.  Their  deliverance  should  be  so  clearly 
His  work  alone,  that  they  would  in  all  future  ages  see  in 
it  a  pledge  of  His  having  divinely  chosen  them  for  His 
own,  and  of  His  tender  love  and  pity  towards  them.^ 

The  meeting  of  Aaron  with  his  brother  must  have 
filled  both  hearts  with  joy  and  confidence  in  God,  for  if 
Moses  had  to  speak  of  heavenly  encouragement  in  their 
great  enterprise,  so  had  Aaron.  He  had  to  report  be- 
sides, that  the  Hebrews,  their  brethren,  were  at  last, 
after  long  years,  roused  once  more  to  an  enthusiasm  for 
the  religion  of  their  fathers,  which  insured  their  co- 
operation in  any  plan  for  speedy  deliverance  from  the 
burden  of  Egyptian  slavery,  and  the  hated  presence  of 
Egyptian  idolatry.  Nor  was  it  necessary  to  wait  any 
length  of  time  for  the  proof  of  this.  All  the  elders  of 
Israel  being  summoned  and  told  of  the  approaching 
cribis,  the  tidings  soon  spread  through  every  division 
of  the  tribes,  and  were  received  with  universal  joy.  The 
elders  indeed  could  report  that  "  the  people  believed, 
^  Kohler's  Lthrhuch  der  Bib.-Geschichte,  vol.  i.  p.  174. 


THE  PLAGUES  OP  EGYPT.  125 

and  rejoiced  that  Jehovah  had  visited  them^'  through 
His  chosen  messengers,  and  that  they  had  bowed  their 
heads  and  worshipped.^ 

The  struggle  which  had  now  come  to  a  head  between 
Israel  and  Egypt,  was  at  once  a  revolt  of  slaves  against 
their  masters  and  the  conflict  of  one  religion  with  another. 
The  Phara.oh  had  aimed  at  destroying  the  nationality  of 
the  Hebrews  and  incorporating  them  with  the  general 
population,  but  this  involved  their  accepting  Egyptian 
idolatry.  Israel  had,  however,  clung  with  a  desperate 
tenacity  to  the  faith  of  their  race,  and  craved  leave  to 
perform  the  sacrifices  it  demanded.  But  these  required 
the  slaughter  of  rams  and  oxen — the  former  sacred  to 
Amon ;  the  latter  the  symbol  o£  Osiris  and  Isis — and 
to  kill  animals  thus  sacred,  would  have  roused  the  whole 
nation  to  exterminate  a  people  guilty  of  such  impiety. 
It  was  inevitable  that  if  these  sacrifices  were  to  be  ofi'ered 
at  all,  the  Hebrews  must  be  allowed  to  go  outside  the 
bounds  of  the  kingdom. 

Demanding  an  audience,  therefore,  from  Pharaoh, 
Moses  and  Aaron  requested  that  their  brethren  should 
be  permitted  to  go  a  three  days'  journey  to  the  wilderness, 
and  there  hold  a  solemn  religious  festival  to  their  God.^ 
The  refusal  of  a  proposal  so  fair  and  moderate  would  at 
once  justify  their  obtaining  for  themselves  this  natural 
right,  and  with  it  their  personal  freedom,  by  any  worthy 
means  that  offered. 

The  Pharaoh  who  now  reigned  was  Menephtah  I.,  the 
thirteenth  son  of  Rameses  II.,  who  had  died  after  reign- 

*  Exod.  iv.  31.     Sept.  and  Knohel. 

2  The  Egyptians  had  their  own  religious  pilgrimages  and 
sacrificial  festivals,  at  Bubastis,  Busiris,  Sais,  Heliopolis,  Boutos, 
and  Papremis.  Herod.,  ii.  59.  See  also  Yaihinger,  Studien  u, 
Kritihen,  1872,  p.  374. 


126  THE   PLAGUES   OF   EGYPT. 

ing  well-nigli  seventy  years,  leaving  many  survivors  of 
his  immense  family  of  170  children.*  Menephtah  was 
already  a  man  of  about  sixty  when  he  ascended  the 
throne,  and  he  held  his  court  habitually  in  Lower  Egypt ; 
at  Memphis,  On,  and  Tanis  or  Zoan,^  where  monuments 
bearing  his  name  still  exist,  thus  corroborating  the  state- 
ment of  the  Bible,  that  it  was  at  Zoan  Moses  encountered 
him.^ 

From  the  time  of  Seti  I.,  the  grandfather  of  Me- 
nephtah, the  people  of  Libya  had  threatened  the  western 
frontier  of  Egypt,  but  the  vigour  of  Rameses  II.  had 
driven  them  back,  and  held  them  in  check  while  he  lived. 
After  his  death,  however,  things  changed.  A  great 
alliance  was  formed  by  the  Libyans  with  the  Greeks — 
of  whom  this  is  the  first  historical  mention  known — the 
Sicilians,  the  Etruscans,  the  Sardinians,  and  the  Lycians, 
— and  Egypt  was  invaded  from  the  north,  by  sea  and 
land.  In  such  a  time  the  persecution  of  the  Hebrews 
must  have  been  suspended,  for  it  would  have  been  mad- 
ness to  have  tempted  them,  by  ill-treatment,  to  join  the 
invaders,  who  were  finally  driven  ofi"  after  "days  and 
months,^'  leaving  the  unusual  number  of  9,376  prisoners 
in  the  hands  of  Menephtah  *  Mounds  of  hands  and  dis- 
membered limbs  laid   at  his  feet  attested  the  ferocity  of 

1  Lenormant's  Manuel,  vol.  i.  p.  423.  Birch's  Ancient  Egypt 
from  the  Monuments,  p.  133.  Ebers,  in  BieJim,  p.  333.  MasiJero, 
p.  258.  De  Rouge,  Fjxamen  Critique  de  VOuvragede  M.  le  Chevalier 
de  Bunsen,  2nd  partie,  p.  74 

"  Chabas,  Becherches  sur  la  XIX^  Dynastie,  pp.  79,  80.  Chabas, 
Melanges  Egyptologiques,  3rd  series,  vol.  ii.  pp.  117,  161. 

3  Ps.  Ixxviii.  12,  43. 

*  Inscription  at  Karnak  translated  in  Becords  of  the  Past,  vol. 
iv.  37-48 ;  also  by  De  Rouge  in  the  Bevue  Archceologique,  1867, 
p.  167 ;  and  by  Chabas,  Etudes  de  VAntiqidte  Historique,  Paris, 
1870-73.    Ebers,  ^gypten  und  die  Bilcher  Mose's,  p.  164 


THE    PLAGUES    OF   EGYPT.  127 

the  Egyptian  troops,  especially  tlie  cavalry,  of  wliom  Me- 
neplitah  particularly  boasts.  But  besides  these,  there  were 
more  valuable  spoils  :  multitudes  of  horses  and  oxen, 
over  9,000  copper  swords,  1,308  bulls,  many  goats,  54 
gold  vases,  a  number  of  silver  drinking  cups,  and  more 
than  3,000  of  other  materials  ;  coats  of  mail,  skin  tents, 
and  much  else. 

Peace  once  more  established,  the  oppression  of  the 
Hebrews  recommenced  with  additional  severity ;  perhaps 
from  the  doubtful  attitude  taken  by  them  during  the 
invasion ;  but,  it  may  be,  only  from  the  natural  fear 
that  a  people  so  numerous,  so  vigorous,  so  distinct  from 
the  Egyptians,  and  so  fiercely  opposed  to  the  national 
religion,  should  hereafter  give  trouble  if  fresh  complica- 
tions arose.  Among  other  precautions,  Menephtah,  like 
his  father,  took  up  his  residence,  usually,  at  Memphis  or 
at  Tanis-Zoan,  whence  he  could  most  easily  dominate  the 
alien  populations  of  the  Delta,  and  stand  as  it  were  on 
guard,  at  the  entrance  of  Egypt,  against  invasion  from 
Syria  or  Arabia.  An  allusion  occurs,  in  the  inscription 
which  records  the  great  Libyan  inroad,  to  the  condition 
of  these  parts  after  peace  had  been  restored,  and  also  in 
the  old  Hyksos  days.  On^  or  Heliopolis  and  Memphis 
were  additionally  fortified ;  other  places  which  had  been 
ruined  were  rebuilt,  and  lines  of  defence  were  thrown  up 
at  weak  parts  ;  perhaps  in  part  as  measures  of  repression 
towards  the  Hebrews.  Then  follows  a  glance  at  the 
condition  of  the  Delta  and  Lower  Egypt,  generally, 
in  the  old  Hyksos  times,  and  since.  "  Never  was  the 
like  devastation  seen  as  in  the  invasion  of  the  Libyans 
and  their  allies — not  even  in  the  times  of  the  kings 
of   Lower   Egypt,    when   the   land   lay  in    the   hand  of 

^  The  Septuagint  adds  the  name  of  On  to  those  of  Pithom  and 
Earaeses,  as  a  city  on  which  the  Hebrews  performed  forced  labour. 


128  THE  PLAGUES  OF  EGYPT. 

the  enemy,  and  misery  reigned — in  the  times  when  the 
kings  of  Upper  Egypt  could  not  drive  the  invaders  out. 
(In  the  Libyan  invasion)  the  open  lands  were  left  uu- 
tilled,  as  pasture  for  cattle,  because  of  the  barbarians. 
These  parts  had  been  infested  from  the  times  of  our 
ancestors,  when  the  kings  of  Upper  Egypt  lay  in  their 
tombs,  and  when  those  of  Lower  Egypt,  in  the  midst  of 
their  towns,  were  surrounded  by  dwellings  of  corruption.^ 
Their  troops  had  not  auxiliaries  enough  to  enable  them 
to  act  eflBciently."  ^  The  Delta  was  still,  as  in  the  past, 
the  weak  point  of  Egypt,  from  the  large  foreign  element 
in  its  population,  holding  close  relations  to  the  inex- 
haustible hostile  regions  outside.  The  whole  position 
of  affairs,  after  the  expulsion  of  the  Libyans  and  their 
European  and  Asiatic  allies,  might  naturally  suggest  the 
sternest  measures  towards  the  already  dangerously 
numerous  Hebrews. 

Tanis,  the  scene  of  the  plagues  by  which  Pharaoh  was 
at  last  compelled  to  yield  to  the  demands  of  Moses,  has 
been  already  described.^  Fortunately  we  have  on  one 
of  the  walls  of  the  great  temple  of  Karnak,  a  plan  of  it, 
made  in  the  time  of  Seti  I.,  grandfather  of  Menephtah, 
before  it  had  been  enlarged  and  beautified  by  Rameses 
II.  The  Tanis  branch  of  the  Nile  flows  through  the 
town  and  its  suburbs,  and  is  crossed  by  a  bridge.  In 
the  water  are  crocodiles  and  aquatic  plants.  The  sea, 
not  far  off,  is  also  represented,  with  its  fish ;  *  for  in 
those  days   the   ships  of   Palestine  and  other  countries 

1  An  alien  population. 

2  Records  of  the  Past,  vol.  iv.  p.  41.  Ebers,  jEgypten,  p.  207. 
VigourouXj'Yol.  ii.  p.  248.     Chabas,  Becherches,  p.  94. 

3  Page  24. 

^  Brugsch,  Inscript  Geog.,  I.  pi.  48.  La  Sortie  des  Hebreux 
d'Egypte,  Conference,  Alexandrie,  1874,  p.  20. 


THE    PLAGUES    OF   EGYPT.  129 

could  sail  up  to  tlie  wharves  of  Tanis,  though  the  canal 
which  now  represents  the  river  is  only  navigable  for  the 
fisher-boats  from  Lake  Menzaleh. 

Menephtah  was  about  twenty  years  younger  than 
Moses,  and  had  doubtless  heard  of  his  early  life  in  the 
palace,  and  of  his  subsequent  flight  and  its  cause.  Time, 
however,  had  long  effaced  these  recollections,  for  even 
the  flight  had  happened  forty  years  before.  Bat  to  make 
any  impression  on  a  Pharaoh,  in  favour  of  despised  slaves, 
needed  more  than  words,  however  reasonable  or  weighty. 
Menephtah  had  been  taught  to  regard  his  lightest  fancy 
as  the  law  which  all  must  obey.  That  he  should  be 
required  to  do  the  least  trifle  against  his  pleasure  was 
inconceivable.  Court  laureates  had  addressed  him  in 
odes,  one  of  which,  still  preserved,  is  doubtless  a  sample 
of  many.  He  was,  they  told  him,  '^  the  lover  of  truth,^' 
''the  sun  in  the  great  heaven,  enlightening  the  earth 
with  his  goodness,  and  chasing  the  darkness  from 
Egypt.^' 

"  Thou  art,  as  it  were,  the  image  of  thy  father,  the  Sun 
Who  rises  in  heaven.  .  .  .  No  place  is  without  thy  goodness. 
Thy  sayings  are  the  law  of  every  land.  .  .  . 
Bright  is  thy  eye  above  the  stars  of  heaven  :  able  to  gaze  at 
The  sun.    Whatever  is  spoken,  even  in  secret,  ascends  to 
Thine  ears.     Whatever  is  done  in  secret,  thy  eye  sees  it, 
0  !  Baeura  Meriamen,^  merciful  Lord,  creator  of  breath  !  "  ^ 

The  first  approaches  of  Moses  and  Aaron  to  this  man- 

1  A  name  of  Menephtah  IL  The  expression  of  belief  that  he 
was  the  true  living  representative  of  Deity  on  earth  was  doubtless 
sincere,  for  all  men  in  Egypt,  as  has  been  already  said,  worshipped 
the  Pharaoh  as  the  incarnate  sun-god.  Proofs  of  this  are  met 
with  constantly. 

2  Papyrus  Anastasi,  translated  by  Chabas,  Melanges  JEgijptO' 
logiqms,  1870,  p.  117,  and  by  Mr.  Goodwin,  Trans.  Soc.  Bib.  Arch., 

'  vol.  ii.  p.  353.    Eecords  of  the  Fast,  vol.  vi.  p.  101. 

VOL.   II.  K 


130  THE  PLAGUES  OF  EGYPT. 

god,  on  belialf  of  their  people,  the  despised  beings  by 
whose  labour  he  was  executing  the  public  works  of  the 
district,  only  drew  down  on  the  sufferers  a  heavier  lot. 
Hitherto  they  had  been  allowed  straw  to  chop  into 
lengths,  to  use  in  binding  the  clay  they  had  to  make 
into  bricks ;  but  now  they  were  to  get  it  where  they 
could,  from  the  stubble  fields  far  and  near;  the  same 
number  of  bricks  as  before  being  still  demanded  from 
them.^  It  must  have  been  sometime  about  the  end 
of  April;  for  the  wheat  harvest  is  then  just  over  in 
Egypt  and  leaves  the  plains  of  the  Delta  covered  with 
standing  straw — soon  to  be  gathered  and  burnt :  the 
reapers  in  Ancient  as  in  Modern  Egypt  cutting  off  the 
grain  close  to  the  ear.  The  Nile  would  be  at  its  low- 
est, and  the  hot  sand  wind  from  the  Sahara  would  have 
begun  to  blow,  as  it  does  for  fifty  days  together  at  that 
season,  making  the  heat  almost  unendurable.  But  the 
Hebrews  had  to  face  it,  and  waste  their  strength  and 
lives  on  their  impossible  task.^  The  burden  had  become 
intolerable,  but  deliverance  was  at  hand. 

The  signs  and  plagues  by  which  Menephtah  was  in  the 
end  compelled  to  let  the  Hebrews  go,  began,  we  are  told, 
with  a  repetition  of  the  wonder  that  had  already  been 
wrought  at  Horeb — the  turning  a  rod  into  a  serpent: 
a  miracle  imitated,  however,  by  the  "  magicians  of 
Egypt.^^^  The  great  lesson  of  all  these  manifestations — 
the  superiority  of  Jehovah  to  the  idols  of  Egypt — was 
in  none,  however,  more  vividly  shown  than  in  this,  by 
'^Aaron's  rod  swallowing  up  ^'  all  the  others.^ 

1  Exod.  V.  15  ff. 

^  Osburn,  Israel  in  Egypt,  p.  252. 
8  Exod.  vii.  11. 

*  All  official  Egyptians  carried  rods  in  their  hands,  as  indica- 
tions of  their  rank,  etc. 


THE  PLAGUES  OF  EGYPT.  131 

The  jugglers  and  magicians  of  the  East  have  in  e very- 
age  exhibited  feats  of  skilly  or  of  unholy  powers,  which 
startle  the  senses  and  seem  to  defy  explanation.  Egypt 
especially  was  the  land  of  '^  the  black  art/'  which  indeed 
got  that  name  from  the  dark  colour  of  the  soil  of  the 
Nile  Valley.^  Exodus  supplies  us  with  the  names  of 
some  classes  of  its  wonder-workers — the  Hakamim,  or 
wise  men,  who  specially  dealt  in  secret  arts;  the  Me- 
kashphim,  who  muttered  magic  spells  and  adjurations 
for  driving  away  spirits,  or  the  more  tangible  dangers  of 
crocodiles,  asps,  snakes  and  the  like ;  ^  and  the  Hartum- 
mim,  who  were,  as  Brugsch  tells  us,  the  high  priests 
presiding  at  the  different  religious  services  in  the  very 
city  of  Zoan-Tanis,  where  Moses  and  Aaron  wrought  their 
miracles.  Their  name  means,  we  are  told,  "the  warriors,^' 
in  allusion  to  the  myths  of  conflicts  of  the  gods,  so  com- 
mon in  Egypt.^  This  class  was,  perhaps,  equivalent  to 
"the  sacred  scribes,'^*  and  appear  to  have  been  at  once  the 
literary  men  of  their  temples,  and  skilled  in  uttering  spells 
by  the  use  of  sacred  names  and  words. ^  In  this  relation 
they  were  the  "  scribes  of  occult  writings,"  and  formed, 
with  the  other  classes  named,  the  council  of  the  Pharaoh, 
to  consult  the  magic  books  for  him,  when  summoned. 
The  names  of  the  two  chief  opponents  of  Moses  and 
Aaron,  Jannes  and  Jambres,  have  been  preserved  by 
St.  Paul,^  and  are  both  Egyptian.     An  or  Annu,  which 

^  Alchemy  means  **  pretended  science,"  and  is  derived  from 
Kemia  =  black — the  native  name  of  Egypt.  Hence  it  was  "  the 
black  art." 

2  See  references  in  the  Booh  of  the  Dead. 

*  Brugsch,  The  Exodus  and  the  Egyptian  Monuments,  Trans. 
Orient.  Congress,  London,  1874,  p.273.  Dillmann  {Exodus,  p.  68) 
rejects  this  erymology. 

4  Ebers,  JEgypten,  etc.,  p.  341. 

®  Speaker's  Comment.,  vol.  i.  p.  279.  *  2  Tim.  iii.  8. 


132  THE  PLAGUES  OP  EGYPT. 

is  identical  with  ''scribe/'  being  frequently  found  in 
writings  of  the  date  of  Moses,  while  Jambres  is  the 
name  of  a  sacred  book,  and  may  mean  "  Scribe  of  the 
South/^  ^  Buxtorff  gives  some  of  the  traditions  of  the 
later  Jews  respecting  them,  under  the  names  of  Joch- 
anna  and  Mamre.  They  were  said  to  have  been  sons 
of  Balaam  and  to  have  perished  with  Pharaoh  in  the 
Eed  Sea,  but  it  is  idle  to  repeat  such  inventions  at  any 
length.^ 

Like  all  the  other  "  signs "  and  plagues,  that  of  the 
rod  turned  into  a  serpent  was  a  direct  challenge  from 
Jehovah  to  the  idols  of  Egypt;  for  serpents  were 
worshipped  in  various  parts  of  the  country,^  and  the 
living  symbol  of  the  god  of  Pithom,  a  town  of  the 
Hebrew  district,  was  one  of  these  creatures,  dignified 
with  the  name  of  "  the  Magnificent,^'  and  "  the  Splen- 
did/' *  The  asp  was  also  the  symbol  of  the  god  Kneph 
— the  creator  and  sustainer  of  the  world/  and  Serapis 
was  frequently  represented  with  a  serpent's  body.^  To 
discredit  this  reptile,  therefore,  at  once  dishonoured  a 
multitude  of  Egyptian  gods,  for  their  utter  impotence 
as  compared  with  Jehovah  could  have  had  no  more 
signal  illustration,  than  the  vanishing  of  all  the  rods  of 
the  magicians  before  that  of  Aaron. 

1  Sjpeaker's  Comment.,  vol.  i.  p.  279. 

2  Buxtorff's  Lex.  Oh.  et  Tal.  pp.  948-9.  Eosenmiiller,  Das 
Alte  u.  Neue  Morgenlmid,  vol.  i.  p.  275. 

3  Herod.,  ii.  74.  Eusebius  speaks  of  two  serpents  worshipped 
at  Thebes,  as  the  greatest  of  all  the  gods. 

^  Brugsch,  The  Exodus  and  the  Egyptian  Monuments,  p.  269. 

5  Creuzer's  Symholilc,  p.  166. 

*  Winer,  Schlange.  Lane,  in  his  Modern  Egyptians,  states  that 
each  quarter  of  Cairo  has  a  special  guardian  genius,  in  the  form 
of  a  serpent.  This  is  no  doubt  a  relic  of  ancient  serpent  wor- 
ship. 


THE    PLAGUES    OF   EGYPT.  133 

How  the  feats  narrated  of  these  wonder-workers  were 
performed  it  is  impossible  to  tell,  but  it  is  certain  that, 
in  both  ancient  and  modern  times,  conjurers  in  the  East 
have  boasted  of  amazing  power  over  serpents.  An 
African  race,  the  Psylli,  were  believed  to  be  proof  against 
their  bites,  handling  them  recklessly,  in  reliance  on  the 
protection  of  spells  and  incantations.  Throwing  them 
into  a  helpless  lethargy,  they  then  played  with  them 
as  mock  rods  or  staves.^  Even  at  this  day  Egyptian 
jugglers  are  accustomed  to  catch  a  serpent  by  the  head, 
and  by  some  strange  power  make  it  stiff  and  motion- 
less, as  if  changed  into  a  rod.^ 

The  second  "  sign ''  and  first  '^  plague '' — the  turning 
the  waters  of  Egypt  into  blood — was  a  blow  at  the  whole 
religion  of  Egypt,  than  which  none  could  have  been 
more  impressive,  whether  to  the  Egyptians  or  Hebrews. 
The  Nile  was,  in  the  strictest  sense,  regarded  as  divine, 
and  was  worshipped  under  a  variety  of  names.  A  hymn 
as  old  as  the  days  of  Moses,  still  preserved,  shows  how 
deeply  this  reverence  had  taken  hold  of  the  Egyptian 
mind.^ 


*  See  authorities  in  Knobel's  Exodus,  p.  61.     Billmann,  p.  69. 

2  Champollion-Figeac,  Egijpten,  p.  26.  On  serpent  charming  in 
Egypt,  see  Eine^  ^gypt.  Konigstocliter,  vol.  i.  p.  236.  In  the 
JDescription  de  VEgypte,  vol.  xxiv.  p.  82,  it  is  said,  "  They  can  turn 
the  Kaje  (a  serpent)  into  a  stick  and  make  it  appear  dead.  They 
then  revive  it,  when  they  choose,  holding  it  by  the  tail  and  rolling 
it  briskly  between  their  hands."  See  also,  for  extraordinary  feats 
performed  with  poisonous  snakes,  Drummond  Hay's  Western 
Barhary,  p.  64.     Tristram's  Nat.  Hist,  of  Bible,  p.  272. 

3  Papyrus  Sallier,  I.  11-13.     Anastasi,  YII.     It  is  translated 
by  Canon  Cook,  Records   of  the  Past,  pp.  4,  105.     Diimichen, ' 
Gesch.  des  Alien  ^gyptens,  p.  11.     Maspero,  Histoire  Ancienne, 
p.  11.      The  two  latter  translations  are   wonderfully  alike,  bub 
both  differ  considerably  from  that  of  Canon  Cook. 


134  THE   PLAGUES   OF  EGYPT. 

"  Hail  to  thee,  0  Nile  ! 

Thou  who  hast  revealed  thyself  to  this  land, 

Coming  in  peace,  to  give  life  to  Egypt ! 

Hidden  god !  who  bringest  what  is  dark  to  light. 

As  is  always  thy  delight ! 

Thou  who  waterest  the  fields  created  by  the  Sun-god; 

To  give  life  to  all  the  world  of  living  things. 

Thou  it  is  who  coverest  all  the  land  with  water. 

Thy  path,  as  thou  comest,  is  from  heaven  ! 

Thou  art  the  god  Set,  the  friend  of  bread ! 

Thou  art  the  god  Nepra,  the  giver  of  grain ! 

Thou  art  the  god  Ptah,  who  lightenest  every  dwelling! 

Lord  of  Fishes,  when  thou  risest  over  the  flooded  lands 

Thou  protectest  the  fields  from  the  birds. 

Creator  of  wheat :  Producer  of  barley  ; 

Thou  sustainest  the  temples. 

When  the  hands  of  millions  of  the  wretched  are  idle,  he  grieves. 

If  he  do  not  rise,  the  gods  in  heaven  fall  on  their  faces,  and  men 

die. 
He  makes  the  whole  land  open  before  the  plough  of  the  oxen. 
And  great  and  small  rejoice. 
Men  invoke  him  when  he  delays  his  coming, 
And  then  he  appears  as  the  life-giving  god  Khnoum. 
When  he  rises  the  land  is  filled  with  gladness, 
Every  mouth  rejoices:  all  living  things  have  nourishment:  all 

teeth  their  food. 

Bringer  of  Food !     Creator  of  all  good  things  I 

Lord  of  all  things  choice  and  delightful, 

If  there  be  offerings,  it  is  thanks  to  thee  ! 

He  maketh  grass  to  grow  for  the  oxen; 

He  prepares  sacrifices  for  every  god, 

The  choice  incense  is  that  which  he  supplies  I 

He  cannot  be  brought  into  the  sanctuaries. 

His  abode  is  not  known ; 

There  is  no  house  that  can  contain  him ! 

There  is  no  one  who  is  bis  counsellor ! 

He  wipes  away  tears  from  all  eyes  ! 

«  #  ^  #  « 

O  Nile,  hymns  are  sung  to  thee  on  the  harp; 
Offerings  are  made  to  thee :  oxen  are  slain  to  thee ; 


THE    PLAGUES    OP   EGYPT.  135 

Great  festivals  are  kept  for  thee :  fowls  are  sacrificed  to  thee : 

Incense  ascends  unto  heaven  : 

Oxen,  bulls,  fowls,  are  burned ! 

Mortals,  extol  him  !  and  ye  cycle  of  gods  ! 

His  Son  (the  Pharaoh)  is  made  Lord  of  all, 

To  enlighten  all  Egypt. 

Shine  forth,  shine  forth,  0  Nile,  shine  forth !  " 

As  the  bountiful  Osiris/  and  under  many  other  divine 
names_,  the  Nile  was  the  beneficent  god  of  Egypt — the 
representative  of  all  that  was  good.  Evil,  however,  had 
also  its  god,  the  deadly  enemy  of  Osiris — the  hated 
Typhon — the  source  of  all  that  was  cruel,  violent,  and 
wicked.  With  this  abhorred  being  the  touch  or  sight 
of  blood  was  associated.  He  himself  was  represented 
as  blood-red  ;  red  oxen  and  even  red-haired  men  were 
sacrificed  to  him,  and  blood,  as  his  symbol,  rendered 
all  unclean  who  came  near  it.  To  turn  the  Nile  waters 
into  blood  was  thus  to  defile  the  sacred  river — to  make 
Typhon  triumph  over  Osiris — and  to  dishonour  the  re- 
ligion of  the  land  in  one  of  its  supremest  expressions. 

The  law  of  Divine  government  by  which,  even  when 
miraculous  results  are  to  be  produced,  natural  phenomena 
are  utilized  as  far  as  they  go,  has  led  to  many  attempts 
to  explain  the  change  effected  on  the  waters  of  Egypt, 
as  caused  by  a  special  employment  of  ordinary  means. 
Thus  it  is  known  that  the  Nile  at  a  certain  stage  of 
its  yearly  rise  assumes  a  red  colour.  "The  sun,"  says 
Mr.  Osburn,  "was  just  rising  over  the  Arabian  hills,  and 
I  was  surprised  to  see  that  the  moment  its  beams  struck 
the  water  a  deep  red  reflection  was  caused.  The  in- 
tensity of  the  red  grew  with  the  increase  of  the  light, 
so  that  even  before  the  disk  of  the  sun  had  risen  com- 
pletely above  the  hills  the  Nile  offered  tke  appearance 

'  Creuzer,  Symbolih,  p.  89, 


136  THE  PLAGUES  OP  EGYPT. 

of  a  river  of  blood.  Suspecting  some  illusion  I  rose 
quickly,  and  leaning  over  the  side  of  the  boat,  found 
my  first  impression  confirmed.  The  entire  mass  of  the 
waters  was  opaque,  and  of  a  dark  red,  more  like  blood 
than  anything  else  to  which  I  could  compare  it.  At  the 
same  time,  I  saw  that  the  river  had  risen  some  inches 
during  the  night,  and  the  Arabs  came  to  tell  me  it  was  the 
Red  Nile."'^  It  is  fatal,  however,  to  the  belief  that  such 
a  familiar  phenomenon  explains  the  wonder  of  Exodus, 
since  "the  water  is  never  more  healthy,  more  delicious 
or  more  refreshing,'^  than  when  thus  discoloured.^ 

The  phenomenon  has  been  traced  by  Ehrenberg  to 
the  presence  and  inconceivably  rapid  growth  of  infusoria 
and  minute  cryptogamous  plants  of  a  red  colour.^  Many 
cases  of  such  appearances  are  recorded.  Ehrenberg 
himself,  in  1823,  saw  the  whole  bay  of  the  Red  Sea,  at 
Sinai,  turned  into  the  colour  of  blood  by  the  presence  of 
such  plants.*  Similarly,  the  Elbe  ran  with  what  seemed 
blood,  for  several  days,  in  the  beginning  of  this  century. 
The  Nile,  also,  lias  been  known  to  have  the  same  look, 
and  to  remain  blood-like  and  fetid  for  months.  In  Silli- 
mdn^s  Journal  there  is  an  account  of  a  fountain  of  blood 
in  a  cave  in  South  America.  It  grew  solid  and  burst 
bottles  in  which  it  was  put,  and  dogs  ate  it  greedily. 
Before  the  potato  rot  in  1846  small  red  spots  appeared 
on  linen  laid  out  to  bleach,  and  in  1848,  Eckhardt,  of 
Berlin,  saw  the  same  on  potatoes,  in  the  house  of  a 
cholera  patient;  the  spots  in  this  last  case  proving  to 

^  Osburn's  Monumental  History  of  Egypt,  vol.  i.  p.  10. 

*  Eoseilmiiller,  Bas  Alte  u.  Neue  Morgenland,  has  varied  in- 
formation on  this  subject,  vol.  i.  p.  276. 

3  Cryptogamous  plants  are  those  in  which  the  fructification  is 
concealed.  Such  as  ferns,  mosses,  Hchens,  alga3,  and  fungi,  or 
mushrooms.  •*  Iiengerke's  Kenaan,  p.  406. 


THE    PLAGUES   OP   EGYPT.  137 

be  caused  by  one  of  the  alg^ — Palmella  prodigiosa.  In 
1852  a  similar  appearance  on  food,  both  animal  and 
vegetable,  was  noticed  in  France,  by  M.  Montague.  In 
1825,  Lake  Morat  became  like  blood  in  different  parts. 
In  the  steppes  of  Siberia,  also,  lakes  have  been  noticed 
thus  strangely  discoloured.  In  the  time  of  the  Reforma- 
tion, M.  Merle  d^Aubigne  tells  us,  blood  seemed  in  some 
parts  of  Switzerland  to  flow  from  the  earth,  from  walls, 
and  other  sources,  and  the  same  thing  has  been  noticed 
on  bread,  at  Tours,  in  a.d.  503;  at  Spires,  in  1103;  at 
Rochelle,  in  1163;  at  Namur,  in  1193;  and  elsewhere 
at  various  times.  The  cause  of  these  wonders  is  a  minute 
alga  which  grows  so  rapidly  that  it  actually  flows,  and 
is  so  small  that  there  are  from  46,656,000,000,000,  to 
884,736,000,000,000  plants  in  a  cubic  inch.i 

We  are  told  that  this  appalling  visitation  was  inflicted 
at  the  moment  of  Pharaoh^ s  going  to  the  river;  ^  apparently 
at  the  head  of  a  religious  procession ;  on  the  formal  visit 
usually  made  each  day  at  sunrise,  when  the  inundation 
was  beginning ;  to  note  the  height  of  'the  waters,  and 
to  pay  religious  homage  to  the  river.^  The  daily  in- 
crease of  the  river  was  carefully  registered  under  the 
personal  superintendence  of  the  king,  who  announced 
the  god  to  be  worshipped  that  day :  for  a  different 
god  presided  over  every  new  phase  of  the  waters. 
But  not  only  was  the  Nile  aff'ected :  the  miracle  showed 
itself  also,  at  once,  in  all  its  branches ;  in  the  '^  rivers,^' 
or    rather  canals,  which  covered   the   whole   land  with 

^  Macmillan.  Infusoria,  fungi,  and  volcanic  dust  are,  also, 
perhaps,  occasional  causes.  ^  Exod.  vii.  15. 

^  Irwin  saw  a  troop  of  maidens  go  out,  at  midnight,  dancing 
and  singing,  to  the  banks  of  the  Nile,  then  beginning  to  rise. 
After  bathing  in  the  holy  waters,  they  sang  the  praises  of  the 
stream.     Irwin's  Incidents,  etc.,  p.  229. 


138  THE  PLAGUES  OP  EGYPT. 

a  network  of  broad  streams  or  silver  threads;  in  tlie 
"ponds/^  including  tlie  few  natural  springs,  and  all 
the  cisterns  and  tanks  of  the  towns  and  villages;  and 
in  all  the  *^' pools/'  or  reservoirs,  some  of  which  were  of 
enormous  extent.^  Nor  did  even  the  water  in  the  stone 
or  wooden  jars  of  households,  escape.  To  add  to  all,  a 
great  mortality  followed  among  the  fish  of  the  river — on 
which  the  population  largely  depended  for  food. 

Yet,  though  thus  broadly  stated,  it  is  clear  that  some 
of  the  water  must  have  been  left  unchanged,  for  we  read 
that  the  magicians  did  the  same  by  their  ''  enchant- 
ments ;  '*  which  would  have  been  impossible  if  there  had 
been  no  water  left  for  them  to  manipulate.  Marcos,  the 
leader  of  a  heretical  sect  in  the  ancient  Church,  seems 
to  have  had  the  knowledge  of  chemical  secrets  on  which 
the  Egyptian  priests,  also,  may  have  acted.  Having  filled 
wine  cups  of  transparent  glass  with  colourless  wine,  he 
began  to  pray,  and  the  fluid,  as  he  did  so,  became  in  one 
of  the  cups  hlood'Ved,  in  another,  purple,  and  in  a  third, 
an  azure  blue.^ 

That  the  Almighty  could,  if  he  chose,  turn  water  into 
blood  as  easily  as  His  divine  Son  turned  it  into  wine, 
can  be  questioned  by  no  one,  but  it  deserves  notice  that 
equally  exact  language  is  used  elsewhere  in  Scripture 
when  only  a  similarity  in  appearance  is  meant.  Thus 
it  is  said  in  Joel  ^  that  ^^  the  moon  shall  be  turned  into 
blood.'''     It  is  striking,  moreover^  that  in  the  announce- 

1  The  words  used  prove  the  sacred  writer's  intimate  knowledge 
of  Egypt,  for  they  include  all  the  water  sources  of  the  land; 
the  arms  of  the  Nile,  the  canals  of  irrigation,  the  ponds  left  by 
the  Nile,  and  the  artificial  reservoirs.  Hengstenberg,  See  also 
Speaker's  Comment,  vol.  i.  p.  277.     Uillmann,  p.  71. 

2  Epiphan.,  Contra  Hceres.,  vol.  i.  p.  24. 
8  Chap.  iii.  4     Acts  ii.  20. 


THE  PLAGUES  OP  EGYPT.  139 

ment  of  the  threatened  infliction,  it  is  not  said  that  the 
Egyptians  would  be  quite  unable  to  drink  the  water,  but 
that  they  '^  should  weary  themselves  ^^  ^  in  their  efforts  to 
do  so,  and  be  forced  to  dig  ^^ round  about  the  river" 
for  supplies.  That  they  obtained  enough  by  this  means 
is  certain,  else  all  the  population  would  have  died ;  but 
the  mere  filtration  of  the  river  water  through  the  soil 
would  not  have  made  it  drinkable  had  it  been  changfed 
into  actual  blood.  Moreover,  in  the  climate  of  Egypt, 
the  smell  of  corrupting  blood  would  have  killed  every 
living  creature,  both  man  and  beast,  long  before  the 
seven  days  had  ended. 

The  Second  Plague,  of  frogs,  like  all  the  others, 
directly  assailed  Egyptian  idolatry,  for  Heki — "  the 
driver  away  of  frogs '' — a  female  deity,  had  the  head 
of  a  frog,  as  also  had  the  god  Ptah,  worshipped  in 
southern  Egypt,  as  the  wife  of  Khaoum,  the  god  of  the 
cataracts  of  the  Nile.^  The  frog,  moreover,  as  a  sym- 
bol of  renewed  life  after  death,  was  connected  with  the 
most  ancient  forms  of  nature  worship  in  the  country 
at  large.^  It  was  embalmed  and  honoured  with  burial 
at  Thebes.  When  the  Nile  and  its  canals  are  full,  in 
the  height  of  the  inundation,  the  abounding  moisture 
quickens  inconceivable  myriads  of  frogs  and  toads, 
which  swarm  everywhere  even  in  ordinary  years,  and 
now  did  so  to  an  extent  never  before  known.  But 
Hepi  was  so  utterly  powerless  to  deliver  her  worshippers 
from  them,  that  even  the  houses  and  the  very  kneading 
troughs  were  polluted  by  their  presence;  a  trouble  very 

*  Exod.  vii.  18.     Knohel. 

^  Brugsch,  Geog.,  p.  224.  Hier.  Worterhuch,  p.  478.  Gram- 
maire  Hier.,  p.  105.  Plutarch  says  that  the  frog  was  an  emblem 
of  the  sun. 

3  Diimichen,  JJJgypt.  Zeitschrift,  1869,  p.  6. 


140  THE  PLAGUES  OP  EGYPT. 

serious  to  a  people  so  ceremonially  strict  in  tlieir  ideas 
of  purity.  The  magicians,  with  their  muttered  spells, 
could  only  add  to  the  evil  by  appearing  to  bring  up 
more  frogs  from  the  marshes ;  when  the  land  had  to  be 
cleared  of  them,  Pharaoh  needed  to  ask  the  aid  of  Moses 
and  Aaron.^  That  he  sought  their  help  was  the  first 
sign  of  his  yielding ;  bub  his  relenting  humour  soon 
passed  away. 

The  Third  Plague  was  not  preceded  by  any  such 
warning  as  had  been  given  before  the  two  former.  The 
soil  of  Egypt  was  as  sacred  as  everything  else  in  the 
valley  of  the  Nile,  for  it  was  worshipped  as  Seb — the 
father  of  the  gods.^  But  now  it  was  to  be  defiled,  by  its 
very  dust  seeming  to  turn  into  noisome  pests.  At  the 
stroke  of  Aaron's  rod  "  there  arose  gnats  on  man  and 
beast,''  or  as  our  version  renders  it,  "lice."  In  this 
instance,  also,  the  natural  phenomena  of  the  season  were 
utilized,  as  far  as  they  went,  to  carry  out  the  judgment. 
''  When  the  inundation  has  risen,"  says  Osburn,  "  above 
the  level  of  the  canals  and  channels  and  is  rapidly  flowing 
over  the  entire  surface,  the  fine  dust  or  powder  into 
which  the  mud  of  last  year's  overflow  is  triturated,  and 
with  which  the  fields  are  entirely  covered,  presents  a 
very  extraordinary  phenomenon.  Immediately  on  its 
being  moistened  with  the  waters,  gnats  and  flies  innu- 
merable burst  from  their  pupge,  and  spring  into  perfect 
existence.  The  eggs  that  produce  them  were  laid  in  the 
retiring  waters  of  the  former  flood.     They  have  matured 

^  The  words  of  Moses,  "glory  over  me,  etc."  (Exod.  viii.  9),  are 
equal  to  "  Thine  be  the  honour  to  appoint  the  time  when  I  shall 
entreat  for  thee  and  thy  servants,  etc."  He  would  show  that  he 
could  remove  the  plague  at  any  time  on  Pharaoh's  yielding. 
**  Have  this  honour  over  me,  of  saying  when  I  shall,  etc," 

2  Brugsch,  Zeitschrift,  1868,  p.  123. 


THE    PLAGUES    OF   EGYPT.  141 

in  the  interval,  and  vivify  instantaneously  on  tlie  dust 
absorbing  moisture  enougli  to  discolour  it.  As  the  flood 
advances  slowly  onwards,  a  black  line  of  living  insects  on 
its  extreme  verge  moves  with  it.  The  sight  of  them, 
and  of  the  birds  and  fishes  that  prey  on  them,  is  a  very 
singular  one.'''^  The  word  used  in  Exodus  ^  apparently 
includes  various  poisonous  flies  and  insects.  Origen 
traces  the  plague  to  swarms  of  mosquitoes.^  The  Greek 
Bible,  translated  by  Jews,  who,  like  Origen,  lived  in 
Egypt,  uses  a  word*  which  includes  not  only  harmless 
insects,  but  winged  pests,  which  were  fatal  even  to  horses 
and  cattle.^  Brugsch  thinks  the  word  used  in  the  Hebrew 
Bible  ®  the  same  as  the  Egyptian  word  for  the  mosquito, 
and  says  that  it  has  still  this  meaning  in  the  Coptic, 
which  is  the  representative  of  the  Ancient  Egyptian 
language.  Sir  Samuel  Baker,  however,  speaks  of  a 
plague  of  vermin  in  Africa  in  terms  so  like  those  of  the 
English  version  as  to  suggest  that  mosquitoes  were  not 
the  only  form  of  the  visitation.  There  is  a  kind  of  tick, 
he  tells  us,  which  lives  in  hot  sand  and  dust,  and  is  "  the 
greatest  enemy  to  man  and  beast.  From  the  size  of  a 
grain  of  sand,  in  its  natural  state,  it  swells  to  the  size  of 
a  hazel  nut  after  having  preyed  for  some  days  upon  the 
blood  of  an  animal.^'  ^'At  one  place  it  seemed,'^  he' 
says,  "as  though  the  very  dust  were  turned  into  lice.''^^ 
Dr.  Tristram,^  thinks  mosquitoes    cannot  be  meant,  as 

^  Osburn,  Israel  in  Egypt,  p.  265.  ^  Exod.  viii.  13,  17. 

8  Homil.  IV.  in  Exod.     Migne,  Patrol.  Gr.,  xii.  322. 

*  Skniphes.  The  insects  that  destroyed  the  horses  of  Sapor's 
array  at  the  siege  of  Nisibis  are  thus  named.  Theodoret,  H.  E., 
ii.  30. 

^  Knobel,  Exod.,  p.  71.  Liddell  and  Scott :  Knips.  Dillmann, 
p.  78.  «  Kiuuim. 

^  Bilker's  Nile  Tributaries,  p.  84. 

«  Nat.  History  of  the  Bible,  p.  304. 


142  THE    PLAGUES    OP   EGYPT. 

they  rise  from  the  waters^  not  from  the  dust_,  and  he 
supposes  lice  are  intended ;  but  Baker  remarks  that 
'Mice^'  would  shrivel  at  once  in  the  hot  dust  of  Africa, 
and  therefore  contends  for  the  terrible  ticks  he  names. 
To  a  scrupulously  clean  people  like  the  Egyptians,  and 
especially  to  their  priests,  '^  lice  ^'  or  "  ticks  ''  would  be 
a  terrible  visitation  ;  while  the  inability  of  the  magicians 
to  remove  the  pest,  if  it  were  that  of  mosquitoes,  was 
a  direct  confession  of  impotence  on  the  part  of  the  gods 
to  whom  was  entrusted  the  preservation  of  the  country 
from  such  visitations.  *'  Fly-gods  ^'  were  characteristic 
of  all  hot  countries,  in  antiquity — as,  for  example,  Zeus 
Apomyius,  "the  driver  away  of  flies,'^  who  was  wor- 
shipped at  Olympia,  in  Greece ;  Myiagros,  "the  protector 
against  flies,'^  invoked  at  the  festival  of  Athena.  Apollo 
Parnopius  was  the  averter  of  locusts;  the  god  Acchor 
the  "protector  from  flies'^  at  Cyrene.  It  was  believed 
that  no  flies  or  dogs  would  approach  the  temple  of  Her- 
cules Myiagros  at  Rome  ;^  and  at  Ekron,  in  the  Philistine 
country,  the  god  Beelzebub — "the  Lord  of  Flies'^ — was 
the  recognized  guardian  of  the  land  from  insect  plagues. 
All  that  could  be  pretended  was  that  the  evil  gods  of 
their  land  were  fighting  against  the  good;  that  it  was  the 
work  of  Set,  the  Sutekh  or  Typhon  of  later  mythology — 
the  Egyptian  Satan, 

The  Fourth  Plague  was  another  visitation  of  insects,  of 
a  diSerent  kind,  but  equally  terrible.  The  Hebrew  word 
used/  appears  to  include  winged  pests  of  all  kinds,^  as 

^  Diet,  of  Mijfhol.  Winer.  Sepp's  Lehen  Christi.  Dollinger'a 
Gentile  and  Jew ;  Kitto's  Cyclo.,  art.  JBeelzehul.  Millington's 
Flagues  of  Egypt,  p.  96. 

2 '  Arob. 

3  So  the  Jewish  expositors  understand  it,  and  also  Aquila  and 
Jerome. 


THE    PLAGUES   OP   EGYPT.  143 

migLt  be  expected  in  a  country  in  which,  as  in  Egypt, 
flies  swarm  in  clouds  of  which  inhabitants  of  Northern 
countries  have  no  idea.  Their  countless  myriads  fill  the 
air  in  October  and  November,  after  the  season  of  frogs 
is  over.  One  eats  them,  drinks  them,  and  breathes 
them.^  The  cockroach,  cricket,  and  beetles  generally 
seem  also  implied  in  the  Hebrew  word,^  and,  if  this  be 
so,  the  most  sacred  symbol  of  the  Egyptian  religion, 
the  scarabeeus^  or  common  dung  beetle  of  the  country, 
must  have  been  part  of  the  plague.  This  insect  was 
believed  to  be  of  no  sex,  but  to  be  produced  directly 
from  the  balls  of  ox  dung  in  which  it  lays  its  eggs,  and 
which  it  afterwards  buries  in  the  ground ;  and  hence, 
as  the  Egyptians  did  not  suspect  the  presence  of  these 
eggs,  it  was  chosen  as  the  emblem  of  the  creative  prin- 
ciple. Other  fanciful  analogies  made  it  be  regarded  also 
as  the  emblem  of  the  sun,  which  was  at  times  symbolized 
by  an  idol  with  the  form  or  head  of  a  scaraba3us ; — of 
consecration  to  the  gods ;  and  of  the  abiding  life  of  the 
soul,  notwithstanding  any  change  of  body  in  future  stages 
of  its  existence.  It  was  sculptured  on  every  monument, 
painted  on  every  tomb,  and  on  every  mummy  chest,  en- 
graved on  gems,  worn  round  the  neck  as  an  amulet,  and 
honoured  in  ten  thousand  images  of  every  size  and  of  all 
materials.'*  That  it,  among  other  insects,  should  be  mul- 
tiplied into  a  plague,  was  a  blow  at  idolatry  that  would 

1  Wood's  Bible  Animals,  p.  633. 

2  RosenmuUer,  Bus  Alte  u.  Neue  Morgenland,  vol.  i.  p.  286. 
Gesenius,  9th  edit  ,  p.  661. 

3  Prof.  Drake,  in  Smith's  Bihle  Bid.,  translates  "  swarms  of 
flies,"  by  "  swarms  of  beetles ;  "  so  Kalisch  and  others.  Hug, 
quoted  by  Winer,  thinks  that  the  fly  under  the  form  of  which 
Beelzebub  was  represented,  was  the  scaraba3us. 

^  Creuzer's  SymholiJc,  p.  162.  There  wa*  a  god — Cheperu — 
with  the  head  of  a  beetle. 


144  THE   PLAGUES   OF   EGYPT. 

come  home  to  all.  But  stinging  flies  were  added  to  tlie 
visitation :  vast  swarms  of  them,  perhaps,  being  blown 
northwards  to  Lower  Egypt,  from  the  great  marshes  of 
the  Upper  Nile,  by  the  south  wind,  as  sometimes  hap- 
pens still.^  Among  these  the  cattle  fly,  which  is  far 
worse  in  its  bite  than  the  mosquito,  is  perhaps  especially 
meant.  Coming  in  immense  clouds,  it  covers  all  objects 
with  its  black  and  loathsome  masses,  and  causes  severe 
inflammation  by  its  bites.  Indeed,  in  Abyssinia  it  is 
still  so  much  dreaded,  that  at  its  approach  in  the  rainy 
season,  the  inhabitants  move  ofi*  with  their  herds ;  man 
and  beast  being  alike  unable  to  endure  them.^ 

But  the  trouble  caused  in  Egypt  even  by  the  common 
fly  is  almost  indescribable.  When  the  country  is  mostly 
under  water,  during  the  height  of  the  inundation,  they 
increase  to  a  fearful  extent.  No  curtains,  or  other  precau- 
tions can  exclude  them.  Their  food  being  diminished  by 
the  great  amount  of  land  under  water,  they  seem  literally 
mad  with  hunger,  and  light  in  countless  numbers  upon 
whatever  promises  to  satisfy  it.  Every  drinking  vessel 
is  filled  with  them,  and  they  cover  every  article  of  food 
in  a  moment.^  If,  however,  it  be  thus  in  some  years  even 
now,  what  must  it  have  been  when  they  came  in  such 
millions,  that  Egypt  seemed  turned  into  a  region  as  much 
to  be  loathed  as  it  was  formerly  loved.* 

The  Fifth  Plague  touched  the  honour  of  the  Egyptian 
religion  in  one  of  its  tenderest  points — the  worship  of 
Isis  and  Osiris,  to  whom  the  cow  and  the  ox  were  sacred, 
and  of  the  great  god  Amon,  of  whom  the  ram  was  the 
living  symbol.      The  sacred  cow,  the  ox  Apis  and  the 

1  Fliegen,  in  Schenkel's  Lex.,  and  in  Itiehm. 

2  One  is  reminded  of  the  tsetse  fly  of  the  Zambesi. 
2  Osburn,  Isxael  in  Egypt,  p.  269. 

^  Exod.  viii.  24.     "  The  land  was  corrupted,  etc." 


THE  PLAGUES  OF  EGYPT.  145 

calf  Mnevis,  were  in  fact  their  greatest  deities.  It  is  the 
custom-  to  strew  the  surface  of  the  inundation  waters  with 
seed  of  lentils,  vetches,  and  other  plants/  and  trample 
them  into  th^  soil  to  prevent  their  being  washed  away, 
by  driving  cattle  of  all  kinds,  back  and  forward,  through 
the  soft  mud.  In  this  process,  however,  the  herds  suffer 
so  greatly  that  numbers  of  sick  beasts,  tended  by  skil- 
ful herdsmen,  are  represented  in  almost  all  the  pictures 
of  it  in  the  tombs.  ^  Perhaps  this  common  passage  in 
Egyptian  agricultural  life  was  the  starting  point  of  the 
terrible  calamity  now  sent  on  the  land.  It  may  have 
been,  however,  at  the  close  of  the  inundation,  when  the 
water  is  very  foul;  for  murrain  has  been  noticed  to  occur 
at  that  season.^  In  any  case,  a  wide  mortality  broke  out 
suddenly,  not  only  among  the  sheep  and  oxen,  but  even 
among  the  camels,  horses,  and  asses,  and  threatened  to 
destroy  them  utterly.*  Murrain  is  even  yet  not  uncom- 
mon in  Egypt,  and  sometimes  is  very  fatal.  Thus,  in 
1842  the  rinderpest  swept  off  great  part  of  the  cattle  of 
all  kinds,^  and  in  1786  they  were  almost  exterminated 
by  a  similar  disease.^  But  the  plague  brought  on  them 
by  Aaron   could  not  be  confounded  with  such  natural 

*  Eccles.  xi.  1.  ** 

2  Osburn,  Israel  in  Egypt,  p.  272. 

^  Knobel,  Exodus,  p.  77.  It  breaks  out  almost  yearly  after  the 
subsidence  of  the  inundation.  Chabas,  Melanges  Egyptologig^ues, 
1st  ser.  p.  39.     Billmann,  p.  83. 

^  Exod.  ix,  6,  says  ''all  the  cattle  of  Egypt  died,"  but  in  verse 
19,  and  in  chap.  xi.  6,  it  is  seen  that  this  is  not  to  be  understood 
as  it  reads.  The  poverty  of  the  Hebrew  language  is,  in  fact,  the 
cause,  in  this  and  many  other  cases,  of  universality  being  stated 
when  it  is  not  really  designed.  There  were  no  words  to  express 
limitations. 

^  Lepsius'  Briefe  aus  Egypten,  p.  14. 

^  In  1863  the  murrain  began  in  November  and  was  at  its  height 
in  December.     This  is  its  usual  time.     SpeaMer's  Comment. 

VOL.    II.  L 


146  THE  PLAGUES  OP  EGYPT. 

visitations,  for,  like  that  of  the  flies,  it  was  limited  to 
the  strictly  Egyptian  districts,  and  did  not  enter  Goshen, 
while  it  also  came  and  ceased  with  equal  suddenness  at 
the  word  of  Moses. 

In  the  Sixth  Plague  the  hand  of  God  pressed  still  more 
heavily  on  the  Egyptians,  for  now  they  themselves  were 
smitten.  Nor  was  the  lesson  taught  by  the  new  visita- 
tion less  striking  than  the  others  in  its  religious  aspect. 
Handfuls  of  ashes  from  the  '^  furnaces,'^  it  may  be  the 
smelting  furnaces  for  iron,^ — the  special  emblems  in 
Scripture  of  the  bitter  slavery  of  the  Hebrews — were 
sprinkled  towards  heaven  in  the  sight  of  Pharaoh;. an 
act  familiar  to  those  who  may  have  seen  it  done,  though 
the  import  could  not  for  the  moment  be  realized.  In 
various  Egyptian  towns  sacred  to  Set  or  Typhon,  the 
god  of  Evil — Heliopolis  and  Busiris,  in  the  Delta,  among 
them — red  haired  and  light  complexioned  men,  and  as 
such,  foreigners,  perhaps  often  Hebrews,^  were  yearly 
offered  in  sacrifice  to  this  hideous  idol.  After  being  burnt 
alive  on  a  high  altar,  their  ashes  were  scattered  in  the 
air  by  the  priests,  in  the  belief  that  they  would  avert 
evil  from  all  parts  whither  they  were  blown.^     Bat,  now, 

1  The  image  of  a  furnace  for  smelting  iron  is  often  used  in  this 
connection.  Thus,  ''I  have  brought  you  forth  out  of  the  iron 
furnace,  even  out  of  Egypt."  Deut.  iv.  20.  "  I  have  brought  them 
forth  from  Egypt,  from  the  iron  furnace."  Jer.  xi.  4.  "  I  have 
chosen  thee  out  of  the  furnace  of  affliction."  Is.  xlviii.  10.  "  Out 
of  Egypt,  from  the  midst  of  the  furnace  of  iron."     1  Kings  viii.  51. 

-  Thus  David  was  "ruddy."  1  Sara.  xvi.  12;  xvii.  42.  "My 
beloved,"  says  Canticles,  "  is  white  and  ruddy,"  i.e.  "  dazzling 
white  and  red."     Delitzsch,  Das  Holielied,  v.  10. 

3  "  In  India,  when  magicians  pronounce  an  imprecation  on  an 
individual,  a  village,  or  a  country,  they  take  the  ashes  of  cow 
dung  from  a  common  fire,  and  throw  them  into  the  air,  saying  to 
the  objects  of  their  displeasure,  such  a  sickness,  or  such  a  curse 
shall  surely  come  en  you."     Roberts'  Oriental  Illustrations. 


THE    PLAGUES    OP   EGYPT.  147 

the  ashes  thrown  into  the  air  by  Moses,  instead  of  carry- 
ing blessing  with  them,  fell  everywhere  in  a  rain  of 
blains  and  boils  on  the  people,  and  even  on  the  cattle 
which  the  murrain  had  spared.  Grievous  to  every  class, 
this  plague,  which  some  have  thought  the  leprosy,^  must 
have  fallen  with  special  severity  on  the  priests,  by  render- 
ing them  unclean  and  thus  incapacitating  them  for  their 
duties.  No  attempt  could  be  made  to  imitate  such  a 
judgment.  The  "  interpreters  of  secret  signs  '*  could  not 
even  stand  before  Moses. 

Six  plagues  had  now  failed  to  make  Pharaoh  own 
defeat  and  grant  the  Hebrews  permission  to  leave  the 
country.  To  lose  a  whole  nation  of  slaves  was  hardly 
worse  than  to  admit  that  the  gods  of  the  land  had  been 
humbled  by  Jehovah.  A  Seventh  Plague  was  therefore 
sent.  It  was  now  about  the  month  of  March,  for  the 
barley  was  in  ear  and  the  flax  in  blossom,  but  wheat, 
rye  and  spelt  were  yet  only  green.^  A  terrible  storm  of 
thunder  and  lightning,  accompanied  by  hail,  presently  de- 
vastated all  the  land  except  Goshen,  which  it  did  not  affect. 
Such  a  phenomenon  was  unheard  of,  for  though  thunder 
and  hail  are  not  unknown  in  Egypt  in  spring,  they  are 

^  It  is  perhaps  in  vague  reference  to  this  that  Tacitus  says, 
"Mauy  authors  agree  that  a  plague  which  made  the  body  hideous 
having  broken  out  in  Egypt,  the  king  Bocchoris,  on  the  counsel 
of  the  oracle  of  Ammon,  from  which  he  had  asked  what  he  should 
do,  was  ordered  to  purge  the  kingdom  of  those  thus  afflicted,  and 
to  send  them  away  to  other  countries,  as  hateful  to  the  gods." 
Hist,  V.  3.  Contagious  diseases  are  said  in  an  old  Egyptian 
document  to  have  been  frequent  in  December.     Pap.  8all.,  iv. 

2  Exod.  ix.  31,  32.  Barley  and  flax  are  generally  ripe  in  Egypt 
in  March;  wheat  and  spelt  in  April.  In  Palestine,  except" the 
Jordan  valley,  these  crops  are  from  a  month  to  six  weeks  later. 
The  flax  crops  were  very  important,  from  the  wide  use  of  linen 
in  Egypt,  for  priests  and  others. 


148  THE  PLAGUES  OF  EGYPT. 

rarely  severe.  Wittman,  indeed,  encountered  a  great 
thunder  storm  with  lightning,  in  November,  and  Lepsius 
notices  another  in  December,  accompanied  with  hail,^  but 
even  these  were  very  unusual  occurrences.  How  must  it 
have  shocked  a  nation  so  devout  towards  its  gods,  to  find 
that  the  waters,  the  earth  and  the  air,  the  growth  of  the 
fields,  the  cattle,  and  even  their  own  persons,  all  under 
the  care  of  a  host  of  divinities,  were  yet,  in  succession, 
smitten  by  a  power  against  which  these  protectors  were 
impotent !  But  the  lesson  was  sinking  into  the  hearts  of 
the  Hebrews,  if  not  of  the  Egyptians,  that  "  the  earth  is 
Jehovah^s,^^  and  that  idols  were  vanity. 

The  Eighth  Plague  took  the  dreaded  form  of  a  mira- 
culous visitation  of  locusts,  than  which  nothing  more 
terrible  could  follow  the  devastation  of  the  hail.^  The 
invasions  of  these  insects  are  one  of  the  heaviest  calami- 
ties to  the  regions  they  afflict.  In  the  Old  World,  the 
vast  sweep  from  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  to  Norway,  and 
from  China  to  the  West  Coast  of  Africa;  but  especially 
from  Arabia  to  India,  and  from  the  Nile  and  the  Red 
Sea  to  Greece  and  the  North  of  Asia  Minor,  is  exposed 
to  their  ravages.  Their  legions  have  been  known  to 
cross  the  Black  Sea  and  ahght  on  the  fields  of  Poland, 
and  to  pass  over  the  Mediterranean  and  fall  on  the  green 
plains  of  Lombardy.  Always  advancing  in  a  straight 
line  and  leaving  behind  them  the  countless  germs  of 
future  swarms,  they  devour  everything  green  that  comes 

^  Knobel's  Exodus  p.  81.  One  at  Benihassan,  in  February,  "  of 
extreme  severity,"  is  mentioned  in  the  Speaker's  GoTnment.,  vol.  i. 
p.  285.     Dillmann's  Exodus,  p.  87. 

2  Locusts  seem  to  visit  Egypt,  when  they  do  come,  from  March 
to  May.  The  Egyptians  \frere  passionately  fond  of  trees.  There 
are  many  notices  of  the  importation  of  foreign  ones,  to  beautify 
the  land. 


THE    PLAGUES    OP   EGYPT.  149 

in  their  way.  Their  numbers  exceed  computation :  the 
Hebrews  called  them  "  the  countless/'  and  the  Arabs 
know  them  as  '*"  the  darkeners  of  the  sun.-"  Unable  tc 
guide  their  own  flight,  though  capable  of  crossing 
large  spaces,  they  are  at  the  mercy  of  the  wind,  which 
bears  them  as  blind  instruments  of  Providence/  to  the 
doomed  region  given  over  to  them  for  the  time.  In- 
numerable as  the  drops  of  water  or  the  sands  of  the  sea 
shore,  their  flight  obscures  the  sun  and  casts  a  thick 
shadow  on  the  earth.  It  seems,  indeed,  as  if  a  great 
aerial  mountain,  many  miles  in  breadth;  were  advancing 
with  a  slow  unresting  progress.  Woe  to  the  countries 
beneath  them,  if  the  wind  fall  and  let  them  alight.  They 
descend  unnumbered  as  flakes  of  snow,  and  hide  the 
ground.  It  may  be  "like  the  garden  of  Eden  before 
them,  but  behind  them  it  is  a  desolate  wilderness.  At 
their  approach  the  peoples  are  in  anguish ;  all  faces  lose 
their  colour.'^  ^  No  walls  can  stop  them :  no  ditches 
arrest  them :  fires  kindled  in  their  path  are  forthwith 
extinguished  by  the  myriads  of  their  dead,  and  the 
countless  armies  march  on.  If  a  door  or  a  window  be 
open,  they  enter  and  destroy  everything  of  wood  in  the 
house.  Every  terrace,  court,  and  inner  chamber  is  filled 
with  them  in  a  moment.  Such  an  awful  invasion  now 
swept  over  Egypt,  consuming  before  it  everything  green, 
and  stripping  the  trees,  till  the  land  was  bared  of  all 
signs  of  vegetation.  A  strong  north-west  wind  from  the 
Mediterranean  swept  the  locusts  into  the  Ked  Sea.^ 

^  "  The  pest  of  the  anger  of  the  gods  "  is  the  name  Pliny  gives 
them.     Hist.  Nat.,  ii.  35.  2  jogj  ^i  q  (literally  translated). 

3  The  removal  of  locusts  is  generally  brought  aboub  by  the 
wind.  "Being  carried  ofi*  by  the  wind,"  says  Pliny,  "they  fall 
into  seas  or  lakes."  Hist.  Nat.,  xi.  35.  The  putrefaction  of  the 
masses  of  locusts  thus  drowned  sometimes  causes  a  pestilence. 


150  THE    PLAGUES    OF   EGYPT. 

Once  more,,  for  tlie  moment^  Pharaoh  was  humbled. 
Sammoning  Moses  and  Aaron  in  haste,  he  implored 
them  that  he  might  be  forgiven  his  sin  against  Jehovah, 
only  this  time ;  and  the  mercy  asked  was  granted.  But 
even  this  visitation  failed  to  influence  him  long.  It  is, 
after  all,  only  a  natural  event,  whispered  the  priests,  and 
so,  Israel  was  still  kept  in  bonds.  There  had  indeed 
been  a  show  of  concession  before  the  locusts  came,  but 
Moses  had  justly  refused  it.  The  men  might  go,  by 
themselves,  Pharaoh  had  said,  to  hold  a  religious  feast 
to  Jehovah,  but  the  rest  must  stay.  "  Jehovah  will  cer- 
tainly be  with  you,"  he  had  added  with  a  sneer,  ''  when 
I  let  you  and  your  little  ones  go  together !  You  in- 
tend evil.  The  men  may  go  and  serve  Jehovah :  you 
wanted  that " — and  he  drove  Moses  and  Aaron  out  of  his 
presence.^  But  now  that  a  plague  so  awful  had  come, 
he  was  willing  that  only  the  flocks  and  herds  should  be 
left  behind,  as  a  pledge  for  the  return  of  the  Hebrews. 
He  had,  however,  refused  the  first  request  for  only  three 
days'  journey  away  from  Egypt,^  to  a  spot  where  sacri- 
fices of  creatures  sacred  among  the  Egyptians  could  be 
off'ered  without  kindling  war ;  and  now  the  demand  was 
indefinitely  increased — even  the  cattle,  to  the  last  hoof, 
must  go  with  them.  Nor  was  anything  more  said  of  a 
merely  temporary  journey.^  Meanwhile,  before  it  had 
come  to  this,  the  Ninth  Plague  fell  upon  the  land.     The 

1  Exod.  X.  9-11. 

2  The  Egyptians  seem  to  have  had  religious  pilgrimages  to 
points  outside  their  own  country.  There  are  still  stone  monu- 
ments with  inscriptions  by  the  Pharaohs,  at  Surabit  el  Khadim, 
■which  seem  to  mark  it  as  a  place  to  which  such  pilgrimages  were 
made.  The  request  of  Moses  woald.  not,  therefore,  be  anything 
straiige.  Eobinson's  Falestine,  vol.  i.  p.  128.  Lengerke's  Kenaan, 
p.  403. 

3  Exod.  X.  9-11,  24 


THE  PLAGUES  OF  EGYPT.  151 

sun  was  tlie  supreme  god  of  Egypt,  and  he,  too,  was 
at  last^  to  veil  himself  before  Jehovah.  From  whatever 
cause,  natural  or  miraculous,  an  intense  darkness  was 
brought  over  all  Egypt,  except  Goshen,  for  three  days, 
during  which  men  could  not  see  each  other,  and  all 
movement  was  stopped.  A  physical  phenomenon,  fre- 
quent in  Egypt,  though  of  less  intensity,  may  possibly 
illustrate  the  agency  divinely  used  to  produce  this  result. 
A  hot  wind,  known  as  the  Chamsin,  blows  from 
the  equator,  in  Africa,  towards  the  north,  in  April  or 
between  March  and  May.  The  name  means  ^^  fifty,'' 
from  the  Chamsin  prevailing  intermittently  for  some- 
times two,  three,  or  four  days  together,  during  that 
number  of  days,  with  a  calm  between  the  storms,  of  it 
may  be  a  month.  In  the  desert  it  raises  vast  whirl- 
winds of  sand,  which  sometimes  bury  entire  caravans. 
Indeed,  they  once  overwhelmed  the  whole  army  of 
Cambyses,  sent  against  Amon,  so  completely,  that  it 
disappeared  as  if  swallowed  up  by  the  waves  of  the 
sea.^  It  is  always  attended  with  a  thickness  of  the  air, 
through  which  the  sun  sheds  only  at  best  a  dim  yellow 
light;  even  this  passing  in  many  cases  into  complete 
darkness.  On  these  occasions  the  people  in  the  towns 
and  villages  shut  themselves  up  in  their  houses,  in  the 
innermost  apartments,  or  in  underground  cellars,  if  there 
be  any,  and  those  in  the  desert  dig  holes  in  the  earth,  or 
hide  themselves  in  caves  or  pits,  and  await  the  end  of 
the  storm.  Artificial  light  at  such  times  is  of  little  use, 
for  it  cannot  pierce  the  opaque  air.  The  streets  are 
perfectly  empty,  and  a  deep  silence,  like  that  of  night, 
reigns  everywhere.  An  Arab  chronicler,  about  the  end 
of  the  eleventh  century,  records  a  great  storm  accom- 
panied by  darkness  so  intense  that  it  was  thought  the 
1  Herod.,  iii.  26.     Kalisch,  Exod.,  p.  129. 


152  THE  PLAGUES  OP  EGYPT. 

end  of  the  world  was  at  hand.^  Startled  by  tlie  awful 
intensity  of  the  darkness  in  the  present  case,  Pharaoh 
once  more  seemed  about  to  yield.  Bat  the  demand  of 
Moses,  that  the  Hebrews  should  take  with  them  the 
whole  of  their  flocks  and  herds/  again  roused  his  stub- 
bornnesSj  and  the  interview  ended  amidst  angry  threats 
of  the  king  that  the  audacious  intruder  on  his  peace 
should  die  if  he  came  to  him  again.  His  cup,  however, 
was  nearly  full,  and  Moses,  knowing  the  future,  could 
repeat  the  words  with  an  awful  significance — that  he 
would  indeed  see  his  face  no  more.^  The  Exodus  was 
at  hand. 

*  Rosenmiiller's  Alter tliumslcunde,  vol.  iii-  p.  220.  Denon's 
Travels,  vol  i.  p.  285.  The  words  "  darkness  that  may  be  felt," 
in  our  version,  are  translated  by  Kalisch,  "  so  that  they  may 
grope  in  darkness."  Zanz  translates  them:  "The  darkness  will 
continue."     Hirsch.  and  De  Wette  agree  with  our  version. 

2  The  *'  rage  and  fury  "  of  ISTebuchadnezzar  at  the  thwarting  ot 
his  least  whim  (Dan.  iii.  13),  may  help  us  to  picture  the  interview 
between  Moses  and  Menephtah.  Exod.  ix.  34  explains  what  is 
said  elsewhere  of  God  hardening  the  heart  of  Pharaoh,  for  it 
distinctly  tells  us  that  Pharaoh  hardened  his  own  heart.  See 
StucUen  und  Kritiken,  1844,  p.  464. 

Addition  to  Note  2,  p.  121.— Calvin,  Eosenmiiller,  Hengstenberg, 
and  others  justly  bold  that  when  the  patriarchs  are  said  (Exod. 
vi.  3)  not  to  have  known  God  by  the  name  Jehovah,  the  meaning 
is  that,  though  the  word  itself  was  familiar  to  them,  its  depth 
and  grandeur  of  significance  had  not  as  yet  been  disclosed.  They 
knew  Him  as  El  Shaddai — the  omnipotent,  unchangeable,  eternal, 
and  faithful ;  but  it  only  needs  the  remembrance  of  the  infinitely 
fuller  disclosure  of  His  attributes,  nature,  and  relations  to  man, 
granted  to  Israel,  in  connection  with  the  name  Jehovah,  to  see 
that  He  had,  in  the  patriarchal  ages,  been,  as  yet,  comparatively 
unrevealed. 


CHAPTER  VT. 


THE   TENTH    PLAGUE   AND    THE    EXODUS. 

NO  great  national  crisis  is  of  sudden  growth.  More 
than  a  generation  liad  passed  since  Moses^  in  a 
sudden  heat  of  irrepressible  indignation^  had  smitten 
down  the  Egyptian  overseer  for  his  cruelty  to  a  Hebrew; 
a  first  outbreak  against  the  enslavement  of  his  people 
which  he,  in  all  likelihood,  hoped  would  prove  the  signal 
for  their  general  uprising,  to  strike  for  freedom  under  his 
leadership.  In  his  secret  thoughts  he  had  doubtless  long 
dreamed  of  their  possible  emancipation,  and  it  might  well 
seem  that,  now  he  had  committed  himself  to  them,  they 
might  rally  round  him,  and  break  away,  as  free  men,  into 
the  desert  which  was  so  near.  But  the  iron  had  entered 
into  their  souls,  and  his  daring  patriotism,  far  from 
finding  support,  seemed  likely  to  end  only  m  his  death, 
through  the  evidence  given  by  Hebrews  themselves 
against  him.  From  that  time,  in  the  depths  of  Midian, 
the  one  thought  had  still  engrossed  him.  But  he  had 
had  to  endure  the  pain  of  hope  deferred  for  many  years, 
while,  in  his  absence,  Aaron  was  gradually  educating  his 
brethren,  through  their  tribal  organization,  to  higher 
thoughts,  and  to  a  sense  of  religious  and  national 
unity,  in  opposition  to  the  Egyptians.  At  last  the  time 
seemed  ripe,  and  Aaron,  divinely  prompted,  could  go  to 

153 


151  THE    TENTH    PLAGUE    AND   THE    EXODUS. 

Midlan,  to  commune  witli  his  brother,  and  prepare  for 
the  future. 

But  the  reh'gious  development  of  the  Hebrew  com- 
munity was  still  imperfect,  for  centuries  of  residence 
among  the  idols  of  Egypt,  and  of  the  Asiatic  tribes  of 
the  Delta,  had  sadly  lowered  the  spiritual  sensibili- 
ties of  most,  and  had  created  almost  imperceptibly  a 
leaning  towards  the  corrupt  worship  around  them.  It 
was  necessary,  therefore,  before  they  broke  away  from 
the  Nile  Valley,  that  they  should  be  constituted,  formally, 
a  distinct  community,  chosen  by  Jehovah  for  Himself, 
and  recognizing  Him  only  as  their  God.  To  secure  their 
adoption  of  a  divinity  almost  new  to  them — for  they  had 
well  nigh  forgotten  the  faith  of  their  patriarch  forefathers 
— it  was  imperative  that  they  should  feel  His  supreme 
greatness  as  contrasted  with  the  false  gods  they  were 
required  to  abandon  for  His  sake ;  and  this  the  suc- 
cessive plagues  effected.  Egyptian  idolatry  had  been 
utterly  dishonoured  and  discredited  by  Him  whom  they 
were  henceforth,  alone,  to  worship.  To  this  great 
Being,  moreover,  they  were  permitted  to  look,  hence- 
forth, as  their  Protector  and  Heavenly  Kiug,  and  as  the 
God  of  their  fathers.  To  be  His  "first-born  sons^'^ 
by  this  separation  to  His  service,  was  to  be  impressed 
on  them  as  their  greatest  glory,  and  the  imperishable 
pledge  of  their  future. 

One  act  more  remained  of  the  sublime  drama,  by 
which  these  mighty  revelations  should  be  brought  home 
to  the  hearts  of  all  Israel.  The  Pharaoh,  still  obdurate, 
was  to  be  humbled  to  the  dust  by  a  judgment  so  terrible 
that  he  would  gladly  resign  the  contest  with  Jehovah, 
and  let  the  race  whom  so  awful  a  Power  thus  championed, 
"  go,  altogether  " ;  thankful  to  be  rid  of  them,  and  even 
1  Exod.  iv.  22. 


THE    TENTH    PLAGUE   AND    THE    EXODUS.  155 

'Hlirusting  them  out^'  ^  from  tlie  Nile  Valley.  But,  thus 
to  abase  the  Pliaraoh  was  to  degrade  the  national  idolatry 
in  his  person — for  he  was^  himself,  the  incarnation  of  the 
great  sun-god  Ra. 

It  was  necessary,  however,  that  the  Hebrews  should 
be  prepared  for  their  sudden  departure,  and  for  entering 
on  a  tent-life  in  the  desert,  like  that  of  their  forefathers. 
Their  training  in  the  arts  and  occupations  of  Egypt 
secured  them  the  elements  of  a  higher  civilization  than 
that  of  mere  shepherds,  and  fitted  them  for  their  des- 
tined part  as  a  settled  community  in  Palestine.  But 
their  humble  position,  as  a  whole,  in  Goshen  and 
throughout  Egypt,  especially  for  the  long  period  of  their 
slavery,  left  them  unprovided  with  adequate  means  for 
their  religious  or  social  wants  as  a  community.  While 
some  may  have  gained  wealth,  the  multitude  must  have 
been  very  poor,  for  the  Egyptians,  for  generations,  had 
forced  them  to  labour  for  them  without  wages.  They 
were  now  about  to  set  out  on  a  great  religious  pilgrim- 
age to  Sinai,  a  holy  region  to  the  tribes  around,  related 
to  them,  and  then  to  enter  on  an  independent  life  as  a 
nation ;  and  this  demanded,  among  much  else,  due  pro- 
vision of  robes,  ornaments  and  vessels,  for  religious  fes- 
tivities. They  and  the  bulk  of  the  Egyptian  people  had 
lived  on  friendly  terms,  for  the  native  population,  like 
the  poor  Mussulmans  in  Turkey,  were  hardly  less  op- 
pressed than  the  Hebrews  themselves.  Even  among  the 
wealthy,  moreover,  who  had  supported  the  tyranny  of 
the  Pharaohs,  and  in  the  court  itself,  the  events  of  the 
last  months  had  made  all  feel  the  necessity  of  deprecat- 
ing further  plagues  from  God.  When,  therefore,  the 
word  went  forth  from  Moses  to  Israel,  to  ask  ^  from  all 

1  Exod.  xi.  1. 

^  Not  to  borrow.     Exod.  iii.   22;   xi.  2.    The    Hebrew  word 


156  THE    TENTH    PLAGUE    AND    THE    EXODUS. 

around  tliem,  likely  to  have  such  things,  the  dresses,^ 
and  ornaments,  and  vessels  which  the  wilderness  could 
not  yield,  the  appeal  was  widely  successful. 

And  now,  as  the  first  step  towards  an  independent 
national  organization  under  Jehovah,  their  invisible 
king ;  as  the  formal  inauguration  of  His  worship  as  the 
national  God,  and  in  recognition  of  their  emancipation 
being  due  to  Him  alone,  a  sacrificial  feast — the  Pass- 
over— was  instituted.  But,  first  of  all,  the  date  from 
which  their  year  began  was  changed ;  for  it  was  fitting 
that  the  deliverance  of  the  nation  should  open  a  new  era. 
It  was  the  time  of  the  earing  of  the  wheat — almost  our 
April — and,  henceforth,  the  month,  known  from  this,  as 
Abib — the  ^^  earing '' — should  be  the  first  of  the  ecclesi- 
astical year.  Hitherto  they  had  contented  themselves 
with  the  Egyptian  calendar,  which  began  about  the  time 
of  the  summer  solstice,^  when  the  Nile  was  rising,  and 
harvest  is  over  in  Palestine.^  From  this  time,  however, 
all  connection  with  Egypt  was  to  be  broken  off,  and  the 
commencement  of  the  sacred  year  was  to  commemorate 
the  time  when  Jehovah  led  them  forth  to  liberty  and 
independence. 

It  would  seem  as  if  the  Hebrews,  like  other  ancient 
races,  had  held  yearly  festivals  at  the  difierent  seasons, 
even  while  in  Egypt.  Spring,  when  the  green  ears 
shoot  out,   was  in   all  nations   of  antiquity  marked  by 

simply  means  "to  make  a  request."  The  wealth  so  obtained 
was  doubtless  regarded  by  the  Hebrews  as  only  a  just  return  for 
long  service  and  ciuel  wrongs.  Knobel  and  Kalisch  both  reject 
the  idea  of  "  lending."  In  India,  even  the  poorest  are  seen  at 
religious  festivals  well  adorned  with  jewels  which  they  have 
borrowed  for  the  occasion  from  their  richer  neighbours.     Roberts. 

1  Exod.  xii.  35. 

*  Lepsius,  Chron.  der  ^gypter,  vol.  i.  p.  148. 

^  Lev.  xxiii.  16. 


THE    TENTH    PLAGUE    AND    THE    EXODUS.  157 

religious  festivities,  the  great  cliaracteristic  of  wHch, 
however  differently  expressed,  was  a  desire  to  avert  evil 
from  the  community  by  propitiating  the  higher  powers. 
It  was  doubtless  on  the  existence  of  such  a  custom  among 
his  own  people  that  Moses  based  his  demand,  so  many 
times  repeated,  that  they  should  be  allowed  to  go  out- 
side Egypt,  to  hold  a  great  sacred  feast,  with  their 
national  rites.^  Availing  himself  of  this  established 
usage,  he,  at  the  same  time  changed  it,  from  a  mere 
vague  expression  of  religious  feeling,  to  a  distinctly 
historical  and  theocratic  institution.  Israel  was  hence- 
forth to  base  its  religion  on  the  assurance  that  it  was  the 
Chosen  people  of  Jehovah,  standing  in  ^  special  relation 
to  Him,  as  a  royal  and  priestly  race  :  the  great  deliver- 
ance from  Egypt  by  which  He  separated  them  to  Himself, 
consecrating  them  as  such.  The  old  feast  of  spriug  was 
therefore,  from  this  time,  changed  to  a  yearly  celebration 
of  a  unique  and  transcendent  event.  On  the  tenth  day  of 
Abib  each  head  of  a  family  was  to  set  apart  a  kid  or  a 
lamb;  which  must  be  a  male,  without  blemish,  in  its  first 
year.  If  a  household  were  too  small  to  consume  the 
whole,^  members  of  another  were  to  join.  Four  days 
later,  in  the  minutes  between  the  sunset  and  the  appear- 
ance of  the  stars,  the  whole  "  congregation  ^^  were  to 
kill  the  victims  thus  selected ;  each  family  sprinkling 
its  blood  on  their  doorposts  and  lintels,  as  the  parts 
most  readily  seen,  and  holding  the  feast  in  their  own 
dwelling.      The  lamb  or  kid  was  to  be  roasted  entire, 

1  Exod.  V.  1,3,  17;  vii.  16;  viii.  1,  20,  25  ff. ;  ix.  1,  13;  s.  9. 
The  name  of  the  month,  Abib,  is  given  in  chap.  xiii.  4.  It  was 
called  Nisan  by  the  later  Hebrews — from  the  Assyrian  Nisannu. 
The  early  Syrians  called  it  Nisan.  De  Vogiie,  Syrie  Centrale, 
p.  5. 

2  The  later  Targums  say,  that  ten  were  required  at  each  Pass- 
over circle. 


158  THE    TENTH    PLAGUE   AND    THE    EXODUS. 

with  head,  legs,  and  entrails — of  course  after  being 
cleansed — the  bones  unbroken ;  and  any  part  of  it  left 
was  to  be  burned  next  morning.  The  directions  for  the 
meal  were  also  striking.  They  were  to  stand,  their 
sandals  on  their  feet,  their  staff  in  their  hands,  their 
girdle  bound  round  them,  as  in  preparation  for  a  journey, 
and  they  were  to  eat  "  in  haste/'  No  one  was  to  leave 
the  house  that  night.  No  foreigner  could  join  in  the 
festival,  and  the  flesh  must  not  be  carried  outside  the 
house.  Every  care  was  to  be  taken  that  no  part  of  it 
should  be  applied  to  profane  uses,  or  shared  by  any  but 
the  chosen  people.  ''It  was  holy  to  Jehovah,^'  and  a 
memorial  of  His  relations  with  Israel  alone. 

The  Hebrew  population  were,  meanwhile,  to  be  ready 
at  a  moment's  notice,  to  set  out  on  their  flight  for 
liberty,  when  summoned,  before  morning,  to  do  so.^  The 
awful  significance  of  the  blood  sprinkled  on  the  door- 
posts and  lintels  of  their  houses  was  moreover  impressed 
on  them  by  the  announcement,  that  God  was  to  pass 
through  the  land  of  Egypt  that  night,  to  smite  all  the 
firstborn,  both  of  man  and  beast,  and  thus  to  execute 
judgment  against  all  the  gods  of  the  land;^  but  would 
pass  over  every  house  on  which  the  blood  was  seen, 
leaving  its  inmates  unharmed.^ 

Every  detail,  indeed,  was  significant.  The  sprinkled 
blood  marked  the  rite  as  a  sacrifice,  for  it  redeemed  them 
from  the  death  let  loose  on  Egypt.*     As  that  of  a  sinless 

»  Exod.  xii.  30. 

^  Exod.  xii.  12.  This  doubtless  implies  that  the  sacred  animals 
"were  smitten.     In  every  temple  the  god  lay  dead. 

3  Exod.  xii.  23. 

■*  It  is  a  curious  illustration  of  the  vitality  of  religious  rites, 
that  the  Mahomedans  even  to  this  day,  at  the  great  feast  of 
Bairam,  yearly,  sacrifice  sheep  and  sprinkle  the  blood  on  the 
door-posts  of  their  houses.     Strauss,  Si7iai  and  Golgotha,  p.  63. 


THE    TENTH   PLAGUE    AND    THE    EXODUS.  159 

victim,  the  household  might,  as  it  were,  hide  behind  it 
and  escape  the  just  punishment  of  their  sins.^  That  the 
lamb  was  given  them  as  a  feast  was,  moreover,  a  sign 
of  Jehovah's  favour,  and  brought  Him,  as  it  were,  to  be 
their  guest.  There  being  as  yet  no  common  sanctuary, 
each  house  had  its  own  sacrifice ;  in  the  absence  of  a 
public  altar  to  Jehovah,  the  blood  was  to  be  sprinkled  on 
the  doorposts  and  lintels  ;  no  priests  having  as  yet  been 
consecrated,  these  duties  were  fulfilled  by  each  household 
father. 

Coupled  with  this,  a  second  feast  ^  was  to  be  observed — 
that  of  unleavened  bread,  with  the  same  object  of  keep- 
ing permanently  alive  the  remembrance  of  their  being 
"  thrust  out  from  Egypt,^'  so  suddenly,  that  they  had  to 
take  with  them  ^'  their  dough  before  it  was  leavened,  and 
bind  up  their  kneading  troughs  in  their  clothes  upon  their 
shoulders.''  ^  The  Passover  lamb  was  eaten  with  such 
unleavened  bread,  to  remind  them  of  this,  and  with 
bitter  herbs  as  a  memento  of  the  affliction  they  had 
undergone ;  and  only  unleavened  bread  was  to  be  used 
for  seven  days  after  the  Passover,  to  impress  on  them  that 
for  many  days  after  their  escape  from  Pharaoh,  the  hot 
haste  of  flight  left  no  time  to  prepare  any  other  kind. 
Nor  was  the  yearly  recurrence  of  these  festivals  thought 
enough  to  stamp  on  the  heart  of  the  nation,  age  after 
age,  the  memory  of  its  wondrous  birth.  The  firstborn 
of  man  and  beast  were  demanded  for  Jehovah,  to  be 
bought  back  only  by  a  ransom,  in  impressive  acknow- 
ledgment that  when  the  firstborn  of  Egypt  perished,  that 


1  Kdhler,  vol.  i.  p.  195. 

2  The  word  for  feast  is  Haj — the  word  for  a  religious  pilgrim- 
age among  the  Mahomedans  now. 

3  Exod.  xii.  34. 


160  THE    TENTH    PLAGUE    AND    THE    EXODUS. 

of  Israel,  though  spared,  had  been  justly  exposed  to  the 
same  doom,  but  for  the  propitiating  sacrifice.^ 

*  The  characteristics  of  the  original  observance  of  the  Passover 
may  in  some  measure  be  preserved  in  the  rites  with  which  it  is 
kept  by  the  Modern  Samaritans.  The  following  is  the  account) 
of  these  given  by  the  Rev.  John  Mills  in  his  Modern  Samaritans, 
pp.  250-256  :— 

"  The  tents,  ten  in  number,  were  arranged  in  a  kind  of  circle, 
to  face  the  highest  point  of  the  mountain,  where  rose  their 
ancient  temple,  now  lying  in  ruins.  Within  a  radius  of  a  few 
hundred  yards  from  the  place  where  I  stood,  clustered  all  the 
spots  which  make  Gerizim  to  them  the  most  sacred  mountain, 
the  house  of  God.  Under  my  feet  was  the  ruined  wall  of  their 
famous  temple ;  a  little  on  my  left,  to  the  south,  were  the  seven, 
steps  of  Adam  out  of  Paradise;  still  a  little  further  southward 
was  the  place  of  the  offering  of  Isaac ;  close  by  it,  westward,  was 
the  rock  of  the  Holy  Place;  and  just  by  the  wall  on  which  I 
stood,  northwestward,  were  the  celebrated  Joshua  stones.  A 
few  hundred  yards  westward  was  their  encampment,  in  front  of 
which  was  the  platform  for  the  celebration  of  their  holy  feast. 

"About  half-past  ten,  the  officials  kindled  the  fire  to  roast  the 
lambs.  For  this  purpose,  a  circular  pit  had  been  sunk  in  the 
earth,  about  six.  feet  deep  and  three  feet  in  diameter,  and  built 
round  with  loose  stones.  In  this  a  fire,  made  of  dry  heather,  and 
briars,  etc.,  was  kindled,  the  minister  of  the  synagogue  mean- 
while standing  on  a  large  stone,  and  off'ering  up  a  prayer  suited 
for  the  occasion.  Another  tire  was  then  kindled  in  a  kind  of 
sunken  trough,  close  to  the  platform  where  the  service  was  to 
be  performed.  Over  this,  two  cauldrons  full  of  water  were  placed, 
and  a  short  prayer  off'ered.  We  then  returned  to  the  priest's 
tent,  for  a  short  time,  to  regale  ourselves  with  lemonade,  till, 
about  half  an  hour  before  midday,  the  whole  male  population 
assembled  to  commence  the  regular  service.  There  were  forty- 
eight  adults,  besides  women  and  children ;  the  women  and  the 
little  ones  remaining  in  the  tents.  The  congregation  were  in 
their  ordinary  dress,  with  the  exception  of  the  two  officers,  and 
two  or  three  of  the  elders,  who  were  dressed  in  their  white  robes, 
as  in  the  synagogue.  A  carpet  was  laid  on  the  ground,  near  the 
boilmg   cauldrons,  where  Yacub,  the  minister  of  the  synagogue, 


THE    TENTH    PLAGUE    AND    THE    EXODUS.  161 

The  curse  now  broke  over  tlie  doomed  land.    "  It  came 
to  pass,  that,  at  midnight,  Jehovah  smote  all  the  firstborn 

stood,  on  the  stone,  with  his  face  to  the  people,  and  chanted  the 
service,  assisted  by  some  of  the  elders — all  turning  their  faces 
towards  the  site  of  the  temple.  Six  lambs  driven  by  five  young 
men,  dressed  in  blue  cotton,  their  loins  girded,  now  made  their 
appearance.  At  midday,  the  service  had  reached  the  place  where 
the  account  of  the  Paschal  sacrifice  is  introduced ;  '  And  the 
whole  assembly  of  the  congregation  of  Israel  shall  kill  it  in  the 
evening'  (Exod.  xii.  6) ;  when  in  an  instant,  the  lambs,  one  after 
another,  were  thrown  on  their  backs  by  the  blue-clad  young  men, 
and  in  a  moment  lay  dying  under  the  flashing  knife  of  one  of 
their  number.  The  young  men  now  dipped  their  fingers  in  the 
blood,  and  marked  a  spot  on  the  foreheads  and  noses  of  the 
children  and  some  of  the  females  ;  but  on  none  of  the  male  adults. 
The  whole  male  congregation  then  came  up  close  to  the 
reader ;  embracing  and  kissing  one  another,  because  the  lambs  of 
their  redemption  had  been  slain.  Next  came  the  fleecing — not 
skinning — while  the  service  still  continued.  It  was  done  by 
pouring  boiling  water  from  the  cauldrons,  the  effect  of  which 
was  to  scald  oS  the  wool  so  thafe  it  could  be  eisily  removed. 
Each  lamb  was  then  lifted  up,  with  its  head  downwards,  to  drain 
off"  the  remaining  blood.  The  right  fore  legs,  which  belonged  to 
the  priest,  were  next  removed,  and,  together  wir,h  the  entrails  and 
some  salt,  placed  on  the  wood,  already  laid,  and  then  burnt ;  but 
the  liver  was  carefully  replaced.  The  inside  being  sprinkled 
with  salt,  and  the  ham-strings  carefully  removed,  the  spitting 
began.  For  this  purpose  they  had  a  long  pole,  which  was  thrust 
through  from  head  to  tail,  a  transverse  peg  near  the  end  prevent- 
ing the  body  from  slipping  off*.  The  lambs  were  now  carried  to 
the  oven,  which  was  by  this  time  well-heated,  and  were  lowered 
into  it  carefully,  so  that  the  sacrifice  might  not  be  defiled  by 
coming  in  contact  with  the  oven  itself.  This  accomplished,  a 
hurdle  was  placed  over  the  mouth  of  the  oven,  and  well-covered 
with  moistened  earth,  to  prevent  any  of  the  heat  escaping.  By 
this  time  it  was  about  two  o'clock,  and  this  part  of  ihe  service 
was  ended. 

"  At  sunset  the  service  was  recommenced.     All  the  male  popu- 
lation, with  the  lads,  assembled  round  the  oven.     A  large  copper 

VOL.    H.  M 


162  THE    TENTH    PLAGUE    AND    THE    EXODUS. 

in  t"he  land  of  Egypt;  from  the  firstborn  of  Pharaoh, 
that  sat  on  his  throne^  (that  isj  who  reigned  with  him^) 
unto  the  firstborn  of  the  captive  that  was  in  the  dun- 
geon; and  all  the  firstborn  of  the  cattle.  And  Pharaoh 
rose  up  in  the  nighty  he,  and  all  his  servants,  and  all 
the  Egyptians ;  and  there  was  a  great  cry  in  Egypt ; 
for  there  was  not  a  house  where  there  was  not  one 
dead.^     And  he  called   for  Moses  and  Aaron  by  night, 

dish,  filled  with  unleavened  cakes  and  bitter  herbs,  rolled  up 
together,  was  held  by  the  nephew  of  ihe  priest,  and  its  contents 
distributed  amongst  the  congregation.  The  hurdle  was  then 
removed,  and  the  lambs  drawn  up  one  by  one;  but  unfortunately 
one  fell  off  the  spit,  and  was  taken  up  with  difficulty.  Their 
appearance  was  anything  but  inviting,  for  they  were  burnt  as 
black  as  ebony.  Carpets  having  been  spread  to  receive  them 
they  were  removed  to  the  platform  where  the  service  was  read. 
The  congregation  stood  in  two  files,  the  lambs,  strewn  with  bitter 
herbs,  being  laid  in  a  line  between  them.  Most  of  the  adults  had 
now  a  kind  of  rope  round  the  waist,  and  staves  in  their  hands, 
and  all  had  their  shoes  on,  in  exact  compliance  with  the  words, 
*Thus  shall  ye  eat  it;  with  your  loins  girded,  your  shoes  on  your 
feet,  your  stafi"  in  your  hand,'  Exod.  xii.  11.  The  chanting  was  now 
continued  by  the  priest  for  about  fifteen  minutes,  ending  with  the 
blessing;  after  which  the  congregation  at  once  stooped,*  and,  as  if 
in  haste  and  hunger,  tore  up  the  blackened  masses  piecemeal  with 
their  fingers,  eating  them  at  once,  and  carrying  portions  to  the 
females  and  little  ones  in  the  tents.  In  less  than  ten  minutes  the 
whole,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  fragments,  had  disappeared. 
These  were  gathered  and  placed  on  the  hurdle,  and  the  area  care- 
fully examined,  every  crumb  picked  up,  together  with  the  bones, 
and  all  burnt  over  a  fire,  kindled  for  the  purpose  in  the  trough 
where  the  water  had  been  boiled.  '  And  ye  shall  let  nothing  of 
it  remain  until  the  morning  ;  and  that  which  remaineth  of  it 
until  the  morning  ye  shall  burn  with  fire,'  Exod.  xii.  10.  Whilst 
the  flames  were  burning,  and  consuming  the  remnant  of  the 
paschal  lambs,  the  people  returned  cheerfully  to  their  tents." 
^  In  the  Egyptian  accounts  this  destruction  was  ascribed  to  a 

*  When  Dean  Stanley  saw  the  ceremony  they  all  sat  to  eat. 


THE    TENTH    PLAGUE    AND   THE    EXODUS.  163 

and  said  :  Rise  up,  and  get  you  forth  from  among  my 
people,  both  ye  and  the  children  of  Israel ;  and  go,  serve 
Jehovah,  as  ye  have  said.  Also  take  your  flocks  and 
your  herds,  as  ye  have  said,  and  be  gone ;  and  bless  me 
also.''  These  last  words  seem  to  gleam  through  the 
tears  of  the  humbled  king,  as  he  lamented  his  son 
snatched  from  him  by  so  sudden  a  death,  and  tremble 
with  a  sense  of  the  helplessness  which  his  proud  soul 
at  last  felt,  when  the  avenging  hand  of  God  had  visited 
even  his  palace.  Striking  to  say^  a  monument  confirms 
the  fact  that  Menephtah  during  his  lifetime  lost  his  eldest 
son,  who  bore  the  same  name  as  himself.  This  prince, 
associated  with  him  on  the  throne,  is  commemorated  on 
a  colossal  statue  of  his  father  now  in  the  museum  at 
Berlin.  He  is  "  the  Ur^eus  snake  on  the  front  of  the 
royal  crown ;  the  son  whom  Menephtah  loves,  who  draws 
towards  him  his  father's  heart;  the  royal  scribe;  the 
singer;  the  chief  of  the  archers;  the  Prince  Menephtah/' 

battle  with  the  hated  "  Shepherds."  Jos.,  c.  Ap.,  i.  27.  The  Psalmist 
ascribes  it  to  a  sudden  and  terrible  visitation  of  the  plugiie.  "  He 
spared  not  their  soul  from  death,  but  gave  their  hte  over  unto 
the  pestilence."  Ps.  Ixxviii.  61.  The  plague  is  noticed  as  often 
following  the  Chamsin  or  pitchy-dark  storm  wind.  Its  mortality 
is  sometimes  awful.  In  1580,  60,000  men  died  of  it  in  Cairo  in 
eight  months.  In  1696,  as  many  as  10,000  men  in  one  day  !  In 
Constantinople  in  1714  it  was  reckoned  that  300,000  died  of  it. 
Even  in  Palestine  it  made  awful  ravages,  for  in  2  Sam.  xxiv.  we 
read  that  70,000  died  of  it  in  three  days.  Uhlemann  strikingly 
reminds  us  that  all  the  plagues  are  connected  with  the  natural 
peculiarities  and  phenomena  of  Egypt,  and  that  they  show  the 
narrator's  intimate  knowledge  of  the  country.  "  The  Almighty 
hand  of  God,"  he  continues,  "  shows  itself,  hence,  not  so  much  in 
the  wonders  themselves,  as  in  their  wide  reach,  their  intensity. 
and  the  swift  succession  in  which  they  came,  at  the  Divine  com- 
mand— for,  individually,  they  are  specially  characteristic  of 
Egypt,  in  a  certain  degree,  at  all  times." 


164  THE    TENTH   PLAGUE    AND    THE    EXODUS. 

and  is  represented  as  adoring  Sutekh,  ^^tlie  great  god, 
the  lord  of  heaven;''  and  as  the  "justified/'  or,  as  we 
should  say,  "  the  glorified  one,"  and  *^  the  blessed,"  that 
is,  the  departed.^ 

To  this  it  had  all  come  at  last.  In  the  panic  fear  of 
the  moment  things  might  go  as  they  liked.  The  policy 
of  generations  had  given  way.  No  matter,  now,  if  the 
masses  in  the  Delta,  sprung  from  the  foreign  prisoners 
of  reign  after  reign  ;  the  hordes  of  shepherd  tribes 
admitted  from  time  to  time  to  its  bounds ;  and  the  vast 
throngs  of  Hebrews,  the  most  useful  and  the  cheapest 
labour  power  of  the  country — were  to  be  lost  in  one 
sweep  !  Menephtah's  reign,  mostly  peaceful,  had  seemed 
more  secure  from  danger  than  that  of  the  kings  before 
him,  for  he  was  in  close  friendship  with  the  warlike 
nations  of  Palestine ;  his  eastern  boundary  Was  strongly 
fortified;  and  there  were  no  enemies  with  whom  the 
Hebrews  and  other  foreign  races  in  Egypt  could  ally 
themselves.  Treaties,  moreover,  bound  the  Canaanite 
kingdoms  to  give  up  any  fugitives,  and  those  kingdoms, 
on  the  edge  of  whose  rich  territories  the  Nomad es  of  the 
Egyptian  frontier,  the  Hebrew  slaves,  and  the  other  alien 
population  of  the  Delta,  hung  like  a  war  cloud, — as  the 
Arabs  threaten  the  French  province  of  Algiers, — were  too 
highly  civilized  not  to  dread  their  escape  from  the  Nile 
Yalley,  as  much  as  the  Egyptians  themselves.  Yet  all 
had  now  happened  which  had  seemed  impossible  !  Every 
efibrt  had  been  made  to  prevent  these  masses  gathering 
to  a  centre.  They  could  be  kept  under  so  long  as  they 
acted  only  in  isolated  bands,  but,  if  they  succeeded  in 
rallying  to  one  point,  the  small  brooks  which,  singly, 
could  be  easily  dammed,  would  swell  to  a  torrent  that 

^  Lauth,  Aus  Alt-^gyptischer  Zeit.     Fharau,  Moses  mid  Exodus, 
Allg.  Zeitmuj,  25Lh  July,  1875. 


THE    TENTH    PLAGUE    AND    THE    EXODUS.  165 

might  perhaps  rush,  wasting  and  destroying,  on  the  rich 
provinces  west  of  Egypt,  or  turn  to  the  east  against 
Palestine.  But  even  in  this  case  how  many  thousand 
private  Egyptian  interests  must  suffer,  where  the  alliance 
was  so  close  as  with  these  countries,  and  how  certain  was 
a  new  war  of  resentment  ! 

That  Menephtah  under  such  circumstances  should 
have  done  his  utmost  to  keep  the  Hebrews  scattered 
over  the  land,  in  harmless  fractions,  was  natural.  For  at 
least  a  year,  therefore,  he  had  tenaciously  maintained  an 
unequal  struggle  for  this  end  :  a  struggle  of  the  mightiest 
on  earth  against  the  surely  self-accomplishing  will  of 
Heaven.  He  had  striven  hard  to  break  through  the 
net,  but  it  only  drew  round  him  the  more  closely  after 
each  attempt  to  escape  from  it.  Distracted  between 
granting  a  demand  which  undermined  his  throne,  and 
the  breach  of  promises,  each  violation  of  which  filled  him 
with  dread  of  new  chastisements  from  heaven,  his  resist- 
ance had  finally  given  way  when  the  awful  dark  u  ess 
covered  the  land  with  a  gloom  like  that  of  his  own 
spirit.  He  had  then  yielded  so  far  as  to  grant  that  the 
Hebrews  might  go  off  into  the  wilderness,  if  they  left 
behind  them,  as  a  pledge  of  their  return,  the  herds  in 
which  their  wealth  consisted,  from  which  they  derived 
their  nourishment,  and  without  which  they  were  helpless. 
But  Moses  had  rejected  such  a  conditional  favour,  and 
had  filled  the  cup  of  Menephtah^s  alarm  with  the  bitter 
threat  of  the  death  of  the  firstborn  of  all  Egypt,  and  the 
prediction  that  he  and  his  courtiers  would  presently  throw 
themselves  at  his  feet,  beseeching  him  to  leave  the  stricken 
land.     And  all  this  had  come  to  pass  !  ^ 

The  terrors  of  the  plagues  must  have  sunk  more 
deeply  into  the  Pharaoh^s  soul  than  they  otherwise  would 
1  Lurch  Gosen,  pp.  81-88. 


166  THE    TENTH    PLAGUE   AND    THE    EXODUS. 

have  done,  from  fhe  fact  that  his  dynasty — the  Nineteenth 
—especially  honoured  the  Caanaanitish  god  Sutekh  or 
Set,  who  had,  it  was  thought,  greatly  aided  E-ameses  II. 
in  his  wars  in  Palestine  and  Syria.  He  would  readily 
confound  this  foreign  god,  whose  favour  his  house  had 
received  in  the  past,  and  whose  anger  was  therefore  the 
more  to  be  dreaded,  with  the  god  of  Moses — in  his  eyes 
a  Canaanite  by  descent — and  fancy  that  the  very  power 
in  which  he  had  trusted  was  turned  against  him.^ 

The  number  of  the  Hebrews  in  Egypt  may  be  approxi- 
mately gathered  from  the  repeated  statement  that  there 
were  among  them  600,000  men  able  to  bear  arms — that 
is,  between  twenty  and  sixty  years  of  age.^  This  would 
imply  a  total  of  at  least  2,000,000  of  men,  women  and 
children ;  ^  an  aggregate  so  great  as  to  have  led  many  to 
fancy  an  error  in  the  text.  In  apparent  confirmation  of 
this  supposition,  the  number  of  the  firstborn  males,  at 
Sinai,  is  given*  as  22,273,  which  allows  only  1  to  every 
30  men.  But  the  firstborn  of  purely  Hebrew  families 
may,  alone,  have  been  reckoned  in  this  case,  while  the 
foreign  multitude,  and  the  slaves  who  went  out  with  the 
Hebrews,  may  be  counted  among  the  men  fit  for  war.^ 

1  Diestel,  in  Biehm,  p.  1022. 

2  Exod.  xii.  37  ;  xxxviii.  26.     Num.  i.  45,  46. 

3  Bertheau  calculates  3,000,000. 
*  Num.  ill.  43. 

5  Joseph's  marriage  with  an  Egyptian  was  no  doubt  widely 
imitated,  so  that  many  of  the  Hebrews  would  be  of  mixed  blood, 
and  many  Egyptian  women  would  leave  Egypt  with  tkem.  This 
intermarriage  may  in  part  explain  the  gi-eat  increase  of  the 
Hebrews.  It  is  to  be  remembered  that  even  Moses  married  a 
Cushite  wife.  Many  slaves  and  retainers,  moreover,  had  come  to 
Egypt  with  Jacob,  and  had  most  probably  been  merged  into  the 
Hebrew  tribes  before  the  time  of  the  Exodus.  See  Uhlemann, 
Israeliten  u.  Hyksos,  p.  61.     Also  Lev.  xxiv.  10. 


THE    TENTH    PLAGUE    AND    THE    EXODUS.  167 

Nor  is  it  possible  to  argue  from  tlie  present  condition  of 
the  Sinai  Peninsula  and  the  regions  immediately  south 
of  Palestine,  as  to  the  population  able  to  live  there  for  a 
lengthened  period,  over  3,000  years  ago,  by  moving  from 
place  to  place,  as  the  Hebrews  did.^ 

Everything  had  been  prepared  for  the  final  moment, 
aijd  now  the  Egyptians,  filled  with  terror,  urged  the 
instant  departure  of  the  Hebrews.  Nor  did  the  long- 
enslaved  multitudes  delay.  Summoned  in  the  midst  of 
their  Passover  feast,  before  the  dawn  of  the  15th  of  the 
month  thenceforth  called  Abib,  every  father  hurried,  by 
the  light  of  the  full  April  moon,  with  his  wife  and  chil- 
dren, to  the  rendezvous  already  appointed — to  put  himself 
under  the  leaders  of  his  tribal  division  ;  his  little  ones 
and  the  sick  in  the  panniers  of  asses,  his  cattle  driven 
before  him,  the  unbaked  bread,  in  the  family  kneading 
trough,  wrapped  up  in  his  abba  on  his  shoulder.^  As  the 
avalanche  grows  in  its  onward  rolling,  so  swelled  the 
march  of  the  Hebrews  as  they  touched  town  after  town, 
and  were  joined  not  only  by  fresh  crowds  of  their  own 
race,   but  by  throngs   of  Semitic    prisoners  of  war,   by 

^  Bertheau,  GescJiichte  der  Israeliten,  p.  256.  Ebers  and  sorae 
others  think  there  is  an  error  in  the  numbers,  but  Bertheau,  an 
acute  and  independent  critic,  accepts  them,  as  does  also  Ewald. 
The  Eev.  S.  Clark,  in  the  Speaker's  Comment,  vol.  i.  p.  299,  thinks 
the  numbers  do  not  exceed  a  reasonable  estimate  of  the  increase 
of  the  Israelites,  including  their  numerous  dependents. 

2  "  Each  Arab  wears  round  his  shoulders  a  sheepskin,  which 
serves  the  double  purpose  of  a  cloak  and  a  baking  board.  Spread 
on  the  ground,  fleece  downward,  the  dough  is  kneaded  on  it  in 
thin  round  cakes.  They  also  carry  small  wooden  bowls  or 
troughs  to  make  the  dough.  Their  mill  on  a  journey  is  simply 
two  stones.  Kindling  a  hot  fire  of  dry  camels'  dung,  they  heat 
the  ground  well,  then  brush  oflf  the  fire,  lay  down  the  cake,  cover 
it  with  the  ashes,  and  in  ten  minutes  it  is  baked."  Stewart's 
Tent  and  the  Khan. 


168  THE    TENTH    PLAGUE    AND    THE    EXODUS. 

shepherd  tribes  of  Goshen,  and  multitudes  of  slaves; 
bringing  with  them  additional  herds  and  flocks.  From 
Tanis,  on  the  west,  they  poured  south  to  Fakusa,  and 
thence  to  Pithom.  From  Avaris,  on  the  east,  on  the  far 
north  coast,  at  the  fortified  wall,  past  Migdol,  with  its 
castle  and  garrison,  they  pressed  south-west  to  Rameses. 
From  On,  in  the  south,  and  all  the  country  between,  they 
streamed  northwards,  to  join  the  great  contingent  from 
the  north,  at  Pithom,  where  the  great  canal,  running 
to  the  Crocodile  Sea,  branched  off  from  an  arm  of  the 
Nile.  Bubastis,  to  the  east  of  that  town,  sent  its  hosts, 
and  the  united  multitudes,  meeting  near  Pithom,  struck 
due  east  to  Rameses,  on  the  canal  from  Bubastis,  where 
all  the  tribes  assembled  to  follow  their  great  leader. 
Swift-footed  messengers,  who  are  never  wanting  in  the 
east,^  had  carried  the  command  to  start  at  once  for 
that  city.  Three  or  four  days  after  the  morning  of  the 
15th  would  find  all  gathered  at  the  common  centre; 
separated  roughly  into  their  respective  tribes,  with  what 
arms  they  could  muster,  and  arrayed  for  the  march,  if 
Ewald  be  right,  in  five  divisions ;  the  van,  centre,  two 
wings,  and  rear-guard.^  They  had  gained  their  freedom 
without  bloodshed;  the  first  people  who  had  valued 
liberty  so  highly;^  the  unconscious  champions,  for  all 
future  ages,  of  the  inalienable  rights  and  dignity  of  man. 
The  vast  host  presently  started  from  Rameses,  under 
Moses,  the  earliest  proclaimer  of  the   essential   equality 

^  Mehemet  Ali  rode  85  miles  in  11  hours  on  a  dromedary — 
from  Suez  to  Cairo — and  one  of  his  slaves  ran  alongside  all  the 
way,  holding  on  by  a  cord. 

2  Ewald's  Geschichte,  vol.  ii.  p.  89.  See  Exod.  xiii.  18,  "har- 
nessed "may  mean  "armed,"  "in  battle  array,"  "girt  for  the 
journey,"  or,  as  the  margin  of  our  Bibles  reads  it,  "by  fives  in  a 
rank." 

3  Graetz,  vol.  i.  p.  20. 


THE    TENTH    PLAGUE    AND    THE    EXODUS.  169 

of  all  races  and  ranks.  He  was  virtually  king,  but  lie 
disdained  the  ambition  of  tbe  name.  His  office  brought 
with  it  immeasurable  difficulties.  These  tens  of  thousands 
of  freshly  emancipated  slaves,  only  few  of  whom  under- 
stood the  mighty  work  that  had  been  done  for  them, 
followed  their  leader,  glad  to  escape  from  the  lash  of  the 
drivers ;  but  only  to  murmur  at  their  first  difficulty  on 
the  morrow.  Such  a  people,  migrating  in  mass,  he  had 
to  lead  through  the  desert  to  the  Land  of  Promise, 
caring  for  them  and  training  their  minds  and  hearts ! 
Out  of  a  horde  he  had  to  form  a  nation ;  conquering  a 
home  for  it,  giving  it  social  and  religious  laws,  and  mak- 
ing it  fit  for  a  noble  national  life.  Nor  could  he  reckon 
on  much  help  in  this  gigantic  task.  The  tribe  of  Levi, 
to  which  he  belonged,  was  the  only  one  on  whose  intelli- 
gent aid  he  could  rely.^ 

Yet,  at  first,  all  went  well.  Grateful  wonder  at  the 
goodness  of  Jehovah,  intense  anxiety  to  escape  from  the 
hated  oppressor,  joyful  trust  in  their  leader,  and  bright 
hopes  of  the  future,  had  roused  the  long-enslaved  masses 
to  a  wondrous  energy,  and  the  sight  of  the  thousands  on 
every  side  must  have  awakened  a  new  sense  of  power. 
No  dread  of  future  sufferings  or  dangers  yet  threw  its 
shadow  over  them.  They  had  still  fresh  water  and  rich 
fodder  for  their  cattle,  and  the  way  was  still  open  before 
them.  The  one  thought  in  every  bosom  was  Canaan — 
the  land  *'  flowing  with  milk  and  honey  ^' — theirs  by  the 
promise  of  God ;  and  their  one  tacit  demand,  that  they 
should  be  led  thither  at  once.  This  wish  seemed  to  be 
granted,  when,  after  a  brief  rest,  the  vast  host  entered  on 
the  direct  road  to  Palestine,  and  at  the  close  of  a  march 
north-east,  of  about  fifteen  miles,  apparently  in  the  line 
of  the  freshwater  canal  to  the  Bitter  Sea, — encamped  at 
1  Graetz,  p.  30. 


170  THE    TENTH    PLAGUE    AND    THE    EXODUS. 

Succoth, '' tlie  tents  ;'^  perhaps  already  the  settlement 
of  some  shepherd  tribe.  Water  had  been  within  reach 
all  the  way,  but  many  of  the  women  must  already  have 
fallen  behind ;  children  must  have  been  exhausted  and 
ill,  and  the  cattle  must  have  been  jaded.  Amidst  all  this, 
moreover,  faint-heartedness  crept  over  the  men  as  they 
thought  of  the  great  fortified  wall  before  them,  and  that 
they  would  presently  contend  with  the  swords  of  well- 
trained  soldiers  whose  very  sticks  had  hitherto  made 
them  tremble.  Camping  next  day  near  the  bastions  of 
Etham,^  one  of  the  fortresses  of  the  wall,  at  the  edge  of 
the  eastern  wilderness  of  the  same  name,  fear  grew 
louder,  and  though  they  were  still  on  Egyptian  soil, 
voices  were  heard  regretting  that  they  had  not  remained 
slaves,  rather  than  follow  Moses,  to  die  in  the  desert.^ 

Their  great  leader,  however,  knew  not  only  the  cha- 
racter of  his  countrymen,  but  also  the  relations  of  Egypt 
■with  the  kings  of  Palestine,  and  had  foreseen  what  had 
now  happened.  He  knew  that  he  would  be  attacked,  not 
only  by  the  garrisons  of  the  frontier  Egyptian  fortresses, 
but,  ere  long,  even  if  these  were  overpowered,  by  the 
princes  of  southern  Canaan,  who,  whether  allied  with 
the  Pharaoh  or  not,  would  assuredly  fall  upon  a  vast 
migration  of  escaped  slaves  and  shepherds,  seeking  a 
new  home.  He  was,  indeed,  virtually  between  two 
armies,  even  were  he  to  succeed  in  breaking  through 
the  frontier  wall — for  the  Egyptian  chariot  soldiery 
could  soon  overtake  him.  He  would  then  have  them  and 
the  forces  of  Palestine  on  his  front  and  rear,  and  must 
be  destroyed;  since,  however  numerous  the  crowds  that 
followed  him,  they  were  not  an  army,  but  a  people 
cumbered  with  women  and  children.  He  knew  the 
disciplined  array  he  would  have  to  face,  and  the  want 
1  Etham  means  "  the  Fortress.'*  ^  Exod.  xiv.  12. 


THE    TENTH    PLAGUE    AND    THE   EXODUS.  171 

of  training,  the  insubordination,  and  the  over- confident 
rashness  of  those  he  had  to  lead.  Succoth  and  Etham 
had  revealed  their  obstinacy,  selfishness,  and  conceit; 
their  want  of  discipline  and  of  moral  strength.  Even 
in  the  comparatively  small  limits  of  an  ordinary  caravan 
the  strictest  order  must  be  maintained  at  the  pitching 
or  striking  of  the  tents.  The  presence  of  women  and 
children  may,  indeed,  elicit  the  best  characteristics  of 
some ;  but  on  the  other  hand,  perverseness,  selfishness, 
coarseness,  and  vice  show  themselves  grossly.  The  tent- 
pins  will  not  hold  in  every  soil ;  a  tent  cannot  be  raised 
without  a  neighbour's  help ;  where  water  for  large  num- 
bers is  to  be  had  only  from  one  spring,  strict  order  must 
be  kept,  and  the  thirsty  willingly  abide  their  turn,  if 
quarrels  are  to  be  avoided;  when  pasture  is  insufficient 
for  the  herds,  every  shepherd  seeks  to  get  a  good  strip 
for  his  cattle,  if  necessary,  by  force ;  and  the  property  of 
all  is  exposed  before  or  in  the  tents.  If  everything  be 
not  ready  at  the  right  hour  when  the  tents  are  struck, 
either  all  are  delayed,  or  those  who  linger  behind  must 
be  abandoned.  But  if  this  be  the  case  with  a  small 
body,  how  much  worse  would  it  be  with  3,000,000  of 
people  ?  The  camps  at  Succoth  and  Etham,  in  spite  of 
all  tribal  separation  and  sub-division,  must  have  been  a 
chaotic  confusion  of  men,  women,  children,  and  cattle, 
which  no  leader  could  reduce  to  order.^  No  wonder, 
therefore,  that  the  mingled  evil  of  the  mass  broke  out  in 
murmurs  and  unmanly  regrets.  It  was  partly  on  this 
account,  no  doubt,  that  God  led  them,  not  ^Hhrough 
the  way  of  the  land  of  the  Philistines,  although  that  was 
near ;  for  God  said, '  Lest,  peradventure  the  people  repent 
when  they  see  war,  and  return  to  Egypt ; '  but  made 
them  turn  (from  before  Etham)  towards  the  way  of  the 
^  Vurch  Gosen,  pp.  94-96. 


172  THE    TENTH    PLAGUE    AND    THE    EXODUS. 

wilderness  of  the  Weedy  (Red)  Sea  ;  tliougli  tliey  went 
up  in  battle  array  from  the  land  of  Egypt/^  ^ 

They  had^  indeed,  set  out  full  of  hope  that  they  would 
soon  reach  and,  if  necessary,  conquer  the  Promised  Land, 
and  had  struck  into  the  well-known  road  to  Palestine, 
with  no  foreboding  of  the  weary  years  they  would  have 
to  spend  in  the  wilderness,  or  of  the  graves  awaiting 
nearly  all  of  them  there,  or  of  the  difficulties  through 
which  their  children  were  to  reach  the  longed-for  goal. 
Moses  could  give  them  no  hint  of  his  plans,  for  had  they 
known  them  they  would  assuredly  have  returned  to  the 
Nile  Valley.  He  had  led  them  to  the  frontier  fortresses, 
and  now  that  they  stormily  clamoured  for  their  old  life  of 
slavery,  rather  than  face  the  death  that  threatened  them, 
he  could  cheer  them  by  the  intimation  that  they  would 
not  have  to  fight;  as  God  had  another,  less  dangerous 
road  for  them,  towards  the  Red  Sea.  He  had  first  to 
lead  them  out  of  Egypt  with  as  little  loss  as  possible,  and 
then  to  train  them  to  discipline,  order,  and  worthy  aims 
in  life.  This  point  reached,  they  could  receive  intelli- 
gently the  full  revelations  destined  for  them,  and  be  led 
victoriously  to  Palestine.  Escape  from  Egypt  lay  near 
at  hand,  but  their  education  as  a  people  could  only  be 
attained  by  the  long  work  of  years,  after  they  had  received 
the  laws  they  were  to  obey. 

Turning  therefore  ^  to  the  south,  at  some  miles  dis- 
tance from  the  frontier  wall,  the  multitude  hastened  on, 
in  fear  of  the  Egyptian  troops,  and  in  hope  of  speedy 
escape  from  them.  For  about  fifty  miles  the  vast  body 
pressed  forward  without  taking  more  rest  than  was  needed 
to  refresh  them.  At  last,  near  the  Red  Sea,  they  reached 
a  spot — Pi-hahiroth — 'Hhe  place  where  the  reeds  grow,'^^ 

1  Exod.  xiii.  17  (hterally).  ^  Exod.  xiv.  2. 

^  Gesenius,  9th  ed.,  p.  684.     Bat  see  meaning  in  Brugsch,  p.  194. 


THE    TENTH    PLAGUE   AND    THE    EXODUS.  173 

over  against  Baal-zeplion,  as  the  Ataka  range  beliind 
Suez  was  called  by  the  Phenician  sailors.^  There  they 
could  pitch  their  tents,  and  take  much  needed  rest,  amidst 
springs  of  fresh  water  and  abundant  pastures.  They  had 
turned  the  great  frontier  wall  with  its  line  of  forts,  and 
were  safe  for  the  time,  in  a  place  not  far  from  the  un- 
watched  tongue  of  the  Red  Sea,  at  the  present  Suez.  For 
the  moment  they  had  escaped  any  conflict  with  disciplined 
troops. 

Their  advance  to  the  fortress  wall  at  Etham  and  their 
subsequent  apparent  retreat,  and  disappearance  in  the 
wilderness,  had  had  the  additional  result  of  d3ceiving  the 
Egyptians,  and  leading  them  to  suppose  that  Moses  had 
lost  his  way,  or  had  given  up  his  design  of  breaking 
through  to  the  east,  and  was  now  wandering  in  the  desert. 
The  garrisons  of  the  frontier  forts  must  have  been  informed 
of  the  approach  of  vast  masses  of  people,  and  would  be 
on  the  watch;  doubtless  preparing  themselves  for  an 
expected  attack,  and  very  possibly  filling  the  Hebrews 
with  terror  before  Etham  by  the  sound  of  their  trumpets. 
Uncertain  where  the  attempt  to  break  out  would  be  made, 
they  would  remain  under  arms,  vainly  awaiting  assault, 
and  would  send  off  posts  to  Pharaoh,  at  Tanis,  begging 
for  reinforcements,  and  telling  him  that  the  advancing 
hordes  had  disappeared  in  the  desert,  to  the  south-west. 
It  was  natural,  therefore,  that  he  should  believe  that  they 
had  become  entangled  and  lost  in  the  wilderness.^ 

The  messages  brought  him  must  have  shown  Menephtah 
at  once  that  Moses  had  now  altogether  different  inten- 
tions from  merely  going  off  into  the  desert  to  sacrifice ; 
and  the  loss  of  such  a  vast  multitude  of  slaves  came  back 
on  him  in  all  its  force.     "  Why  have  we  done  this,^'  said 

^  Ebers,  Durch  Gosen,  p.  98. 
2  Exod.  xiv.  3. 


174 


THE    TENTH   PLAGUE    AND    THE    EXODUS. 


liGj  *'tliat  we  have  let  Israel  go  from  serving  us?"^ 
He  had  permitted  a  pilgrimage  to  the  wilderness  to  hold 
a  religious  feast^  with  the   utmost  reluctance,  when  he 


could  not  help  it ;    but   now    that   the    Hebrews    were 

evidently  bent  on  flight,  they  must  be  hindered  by  all 

the  means  in  his  power.     They  had  had  a  lengthened 

^  Exod.  xiv.  6. 


THE    TENTH    PLAGUE   AND    THE    EXODUS.  175 

start  of  him,  but  his  cavalry  could  soon  overtake  them. 
Oi'deriug  his  own  war  chariots  therefore,  and  600  selected 
chariots  besides,  as  his  immediate  escort ;  supported  by 
all  the  chariot-force  of  Lower  Egypt,  with  fighting  men 
in  each,  and  his  "horsemen,''^  he  started  in  hot  haste 
after  the  Hebrews. 

Under  Menephtah,  the  chariot  force  of  the  army  had 
been  more  assiduously  encouraged  than  under  any  other 
of  the  Pharaohs.  The  name  of  one  of  his  "Heads 
of  the  Horse ^'  is  still  preserved;  a  "chief  prophet"  of 
Set,  and  general  of  the  gendarmerie,  who  lived  at  Tanis, 
the  city  from  which  Menephtah  now  set  out.  The  Delta, 
that  is  the  former  Hebrew  district,  was  in  fact  the 
breeding  place  of  the  chariot  horses,  for  which  its  open 
flatness  and  its  pastures  especially  suited  it.  Mene- 
phtah's  chariot  squadrons  were  his  glory,  and  are  con- 
stantly mentioned,  for  their  deeds  in  the  field,  in  the 
long  inscription  at  Karnak  which  commemorates  his 
victory  over  the  Libyans  and  their  allies.  ^ 

Some  time,  during  which  he  remained  inactive,  must, 
however,  have  intervened  between  the  departure  of  the 
Hebrews  and  the  pursuit.  The  piety  of  the  Egyptians 
to  the  dead  was  so  great  that  the  weightiest  political 
affairs  would  necessarily  be  neglected  w^hile  the  king 
paid  the  last  honours  to  his  dead  son.  Besides,  in  this 
case,  the  families  of  the  officers  and  soldiery  had  also 

^  From  "  horsemen  "  being  mentioned  separately  it  would  seem 
that,  though  not  named  on  the  monuments,  there  were  cavah-y, 
in  our  sense,  in  the  Egyptian  army.  Diodorus  Siculus  says 
that  Raraeses  II.  had  24,000  horse  soldiers  besides  his  chariot 
regiments. 

2  Lepsius'  Benhmaler,  vol.  iii.  p.'199.  Diimichen,  Hk-toriscJie 
Inschriften,  Taf.  i.-v.  Chabas,  Etudes,  etc.  Thus  it  says,  "  he  sent 
his  cavalry  in  all  directions."  "His  Majesty  with  his  cavalry 
attacked  them."     "  He  sent  the  cavalry  after  them,"  and  so  on. 


176  THE    TENTH    PLAGUE   AND    THE    EXODUS. 

been  universally  bereaved.  Seventy  to  seventy-two  days 
were  required  for  public  lamentation,^  and  during  this 
time  all  else  would  be  forgotten  by  the  Pharaoh.  It  was 
not  till  ten  weeks  after  death  that  the  mummy  was  put 
in  its  resting  place,  with  the  needful  rites  detailed  in 
the  Book  of  the  Dead.  Till  then  all  was  at  a  standstill. 
Loud  wailing  rose  in  the  public  streets  at  the  moment  of 
death;  the  forehead  was  covered  with  dust  or  mud,  and 
the  head  smitten  by  the  hands  as  a  sign  of  deepest 
sorrow.  When  the  corpse  was  opened  at  the  embalm- 
ing house,  the  relatives  were  required  to  be  present. 
The  embalmers  then  went  to  their  doleful  work,  not  later 
than  the  third  day,  and  the  family,  meanwhile,  shut 
themselves  up  in  strict  seclusion  till  the  process  was 
completed,  over  two  months  later.^ 

But  if  Menephtah  was  thus  forced  to  give  the  Hebrews 
a  lengthened  breathing  time,  during  which  they  in  a 
measure  organized  themselves,  while  resting  in  the  oasis 
of  Pi-hahiroth,  close  to  Suez,  his  pursuit  was  now  so  much 
the  hotter.  Launching  his  magnificent  squadrons  after 
the  prey ;  "  the  horses/'  to  use  the  words  of  an  old 
papyrus,^  ^^swiftas  jackals;  their  eyes  like  fire  :  their  fury 
like  that  of  a  hurricane  when  it  bursts  ;  '''the  doom  of  the 
Hebrews  seemed  fixed.  The  fugitives  had  at  last  broken 
up  their  encampment  and  were  marching  slowly  towards 
the  Red  Sea,  which  they  designed  to  reach  in  the  after- 
noon, at  the  ebb  tide.*  The  murmur  of  the  waves  on  the 
beach  was  already  heard  when  the  clouds  of  dust  on  the 
horizon  behind  told  them  they  were  pursued.  Terror 
aeized  the  host  once  more  at  the  sight,  and  fierce  accu- 
sations  of   Moses   were   mingled   with   loud   despair  of 

»  Eerod.,  ii.  85.     Biod.,  i.  72,  90.     Gen.  1.  3. 

2  Uarda,  vol.  i.  p.  37.     ^gypt.  Ko nig sto elder,  vol.  iii.  p.  275. 

^  Anast,  i.  ^  Durch  Gosen,  p.  101. 


THE    TENTH    PLAGUE    AND    THE    EXODUS.  177 

escape.  But  the  great  leader,  ever  calm  in  the  presence 
of  danger,  kept  the  alarm  from  degenerating  into  ruinons 
panic.  ''  Jehovah  will  fight  for  you/'  said  he  to  the 
terrified  crowds,  "  and  ye  shall  be  still ; ''  words  which 
shone  out  on  the  despairing  multitudes,  to  use  the  fine 
figure  of  Ebers,  "  like  the  sun  rising  in  calm  majesty  on 
the  lost  and  almost  spent  traveller.'''^ 

The  sea  rose  in  high  waves,  and  the  van  of  the  pur- 
suers was  already  in  sight  on  the  northern  shore.  The 
danger  was  great,  but  Jehovah  had  heard  the  cry  of 
Moses,  and  ordered  the  vast  host  to  go  forward,  though 
the  waters  apparently  barred  their  way ;  promising  that, 
at  the  uplifted  rod  of  His  servant,  the  waves  would  be 
divided  and  offer  a  broad  pathway  on  dry  ground.^ 

At  the  point  where  Suez  lies,  the  western  bank  juts 
out  in  a  point,  to  the  east,  so  that  the  bay  has  only  a 
breadth  of  two-thirds  of  an  English  mile.  But,  below 
the  town,  towards  the  south,  the  bank  retires  in  a  deep 
bend  to  the  west,  leaving  a  breadth  of  water  of  from 
three  to  four  English  miles.  The  bottom  of  this  stretch 
of  sea  consists,  next  the  land,  of  sand-banks  and  rocky 
soil,  firm  and  level,  and  sprinkled  with  sea-grass.  The 
sand-banks  run  out  to  this  from  the  eastern  shore,  and, 
with  the  exception  of  a  small  opening,  are  dry  at  the 
lowest  ebb,  or  covered  with  only  little  water.  Such  is 
the  southern  ford,  through  which,  Robinson  was  told,  the 
people  waded  at  low  water,  though  the  depth,  even  then, 
was  five  feet,  in    the  channel  dividing  the  bank  from 

*  Durch  Gosen,  p.  101.  No  taunt  could  be  more  bitter  than 
that  used,  "  because  there  are  no  graves  in  Egypt  hast  thou  taken 
us  away  to  die  in  the  wilderness?"  Exod.  xiv.  11.  Egypt  was 
the  land  of  graves,  and  especially  round  Memphis  the  cemeteries 
were  of  immense  extent. 

2  Exod.  xiv.  16. 

VOL.   H.  ^ 


J  78  THE    TENTH    PLAGUE   AND    THE   EXODUS. 

north  to  soutli.^  This,  or  the  ford  which  runs  in  a  lino 
with  Suez,  where  the  waters  are  so  much  narrower,  may 
have  been  the  spot  at  which  Jehovah,  making  use,  so  far, 
of  natural  laws,  led  the  Israelites  safely  over.  Ebb  and 
flood  tide,  in  the  narrow  northern  ford  especially,  are 
affected  greatly  by  the  wind  prevailing  at  any  given 
time.  When  it  blows  strongly  from  the  north-east, 
which  it  often  does,  the  waters  are  driven  south,  into  the 
bay,  on  the  west  shore,  leaving  four  islets  stretching  in 
a  line  north  from  Suez,  and  separated  from  the  firm  land 
and  from  each  other,  by  narrow  but  deep  channels. 
Near  these  is  the  upper  ford,  which  can  be  passed  on 
foot  at  the  lowest  ebb,  by  those  well  acquainted  with 
the  ground.  The  other,  to  the  south,  bends  northwards 
towards  this  one,  but  its  length  makes  it  less  used.^ 
The  waters  appear  to  have  reached  a  little  farther  east 
and  north  at  the  time  of  the  Exodus  than  they  do  at 
present,^  but  either   of  these   lines   of  sand-bank  may 

*  Stickel,  Studien  u.  Kritihen,  1850,  p.  338.  !N'iebahr  crossed 
at  this  part  in  1762,  on  a  dromedary;  some  Arabs,  who  were  up 
to  the  knees  in  the  water,  accompanying  him  on  foot.  Beisehe- 
sclir.,  vol.  i.  p.  251.  Bonaparte  did  the  same  on  his  way  through 
the  desert.  Dubois  Aime,  I)escri;ption  de  VEgypte,  vol.  viii.  p.  128. 
Conder  supposes  Israel  to  have  crossed  at  the  "  Bitter  Lakes," 
that  is,  much  above  Suez.  Handbooh,  p.  238.  So  does  Dr.  Hajman, 
in  Smith's  Did.  of  the  Bible,  art.  Wilderness  of  the  Wanderings.  So 
also,  Hitzig;  Geschichte,  p.  71.  But  the  hypothesis  proceeds  on 
the  supposition  that  the  Eed  Sea  came  much  farther  north  in 
the  days  of  Moses,  which  is  entirely  conjectural,  and  rejected  by 
most.  In  1672,  a  strong  wind  caused  such  an  ebb  of  the  sea  off 
Holland,  that  the  English  could  not  embark,  and  their  detention 
was  the  salvation  of  the  country.  Burnet's  Hist  of  Own  Tiines, 
vol.  i.  p.  334. 

2  Durch  Gosen,  p.  102. 

^  It  is  pleasant  to  read  in  so  acute  a  writer  as  Niebuhr :  "  lb 
would  be  a  great  mistake  to  imagine  that  the  passage  of  such  a 


THE    TENTH    PLAGUE   AND    THE    EXODUS.  179 

have  been  used,  under  the  guidance  and  miraculous  aid 
of  God. 

The  night  set  in  dark  and  stormy,  with  a  violent 
north-east  gale  ^  which  blew  all  night,  and  drove  the 
waters  before  it,  at  ebb  tide,  into  the  south-west  bay,  till 
the  sandy  ridge  of  the  ford  was  laid  bare  :  the  shore  waters 
thus  becoming  a  wall,  or  protection,  to  the  Hebrews,  on 
the  right,  and  those  of  the  open  sea,  on  the  left  hand. 
The  storm  prolonging  the  ebb,  delayed  the  flow  of  the  tide, 
and  thus  before  morning,  the  whole  of  the  Hebrews — 
here,  going  round  pools,  there,  kept  back  by  the  tempest, 
and  by  the  slow  progress  of  the  cattle — were  able  to  reach 
the  east  shore ;  after  a  long  and  slow  march,  aggravated 
by  the  terrors  of  the  night.  What  these  must  have 
been  may  be  imagined  from  the  description  in  one  of  the 
Psalms,  ages  after  : 

"  The  clouds  poured  out  water : 
The  skies  sent  out  a  sound  : 
Thine  arrows  (the  lightnings)  also  went  abroad. 
The  voice  of  Thy  thunder  rolled  along  the  heavens,^ 


great  caravan  (as  the  Israelites)  could  have  been  effected  by 
purely  natural  means.  No  caravans  go  this  way  nowadays,  at 
least  from  Cairo  to  Sinai,  though  it  would  be  a  great  saving  of 
distance  if  they  could.  But  it  was  even  less  possible  for  the 
children  of  Israel  to  cross  thus,  thousands  of  years  ago,  for  the 
water  was  then  apparently  much  broader,  and,  besides  reaching 
farther  to  the  north,  was  far  deeper.  The  water  seems  not  only 
to  have  retreated  since,  but  the  bottom  of  this  shallow  point 
appears  to  have  been  raised  by  the  sand  blown  in  for  ages  from 
the  desert." — Besclireihung  von  Arahia,  p.  411. 

1  It  is  to  be  remembered  that  the  Hebrews  gave  names  only 
fco  the  four  winds  from  the  four  cardinal  points,  so  that  north- 
east and  south-east,  the  winds  employed  by  Jehovah  in  this  case, 
would  be  regarded  as  cast  winds. 

2  Gesenius  says,  "  was  in  the  whirlwind." 


180  THE    TENTH    PLAGUE    AND    THE    EXODUS. 

The  liglatmrigs  lightened  the  world  ; 
The  earth  trembled  and  shook."  * 

The  pursuing  Egyptians  reached  the  strand  when  most 
of  the  Hebrews,  with  their  cattle,  had  crossed  in  safety. 
It  was  a  question  whether  they  should  at  once  dash 
after  them,  or  seek  to  overtake  them  by  the  circuit  of 
the  shore.  Man  and  horse  were  tired  out  by  the  forced 
marches  of  the  last  few  days,  and  the  night  was  im- 
penetrably dark.  At  Etham  Jehovah  had  vouchsafed 
to  guide  His  people  by  a  cloud  through  the  day  and  fire 
by  night,^  as  eastern  armies  still  follow,  in  many  cases, 
signals  of  fire  and  smoke  seen  at  the  front  of  the  march.^ 
This  light,  which  the  Pharaoh  perhaps  fancied  such  a 
signal,  now  moved  from  before  the  Hebrews  and  came 
to  their  rear,*  at  once  quickening  and  guiding  laggards 
and  stragglers,  and  misleading  the  Egyptians  as  to  the 
progress  made  by  the  host.  Thinking  that  the  storm 
would  keep  back  the  waters,  and  seeing  their  prey  so 
near,  passion  overcame  prudence  in  the  pursuers.     Their 

1  Ps.  Ixxvii.  17,  18.  2  Exod.  xiii.  21. 

^  Alexander  the  Great  had  a  huge  cresset  set  up  on  a  tall  pole 
over  his  tent  as  a  signal  for  departure,  seen  far  off  by  all,  by  its 
light  in  darkness  and  its  smoke  by  day.  Cwtlus,  v.  2.  On 
the  march  the  holy  fire  was  always  carried  before  the  army 
on  silver  altars.  Curtius,  iii.  2.  Seetzen  quotes  from  an  old 
Arab  MS.  the  fact  that  the  caliphs  used  fire  to  send  news 
swiftly — the  brightness  serving  this  end  by  day  and  the  smoke 
by  night.  The  vast  pilgrim  caravans  to  Mecca,  guide  themselves 
in  a  similar  way.  An  Egyptian  general,  in  an  ancient  inscription, 
is  compared  to  a  fla.me  streaming  in  advance  of  an  army,  and 
this  is  repeated  in  an  old  papyrus. — Cbabas,  V.  E.,  p.  64.  Pap, 
Anast.,  i. 

"*  Exod.  xiv.  19.  20.  The  Syriac  reads,  "  And  there  were  clouds 
and  darkness  all  the  night,  but  there  was  light  to  the  children 
of  Israel  all  the  night."  The  Sept.  reads,  "  there  arose  clouds 
and  darkness,  and  the  night  passed,  etc." 


THE   TENTH    PLAGUE   AND    THE    EXODUS.  181 

squadrons,  therefore,  rushed  to  the  ford,  rank  pressing 
on  rank  after  those  who  claimed  to  know  the  way,  to- 
wards the  light  which  they  might  well  fancy  marked  the 
leader's  place,  at  the  front.  Meanwhile,  according  to 
Josephus,^  a  terrible  storm  of  rain,  with  dreadful  thunder 
and  lightning,  broke  out,  and  helped,  with  the  loud  and 
fierce  wind,  to  bewilder  the  charioteers;  who,  it  may  be, 
were  led  still  more  astray  by  different  signal  fires  of  the 
sections  of  the  Hebrews,  kindled  as  a  flaming  banner,  to 
guide  their  divisions  in  the  wild  blackness.  But,  now, 
when  the  whole  host  of  the  Egyptians  were  committed 
to  the  ford,  the  wind  suddenly  veered  round,  and  blew 
towards  the  land  instead  of  from  it;  driving  before  it 
the  foaming  waters  of  the  rising  tide.  Advance  was 
henceforth  hopeless,  but  sq,  also,  was  retreat,  for  the 
wheels  sank  in  the  water-covered  sand,  and  bent  or 
snapped  the  axles,^  hurling  the  charioteers  headlong  from 
their  places,  to  use  the  metaphor  in  the  sacred  text,  like 
stones  from  a  sling. 

Mortal  terror  now  seized  the  pursuers;  for  the  God 
of  the  Hebrews  was  "looking  out  on  them,"  and  once 
more  fighting  against  them  from  that  fiery  cloud.^  But 
escape  was  impossible.  The  south-west  wind  blowing 
wildly  from  the  clefts  and  gorges  of  the  Ataka  hills — the 
wind  most  dreaded  by  the  boatmen  of  Suez — drove  the 
waters  before  it,  and  ere  long  the  chariots  and  the  heavily 
mailed  soldiery  of  Pharaoh,  held  in  the  remorseless  grip 
of  the  yielding  sands,  were  overwhelmed,  and  miserably 
perished.      Next  morning  all  was    over,   and    the    tri- 

^  Jos.,  Ant.,  n.  xvi.  3. 

2  The  Sept.  reads  that  the  wheels  were  "  bound  "  or  "  clogged  " 
by  the  sand. 

^  Exod.  xiv.  24.  Translate  "  troubled  "  as  "  threw  into  con- 
fusion." 


182  THE    TENTH    PLAGUE    AND    THE    EXODUS. 

umpTiant  Hebrews  saw  the  corpses  wasTied  up,  in  heaps, 
along  the  sea-shore.  Such  a  deliverance  filled  all  minds 
with  awe,  for  they  felt  that  Jehovah  alone  had  inflicted 
this  great  defeat  upon  their  enemies.  Now,  as  never 
before,  they  feared  and  believed  in  Him,  and  in  His 
servant  Moses.^ 

A  document  translated  by  M.  Chabas  may  perhaps 
refer  to  the  escape  of  the  Hebrews.  It  runs  thus : 
''  Notice  !  when  my  letter  reaches  you,  bring  the  Madjai 
at  once,  who  were  over  the  foreign  Safkhi  who  have 
escaped.  Do  not  bring  all  the  men  I  have  named  in 
my  list.  Give  attention  to  this.  Bring  them  to  me  to 
Takhu,  and  I  will  admit  them  and  you.^^  Takhu  was  a 
fortress  which  defended  the  eastern  frontier  of  the  Delta, 
and  this  letter  may  well  be  an  order  to  recall  the  gen- 
darmerie who  had  watched  the  wall  when  the  Hebrews 
were  advancing  to  it.^ 

It  is,  of  course,  idle  to  expect  that  Egypt  would  re- 
cord a  disaster  so  terrible  as  that  of  the  Red  Sea,  but  a 
papyrus  of  the  next  period  strangely  confirms  its  mag- 
nitude, by  showing  the  virtual  breaking  up  of  the  king- 
dom of  the  Pharaohs  from  that  date.  The  events  of  the 
later  period  of  Menephtah^s  reign  are  passed  over  in  per- 
fect silence  ^  by  the  monuments.     After  him,  the  empire 

*  Exod.  xiv.  30,  31.  I  have  made  use  of  Ebers  for  the  most 
part  in  this  narrative  of  the  crossing  of  the  Red  Sea. 

The  name  of  the  Red  Sea,  Yam  Saph,  is  stated  by  Stick  el 
{Studien  u.  Kritiken,  1850,  p.  330),  to  be  derived  from  tlie  woolly 
tuft  of  the  ripe  shore  reed,  which  grows  very  thickly  on  the  edge 
of  the  sea.  It  was  called  in  Egypt  the  Reedy  Sea.  The  Hebrews 
divided  the  night  into  three  watches  :  the  first  from  sunset  to 
ten ;  the  second  from  ten  to  two ;  the  third  from  two  to  sunrise. 
ThB  passage  of  the  sea  was  in  April,  when  the  sun  rose  about 
six  a.m.     Rosenmiiller,  Alte  u.  Neue  Morgenland,  vol.  ii.  p.  18. 

2  Pap.  Anast,  V.  18,  6,  pi.  19,  2.         ^  Brugsch,  vol.  ii.  p.  130. 


THE    TENTH    PLAGUE    AND    THE    EXODUS.  183 

•whicli  Seti  I.  and  Rameses  II.  liad  established  at  so  great 
a  cost  of  war  and  energy,  went  ignominiously  to  pieces, 
and  his  successors  Seti  II.  and  Menephtah  II.  could  not 
prevent  even  single  counties  of  the  Delta  from  breaking 
loose  from  their  rule,  declaring  themselves  independent, 
and  setting  up  dynasties  of  their  own.  The  great  Harris 
Papyrus  says  of  this  time  :  "  The  population  of  Egypt 
had  broken  away  over  the  borders,  and  among  those  who 
remained  there  was  no  commanding  voice,  for  many 
years.  Hence  Egypt  fell  under  dynasties  which  ruled 
the  towns.  One  killed  the  other  in  wild  and  fatal  enter- 
prises. Other  disasters  succeeded,  in  the  shape  o£  years 
of  famine.  Then  Aarsu,  a  Syrian,  rose  among  them, 
as  prince,  and  the  whole  land  did  him  homage.  One 
leagued  with  the  other  and  plundered  the  magazines, 
and  the  very  gods  acted  as  men  did,^^  that  is,  they 
seemed  to  waste  the  earth  by  their  judgments. 

Note  to  -page  162. — Munk  says :  "  The  firstborn  of  beasts  were 
apparently  (among  others)  the  sacred  animals.  Hence  the  Tenth 
Plague  is  regarded  as  a  judgment  on  the  gods  of  Egypt."  Exod. 
xii.  12.  Num.  xxxiii.  4.  Paldstina,  p.  269.  He  also  thinks  the 
Israelites  crossed  at  the  soath  end  of  the  Bitter  Sea  (or  Lake), 
north  of  Suez.      Page  271. 


CHAPTER  VIT. 

THE    MARCH    TO    SINAI. 

HOW  long  the  Hebrews  remained  in  Egypt  has 
been  much  disputed.  It  is  stated  by  St.  Paul  that 
from  the  date  of  the  covenant  to  Abraham,  to  the  pro- 
clamation of  the  Mosaic  law  on  Sinai^  was  430  years/  and 
this  is  stated  also  in  Exodus.^  In  Genesis  ^  the  Egyptians 
are  predicted  as  destined  to  afflict  the  Hebrews  400  years, 
and  this  is  repeated  by  St.  Stephen  in  his  defence.*  Re- 
specting these  two  numbers,  430  and  400  years,  there 
is  little  difficulty,  as  the  one  is  only  a  round  number, 
whilst  the  other  is  a  precise  statement.  But  in  Genesis  ^ 
it  is  said  that  the  return  to  Canaan  was  to  be  in  the 
fourth  generation  from  the  time  of  God^s  covenant  with 
Abraham;  so  that  an  average  of  over  100  years  is 
thus  presumed  for  each.  Jewish  interpreters,  however, 
assuming  the  length  of  a  generaiton  as  only  about  50 
years,  have  divided  the  longer  period  into  two  ;  allot- 
ting 215  years  to  the  interval  between  the  descent  of 
Abraham  to  Egypt  and  that  of  Jacob,  and  the  same  time 
to  the  residence  there  of  his  posterity.  But  this  is  not 
necessary,  if  we  remember  the  length  of  life  assigned  in 

1  Gal.  iii.  17.  ^  Exod.  xil  40,  41.  ^  Qen.  xv.  13. 

*  Acts  vii.  6.  ^  Gen.  xv.'16. 

184 


THE    MAECH    TO   SINAI.  185 

the  Bible  to  the  patriarclis,  for  Abraham  himself  died  at 
the  age  of  175/  Isaac  at  that  of  180/  Jacob  at  that  of 
147/  Joseph  at  that  of  110,  and  Moses  at  that  of  120> 
It  is  hardly  to  be  expected  that  evidence  in  corrobora- 
tion of  such  matters  should  be  accessible  from  out- 
side sources,  but  on  many  Egyptian  inscriptions  we  still 
meet  with  the  prayer  which  very  few  would  think  of 
offering  now,  that  the  writer  may  reach  the  perfect  age 
of  110  years;  and  in  a  papyrus,  preserved  in  Paris,  of  the 
date  of  the  Twelfth  Dynasty/  that  is,  at  least  as  old  as 
Abraham,  one  Patah-hotep,  who  describes  himself  as  110 
years  old,  speaks  of  his  father,  the  reigning  king,  as  still 
alive,  and  indeed,  addresses  him ;  so  that  he  must  have 
been  about  130  years  old.^ 

Near  the  spot  where  the  Hebrews  reached  the  land  on 
the  east  shore/  a  plain  runs  back  from  the  sea  to  a  fertile 
oasis  of  considerable  size,  still  known  as  Ayun  Musa,  the 
"Springs  of  Moses''' — a  quarter  of  an  hour's  distance  from 
the  beach.  Flowing  springs  still  produce  a  rich  vege- 
tation, before  the  quickening  moisture  loses  itself  in  the 
sand.  High-stemmed  and  wide-branched  palms,  acacias, 
and  tamarisks,  are*  mingled  with  undergrowth,  which  is 
cleared  away,  here  and  there,  for  vegetable  beds/  but 
this  fertility  may  have  extended  much  more  widely 
3,000  years  ago,  for  the  Egyptians  were  born  gardeners. 
Here,  apparently,  the  first  camp  was  pitched  on  the  east 

1  Gen.  XXV.  7.  ^  Qen.  xxxv.  28. 

3  Diet  oj  Bible,  art.  Jacob.    Schenkel's  Lex.  makes  him  170. 

**  Deut.  xxxiv.  7. 

^  Maspero,  p.  85.     Brugsch,  vol.  i.  p.  92. 

^  Facsimile  d'un  Pa'pyrus  Egyptien.  Par  M.  Prisse  d'Avenues. 
Pi.  19,  Unes  7  and  8. 

7  Hitzig  thinks  the  date  of  the  Exodus  was  March  30th,  B.C. 
1512.  Geschichte,  p.  73.  Schenkel  says  B.C.  1460.  Ebers  says 
B.C.  1317.  •  ^  Ebers,  Burch  Gosen,  p.  68. 


186  THE   MARCH   TO   SINAI. 

of  the  Eed  Sea.  Their  miraculous  escape  had  raised 
the  excitable  spirit  of  the  vast  host  to  a  delirium  of 
joy.  From  the  extremity  of  peril  they  had  passed,  in  a 
night,  to  safety.  An  almost  helpless  multitude,  cum- 
bered with  women,  children,  and  cattle,  with  the  sea 
before  them  and  the  terrible  chariots  of  Egypt  behind — 
they  had  seen  a  way  made  for  them  through  the  waters, 
and  the  chivalry  of  the  greatest  empire  in  the  world 
overwhelmed  when  pressing  after  them.  They  had 
been  simply  spectators  of  the  great  deliverance  wrought 
for  them  by  the  invisible  God,  whom  Moses  had  pro- 
claimed as  their  Leader,  and  whom  their  fathers  had 
worshipped.  There  was  no  room  for  pride  :  they  could 
only  look  with  grateful  eyes  to  the  heavens,  from  which 
alone  their  rescue  had  come.  Jehovah  was  assuredly  a 
God  above  all  gods,  and  He  had  proclaimed  them  His 
Chosen  People,  by  redeeming  them  thus  with  a  mighty 
hand  and  an  outstretched  arm.  Such  an  event,  which 
distant  ages  would  remember  with  lasting  awe,  demanded 
a  corresponding  recognition  from  those  who  had  wit- 
nessed it.  The  emotion  that  filled  all  hearts  could  find 
adequate  utterance  only  in  song  and  public  rejoicing,  in 
honour  of  their  divine  Protector. 

The  sacred  dance  was  a  part  of  most  ancient  religions. 
Even  now  the  young  women  of  Egypt  thus  greet  the  rising 
of  the  Nile — a  relic  of  the  old  sacred  festival  of  the 
river.  The  Indians,  in  antiquity,  danced  before  the  rising 
sun,  in  his  honour,  and  sacred  dances  were  in  use  among 
the  Romans.  Indeed,  the  Greek  Church  still  retains  at 
Easter  some  traces  of  this  antique  form  of  worship,  and 
the  dancing  dervishes  of  Turkey  and  Central  Asia  are 
well  known.  It  seemed,  in  fact,  to  the  ancient  world  as 
fitting  to  express  their  joy  thus  as  by  singing,  to  which 
it  appeared  the  natural  adjunct,  expressive  of  the  glad- 


THE    MARCH   TO    SINAI.  187 

ness  of  tlie  worshipper's  whole  being.^  It  is  not  sur- 
prising, therefore^  that  the  Hebrew  word  for  a  religions 
festival  means,  literally,  a  circling  dance,^  or  that  when 
Moses  asked  Pharaoh  to  let  the  people  go,  to  hold  a  feast 
to  Jehovah  in  the  wilderness,  the  word  refers  to  this  chief 
characteristic  of  such  festivities.^  <  The  deliverance  of  the 
nafcion,  by  the  direct  intervention  of  Jehovah  in  its 
behalf,  was  hence  naturally  celebrated  by  a  solemn 
festival  in  His  honour,  in  which  sacred  dances  took  a 
prominent  part.  But  the  dance  was  always  an  accom- 
paniment to  song,  and  this  was  provided  in  the  grand 
lyric  known  as  the  Song  of  Moses — the  oldest  and 
noblest  triumphal  ode  we  possess.     It  ran  thus  :  * 

1  will  sing  to  Jehovah,  for  He  hath  triumphed  gloriously  ;  ^ 
The  horse  aud  its  rider  hath  He  hurled  into^  the  sea. 
Jehovah  is  my  Yictory  and  Song  :  He  is  my  deliverer; 

He  is  my  God,  I  will  praise  Him; 

The  God  of  my  fathers,  I  will  exalt  Him  ! 

Jehovah  is  a  hero  of  war  :  Jehovah  is  His  name ! 

The  chariots  of  Pharaoh  and  his  Might  He  cast  into  the  sea : 

His  chosen  captains  ^  were  drowned  in  the  Weedy  Sea.  ^*'' 

The  depths  covered  them  ; 

They  sank  to  the  bottom  like  a  stone.^ 

*  Exod.  xxxii.  6.  There  are  still,  at  fixed  times,  sacred  dances 
in  the  Cathedral  of  Seville,  as  part  of  the  public  worship, 

2  Hag,  in  Gesenius,  9th  edition,  p,  252. 

3  Exod.  V.  1.  It  is  the  same  in  Lev.  xxiii.  41.  "  Ye  shall  keep 
a  feast  (or  '  dance ')  unto  Jehovah  seven  days  in  the  year."  In 
Ps.  xlii.  4,  "  The  multitude  that  kept  holy  day,"  is  literally,  "  that 
celebrated  religions  dances." 

^  See  translations  of  Koster  (St>udien  u.  Kritihen,  1831,  p.  69), 
Knobel,  Ewald,  Herder,  Bansen,  and  Kalisch. 
^  Lit.,  He  is  gloriously  glorious. 
^  As  from  a  sling. 

7  Officers  of  the  highest  rank  especially  attending  the  Pharaoh. 
®  The    weight   of  their  armour  would  make  them  helpless  to 


188  THE    MARCH   TO    SINAI. 

Thy  righfc  hand,  0  Jehovah,  glorious  in  power, 
Thy  right  hand,  O  Jehovah,  broke  in  pieces  the  foe. 

In  the  greatness  of  Thy  excellency  Thou  hast  overthrown  them 

that  opposed  Thee, 
Thou  didst  let  loose  Thy  fiery  indignation,  and  it  consumed  them 

like  stubble.^ 

Before  the  breath  of  Thy  nostrils  ^  the  waters  piled  themselves 

up; 
The  floods  stood  up  like  a  dam — 
The  waves  were  congealed  in  the  midst  of  the  sea. 

The  foe  said  :  "  I  will  pursue  :  I  will  overtake  : 

I  will  divide  the  prey ;  I  will  glut  my  revenge  on  them, 

I  will  draw  out  my  sword,  and  destroy  them." 

Then  Thou  breathed  st  with  Thy  wind  ;  the  sea  covered  them : 
They  whirled  down  like  lead  in  the  rushing  waters. 

Who  is  like  unto  Thee,  among  the  gods,  O  Jehovah  I 
"Who  is  like  unto  Thee ;  so  great  in  Thy  majesty  ! 
So  fearful  in  glory;  doing  such  wondrous  deeds! 

Thou  stretched  st  out  Thy  right  hand. 
Then  the  earth  swallowed  them  up. 

Thou  leddest  by  Thy  grace  the  people  whom  Thou  didst  redeem, 
Thou  leddest  them  by  Thy  strength  to  Thy  holy  habitation.^ 


escape.  The  corslets  of  the  officers  were  of  bronze,  with  sleeves 
reaching  nearly  to  the  elbow,  and  covering  the  whole  body,  and 
the  thighs  nearly  to  the  knees.  The  chariot  warriors  also  are 
always  represented  with  heavy  coats  of  mail.  Wilkinson,  vol.  i. 
p.  366. 

^  The  word  for  stubble  in  the  Hebrew  text  is  Egyptian. 

2  A  poetical  expression  for  the  natural  agency  of  the  stormy 
wind.  All  natu!  al  phenomena  are  thus  ascribed  by  the  Hebrews 
to  the  direct  act  of  God — "  God  thunders," — "  God  gives  rain," — 
*'  God  giveth  snow,"  etc, 

^  Palestine. 


THE    MAECH   TO    SINAI.  189 

The  peoples  shall  hear  it  and  be  afraid, 
Trembling  shall  seize  the  inhabitants  of  Philistia.* 

The  princes  of  the  tribes  of  Edom  are  in  terror ; 
The  mighty  men  ^  of  Moab,  trembling  seizes  them ; 

The  inhabitants  of  Canaan  melt  for  fear ! 

Fear  and  dread  fall  on  them, 

At  the  greatness  of  Thine  arm  they  stiffen,  in  terror,  like  stone, 

Till  Thy  people,  0  Jehovah,  have  passed  over ;  ^ 

Till  Thy  people,  whom  Thou  hast  made  Thine  own,  have  passed 

over, 
Till  Thou  hast  brought  them  in,  and  planted  them  on  the  mount 

of  Thine  inheritance.'* 

The  place,  0  Jehovah,  which  Thou  hast  made  Thy  dwelling ; 
The  Sanctuary,  O  Jehovah,  which  Thy  bands  have  prepared  ! 

Jehovah  is  king  for  ever  and  ever  ! 

For  Pharaoh's  horse,  and  his  chariots,  and  his  riders,  went  into 

the  Sea, 
And  Jehovah  brought  back  over  them  the  waters  ; 
But  the  children  of  Israel  went  on,  dry,  through  the  depths. 

*  The  first  who  would  expect  an  invasion.  Pelasheth,  the 
country  of  the  Philistines,  is,  as  has  been  said,  the  original  of 
the  name  Palestine. 

2  Lit.,  "the  rams,"  a  metaphor  for  strength,  etc.  See  Jer. 
xlviii.  29,  41.  The  men  of  Moab  were  famous  for  their  strength 
and  size.  The  metaphor  applies  aptly  to  them  as  great  "  sheep- 
masters." 

2  The  Jordan. 

^  Palestine,  a  country  of  hills,  was  holy  to  Jehovah,  and  is  pro- 
bably meant,  as  a  whole,  but  the  allusion  may  be  to  Mount  Moriah, 
at  Jerusalem ;  though  it  was  not  used  for  sacred  purposes  till 
after  David  bought  the  threshing-floor  of  Araunah,  on  it,  and 
Solomon  crowned  it  with  his  temple.  In  Isa.  Ixv.  9,  Canaan  is 
called  by  Jehovah  "  My  mountains."  It  is  also  called  "  that 
goodly  mountain,"  Deut.  iii.  25,  and  "this  mountain,"  in  Ps. 
Ixxviii.  64.  It  is  also  called  in  that  verse  "  His  Sanctuary,"  as  in 
the  Song  of  Moses,  though  the  words  may  be  translated  "  His 
holy  border." 


190  THE    MARCH  '^0    SINAI. 

The  burden  of  tliis  magnificent  ode  sank  into  tlie 
hearts  of  the  Hebrew  race,  and  fired  the  genius  of  in- 
spired poets,  century  after  century,  reappearing  again 
and  again  in  psabn  and  prophecy.-^  As  here,  the  strain 
of  all  these  allusions  to  the  great  deliverance  is,  that 
*^  not  unto  us,  not  unto  us,  0  Lord,  but  unto  Thy  name 
give  glory,  for  Thy  mercy  and  for  Thy  truth^s  sake/^  ^ 
Nor  did  its  echoes  die  away  with  the  Jewish  dispensa- 
tion. As  a  triumphant  celebration  of  God^s  victory  over 
His  enemies,  it  is  even  transferred  in  the  Apocalypse  to 
those  who  stand  on  the  sea  of  glass  mingled  with  fire, 
having  the  harps  of  God,  and  singing  "  the  song  of  Moses 
the  servant  of  God,  and  of  the  Lamb/^ 

Uttered  first,  in  all  probability,  by  a  single  voice,  from 
some  rock  which  lifted  the  reciter  above  the  vast  mul- 
titude between  the  hills  and  the  sea,  its  refrain  was 
caught  up  by  the  women  and  maidens  of  Israel,  and  sung 
by  them  as  they  danced  for  joy — for  in  the  east,  as  a  rule, 
only  women  dance — their  tambourines  held  over  their 
head,  and  struck  in  unison  as  they  moved.  Miriam,^  the 
sister  of  Aaron  and  Moses,  noblest  as  well  as  first  of  the 
daughters  of  the  people,  led  the  way,  the  whole  chorus  of 
sisters  following,  their  right  hands  beating  in  time  the 
skin  disk  of  their  simple  instrument,  round  which  rows 
of  shells,  or  pieces  of  metal  added  to  the  joyful  noise. 
Then  would  strike  in  the  deep,  solemn  chorus  of  the 
men,    every    voice    expressing,    in    its     loudest    chant, 

*  See  Ps.  Ixxvii.  12-20 ;   Ixxviii. ;   cv. ;   cvi. ;  cxiv. 

2  Ps.  cxv.  1. 

^  Miriam  is  called  a  "prophetess,"  but  this  often  means  in 
Scripture  only  one  who  says  or  makes  known  the  doings  of  God, 
or  His  praises,  whether  with  or  without  musical  instruments. 
Thus  the  singers  appointed  by  David  are  called  "  prophets,"  and 
are  said  "  to  prophesy  with  harps,"  etc.,  and  "  to  give  thanks  and 
to  praise  the  Lord."     1  Chron.  xxv.  1-3. 


THE    MAKCH   TO    SINAI.  191 

entliusiasin  and  gratitude  for  the  wondrous  deliverance 
vouchsafed.  In  one  of  the  Psalms  we  have  a  glimpse  of 
a  scene  in  some  respects  similar  :  the  rejoicings  at  the 
consecration  of  the  Tabernacle  erected  by  David.  Then, 
'^  Singers  went  before ;  players  on  stringed  instruments 
followed  after,  and,  between,  came  damsels  playing  on 
timbrels.^  In  full  choir,  the  sons  and  daughters  of  the 
Fountain  of  Israel  praised  God,  even  Jehovah  '/'^  ^' David 
and  all  the  House  of  Israel  playing  before  Jehovah  with 
all  their  might  and  with  singing,^  even  on  harps,  and 
on  psalteries,  and  on  castanets*  and  on  cymbals.''' 

Traditions  of  an  event  so  striking  as  the  escape  of 
the  Israelites,  lingered  for  ages  among  the  neighbouring 
peoples.  The  tribes  on  the  east  of  the  Red  Sea,  says 
Diodorus  of  Sicily,  who  was  in  Egypt  shortly  before  the 
birth  of  Christ,  ^^have  a  tradition  which  has  been  handed 
down  among  them  from  age  to  age,  that  the  whole  bay  at 
the  head  of  the  sea  was  once  laid  bare  by  ebb  tides,  the 
water  heaping  itself  on  the  other  side,  so  that  the  bottom 
was  seen/'  Artapanus,  a  Greek  who  lived  some  time 
before  Christ,  and  wrote  a  book  on  the  Jews,  of  which 
some  fragments  have  been  preserved  by  Ensebius, 
records  that  "  the  priests  of  Memphis  were  wont  to  say 
that  Moses  had  narrowly  studied  the'  time  of  ebb  and 
flow  of  the  Red  Sea,  and  led  his  people  through  it  when 
the  sand  was  bare.  But  the  priests  of  Hieropolis  tell 
this  story  otherwise.  They  say  that  when  the  king  of 
Egypt  pursued  the  Jews,  Moses   struck  the  waters  with 

^  The  tambourine  is  still  used  universally  in  the  East  by  women 
when  they  dance  or  sing.  Niehuhr,  in  Rosenmiiller's  iScJiolia, 
vol.  i.  p.  495. 

2  Ps.  Ixviii.  25,  26.    Ewald. 

^  2  Sam.  vi.  5.     Sept.  and  most  recent  critics. 

*  Literally.     See  also  Ps.  cl.  3-5. 


192  THE   MARCH   TO   SINAI. 

his  rod  and  fhe  waters  fortliwifh  turned  back,  so  that  the 
Israelites  passed  over  drjshod.  Bat  the  Egyptians 
having  ventured  on  the  same  dangerous  path,  were, 
blinded  by  fire  from  heaven,  and  the  sea  having  rushed 
back  to  its  bed,  they  all  perished,  partly  by  the  thunder- 
bolts, partly  in  the  waters/^  ^ 

A  new  theory  advanced  by  Brugsch,  with  respect  to  the 
scene  of  the  destruction  of  Pharaoh's  host,  has  excited 
some  attention.  This  eminent  scholar,  dififering  from  all 
others,  supposes  that  the  Israelites,  instead  of  turning 
southward  towards  Suez,  marched  to  the  north-east,  in 
the  direction  of  Pelusium.^  Baal-zephon,  he  thinks,  was 
a  temple  on  Mount  Casios,  outside  the  Egyptian 
boundary  wall,  in  the  direction  of  Canaan,  while,  instead 
of  the  "  Ked,"  he  thinks  we  ought  to  read  the  ''  Weedy 
Sea ; "  a  name  given  not  only  to  the  Red  Sea  but  to  the 
wide  and  terrible  abysses  known  as  the  Sirbonian  lakes, 
between  Pelusium  and  Goshen,  near  the  Mediterranean 
coast.  Between  these  lakes  and  the  Mediterranean  there 
still  runs  a  narrow  bar  of  coast,  forming  a  possible  line  of 
communication  between  Egypt  and  Palestine,  but  covered 
in  great  storms  by  the  foaming  waters  of  the  outside 
ocean.  Along  this  pathway,  he  supposes,  the  Israelites 
were  led  in  safety,  while  Pharaoh's  army,  attempting  it, 
were  met  by  a  blinding  storm,  which  submerged  the 
narrow  coast  line,  and  threw  them  into  such  confusion 
that  they  lost  their  way,  and  were  swallowed  up  in  the 
bottomless  lakes  at  its  southern  edge.  We  cannot  adopt 
this  hypothesis,  but  the  great  reputation  of  M.  Brugsch 
claims  a  statement  of  it  in  his  own  interesting  words. 

"  According  to  monumental  indications,"  he  says,  ''  in 
accordance  with  what  the  classic  traditions  tell  us  of 
it,  the  Egyptian  route  led  from  Migdol  to  the  Mediter- 
^  FrcB;parat.,ix.  27,436.      ^  Pelusium  =  Mud-towu  {Bih.  Lex., art.  Sin). 


THE    MARCH    TO    SINAI.  193 

ranean,  up  to  tLe  wall  of   Gerrhon   (the  fortified  wall  of 
Egypt),  at  the  extremity  of  the  Lake  of  Sirbonis/^ 

"  Separated  from  the  Mediterranean  by  a  tongue  of 
land  which  oflfered  in  ancient  times  the  only  Egyptian 
way  into  Palestine,  this  lake,  or  rather  lagoon,  covered 
with  a  rich  vegetation  of  rushes  and  papyri,  but  in  our 
day  almost  dried  up,  hid  the  unforeseen  danger  which 
lurked  in  the  nature  of  its  borders,  and  in  the  presence 
of  its  fatal  gulfs,  of  which  an  ancient  author  has  left 
us  the  following  description. 

"  ^  On  the  side  of  the  Levant,  Egypt  is  protected,  partly 
by  the  Nile,  partly  by  the  desert,  and  by  the  swampy 
plains  called  by  the  name  of  Barathra,  gulfs.  There  is  in 
Coele- Syria  and  in  Egypt,  a  lake  which  is  not  very  large, 
of  a  prodigious  depth,  and  in  length  about  200  stadia.^ 
It  is  called  Sirbonis,  and  is  very  dangerous  to  the 
traveller  approaching  it  unawares,  for  its  basin  being 
very  narrow,  like  a  ribbon,  and  its  swampy  borders  very 
wide,  it  often  happens  that  these  are  covered  with  a  mass 
of  sand,  brought  by  the  continual  south  winds.  This 
sand  hides  from  sight  the  sheet  of  water  which  inter- 
mingles with  the  soil.  Through  this,  whole  armies  have 
been  swallowed  up,  in  ignorance  of  the  place,  and  from 
having  mistaken  their  way.^  The  sand  slightly  trodden 
on,  leaves,  at  first  only  the  trace  of  the  steps,  and  thus 
deceives  those  who  have  ventured  on  it,  until,  suspecting 
their  danger,  they  seek  to  save  themselves  at  the  moment 
when  there  remains  no  means  of  escape.  For  a  man  thus 
engulfed  in   the    mud    can    neither   move   nor  extricate 

^  About  twenty-five  miles. 

2  Compare  Milton,  Far.  Lost,  II.  692  : — 

"A  gulf  profound  as  that  Serbonian  bog 

Betwixt  Damiata  and  Mount  Casios  old. 

Where  armies  whole  have  sunk."' 
VOL.   II.  O 


194  THE    MARCH    TO    SINAI. 

himself,  the  action  of  the  body  being  hindered  :  neither 
can  he  get  out  of  it;  having  no  solid  support  by  which 
to  raise  himself  up.  This  intimate  mixture  of  the  water 
and  the  sand_,  constitutes  a  kind  of  substance  on  which 
it  is  impossible  to  walk,  and  through  which  one  cannot 
swim.  Thus,  those  who  find  themselves  caught  there, 
are  dragged  away  to  the  bottom  of  the  abyss,  since  the 
banks  of  sand  sink  with  them.  Such  is  the  nature  of 
these  plains,  to  which  the  name  Barathra — gulfs — per- 
fectly suits.'  ^ 

"The  Hebrews,  on  approaching  this  tongue  of  land 
in  the  north-east  direction,  found  themselves  thus  con- 
fronted by  these  gulfs  :  or,  according  to  the  Egyptian 
texts,  opposite  Khirst — the  ancient  name,  which  answers 
exactly  to  the  gulfs  in  the  lake  of  Sea  Weed — near  the 
place  Gerrhon.  Thus  will  be  perfectly  understood  the 
Biblical  expression  Pi-hahiroth,  a  word  which  literally 
designates  'the  entrance  to  the  bogs,'  and  agrees  with 
the  geographical  situation.  This  indication  is  finally 
pointed  out  by  another  ; — for  Baal-zephon — '  the  Master 
of  the  North ' — was,  as  Baal  Zaponni — the  Egyptian  god 
Am  on,  of  Thebes,  the  great  falconer,  who  crossed  the 
lagoons;  the  master  of  the  northern  countries,  and,  above 
all,  of  the  marshes,  to  whom  the  inscriptions  give  the 
name  of  the  Master  of  Khirst,  that  is  to  say,  'gulf 
of  the  papyrus  lagoons.  To  the  Greeks  he  became  Zeus 
Casios,  and  had  a  sanctuary  at  the  point  of  the  extreme 
Egyptian  frontier  on  the  eastern  side.     .     .     . 

"After  the  Hebrews  crossed  on  foot  the  shallows 
which  extend  between  the  Mediterranean  and  the  lake 
of  Serbonis,  a  high  tide  overtook  the  Egyptian  horsemen 
and  the  captains  of  the  chariots  of  war  who  fiercely  pur- 
sued them.  Baffled  in  their  movements  by  the  presence 
*  Biodorus,  i.  30. 


THE    MAECH   TO    SINAI.  195 

of  tlieir  friglitened  horsemen,  and  thrown  into  disorder 
by  their  chariots  of  war,  there  happened  to  these  soldiers 
and  charioteers,  that  which  in  the  course  of  history  has 
sometimes  occurred,  not  only  to  simple  travellers,  but 
also  to  whole  armies.     ,     ,     . 

''  When,  in  the  first  century  of  our  era,  the  geographer 
Strabo,  a  wise  man  and  great  observer,  was  travelling 
in  Egypt,  he  entered  in  his  journal  the  following 
notice  :  — 

" '  At  the  time  of  my  sojourn  in  Alexandria,  there  was 
a  high  tide  at  the  town  of  Pelusium,  and  near  to  Mount 
Casios.  The  waters  inundated  the  country,  so  that  the 
mountains  appeared  to  be  islands,  and  the  road  near 
them,  leading  towards  Pelusium,  became  practicable  for 
ships/ 

"Another  fact  of  the  same  nature  is  related  by  an 
ancient  historian.  Diodorus,  in  describing  a  campaign 
of  King  Artaxerxes,  against  Egypt,  mentions  a  cata- 
strophe which  happened  to  his  army  at  the  same  place  : — 

" '  When  the  Persian  king,^  says  he,  '  had  united  all 
his  troops,  he  made  them  advance  toward  Egypt. 
Having  arrived  at  the  Great  Lake,  where  they  found 
places  named  "  gulfs,"  he  lost  part  of  his  army,  because 
he  was  ignorant  of  the  character  of  this  region.'' "  ^ 

This  theory,  which  seems  so  plausible,  has  not,  how- 
ever, as  has  been  said,  commended  itself  to  scholars,  and 
has  been  rudely  shaken  by  recent  investigations  of  the 
locality.  Instead  of  a  connected  road  along  the  shore, 
it  has  been  found  that  there  is  a  long  interval  which  is 
bare  only  at  ebb  tide,  making  it  almost  impossible  to 
pass  by  this  way  to  Palestine.^  The  coast  line  may 
certainly  have  changed  in  three  thousand  years,  but  even 

^  Transactions  of  Orientalist  Congress,  1874,  pp.  277-279. 
2  Fal.  Fund  Reports,  1880,  p.  148. 


196  THE    MARCH    TO    SINAi; 

if  so^  the  fact  that  tliis  route  would  have  brought  the 
Hebrews  face  to  face  with  the  Egyptian  army  at  Pelusium 
seems  conclusive  that  it  could  not  be  the  one  followed 
by  Moses. 

The  Egyptian  account  of  the  escape  of  the  Hebrews 
from  the  Nile  Valley  is  necessarily  very  different  from 
that  of  the  Bible,  but  its  very  contrast  is  interesting, 
while  some  details  seem  to  throw  light  on  particulars 
not  otherwise  known.  Manetho,  the  Egyptian  historian, 
paraphrased,  and  in  part  quoted  verbatim  by  Josephus, 
thus  describes  it :  ^  — 

''  Amenophis  (a  corrupted  form  of  Menophthis  or  Me- 
nephtah)  had  a  desire  to  see  the  gods,  as  Horus,^  one  of 
his  predecessors  had  done,  and  had  told  this  to  another 
Amenophis,  the  son  of  one  of  the  priests  of  Apis — the 
Sacred  Ox — who  had  the  reputation  of  being  inspired, 
from  his  wisdom,  and  because  he  could  foretell  things 
future.  This  man  had  said  to  him  that  he  would  see 
the  gods  when  he  had  cleansed  the  country  of  all  lepers  ^ 
and  other  polluted  persons.  The  king,  rejoiced  at  this, 
gathered  every  one  who  had  a  bodily  uncleanness,  from 
every  part  of  Egypt,  to  the  number  of  80,000,  and  sent 
the  whole  to  the  quarries  on  the  east  side  of  the  Nile, 
to  work  in  them,  and  be  wholly  separated  from  the  other 
Egyptians.  Among  them,  Manetho  says,  were  some 
priests  of  note  who  were  polluted  by  leprosy.     The  wise, 

^  Jos.,  Contra  Apion,  i.  15,  26,  32.  I  use  the  version  of  Biinsen, 
founded  on  the  best  text  of  Josephus.     Tlrhunden,  vol.  i.  p.  134. 

2  The  last  king  of  the  Eighteenth  Dynasty. 

3  The  leprosy  was  regarded  by  the  ancients  as  a  disease  pecu- 
liar to  E>jjypt.  Pliny  (xxvi.  1)  calls  it  so,  as  also  does  Diodorus 
(i.  80).  Lucretius  says  expressly,  "  Leprosy  is  a  disease  born 
in  Egypt,  along  the  waters  of  the  Nile,  and  nowhere  else."  So 
that  the  Hebrews  brought  it  with  them  from  their  Egyptian 
slavery.     Quoted  in  IThlemann,  p.  60. 


THE   MAECH    TO    SINAI.  197 

proplietic  man,  Amenopliis,  now  dreaded  the  wraA  of 
tbe  gods  on  himself  and  the  king_,  when  he  saw  how 
these  men  (the  lepers,  etc.)  were  treated,  and  in  the  end 
he  predicted  that  certain  people  would  come  to  their 
help,  and  would  rule  over  Egypt  thirteen  years.  Yet  he 
did  not  venture  to  say  this  to  the  kiug,  but  he  committed 
it  to  writing  for  him,  and  then  killed  himself.  The  king, 
at  all  this,  was  in  great  trouble.  Then,"  says  Josephus, 
''  Manetho  continues,  '  When  these  people  had  lived 
miserably  in  the  quarries  for  a  good  while,  the  king  was 
asked  to  appoint  them  as  a  colony  and  guard,  in  the  city 
Avaris,  then  lying  desolate,  through  the  departure  of  the 
Shepherds  (the  Hyksos).  This  town  from  the  first  had 
belonged  to  the  god  Seth  or  Typhon  (the  evil  one). 
When,  now,  they  had  gone  to  this  town,  and  had  thus 
reached  a  point  from  which  they  could  readily  break  out 
of  the  country,  they  made  a  certain  priest  of  Heliopolis, 
by  name  Osarphis — "  the  consecrated  to  Osiris  '^ — their 
leader,  and  swore  a  solemn  covenant  that  they  would 
obey  him.  He  gave  them  first,  as  a  law,  that  they 
should  not  bow  down  before  any  of  the  gods,  and  that 
they  should  not  refrain  from  eating  the  holy  animals 
most  revered  in  Egypt,  but  should  kill  and  use  them  all 
for  food,  and  they  were  further  to  associate  with  none 
but  members  of  their  league.  After  he  had  given  them 
these  laws,  and  others  similarly  opposed  in  the  highest 
degree  to  Egyptian  customs,  he  commanded  them  to 
strengthen  the  walls  of  Avaris  to  the  utmost,  and  pre- 
pare for  war  against  Amenophis,  the  king.  Moreover, 
he  gathered  round  him  some  of  the  other  priests  and 
polluted  ones,  and  sent  ambassadors  to  the  town  called 
Jerusalem,  to  the  Shepherds  whom  Thothmes  had  driven 
out.  He  told  them  his  position  and  that  of  his  fellow- 
outcasts,  and  besought  them  to  invade  Egypt  along  with 


198  THE    MARCH    TO    SINAI, 

him.  He  promised  to  lead  tliem  first  to  Avaris,  the  city 
of  their  fathers,  and  to  provide  them  richly  with  all 
necessities,  if  required,  and  to  subdue  the  country  to 
them  without  difficulty.  They,  greatly  pleased,  forth- 
with came  to  Avaris  with  700,000  men.  When,  now, 
Amenophis,  the  king  of  Egypt,  learned  of  the  invasion 
of  these  people,  he  was  in  great  fear,  got  the  holy  animals 
which  were  held  in  the  highest  honour,  and  kept  in  the 
temples,  brought  to  his  capital,  and  commanded  the 
priests  to  conceal  all  the  images  of  the  gods  as  securely 
as  possible,  and  sent  his  son  Sethos — who  was  five  years 
old,  and  was  called,  also,  Rameses,  after  Rameses,  the 
father  of  Amenophis — to  his  friend  the  king  of  the 
Ethiopians.  He  himself  crossed  the  west  arm  of  the 
Nile  with  his  army,  which  consisted  of  about  300,000 
soldiers  of  the  greatest  prowess.  Yet  when  he  reached 
the  enemy,  he  fought  no  battle,  but  taking  the  fancy 
that  he  was  fighting  against  the  gods,  he  fled  and  came 
back  to  Memphis.  There  he  took  the  Apis  and  the 
other  holy  animals  which  he  had  collected  round  him, 
and  marched  off  with  them,  and  with  his  whole  army, 
and  a  multitude  of  Egyptians,  to  Ethiopia,  the  king  of 
which — at  once  his  friend  and  tributary — received  him, 
and  provided  all  his  train  with  everything  the  land 
offered  for  food,  besides  granting  them  sufficient  cities 
and  villages,  for  the  thirteen  years  during  which  he 
believed  the  sovereignty  of  Egypt  was  to  be  taken  from 
him.  In  addition,  the  king  of  Ethiopia  set  an  army  on 
the  watch  on  the  borders  of  Egypt,  along  with  those 
whom  King  Amenophis  had  left  behind  him  there.  This 
happened  in  Ethiopia.  But  the  Jerusalemites  who  had 
invaded  the  land,  along  with  those  polluted  ones  of 
Egyptian  origin,  bore  themselves  so  cruelly  that  the 
dominion  of  the   Shepherd  Kings  seemed  a  golden  age 


THE    MARCH    TO    SINAI.  199 

to  those  who  saw  tlie  present  wickedness.  For  not  only 
did  they  destroy  the  towns :  they  even  burned  down  the 
temples,  and  mutilated  the  carved  images,  and  habitually 
used  the  holy  of  holies  of  the  venerated  sacred  animals 
for  kitchens,  and  forced  the  priests  and  prophets  of  the 
holy  animals  to  kill  them  (for  food),  after  which  these 
venerable  men  were  themselves  killed,  and  their  bodies 
thrown  out,  naked,  on  the  streets.  It  is  said  that  the 
man  Osarsiph  of  HeliopoHs,  who  founded  their  state  and 
made  their  laws,  when  he  went  over  to  the  Shepherds, 
changed  his  name  and  was  called  Moses/ 

^'  I  pass  over,''  says  Josephus,  "  for  brevity,  other 
particulars  which  the  Egyptians  relate  of  the  Jews.  Ma- 
netho,  however,  tells  further,  that  Amenophis  afterwards 
returned  from  Ethiopia  with  a  great  army,  and  with  his 
son  Eameses,  who  also  led  an  army :  that  they  fought 
with  the  Shepherds  and  the  polluted  ones,  overcame  them, 
killed  many,  and  drove  the  rest  to  the  boundaries  of 
Syria.'' 

The  confusion  of  events  and  times  is  evident  in  this 
strange  story ;  but  there  seems  to  glimmer  through  it  a 
proof  that  the  Exodus  was  preceded  by  fierce  religious 
disputes  between  the  Hebrews  and  the  Egyptians,  and 
by  terrible  persecutions,  extending  even  to  the  better 
classes.  The  reproach  of  leprosy,  indeed,  was  only  an 
ordinary  expression  of  religious  hatred,  embodying  the 
idea  of  religious  rather  than  physical  impurity;  for  all 
"unclean"  persons  were  habitually  denounced  in  this  way. 

The  huge  Hebrew  camp  at  Ayun  Musa  broke  up  at 
last,  after  we  know  not  how  long  a  stay,  and  the  host 
moved  on,  following  its  leader,  to  the  south.  On  their 
right,  across  the  narrow  ribbon  of  blue  sea,  rose  the  wild 
peaks  of  the  Ataka  mountains,  almost  the  last  glimpse 
they  were  to  have  of  Africa ;  on  their  left,  Asia  was  shut 


200  THE    MARCH    TO    SINAI. 

out  from  them  by  the  hills  of  El  Raha ;  the  western  edge 
of  the  upland  wilderness  of  the  Tih.  The  track  still  used 
for  caravans  from  Sinai,  to  Suez  or  Cairo,  must  have  been 
followed  ;  leading  them  wearily,  at  some  distance  from  the 
sea,  amidst  the  glowing  heat^  of  skies  without  a  cloud,  over 
a  desert  hard  to  the  feet  and  strewn  with  sharp  flints.^ 
Wadys,  mostly  dry,  but  occasionally  trickling  with  salt- 
tasting  water,  had  to  be  crossed,  but  no  drinkable 
springs  invited  the  vast  host  to  refresh  themselves  and 
their  herds.  Everything  was  dreary  and  barren. 
Nothing  living  met  their  eye,  except  perhaps  a  raven,  a 
beetle,  or  a  lizard.^  High  sandhills  shut  out  the  sea  on 
their  right ;  the  Raha  hills  frowned  down  on  them  on  the 
other  side  of  the  march,  and  the  road,  whitened  with  the 
bleaching  bones  of  camels  which  had  fallen  by  the  way  * 
in  the  past,  grew  more  rolling  and  hilly  as  they  ad- 
vanced. It  was  the  wilderness  of  Shur.  For  three  days 
the  vast  multitude  toiled  along,  relying  on  the  waterskins 
they  had  brought  with  them  from  Ayun  Musa;  but  these 
were  at  last  exhausted,  and  the  agonies  of  thirst  began  to 
tell  on  all.  It  was  a  dismal  beginning  of  their  new 
history,  and  contrasted  keenly  with  the  expectations  they 
must  have  formed  after  their  triumphal  deliverance  from 
Pharaoh.  At  last,  however,  they  reached  Huwarah,  then 
known  as  Marah,  and  found  water,  but  it  was  too  salt  and 
bitter  to  drink.  Their  moral  training  had  already  begun. 
Jehovah  had  saved  them  at  the  Red  Sea,  and  would  have 
them  learn  to  trust  Him  for  the  future.  But  it  was  a 
hard  lesson,  and  the  camp  once  more  broke  out  in  loud 
murmurs  against  Moses.  It  was  indeed  an  awful  test 
of  their  reliance  on  their  unseen  Guide  and  Protector. 

*  Ebers  speaks  of  the  heat  as  scorching  even 'in  March.     Lurch 
Gosen,  p.  112. 
■■^  Ehers,  p.  114.      ^  xu^^^  p,  115,       4  Marah,  in  Biehn,  p.  953. 


THE    MAECH    TO    SINAI.  201 

Burton  describes  a  day  near  the  track  of  the  Israelites. 
"  At  dawn/^  says  he^  ''  it  is  mild  and  balmy  as  an  Italian 
spring,  and  inconceivably  lovely  in  the  colours  it  sheds  on 
earth,  air,  and  sky.  But  presently  the  sun  bursts  up 
from  the  sea,  a  fierce  enemy  that  will  force  every  one  to 
crouch  before  him.  For  two  hours  his  rays  are  endurable, 
but  after  that  they  become  a  fiery  ordeal.  The  morning 
beams  oppress  you  with  a  feeling  of  sickness,  their  steady 
glow  blinds  your  eyes,  blisters  your  skin  and  parches  your 
mouth,  till  you  have  only  one  thought — when  evening  is 
to  come.  At  noon  the  heat,  reverberated  by  the  glowing 
hills,  is  like  the  blast  of  a  limekiln.  The  wind  sleeps  on 
the  reeking  shore.  The  sky  is  a  dead  white.  Men  are 
not  so  much  sleeping  as  half  senseless.  They  feel  as  if 
a  few  more  degrees  of  heat  would  be  death.'^  ^  Under 
such  circumstances  the  want  of  water  is  an  indescribable 
calamity,  and  the  excitement  and  confusion  when  some 
is  found,  or  is  supposed  to  be  found,  are  terrible.  '^  The 
crowd  of  thirsty  men,'^  says  Buckingham,  describing 
such  a  scene,  "  plunged  at  once  into  the  stream  in  the 
darkness  of  the  night,  ignorant  of  its  depths,  which 
drowned  some  of  the  horses.  The  cries  of  the  animals, 
the  shouting  and  quarrelling  of  the  people,  and  the 
sense  of  danger  on  every  hand  was  awful.'^  ^  j^q  wonder 
that  in  the  wondrous  opening  passage  of  Mendelssohn^s 
"Elijah,''  genius,  trying  to  represent  the  despair  of  a 
whole  people  perishing  from  thirst — after  giving  it  vent 
at  first  in  sullen,  restless  murmurings,  pictures  it  as 
gathering  at  length  a  terrible  cumulative  strength,  and 
bursting  forth  almost  appallingly,  in  cries  of  heartrend- 
ing and  importunate  agony. 

Yet    help    was   near  at  hand,    could  they   but   have 

^  Burton's  Meccah,  3rd  ed.,  p.  145. 

2  Buckingham's  Mesopotamia,  vol.  ii.  p.  8. 


202  THE    MARCH    TO    SINAI. 

believed  in  tlie  God  to  wliom  tliey  had  vowed  tliemselvea 
so  recently.  "  And  Moses  cried  unto  Jehovah  ;  and 
Jehovah  showed  him  a  tree,  which  when  he  had  cast  into 
the  water,  the  waters  were  made  sweet/'  and  the  thirst 
of  all  relieved.  A  gracious  promise  was,  besides,  vouch- 
safed, that  if  they  faithfully  obeyed  the  Divine  commands 
and  followed  Jehovah  loyally  they  would  have  no  such 
diseases  sent  among  them  as  had  been  inflicted  on  the 
Egyptians. 

Huwarah  is  from  fifteen  to  seventeen  hours  of  the 
slow  tread  of  camels  from  Ayun  Musa,  and  thus  suits 
the  position  of  Marah,  as  "  three  days "  distant  from 
that  place.  On  a  sandhill  on  the  caravan  road  to  Sinai, 
surrounded  by  a  few  straggling  palms  and  thorn  bushes, 
there  is  still  a  shallow  spring,  from  which  Ebers,  at- 
tempting to  drink,  was  warned  off  by  his  guide  with  the 
cry,  ^^Morra,  Morra,"  the  Arab  for  Marah,  ^'bitter." 
Indeed,  even  after  his  adding  brandy,  it  was  found 
bitterly  salt.^  The  Arabs  and  their  camels  only  drink  it 
when  in  the  extremity  of  thirst,  and  even  then  some  will 
not  taste  it.^    The  small  quantity  of  water  now  found  has 

^  Ebers,  p.  117.  This  is  caused  by  the  action  of  sesqaicarbonate 
of  soda,  with  which  the  soil  of  the  whole  neighbourhood  is 
impregnated. 

2  Burckhardt,  in  Knobel's  Exodus,  p.  160.  Robinson  and 
Seetzen,  however,  say  their  camels  drank  readily  of  it.  Robin- 
son's PaUst,  vol.  i.  p.  106.  Its  taste  seems  to  depend  on  the  time 
of  the  year.  Kneucker  supports  the  opinion  that  the  Hebrews 
crossed  the  Red  Sea  far  above  Suez,  at  the  "Bitter  Sea,"  the 
water  then,  he  thinks,  reaching  thither.  He  consequently  fancies 
Marah  much  farther  to  the  north  than  Huwarah.  Bihel- Lexicon, 
vol.  iv.  p.  111.  There  is  certainly  at  the  place  he  indicates,  Ain 
Nuba,  three  hours  south  of  Suez,  a  very  bitter  sprino:,  of  much 
larger  volume  than  that  at  Huwarah.  Brugsch  and  Hitzig  also 
think  this  was  Marah,  supposing  that  the  crossing  took  place  at 
the  Bitter  Sea,  but  the  opinion  seems  untenable. 


THE    MARCH    TO    SINAI.  203 

been  urged  as  a  ground  for  questioning  tlie  correctness 
of  its  identification  with  the  Marah  of  Exodus,  but  the 
sand  may  have  choked  up  the  spring  in  thousands  of 
years,  besides  affecting  the  supply  otherwise,  and  more- 
over there  are  traces  of  its  much  greater  abundance  in 
some  years  than  in  others.  It  is  the  first  water  found  in 
any  quantity  after  leaving  Suez,  and  suits  the  require- 
ments of  the  sacred  narrative  both  as  to  distance,  and 
fi-om  the  fact  that  there  are  no  other  bitter  springs  in. 
the  neighbourhood.^ 

Travellers,  with  one  exception  hitherto,  have  failed  to 
discover  any  tree  or  plant  in  the  district  which  has  any 
effect  in  sweetening  the  spring.  Lesseps,  however,  tells 
us,  that  Arab  sheiks  assured  him  tbey  were  accustomed 
to  put  a  kind  of  barberry  which  grows  in  the  desert  into 
such  bitter  water,  to  make  it  palatable,^  and  the  remark 
of  Palmer  is  worthy  of  notice,  that  the  Bedouins  use  the 
word  "  tree  "  for  everything  with  any  medicinal  proper- 
ties.^ There  are,  besides,  in  other  countries,  plants  and 
trees  with  the  very  qualities  ascribed  by  Exodus  to  the 
tree  of  Marah.  Thus  a  tree  which  grows  on  the  coast 
of  Coromandel — the  Nellimaram — sweetens  bitter  water. 
The  missionary,  Kiernander,  tells  us  that  a  spring  in  the 
Mission  garden  having  become  bitter  from  want  of  rain, 
was  made  palatable  by  throwing  into  it  a  branch  of  this 
tree,  and  this  is  confirmed  by  another  missionary,  Sattler. 
The  bottoms  of  newly  dug  wells  are,  indeed,  floored  with 
the  Nellimaram,  by  the  Tamulese,  for  the  very  purpose  of 
keeping  the  water  sweet.  In  Peru,  also,  there  is  a  plant 
called  Yerva  by  the  Spaniards,   which  has  the  power  of 

^^  BarcJchardt  and  Wellsted,  quoted  by  Knobel,  p.  160.     Seetzeu'a 
Ueiscn,  vol.  iii.  p.  117. 
"  Ebers'  Darch  Gosen,  p.  117. 
^  Desert  of  the  Exodus,  vol.  i.  p.  83. 


204  THE    MARCH    TO    SINAI. 

purifying  any  water,  however  salt  or  bad,  and  making  it 
drinkable.  The  people  carry  it  with  them  whenever  they 
travel  any  distance,  to  correct  the  unwholesomeness  of 
the  water  on  the  road.^ 

Breaking  up  ^  from  Marah,  the  next  station,  two  hours 
farther  on,  was  Elim — "the  trees'' — so  called  from 
"seventy  palms''  which  marked  the  presence  of  no 
fewer  than  twelve  springs.  This  spot,  so  inviting  to  the 
Hebrews,  is  identified  by  most  with  the  Wady  Gharan- 
del,  only  two  and  a  half  hours  south  of  Huwarah  or 
Marah.  It  is  a  broad  hollow  running  north-east  to 
south-west,  from  near  the  hill  chain  of  El  Eaha  to  the 
sea,  a  distance  of  about  twelve  miles.  It  is,  after  that 
of  the  Wady  Feiran,  farther  on,  the  largest  oasis  of  the 
Sinai  Peninsula,  and  is  still  famous  among  the  Arabs 
for  the  abundance  of  its  waters,  though  their  estimate  in 
such  matters  is  that  of  Orientals,  rather  than  one  from 
Western  or  Northern  standards.  When  Ebers  visited  the 
wady,  in  March,  only  shrunken  threads  of  water,  hardly 
deep  enough  to  float  a  boy's  paper  boat,  were  visible;  but, 
as  he  tells  us,  one  needs  only  have  wandered  in  the 
desert  for  a  few  days  to  appreciate  the  worth  and  charm 
of  even  such  a  spot.  It  had  not  rained  for  a  length  of 
time,  so  that  the  water  did  not  reach  the  sea ;  but  the 
Arabs  said  that  it  did  so  after  wet  weather.  It  tastes 
somewhat  salt,  but  is  drinkable.    A  few  palms,  mostly  low 

^  Eosenraiiller's  Morgenland,  vol.  ii.  p.  29. 

2  The  rapidity  with  which  a  large  Eastern  encampment  breaks 
up  is  wonderful.  In  quarter  of  the  time  which  it  would  take  a 
poor  family  in  England  to  get  the  furniture  of  a  single  room 
ready  for  removal,  the  tents  of  a  large  encampment  will  be  struck, 
and,  together  with  all  the  movables  and  provisions,  packed  away 
on  the  backs  of  camels,  mules,  or  asses,  and  the  whole  party  will 
be  on  its  way,  leaving  not  a  rag  or  a  halter  behind  them. 
Fictorial  Bible,  vol.  i.  p.  87. 


THE    MARCH    TO    SINAI.  205 

and  bushy,  with  some  tamarisks  and  acacias^  ornament  the 
valley,  and  strips  of  grass  and  herbage  offer  pasture  for 
the  camels  of  passing  Arabs  or  travellers.^  But  vegeta- 
tion seems  to  have  been  much  more  abundant  in  former 
times,  for  old  travellers  speak  of  it  in  glowing  terms, 
dwelling  on  the  many  trees  and  the  small  copses  it 
boasted,  and  especially  noting  the  palms  and  numerous 
tamarisks ;  though  the  destruction  of  trees  by  the  Arabs 
for  ages  had  no  doubt  lessened  the  general  richness  which 
greeted  the  Hebrews.  The  soil  and  the  limestone  hills 
which  bound  the  valley  are,  on  the  whole,  however,  now 
very  bare.  On  the  other  side  of  the  sea,  dark,  shattered, 
and  verdureless,  rise  the  boundary  hills  of  Upper  Egypt, 
while  the  Raha  chain  shuts  in  the  view  on  the  east. 
But,  if  even  now,  the  valley  be  hailed  by  the  Arabs  as 
almost  a  Paradise,  in  comparison  with  the  desert  in  which 
it  lies,  what  must  it  have  been  3,500  years  ago  to  the 
weary  and  thirsty  Hebrews  ?  ^ 

From  Elim,  where  they  probably  rested  a  few  days, 
the  way  led  through  the  Wady  Taijibeh,  a  comparatively 
pleasant  valley  sprinkled  with  tamarisks,  bushes  and 
palms,  with  the  dwarf  trunks  and  shaggy  branches 
peculiar  to  their  kind  in  this  stony  region.^  Water  is 
found  in  wells,  which  have  been  sunk  in  past  ages  with 
great  labour,  but  Seetzen  heard  of  one  spot  with  a  rich 


1  Ebers'  Durch  Gosen,  p.  120. 

2  According  to  Niebuhr,  after  rain  a  powerful  stream  rushes 
down  to  the  sea  through  it.  {Beisehesch.,  vol.  i.  p.  227.)  Burck- 
hardb  says  there  is  a  copious  spring  with  a  small  stream,  and 
that  the  water  is  the  best  between  it  and  Cairo.  (Syria,  p.  778). 
Robinson  thinks,  that  though  salt,  it  is  not  so  disagreeable  as 
that  of  Huwarah.  The  short  distance  from  that  place  is  nothing, 
for  marches  of  nomades  are  determined  by  the  water  supply. 

*  Bitter's  Erdkunde,  vol.  xiv.  p.  769. 


206 


THE    MARCH    TO    SINAI. 


spring  and  many  date  trees.^  The  road  was  hilly,  and 
the  view  shut  in  on  both  sides;  the  limestone  of  the 
past  changing,  as  the  host  advanced,  into  red  and  light 


|:i 


^  Ebers  says  there  is  only  a  small  spring  of  bad  water.     Darch 
Gosen,  p.  124.     Who  will  reconcile  these  contradictions  ? 


THE    MARCH    TO    SINAI.  207 

yellow,  sandstone,  which  by  its  bright  colour  lends  a 
striking  character  to  the  landscape.  Eight  hours  from 
Gharandel  they  had  reached  the  huge  mountaiu  mass  of 
hard  limestone,  known  perhaps  ever  since  as  "  Pharaoh^s 
bath  ; ''  a  blunted  pyramid  rising  in  layers  for  1,000  feet, 
and  broader  than  its  height ;  its  sides  so  cleft,  rent,  worn, 
and  naked,  that  it  looks  like  the  wreck  of  some  giant 
conflagration.^  Great  gaps,  larger  and  smaller,  lead  far 
inward,  and  mineral  springs,  heated  in  its  depths  and 
passing  through  the  cracks  and  faults  of  the  rocks  which 
stretch  towards  the  coast,  come  to  light  on  the  shore 
amidst  clouds  of  steam,  as  hot  springs,  disagreeably  salt 
in  taste,  but  famous  among  the  Arabs,  as  a  cure  for  all 
ailments.  The  name,  Pharaoh's  bath,  they  say,  records 
how  Pharaoh,  for  his  sins  against  the  Hebrews,  was 
thrown  into  the  boiling  cauldrons  in  the  abysses  under 
the  hill,  to  suffer  there  in  the  scalding  depths  for  ever. 
Before  reaching  it,  the  road  had  crossed  Wady  Useit, 
dotted  with  a  few  wild  palms  and  a  small  pool  of  bad 
water;  then  on,  through  limestone  hills,  to  Wady  Thai, 
where  the  road  forks  east  and  west  up  other  wadys  to 
Wady  Taijibeh.  The  host  of  the  Hebrews,  with  their  herds 
and  waggons,  now  passed  through  a  succession  of  plains 
shut  in  by  naked  white-yellow  hills  and  rocky  walls  of 
sandstone,  many  of  which  in  the  distance  seem  like  the 
work  of  man.  Closing  on  all  sides  like  an  amphitheatre, 
they  so  surround  the  traveller,  that  he  looks  in  vain  for  an 
exit ;  but  as  he  advances,  the  way  opens  of  itself  after  a 
long  weary  ascent.  The  road  winds  on  thus  from  one  plain 
to  another,  every  short  advance  bringing  a  new  view 
exactly  similar  to  that  just  left.  The  shapes  of  the  hills, 
indeed,  vary,  but  as  long  as  the  sun  is  up  the  colours 
remain  the  same — yellow,  grey,  brown,  and  black ;  the 
^  Ebers'  Darcli  Gosen,  p.  121. 


208  THE   MAECH    TO    SINAI. 

only  tints,  as  it  appears,  that  nature  has  had  to  spare  for 
this  desert  regioD.  There  is  little  verdure,  and  even  the 
creatures  which  make  these  parts  their  dwelling,  the 
camel,  the  hyaena,  and  the  antelope,  have  the  colour  of 
the  wilderness  ia  which  they  are  bred.^  Mount  Taijibeh, 
however,  varies  the  landscape,  rising  in  sloping  beds  of 
different  colours ;  gold-yellow  bearing  on  it  great  bands 
of  red,  then  a  broad  belt  of  black,  and  this  is  crowned, 
finally,  by  a  summit  of  yellow.  Here,  on  the  edge  of  the 
Red  Sea,^  amidst  the  sound  of  its  waters,  the  tents  of 
the  Hebrews  were  once  more  pitched.^  Why  they  were 
led  thus  to  the  shore  again  we  can  only  conjecture.  Was 
it  for  the  springs  of  fresh  water  for  the  host  ?  Or  to  take 
advantage  of  the  landing  port  from  Egypt  for  the  Sinai 
mining  region,  which  might  secure  them  many  com- 
modities, of  which  they  would  hereafter  stand  in  need  ? 
Or  was  it  to  get  food  for  the  multitude,  from  the 
magazines,  and  from  vessels  in  the  harbour  ?  * 

^  Burch  Gosen,  p.  126.     So  with  the  lion  where  it  is  found. 

2  Various  supposed  derivations  of  the  name  "Red  Sea"  have 
already  been  given,  but  the  following,  with  which  I  have  just  «iet, 
seems  to  have  special  claims  to  notice.  "  As  we  emerged  from 
the  mouth  of  a  small  defile  the  waters  of  this  sacred  gulf  (the 
Eed  Sea)  burst  upon  our  view;  the  surface  marked  with  annular, 
crescent-shaped,  and  irregular  blotches  of  a  purplish  red,  extend- 
ing as  far  as  the  eye  could  reach.  .  .  .  This  red  colour  I  ascer- 
tained to  be  caused  by  the  subjacent  red  sandstone  and  reddish 
coral  reefs.  A  similar  phenomenon  is  observed  in  the  Straits 
of  Bab  el  Mandeb,  and  also  near  Suez,  particularly  when  the  rays 
of  the  sun  fall  on  the  water  at  a  small  angle." — The  late  Caplain 
Newbold,  in  Journ.  of  B.  Asiatic  Soc,  No.  xiii,  p.  78. 

3  Num.  xxxiii.  10. 

*  Ebers  thinks  that  the  number  of  men  fit  for  war— 600,000 — 
given  as  that  of  the  Hebrews  at  the  Exodus,  must  be  a  corrup- 
tion of  the  text,  copied  from  one  transcriber  to  the  other.  In 
explanation  of  his  opinion  he  says,  "  In  Goshen  two  millions  of 


THE    MAECH    TO    SINAI.  209 

The  road  from  the  seashore  encampment  led  for  some 
distance    along   the    coast. ^     Leaving    the    high    chalky 

people — the  gross  number  which  600,000  men  presupposes — not 
including  the  Egyptians  who  lived  among  them,  would  have  made 
a  denser  population  than  that  of  the  kingdom  of  Saxony:  in  other 
words,  it  would  not  have  been  an  agricultural,  far  less  a  pastoi  al 
people,  but  a  manufacturing.  The  whole  area  of  Sinai,"  he  con- 
tinues, "is  about  2,000  square  miles  (English),  so  that  if  the 
Israelites  had  ever  been  equally  distributed  over  it,  which  is  nob 
said,  and  naturally  coald  not  have  been  the  case, — leaving  out  of 
the  reckoning  the  resident  tribes  of  Midinnites,  Amalekites,  etc., — 
the  population  to  the  square  mile  would  have  been  10  per  cent, 
denser  than  in  the  Grand  Duchy  of  Weimar."* 

"The  water  supply  is  another  difficnlty.  Assuming  that  the 
Prussian  military  allowance  of  two  Prussian  qnarts  daily — eqnal 
to  half  a  gallon — was  required  for  each  person,  a  quantity  rather 
too  small  than  too  great  in  such  a  climate,  1,000,000  gallons  would 
be  required  each  day,  or  18,518  hogsheads.  But  all  the  cattle, 
which  were  very  numerous,  had,  besides,  to  be  supplied.  Allow- 
ing only  10  hours  a  day  for  water-drawing,  a  time  so  short  as  to 
be  wholly  unequal  to  the  requirements,  a  spring  would  have 
needed  to  yield  28  gallons  a  second  to  supply  the  human  wants, 
without  reckoning  those  of  the  cattle.  At  the  present  time  the 
Bedouins  of  the  district  are  in  serious  trouble  if  a  caravan  of  even 
a  few  hundred  men  draw  water,  in  passing,  from  even  their 
largest  springs;  lest  they  should  exhaust  it  for  the  time."  But 
the  populousness,  in  ancient  times,  of  neighbouring  districts,  now- 
well  nigh  as  barren  as  Sinai,  makes  all  these  calculations  of  no 
real  weight.     See  pp.  219,  332,  333. 

As  before  said,  moreover,  the  task  of  conquering  Palestine  de- 
manded a  very  large  force,  and  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  it  could 
liave  been  effected  if  the  Hebrew  immigration  had  only  the  small 
number  of  men  which  the  diminution  of  the  ordinary  estimate,  to 
any  great  extent,  would  imply.     See  p.  224. 

^  Palmer's  Explorations  on  Mount  Sinai,  p.  19.  Ebers'  Diirch 
Gosen,  p.  129.     Holland,  in  Recovery  of  Jerusalem,  p.  533. 

*  At  11,500  square  miles,  the  area  of  the  Peninsula  given  by  the  Ordnance 
survey,  2,000,000  would  give  174  to  the  square  mile  over  the  whole  surface, 
counting  the  mountains  as  level  ground. — Palmer's  Sinai,  p.  4.  The  2,000 
square  miles  of  Sinai  must  refer  only  to  the  triangle  of  the  Sinai  mountains. 

VOL.    TI.  P 


210  THE    MARCH    TO    SINAI. 

cliffs  of  Wady  Taijibeh,  with  their  blinding  glare,  tlie 
Hebrews  would  enter  on  tbe  plain  of  El  Markba,  called 
in  Exodus  the  wilderness  of  Sin,  which  runs  along  the 
strand — a  desolate  expanse  of  flints,  gravel  and  sand, 
nearly  destitute  of  vegetation,  broken  from  time  to 
time  by  equally  desolate  wadys  opening  on  it  from  the 
interior.  There  is  hardly  any  more  dismal  tract  in  the 
whole  peninsula.  Even  in  winter  the  heat  is  indescrib- 
able during  the  day,  and  it  was  now  approaching  the 
middle  of  the  year.  "  From  about  nine  till  eleven  in  the 
morning  of  a  bright  day,"  says  Captain  Palmer,  "  when 
the  sun's  power  is  not  yet  tempered  by  a  cooling  sea 
breeze,  travel  is  almost  intolerable,  especially  to  the  new 
comer.  Heat  is  everywhere  present,  seen  as  well  as  felt. 
The  waters  of  the  gulf,  beautiful  in  colour — deep  azure 
far  out  from  land ;  slowly  fading,  as  they  near  the  shore, 
to  the  most  delicate  blue,  are  mirror-like — almost 
motionless — breaking  on  the  beach  only  in  a  sluggish, 
quiet  ripple.  The  sky,  also  beautifully  blue,  is  clear, 
hot,  and  without  a  cloud ;  the  soil  of  the  desert  is  baked 
and  glowing.  The  camel-men,  usually  talkative  and 
noisily  quarrelsome,  grow  pensive  and  silent — their 
fiercest  wrangles  hushed  in  the  heat  of  a  fiercer  sun. 
The  camels  grunt  and  sigh,  yet  toil  along  under  their 
burdens,  in  a  resolute  plodding  way  which  one  can 
scarcely  understand.  Even  the  Bedouins,  usually  indif- 
ferent to  the  sun's  rays,  draw  their  thalebs,  or  white 
linen  tunics,  over  their  heads  and  shoulders,  and  tramp 
along  under  the  lee  of  their  camels;  glad  to  avail  them- 
selves of  the  niggard  scraps  of  shadow,  which,  though 
the  sun  is  now  approaching  the  meridian,  the  tall  forms 
of  these  animals  afford.  When,  at  last,  the  sea  breeze 
comes,  one  breathes  a  little  more  freely  :  the  heat, 
though  still  great,  feels  less  oppressive  ;  clouds  diversify 


THE    MARCH    TO    SINAI.  211 

tlie  sky  :  the  sea  breaks  into  life  and  motion,  and  all  tlie 
conditions  of  the  march  improve. 

'^  Evening  brings  with  it^  however,  the  pleasantest  part 
of  the  day,  but  the  halt  is  followed  by  a  scene  of  uproar 
and  confusion  which  almost  baffles  description.  The 
baggage  camels,  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten,  stoutly  refuse, 
at  first,  to  sit  down  to  be  unloaded,  and  each  animaFs 
refusal  is  the  signal  for  a  savage  onslaught  from  its 
master,  aided  by  every  available  ally  he  can  summon  to 
the  fray.  The  struggle  that  follows  is  desperate  and 
noisy:  the  camels  resist  with  a  hideous  series  of  un- 
earthly snarliug  roars  :  the  Bedouins  swell  the  din  by 
yells  and  screams,  and  curse  everything  they  can  think 
of;  especially,  of  course,  the  camel,  who,  perverse  as  he 
is,  gives  in  at  last/^  ^  In  the  unchanging  East  this  vivid 
picture,  no  doubt,  answers  in  the  main — if,  instead  of  a 
caravan  we  imagine  a  countless  host — to  the  scene  as 
the  Hebrews  toiled  wearily  on,  with  their  wives,  children, 
multitudinous  herds,  and  vast  aggregate  of  baggage. 

To  add  to  the  general  distress,  the  stores  of  wheat, 
flour,  and  food  of  various  kinds,  brought  from  Egypt, 
which  must  have  been  enormous  to  have  lasted  so  long, 
began  to  fail,  in  spite  of  any  additions  which  may  have 
been  procured  at  their  last  station ;  for  it  was  now  six 
weeks  since  they  had  crossed  the  Red  Sea.  Water  had 
failed  them  before,  and  the  intolerable  agonies  of  thirst 
had  raised  murmurs  against  Moses.  Fanaine  now 
threatened,  and  in  the  presence  of  this  new  fear,  the 
miracles  of  the  past  were  forgotten.  Fierce  cries  rose 
against  both  Moses  and  Aaron,  and  bitter  regrets  were 
heard  on  all  sides  that  they  had  not  stayed  in  slavery  on 
the  Nile,  where  they  had  had  "  flesh  pots,  and  bread  to  the 
full."'^^  It  is  hard  for  evea  the  best  of  men  to  trust  calmly 
*  Palmer's  ExiAorations,  p.  20.  "  Exod.  xvL  3. 


212  THE    MAECH   TO    SINAI. 

in  the  Providence  of  God  wlien  all  human  resources  are 
failing,  and  it  must  have  been  harder  still  for  a  mixed 
host  like  that  of  the  Hebrews,  to  whom  their  very- 
religion  was  new,  to  do  so.  They  had  not  realized  that 
since  they  were  under  the  care  of  Jehovah  Himself,  they 
could  never  want.  But  flesh  and  bread  were  about  to  be 
supplied  from  sources  they  little  imagined,  for  the  even- 
ing saw  a  great  flight  of  quails  alight  amidst  the  en- 
campment, and  on  the  next  morning  manna  covered 
the  ground  far  and  near. 

No  great  flocks  of  birds  of  any  kind  are  found  in  the 
Sinai  Peninsula,  though  Ebers,  in  the  Wady  Feiran,  saw 
single  birds,  and  among  them  our  common  starling.^ 
Quails,  however,  not  unfiequently  pass  over  it  in  great 
migratory  swarms,  on  their  way  from  the  interior  of 
Africa,  in  the  late  spring,  when  the  Hebrews  encountered 
them,  and  they  necessarily  aliglit  for  rest.  They  fly, 
as  a  rule,  in  the  evening,"  and  always  before  the  wind,^ 
keeping  near  the  ground* — birds  of  the  earth  rather 
than  of  the  air,  as  Pliny  remarks.^  Exhausted  with  their 
journey,  they  are  easily  killed  with  sticks,  or  caught  in 
nets,  or  even  by  the  hand.^     The   Egyptian  monuments 

1  Durch  Gosen,  p.  235.  2  Exod.  xvi.  13. 

3  Ps.  Ixxviii.  26.     Head  "  S.  E.  wind,"  for  *'E." 

**  Our  version,  in  Num.  xi.  31,  reads  as  if  the  quails  were  two 
cubits  thick  on  the  ground,  one  over  tbe  other.  It  should  be 
"flying  about  two  cubits  above  the  ground."  SeeKnobel,  Nu7n.^ 
p.  56.  Also,  Vtdgate.  The  Targum  of  Onhelos  rightly  saj^s — 
"  The  wind  bore  them  upon  the  camp  as  the  breadih  of  a  day's 
journey  here,  and  a  day's  journey  there,  round  about  the  camp, 
and  as  at  a  height  of  two  cubits  over  the  face  of  the  ground." 
Dean  Stanley  suggests  that  instead  of  quails  we  should  read 
storks,  from  the  height  above  the  ground,  but  the  true  sense 
shows  the  fancifuluess  of  this  explanation.  The  stork,  also,  is 
uneatable.  ^  Pliny,  Nat.  Hist,  x.  33. 

*  Furrcr,  in  Bihel  Lex.,  vol.  v.  p.  626. 


THE    MAECH   TO    SINAI.  213 

show  sucli  scenes,  and  the  quails  being  -snared  by  bird- 
catchers  with  nets  and  traps.  They  were  eaten,  in  many 
cases,  merely  dried  in  the  sun  and  salted,  without  being 
cooked — the  monuments  furnishing  pictures  of  the  pro- 
cess.^ So  plentiful  indeed,  were  these  birds  at  times,  that 
a  colony  of  wretched  Egyptian  offenders,  mutilated  by 
having  the  nose  cut  off,  and  banished  to  the  mouth  of 
Wady  el  Arish,  on  the  coast  between  Egypt  and  Pales- 
tine, are  recorded  to  have  lived  on  them,  by  setting  up 
nets  made  of  split  reeds,  along  the  shore,  to  entangle 
them  as  they  came,  in  clouds,  tired  and  heavy,  over  the 
sea.^  These  swarms  are  in  fact  familiar  in  many  parts 
of  the  East  In  Palestine,  and  on  the  Euphrates,  they 
are  very  common  after  the  spring  rains,  and  immense 
numbers  of  birds  are  caught  for  food  and  sale — their  flesh 
being  greatly  prized.^  Their  flight  being  weak,  they 
instinctively  select  the  shortest  sea  passages  in  their  mi- 
grations, and  avail  themselves  of  any  island  as  a  resting 
place.  Hence,  in  spring  and  autumn,  on  their  way  from 
Africa,  and  on  their  return  to  it,  they  are  slaughtered  in 
great  numbers  in  Malta  and  the  Greek  islands,  where 
they  remain,  each  time,  only  a  day  or  two.  It  was 
natural,  therefore,  that  the  Israelites  should  meet  them 
in  the  desert  of  Sin,  for  they  would  follow  the  land  in 
Africa  till  the  Red  Sea  was  narrowed  by  the  projecting 
Sinai  peninsula,  and  take  advantage  of  it  to  cross  to  Asia. 
Indeed,  vast  flocks  are  known  to  visit  the  Sinai  deserts, 
even  now,  at  the  time  of  migration.  Tristram  tells  us 
that  in  Algeria,  also,  he  has  found  the  ground  covered 
with  them,  over  many  acres,  at  daybreak,  where,  on  the 
preceding  afternoon,    there  had   not    been    one.      They 

'  Ebers'  Durch  Gosen,  p.  563.     E-awlinson's  Herod.,  ii.  110. 

2  Biodorus,  i.  60. 

^  Hammer,  Gesch.  d.  Osmanischen  Reiches,  2te  Auf.  vol.  i.  p.  724 


214  THE    MARCH    TO    SINAI. 

were  so  fatigue(3,  lie  adds,  tliat  tliey  scarcely  moved  till 
almost  trodden  upon.  He  noticed  the  same  phenomenon 
in  Palestine,  on  a  smaller  scale — catching  one  with  his 
hands,  in  the  Jordan  valley,  while  another  was  actually 
crushed  by  his  horse^s  feet.^ 

The  supply  of  manna  ^  has  been  variously  explained; 
but  though  natural  phenomena  may  indicate  the  direc- 
tion in  which  miraculous  aid  was  vouchsafed,  they  are 
inadequate,  in  their  ordinary  exhibition,  to  account  for 
the  whole  facts  recorded.  One  theory,  which  has  met 
with  favour  from  many,  is  that  manna  was  simply  the 
sugary  exudation  from  the  twigs  of  the  tamarisk  tree, 
which  from  the  earliest  ages  has  been  called  man,  or 
manna,  by  the  Arabs.  The  twigs,  not  the  feathery 
leaves,  distil  a  sweet,  syrupy,  honey-like  substance, 
which  falls  in  heavy  drops,  and  is  gathered  by  the 
Bedouins  and  put  into  leather  bags,  to  be  used,  in  part 
as  a  relish  with  their  thin  flat  bread ;  partly  for  sale  at 
Cairo,  and  to  the  monks  of  St.  Catherine's  convent  at 
Sinai. 

The  tamarisk  is  richer  in  sap  than  almost  any  other 
growth  of  the  Peninsula,  retaining  its  greenness  when 
everything  else  is  withered  by  the  fierce  summer  heat. 
Its  '^  manna  "  exudes  from  punctures  made  by  an  insect 
in  the  tender  skin  of  the  twigs  in  spring.  It  flows  most 
freely  after  heavy  rain,  but  needs  to  be  cleansed  and 
prepared  before  being  fit  for  food. 

"  White  manna  "  is  mentioned  on  the  Egyptian  monu- 

1  Tristram,  Nat.  Hist  of  the  Bible,  p.  231. 

'^  The  word  manna  seems  to  mean,  primarily,  "  a  gift "  (from 
God),  but  that  in  no  way  excludes  the  play  on  itr  by  the  Hebrews, 
as  was  usual  with  them,  by  making  it  also  mean  "  what  is  it  ?  '* 
which  its  form  permits.  Man-hu  was  also  an  Egyptian  word 
for  the  manna  of  the  tamarisk  tree. 


THE    MARCH    TO    SINAI.  215 

merits  as  a  kind  of  vegetable  food/  and  was  used  both 
in  offerings,  and  in  the  laboratory  as  a  medicine;  so 
that  the  substance  has  been  known  from  the  earliest 
times.  The  Bedouins  still  speak  of  it  as  '^  raining  from 
heaven/'  because  it  falls  from  the  trees  with  the  dew. 
Like  the  true  manna^  it  also  lies  on  the  ground  like  hoar- 
frost in  the  earliest  morning.  That  there  was  dew  when 
it  fell,  in  the  case  of  the  Hebrews  is,  by  the  way,  a  proof 
that  their  camp  was  not  in  the  arid  wilderness,  but  where 
water  and  pasture  existed.  The  appearance  of  'Svorms" 
in  what  was  gathered,  if  kept  too  long,  has  been  ex- 
plained by  that  of  the  larvae  of  the  fly  that  produces  the 
tamarisk  manna,  which  ere  long  show  themselves,  if  it  be 
not  cleansed  by  passing  through  a  coarse  cloth.  Like 
that  of  the  Bible,  this  manna  looks  like  coriander  seeds ; 
tastes  like  honey,  and  melts  in  the  sun.^ 

To  the  objection  that  the  tamarisk  manna  is  found 
only  for  a  month  or  two  in  spring,  Hitter  answers  that 
it  is  not  said  in  the  Bible  to  have  fallen  every  day  of 
the  year,  but  was  only  an  addition  to  the  food  of  the 
Hebrews,  who  had,  besides,  dat6s,^  and  flocks  and  herds, 
for  milk  and  flesh,*  and  doubtless  bought  food  from  the 
Amalekites,  Midianites,  and  Ishmaelites  who  lived  in 
the  district,  as  they  wished  afterwards  to  do  with  the 
Edomites.^ 

As  to  the  smallness  of  the  quantity  now  obtained, 
Ritter  says,  very  justly,  that  the  produce  of  the  few  trees 
at  present  existing,  cannot  be  taken  as  a  measure  of  that 
which  a  probably  much  greater  number  yielded  in  the 
days   of  Moses.       It    is  certain,   indeed,   that   Sinai,  in 

*  DurcJi  Gosen,  p.  226. 

2  Ritter,  Erdlcunde,  vol.  viii.  Absch.  i.  pp.  680  ff. 

3  Exod.  XV.  27. 

■»  Exod.  xii.  yS ;  xvii.  3.  ^  Deut.  ii.  6. 


216  THE    MAECH    TO    SINAI. 

ancient  times,  was  mucli  more  fertile  tlian  it  lias  since 
become.  "  There  is  no  doubt/'  says  Dean  Stanley,^  ^'  that 
the  vegetation  of  the  wadys  has  considerably  decreased. 
In  part  this  would  be  the  inevitable  effect  of  the  winter 
torrents.  The  trunks  of  palm  trees  washed  up  on  the 
shore  of  the  Dead  Sea,  from  which  the  living  tree  has 
now  for  many  centuries  disappeared,  show  what  may 
have  been  the  devastation  produced  among  those  moun- 
tains, when  the  floods,  especially  in  earlier  times,  must 
have  been  violent  to  a  degree  unknown  in  Palestine ; 
whilst  the  peculiar  cause — the  impregnation  of  salt — ■ 
which  has  preserved  the  vestiges  of  the  older  vegetation 
there,  has  here,  of  course,  no  existence." 

"  Long  before  the  children  of  Israel  marched  through 
the  wilderness,"  says  the  Rev.  F.  W.  Ilolland,^  ^^  the 
mines  were  worked  by  the  Egj^ptians,  and  the  destruc- 
tion of  trees  was  probably  going  on.  It  is  hardly  likely 
that  the  Israelites  themselves  would  have  passed  a  year 
in  an  enemy's  country,  knowing  that  they  were  to  march 
onwards,  without  adding  largely  to  this  destruction. 
Their  need  of  fuel  must  have  been  great,  and  they  would 
not  hesitate  to  cut  down  the  trees,  and  lay  waste  the 
gardens ;  and  thus,  before  they  journeyed  onwards  from 
Mount  Sinai,  they  may  have  caused  a  complete  change  in 
the  face  of  the  surrounding  district. 

"  It  is  a  well  known  fact  that  the  rainfall  of  a  country 
depends  in  a  great  measure  upon  the  abundance  of  its 
trees.  The  destruction  of  the  trees  in  Sinai  has,  no 
doubt,  diminished  the  rainfall,  which  has  also  gradually 
been  lessened  by  the  advance  of  the  desert,  and  decrease 
of  cultivation  on  the  north  and  north-west ;  whereby  a 
large  rain-making  area  has  been  gradually  removed, 

*  Sinai  and  Palestine,  p  26. 

*  Eecovery  of  Palestine,  p.  613. 


THE    MARCH    TO    SINAI.  217 

^^  In  consequence,  too,  of  tlie  mountainous  character  of 
the  Peninsula  of  Sinai,  the  destruction  of  the  trees  would 
have  a  much  more  serious  effect  than  would  be  the  case 
in  most  countries.  Formerly,  when  the  mountain-sides 
were  terraced,  when  garden-walls  extended  across  the 
wadys,  and  the  roots  of  trees  retained  the  moisture,  and 
broke  the  force  of  the  water,  the  terrible  floods  that  now 
occur  and  sweep  everything  before  them,  would  be  im- 
possible. 

''In  the  winter  of  1867  I  witnessed  one  of  the  greatest 
floods  that  has  ever  been  known  in  the  Peninsula.  I 
was  encamped  in  Wady  Feiran,  near  the  base  of  Jebel 
Serbal,  when  a  tremendous  thunder-storm  burst  on  us. 
After  little  more  than  an  hour^s  rain,  the  water  rose  so 
rapidly  in  the  previously  dry  wady,  that  I  had  to  run  for 
my  life,  and  with  great  difiiculty  succeeded  in  saving  my 
tents  and  my  goods ;  my  boots,  which  I  had  not  time  to 
pick  up,  were  washed  away.  In  less  than  two  hours  a 
dry  desert  wady,  upwards  of  300  yards  broad,  was  turned 
into  a  foaming  torrent,  eight  to  ten  feet  deep,  roaring 
and  tearing  down,  and  bearing  everything  before  it — 
tangled  masses  of  tamarisks,  hundreds  of  beautiful  palm- 
trees,  scores  of  sheep  and  goats,  camels  and  donkeys, 
and  even  men,  women,  and  children ;  for  a  whole  en- 
campment of  Arabs  was  washed  away  a  few  miles  above 
me.  The  storm  commenced  at  five  o'clock  in  the  even- 
ing ;  at  half-past  nine  the  waters  were  rapidly  subsiding, 
and  it  was  evident  that  the  hood  had  spent  its  force.  In 
the  morning  only  a  gently  flowing  stream,  a  few  yards 
broad,  and  a  few  inches  deep,  remained.  But  the  whole 
bed  of  the  valley  was  changed.  Here,  heaps  of  boulders 
were  piled  up,  where  hollows  had  been  the  day  before ; 
there,  holes  had  taken  the  place  of  banks  covered  with 
trees.     Two  miles  of  tamarisk  wood,  situated  above  the 


218  THE   MARCH    TO    SINAI. 

palm  groves,  liad  been  completely  washed  away,  and 
upwards  of  1,000  palm  trees  swept  down  to  the  sea. 

"  The  fact  is,  that  in  consequence  of  the  barrenness  of 
the  mountains,  the  water,  when  a  heavy  storm  of  rain 
falls,  runs  down  from  their  rocky  sides  just  as  it  does,  in 
Britain,  from  the  roofs  of  our  houses.  There  is  nothing 
in  the  valleys  to  check  it,  and  so  it  gathers  force  almost 
instantaneously,  and  sweeps  everything  before  it.  The 
monks  used  formerly  to  build  walls  across  the  gullies 
leading  down  from  the  mountains ;  they  planted  the 
wadys  with  fruit  trees,  and  made  terraces  for  their 
gardens,  and  these  checked  the  drainage  and  let  it  down 
by  degrees,  so  that  the  storms  in  those  days  must  have 
been  comparatively  harmless.  The  Amalekites  and 
former  inhabitants  of  the  Peninsula,  adopted  probably 
the  same  means  for  increasing  the  fertility  of  their 
country.'" 

Fire,  also,  has  played  its  part  in  making  Sinai  the 
desert  it,  in  great  part,  now  is ;  for  a  spark  from  the 
pipe  of  a  Bedouin  may  destroy  all  the  trees  of  a  valley. 
Charcoal  for  local  mining  purposes  must,  moreover,  have 
been  required  from  the  earliest  ages,  and  have  caused 
a  terrible  destruction  of  trees.  Even  now,  indeed,  that 
made  from  the  acacia  may  be  said  to  be  the  only  traffic 
of  the  Peninsula.^  Camels  loaded  with  it  are  constantly 
met  on  the  way  between  Cairo  and  Suez.  Hence,  in  the 
valleys,  from  which  the  acacia  wood  was  readily  procured 
by  the  Hebrews,  for  the  building  of  the  Ark  and  many 
other  sacred  uses,  the  tree  is  now  utterly  unknown. 

The  greater  number  of  trees,  formerly,  would,  more- 
over, not  only  increase  the  rainfall ;  the  fertility  of  the 
region,  thus  caused,  would  attract  a  denser  population 
than  can  now  exist  in  these  regions,  and  their  care  and 
^  Sinai  and  Palestine,  p.  27. 


THE   MAECH   TO   SINAI.  219 

labour  would  increase  the  vegetable  richness  of  the  dis- 
trict. Nor  are  indications  wanting,  both  in  the  Sinai 
Peninsula  and  in  the  desert  regions  south  of  Palestine, 
of  the  presence  of  a  far  larger  population  than  the  pre- 
sent. The  Egyptian  mines  created  extensive  intercourse 
with  the  Nile ;  and  in  Edom,  and  the  southern  wilderness 
of  the  Tih,  remains  of  cities  still  prove  that  a  traffic  and 
bustle  of  human  life,  almost  inconceivable  at  this  day, 
once  animated  these  now  silent  landscapes. 

Yet,  with  every  allowance  for  greater  fertility  over 
the  Peninsula  and  the  desert  north  of  it  in  the  time  of 
Moses,  we  fear  that  the  explanation  of  the  supply  of 
manna  as  having  come  from  the  tamarisk  tree  is  wholly 
inadequate. 

Another  idea  has,  however,  been  advanced — that  of 
its  having  been  derived  from  the  manna  rains  known  in 
various  countries.  There  is  an  edible  lichen  which 
sometimes  falls  in  showers  several  inches  deep,  the  wind 
having  blown  it  from  the  spots  where  it  grew,  and  carried 
it  onwards.  In  1824  and  in  1828,  it  fell  in  Persia  and 
Asiatic  Turkey  in  great  quantities.  In  1829,  during  the 
war  between  Persia  and  Russia,  there  was  a  great  famine 
at  Oroomiah,  south-west  of  the  Caspian  Sea.  One  day, 
during  a  violent  wind,  the  surface  of  the  country  was 
covered  with  what  the  people  called  '^  bread  from 
heaven,^'  which  fell  in  thick  showers.  Sheep  fed  on  it 
greedily,  and  the  people,  who  had  never  seen  it  before, 
induced  by  this,  gathered  it,  and  having  reduced  it  to 
flour,  made  bread  of  it,  which  they  found  palatable  and 
nourishing.  In  some  places  it  lay  on  the  ground  five  or 
six  inches  deep.  In  the  spring  of  1841,  an  amazing 
quantity  of  this  substance  fell  in  the  same  region,  cover- 
ing the  ground,  here  and  there,  to  the  depth  of  from 
three  to  four  inches.     Many  of  the  particles  were  as  large 


220  THE   MARCH   TO   SINAI. 

as  hailstones.  It  was  grey,  and  sweet  to  tlie  taste,  and 
made  excellent  bread.  In  1846  a  great  manna  rain,  which 
occurred  at  Jenischehr,  during  a  famine,  attracted  great 
notice.  It  lasted  several  days,  and  pieces  as  large  as  a 
hazel-nut  fell  in  quantities.  When  ground  and  baked  it 
made  as  good  bread,  in  the  opinion  of  the  people,  as  that 
from  grain.  In  1846  another  rain  of  manna  occurred  in 
the  government  of  Wilna,  and  formed  a  layer  upon  the 
ground,  three  or  four  inches  deep.  It  was  of  a  greyish 
white  colour,  rather  hard,  irregular  in  form,  without 
smell,  and  insipid.  Pallas,  the  Russian  naturalist,  ob- 
served it  on  the  arid  mountains  and  limestone  tracts  of  the 
Great  Desert  of  Tartary.  In  1828,  Parrott  brought  some 
from  Mount  Ararat,  and  it  proved  to  be  a  lichen  known 
as  Parmelia  Esculenta,  which  grows  on  chalky  and  stony 
soil,  like  that  of  the  Kirghese  Steppes  of  Central  Asia. 
Eversmann  described  several  kinds  of  it,  last  century, 
as  found  east  of  the  Caspian,  and  widely  spread  over 
Persia  and  Middle  Asia.  It  is  round,  and  at  times  as 
large  as  a  walnut,  varying  from  that  to  the  size  of  a  pin's 
head,  and  does  not  fix  itself  in  the  soil  in  which  it  grows, 
but  lies  free  and  loose,  drinking  in  nourishment  from  the 
surface,  and  easily  carried  off  by  the  wind,  which  sweeps 
it  away  in  vast  quantities  in  the  storms  of  spring,  and 
thus  causes  the  "  manna  rains ''  in  the  districts  over 
which  the  wind  travels.^ 

It  has  been  acutely  remarked  ^  that  the  description  of 
manna  in  Exodus  seems  to  imply  that  there  were  two 
kinds  of  it,  since  the  same  substance  could  not  "  be 
ground  in  mills  or  beaten  in  mortars ''  and  yet  "  melt  in 

^  Ritter,  Erdhunde,  vol.  viii.  Absch.  i.  pp.  680  ff.  Macmillan's 
Footnotes  from  the  Page  of  Nature,  p.  104. 

2  Kalisch,  Exodus,  p.  214.  Robinson's  Palestine,  vol.  i.  p.  170. 
Laborde's  Exodus  and  Numbers,  p.  97. 


THE    MAECH    TO    SINAI.  221 

the  sun/'  There  would  then  be  room  for  supposing  that 
both  the  tree  and  the  lichen  manna  may  have  played  a 
part  in  the  supply  of  the  Hebrews;  but,  in  any  case, 
there  were  special  features  which  imply  miraculous 
agency.  The  quantity  of  manna  now  gathered  in  the 
Peninsula  in  the  best  season  is  not  more  than  600  or  700 
pounds  weight  a  year,  and  generally  not  more  than  a 
third  of  this  quantity,  so  that  no  probable  estimate  of  the 
greater  fertility  of  the  district  in  ancient  times  could 
suppose  the  production  equal  to  the  wants  of  the  vast 
host  of  Israel.  That  which  they  enjoyed  was  nutritious 
and  satisfying,  whereas  the  tree  manna  is  rather  a  condi- 
ment than  a  food,  and  was  rightly  classed  by  the  Ancient 
Egyptians,  for  its  effects  on  the  body,  as  a  drug,  and  kept, 
as  such,  in  the  medical  storerooms  found  in  all  temples. 
That  a  double  quantity  fell  on  the  sixth  day,  and  none 
on  the  seventh,  points,^  moreover,  to  direct  providential 
arrangements,  and  it  certainly  looks  as  if  the  tree  manna, 
which  has  always  been  well  known,  could  not  have  been 
so  great  a  wonder  to  the  Hebrews,  as  to  have  required  a 
sample  to  be  preserved  to  future  generations. 

The  explanations  of  earlier  writers  have,  at  times,  been 
very  curious.  Manna  was  supposed,  for  instance,  to 
have  been  the  dust  of  trees  blown  off  by  the  air,  or 
sweet  vapours  rising  from  them,  and  falling,  when  con- 
densed by  the  dew,  in  a  thick  honey-like  substance. 
Air  manna  was  the  name  given  to  this  fanciful  creation. ^ 

^  The  words  "abide  ye  every  man  in  his  place  on  the  seventh 
day,"  were  held  by  one  Jewish  sect  as  a  command  that  no  one 
should  move  at  all  during  the  whole  sabbath  from  the  spot  and 
position  in  which  its  commencement  found  him.  Routh,  On 
Hegesipjous,  B.  S.,  vol.  i.  p.  225. 

^  See  a  long  Usfc  of  authorities  in  Rosen miiller's  Das  Alte  u. 
Neue  Morgenland,  vol.  ii.  p.  34 


222  THE   MAECH    TO   SINAI. 

'^  The  intense  heat  in  Arabia/'  says  Oedman,  ^'  draws  a 
number  of  sweet  juices  from  the  trees  and  shrubs  grow- 
insf  there,  and  the  odours  of  these  rise  in  the  air  and  float 
so  long  as  they  are  lighter  than  the  atmosphere,  but 
thicken  as  the  evening  cools,  and  fall  with  the  dew  in  a 
sticky  honey-like  form/'  This  theory  is  supported  by 
authorities  which  are  at  least  curious,  however  scientifi- 
cally incorrect.  Avicenna/  in  his  great  book  on  medi- 
cine, describes  manna  as  ^^  a  dew  which  falls  on  stones  or 
plants,  has  a  sweet  taste,  is  of  the  thickness  of  honey, 
and  hardens  into  a  grainlike  form.''  In  another  place  he 
speaks  of  a  kind  of  manna  which  is  the  vapour  of  trees 
and  plants,  undergoing  a  certain  preparation  in  the  air 
and  falling  like  honey,  at  night,  on  trees  and  stones.  In 
the  same  way  Aristotle  says,  '^  Honey  falls  from  the  air, 
especially  at  the  ascent  of  the  larger  stars,  and  when 
the  rainbow  is  seen,  but  not  before  the  rising  of  the 
Pleiades."  Pliuy,  agreeing  with  this,  writes,  "  From  the 
rising  of  the  Pleiades  honey  falls  from  the  air,  about  day- 
break. At  that  time  the  leaves  of  the  trees  are  found 
bedewed  with  honey,  and  any  one  early  afoot  has  his 
clothes  as  it  were  anointed,  and  his  hair  ropy."  Shaw, 
in  strange  keeping  with  these  fancies,  tells  us  that  when 
travelling  in  Palestine,  his  bridle  and  saddle  were  one 
night  covered  with  sticky  dew.  The  monks  at  Sinai  also 
speak  of  manna  falling  on  the  roof  of  their  cloister,  but 
this  may  be  the  manna  of  the  tamarisk,  carried  by  the 
air. 

A  number  of  trees,  in  fact,  yield  more  or  less  of  a  sweet 
substance  known  as  manna.  Two  kinds  of  ash  in  Sicily 
and  Italy  produce  it ;  the  camel's  thorn  of  India,  Egypt, 
Arabia,  Northern  Persia  and    Syria,    is  equally  famous 

^  Born  near  Bokhara,  a.d.  978.  Died  at  Ecbatana,  in  Persia, 
A.D.  1036. 


THE    MAECE    TO    SINAI.  223 

over  these  widely  separate  regions ;  tlie  plant  called 
gliarb,  wliicli  grows  in  the  valley  of  the  Jordan,  yields 
what  is  called  the  Beiruk  honey,  and  several  kinds  of 
oak,  in  different  countries,  have  also  a  saccharine  exuda- 
tion, due  to  the  punctures  of  the  leaves  by  insects.  All 
these  sorts,  which,  however,  are  rather  a  form  of  sugar 
than  any  more  substantial  food,  are  gathered  for  use, 
but  they  throw  little  light,  after  all,  on  the  manna  of  the 
Hebrews.  The  edible  lichen  seems  in  all  respects  most 
similar  to  the  famous  "  heavenly  bread  '^  of  Sinai  and 
the  wilderness,^  but  there  is  no  record  of  its  having 
been  observed  in  the  Peninsula  of  Sinai.  Dean  Stanley 
forcibly  sums  up.  the  improbability  of  the  tamarisk 
manna  being  that  of  Exodus  :  "  An  exudation  like  honey, 
produced  by  insects  ;  used  only  for  medicinal  purposes  j 
falling  on  the  ground  only  from  accident  or  neglect, 
and  at  present  produced  in  sufficient  quantities  only'  to 
support  one  man  for  six  months,  has  obviously  but  few 
points  of  similarity  with  the  '  small  round  thing,  small  as 
the  hoar  frost  on  the  ground ;  like  coriander  seed,  white; 
its  taste  like  wafers  made  with  honey ;  gathered  and 
ground  in  mills,  and  beat  in  a  mortar,  baked  in  pans  and 
made  into  cakes,  and  its  taste  as  the  taste  of  fresh  oil.''  " 
In  his  opinion  the  manna  of  Kurdistan  and  Persia — the 
edible  lichen,  ^'far  more  nearly  corresponds  to  the  Mosaic 
account.''^  ^     Vaihinger  thinks  that   the  tamarisk  manna, 

^  Furrer  thinks  the  tamarisk  manna  that  of  Exodus.  Bibel  Lex., 
vol.  iv.  p.  109.  So  also  does  the  author  of  the  art.  Manna,  in 
Riehm's  Handimrterhucli.  Ebers'  Durch  Gosen,  pp.  223-247. 
Winer,  Realivdrte7'huch,  art.  Manna.  Bitter,  ErdJainde,  vol.  xiv. 
pp.  665  ff.  Miihlau  and  Yolck,  Gesenius'  Lex.,  8te  Auf.  p.  478. 
Kuobel,  Exodus,  p.  173.  Captain  Palmer  thinks  the  quantity  too 
small  to  have  ever  been  of  any  moment,  while,  besides,  it  is  only 
found  in  May  and  June.    Recent  Explorations,  p.  24. 

"  Sinai  and  Palestine,  vol.  i.  p.  28. 


221  THE   MAPcCH   TO    SINAI. 

even  if  miraculously  increased,  would  not  satisfy  the  re- 
quirements of  the  sacred  narrative.  His  closing  remarks 
deserve  quotation  on  various  grounds.  "  All  recent 
travellers/'  says  he,  ''inform  us  that  the  whole  penin- 
Bula  has  not  at  this  time  over  6^000  inhabitants,  and 
maintain  that  its  barren  soil  could  not  support  many 
more.  But  as  in  the  time  of  the  Exodus  there  were 
Midianites  in  the  south  of  it,  and  Amalekites  in  no  small 
number  lived  in  its  northern  parts,  it  seems  hardly  con- 
ceivable how  a  nation  of  2,000,000  persons  could  find 
room  in  addition,  and  secure  food.  Yet  this  estimate  of 
the  Israelites  is  confirmed  by  two  different  reckonings,^ 
which  must  certainly  rest  on  old  population  rolls,  and 
would  be  needed  for  the  conquest  of  a  country  so  thickly 
peopled  and  strongly  fortified  as  Canaan.  An  increase 
of  fertility  to  the  extent  of  five-hundredfold  must  there- 
fore be  assumed  during  forty  years,  to  explain  the  sup- 
port of  the  Israelites,  and,  moreover,  the  tamarisk  manna 
cannot  be  made  into  bread. 

''  If,  besides,  the  number  of  Israelites  at  the  Exodus  is 
right,  and  we  have  no  reason  for  doubting  it :  if  the 
forty  years'  wandering  in  the  wilderness  be  a  historical 
fact;  nothing  remains  but  to  regard  the  manna  as  a 
miraculous  gift  for  the  support  of  the  Chosen  People/-'  ^ 

^  Exod.  xii.  37.     Num.  i.  66;  ii.  32;  xxvi.  51. 
2  Yaihinger,  in  Herzog,  vol.  viii.  p.  795.    He,  of  course,  believes 
in  the  forty  years'  wandering. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

STILL   ON    THE    WAY   TO    SINAI. 

THE  road  taken  by  the  Hebi'ews  after  leaving  the  sea 
coast  is  so  uncertain,  that  we  cannot  do  better  than 
follow  the  leading  of  so  learned  and  interesting  a  guide 
as  Professor  Ebers.  Leaving  the  barren  sweep  of  the 
Desert  of  Sin,  which  stretches  along  the  seashore  to  the 
very  south  of  the  Peninsula,  the  mountain  system  of 
8inai  was  close  before  them  in  all  its  grandeur.  Huge 
precipices  and  peaks  of  every  form,  in  bands  and  masses 
of  grey,  red,  brown,  green,  chalk-white  and  raven-black, 
rose  on  every  side.  It  seemed  as  if  *'  legions  of  evil 
spirits  had  united  their  strength  and  hostility  to  life, 
in  piling  up  the  hard,  naked,  desolate,  barren  cliffs, 
pinnacles,  peaks,  and  perpendicular  walls;  to  be  alone 
amidst  which  would  be  to  despair/'  Yet  the  spirit  of 
gain  had  led  men  even  here,  for  ages  before  Moses.  It 
was  the  beginning  of  the  mining  district  of  the  Ancient 
Egyptians.  The  route  lay  through  Wady  Maghara,  past 
Wady  Sidr,  to  Wady  Mokatteb.  Mighty  walls  of  rock 
on  both  sides  appeared  to  block  up  the  way  with  masses 
hewn  by  Titans  and  heaped  up  one  on  the  other.  Red  and 
black  stones,  broken  as  small  as  if  by  the  hand  of  man, 
lay  in  great  heaps,  or  strewed  the  path,  which  led  imper- 
ceptibly upwards,  through  passes   disclosing  fresh  land- 

VOL.    II.  225  Q 


226  STILL   ON   THE   WAY  TO   SINAI. 

scapeSj  at  tlie  sighfc  of  wliicli  the  pulses  tlirobbed  and 
a  shudder  ran  through  the  frame.  Countless  piunacles 
and  peaks,  cliffs  and  precipices,  of  every  colour — white 
and  grey,  sulphurous  yellow,  blood-red  and  ominous 
black,  rose  anew  in  wild  confusion  and  to  vast  heigflits.* 
Wady  Maghara,  a  wide  valley,  closed  in  by  two  high  and 
rocky  mountains — the  Ta  Mafka  of  the  Egyptians  and 
the  Dophkah  ^  of  the  Hebrews,  now  opened  before  the 
host :  its  steep  and  lofty  southern  cliffs  of  dark  granite ; 
its  northern,  of  red  sandstone  varied  by  a  light  brown. 
Here,  for  well  nigh  a  thousand  years  before  the  days  of 
Moses,  the  Egyptians  had  worked  their  treasured  mines 
of  copper  and  turquoise,  a  stone  to  which,  even  now 
the  Arabs  ascribe  the  power,  when  worn,  of  warding 
off  misfortune,  strengthening  the  eyesight,  gaining  the 
favour  of  princes,  securing  victory  over  enemies,  and 
driving  away  bad  dreams.^  In  the  midst  of  the  valley 
rose  a  hill,  surrounded  by  a  wall,  and  crowned  with  small 
stone  houses  for  the  guard,  the  officers  and  the  over- 
seers ;  their  only  roofs  a  slight  covering  of  palm  branches 
brought  from  the  Oasis  of  the  Amalekites,  which  was 
near.*  On  the  highest  peak  of  the  hill,  where  it  was 
most  exposed  to  the  wind,  were  the  smelting  furnaces, 
and  a  manufactory  where  a  peculiar  green  glass  was 
prepared,  in  imitation  of  emerald ;  that  stone  itself  being 
found  only  more  to  the  south,  on  the  western  shore  of 
the  Red  Sea. 

Inscriptions  and  rude  sculptures,  which  still  remain, 
show  the  extreme  antiquity  of  these  mines;  the  very 
oldest  of  which  we  have  any  record;  dating  further 
back  than  three  thousand  years  before  Christ.^  One 
group  shows  three  figures  bearing  the  royal  crown ;  the 

1  Ebers'  JJarda,  vol.  ii.  p.  160.  2  ^^^^  xxxiii.  12. 

3  purch  Gosen,  p.  137.        ^  TJarda,  vol.  ii.  p.  162.        ^  Ehers. 


STILL   ON   THE   WAY   TO   SINAI.  227 

tliird  holding  fast,  with  his  left  hand,  an  enemy  wearing 
a  feather  headdress,  who  kneels  at  his  feet — the  repre- 
sentative of  the  whole  local  population ;  the  right  hand 
being  raised  to  strike  the  suppliant  a  deadly  blow  with 
an  uplifted  war-club.  The  Pharaoh  thus  portrayed,  is 
Inefou,  the  last  king  of  the  ancient  Third  Dynasty ;  be- 
side him  is  Cheops,  the  builder  of  the  Great  Pyramid. 

After  leaving  Egypt  the  Hebrews  had  advanced 
leisurely,  with  abundant  time  for  stragglers  to  regain 
the  main  body  at  each  change  of  the  encampment.  They 
had  rested  and  refreshed  themselves  at  well-chosen  spots, 
where  the  cattle  could  be  watered,  fed  and  cared  for,  and 
the  flesh  of  slaughtered  animals  divided  and  cooked. 
How  long  the  stay  at  each  halting  place  had  been  is  not 
told,  but  it  must  always  have  been  more  than  one  day, 
as  it  would  have  been  impossible  for  the  whole  multitude 
to  break  up,  and  encamp  afresh,  daily.  But,  in  spite  of 
all  the  care  of  Moses,  the  region  through  which  he  was 
leading  his  people  sadly  dispirited  them.  The  terrible 
Wilderness  of  Sin  had  been  succeeded  by  landscapes  of 
such  almost  unequalled  desolation  and  wildness  that  even 
the  Romans,  in  after  ages,  were  appalled  by  their  savage 
horrors,  as  of  huge  Alps,  bared  to  their  stony  skeletons, 
with  no  display  of  verdure  on  their  gloomy  sides. 
Through  such  scenes  the  host  had  advanced ;  surrounded 
and  pressed  together  by  narrow  defiles ;  the  hanging 
rocks  overhead  apparently  ready  to  topple  down  on 
them ;  stumbling  over  loose  stones  and  wearily  climbing 
up  rocky  paths;  offering  no  green  blade  towards  which 
the  thirsty  tongue  of  the  cattle  might  stretch  out;  the 
herds  of  camels  and  cattle,  and  the  flocks  of  sheep, 
blocking  up  the  narrow  gorges,  and  hindering  the  march 
of  the  men,  women  and  children.  The  road  they  had 
thus  passed  had   been    terrible^    but    that   which   now 


228  STILL   ON   THE    WAY   TO   SINAI. 

opened  before  them  must  have  looked  like  the  valley  of 
death.  They  would  have  been  more  than  human  if  they 
had  been  able  to  endure,  without  a  murmur,  experiences 
so  different  from  those  which  they  had  fancied  liberty 
would  bring  them.^ 

Why  should  Moses  have  led  them  so  terrible  a  road  ? 
The  question  can  be  answered  only  when  we  know  whom, 
and  what,  the  great  leader  expected  to  find  at  Dophkah. 

Inscriptions  still  remaining  show  that  the  mines  in 
this  gloomy  region  were  in  full  operation  during  the 
reign  of  Raraeses  II.,  the  Oppressor,  but  none  have 
been  found  of  that  of  his  successor,  the  Pharaoh  of  the 
Exodus ;  a  fact  which,  together  with  the  evident  richness 
of  the  abandoned  workings,  seems  to  point  to  some 
external  cause  having  led  to  their  sudden  stoppage. 

Copper  was  very  early  known  not  only  in  Western 
Asia  and  Egypt,  but  also  in  Palestine.^  Homer  speaks 
of  Sidon  as  ^'  rich  in  copper,"  and  the  metal  is  mentioned 
no  less  than  forty  times  in  the  Pentateuch,  while  iron 
is  mentioned  only  twice,  if  we  except  the  notices  in 
Deuteronomy.     In  the  book  of  Job  we  are  told 

"  There  is  a  vein  for  the  silver, 
And  a  place  for  gold,  whick  they  refine ; 
Iron  is  taken  out  of  the  earth, 
And  they  melt  stone  into  copper. 
Man  sinketh  a  shaft  far  from  a  sojourner ;  * 
There  the  forgotten  live,  away  from  the  feet  of  passers  by; 
Away  from  man  they  hover  ^  on  the  rocks." 


^  JDurch  Gosen,  p.  149. 

*  Mover's  Phonizier,  vol.  ii.  p.  66. 
'^  Far  from  human  dwellings. 

*  Job  xxviii.  2-4.     An  obscure  passage.     The  rendering  given 
is  combined  from  Delitzsch,  Dillmann  and  Merx. 


STILL   ON   THE    WAY   TO    SINAI.  229 

In  the  City  of  tlie  Dead  at  Memphis,  many  bronze  and 
copper  articles  are  found,  which,  like  the  mines  of  the 
Wady  Maghara,  date  as  far  back  as  the  time  of  the 
pyramids ;  and,  indeed,  the  wondrously  fine  hewing  o£ 
the  blocks  of  stone  by  the  builders  of  these  structures ; 
the  delicate  sculptures  in  relief  in  the  graves  of  Gizeh; 
and,  especially,  the  almost  matchless  statues  of  Cephrenes, 
the  builder  of  the  Second  Pyramid,  cut  out  of  the  hardest 
breccia,  would  have  been  impossible  without  metal 
tools.^ 

The  condition  of  the  miners  in  the  torrid  and  desolate 
Egyptian  workings  at  Sinai  was  sad  in  the  extreme ;  for 
"  to  work  in  the  mines  ''  had  as  ominous  a  meaning  to 
the  population  of  the  Nile,  as  it  now  has  in  Russia  when 
spoken  of  the  mines  of  Siberia.  Many  notices  on  the 
monuments  cast  a  dismal  light  on  the  horrors  of  those 
condemned  to  this  fate,  but  a  still  more  vivid  picture 
of  them  has  been  left  us  by  an  old  Greek  writer,  who 
describes,  from  personal  knowledge,  the  misery  of  the 
labourers  in  the  gold  mines  which  lay  on  the  boundaries 
of  Egypt  and  Nubia,  between  the  Nile  and  the  Red  Sea.*^ 

"  The  kings  of  Egypt,^'  says  he,  "  send  to  the  gold 
mines  condemned  criminals,  prisoners  of  war,  and  persons 
convicted  on  false  accusation,  or  banished  in  the  heat  of 
passion.  By  this  means  they  procure  the  labour  neces- 
sary to  obtain  the  great  treasures  these  mines  yield ;  the 
punishment  being  often  extended  not  only  to  the  offender, 

^  Ebers  thinks  these  must  have  been  of  copper,  which  he 
assumes  to  have  preceded  iron,  as  childhood  does  manhood.  But 
Dr.  Dahn,  on  the  other  hand,  proves  that  iron  is  often  foand 
earlier,  not  only  than  copper,  but  even  than  bronze.  UrgescJdclde 
der  Germanischen  Vollcer,  1881,  vol.  i.  p.  4. 

2  Agatharcides  (about  B.C.  150),  quoted  by  Diodorus  Siculua, 
iii.  12,  13,  U. 


230  STILL    ON    THE    WAY    TO    SINAI. 

but  to  all  related  to  him.  The  number  of  the  convicts 
is  very  great_,  and  they  are  all  chained  by  foot  irons,,  and 
have  to  work  continually,  without  an  interval  for  rest. 
Not  only  is  there  no  break  of  work  for  them  by  day :  the 
very  night  brings  them  none,  and,  withal,  every  chance 
of  escape  is  cut  off  from  them ;  for  foreign  soldiers, 
whose  language  they  do  not  understand,  are  set  over 
them,  so  that  no  one  can  move  his  guard  by  friendly 
words  or  entreaties.  Where  the  gold-bearing  soil  is 
hardest,  huge  fires  are  kindled  to  loosen  the  ground, 
before  the  miners  begin  to  dig;  but  as  soon  as  the  rock 
is  burnt  enough  to  require  less  violent  labour,  many 
thousands  of  the  unfortunates  are  set  to  break  it  up  with 
quarry  tools.  The  oversight  of  the  whole  work  is  under 
the  charge  of  a  skilled  officer,'  who  knows  the  difference 
between  rich  and  poor  stone,  and  directs  the  toilers  ac- 
cordingly. The  strongest  drive  shafts  into  the  rocks;  not 
in  a  straight  line,  but  as  the  glittering  metal  may  lead, 
and  these  shafts  wind  and  turn  so  that  the  hewers  have 
to  work  with  a  lamp  on  their  forehead,  else  they  would 
be  in  total  darkness.  They  have,  moreover,  constantly  to 
change  their  position  as  the  rock  demands,  till  finally 
they  get  the  pieces  broken  oft'  and  thrown  down  on  the 
floor  of  the  galleries.  Meanwhile,  the  overseers  keep 
them  up  to  this  heavy  task  by  roughness  and  blows. 

'^  The  boys  who  have  not  yet  come  to  their  strength, 
have  to  go  into  the  shafts  in  the  rocks,  and  painfully 
raise  and  drag  out  to  the  open  day,  the  pieces  of  stone 
broken  off  by  the  miners.  From  these  lads,  men,  who 
must  be  over  thirty  years  of  age,  receive  each  a  fixed 
quantity  of  this  quarried  metal,  and  have  to  pound  it 
in  stone  troughs,  with  iron  pestles,  till  it  is  no  larger 
than  a  pea. 

^^  The  wives  and  the  old  men  then  take  these  fragments 


STILL    ON    THE    WAY    TO    SINAI.  231 

and  pour  tliem  into  mills,  of  whicli  a  number  stand  in 
a  row,  and  these  are  driven  by  two  or  three  persons,  by 
a  winch,  till  the  whole  is  ground  as  fine  as  flour.  One 
cannot  look  at  these  wretched  creatures,  who  not  only 
are  unable  to  keep  themselves  clean,  but  are  too  ragged 
even  to  hide  their  nakedness,  without  lamenting  their  fate. 
For  there  is  no  care  or  pity  for  the  sick,  the  injured,  the 
grey-headed,  or  for  the  weakness  of  woman.  All,  driven 
by  blows,  must  work  on  till  death  comes  to  end  their 
sufferings  and  their  sorrows.  In  the  bitterness  of  their 
agony,  the  condemned  anticipate  the  future  as  even  more 
horrible  than  the  present,  and  wait  eagerly  for  death, 
which  is  more  fondly  desired  than  life.  The  discovery 
of  these  mines  dates  from  the  earliest  times :  they  must 
have  been  begun,  already,  under  the  old  kings.^^ 

The  explorations  of  Major  Palmer  have,  in  recent 
years,  helped  vividly  to  illustrate  some  details  of  this 
sad  narrative.  In  the  little  Wady  Umm  Themaim,  he 
discovered  the  mouth  of  a  mine  a  short  way  up  the  face 
of  the  hill,  and  on  entering  found  himself  in  a  labyrinth 
of  narrow  winding  galleries,  leading  about  400  feet  into 
the  rock.  Most  of  these  were  so  low  that  he  had  to 
creep  on  his  hands  through  them,  and  a  safe  return  was 
only  secured  by  the  precaution  of  unwinding  a  cord  as 
he  advanced,  to  mark  his  proper  course  in  getting  out 
again.  The  air  was  oppressive  in  the  extreme,  for  there 
was  no  ventilation;  the  fresh  outer  atmosphere  find- 
ing no  entrance  to  the  depths  of  the  mountain;  bats, 
moreover,  flew  out  in  great  numbers,  entangling  them- 
selves in  his  hair  and  beard.  The  walls  of  the  galleries 
were  still  black  with  the  smoke  of  the  lamps  used,  ages 
before,  by  the  miners,  and  a  wooden  prop  was  found  which 
had  supported  the  roof  of  some  side  gallery  ^^  perhaps  be- 
fore the  building  of  the  First  Pyramid  : ''  for  so  old  were 


232  STILL    ON    THE    WAY    TO    SINAI. 

the  workings  tliat  even  the  hieroglyphics  at  their  mouth 
were  well  nigh  worn  away  by  time.^ 

It  will  be  noticed  that  not  only  persons  obnoxious  to 
the  Pharaohj  but  their  whole  families  and  connections; 
children,  men,  wives,  and  old  people,  were  banished  to  the 
mines;  and  it  may  readily  be  conjectured  that  this  con- 
vict population  was  recruited,  in  the  time  of  Kameses  II. 
and  his  successor,  from  the  troublesome  elements  in  the 
Delta.  Indeed,  great  numbers  of  Hebrews  of  all  classes, 
with  their  families,  must  have  been  thus  put  out  of  the 
way;  and  among  those  thus  banished  to  worse  than 
death,  it  may  well  be  that  friends  and  relatives  of  Moses 
himself,  condemned  after  his  flight  to  Midian,  might  be 
found. 

The  mines  were,  in  fact,  even  in  the  times  of  the 
Roman  emperors,  the  equivalent  of  our  penal  settlements, 
or  rather  of  the  French  Bagnios;  since  the  condemned 
worked  in  chains.  In  the  famous  porphyry  quarries 
between  the  Nile  and  the  Red  Sea,  the  miners  were  ex- 
clusively persons  sentenced  to  this  fate,  and  included 
not  a  few  noble  elements,  such  as  the  multitude  of 
Christian  confessors  banished  by  Diocletian  to  these 
wretched  places. 

In  the  same  way,  as  before  noticed,  Manetho's  account 
of  the  Exodus  informs  us,  that  Menephtah  (Amenophis) 
ordered  all  the  lepers  and  other  unclean  persons  to  be 
brought  together  from  all  Egypt — 80,000  in  number — 
and  sent  to  the  stone- quarries  east  of  the  Nile,  to  work 
there,  apart  from  the  Egyptian  convicts.  There  were, 
we  are  told,  some  learned  men  among  these  unfortunates 
• — priests  infected  with  ^^eprosy."*'  It  is  to  be  remem- 
bered, moreover,  that  Manetho  names  a  priest  of  On — • 
Osarsiph  or  Moses — as  chosen  by  these  "  unclean ''  as  their 
*  Palmer's  Desert  of  the  Exodus,  pp.  196  ff. 


STILL    ON    THE    WAY   TO    SINAI.  233 

leader.  The  quarries^  however,  were  probably  not  the 
only  place  to  which  these  outcasts  were  sent,  or  perhaps 
not  even  the  real  one,  but  that  the  mines  of  Sinai  had 
their  share.  Indeed,  the  mention  of  the  quarries  on  the 
Nile  seems  only  a  later  invention,  in  keeping  with  the 
wild  confusion  of  places  and  dates  which  marks  the  story. 

That  these  so-called  lepers  were  no  other  than  the 
Hebrews,  admits  of  little  doubt.  Those  who  were  ob- 
noxious to  the  Egyptians,  either  from  neglecting  the 
sanitary  laws  so  strictly  enforced  on  the  Nile,  or  from 
opposing  the  religion  of  the  country,  were  habitually 
branded  as  leprous.  It  is,  moreover,  beyond  question, 
as  already  stated,  that  leprosy  was  actually  brought  by 
the  Hebrews  from  Egypt. 

We  may  fairly  conclude,  therefore,  from  what  we  know 
of  the  policy  of  the  Pharaohs  in  deporting  all  who  in- 
curred their  suspicion  or  displeasure,  to  the  mines  of 
Sinai,  with  their  families  and  connections,  that  Moses 
would  find  there  great  numbers  of  his  people,  whom  he 
could  free  from  their  terrible  sufferings,  and  carry  off 
with  him  into  liberty. 

The  route  by  the  mines  would  be  the  more  practicable 
since,  even  in  the  absence  of  springs,  there  was  doubt- 
less a  supply  of  water  for  the  miners,  in  huge  tanks 
excavated  in  the  rock.  In  a  curious  Ancient  Egyptian 
plan  of  the  gold  mines,  now  preserved  at  Turin,  such 
a  reservoir  occurs,  and  an  inscription  found  at  Kukan, 
on  the  Nile,  informs  us  that  Rameses  II.  took  care  to 
provide  one  on  the  road  to  them.  He  had  heard  that 
much  gold  was  to  be  had  in  the  district,  but  that  the 
drivers  and  their  asses  perished  from  thirst  on  the  way. 
The  head  men  of  the  part  were  therefore  summoned,  and 
being  asked  how  this  could  be  prevented,  returned  an 
answer  which,  curiously  enough,  ascribes  to  him,  in  high 


234  STILL    ON    THE    WAY    TO    SINAI. 

oriental  flattery,  the  power  of  working  the  very  miracle 
which  Moses  wrought  with  his  rod  : — "  Thou  commandest 
the  water — '  Flow  over  the  rocks  ' — and  an  ocean  hurries 
forth  in  obedience  to  thy  word/^  Nor  is  this  the  only 
case  in  which  similar  care  for  the  provision  of  water,  in 
like  circumstances,  is  mentioned.  In  the  very  region 
of  the  Sinai  mines,  in  Wady  Maghara,  there  is  a  tablet 
cut  on  the  rocks,  which  shows  the  Pharaoh  Rathoures, 
of  the  Fifth  Dynasty,  with  a  great  vessel  at  his  side  from 
which  water  is  streaming  out ;  the  word  "  Life  "  being 
thrice  repeated,  and  an  inscription,  written  above,  "  The 
Lord  of  the  Mountains.  He  brings  here  the  gift  of 
water.''  The  figure  of  the  Pharaoh  himself  is  accom- 
panied by  words  which  illustrate  the  awe  in  which  the 
monarchy  of  Egypt  was  held  by  its  subjects !  Thrice 
over  he  is  styled  "  The  great  god,  the  lord  of  both  lands, 
the  king  of  Upper  and  Lower  Egypt/' 

This  tablet  was  cut  in  memory  of  a  victorious  military 
expedition  of  a  division  of  the  army  of  Rathoiires  against 
''  the  Bedouin  tribes  of  Sinai,"  and  also  as  a  grateful 
recognition  of  his  care  for  the  supply  of  water  for  the 
miners  and  the  Egyptian  force  that  watched,  them. 
Traces  of  the  reservoirs  he  provided  are,  indeed,  still  to 
be  seen  at  the  garrison  post. 

■  The  expectation  of  freeing  a  large  number  of  his 
countrymen  from  a  dismal  fate,  and  at  the  same  time,  the 
knowledge  that  he  would  find  water  for  his  host  in  the 
huge  cisterns  on  the  route,  the  shortest  to  Sinai — per- 
haps, also,  the  belief  that  he  would  secure  supplies  of 
various  kinds  in  the  magazines  provided  for  the  wants  of 
the  miners  and  of  the  garrison,  may  well  have  induced 
Moses  to  pass  through  Dophkah.  The  small  Egyptian 
force,  which  a  tablet  of  the  Twelfth  Dynasty  ^  informs  us 
*  Lepsius,  Benhmaler,  vol.  ii.  p.  137. 


STILL    ON    THE    WAY    TO    SINAI. 


235 


was  at  tliat  timQ  only  738  men  strong,  could  give  no 
effective  resistance,  and  in  all  probability  withdrew  before 
the  vast  host  of  the  Hebrews,  to  join  the  neighbouring 
hostile  Arab  tribes,  and  offer,  in  their  company,  at  a  later 
time,  a  front  to  the  invaders.^ 

From  Dophkah  the  road  to  Sinai  lay  in  a  direct  line 
through  Wady  Mokatteb  and  Wady  Feiran ;  the  former 


Entrance  to  Wadt  Mokatteb.    Palmer's 


t  of  the  Exodus. 


famed,  though  many  centuries  past,  for  the  inscriptions 
from  which  it  has  received  its  name,^ 

The  wady,   at  first  broad,  gradually   narrows    into   a 
ravine,  on   the  west  side  of  which,  almost  exclusively, 

^  For  the  curious  information  respecting  the  mines  I  am  in- 
debted in  great  part  to  Ebers.     Durch  Gosen,  pp.  141-161. 
2  Mokatteb  =  "  The  written." 


236  STILL    ON    THE    WAY   TO    SINAI. 

these  inscriptions  are  found.  None  of  them,  whether  in 
Sinaitic  (Nabath^ean),  Greek,  Coptic,  or  Arabic,  are  cut 
into  the  rock  to  any  depth  or  with  any  care.  Even  the 
best  are  only  scratched  on  the  surface,  some  so  lightly 
that  it  seeras  as  if  a  nail,  a  knife,  or  a  flint,  had  been 
used  rather  than  a  chisel.  Beside  many  are  outlines  of 
animals  and  other  objects,  but  the  artistic  skill  of  these 
is  on  a  par  with  the  rude  designs  on  the  house-doors  of 
the  Fellahs,  or  those  of  children  in  their  first  attempts 
at  drawing,  and  indeed  are  such  as  only  infantile  minds 
could  condescend  to  execute.  Armed  and  unarmed  men ; 
laden  and  unladen  camels;  horses,  with  and  without 
riders  and  leaders;  long-horned  antelopes;  stars  and 
crosses,  have  been  in  special  favour  with  the  creators 
of  this  strange  gallery;  but  there  are  also  shijDs,  fish, 
and  such  elementary  hunting  scenes  as  a  dog  chasing  an 
antelope. 

These  inscriptions  date,  apparently,  from  a  few  cen- 
turies before  and  after  Christ ;  some  of  them  the  work,  it 
may  be,  of  heathen ;  others,  without  doubt,  of  Christians 
of  the  earliest  centuries  of  our  era.  Already,  in  the 
sixth  century-^  Cosmas  Indicopleustes  speaks  of  them  as 
memorials  of  the  passage  of  the  Jews  from  Egypt,  and 
thinks  the  characters  in  which  they  are  written  a  proof, 
in  Hebrew,  of  the  truth  of  the  Bible  narrative.  Similar 
inscriptions  are  found  more  or  less  frequently  over  the 
whole  of  Arabia  Petrsea,  as  far  as  Egypt  on  the  west, 
and  the  Hauran  on  the  north-east.  But  they  are  most 
abundant  in  the  Sinai  Peninsula,  where  their  similarity 
in  the  most  widely  separated  wadys,  even  those  most 
off  the  ordinary  lines  of  travel,  seems  to  show  they  were 
the  work  of  the  resident  tribes.  The  exact  resemblance 
of  the  written  characters  employed,  to  those  on  the 
*  About  A.D.  535. 


237 


238  STILL   ON   THE   WAY   TO    SINAI. 

coins^  of  the  Nabatlisean  princes  wlio  resided  in  tlie  rock- 
city  of  Petra,  between  the  Dead  Sea  and  the  branch  of 
the  Eed  Sea  which  bounds  the  Sinai  Peninsula  on  the 
eastj  has  also  been  noticed  as  a  proof  of  their  local  origin. 

That  they  were,  however,  in  all  cases  the  work  of 
people  who,  though  local,  were  yet  unsettled,  is  shown  in 
various  ways.  They  are  found  in  the  greatest  numbers 
precisely  where  persons  on  a  journey  could  find  shade: 
they  are  always  so  low  that  they  can  be  reached  without 
difficulty  from  the  ground,  and  they  have  been  thrown  off 
so  carelessly  that  the  rock  has  hardly  in  any  case  been 
smoothed  to  prepare  for  them.  Had  the  writers  lived  on. 
the  spot,  they  would  have  spent  more  time  on  the  stony 
memorials  by  which  they  sought  to  immortalize  them- 
selves, and  would  not  have  been  satisfied  with  scratches 
that  would  long  ago  have  been  illegible  but  for  the 
dryness  of  the  air  and  the  heat,  which  have  not  only 
preserved  the  stone  wonderfully,  but,  in  many  places 
covered  it,  as  it  were,  with  a  glassy  coating.  Men  do 
not  care,  moreover,  to  perpetuate  their  names  where  they 
habitually  live,  but  rather  at  spots  which  they  only  visit 
for  a  time. 

Already,  in  the  fourteenth  century  before  Christ,  tho 
great  Rameses  chiselled  his  name  and  his  likeness  on  the 
mountain  walls  of  the  lands  he  had  conquered.  Mer- 
cenaries of  Psammetichus  I.,^  who  had  journeyed  to  the 
second  cataract,  carved  their  names  on  the  leg  of  one 
of  the  colossi  which  keep  guard  over  the  temple  of 
Abu-Simbel;  on  the  great  Sphinx  of  Gizeh;  on  tho 
walls  of  the  famous  tombs  near  Thebes,  and  on  many 
other  similar  places ;  just  as  in  the  Written  Wady  of 
Siuai,  hundreds  of   Greek    and    Roman    travellers    have 

1  The  eai^liesb  of  these  coins  date  from  B.C.  151  to  146. 

2  B.C.  664-610. 


STILL   ON    THE    WAY   TO    SINAI.  239 

inscribed  mementoes  of  themselves^  in  prose  and  verse, 
often  along  with  their  names.  It  was,  thus,  the  whim  of 
antiquity,  as  much  as  of  to-day,  to  leave  some  record  of 
one's  self  in  passing  noted  scenes. 

The  fact  that  nearly  all  the  Sinai  inscriptions  refer  to 
a  wandering  life,  strengthens  the  grounds  for  referring 
them  to  a  similar  origin.  Outlines  of  laden  camels, 
ships,  men  with  staves  in  their  hands,  and  gazelles,  the 
symbol  of  the  desert,  occur  most  frequently.  Other 
representations  point  to  special  circumstances  which 
caused  many  to  make  this  valley  the  limit  of  their 
journey.  It  is  also  noticeable  that  the  inscriptions  follow 
certain  directions.  The  chief  stream  flows,  as  it  were, 
towards  Mount  Serbal ;  another,  much  feebler,  towards 
Mount  Sinai;  a  third,  towards  the  rock-city  Petra,  and 
a  fourth  is  found  in  the  Hauran.  But  the  Wady  Mokat- 
teb  must  have  had  especial  attractions,  for  its  sides  show 
an  unwonted  number  of  inscriptions. 

The  first  step  towards  the  understanding  of  these 
strange  records  was  made  by  Professor  Beer,  of  Leipsic, 
in  the  year  1840,  by  the  discovery  of  the  value  of  some 
of  the  signs.  But  Beer  died  soon  after  this  feat,  leaving 
it  to  be  followed  to  noteworthy  results  by  others.  In 
1849,  Professor  Tuch,  also  of  Leipsic,  followiug  the  hints 
thus  given,  was  able  to  show  that  the  authors  of  the 
inscriptions  were  mostly  heathen  Arabs,  who  had  per- 
petuated their  names  when  on  a  pilgrimage  to  the  holy 
places  of  their  Sabsean  worship— Sinai,  Serbal,  and 
the  Wady  Feiran.  The  ancient  Arabs  worshipped  the 
sun  and  moon,  and  also  the  brightest  of  the  stars,  pre- 
ferring the  tops  of  the  highest  mountains  for  sanctuaries, 
as  nearest  to  their  god  Baal — the  sun.  Their  primitive 
temples  were  only  some  stones  of  special  shape,  laid 
rudely  on  each  other,  but  they  also  liked  to  pray  under 


240  STILL   ON   THE   WAT   TO    SINAI. 

the  shade  of  broad  spreading  trees,  whicli  seemed  an 
emblem  of  the  moon  goddess,  who  sent  fruitfulness  and 
prosperity.  To  such  a  religion  the  anthers  of  the  in- 
scriptions belonged,  for  many  of  them  describe  them- 
selves as  "  Servants,''  ^'  Fearers,"  or  '^  Priests  "  of  the 
Sun-god,  Baal,  and  of  the  Moon.  Among  all  the  names, 
moreover,  numerous  though  they  be,  not  one,  according 
to  Tuch,  is  Christian  or  biblical.  But  in  this  he  differs 
from  other  scholars. 

The  Christian  crosses  and  signs  which  accompany 
many  inscriptions,  seem  either  to  be  more  recent  ad- 
ditions, or  the  work  of  the  latest  pilgrim  visitors,  who 
had  embraced  Christianity,  but  still  retained  the  use  of 
the  Nabathaean  writing. 

Tuch  thinks  that  the  inscriptions  date  from  the  cen- 
turies immediately  preceding  the  spread  of  Christianity 
over  the  Sinai  Peninsula,  and  that  the  language  in  which 
they  are  written  is  an  Arabic  dialect,  with  some  Aramaic 
words.  Levy,  a  Professor  at  Breslau,  on  the  other  hand, 
contends  that  they  are  written  in  Aramaic,  but  show 
signs  of  Arabic  iufluence ;  but,  after  all,  Aramaic  and 
Arabic  may  be  called  dialects  of  a  common  speech.  He 
thinks  most  of  them  date  from  the  century  before  Christ, 
and  that  the  latest  must  be  as  old  as  the  fourth  century 
of  our  era.  ''  The  idea  in  the  mind  of  the  writers,''  says 
he,  "  may  have  been  that  such  inscriptions  would  keep 
them  always,  as  it  were,  before  the  gods,  and  secure 
their  permanent  favour.  To  make  this  the  surer,  they 
often  added  rude  pictures  of  themselves,  perhaps  with 
some  detail  of  their  personal  surroundings ;  and  thus,  it 
may  be,  we  have  at  the  side  of  an  inscription,  the  out- 
lines, sometimes  of  the  individual  alone;  at  others,  with 
the  accompaniment  of  a  camel  or  horse,  as  if  to  make 
him  be  remembered  more  easily." 


STILL   ON    THE    WAY   TO    SINAI.  2  il 

Palmer's  hypothesis  seems  to  have  much  to  recom- 
mend it  as  an  explanation  of  the  numbers  of  inscriptions 
found  in  Wady  Mokatteb.  He  thinks  that  a  great  Arab 
fair  must  have  been  held  periodically  there.  To  this 
Ebers  adds  the  idea  that  it  may  have  been  the  scene, 
from  time  to  time,  of  a  great  religious  or  national  feast, 
like  those  which  still  take  place  among  the  local  Arabs. 
Palmer  describes  such  a  great  national  feast  of  the 
Bedouins,  at  which  games,  races  of  camels,  and  rejoicings 
of  all  kinds  took  place.  In  old  times,  such  a  gatheriug, 
held  in-  this  wady,  would  bring  together  the  population 
from  all  parts;  uniting  as  it  would,  like  similar  occasions 
now,  the  attractions  of  a  large  fair  or  market,  to  those 
of  popular  amusements  and  spectacles,  and  religious 
observances. 

The  inscriptions  in  Greek  are  of  as  little  value  as  the 
Nabathasan.  According  to  Ebers,  some  show  heathen, 
some  Christian  names.  Beside  that  of  a  Deacon  Job,  a 
soldier,  who  evidently  had  a  poor  opinion  of  Christians, 
has  written,  ^'  A  poor  set  of  trash  these.  I,  the  soldier,. 
have  written  this  all  with  my  own  hand.'^  ^ 

Alush,  the  next  camping  place  of  the  Hebrews,^  may- 
have  been  near  a  spring  which  bubbles  up  not  far  from 
the  entrance  to  Wady  Feiran,  where  the  mountains 
and  the  ground  show  a  strange  variety  of  colours  j  red 
predominating  so  greatly  that  many  of  the  ridges  and 
lower  elevations  look  at  a  distance  like  fallen  brick 
walls. 

Wady  Feiran,  itself,  with  its  background  of  distant 

^  Lurch  Gosen,  pp.  165-179. 

2  Num.  xxxiii.  13.  Alush,  in  the  Targumists,  means  "a  crowd 
of  men."  Knobel  {Exodus,  p.  162),  followed  by  the  Speaker's 
Commentary,  thinks  the  Hebrews  avoided  Wady  Feiran,  but  Ebers 
leads  them  through  it. 

VOL.   II.  K 


2i2  STILL   ON    THE    WAY   TO    SINAI. 

peaks  iSj  in  many  parts,  like  the  valleys  of  tlie  Alps, 
where  the  pinnacles  rise  barest  and  most  abruptly  to  the 
heavens,  seeming  to  forbid  approach.  Inviting,  above 
other  valleys  of  Sinai,  as  it  advances,  its  entrance  is 
destitute  of  any  other  vegetation  than  the  poor  growth 
of  the  wilderness,  and  the  dark  green  leaves  of  the 
Coloquintada,  with  its  bright  golden  orange-like  fruit. 
But  the  outward  similarity  is  all,  for  it  is  at  once  very 
bitter  and  in  some  degree  poisonous,  though  used  by  the 
Arabs,  in  small  quantities,  as  a  drug. 

A  sketch  by  Ebers  of  this  part  of  his  route  brings 
the  landscape  and  its  people  vividly  before  us.  "  On  the 
following  morning,''  says  he,  "  we  broke  up  very  early. 
The  fires  of  our  Arabs  were  still  burning  when  the  camels 
were  loaded,  and  the  last  quarter  of  the  waning  moon 
stood  in  full  splendour  in  the  heavens.  It  was  cold  and 
quite  dark  when  we  began  our  march.  But  red  light 
soon  showed  itself  in  the  east,  then  golden  stripes  ;  the 
air  growing  colder  as  the  day  approached.  Yet  this  was 
very  soon  over,  for  the  night  turned  to  day  wondrously 
fast,  and  as  the  pale' sickle  of  the  moon  faded  before  the 
flaming  disk  of  the  sun,  the  cold  gave  way  to  heat.'' 
Ere  long  he  had  a  glimpse  of  young  life  in  the  wady, 
such  as,  in  these  unchanging  regions,  it  may  have  shown 
itself  in  the  days  of  Moses. 

"  We  had  far  outmarched  the  camels,  and  were  await- 
ing them  under  the  shadow  of  a  rock,  when  two  Bedouin 
girls,  with  the  back  of  their  heads  veiled,  but  their  faces 
bare,  came  near.  The  one  was  specially  attractive ;  with 
great  black  eyes,  that  looked  out  astonished  into  the 
world;  a  fine  nose,  and  teeth  like  veritable  pearls,  which 
shone  out  in  two  rows  of  radiant  white  amidst  the  golden 
brown  of  her  complexion.  The  second,  though  less 
charming,  was  more  lively  than  her  sister,  and  like  her 


STILL   ON    THE    WAY   TO    SINAI.  243 

wore  only  a  blue  cotton  veil  and  a  poor  tunic  of  tlie  same' 
stuff,  whicli  reached  to  the  knees,  leaving  her  slender 
legs  and  small  ankles  and  feet  exposed.  As  soon  as 
they  saw  us  they  left  their  brown  goats  and  hid  behind 
a  rock. 

"  Calling  them,  and  holding  out  a  few  piastres,  the 
plaiuer  one  ventured  first  to  come  near  us,  then  tbo 
other.  Eager  to  get  the  proffered  gift,  they  held  out 
their  slender  but  well-formed  arms  for  it,  but  would  not 
venture  to  take  it,  lest  we  should  touch  them  with  our 
'  unclean '  hands.  When  at  last,  however,  we  had  thrown 
the  piastres  so  far  that  they  had  no  fear  of  us,  one  of 
our  Arabs  came  in  sight,  and,  instantly,  both  the  girls, 
climbing  the  steep  rocks  on  the  left,  were  off  out  of  sight 
so  swiftly  that  they  might  really  well  be  compared  to 
gazelles.  It  seems  that  they  could  hardly  hope  to  get 
husbands  if  they  had  approached  a  stranger;  and  they 
would,  moreover,  have  had  to  bear  reproaches  and  blame 
from  their  parents/'  ^ 

In  one  of  the  side  valleys  close  by,  Palmer  found  a 
rock  which  the  Arabs  venerate  as  that  from  which  Moses 
brought  forth  the  waters  miraculously .^  It  is  surrounded 
with  heaps  of  little  stones,  which  lie  also  on  each  fragment 
in  its  immediate  neighbourhood,  and  has  the  following 
legend  connected  with  it.  When  the  children  of  Israel 
had  encamped  beside  the  wondrous  stream,  and  were 
resting  after  they  had  quenched  their  thirst,  they  amused 
themselves  by  throwing  small  stones  on  the  rocks  before 
them.  Hence  rose  a  custom  of  doing  the  same,  which 
the  Arabs  still  keep  up  to  preserve  the  memory  of  the 
miracle.  They  think  it  makes  Moses  especially  friendly, 
and  in  this  belief,  any  one  who  has  a  sick  friend  throws 


Burch  Gosen,  p.  183. 

Exod.  xvii.  6,  7.     Massah=^fcempbation.     Meribah  =  chiding. 


244  STILL    ON    THE    WAY    TO    SINAI. 

a  small  stone  in    his  name,  confident  that  the  sufferer 
will  soon  get  better  through  this  being  done.^ 

A  detached  rock  in  the  south-east  of  Jebel  Musa, 
which  has  some  curious  fissures  and  weather  markings, 
has  also  been  claimed  as  the  rock  smitten  by  Moses.  It 
is  an  insulated  block  of  granite  about  12  feet  high,  and 
of  an  irregular  shape.  Some  apertures  on  its  surface, 
about  twenty  in  number,  are  said  to  be  those  from  which 
the  water  issued.  They  lie  nearly  in  a  straight  line 
round  three  sides  of  the  stone,  and  are  for  the  most  part 
10  or  12  inches  long,  2  or  3  inches  broad,  and  from 
1  to  2  inches  deep,  though  a  few  are  as  deep  as  4 
inches.  As  to  their  character,  Burckhardt  says,  *^  Every 
observer  must  be  convinced  on  the  slightest  examin- 
ation, that  most  of  them  are  the  work  of  art,  though 
three  or  four  may  be  natural,  and  may  first  have  drawn 
attention  to  the  stone,  and  have  induced  the  monks 
to  call  it  the  rock  of  the  miraculous  supply  of  water. 
But  not  only  are  the  holes  themselves  evidently  artificial ; 
the  spaces  between  them  have  been  chiselled  to  imitate 
the  action  of  water  on  the  stone,  though  it  cannot  be 
doubted  that  if  water  had  flowed  from  the  fissures,  it 
must  generally  have  taken  quite  a  different  direction. 
The  neighbouring  Arabs  venerate  it  highly,  and  put 
grass  into  the  fissures  as  offerings  to  the  memory  of 
Moses,  in  the  same  way  as  they  put  grass  on  the  tombs 
of  their  saints,  because  it  is  to  them  the  most  precious 
gift  of  nature,  and  that  on  which  their  existence  chiefly 
depends."  ^ 

*  Palmer's  Wilderjiess  of  the  Exodus,  p.  159. 

2  The  Eev.  Canon  Norris,  Bible  Educator,  vol.  i.  p.  157,  adds 
to  the  miracle  which  actually  took  place,  that  "  a  perpetual 
running  river  followed  the  Israelites  in  all  their  forty  years 
wanderings  ;  not  running  up  hill,  as  some  have  absurdly  said,  but 


STILL   ON   THE   WAT  TO   SINAI.  245 

A  curious  passage  from  the  geologist  Fraas,^  deserves 
notice  in  this  connection :  ^^  A  sharp  eye  sees  at  the  foot 
of  Horeb,  at  a  moderate  height  above  the  valley,  on  the 
smooth  bare  wall  of  rock,  a  number  of  green  spots,  some 
higher  than  others/'  Having  climbed  to  one  of  them  on 
the  east  of  the  mountain,  Fraas  adds,  "  a  granite  wall  rose 
perpendicularly  from  the  debris  below.  A  fig  tree  at  its 
foot  is  first  seen,  but  as  one  approaches,  shrubs  and  ver- 
dure show  themselves,  quickened  by  a  small  basin  o£ 
water  fed  from  a  spring  close  at  hand.  This  runs  from 
the  smooth  face  of  the  rock,  about  breast  high,  with  the 
fulness  of  a  good  sized  well-pipe.  But  on  looking  more 
closely,  the  opening  through  which  it  burst  out  proved 
to  be  artificial.  No  traces  can  be  seen  of  water  elsewhere 
in  the  mountain  wall,  to  betray  the  presence  of  a  spring 
thus  previously  hidden  behind  the  granite.  On  the 
whole  face  of  the  rock,  in  its  height  of  forty  feet,  only 
crystals  of  felspar  glitter,  showing  no  indications  of  the 
water  behind.  The  spring  has  been  struck  out  of  the 
rock  by  a  human  hand ;  a  circumstance  which  reminds 

doubtless  renewed  at  the  head  of  every  valley  which  they  entered, 
making  every  wady  a  watercourse  for  the  time,  and  only  ceasing 
when  they  reached  Kadesh  Barnea,  the  northern  limit  of  their 
wandering."  But  the  plain  of  Horeb  is  4,000  feet  above  the  sea, 
while  the  course  of  the  Israelites  was  alternately  a  descent  and  an 
ascent,  first  to  the  seashore,  and  then,  by  a  series  of  steep  ravines, 
to  elevation  after  elevation  in  the  !Negeb  or  South  Country.  Nor 
was  Kadesh  the  northern  limit  of  their  march,  for  they  went  be- 
yond Hormah,  which  is  considerably  north  of  it ;  and,  moreover, 
they  had  no  water  at  Meribah,  near  Mount  Hor.  All  this  is 
only  the  result  of  a  misconception  of  St.  Paul's  allegory,  in  which 
Christ,  under  the  figure  of  a  "spiritual  Rock,"  is  said  to  have 
followed  Israel  through  the  wilderness.* 
*  Aus  dem  Orient,  1867,  p.  23. 

*  1  Cor.  X.  4.    S( 


246  STILL   ON   THE    WAY   TO    SINAI. 

a  geologlsfc  acquainted  with  the  Bible^  of  Moses,  the 
great  student  of  the  hills  and  of  man,  who  struck  a  rock 
on  Horeb  and  the  water  flowed  from  it."  I  give  the 
passage  as  it  stands,  leaving  its  value  to  the  estimate  of 
the  reader. 

In  entering  Wady  Feiran  from  the  west  the  mountains 
are  of  sandstone,  brown-red  granite,  and  dark  porphyry, 
varied  by  green  and  greyish  yellow  rocks,  which  hem 
in  the  wanderer.  Underfoot  there  is  nothing  but  sand. 
After  a  time,  however,  the  thorny  and  scant  growth  of 
the  wilderness  begins  to  be  more  abundant  and  stronger, 
and  the  sight  of  shrubs  indicates  the  nearness  of  water 
and  fertility.  Presently  an  oasis  opens,  and  the  eye 
rests  on  leafy  palms,  delicately  feathered  tamarisks, 
blooming  acacias,  and  dwarf  apple  trees,  the  haunt  of 
birds.  On  the  left,  on  the  edge  of  a  small  stream,  are 
the  first  Bedouin  gardens  one  sees  in  the  Peninsula ;  on 
the  right,  the  remains  of  stone  houses ;  and,  farther  on, 
the  slight  huts  of  settled  Arabs,  surrounded  by  green. 
Light  hedges  fence  the  small  gardens ;  children  play  be- 
fore the  doors  ;  the  barking  of  dogs  sounds  warningly ; 
and  sheep  feed  on  patches  of  grass,  sprinkled  with  white 
and  blue  flowers.  The  farther  one  advances,  the  loftier 
are  the  palms,  the  more  numerous  the  leafy  trees,  and 
garden  follows  garden  in  pleasant  succession.  The  clear 
water  of  a  full  stream  flows  silently  down  the  valley. 
For  a  good  half-hour  the  march  passes  eastward  amidst 
a  delightful  scene.  After  a  time,  however,  it  changes, 
and  Mount  Serbal,  believed  by  many  to  be  the  Mountain 
of  the  Law,  rises  in  awful  majesty,  closing  in  the  view. 

Various  points  in  this  great  centre  of  the  mountain 
system  of  the  Peninsula  have  had  the  honour  ascribed 
to  them  of  being  that  from  which  the  law  was  spoken. 
Ebers  decides  for  Serbal ;  but  his  verdict,  we  fear,  can 


STILL   ON   THE   WAY   TO   SINAI.  247 

hardly  be  accepted  after  the  more  thorough  study  of 
the  region  by  Major  Palmer.  His  description  of  Serbal, 
however,  well  merits  quotation  :  "  Mighty  and  sublime, 
a  great  master- work  of  Him  who  created  the  earth  and 
the  worlds,  the  giant  peaks  of  Serbal,  on  which  Moses 
prayed,  rise  to  heaven  from  their  vast  foundations. 
How  imposing  its  naked,  stony,  immense  height !  The 
sun  sank  to  rest.  The  lower  pinnacles,  towards  the 
west,  gleamed  with  pure  gold,  while  the  lofty,  jagged 
granite  tops  of  the  holy  mountain  were  bathed  in  violet, 
red,  and  yellow  vapour.  The  resplendent  golden  orb  of 
the  sun  disappeared  behind  the  summit,  with  its  crown, 
of  five  peaks,  and  the  pinnacles  of  the  giant  diadem 
glowed  in  colours  never  to  be  forgotten.  Every  line 
of  the  rocks,  high  up  in  the  ether,  was  hung  with 
garlands  of  purple-rose  and  gold-opal,  and  while  these 
shone  wondrously,  the  sun  once  more  appeared,  to  sink 
aofain  to  rest  behind  the  lower  mountains.  The  stream- 
iug  glory  round  the  profile  of  Serbal  now  faded,  and 
its  peaks  and  pinnacles  began  to  shine  with  a  delicate 
transparent  red,  tender  as  that  of  a  lady^s  fingers  held 
in  the  night  against  a  bright  light.  Finally  the  colours 
died  away,  and  when  the  stars  came  out,  and  the 
mountain  drew  over  itself  a  black  robe,  its  mass  was  so 
great  that  it  conquered  the  darkness,  and  the  majestic 
height  could  still  be  seen  in  its  outlines.'^  ^ 

Mount  Serbal  is  undoubtedly  the  most  magnificent 
mountain  in  the  Peninsula.  "  Serbal  is  a  vast  mass  of 
peaks,''  says  Dean  Stanley,  *'  which,  in  most  points  of 
view,  may  be  reduced  to  five,  the  number  adopted  by 
the  Bedouins.  All  of  granite,  they  rise  so  precipitously, 
so  column-like,  from  the  broken  ground  which  forms  the 
root  of  the  mountain,  as  at  first  sight  to  appear  in- 
*  Durch  Gosen,  p.  207. 


248  STILL    ON    THE    WAY   TO    SINAI. 

accessible.  But  tliey  are  divided  by  steep  ravines,  filled 
witb  fragments  of  fallen  granite.  .  .  .  The  summit 
of  the  highest  peak  is  a  huge  block  of  granite,  on  which, 
as  on  the  back  of  some  petrified  tortoise,  you  stand  and 
overlook  the  whole  Peninsula  of  Sinai.  .  .  .  On  the 
northern  and  somewhat  lower  eminence  are  the  visible 
remains  of  a  building  which  may  be  of  any  date,  from 
Moses  to  Burckhardt.  A  point  of  rock  immediately  be- 
low this  ruin  was  the  extreme  edge  of  the  peak.  It  was 
flanked  on  each  side  by  the  tremendous  precipices  of  the 
two  neighbouring  peaks, — itself  as  precipitous, — and  as 
we  saw  them  overlooking  the  circle  of  desert,  plain,  hill, 
and  valley,  it  was  impossible  not  to  feel  that  for  the  giving 
of  the  law,  to  Israel  and  to  the  world,  the  scene  was  most 
truly  fitted.  I  say,  '  for  the  giving  of  the  law/  because 
the  objections  urged  from  the  absence  of  any  plain  im- 
mediately under  the  mountain,  for  receiving  the  law  are 
unanswerable,  or  could  only  be  answered  if  no  such 
plain  existed  el-ewhere  in  the  Peninsula. ^^  ^ 

Besides  the  authority  of  Ebers,  Mount  Serbal  has  in 
its  favour,  as  the  Mountain  of  the  Law,  the  support  of  the 
earliest  traditions,  for  it  was  undoubtedly  identified  with 
Sinai  by  all  known  writers,  to  the  time  of  Justinian,  as 
confirmed  by  the  position  of  the  episcopal  city  of  Paran  at 
its  foot.^  Among  modern  investigators  its  claims  are 
maintained  by  Burckhardt  and  Lepsius.  But  as  there  is 
no  plain  near  it  of  sufficient  size  to  ofi*er  camping  ground 
to  more  than  a  fraction  of  so  large  a  host  as  that  of  the 
Hebrews,  it  would  have  been  impossible  for  them  to 
have  approached  it,  or  to  have  seen  from  below  the  awful 
splendours  of  the  descent  of  God  on  its  summit. 

The  traditional  Mount  Sinai,  however,  twenty- five 
miles  to  the  south-east  by  the  nearest  road,  advances 
*  Sinai  and  Palestine,  p.  72.  ^  Ihid.,  p.  40. 


STILL   ON    THE    WAY   TO    SINAI.  21-9 

rival  claims  in  favour  both  of  its  southern  heights^ — 
Jebel  Musa,  the  hill  of  Moses^ — and  of  its  northern  face, 
known  as  E,as  Sasafeh^  which  is  now  generally  considered 
as  best  meeting  the  requirements  of  the  Bible  narrative. 
An  ascending  pass,  amidst  masses  of  rock,  with  a  thread 
of  water  for  the  most  part  just  visible,  but  here  and 
there  forming  clear  pools  shrouded  in  palms,  leads  from 
Wady  Feiran  to  the  second  and  highest  stage  of  the 
great  mountain  labyrinth,  of  which  Jebel  Musa,  7,363 
feet  above  the  sea,  is  the  centre.^  It  is  one  of  a  cluster 
of  gigantic  mountains  forming  a  mighty  altar  about  three 
and  a  half  miles  long,  nearly  north  and  south,  by  about 
one  and  a  half  from  east  to  west :  the  whole,  known 
traditionally  as  Mount  Sinai. 

Jebel  Musa  was  held  by  Ritter^  to  be  the  Holy 
Mountain,  and  has  for  ages  been  consecrated  as  such  by 
monkish  legends  and  traditions,  embodied  as  it  were  in 
the  convents  on  its  sides,  still  famous  for  their  colonies  of 
Greek  ascetics.  The  ascent  of  the  mountain  lies  between 
vast  heights  and  rocks,  of  the  wildest  and  grandest 
character.  The  view  from  the  summit  comprehends  a 
vast  circle.  Mount  Sinai  itself,  and  the  hills  which  com- 
pose the  district  in  its  immediate  vicinity,  rise  in  sharp 
isolated  conical  peaks.  From  their  steep  and  shattered 
sides  huge  masses  have  been  splintered,  leaving  fissures 
rather  than  valleys  between  their  remaining  portions. 
These  form  the  highest  part  of  the  range  of  mountains 
spread  over  the  Peninsula,  and  in  the  winter  months 
are  very  generally  covered  with  snow,  the  melting  of 
which  occasions  the  torrents  which  everywhere  devastate 

*  Serbal  rises  6,734  feet  above  the  sea  (Palmer's  Sinai,  p.  168). 

2  Erdkande,  vol.  xiv.  p.  593.  D'Israeli— Loi'd  Beaconsfield — 
has  a  highly  wrought  chapter  on  Jebel  Musa,  in  his  Tancred, 
book  iv.  chap.  7. 


250  STILL   ON   THE    WAY   TO    SINAI. 

the  plains  below.  No  villages  and  castles,  as  in  Europe, 
animate  the  picture.  No  forests,  lakes,  or  falls  of 
water  break  the  silence  and  monotony  of  the  scene.  All 
has  the  appearance  of  a  vast  and  desolate  wilderness, 
either  grey,  or  darkly  brown,  or  wholly  black.  Few  who 
gaze  from  the  fearful  height  of  the  summit,  upon  the 
dreary  wilderness  below,  will  fail  to  be  impressed  with 
the  fitness  of  the  whole  scene  for  the  sublime  and  awful 
dispensation  of  the  law  given  to  Moses.^  "  The  view 
from  Jebel  Musa,^'  says  Henniker,  "  where  the  particular 
aspect  of  the  infinite  complication  of  jagged  peaks  and 
varied  ridges  is  seen  in  the  greatest  perfection,  is  as  if 
Arabia  Petrea  were  an  ocean  of  lava,  which,  while  its 
waves  were  running  mountains  high,  had  suddenly  stood 
still."  *  But  the  absence  of  any  plain  at  its  foot  is  as 
fatal  to  its  claims  as  to  those  of  Serbal.  There  is  ho 
'^  brook  that  descended  out  of  the  mount,"^  and  the 
wady  near  is  so  rough,  uneven,  and  narrow,  that  there 
seems  no  possibility  of  the  people^s  "  removing ''  and 
''standing  afar  off"*  without  their*  entire  exclusion  from 
the  scene. 

The  modern  Horeb  of  the  monks,  the  north-west  and 
lower  face  of  the  Jebel  Musa,  crowned  with  a  rauge  of 
magnificent  cliffs,  of  which  the  highest  point  is  known  as 
Bas  Sasafeh/  has  been  very  generally  held,  since  it  was 
first  named  for  the  honour  by  Robinson,  as  the  true 
scene  of  the  giving  of  the  law.  The  best  description  of 
its  features  is  that  of  Dean  Stanley  :  "  After  winding 
through  the  various  basins  and  cliffs  which  make  up  the 
range,  we  reached  the  rocky  point  overlooking  the 
approach  by  which  we    had    come   the    preceding    day, 

1  Wellsted's  Travels,  vol.  ii.  p.  97. 

3  Sinai  and  Palestine,  p.  12.  ^  Deut.  ix.  21. 

4  Exod.  XX.  18.  »  The  Willow  Head. 


STILL   ON    THE    WAY   TO   SINAI. 


251 


The  effect  on  us,  as  on  every  one  who  has  seen  and 
described  it,  was  instantaneous.  It  was  like  the  seat  on 
the  top  of  Serbal,  but  with  the  difference,  that  here  was 
the  deep  wide  yellow  plain  sweeping  down  to  the  very 
base  of  the  cliffs ;  exactly  answering  to  the  plain  on 
which  '  the  people  removed  and  stood  afar  off/  Con- 
sidering the  almost  total  absence  of  such  couj unctions  of 


Ras  Sasafeh,  from  the  Plain.— Palmer's  Desert  of  the  Exodus. 

plain  and  mountain  in  this  region,  it  is  really  important 
evidence  of  the  truth  of  the  narrative  that  one  such  can 
be  found.^ 

Leaving    the  Wady   Feiran,  with  its   groves   and   its 

brook,  the  Hebrews  probably  availed  themselves  of  the 

longest,  widest,  and  most  continuous  of  all  the  mountain 

valleys,  the  Wady  Es-Sheikj  the  great  thoroughfare  of 

^  Sinai  and  Palestine,  p.  75. 


252  STILL   ON   THE    WAY   TO    SINAI. 

the  desert,  even  now.  It  is  a  more  circuitous  route  to 
the  Holy  Mount  than  that  of  Wady  Selef,  but  to  the 
waggons^  and  flocks,  and  the  bulk  of  the  host,  it  would 
be  much  the  more  easy.  The  chiefs  might,  if  they  chose, 
climb  the  more  direct  wady,  but  all  would  meet  in  the 
Wady  Er  Eaheh,  ^'  the  enclosed  plain,'^  in  front  of  tho 
magnificent  cliffs  of  the  Ras  Sasafeh.  "  The  awful  and 
lengthened  approach,  as  to  some  natural  sanctuary, 
would  be  the  fittest  preparation  for  the  coming  scene. 
The  low  line  of  alluvial  mounds  at  the  foot  of  the  cliff 
exactly  answer  to  the  '  bounds '  which  were  to  keep  the 
people  off  from  ^  touching  the  mount/  The  plain  itself 
is  not  broken,  and  unevenly  and  narrowly  shut  in,  like 
almost  all  others  in  the  range,  but  presents  a  long 
retiring  sweep,  against  which,  the  people  could  remove 
and  stand  afar  off.  The  cliff,  rising  like  a  huge  altar  in 
front  of  the  whole  congregation,  and  visible  against  the 
sky  in  lonely  grandeur,  from  end  to  end  of  the  whole 
plain,  is  the  very  image  of '  the  mount  that  might  be 
touched,'  and  from-  which  the  voice  of  God  miglit  be 
heard,  far  and  wide,  over  the  stillness  of  the  plain  below, 
widened  at  that  point  to  its  utmost  extent  by  the  con- 
fluence of  all  the  contiguous  valleys."''^  A  small  eminence 
at  the  entrance  of  the  convent  valley  bears  the  name  of 
Aaron,  as  the  spot  from  which  he  is  believed  to  have 
witnessed  the  festival  of  the  golden  calf.  Two  points  in 
the  Bible  narrative  are  illustrated  at  Sasafeh  as  they  are 
nowhere  else  :  that  which  describes  Moses  as  descend- 
ing the  mountain  without  seeing  the  people,  and  the 
shout  of  the  camp  being  heard,  before  the  cause  could 
be  ascertained.  '^  Any  one  now  descending  the  mountain 
path  which  leads  from  the  summit,  would  hear,''  says 
Captain  Wilson,  "  the  sounds  borne  through  the  silence 
^  Num.  vii  3.  ^  8inai  and  Palestine,  pp.  42-44. 


STILL   ON    THE    WAY    TO    SINAI.  253 

of  the  plain,  bufc  would  not  see  the  plain  itself  until  he 
emerged  from  the  lateral  wady,  and  when  he  did  so,  he 
would  be  immediately  under  the  precipitous  cliff  of 
Sasafeh/'  There  is,  besides,  a  brook  which  runs  down 
the  Wady  Leija,  sufficiently  near  to  justify  its  being 
described  as  coming  *'down  out  of  the  mount,""  in  the 
account  given  of  the  strewing  the  dust  of  the  golden  calf 
on  its  waters.^ 

Taking  all  these  circumstances  into  consideration,  it  is 
difficult  to  resist  the  conclusion  that  the  law  was  delivered 
from  the  top  of  Ras  Sasafeh,  to  the  Israelites  encamped 
on  the  plain  of  Er  Raheh,  "  the  palm  of  the  hand  ^^  below ; 
unless,  indeed,  it  be  found  that  the  height  on  the  other 
side  of  the  plain,  known  as  Jebel  Sena,  but  never  yet 
ascended,  should,  as  Dean  Stanley  thinks  possible,  prove 
to  unite  even  greater  claims  to  the  honour. 

But  the  Hebrews  had  rough  work  on  their  hands 
before  they  finally  reached  the  Mountain  of  the  Law. 
While  still  at  the  entrance  of  Feiran,  the  inhabitants  of 
the  oasis  in  its  farther  depths  had  determined  to  resist 
their  advance.  They  belonged  to  the  Bedouin  race 
known  as  Amalek,  originally  from  Yemen  in  southern 
Arabia,^  but  in  the  days  of  Moses  the  chief  tribe  of  the 
Peninsula  and  of  Southern  Palestine.^  The  place  and 
time  for  an  attack  were  well  chosen ;  for  man  and  beast 
in  the  Hebrew  camp  had  suffered  severely  on  the  two 
days'  march  from  Dophkah,  after  the  cisterns  or  springs 
had  been  exhausted.  The  granite  walls,  heated  by  the 
terrible  sun,  reflected  a  burning  glow  on  the  host;  for 
the  hand  cannot  be  laid  on  them  at  midday  without  a 
sense  of  scorching.    Mutiny  and  tumult  had  again  broken 

^  Exod.  xxxii.  20.     Beat.  ix.  21. 

2  Palmer's  Desert  of  the  Exodus,  p.  61. 

*  l^um.  xiii.  29  j  xiv.  43,  45.     1  Sam.  xxvii.  8, 


254  STILL   ON   THE    WAY   TO    SINAI. 

oufc  under  the  agonies  of  thirst,  and  had  risen  to  such  a 
height  that  Moses  began  to  fear  that  he  would  presently 
be  stoned.^  But  a  miracle  had  supervened  to  supply 
their  wants,  and  the  rocks,  smitten  by  the  same  rod  as 
had  divided  the  sea,  had  yielded  water  to  the  camp. 
They  must  still,  however,  have  been  in  disorder  when 
the  hosts  of  Amalek,  united  it  may  be  with  the  Egyptian 
garrison  of  Dophkah,  burst  on  them.  The  inhabitants  of 
the  oasis  had  for  centuries  paid  tribute  to  the  Pharaohs, 
and,  in  return,  no  Egyptian  soldiers  were  allowed  to  cross 
their  boundaries  without  permission;^  but  this  would 
readily  be  granted  under  the  circumstances.  Living 
during  the  colder  months  in  the  lower  districts,  they 
had  ascended,  as  the  Arabs  still  do,  on  the  approach  of 
summer,  to  Feiran,  by  much  the  richest  of  the  upland 
valleys :  the  pastures  being  longer  green  at  such  an 
altitude.  It  was  a  vital  necessity  to  drive  back  the 
Hebrews,  if  the  priceless  treasure  of  these  scanty  feeding 
pUices  was  to  be  preserved  for  their  flocks.  Then,  as 
now,  nothing  was  so  frequent  a  cause  of  strife  as  tho 
possession  of  such  fertile  spots.*  Fortunately,  the  smaller 
local  tribes  were  friendly,  the  Kenites  even  entering 
into  a  kind  of  league  with  Moses,  and  the  Midianites,  con- 
nected with  him,  through  his  marriage  with  the  daughter 
of  Jethro,  their  sheik  and  emir,  showing  hearty  kindness 
to  the  passing  host. 

It  was  a  critical  moment  for  the  Hebrews.  Their  way 
to  the  Holy  Mountain  was  barred  by  fierce  swarms  who 
knew  every  inch  of  the  ground,  and  to  whom  desert  war- 
fare was  a  delight,  and  plunder  of  caravans  a  recognized 
source  of  wealth.  To  oppose  warriors  so  skilful  and 
brave,  there   was   a   vast   multitude   of  escaped  slaves, 

*  Exod.  xvii.  4.  ^  JJarda,  vol.  xi.  p.  184. 

*  Burckhardt's  Syria,  p.  623. 


STILL   ON    THE    WAY   TO    SINAI.  255 

encumbered  witli  women,  children,  baggage,  and  herds, 
and  provided  only  in  a  small  proportion  with  arms. 
Their  very  numbers  were,  indeed,  their  greatest  danger ; 
but  this  Moses  foresaw.  Keeping  back  the  great  bulk 
of  the  camp,  therefore,  he  directed  that  a  chosen  body 
should  be  gathered  from  the  various  tribes,  fitted  at  once 
by  their  bravery,  and  their  possession  and  knowledge 
of  arms,  to  meet  the  enemy  with  success.^  It  is  on  this 
occasion  that  we  meet  first  with  the  name  of  Joshua,^ 
the  future  successor  of  Moses,  but  then  a  young  man  of 
the  tribe  of  Ephraim ;  the  son  of  Nun,^  of  whom  only  the 
name  is  known.  Acting  as  commander,  the  future  hero, 
in  the  end,  after  a  fiercely  disputed  contest,  inflicted  such 
a  defeat  on  Amalek  as  rescued  the  Hebrews  from  any 
further  annoyance  while  in  the  Peninsula.  But  though 
they  reaped  the  fruits  of  the  victory,  they  were  fitly 
reminded,  as  the  people  of  God,  that  pride  or  self-trust 
were  out  of  place,  since  it  had  been  gained  only  by 
the  blessing  of  Jehovah.  To  enforce  this  magnificent 
lesson,  Moses  had  taken  his  stand,  at  the  opening  of  the 
battle,  on  the  top  of  a  spur  of  rock  visible  over  the  wady, 
and  there  interceded  for  them  with  uplifted  hands, 
through  the  whole  course  of  the  fight.  Nor  had  it  re- 
mained unnoticed  that  he  bore  aloft  the  wonder-workinof 
rod  of  God,  which  had  already  done  so  much  for  them, 
nor  that  success  wavered  when  his  weary  arms  sank  with 

'  The  arms,  recovered  from  the  Egyptian  soldiers  drowned  at 
the  Red  Sea,  would  equip  a  great  many.  The  spoil  in  gold,  efcc, 
also,  gained  after  the  destruction  of  Pharaoh's  host,  no  doubt 
aided  the  Hebrews  greatly  in  their  outlay  on  the  Tabernacle. 

2  His  name  was  at  this  time  Hoshea  =  "  Help";  but  it  was  after- 
wards changed  to  Joshua  =  "  He  whose  help  is  Jehovah  "  ;  which  ia 
used  here  from  its  being  the  name  by  which  he  came  to  be  known. 

^  Nun  =  "  Fish  "  in  Aramaic. 


256  STILL    ON    THE    WAY    TO    SINAI. 

exertion,  and  was  only  finally  secured  wlien  Aaron  his 
brother,  and  Hur,  tlie  grandfather  of  Bezaleel, — the 
future  constructor  of  the  Tabernacle, — continuously  held 
them  up. 

Such  an  attack,  at  such  a  time,  sank  deep  into  the 
hearts  of  Israel,  and  kindled  in  them  their  first  abiding 
national  hatred  towards  another  race.  True  to  the  rules 
of  A.rab  warfare,  this  first  foe  had  '^  met  them  in  the 
way,  and  had  smitten  the  hindmost,  even  all  that  were 
feeble,  behind  the  host,^'  ^  when  every  one  was  almost 
equally  faint  and  weary.  Henceforward  a  new  battle 
cry,  like  the  blazon  on  the  Egyptian  standards  with 
which  they  had  long  been  so  familiar,  was  given  by 
Moses  to  the  people — Jehovah  Nissi,  '^  Jehovah  is  my 
banner,^' — and  Amalek  was  proscribed  as  an  enemy  of 
their  God,  since  he  had  shown  himself  that  of  His  people. 
*'  Because  his  hand  is  against  the  throne  of  Jehovah, 
therefore  God  has  war  with  Amalek  from  generation  to 
generation,"  2  said  the  great  leader,  and,  by  Divine  direc- 
tion, recorded  this  in  "  the  Book,-*^  in  which,  even  thus 
early,  the  ways  of.  God  to  the  chosen  race  were  beiug 
recorded. 

A  victory  over  so  formidable  a  foe  must  have  been  of 
great  importance,  in  kindling  a  spirit  of  manhood  and 
nationality  among  the  Hebrews,  for  Amalek  was  one  of 
the  greatest  peoples  of  these  remote  ages.  Even  in 
Abraham's  time  they  are  mentioned  as  inhabiting  the 
regions  south-west  of  the  Dead  Sea;^  and  Balaam,  a  few 
years  after  this  battle,  speaks  of  them  as  "  the  first  of  the 

»  Deut.  XXV.  18.     See  vol.  i.  p.  351. 

2  This  seems  the  best  translation  of  Exod.  xvii,  16.  See  Rosen- 
miiller.  Scholia  in  Exod.,  p.  512 ;  also  Glericus,  in  loc, ;  and 
Michaelis,  Bihl.  Orient.  Nov.,  part  iii.  p.  195. 

*  Gen.  xiv.  7. 


STILL   ON   THE    WAY   TO    SINAI.  257 

nations";  tliat  is,  as  having  been  a  mighty  race  from 
what  was  then  a  distant  antiquity .^  Their  territory  ex- 
tended_,  in  fact,  over  the  whole  upper  part  of  the  Sinai 
Peninsula,  including  also  the  Negeb,  or  southern  country 
of  Palestine,  and  even  a  part  of  its  central  hills.^  But 
well  nigh  a  thousand  years  before  Christ  they  had  almost 
ceased  to  be  a  people,*  the  -sleepless  hatred  of  Israel 
having  nearly  exterminated  them.  There  still  remain, 
however,  on  the  Sinai  Peninsula,  some  ancient  dwellings 
which  may  possibly  preserve  a  last  trace  of  them.  These 
are  similar  in  form  to  the  ^'^bothan"  or  bee-hive  houses  in 
Scotland, — built  of  rough  and  massive  stones,  about  5  feet 
high  and  40  or  50  feet  in  circumference,  with  no  windows, 
and  only  a  small  door  about  20  inches  high.  In  the 
walls,  each  successive  course  of  stones  is  made  to  project 
slightly  inwards  beyond  the  one  below  it,  so  as  to  form 
a  dome,  the  top  of  which  consists  of  one  large  slab  of 
stone.  These  houses  are  generally  found  in  groups,  and 
near  them  are  often  seen  the  ruins  of  tombs — circles  of 
massive  stones — like  those  known  in  England  and  Scot- 
land as  Druid^s  circles.*  In  the  Wady  Biyar,  about  thirty 
miles  nearly  north  of  Ras  Sasafeh,  Professor  Palmer  found 
similar  houses,  which  he  thus  describes  :  '*  They  consisted 
of  two  detached  houses,  on  separate  hills,  and  a  group  of 
five  on  the  side  of  a  higher  eminence.  The  first  two  had 
been  used  as  Arab  burial-places,  but  at  least  three  out  of 
the  five  remained  untouched.  Their  dimensions  averaged 
7  feet  liigh  by  8  feet  in  diameter,  but  one  was  fully  10 
feet  high  and  8  feet  in  diameter,  inside.  They  were 
circular,  with  an  oval  top.  ...  In  the  centre  of  each 
was  a  cist,  and  beside  it  a  smaller  hole,  both  roughly 

^  Num.  xxiv.  7.     See  vol.  i.  pp.  351-2. 

2  Jud.  xii.  15.  3  1  Sam.  xxx.  1-19. 

"*  Rev,  F.  W.  Holland,  in  The  Recovery  of  Jerusalem,  p.  543. 

VOL.   II. 


258 


STILL    ON    THE    WAY    TO    SINAI. 


lined  with  stones,  and  covered  with  slabs  of  stone,  over 
which  earth  had  accumulated.  .  .  .In  the  smaller 
cist  the  earth  showed  signs  of  having  undergone  the 
action  of  fire,  and  in  one  or  two,  small  pieces  of  charcoal 
were  found.  The  doorways,  which  are  about  2  feet 
square,  are  admirably  made,  with  lintel  and  door-posts. 
AiJ  the  stones  used  in  the  construction  are  so  carefully 
selected  as  almost  to  give  the  appearance  of  being  hewn, 


Ancient  Dwellings  in  Wadt  Bitaf,  Sinai. 
From  Palmer's  Desert  of  the  Exodus,  by  permission. 

and  those  in  some  of  the  doorways  have  certainly  been 
worked ;  if  not  with  any  instrument,  at  least  rubbed 
smooth  with  other  stones.  A  flint  arrow-head  and  some 
small  shells  were  found  in  some  of  the  houses,  but  to 
what  race  they  belonged,  I  must  leave  to  those  who  are 
better  versed  in  the  science  of  prehistoric  man   to  de- 


STILL   ON    THE    WAY   TO    SINAI.  259 

termine.  The  country  all  around  is  covered  with  them; 
every  hill  side  having  some  remains  of  them  on  it.  Close 
to  the  houses  were  some  stone  circles.  There  would  seem 
to  have  been  a  large  settlement,  in  this  part,  of  the  race 
by  whom  the  houses  were  built.'^  ^ 

A  pleasant  episode  in  the  excitement  and  gigantic 
labours  which  had  devolved  on  Moses  for  the  past  three 
months,  occurred  shortly  after  the  conflict  with  Amalek. 
He  had  sent  back  Zipporah — "  the  Little  Bird  *' — his 
wife,  with  their  two  children,  to  her  father  Jethro,  for 
safety,  while  he  had  gone  on  to  Egypt ;  but  now  that 
he  was  once  again  near — for  Jethro' s  district  was  not  far 
from  the  Sacred  Mountain — he  had  the  joy  of  seeiug  his 
little  household  brought  safely  back  to  him  by  his  father- 
in-law.  The  very  names  of  his  two  sons  ^  would  recall 
the  time  when  he  felt  himself  an  alien  in  a  strange  land 
— '"  driven  out  '*  from  his  native  Egypt — and  remind  him 
of  the  help  God  had  given  him  in  his  flight  from  the 
sword  of  Pharaoh.^  The  meeting  with  Jethro  was 
thoroughly  oriental.  On  his  being  announced,  Moses 
went  out  to  meet  him,  and  kneeling  down,  touched  the 
earth  with  his  forehead,*  then  kissiug  his  father-in- law^s 
hand,  rose  and  kissed  him  also  on  both  cheeks^ — each 
asking  the  other  of  his  welfare  with  all  the  due  Arab 
prolixity  still  held  courteous — as  they  slowly  made  their 
way  to  the  tent.  Then  came  the  narration  by  Moses 
of  all  that  had  happened  since  they  parted — a  story 
which  decided  Jethro,  if  ever  he  had  wavered,  to  honour 
Jehovah  as    "  greater    than  all  gods ;  ^'   since,  "  in  the 

1  Palmer,  The  Desert  of  the  Tih,  p.  10. 

2  See  p.  108.  »  Exod.  xviii.  3,  4. 

■*  Meaning  of  the  verb  Shahah  used  here,  Exod.  xviii.  7.     See 
Gesenius. 
^  Furrer,  p.  9.     Sinai  and  Palestine,  p.  24. 


260  STILL   ON   THE    WAY   TO    SINAI. 

very  matter  in  wliicli  Egypt  had  dealt  proudly  against 
Israel,  He  liad  been  above  them."^  Burnt- offerings  and 
sacrifices  presently  followed  "  before  God/'  that  is,  at 
the  spot  in  the  camp  specially  set  apart  for  public  reli- 
gious exercises.  At  the  subsequent  usual  feast  on  the 
portion  of  the  victims  not  consumed  on  the  altar/  Aaron 
and  the  elders  of  Israel  sat  down  with  Jethro  and  Moses, 
and  thus  a  •solemn  league  of  friendship  was  formally 
ratified  between  the  tribe  of  Jethro  and  the  Hebrews, 
which  lasted  through  the  whole  future  history  of  both 
peoples. 

To  Jethro  was  due  a  modification  in  the  practice  of 
Moses,  in  a  very  important  point.  Till  now,  the  great 
leader  had,  alone,  heard  all  causes  brought  before  him 
from  the  host ;  giving  counsel  as  the  mouthpiece  of  God, 
deciding  the  various  disputes,  and  instructing  all,  as  the 
case  suggested,  in  the  statutes  and  laws  of  which  God 
was  presently  to  give  them  a  fuller  revelation.^  But  the 
strength  of  no  one  man  could  long  endure  such  a  strain, 
and  by  Jethro^s  advice  a  whole  series  of  greater  and 
lesser  judges  were  appointed;  the  lowest  to  hear  the 
disputes  or  questions  of  each  ten  persons  in  the  camp, 
and  the  others,  in  rising  dignity,  those  of  each  fifty, 
hundred,  and  thousand* — only,  appeals  from  the  last, 
being  brought  to  Moses  himself. 

This  great  and  salutary  reform  having  been  effected, 
Jethro  returned  to  his  own  district. 

^  Lit.  rendering  of  Exod.  xviii.  11. 

2  Exod.  xviii.  12. 

3  Exod.  xviii.  16. 

4  The  similarity  of  this  arrangement  to  our  system  of  tithings, 
hundreds,  etc.,  is  striking. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

AT  SINAI. 

r  I  1HE  distance  to  Mount  Sinai,  from  tlie  point  on  tlie 
-L  Gulf  of  Suez  at  which  the  Hebrews  had  crossed  the 
Red  Sea,  is  only  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles,  in- 
cluding the  windings  of  the  route ;  but  it  was  not  till  the 
third  month  after  the  Exodus  ^  that  the  host  at  last 
pitched  its  tents  under  the  shadow  of  the  Mountain. 
They  had  rested  at  various  points  for  refreshment  or 
supplies ;  now  they  were  to  camp  on  the  same  spot 
for  nearly  eleven  months,  while  they  were  being  finally 
organized  as  a  nation. 

The  great  plain  of  Er  Rahah — the  "  palm  of  the 
hand^' — which  is  large  enough  to  give  ample  space  for 
the  tents  of  a  host  of  more  than  two  million  souls  ^  had 
doubtless  been  selected  from  the  first  by  Moses  ;  to  whom 
every  glen  and  mountain  of  the  whole  region  had  become 
familiar  during  his  long  stay  with  Jethro.  It  was,  indeed, 
the  only  level  ground  in  the  whole  district  which  could 
accommodate  the  multitude  as  a  whole.^  Nor  could 
a  fitter  theatre  have  been   chosen  for  the  great  events 

^  Exod.  xix.  1. 

2  Sir  Henry  James,  in  Speaher's  Comment,  vol.  i.  p.  442. 

•  See  the  map  published  by  the  Ordnance  Survey. 


262  AT    SINAI. 

which  were  soon  to  happen.  The  Sacred  Mountain, 
known  in  its  different  peaks,  as  Sinai,  "  the  jagged ;  ''^ 
Horeb,  ^'  the  dry/^  or  '^  bare ; ''  or,  simply,  the  Mount  of 
God,^  rose  in  awful  grandeur  before  the  whole  camp ;  a 
stupendous  height  of  granite  rocks,  torn  into  chasms  and 
precipices,  and  shooting  aloft  in  a  wild  confusion  of  pin- 
nacles, worthy  the  names  they  bore.  Yalleys  cut  off  its 
stupendous  form,  on  all  sides,  from  the  heights  round,  so 
that  it  stood  apart,  as  if  separated  from  all  else  for  the 
lofty  honours  now  awaiting  it.  On  the  south,  the  heights 
of  ^^  Sinai  ^'  rose  with  overpowering  majesty  from  the 
Sebaijeh  plain,  like  a  huge  granite  monolith,  2,000  feet 
into  the  sky ;  the  pinnacles  of  the  central  hill,  rent  and 
shattered  by  natural  convulsions,  towering  still  more 
sublimely  aloft ;  while  at  the  north  end,  or  Horeb,  a  wall 
of  naked  rock,  1,200  to  1,500  feet  high,  rose  in  awful 
grandeur,  directly  in  front  of  the  Hebrew  camp.  The 
lengthened  approach,  as  to  some  natural  sanctuary, 
through  a  framework  of  gigantic  mountains,  had  been, 
itself,  a  fitting  preparation  for  the  coming  scene.  The 
plain  reached  without  an  interruption,  almost  to  the 
very  cliff;  a  low  border  of  alluvial  mounds,  at  its  foot, 
unseen  except  at  close  approach,  providing  "  bounds " 
to  keep  the  people  from  actually  coming  to  the  mount.^ 

^  Ebers  explains  ib  as  "the  Mount  of  the  Desert  of  Sin." 

2  Exod.  iii.  1 ;  xvi.  1.     Deut.  i.  2. 

3  "  The  plain  slopes  gently  to  the  foot  of  the  Mount,  with  a 
surface  as  smooth  as  if  it  had  been  artificially  prepared.  It  is 
quite  capable  of  having  contained  the  entire  encampment  of  the 
Israelites,  for  it  should  never  be  forgotten  that  their  ordinary 
tentage  must  have  occupied  very  little  space,  like  that  of  the 
Arabs  now.  ...  I  was  astonished  at  the  literal  truth  of  the 
Scripture  passage  which  speaks  of  the  mountain  that  might  be 
touched.  I  had  often  wondered  what  it  meant,  for  it  seemed  a 
natural   question   respecting    any   mountain,    'Where    it    com- 


AT   SINAI.  263 

Over  the  long  and  open  sweep  they  could  hereafter 
"  remove  and  stand  afar  off/'  But  from  every  point  the 
wall  of  rock  rose  into  the  sky,  in  its  lonely  grandeur, 
like  a  huge  altar,  in  front  of  the  whole  congregation;* 
an  awful  throne  from  which  the  voice  of  God  might  be 
heard,  far  and  wide,  over  the  stillness  of  the  great  plain 
below. 

Nor  were  other  features  of  supreme  importance  awant- 
ing.  Water  and  pasture  were  essential  to  the  existence  of 
the  host  and  its  herds,  and  both  were  found  in  greater 
abundance  in  this  part  than  in  any  other  in  the  district. 
In  the  upland  valleys  to  which  the  march  had  led  them — 
for  Er  Rahah  is  more  than  4,000  feet  above  the  sea — 
springs  and  brooks  which  are  never  dry  are  unusually 
numerous,  and  must  have  been  well  known  to  Moses 
beforehand,  for  there  would  be  no  watercourse  in 
all  these  mountains  which  he  had  not,  in  his  long  shep- 
herd life,  frequented.  The  heights  might,  moreover,  be 
wild  and  bare,  but  the  presence  of  water  ensured  many 
spots  of  pasture  in  the  countless  glens,  such  as  Wady 
Sheik  and  Wady  Sebaijeh,  and  Wady  Feiran  was  close 
at  hand  with  its  exceptional  richness. ^  Here,  therefore, 
the  tribes  pitched  their  tents  and  awaited  the  further 
commands  of  Moses. 

Everything  around  was  in  keeping  with  the  purpose 
for  which  the  great  Leader  had  brought  them  hither. 
Sinai  had  already   been,   for   an  unknown  time,^   "the 

menced.'  Now,  however,  when  I  saw  Mount  Sinai,  the  literal 
truth  of  the  whole  description  flashed  upon  me." — Life  of  Dr.  Duff 
vol  i.  pp.  400,  401. 

^  Sinai  and  Palestine,  p.  43  ;  and  Knobel's  Exodus,  p.  189. 

2  As  to  the  water  and  pasture  of  the  part,  see  Burckhardt, 
Sijrien,  pp.  918,  927.     Tischendorff,  Eeise,  vol.  i.  p.  244. 

^  Exod.  iii.  1. 


264  AT   SINAI. 

Mount  of  G-od;"  and,  indeed,  as  has  been  noticed,  a 
sacredness  still  clings  so  ineffaceably  to  it  in  the  mind  of 
tlie  tribes  of  the  Peninsula,  that  great  yearly  religious 
feasts  are  held  by  them  in  its  neighbourhood,^  and 
pilgrimages  made  to  it  from  every  part  of  the  Arab 
world.  In  such  a,  spot  every  impression  would  act  on 
the  mind  with  the  utmost  force. 

Safe  in  the  bosom  o£  the  mountains,  the  Hebrews  were 
now  ready  for  the  higher  organization  required  to  con- 
stitute them  a  free,  independent,  and  self-governing 
nation.  In  this,  their  peculiar  relation  to  God  deter- 
mined the  character  of  the  institutions  needed.  He  had 
redeemed  them  from  slavery,  cared  for  them  in  the 
wilderness,  and  aided  them  in  battle;  borne  Himself, 
indeed,  to  them  as  their  divine  guardian,  and  marked 
them  as  the  special  objects  of  His  regard.  Nor  could 
they  fail  to  be  impressed  with  the  dignity  thus  conferred 
on  them ;  for  what  other  people  had  such  a  Protector  ? 
Egypt,  with  all  its  glory  and  its  host  of  tutelary  divini- 
ties, had  been  utterly  humbled  before  Him.  Till  now 
unknown  among  the  crowd  of  gods  acknowledged  by  the 
nations,  Jehovah  had  shown  Himself  to  be  greater  than 
all,  and  had  utterly  put  them  to  shame.  This  Great  God 
above  all  gods  was  the  Leader  and  Strength  of  Israel. 

To  be  thus  the  Chosen  People  involved,  however,  many 
obligations  on  their  side.  They  enjoyed  this  amazing 
honour  as  the  descendants  of  one  who  had  left  his  native 
country  that  he  might  be  faithful  to  his  religion,  and  who 
had  received  the  promises  they  were  now  to  realize,  as 
a  reward  for  his  obedience  to  the  Divine  will,  and  the 
honour  he  rendered  it  in  his  daily  life.  It  was  no  less 
obligatory  that  they,  as  a  nation,  should,  like  their  great 
forefather,  '^obey  His  voice  and  keep  His  charge,  His 
*  Burckhardt's  Syrien,  p.  800. 


AT   SINAI.  2G5 

coramandments.  His  statutes,  and  His  laws;^'^  and  to 
secure  this  it  was  necessary  that  these  should  be  so 
plainly  made  known,  as  to  furnish  a  permanent  standard 
and  rule  of  conduct  for  them  in  succeeding  ages. 

The  unique  relations  in  which  they  stood  to  Jehovah 
required,  however,  that  the  laws  thus  to  be  established 
should  embrace  not  only  their  religious,  but  also  their 
civil  duties  ;  for  Jehovah,  besides  being  their  God,  was  also 
their  invisible  King.  They  were,  in  fact,  under  a  theo- 
cracy, or  reign  of  God,  who  was  alike  their  spiritual  and 
their  temporal  Head.  Nor  was  such  a  constitution  new 
to  them ;  for  in  Egypt  the  gods  had  been  honoured  as  the 
supreme  rulers  of  the  land,  acting  through  the  Pharaoh, 
one  of  their  number ;  and  he  and  they  had  been  honoured 
by  a  vast  priesthood  as  its  divine  sovereigns.  But  the 
gods  of  Egypt  had  been  mere  human  inventions,  and 
their  government  a  vain  figment  of  superstition  and 
craft.  Jehovah,  who  had  chosen  the  Hebrews  in  all 
their  weakness  as  His  '^  firstborn,"  was  the  true  God, 
and  His  government  was  no  fable  like  that  of  the  gods 
of  other  nations.  He  had  delivered  them  from  Egypt 
and  from  Amalek,  from  hunger  and  from  thirst,  and  had 
guided  them  on  their  way,  and  now  showed  Himself  in 
their  midst  in  "the  fiery,  cloudy"  pillar  of  His  presence. 
No  human  king  could  have  cared  for  them  with  a  more 
minute  and  sedulous  regard ;  and  this  care  was,  hence- 
forth, to  be  extended  to  all  their  national  and  private 
life,  by  the  proclamation  of  laws  which  He  would  require 
them  to  obey  for  their  good. 

Two  Divine  "  covenants  "  had  already  been  made  with 

man, — the  first  with  Noah  ;   the  second  with    Abraham, 

as    the    ancestor   of    Israel.       A    third  was    now    to    be 

established   with  his   descendants,    in    fulfilment    of    the 

^  Gen.  xxvi,  5. 


266  AT   SINAI. 

promises  made  centuries  before.  The  details  of  its  in- 
stitation  as  given  in  Exodus  are  sublime,  beyond  those 
of  any  other  transaction  in  the  Sacred  History  anterior 
to  the  story  of  the  Incarnation.  But  we  need  not  wonder 
at  them,  for  if,  in  the  case  of  a  single  soul  that  cries  to 
God,  He  draws  near  to  enter  into  spiritual  relations  with 
it ;  how  much  more  might  He  be  expected  to  descend,  as 
we  are  told  He  did,  on  Sinai,  to  meet  a  whole  people,  now, 
alone  of  all  the  nations  on  the  earth,  looking  to  Him  as 
theii'  God,  and  desiring  to  dedicate  themselves  openly  to 
His  service  and  glory  ? 

The  cloud  which  had  gone  before  the  host  on  its  march 
had  settled  over  the  Sacred  Mountain  ;  thus  transferring 
thither,  in  the  eyes  of  all,  the  visible  symbol  of  the  Divine 
Presence.  To  that  mysterious  centre  Moses  had  hitherto 
drawn  near,  to  receive  the  Divine  commands;  and  he 
now  ascended  the  mountain,  which  had  become  as  it  were 
the  throne  of  God,  to  approach  Him,  as  before,  in  this 
cloudy  veil.  Having  done  so,  he  received  a  commission 
such  as  has  never,  besides,  been  vouchsafed  to  man.  He 
was  to  descend  and  tell  the  "house  of  Jacob,"  in  God^s 
name,  that  if  they  obeyed  His  voice  and  kept  His 
covenant,  they  would  be  to  Him  a  peculiar  treasure 
above  all  nations, — for  all  the  earth  was  His ;  and  that 
as  their  King,  He  would  make  them  a  kingdom  of  priests 
to  Him,  and  a  consecrated  people.  Need  we  wonder  that 
the  heads  of  tribes  and  lesser  divisions  of  the  host,  sum- 
moned by  Moses  to  hear  such  a  communication,  answered 
forthwith,  as  if  with  one  voice,  in  the  name  of  their 
brethren,  that  they  pledged  themselves  to  do  all  that 
Jehovah  had  spoken.^ 

The  way  was  now  opened  for  the  formal  adoption  of 
Israel  as  the  people  of  God,  set  apart  by  Him,  as  His 
1  Exod.  xix.  7,  8. 


AT   SINAI.  267 

instruments,  to  teacli  mankind  religions  truth,  and  pre- 
pare them  for  the  final  development  of  His  kingdom  upon 
earth,  under  His  Son,  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  Three 
days'  preparation  were  commanded  as  for  a  high  festival ; 
and,  in  anticipation  of  the  near  approach  of  their  Divine 
King,  their  persons  and  clothes,  soiled  and  stained  by 
travel,  were  to  be  cleansed,  and  all  defilement  avoided. 
The  nations  around  made  themselves  ready,  thus,  for 
the  approach  of  their  monarchs,  and  Israel  might  well  do 
equal  honour  to  its  almighty  Head.  Only  an  invited 
few,  however,  were  to  go  up  into  the  mountain,  to  His 
immediate  presence.  No  others  were  to  approach  it  on 
pain  of  death.  It  was,  as  it  were.  His  secret  chamber, 
from  which,  as  with  earthly  kings,  all  but  those  sum- 
moned by  Himself  must  keep  away  or  perish.^  As  His 
abode  for  the  time,  it  was  holy  and,  as  such,  consecrated 
to  Him  alone  as  His  "pavilion  round  about  Him.'' 

The  interval  must  have  strained  the  expectation  of  all, 
and  filled  every  heart  with  conflicting  emotions.  Open 
to  the  profoundest  impressions  by  the  very  awe  of  the 
preparation,  they  awaited  the  event.  At  last,  on  the 
morning  of  the  third  day,  the  peaks  of  the  mountain  were 
seen  veiled  in  thick  clouds,  through  which  lightnings 
quivered  vividly,  and  uointermittently,  as  if  the  va°t 
height  were  aflame ;  terrible  thunders  leaped  from  crag 
to  crag,  and  reverberated  in  multiplied  echoes,  like  the 
sound  of  mighty  trumpets  announcing  the  approach  of 
God.  The  phenomena  of  thunder-storms  were  in  all  ages 
associated  by  the  Hebrews,  as  by  other  early  and  simple 
races,  with  the  Divine  presence,^  and  were  its  fitting 
accompaniments  when  Jehovah  now  actually  drew  nigh. 

^  To  enter  the  presence  of  an  eastern  monarch,  uninvited,  was 
death.     Esther  iv.  11. 
2  Ps.  xviii.  9-15;  xxix.  3-9. 


2G8  AT    SINAI. 

All  nature  was  moved,  and  seemed  to  tremble  before 
Him.  The  people  had  been  led  out  by  Moses  to  see  a 
spectacle  so  august,  but  its  terrors  awed  small  and  great; 
for  as  they  gazed,  the  mountain  appeared  to  smoke  like 
a  furnace,  and  to  reel  on  its  foundations.  The  scene 
realizes  itself  best  from  the  impressions  retained  of  it 
in  after  ages,  and  embodied  by  the  inspired  poets  of  the 
race : — 

"  The  earth  shook  and  trembled : 
The  foundations  of  the  mountains  moved  and  were  troubled : 

.  •  .  •  •  I 

He  bowed  the  heaven  and  came  down, 
And  darkness  was  under  His  feet. 
He  rode  upon  a  cherub  and  did  fly : 
Yea,  He  did  fly  upon  the  wings  of  the  wind. 
He  made  darkness  His  secret  place ; 

His  paviHon  round  Him  were  dark  waters  and  thick  clouds  of 
the  skies."  ^ 

**  The  earth  shook ;  the  heavens  also  dropped  at  the  presence  of 
God; 
Even  Sinai  itself  was  moved  at  the  presence  of  God,  the  God 
of  Israel."  ^ 

"  His  lightnings  enlightened  the  world  : 
The  earth  saw  and  trembled; 

The  hills  melted  like  wax  at  the  presence  of  Jehovah, 
At  the  presence  of  the  Lord  of  the  whole  earth."  ^ 

Jehovah  might  Himself  be  invisible,  but  what  god  of 
Egypt  could  proclaim  His  presence  with  such  awful 
sublimity  ?  No  wonder  that  the  Hebrews  shrank  to  the 
utmost  limits  of  the  plain,  to  get  as  far  as  they  might 
from  such  overpowering  terrors. 

But  if  the  sight  presented  were  august,  the  words 
which  sounded  above  the  thunders  were  still  more  so. 

1  Ps.  xviii.  7-11.         2  pg  ix^iii  8.         3  ps  ^cvii.  4>,  5. 


AT  SINAI.  269 

While  tlie  people  were  still  marslialled  at  tlie  foot  of 
tlie  heights,  Moses  had  ascended  into  the  thick  cloud 
above,  and  now  there  fell  on  the  ear  of  the  multitude, 
words,  simple,  indeed,  and  easily  understood,  but  so  full 
of  deepest  import,  as  to  have  formed,  ever  since,  the  basis 
of  all  morals  and  advancement. 

To  engage  the  sympathies  and  interest,  first,  of  those 
immediately  addressed,  and,  after  them,  of  all  ages, 
Jehovah  ccmdescended  to  reveal  Himself  in  the  relations 
most  fitted  to  call  forth  loving  obedience.  To  have 
proclaimed  His  power  or  greatness  alone,  or  even  His 
awful  holiness,  would  have  established  no  tender  bonds 
between  Him  and  those  whom  He  had  chosen  as  His 
people.  Instead  of  this.  He  disclosed  Himself  as  the 
God  whose  wondrous  guidance  they  had  recognized,  and 
whose  Power  had  been  displayed  on  their  behalf — who 
had  led  them  forth  from  Egypt ;  opening  a  path  for  them 
through,  the  sea,  and  overthrowing  the  mighty  Pharaoh, 
and  his  hosts.  Thus  shown  to  be  the  God  of  gods.  He 
yet  ofi'ered  Himself  as  the  special  Guardian  and  Father  of 
Israel,  if  its  sons,  on  their  side,  maintained  their  fidelity 
to  Him.  He  was  no  invention  of  the  imagination;  no 
mere  symbol  of  the  powers  of  Nature,  like  the  idols  of 
Egypt ;  but  had  proved  Himself  a  strong  Help  to  those 
who  put  their  trust  in  Him.  He  was  no  cold  abstraction, 
like  the  gods  of  the  Nile,  incapable  of  sympathy  with 
man,  or  loving  condescension,  to  engage  the  intellect 
and  heart.  He  was  present  with  them,  even  now ;  speak- 
ing to  them  in  human  language,  and  drawing  them  to 
Himself  by  every  inducement  of  tenderness. 

But  though  thus  near  and  thus  gracious;  though  thus 
distinctly  revealing  Himself  as  the  One,  Only,  Living 
God,  with  all  the  attributes  of  strict  Personality  ;  He 
was  still  the  Invisible,   of    whom  no  likeness   must  be 


270  AT   SINAI. 

attempted.  As  a  contrast  to  tlie  image  worship  of  Egypt, 
to  which  the  Hebrews  were  accustomed,  this  prohibition 
was  elaborately  and  separately  enforced.  There  must 
be  no  symbol  borrowed  from  the  heavenly  bodies,  as 
in  so  many  cases  in  heathenism ;  nor  from  the  animal 
creation  around,  as  in  Egypt ;  nor  from  the  fishes  or  sea 
creatures,  as  in  Palestine  and  Assyria.  Moreover,  the 
awful  name  of  Jehovah  must  not  be  given  to  any  of  the 
vain  and  shadowy  idol  gods;^  for,  compared  with  Him, 
all  else  that  is  worshipped  as  divine  is  an  idle  vanity. 
To  keep  holy  the  Sabbath,  ceasiug  from  all  work  on  the 
seventh  day,  was  a  custom  already  followed  from  antiquity 
— perhaps  from  the  days  of  Adam — but  it  was  now 
enforced  with  renewed  strictness,  as  needed  to  deepen 
religious  feeling ;  to  provide  for  its  constant  reinvigora- 
tion;  and  even  as  a  merciful  rest  for  man  and  beast. 
That  honour  should  be  paid  to  parents  was  also  of  great 
moment  for  all  ages,  but  especially  when,  as  yet,  morality 
had  no  high  sanctions,  and  barbarism  largely  prevailed. 
Not  a  few  nations  of  antiquity  were  wont  to  put  their  aged 
fathers  or  mothers  to  death,  or  to  abandon  them  when 
helpless.^  Among  ancient  races  a  mother  generally  stood 
in  an  inferior  position,  and,  on  the  death  of  her  husband, 
became  subject  to  her  eldest  son.  But  it  was  now  com- 
manded that  the  son,  even  if  he  were  the  head  of  the 
family,  should  honour  his  mother  as  he  had  honoured  his 
father.  Human  life  was  little  valued  in  antiquity,  but  it 
was  now  proclaimed,  "Thou  shalt  do  no  murder .''  Man 
was  created  in  the  image  of  God,  and  therefore  his  life 

1  This  is  the  meaning  given  by  Graetz  to  the  words :  Thou 
shalt  not  take  the  name  of  the  Lord  thy  God  in  vain.  GescMchte 
der  Juden,  vol.  i.  p.  38. 

-  Darwin  tells  us  that  the  Terra  del  Faegians  do  so  at  this 
time.     Naturalist's  Voyage,  p.  214. 


AT   SINAI.  271 

should  be  sacred.  The  old  world  was  poisoned  to  the 
core  by  prevailing  unchastity,  for  even  the  gods  were 
represented  as  impure.  But  the  voice  from  Sinai  com- 
manded, "  Thou  shalt  not  be  unchaste.''  ^  Property  was 
declared  sacred,  and  theft  stamped  as  a  crime,  as  was 
also  false  witness.  Nor  was  only  the  outward  act  con- 
demned, for  even  the  thought  of  evil  was  denounced  in 
the  words  ^^  Thou  shalt  not  covet.'' 

What,  in  comparison  with  a  moment  like  this,  was  the 
whole  record  of  the  Indian,  Egyptian,  or  other  nations, 
however  ancient — with  all  their  wisdom,  or  their  gigantic 
creations  of  temples,  pyramids,  and  colossi  ?  The 
transaction  on  Sinai  was  for  all  time  and  for  the  life 
beyond.  It  laid  the  foundation  of  true  morality  and 
human  dignity  among  mankind.  It  was  the  birth  hour 
of  a  people  differing  from  all  yet  seen.  The  simple, 
but  profound  truths  of  a  spiritual  God  of  whom  no  like- 
ness was  to  be  made — a  Being  who  draws  to  Himself 
the  oppressed  and  wretched ;  ^  of  the  veneration  to  be 

^  Graetz  notices  that  the  word  used  includes  all  forms  of 
impurity. 

2  Widely  spread  tradition,  says  Strabo,  makes  the  Jews 
descendants  of  the  Egyptians.  A  certain  Moses,  a  priest,  dis- 
satisfied with  life  on  the  Nile,  withdrew  from  it,  and,  with  him, 
many  who  honoured  the  Great  God.  Moses  taught  that  the 
Egyptians  acted  foolishly  in  making  the  gods  like  the  beasts 
and  the  ox,  and  condemned  the  Greeks  also,  who  gave  them 
a  human  form.  God,  he  said,  was  no  other  than  that  One  who 
surrounds  us  all,  and  even  the  land  a,nd  sea — that  One  whom  we 
call  Heaven,  and  World,  and  Nature.  But  who  of  all  endowed 
with  reason  can  venture  to  make  a  likeness  of  such  an  one? 
Therefore  all  images  were  forbidden.  They  might  consecrate  a 
temple  for  themselves  and  honour  the  holy  place— but  it  must 
have  no  image  in  it.  When  Moses  had  said  this,  and  much  more 
of  the  same  tenor,  he  won  over  many  thoughtful  men  to  his 
views,  and  led  them  to  the  place  where  Jerusalem  is  now.     Their 


272  AT   SINAI. 

sliown  to  parents ;  of  chastity ;  of  tlie  sacredness  of 
human  life  and  of  property ;  of  truth  between  man  and 
man;  and  of  the  necessity  of  a  clear  conscience,  were 
first  revealed  at  Sinai,  as  a  legacy  for  all  ages. 

Antiquity  had  doubtless  its  glimpses  of  high  morals, 
taught  by  illustrious  minds,  but  they  had  failed  to  im- 
press themselves  on  the  masses  of  mankind,  since  they 
wanted  the  necessary  sanction  of  Divine  authority,  and 
fell  on  the  ear  only  as  abstract  precepts.  But  the  Ten 
Commandments,  proclaimed  by  God  Himself;  not  only 
with  an  awful  majesty,  but  with  the  attractions  of  Infinite 
love,  and  the  terrors  of  unbending  righteousness ;  stood 
out,  for  ever,  as  laws  which  henceforth  demanded  the 
reverent  obedience  of  all. 

Nor  was  there  a  less  marked  difference  between  the 
duties  they  enforced  on  men  towards  their  fellows,  and 
the  practice  till  then  prevailing  on  this  point.  There 
had  been  many  laws  on  the  subject,  but  they  were  those 
of  the  oppressor,  laid  on  the  weak  as  a  yoke;  of  the 
strong,  for  his  own  advantage,  to  keep  the  multitude  in 
feeble  dependence.  The  first  laws  proclaiming  social 
equality  were  now  revealed,  and  sent  abroad  amongst 
men  as  the  leaven  of  a  higher  and  nobler  future.  The 
evils  of  caste  and  social  proscription  were  thus  con- 
demned. The  Israelites  had  come  to  Sinai  as  trembling 
slaves,  but  they  returned  to  their  tents,  after  hearing  the 
words  of  God  from  its  summit,  a  Sacred  People  of  God, 

descendants  for  a  time  continued  true  to  their  pure  life  and  fear 
of  God.  But,  afterwards,  a  superstitious  priesthood  got  the 
power  over  them ;  then  tyrants  ;  and  from  superstition  rose  the 
laws  about  food  which  still  prevail,  and  also  those  about  circum- 
cision, and  the  custom  of  having  eunuchs."* 

*  "The  Egyptians,"  says  Tacitus  {Hist,  v.  4),  "worship  many  animals 
and  images  made  by  their  own  hands  ;  the  Jews  recognize  only  one  God,  and 
that  with  the  mind  alone." 


AT   SINAI. 


273 


a  Nation  of  Priests,  the  Peculiar  Treasure  of  Jeliovali. 
Henceforth,  they  were  to  be  the  teachers  of  mankind, 
and,  as  such,  to  bless  all  races. 

But  the  great  truths  announced  from  the  Mountain 
would  have  been  forgotten  if  left  without  a  permanent 
record.  They  were  therefore  engraved  on  two  Tables 
of  Stone,  that  they  might  be  remembered  for  ever,  and 
these  tables  were  ordered  to  be  kept  in  the  Sacred  Ark, 
which,  when  made,  would  be  the  central  object  in  the 
National  Sanctuary.  It  was  necessary,  moreover,  that 
the  obligations  imposed  by  the  "  Ten  \7ords,^'  should  be 
explained  in  detail,  for  guidance  in  public  and  personal 
life.  Special  subordinate  laws  were,  therefore,  added. 
That  Jehovah  had  redeemed  the  whole  people  from 
Egypt  was  seen  to  imply  the  essential  equality  of  all 
its  members.  There  were  to  be  no  slaves  amongst  them. 
No  Hebrew  should  either  sell  himself,  or  be  sold,  for 
life.  If  any  one  had  forfeited  his  liberty,  he  was  to  serve 
only  six  years,  and  to  be  free  on  the  seventh.  Those 
who  despised  their  parents,  or  committed  deliberate 
murder,  were  to  be  put  to  death — even  the  sanctuary 
affording  no  refuge,  if  they  fled  to  it.  The  murder  of  a 
non-Israelitish  slave  was  to  be  punished,  and  one  in- 
jured by  his  master,  even  to  the  extent  of  losing  a  tooth, 
was  at  once  to  be  made  free.  Laws  fixed  the  penalty 
for  injuries  to  property,  even  when  the  hurt  was  not 
designed.  Chastity  was  protected  by  strict  enactments. 
The  laws  respecting  the  treatment  of  widows  and 
orphans,  to  secure  them  from  injustice,  and  to  wake  pity 
for  their  helplessness,  were  especially  precise.  Even 
foreigners  who  connected  themselves  with  the  tribes 
were  to  enjoy  the  protection  of  their  laws ;  for  Israel  was 
never  to  forget  that  it  had  been  a  stranger  in  Egypt, 
and  its  sons  must  not  treat  others  as  they  themselves  had 

VOL.    II.  T 


2(4:  AT    SINAI. 

been  treated  there.  For  the  poor,  special  provision,  on 
the  most  generous  scale,  was  made;  and  every  seventh 
year  all  the  fields,  vineyards,  and  olive  trees  were  left 
wholly  to  them.  Three  yearly  feasts  were  appointed,  at 
which  all  the  men  should  assemble  at  one  centre,  before 
God.  Sacrifices  to  be  offered  habitually  were  assumed  as 
already  established,  but  the  details  of  rites  were  left  for 
future  legislation. 

A  short  digest  of  these  laws,  thus  marked  throughout 
by  righteousness,  and  by  a  spirit  of  love  and  tenderness, 
was  forthwith  to  be  written  down  in  a  book,  by  Moses, 
as  the  Code  of  the  new  nation — the  Book  of  the 
Covenant — obedience  to  which  was  the  condition  of 
God's  fulfilling  His  promises  to  them.  This  book  was 
apparently  entrusted  to  the  Levites — who  formed  the 
educated  class  of  the  nation. 

Such  inter-relations  of  earth  and  heaven  bore  in  them, 
for  Israel  and  mankind,  the  germs  of  the  loftiest  national 
and  individual  character.  Nor  is  it  wonderful,  that,  as 
ages  passed  and  trouble  darkened  over  a  race  thus  set 
apart  by  Jehovah  as  His  own,  they  should  gradually  have 
developed  in  its  sons  an  assured  belief  that  He  would 
reveal  Himself  as  the  Messiah,  to  effect  for  them  a  second 
still  greater  redemption  than  that  from  Egypt.  Words 
of  such  human  sympathy,  coming  from  One  so  infinitely 
exalted  and  so  absolutely  holy,  opened  a  new  religious 
era,  of  which  the  incarnation  of  the  Divine  Son  was  only 
the  predestined  culmination. 

The  solemn  ratification  of  the  covenant  thus  made  was 
in  keeping  with  the  astonishing  details  of  its  proclama- 
tion. A  mysterious  presence,  made  known  as  the  Angel 
of  Jehovah,  would  henceforth  go  before  the  Hebrews, 
if  they  obeyed  His  voice,  and  open  their  way  to  the  land 
which  had  of  old  been  given  to  their  fathers ;   but  every- 


AT  SDiAl.  275 

thing  would  tarn  on  their  fidelity  to  this  covenant  with 
Him.  If,  on  their  part,  they  loyally  obeyed  Him  as 
their  God;  He,  on  His,  was  ready  formally  to  seal  the 
amaziag  transaction.  Moses,  with  Aaron,  and  his  two 
sons — ^Xadab,  "  the  generous  ''  or  "  noble,"  and  Abiho, 
"  He,  God,  is  my  Father " — and  seventy  of  the  elders 
of  Israel,  were  summoned  to  the  Holy  Mount;  all  bat 
Moses,  however,  being  required  to  worship  afar  off.  An 
altar,  of  earth  or  ui^ewn  st/ines,^  was  built  at  the  foot 
of  the  mountain,  and  beside  it  were  set  up  twelve  stones 
as  memorial  pillars,  to  witness  that  the  covenant  had 
been  duly  accepted  and  confirmed  by  each  tribe.-  Burnt 
offerings  were  then  consumed  on  the  altar,  and  thank 
offerings  presented,  the  firstborn  sons  of  chosen  families 
serving  as  priests ;  no  special  priesthood  having  been  as 
yet  appointed.^ 

Then  followed  the  formal  ratification.  Putting  half 
of  the  blood  in  basins,  Moses  sprinkled  the  altar  with  it, 
and  forthwith  read  to  all  the  assembly,  from  '•  the  Book 
of  the  Covenant,'^  the  written  words  of  the  Ten  Com- 
mandments and  the  laws  subsequently  given ;  the  people 
answt?ring,  after  he  had  done  so,  "  All  that  Jehovah  hath 
commanded  we  will  do,  and  be  obedient."  The  other 
half  of  the  blood  was  then  sprinkled  over  the  representa- 

*  Exod.  XX-  24,  26.  Altars  were  to  be  bnilt  either  of  earth  or  of 
unhewTi  stone.  In  antiquity  the  former  were  very  common,  and 
were  known  as  '•grassy  altars,"  ''altars  of  turf;"  from  the  sods 
laid  on  them  to  bind  them  together.  If  of  stone,  no  iron  was  to 
teach  the  stones ;  they  itere  to  be  left  as  God  made  them.  In  no 
case  were  altar^t  to  have  steps  to  them.  To  prerent  the  legs  being 
ODCOvered,  the  approach,  if  needed,  was  to  be  by  a  slope.  A 
similar  law,  for  the  same  reason,  obtained  among  the  Bomans. 

*  Gen-  xxviiL  18;  xxxL  4-5. 

*  So  the  Targums..  justly,  in  connection  with  Esod.  xxii,  29,  by 
which  firdtbom  sons  were  consecrated  to  Jehovah. 


276  AT  smAi. 

tives  of  tlie  people,  as  'Hlie  blood  of  tlie  covenant  wMcli 
Jehovali  had  made  with  them  /^  in  accordance  with  the 
custom  of  antiquity,  which  thus  consecrated  the  offerer 
to  his  God.  This  sprinkling  of  the  altar  and  of  the 
people  was  a  counterpart  of  the  established  forms  b} 
which  the  parties  to  a  covenant  bound  themselves  to  its 
faithful  performance.  Such  transactions  were  confirmed 
among  the  Arabs  and  other  races,  by  the  parties  to  it 
exchanging  blood  taken  from  their  own  persons ;  some- 
times tasting  each  other^s  blood  ;^  at  others  mixing  it 
with  wine  and  drinking  it,^  after  dipping  the  points  of 
their  swords  into  it :  ^  the  idea,  in  all  cases,  being,  that 
they  thus  became  one  blood,  and  as  such  had  entered 
into  a  bond  of  indissoluble  friendship.  In  the  Sinai 
covenant  the  same  thought  was  embodied,  but  in  a  more 
befitting  expression.  The  blood  consecrated  to  Jehovah, 
poured  in  part  on  His  altar,  and  in  part  sprinkled  on. 
themselves,  made  them  one  with  Him :  showed  that  He 
and  they,  henceforth,  stood  in  the  closest  relations ;  and 
pledged  both  Him  and  them,  by  the  most  solemn  obliga- 
tion, to  be  faithful  to  a  covenant  thus  ratified.* 

But  amidst  all  these  amazing  incidents,  an  event 
occurred  which  showed  how  the  religious  tone  of  the 
people  had  suffered,  from  the  influences  of  their  previous 
history.  Long  residence  in  a  country  so  idolatrous  as 
Egypt  had  had  its  inevitable  result  in  winning  them  over 

*  Herod.,  i.  74.     Tac,  Ann  ,  xii.  47. 

2  «  ^Yg  recited  the  Fatihah  (opening  chapter  of  the  Koran), 
and  after  solemn  pledges  of  mutual  and  inviolable  faith,  each 
of  us  opened  a  vein  of  his  left  arm,  somewhat  above  the  elbow, 
letting  the  blood  run  down  and  mingle  in  a  brass  cup.  .  .  . 
Out  of  this  cup  we  drank,  each,  a  full  draught,  becoming  thus, 
according  to  Bedouin  usage,  'brothers'  for  life  and  death."  — 
Hermann  Agha.     Bj  GiflPord  Palgrave.     P.  128. 

^  Herod  ,  iv.  70.  f  Bahr,  Sijmholih,  vol.  ii.  pp.  420  ff. 


AT    SINAI.  277 

more  or  less  to  a  sympathy  with  the  observances  seen  on 
every  hand.     Not  only  had  they  been  in  the  midst  of  the 
degrading  religion  of  Egypt :   the  Asiatic  tribes  of  the 
Delta^  around  them^  had  a  special  idolatry  of  their  own. 
Some,  indeed,  maintain   that    an   invincible  repugnance 
must    have   been   felt   by  the  Hebrews,  as  Asiatics,  to 
the  Egyptian  gods,  and  trace  their  heathen  notions  to 
the  related  Semitic  peoples  with  whom  they  had   been 
in  contact.     Thus,  Lengerke  shows  how  they  would  na- 
turally derive  them,  not  only  from  the  Hyksos  and  other 
Eastern  races  already  in  Egypt,  but  from  the  position  of 
Goshen,  at  the  entrance  to  the  country  from  the  north- 
east,   and   hence    open  to  the  easy  introduction  of  the 
idolatry  of  Western  Asia.     The  worship  of  the  Canaanites 
must,  besides,  have  been  familiar  to  them  before  their 
migration  to  the  Nile,  and  would  be  kept  alive  in  their 
memories  by  the  intercourse  between  the  two  countries ; 
while  the  star  worship  of  the  neighbouring  Arab  tribes 
could  not  be  unknown,  as  the  route  to  the  mines  in  their 
districts  was  much   in  use.     The  worship  of  Moloch,  a 
Babylonian  god   adopted   in  Canaan,  seems,  indeed,  to 
have  been  practised  by  the  Hebrews  while  still  in  Egypt. 
They   had   apparently    already,   while    there,  learned   to 
devote  their  firstborn   children  to    that  hideous  idol,  as 
a  burnt  sacrifice.^     Many  details  of  the  Mosaic  laws,  in 
fact,    seem   to   allude,   directly,  to    this  god ;    as  where 
Jehovah  claims  for  Himself  the  firstborn.     The  scapegoat 
of  the  Day  of  Atonement^  was  the  counterpart  of  offer- 
ings sent  into  the  wilderness  to  Moloch.     The  ass  was 
sacrificed   to   him,  but  must,    in    Israel,   have   its   neck 
broken,  if  not  redeemed.^     The  stern  prohibition  of  any 
payment  for  impurity  being  accepted  by  the  priests  for 

*  Ezek.  XX.  26.  2  l^^^  ^vi.  22. 

3  Exod.  xiii.  13 ;  xxxi.  20. 


278  AT    SINAI. 

the  worship  of  Jehovah/  was,  moreover,  evidently  ainied 
at  the  licentiousness  of  the  service  of  Ashtoreth,  the  Asiatic 
Venus.^  Jeroboam^s  calf-worship,  as  we  shall  see,  was 
due  to  Assyrian  and  Phenician,  not  Egyptian  influence, 
though  the  second  commandment  was  directed  against 
the  multitude  of  idols  and  symbolical  images  in  Egyptian 
temples,  and  especially  against  the  worship  of  animals. 
In  later  times  at  least,  without  question,  the  idolatry 
followed  by  Israel  was  Assyrian  and  Babylonian :  their 
worship  of  Siccuth  and  Chiun,  mentioned  by  Amos,^ 
being  that  of  the  Assyrian  gods  Sakkoth  and  Kewan, 
the  planet  Saturn. 

Ezekiel,  indeed,  tells  us  that  while  they  were  still  on 
the  Nile,  God  had  demanded  that  they  should  not  defile 
themselves  any  longer  with  the  idols  of  Egypt,  and  had 
required  every  man  to  "  cast  away  the  abominations 
of  his  eyes;"  the  household  gods  to  which  he  did  rever- 
ence.^ But  these  may  either  have  been  Egyptian  or 
Asiatic.  It  seems  implied,  however,  in  Leviticus,  by  the 
stern  command,  "  to  offer  no  more  sacrifices  to  goats,"  ^ 
that,  in  some  cases,  at  least,  they  copied  the  native  idola- 
try of  the  Nile,  if,  indeed,  the  reference  be  not  to  the 
goat-like  demons  or  satyrs  supposed  to  haunt  the  desert.^ 

The  incidents  of  the  struggle  with  Pharaoh;  of  the 
march  to  Sinai ;  and  of  the  giving  of  the  law ;  had  been 
designed  to  substitute,  for  such  idolatry,  faith  in  Jehovah, 
as  the  invisible  but  all  powerful  leader  of  Israel,  and  the 

1  Deut.  xxiii.  18. 

2  Lengei'ke's  Kenaan,  pp.  376-8.  See  Movers'  Phoniz.  vol.  i. 
pp.  363,  371.  Prof.  Sayce  holds  that  Asherali — the  goddess  of 
fertility — was  quite  difetinct  from  Ashtoreth,  or  Astarte — the 
Assyrian  Istar.     The  Bible  and  the  Monuments,  p.  72. 

3  Amos  v.  26.     See  vol.  i.  p.  69.       "  Ezek.  xx.  7,  8 ;  xxiii.  3,  8. 
^  Lev.  xvii.  7 ;  xviii.  23.     See  p.  64 

See  same  word,  Isa.  xiii.  14,  21,  34 


AT   SINAI.  ■  279 

one  only  living  and  true  God.  But  it  was  natural  that 
among  a  people  so  accustomed  to  idols_,  and  in  an  ago 
when  the  sight  of  the  Deity  was  held  absolutely  essential 
by  mankind  at  large,  there  should  be  a  craving  for  some 
visible  symbol  even  in  the  worship  of  Jehovah.  This 
had  been  already  indulgently  met,  by  the  presence  of 
the  cloudy  and  fiery  pillar  before  the  host,  and  by  the 
overpowering  spectacles  of  the  Holy  Mount.  It  was 
further,  presently,  commanded  that  as  an  additional 
emblem  of  the  presence  of  God  amongst  the  people,  a 
perpetual  fire  should  burn  in  the  Tabernacle  which  was 
to  be  constructed.  But  the  total  proscription  of  such 
images  and  symbols  as  they  had  seen  on  every  hand  in 
Egypt,  was  too  sublime  an  advance  in  religious  ideas  to 
be  accepted  or  understood  at  once.  Nor  must  we  judge 
such  a  nation  too  hardly,  when  we  remember  that,  even 
at  this  day,  Eastern  Christendom  has  its  sacred  pictures, 
and  the  Western  Church  its  images,  as  aids  to  devotion. 
It  is  diflicult,  even  after  so  many  ages,  for  civilized,  as 
for  uncivilized,  races,  to  banish  everything  human  and 
sensuous  from  their  conception  of  an  invisible  God.  The 
Hebrews,  who  till  a  few  weeks  before  had  worshipped 
Apis  or  Mnevis,  the  ox-gods  of  Egypt — or  Moloch,  the 
ox-god  of  Canaan — must  have  found  it  still  harder  to 
trust  in  an  unseen  Being,  and  doubtless  were  inclined 
to  think  Moses  such  an  incarnate  divinity  as  they  had 
been  accustomed  to  consider  the  kings  and  priests  of 
Egypt.  But  since  their  arrival  at  Sinai  he  had  not 
continued  with  them  as  before.  After  the  first  few  days 
he  had  been  summoned  to  the  Mount,  and  had  now 
remained  there  more  than  a  month,  till  it  seemed  to 
some  in  the  camp,  in  spite  of  the  cloud  of  the  Presence 
on  the  heights  above  them,  as  if  he  had  forsaken  them, 
or  had   perished   among  the   lightnings  and   thunders. 


280 


AT   SINAI. 


Helpless  and  lost  in  the  absence  of  a  leader,  they 
demanded  that  Aaron  should  make  a  god  for  them,  like 
those  they  had  known  in  Egypt,  to  be,  in  their  eyes, 
the  God  who  had  brought  them  out  from  that  land,  and 
to  go  before  them,  instead  of  Moses.  They  had  no 
thought,  apparently,  of  worshipping  any  other  being  than 
Jehovah,  but  wished  to  do  so  under  the  form  of  a  familiar 
idol;^  and  that  within  a  few  days  after  the  command  had 
sounded  to  them  from  the  Mount,  forbidding  all  such 
"  similitudes.'^ 

The  sacred  ox — Apis — of  Memphis,  close  to  Goshen, 
was  one  of  the  greatest  of  Egyptian  gods,  the  incarnation 

of  Osiris,  and  his  most 
cherished  emblem  as  the 
patron  of  agriculture.^  It 
was,  indeed,  worshipped 
under  three  names,  at  dif- 
ferent places,  as  Apis, 
Basis,  and  the  black  calf 
Mnevis,  whose  shrine  was 
at  On,  almost  in  the  midst 
of  the  Hebrew  population. 
But  of  these  three.  Apis 
was  the  most  famous.  A 
calf,  affirmed  by  the  priests  to  show  the  mysterious 
markings  which  proved  its  divine  birth,  was  brought 
on  a  sacred  ship  to  Memphis,  with  great  pomp,  and 
conducted  to  a  splendid  palace-temple,  where  extensive 
courts  and  shady  walks  were  provided  for  his  pleasure, 
and  hosts  of  menials  attended  to  wait  on  him.  He  was 
allowed  to  drink  only  from  one  special  well,  and  his 
food  was  as   carefully  chosen  as  if  he  had   been  really 

^  Exod.  xxxii.  4.     Aaron  says,  "  This  is  thy  god,"  etc.  (lit.) 

2  Plut.,  de  Is.  74.  Warburton's  Divine  Legation,  vol.  iv.  pp.  3,  5,  7. 


Bronze  Figuee  of  Apjs.  — W  l.uison. 


AT    SINAI.  281 

divine.  Oxen  were  sacrificed  to  him,^  and  be  received 
the  constant  adoration  of  multitudes  who  came  to 
worship  or  to  consult  him  as  an  oracle.  His  answers, 
indeed,  must  have  been  distressingly  uncertain,  for  they 
seem  to  have  been  determined  by  the  readiness  with 
which  he  took  food  from  the  hand  of  the  inquirer ;  from 
the  particular  door  by  which  he  entered  his  gorgeous 
stable;  and  by  other  indications  of  a  class  no  hio-her. 
His  magnificent  tomb  has  already  been  described/  but 
his  death  was  an  event  which  eclipsed  the  gaiety  of  all 
Egypt.  Every  one  shaved  his  head,  and  gave  way 
to  lamentations,  which  continued  till  a  new  Apis  was 
found,  and  then  the  rejoicing  was  as  universal.  As  with 
other  gods,  high  festivals  were  held  yearly  in  his  honour; 
his.  birthday,  especially,  being  a  great  national  hoUday, 
celebrated  with  sacrifices,  feasting,  and  religious  dances, 
but  also  with  foul  licence  and  vice.  Herodotus  describes 
some  of  these  religious  saturnalia,  from  which  the 
characteristics  of  the  feast  of  Apis  may  be  judged. 
Women  played  on  castanets,  men  on  flutes;  the  multitude 
singing  and  clapping  their  hands  together  to  the  music. 
Lascivious  dances  turned  the  precincts  of  the  temple 
into  a  wide  abomination,  and  wine,  drunk  to  excess, 
heightened  every  other  evil.  Such  festivals  were  indeed 
common.  At  that  of  Isis,  men  and  women  beat  them- 
selves after  the  sacrifice,  like  the  flagellants  of  the  middle 
ages,  while  the  Carians  settled  on  the  Nile,^  cut  their 
foreheads  with  knives.* 

^  Herod.,  ii.  38,  41.         2  page  16.     For  his  "marks,"  see  p.  64. 

^  Lev.  xix.  28;  xxi.  5.  1  Kiugs  xviii.  26,  23.  Jar.  xvi.  6;  xH. 
5 ;  xlvii.  5. 

^  Herod.,  ii.  60.  Dances  and  music  were  usual  at  the  religions 
festivals  of  the  Jews.  Exod.  xv.  20.  Jud.  xxi.  2.  1  Sara,  xviii. 
6, 7.     2  Sam  vi.  6.     Dancing,  as  a  religious  act  dates  indeed  from 


282  AT    SINAI. 

Of  the  local  worship  of  Moloch,  the  ox-god  of  the  Asiatic 
tribes  of  the  Delta,  we  have  no  details,  but  no  doubt  it 
was  similar  to  that  of  Apis  or  Mnevis,  and  the  feasts  in 
its  honour  would  be  equally  licentious  and  revolting. 

Deficient  in  the  great  qualities  of  a  leader,  which  so 
pre-eminently  marked  his  brother  Moses,  Aaron  weakly 
listened  to  the  clamours  of  the  crowd,  that  he  should 
provide  for  them  an  idol  emblem  of  Jehovah.  He  may 
have  withstood  the  demand  till  awed  by  fear  of  personal 
violence;  for  tradition  assigus  the  death  of  Hur  to  his 
resistance  to  the  proposal.  Yet,  as  the  results  showed, 
only  a  small  part  of  the  host  were  actually  compromised 

the  earliest  ages,  and  prevails  in  some  countries  even  at  this  day. 
In  India,  for  example,  dances  before  an  idol  are  a  feature  of 
nearly  every  religious  festival,  and  the  dancing  of  Mahommedan 
dervishes  is  well  known.  Very  possibly  the  idea  is  not  un- 
founded which  traces  such  rites  to  an  imitation  of  the  hea- 
venly bodies.*  Lucian  unhesitatingly  maintains  this  opinion. 
"Dancing,"  says  he,  "is  no  new  custom,  but  dates  from  the 
beginning  of  all  things;  for  the  circling  motions  of  the  stars,  and 
the  movements  among  each  other  of  the  planets  and  fixed  stars, 
and  their  well-ordered  harmony,  explain  its  origin."  Even  Milton 
supposes  such  religious  dances  among  the  angels  in  heaven, 
before  creation. 

"That  day,  as  other  solemn  days,  they  spent 
In  song  and  dance  about  the  sacred  hill ; 
Mystical  dance,  which  yonder  starry  sphere 
Of  planets,  and  of  fixed f  in  all  her  wheels, 
Resembles  nearest:  mazes  intricate, 
Eccentric,  intervolved,  yet  regular. 
Then  most,  when  most  irregular  they  seem; 
And  in  their  motions  harmony  divine, 
So  smooths  her  charming  tones,  that  God's  own  ear 
Listens  deliglited.";}: 

*  Yolney's  Voyage  en  Syrie,  vol.  ii.  p.  403,  note. 

f  Fixed = fixed  stars. 

I  Paradise  Lost,  Bk.  v.  618-627. 


AT   SINAI. 


283 


in  this  religious  defection/  and  the  whole  movement 
might  have  been  crushed  in  the  bud,  by  manly  firmness. 
Instead  of  this,  however,  he  invited  the  men,  with  their 
wives,  sons  and  daughters,  to  give  him  their  golden  ear- 
rings to  melt  into  the  image  they  desired.  It  was  fitting 
to  make  it  of  such  materials,  for  many  of  these  orna« 
ments,  engraved  with  magic  characters,  and  consecrated 
to  some  idol,  were  worn  as  amulets.^  Thin  plates  of  gold 
formed  from  these  sufiiced  to  coat  over  a  wooden  figure, 
of  Moloch,  Apis,  or  possibly  of  the  calf  Mnevis ;  Aaron,  or 
rather  those  appointed  by  him,  engraving  the  necessary 
sacred  marks  on  it,^  and  thus  preparing  it  for  worship  by 
the  multitude. 

That  the  golden  calf  was  a  copy  of  the  sacred  ox  or 
calf  of  Egypt,  has,  till  late  years,  been  generally  taken 
for  granted.^  It  is  now,  however,  questioned,  as  has 
been  noticed,  whether  it  was  not  rather  a  reproduction  of 
the  god  Moloch,  worshipped  by  the  Asiatics  in  the  Delta. 
A  common  national  origin,  as  well  as  numerous  inter- 
marriages, would  make  such  an  idol  at  once  familiar  and 
attractive  to  the  Hebrews.  They  might  be  proud  of 
their  descent  from  Abraham,  but  they  retained  at  all 
times  a  lingering  attachment  to  the  idolatry  he  left 
behind  him  at  Harran.  The  teraphim  in  Jacob's  house- 
hold and  camp  were,  indeed,  only  a  first  indication  of  a 
feeling  that  showed  itself  through  all  their  history,  to  the 
downfall  of  their  State.  The  names  of  the  gods  wor- 
shipped and  the  forms  of  idolatry  might  vary^  but  un- 

1  See  the  small  number  mentioned  in  Exod.  xxxii.  28. 

2  Eichhorn's  Einleitung  in  das  N.  T.,  vol.  i.  p.  524  Winer,  art. 
Ohrringe. 

^  See  page  64 

"•  See  Knobel's  Exodus.  Lange.  Keil  and  Delitzsch.  Kohler. 
Speakers  Bible.     Kalisch,  and  others. 


284  AT    SINAI. 

doubtedly  the  bias  to  Babylonian  and  Canaanitisb  beatb en- 
ism  never  died  out.  They  were  especially  given  to  the, 
worship  of  Moloch  through  their  whole  subsequent 
history.  "  There  is  no  trace/'  says  Bunsen,  "  of  any 
Asiatic  stem  ever  borrowing  a  religious  solemnity  from 
the  Egyptians ;  for  the  idols  of  the  Nile  were  an  abomin- 
ation to  such  races,  when  not  an  object  of  ridicule." 
He  therefore  thinks  that  the  golden  calf  was  an  image, 
not  of  Apis,  but  of  Moloch,  who  was  worshipped  under 
the  shape  of  an  ox,  or  as  a  human  form  with  an  ox's 
head.^  He  adds,  that  he  himself  met  some  chiefs  of  the 
Druses,  in  London,  in  1842,  who  carried  about  with  them 
a  small  gilded  figure  of  an  ox,  in  obedience,  as  they  said, 
to  an  immemorial  custom  of  their  people.^ 

Tradition  fixes  the  time  of  the  Hebrew  defection  as 
in  the  month  of  Tammuz,  our  July,^  which  would  corre- 
spond with  that  of  the  annual  summer  feast  of  ancient 
religions,  especially  the  Semitic ;  the  festival  changed 
afterwards  by  Moses  into  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles,  all 
that  was  impure  and  idolatrous  being  excluded.  A  con- 
siderable interval  must  have  passed  before  everything 
was  prepared,  but  at  last,  six  weeks*  after  his  brother 
had  gone  up  into  the  Mount,  Aaron  announced  that  the 
next  day  would  be  kept  as  a  feast  to  Jehovah ;  the  golden 
calf  being  recognized  as  in  some  way  His  symbol. 


1  Movers,  Phoniz.,  vol.  i.  p.  372. 

2  Bun  sen's  Bibel  TJrkundeyi,  vol.  i.  pp.  180-183.  Ewald  agrees 
with  him  that  the  calf  was  not  an  aUusion  to  Egyptian  bat  to 
Asiatic  idolatry,  as  introduced  to  Eg3^pt  by  the  Hyksos.  Ge- 
schichte,  vol.  ii.  p.  258.  Lengerke  thinks  it  was  Apis.  Kenaan, 
p.  381.  Sayce  says,  without  hesitation,  that  it  was  Moloch. 
Lengerke  died  in  1855. 

3  Smith's  Dictionary  of  the  Bihle,  vol.  ii.  p.  417. 
*  Exod.  xxiv.  18. 


AT    SINAI.  285 

Witli  the  dawn  of  morning,  matters  came,  finally,  to  a 
crisis.  Burnt  sacrifices  and  peace  offerings  having  been 
presented  to  the  calf,  the  people  sat  down  to  feast  on  the 
parts  of  the  victims  not  consumed  on  the  altars ;  and, 
this  being  ended,  gave  themselves  up  to  the  wild  licence 
with  which  such  occasions  had  been  associated  in  Egypt. 
Meanwhile,  no  messenger  had  been  sent  to  Moses  to  warn 
him  of  what  was  afoot ;  if  indeed  awe  would  have  per- 
mitted any  one  to  ascend  the  Mount.  But  now  a  Divine 
intimation  apprised  him  of  the  danger,  and  he  hurried 
down  towards  the  camp.  Presently,  as  he  and  Joshua 
came  nearer,  and  the  noise  of  the  feast  reached  them, 
it  was  supposed  by  Joshua,  soldier-like,  to  be  the  sound 
of  a  hostile  attack,  such  as  that  made  by  Amalek  not  long 
before.  But  Moses,  true  to  his  own  instincts,  interpreted 
it  rightly,  as  neither  the  shout  of  victory  nor  the  wail  of 
the  defeated,  but  the  roll  of  wild  choruses  in  a  religious 
festival. 

Once  amongst  the  people,  the  influence  of  his  strong 
will  was  seen  in  an  instant.  Passing  straight  to  the 
idol,  he  ordered  it  to  be  instantly  removed,  and  broke  up 
the  assembly  by  the  mere  awe  of  his  presence. 

The  incident  had  been  critical,  for  God  had  threatened 
to  consume  the  whole  multitude  for  such  an  apostasy,  and, 
had  only  spared  them  at  the  earnest  and  touching  inter- 
cession of  Moses.  It  was  imperative  that  the  evil  be 
rooted  out,  as  far  as  possible.  The  calf,  itself,  must  first 
be  utterly  degraded  from  all  suspicion  of  divine  power, 
and  was  therefore  ground  to  powder,  and  strewn  on  the 
stream  of  which  the  people  had  to  drink.  To  kill  a 
sacred  animal  was  a  terrible  sacrilege,  but  to  be  forced  to 
drink  the  ashes  of  a  desecrated  idol,  was  a  still  more 
impressive  punishment. 

Yet,    this    was    only    the    beginning    of    retribution. 


286  AT    SINAI. 

Thoiigli  tender  and  loving  as  a  woman ;  willing  indeed  to 
be  blotted  out  of  the  book  of  Grod/  if  only  the  sin  of  his 
people  might  be  forgiven ;  Moses  had^  on  occasion^  all  the 
sterner  attributes  of  a  strong  ruler  of  men.  Authority- 
had  been  overthrown  in  the  vast  host,  for  Aaron  had  let 
the  people  fall  into  wild  lawlessness  and  insubordination,^ 
which,  if  not  at  once  crushed,  would  run  riot  in  idolatry, 
and  destroy  the  whole  scheme  of  the  Theocracy  at  its 
rise.  Standing  in  the  gate  of  the  camp,  therefore,  he 
summoned  to  hina  such  as  were  on  the  side  of  Jehovah, 
and  was  forthwith  answered  by  all  the  men  of  the  tribe 
of  Levi,  the  smallest  of  the  twelve  tribes.^  These  he 
instantly  ordered  to  gird  on  their  swords,  and,  passing 
through  the  host,  to  put  down  the  rebellion  at  any 
cost.  Ere  night,  terror  had  seized  the  offenders,  and  the 
camp  was  saved,  but  not  before  3,000  men  had  fallen. 

^  Exod.  xxxii.  32. 

2  Exod.  xxxii.  25.  "The  people  were  naked," — ht.  "are  not  to 
be  reined  in."  The  rest  of  the  verse  may  be  read,  "  for  Aaron 
had  let  go  the  reins  unto  them,  for  a  whispering,  or  derision 
among  their  enemies,"  i.e.,  the  worshippers  of  the  true  God  would 
hereafter  be  taunted  as  the  worshippers  of  a  calf. 

3  Num.  hi.  39  ;  xxvi.  62.  23,000  males  from  a  month  old,  up- 
wards, would  perhaps  imply  60,000  persons  in  all,  in  the  tribe. 


CHAPTER   X. 

STILL   AT    SINAI. 

IN  its  results,  the  apostasy  of  the  golden  calf  affected 
the  whole  future  history  of  Israel.  It  was  an  open 
and  flagrant  breach  of  the  covenant  so  recently  made 
with  God,  and  for  the  time  cancelled  it.  Even  Moses 
felt  this,  and  had  shown  that  he  did  so,  by  throwing  down 
and  shattering  the  tablets  inscribed  with  the  "  Ten 
Words  '^  on  which,  primarily,  all  else  rested — an  act 
tantamount  to  throwiug  up  his  high  commission  as  leader 
and  prophet  of  the  people.  Since  they  had  repudiated 
their  relations  to  Jehovah,  the  laws  which  expressed  those 
relations  would  only  be  dishonoured  by  being  delivered 
to  them.  The  narrative  of  Exodus  discloses  the  gravity 
of  the  moment  in  language  of  mysterious  sublimity. 
Moses,  once  more  ascending  Sinai,  pleads  with  God  for 
the  pardon  of  Israel  and  of  Aaron — praying  that  his  own 
name  may  be  blotted  out  from  the  book  of  heaven  with 
theirs,  if  they  be  not  forgiven.  But  all  he  can  for  a  time 
obtain,  is  the  promise  that  an  angel  would  henceforth 
guide  them  to  Canaan.  Jehovah  Himself  was  too  offended 
to  come  near  the  camp,  nor  would  it  be  well  He  should, 
lest  His  anger  burst  forth  to  their  destruction. 

That  their  God  was  no  longer  to  dwell  among  them, 
as  of  old,  struck  the  hearts  of  all  with  a  profound  grief, 

287 


288  STILL   AT    SINAI. 

wtich  expressed  itself  in  tlie  striking  form  of  a  universal 
public  mourning.  Every  ornament  was  laid  aside,  and 
the  sombre  dress  of  general  humiliation  and  penitence 
adopted.  Nor  was  this  merely  for  a  time.  Henceforth, 
the  hope  of  restored  favour  was  connected  with  the  reten- 
tion of  this  visible  confession  of  guilt  till  they  had  finally 
entered  Canaan.^  There  were,  also,  other  marks  of  the 
breach  between  God  and  His  people.  The  tent  of  Moses, 
which  had  hitherto,  apparently,  been  the  temporary  sanc- 
tuary of  the  camp,  marked  by  the  mysterious  cloud  at  its 
entrance,  was  removed  to  a  distance;  as  if  the  symbol 
of  the  Divine  Presence  could  no  longer  be  vouchsafed 
among  the  apostate  multitude.  There,  aloof  from  the 
guilty  host,  the  mysterious  pledge  of  His  not  having 
wholly  forsaken  Israel  still  hung — but  it  was  not,  as 
before,  in  their  midst.  All  who  ^'^ sought  Jehovah"  had 
now  to  go  outside  the  camp,  and  thither,  also,  Moses  had 
to  betake  himself  for  Divine  communications.  The  awe 
felt  towards  him  had  returned  with  greater  force  than 
ever  after  his  reappearance,  and  his  future  relations  with 
Jehovah  intensified  it  still  more.  ^^  When  he  used  to  go 
out  to  the  Tent  of  Meeting,"  ^  says  the  sacred  narrative, 
*'  every  man  was  wont  to  stand  in  the  entrance  of  his 
tent,  looking  after  him  till  he  went  in,  and  the  cloudy 
pillar  then  came  down  and  rested  at  the  entrance  of  the 
tent,  while  Jehovah  talked  with  Moses  face  to  face,  as  a 
man  speaks  to  his  friend.  And  all  the  people,  each  time 
they  saw  it,  fell  on  their  faces  at  the  entrance  of  their 
tents."  ^     But,  as  yet,   there  was  no  priestly  or  Levite 

^  Exod.  xxxiii.  4-6.     ^  The  tent  where  Jehovah  met  with  Moses. 

3  Exod.  xxxiii.  7-11.  All  these  verses  speak  of  events  happen- 
ing otten.  When  Israel  is  spoken  of  as  a  stiff-necked  people,  it 
means,  a  people  who  in  their  haughty  self-will  throw  back  their 
necks,  as  if  in  defiance. 


STILL   AT   SINAI.  289 

guard  over  the  sacred  dwelling,  for,  wheii  Moses  returned 
to  the  camp,  it  was  left  in  charge  of  Joshua.^ 

Forty  days  elapsed  after  the  great  catastrophe,  before 
the  prayer  of  Moses  received  a  fall  answer,  and  then,  at 
last,  the  life  of  Aaron  was  spared,  and  Jehovah  once  more 
promised.  Himself,  to  go  before  Israel  to  Canaan.^  This 
was  equivalent  to  a  renewal  of  the  covenant,  and  a 
re-appointment  of  Moses  to  his  great  commission.  He 
therefore,  forthwith,  resumed  his  old  position.  But,  as  at 
the  burning  bush  he  had  craved  some  sign  of  the  Divine 
favour,  and  some  pledge  of  help,  he  now,  with  the 
yearning  so  peculiar  to  antiquity  for  a  vision  of  the  God- 
head, asks  that  his  re-installation  might  be  similarly 
accredited,^  and  this  petition  also  was  granted.  Placed  in 
a  crevice  of  Sinai,  the  majesty  of  Jehovah  passed  by,  and 
a  voice  was  heard  proclaiming  His  presence  and  attri- 
butes. A  new  period  in  the  career  of  the  great  prophet 
dates  from  this  time.*  Two  other  tables,  hewn  from  the 
mountain  side,  and  inscribed  afresh  with  the  ''  Ten 
Words,^'  marked  publicly  the  renewal  of  the  covenant. 
Once  more  he  remained  forty  days  in  the  mountain,  but 
this  time  the  camp  stood  the  test  of  his  absence,  and 
there  was  no  sign  of  defection.  'Descending  at  last 
with  the  pledge  of  restored  favour  with  God,  it  became 
evident  that  he  stood  on  a  loftier  elevation  than  before, 
above  his  countrymen,  and  was  surrounded  by  an  awful 
and  mysterious  greatness.  A  supernatural  light,  caught 
from  near  approach  to  the  glory  of  Jehovah,  shone  from 

*  Exod.  xxxiii.  11. 

2  The  pleading  of  Moses  with  God  for  Israel  is  unspeakably 
touching,  and  so  also  is  the  language  ascribed  to  Jehovah:  ''Must 
then  My  presence  go  with  Thee :  will  nothing  less  suffice,  that  I 
may  give  thee  rest  ?  "    Exod.  xxxiii.  14     Ewald's  translation. 

3  Exod.  xxxiii.  18.  •*  Exod.  xxxiv.  29. 
VOL.    II.  U 


290  STILL   AT    SINAI. 

his  features  ^  and  required  to  be  hidden  by  a  veil  till  it 
gradually  faded,  and  it  was  noticed  that  this  splendour 
was  renewed  as  often  as  he  returned  to  the  camp  from 
communion  with  God.^ 

The  covenant  having  been  thus  re-established,  it  was 
now  possible  to  prepare  a  more  formal  sanctuary  than  the 
tent  of  Moses.  It  was  fitting  that  a  centre  should  be 
provided  to  which  all  might  turn  as  to  the  visible  abode 
of  Jehovah,  the  God-King  of  Israel.  Accustomed  to 
see  images  of  the  gods  present  among  other  peoples, 
they  craved  some  equivalent,  and  were  graciously  heard. 
Though  symbols  of  Jehovah  were  proscribed,  they  would 
have  among  them  the  mysterious  cloud  which  attested 
His  presence,  and  could  thus  boast  far  higher  honour 
than  any  other  nation.^ 

How  "  the  pattern  ^*  of  the  future  Tabernacle  was 
revealed  to  Moses  is  not  told  us :  we  only  learn  that  he 
was  guided  in  its  construction  by  monitions  from  God. 
It  may  be,  as  Dean  Perowne  puts  it,  that  "  the  lower 
analogies  of  the  painter  and  the  architect,  seeing  with 
their  inward  eye  their  completed  work,  before  the  work 
itself  begins,  may  help  us  to  understand  how  it  was  that 

^  The  Hebrew  word  haran,  to  shine,  is  connected  with  heren,  a 
horn,  and  hence,  in  the  Vulgate,  Moses  is  represented  as  having 
horns  after  his  return  from  the  Divine  presence.  This  is  the 
origin  of  the  fancy  which  depicts  him,  as  in  the  master-piece  of 
Michael  Angelo,  with  horns. 

2  Exod.  xxxiv.  4-35.     Deut.  x.  3-5,  10.     Corap.  2  Cor.  iii.  7  ff. 

3  In  antiquity  the  desire  for  a  visible  presence  of  the  deity 
was  not  only  a  great  cause  of  the  mnltiplication  of  idols,  but 
showed  itself  in  the  passionate  enthusiasm  with  which  the  house- 
hold gods  were  kissed,  watched  and  protected.  For  any  one  to 
lose  his  gods  was  to  lose  all  pledge  of  security  or  welfare.  It 
was  natural,  therefore,  for  Israel  to  wish  earnestly  that  God 
might  be  present,  by  some  symbol,  amongst  them. 


STILL   AT    SINAI.  291 

the  vision  on  the  Mount  included  all  details  of  form, 
measurement,  materials,  the  order  of  the  ritual,  and  the 
apparel  of  the  priests/^  ^  The  case  of  David,  who  tells  ua 
that  the  smallest  particulars  respecting  the  Temple  were 
included  in  the  things  which  ''  the  Lord  made  him  under- 
stand in  writing,  by  His  hand  upon  him,^-*  that  is,  by  an 
inward  illumination  which  seemed  to  exclude  the  slow 
process  of  deliberation  and  decision,  furnishes  a  parallel 
to  that  of  Moses.^  But  if  thus  mysteriously  planned,  its 
execution  was  left  to  human  instruments,  among  whom  the 
names  of  only  two  survive — Bezaleel,  "  in  the  shadow 
of  God,'*  i.e.,  under  His  protection,  of  the  tribe  of  Judah  ; 
and  Aholiab,  "  the  father's  tent,''  of  the  tribe  of  Dan — 
who  had  doubtless  gained  their  artistic  skill  in  Egypt. 

The  Tabernacle,  as  its  name  implies,  was  a  movable 
tent-temple,  suited  to  the  requirements  of  an  unsettled 
and  wandering  people.  It  was,  hence,  necessarily,  small 
— its  length  being  only  about  45  feet,  and  its  breadth 
15,  which  was  also  its  height.^  Its  sides  and  western  end, 
for  it  was  open  at  the  east,  were  formed  of  boards  of 
acacia  wood,^  the  only  timber  in  the  Sinai  region  suit- 
able in  its  size  and  qualities.  These  boards  were  fixed 
in  wooden  sockets  covered  with  silver;  a  plating  of  gold 
over  both  sides,  and  also  over  a  series  of  acacia  pillars 
and  connecting  bars,  by  which  the  structure  was  made 
firm,  lending  further  dignity  to  it ;  though  the  splendour 

^  Art.  Tabernacle,  Did.  of  the  Bible.  2  jHfji^ 

'  The  cubit  is  reckoned  =  18  in.  here  and  in  the  following  pages. 
Conder  makes  it  =  16  in. 

*  Tristram's  Nat.  Hist,  of  the  Bible,  p.  391.  The  tree  is  the 
Acacia  Sergal.  Its  seed  has  a  pod  like  that  of  the  laburnum : 
its  bark  is  used  for  tanning  :  camels  browse  on  its  terrible  thorns, 
and  it  yields  the  gum  arabic  of  commerce.  Acacia  wood  was 
largely  used  for  ship-building  in  antiquity,  from  its  toughness 
and  durability.     Hitter's  Erdkunde,  vol.  xiv.  p.  335. 


292  STILL   AT   SINAI. 

thus  lavished  was  hidden  beneath  a  succession  of  cover- 
ings which  constituted  the  roof,  and  extended  down  the 
sides  and  end^  nearly,  if  not  quite  to  the  ground. 

Of  these,  the  innermost  displayed  the  highest  art  of 
the  day  in  the  shape  of  figures  of  the  symbolic  cherubim, 
woven  in  deep  blue,  purple,  and  crimson,  on  a  white 
ground  of  the  finest  linen  or  cotton  fabric.  This,  appar- 
ently, formed  the  ceiling,  and  hung  down,  as  gorgeous 
tapestry,  over  the  inside  of  the  golden  walls.^  Above 
this,  as  a  protection  to  it,  was  laid  a  second  covering  of 
camel-hair  cloth,  reaching  down  the  outside  almost  to  the 
earth.  Next  came  one  of  rams'  leather,  dyed  red,  and, 
over  this,  the  fourth,  of  the  skin  of  the  dugong,  a  kind 
of  seal,  found  still  on  the  Red  Sea,  and  known  to  the 
Hebrews  as  the  '^tahash.'^^  The  leather  made  from  this 
material  is  even  at  present  used  for  sandals  and  shields 
in  the  Sinai  peninsula,  and  was  anciently  in  demand  for 
the  winter  tents  of  soldiers,  from  being  impervious  to 
water,  and  as  a  fancied  protection  from  lightning.^ 

The  interior  was  divided  into  two  chambers,  the 
eastern — forming  the  Holy  Place — 30  feet  long  by  15 
broad;  the  inner — or  Holy  of  Holies,  only  15  feet 
square.    Like  the  corresponding  space,  bearing  the  same 

1  Jos.,  Ant,  III.  vi.  11. 

2  The  Hebrew  word,  Tahash,  is  no  doubt  the  equivalent  for  the 
Arabic  "Tuhash,"  which  is  a  general  name  for  the  various  species 
of  seals,  dugongs,  and  dolphins  found  in  the  Eed  Sea.  Tristram's 
Nat  Hist  of  the  Bible,  p.  44. 

3  Palmer's  Sinai,  p.  39.  Knobel's  Genesis,  p.  261.  The  use  of 
the  acacia  wood  and  of  tahash  skin  in  the  construction  of  the 
Tabernacle  are  striking  "  undesigned  coincidences,"  in  proof  of 
the  strict  historical  truth  of  the  narrative.  Both  are  local 
productions,  unknown  elsewhere.  Eichhorn,  Einleitung,  vol.  iii. 
p.  266.  Furrer's  Geograjpliie,  p.  11.  The  custom  of  dying  rams* 
skins  red  still  continues.     Irhy  and  Mangles,  p.  258. 


STILL  AT   SINAI.  293 

name,  in  Egyptian  temples,  this  specially  sacred  spot 
was  at  tlie  west  end,  and  was  wholly  unliglited ;  for  a 
double  curtain  of  the  finest  workmanship,  bright,  like 
that  on  the  inner  walls,  with  many  colours,  and  adorned 
with  strange  forms,  like  the  curtains  of  golden  tissue 
before  the  Holy  of  Holies  of  an  Egyptian  temple,  at 
once  divided  it  from  the  Holy  Place,  and  veiled  it  in 
permanent  darkness. 

The  sacred  tent  was  enclosed  in  an  open  space  75  feet 
broad  and  150  feet  long.  Of  this,  the  eastern  end,  or 
entrance,  was  closed  by  hangings  of  costly  workmanship, 
though  not  of  the  same  exceptional  fineness  as  that  of  the 
inner  curtains;^  the  pillars  supporting  them  being  plated 
with  copper,  except  on  the  cornices,  which  were  covered 
with  gold.  The  connecting  bars  above,  however,  were 
gilded  throughout,  and  the  hangings  themselves  were 
held  up  by  golden  hooks,  though  the  sockets  of  the  pillars 
were  only  of  copper.  That  the  entrance  was  at  the  east, 
and  thus  faced  the  west,  was  in  keeping  with  the  usual 
practice  of  the  age  in  sacred  structures.^ 

On  the  other  three  sides,  a  series  of  pillars  and  bars, 
strengthened  and  ornamented  with  silver  and  copper, 
formed  a  framework  from  which  hung  a  line  of  curtains, 
depending  from  silver  rods.  But  their  height  was  only 
7 1  feet,  while  the  Tabernacle  within  was  15. 

The  sacred  equipment  of  this  sanctuary  was  inevitably, 
in  some  respects,  similar  to  that  of  heathen  temples, 
though  in  vivid  contrast  to  them  by  the  absence  of  any 
idolatrous  symbols.  In  His  wisdom,  God  here,  as  else- 
where, sanctioned  the  use  of  existing  forms  and  ideas, 
as  already  familiar  and  easily  understood,  but  separated 
from  them  all  that  might  lead  to  error. 

^  Exod.  xxvii.  16.  *  Rosenmiiller,  Bib.  Alterth.  I.,  i.  137. 


294  STILL  AT   SINAI. 

Sacred  Arks  had  been  seen  in  every  temple  in  Egypt,^ 
as  the  shrines  of  the  idols,  or  of  some  object  equally 
sacred  and  idolatrous ;  as  in  later  times  in  the  case  of 
that  of  the  Temple  of  Artetnis,  at  Patrae,  in  Achaia, 
which  contained  the  image  of  Dionysus,  veiled  from 
sight  in  reverent  secrecy;  or  of  that  of  the  Temple  of 
Hera,  at  Olympia,  in  which  were  kept  several  idols,  and 
some  sacred  books,  as  in  that  of  Israel.^  Such  an  Ark 
was  commanded  by  God  to  be  prepared  and  placed  in 
the  Holy  of  Holies  in  the  Tabernacle,  as  the  symbol 
of  His  having  taken  possession  of  it  as  His  peculiar 
dwelling-place.  It  was  to  be  of  acacia  wood,  the  material 
least  liable  to  decay,  of  any  available.  In  size  it  was  only 
small,  for  it  measured  no  more  than  3  feet  9  inches  in 
length,  and  2  feet  3  inches  in  width  and  depth.  With- 
out and  within,  it  was  overlaid  with  the  purest  gold ;  a 
moulding  of  the  same  material  running  along  its  upper 
edges,  to  receive  a  golden  covering  known  as  the  Mercy 
Seat.  This,  also,  was  made  of  beaten  gold,  with  two 
cherubim,  apparently  of  human  form,  rising,  one  from 
each  end,  with  outspread  wings,  and  bending  towards 
the  centre;  for  images  were  not  proscribed  altogether 
by  Moses,  except  as  symbols  of  religious  worship.  Rings 
of  pure  gold  in  its  four  corners,  or  ^'^feet,^^  received 
staves  similarly  plated,  and  these  were  never  to  be  re- 
moved, lest  in  taking  them  out  the  priests  might  touch 
the  sacred  chest  itself.^  The  sacredness  of  the  Tabernacle 
culminated  in  this  supreme  symbol  of  the  presence  of 
God;   for  it  was  from   between  the   cherubim,*  as  the 

1  They  were    common  also    to    the   Assyrians,   Babjlonians, 
Etruscans,  Trojans,  and  Greeks. 

2  Bahr's  Symholik,  vol.  i.  p.  399. 
^  Num.  iv.  15. 

*  God  is  often  spoken  of  as  "  dwelling  between  the  cherubim  " 


STILL   AT   SINAI. 


295 


mystic  supporters  of  His  throne  and  its  unsleeping 
guardians,^  that  He  made  known  His  will  to  Moses,  and 
accepted  the  atonement  made  once  a  year  for  the  sins  o£ 
the  people,  when  the  high  priest  entered,  at  this  long 
interval,  to  sprinkle  the  mercy  seat  with  the  blood  of  the 
appointed  propitiation. 

Inside  the  Ark,  however,  there  was  no  idol,  to  be  borne 
about  on  high  festivals,  and  shown  to  the  people,  as  in 
heathen  religions ;  but  in  its  stead  only  the  two  Tables  of 
the  Commandments,  spoken  from  Sinai,  and  the  Book  of 
the  Covenant,  made  by  Jehovah  with  Israel :  the  fitting 
emblems  of  the  true 
religion.^ 

In  the  Holy  Place, 
next  the  Holy  of 
Holies,  stood  the 
Table  of  Shewbread 
on  the  north  side, 
the  altar  of  incense 
in  the  middle,  and 
the  sacred  seven- 
branched  lamp  on 
the  south.  Of  these, 
the  Table  of  Shew- 
bread, or  rather,  '^  Bread  of  the  Presence,^'  was  of  acacia 
wood,  3. feet  long,  18  inches  broad,  and  2  feet  3  inches 
high,  plated  with  pure  gold,  and  strengthened  and 
ornamented  with  a  framework  a  handbreadth  deep,  also 


Egypiiaw  Peiests  Beabiwg  the  Shbine  o» 
A.  God. 


(Ps.  Ixxx.  1 ;  xcix.  1).  See,  also,  Exod.  xxv.  22).  Elsewhere  they 
bear  the  throne  of  God  (2  Sam.  xxii.  11.  Ps.  xviii.  10.  Ezek.  ix.  3  ; 
x.  4,  18).  In  the  last  verse  it  is  said  "  the  glory  stood  over  the 
cherubim." 

^  Bahr's  Symholik,  vol.  i.  p.  377. 

*  The  pot  of  manna  and  Aaron's  rod  were  added  afterwards. 


296  STILL  AT   SINAI. 

covered  witli  gold ;  on  whicli  the  top  rested.  Two  staves 
plated  with  gold,  and  passed  through  four  golden  rings 
at  the  corners,  supplied  the  means  of  carrying  it  when 
needed.  On  this  table  the  priests  were  to  place  twelve 
cakes,  in  two  rows,  each  Sabbath,  strewing  incense 
over  them,^  as  a  sign  that  prayer  and  thanks  were 
ever  becoming;  removing  them  at  the  close  of  each 
week,  and  replacing  them  by  others;  those  removed 
becoming  forthwith  a  priestly  perquisite,  to  be  eaten  in 
the  Holy  Place.  The  absolute  dependence  of  Israel,  alike 
in  its  tribes  and  as  a  whole,  and  of  man  as  a  race,  on 
God,  for  daily  bread,  could  receive  no  more  fitting  ac- 
knowledgment; for  the  bread  of  the  Presence  remained 
before  Him  perpetually.  Besides  the  table  itself,  how- 
ever, there  were  different  vessels  connected  with  its 
object ;  a  large  golden  basin  in  which  the  sacred  bread 
was  brought  into  the  Holy  Place,  and  for  holding  the 
fine  meal  of  offerings ;  pans  or  dishes  for  incense ;  a  large 
flagon  for  the  wine  of  drink  offerings ;  cups  or  chalices 
from  which  the  wine  was  poured  on  the  altar  ;^  and  small 
shovels  on  which  to  carry  the  incense,  weekly,  from  the 
table  to  the  altar  of  burnt  offering.  Such  a  table  was 
regarded  in  antiquity,  generally,  as  a  necessary  part  of 
the  furniture  of  a  temple,  as  in  that  of  Belus  at  Babylon, 
where  a  table  with  flagons,  incense  bowls,  and  other 
sacred  vessels^  stood  beside  the  image  of  the  god. 

The  sacred  lamp  was  placed  fittingly  in  the  south, 
the  peculiar  region  of  the  sun.  Its  shape  was  doubtless 
similar  to  that  in  the  later  Temple,  of  which  a  likeness 
remains  on  the  Arch  of  Titus;  three  branches  bending 
upwards  on  each  side  from  a  massy  stalk,  and  forming  a 
straight  line  of   six  lampholders,  increased  to  seven  by 

^  Lev.  xxiv.  7.  ^  Exod.  xxv.  29.     Lev.  xxiv.  5-10. 

3  Herod.,  i.  181,  183.     Diod.,  li.  9. 


STILL   AT    SINAI.  297 

a  central  shaft.  The  whole,  with  the  lamps  themselves, 
and  the  very  snuffers  and  snuff-dishes,  were  elaborately 
wrought  of  pure  beaten  gold.  Shut  in  by  thick  curtains, 
the  Holy  Place,  like  the  Holy  of  Holies,  had  no  light, 
and  hence,  to  dissipate  the  gloom,  and  also  to  serve  as 
a  symbol  that  He  who  guarded  Israel  neither  slumbered 
nor  slept,  all  the  lamps  were  never  extinguished  at  one 
time,  but  shed  a  perpetual  light  in  the  sacred  chamber.^ 

The  Altar  of  Incense,^  which  was  only  18  inches 
square  and  3  feet  high,  was  overlaid  with  pure  gold  on 
the  top  and  the  sides,  and  ornamented  with  a  raised 
moulding,  also  of  gold.  Four  horns,  covered  also  with 
rich  gold,  rose  at  the  corners,  and  golden  rings  on  the 
sides  provided  for  its  being  borne  by  two  staves  plated 
with  gold.  Incense  was  burned  in  this  every  morning 
when  the  lamps  were  trimmed,  and  every  evening  when 
the  whole  were  kindled,  and  its  horns  were  once  a  year 
touched  with  the  blood  of  the  sin  offering  of  atone- 
ment. The  fire  on  it,  moreover,  was  never  allowed  to 
go  out,  that  that  on  the  great  brazen  altar  might  always 
be  kindled  from  it,  or  from  the  perpetually  burning  lamp.^ 

The  Altar  of  Burnt  Offerings  stood  in  the  outer  court. 
It  measured  74  feet  in  length  and  breadth,  and  was 
4i  feet  high,  and  proportionately  large,  with  horns  at  the 
corners,  like  those  of  the  altar  of  incense,  as  emblems  of 
the  supplications  of  the  offerer,  rising  like  flame  heaven- 
wards. As  such  they  were  sprinkled  ever  anew  with 
the  blood  of  atonement,  and  when  grasped  by  trembling 
fugitives    from  vengeance  were    a   sanctuary,  inviolable 

^  Ewald  thinks  the  central  lamp-holder,  as  a  symbol  of  the 
Sabbath,  rose  higher  than  the  others.    AUerthumer,  p.  435. 

2  Exod.  XXX.  1-6. 

2  Kohler,  Lehrbioch  der  Bib.  Geschichte,  p.  370.  Ewald's  Alter, 
tliumer,  p.  437. 


298  STILL   AT   SINAI. 

except  in  a  few  cases.^  Its  acacia  frame  was  overlaid 
with  copper,  and  ornamental  work  of  the  same  metal  rose 
two  feet  from  the  ground,  all  round,  to  keep  the  feet  or 
clothes  of  the  officiating  priests  from  touching  it.  Copper 
indeed,  throughout,  even  to  the  rings  and  plated  staves, 
was  the  only  metal  used.  The  hollow  interior  was  appar- 
ently filled  with  earth,  smoothed  on  the  top  like  a  hearth. 
Pails  for  carrying  away  the  ashes,  and  the  residuum 
of  the  offerings ;  shovels  for  lifting  them ;  vessels  for 
sprinkling  the  blood ;  forks  for  taking  up  the  pieces  of 
the  sacrifices,  and  pans  for  the  charcoal  of  the  fires ;  all 
of  copper,  constituted  its  furniture.  Such  brazen  altars, 
with  similar  horns,  were  common  in  antiquity,  as,  for 
example,  the  great  brazen  altar  before  the  temple  of  the 
Syrian  goddess  at  Hierapolis,  in  Syria.^ 

A  huge  Brazen  Laver,  rising  from  a  stand,  the  whole 
made  from  copper  mirrors  given  for  the  purpose  by  the 
women,^  formed  the  only  other  object  of  large  size  in  the 
forecourt,  and  provided  the  indispensable  means  for  the 
many  ceremonial  washings  of  hands  and  feet  required 
by  the  priests,  during  their  ministrations. 

All  the  materials  for  this  national  sanctuary  were 
supplied  by  the  free  offerings  of  the  people.  Nor  is  it  at 
all  wonderful  that,  though  so  costly  or  varied,  they  should 
have  been  procurable  even  at  Sinai;  for  there  were 
Hebrew  families  of  various  ranks,*  and,  as  a  whole, 
the  people  had  brought  away  much  from  Egypt,  at  the 
Exodus.  Moreover,  the  whole  quantity  of  any  one  thing 
required  was  not  great,  for  the  plates  of  gold,  or  silver, 
or  copper,  may  have  been  very  thin,  and  the  cotton  or 
linen  for  the  finer  or  coarser  curtains,  was  not  much  to 
come  from  a  whole  nation.     That  the  various  artificers 

1  Exod.  xxi.  8.  1  Kings  i.  50 ;  ii.  28.       ^  Lucian,  de  Syr.  dea,  39. 
3  Exod.  xxxviii.  8.  *  1  Chron.  iv.  18.    A  Jew  in  Egypt 

is  said  to  have  married  a  daughter  of  Pharaoh. 


STILL   AT    SINAI. 


299 


required  should  have  been  found  in  the  camp,  is  not  at 
all  surprising,  for  Egypt  excelled  in  every  art  needed  for 
the  Tabernacle,  and  not  a  few  Hebrews,  as  already  said, 
had  doubtless  acquired  them  while  there.  How  easily 
could  the  weaving  of  the  curtains,  for  example,  have  been 
learned  from  a  people  who  could  manufacture  the  famous 
quilted  coat  of  mail  sent  by  Amasis  to  Rhodes,  of  which 
every  thread  was  made  up  of  360  strands.^ 

The  "Tabernacle,''  thas  designed,  took  only  seven 
months  to  prepare ;  so  zealous  were  the  penitent  multi- 
tude to  atone  for  their  sin  at  Horeb.  At  last,  on  the  first 
day  of  the  second  year  from  the  Exodus,  it  was  formally 
erected  in  the  midst  of  the  camp,  the  Cloud  of  the  Pre- 
sence forthwith  descending  on  it,  as  a  pledge  of  its  ac- 
ceptance by  Jehovah  as  His  dwelling-place  among  them. 

But  the  departure  from  the  patriarchal  constitution, 
hitherto  prevailing,  implied  by  the  new  sanctuary, 
necessitated  still  further  changes.  There  had,  till  now, 
been  no  special  class  set  apart  for  religious  duties, 
though  there  had  never  been  wanting  those  who  per- 
formed all  needed  rites  for  the  people.  Thus,  before  the 
Law  was  given,  we  read  of  "  the  priests  who  came  near 
unto  the  Lord,''^  for  the  individual  Hebrew  family 
had  acted  from  the  earliest  times  as  a  unit  complete  in  it- 
self, each  with  its  own  priest.  Firstborn  sons  apparently 
had  held  the  office — the  "  young  men  who  offered  burnt 
offerings  and  sacrificed  peace  offerings  of  oxen  unto 
Jehovah,''  at  Sinai.^  Nor  did  this  old  custom  soon  die 
out,  for  we  find  "a  young  man"  of  "the  family  of 
Judah,"  acting  as  a  Levite  in  Micah's  household  at 
Mount  Ephraim,  more  than  fifty  years  after  Moses.*  Even 
centuries  later,  indeed,  the  sons  of  David  were  at  least 

1  Herod,,  iii.  47.  *  Exod.  xix.  22. 

«  Exod.  xxiv.  5.  "*  Jud.  xvii.  7-13  ;  xviii.  3. 


300  STILL  AT   SINAI. 

titular  priests,^  and  David  himself  wore  the  specially 
priestly  ephod  when  he  brought  the  ark  to  Zion/  while 
Solomon  acted  and  was  honoured  as  a  priest  on  the  most 
solemn  occasions.^ 

The  institution  of  a  hereditary  priesthood  was  thus  an 
invasion  of  ancient  customs  such  as  only  a  crisis  like  that 
of  the  apostasy  made  possible.  Israel  gloried  in  being 
a  ''  nation  of  priests/'  from  their  peculiar  privileges  of 
approach  to  God.  The  higher  spiritual  gifts  moreover 
bestowed  on  many  members  of  the  community — raising 
them  to  the  dignity  of  prophets  or  representatives  of 
God — made  the  whole  race,  in  a  sense,  "  holy."  But  a 
system  of  priestly  rites  and  laws  was  now  to  be  estab- 
lished which  could  not  be  entrusted  to  the  simple  arrange- 
ments of  former  times,  and,  indeed,  could  not  be  duly 
executed  except  by  a  body  of  men  specially  set  apart 
and  prepared.  How  far  it  had  been  at  first  designed  by 
God  to  introduce  the  Levitical  worship,  with  its  length- 
ened detail  of  ceremony,  and  its  varied  offerings  aud 
sacrifices,  cannot  be  known.  Yet  it  is  striking  to  find 
Jeremiah  saying,  in  the  name  of  God  :  ^'  I  spake  not  unto 
your  fathers,  nor  commanded  them  in  the  day  that  I 
brought  them  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt,  concerning 
burnt  ofi'erings  or  sacrifices :  but  this  thing  I  com- 
manded them,  saying.  Obey  My  voice,  and  I  will  be 
your  God,  and  ye  shall  be  My  people ;  and  walk  ye  in 
all  the  ways  that  I  have  commanded  you,  that  it  may  be 
well  unto  you.-"  *   The  inferiority  of  the  merely  ritual  and 

^  2  Sam.  viii.  18.  "  Chief  rulers  "  =  priests.  The  title  may  be 
merely  one  of  honour;  bat  there  is  no  ground  for  thinking  it 
excludes  the  priestly  dignity.  See  also  2  Sam.  xx.  26.  1  Kings 
iv.  5  :  "  Chief  ruler  "  and  "  principal  ofiicer  "  =  priest. 

2  2  Sam.  vi.  14. 

*  1  Kings  viii.  62  ff.     See  Ewald's  Alterthumer.. 

*  Jer.  vii.  22,  23 ;  see  also  Amos  v.  25. 


/ 


STILL   AT    SINAI.  301 

ceremonial  system  to  the  spiritual  seems^  indeed,  to  be 
expressly  stated  by  Ezekiel,  and  to  be  regarded  by  him  as 
a  needful  condescension  to  the  tendencies  of  the  people. 
*'  Therefore  I  gave  them  statutes  that  were  not  good^  and 
judgments  whereby  they  should  not  live."^ 

The  fidelity  of  the  tribe  of  Levi,  amidst  the  defection  of 
the  calf-worship,  seems  to  have  determined  its  being  chosen 
for  the  honours  of  the  hereditary  priesthood  now  to  be 
introduced.  Moses  had  indeed  implied  this  in  the  words 
with  which  he  launched  them  forth  against  their  bre- 
thren:  "Fill  your  hand  to-day  (with  a  gift)  to  Jehovah; 
consecrate  yourselves  to  His  service ;  if  you  have  to  turn 
against  even  son  or  brother,  spare  them  not.  Your 
fidelity  will  bring  down  a  blessing  on  you.  Hence- 
forward you  shall  be  devoted  for  ever  to  Him  alone.^''^  A 
beautiful  legend  as  to  the  choice  of  Levi  for  the  honour  of 
the  priesthood  must  not  be  overlooked.  "  When  Jacob/' 
say  the  Eabbis,  "  fl.ed  from  his  father^s  house  to  Meso- 
potamia, and  a  Divine  vision  had  promised  him  a  splendid 
future,  he  vowed  that,  if  the  Almighty  would  protect 
him,  keep  him  from  sinful  deeds,  and  restore  him  in 
peace  to  his  home,  he  would  consecrate  a  tenth  of  all  that 
he  had  to  God.  Returning  from  Syria  rich  in  goods  and 
herds,  the  pious  father,  true  to  his  vow,  separated  the 
tenth  of  all  he  possessed,  to  a  holy  end.  But  the  angel 
who  appeared  to  him  at  Mahanaim,  asked  him,  Thinkest 
thou,  Jacob,  that  thou  hast  quite  fulfilled  thy  vow? 
Know  that  the  Lord  claims  not  mere  worldly  gifts  alone  ! 
Thou  hast  more  than  ten  sons,  and  thou  hast  not  yet 
tithed  them  to  God.  Wishest  thou  not  to  consecrate 
one  of  them  to  His  service  ?     And  Jacob  forthwith  did 

'  Ezek.  XX.  25. 

2  Exod.  xxxii.  29.     See    Keil   and   Delitsch.     Knohel.     Hess, 
Geschichte  Moses,  vol.  i.  p.  308. 


302 


STILL  AT   SINAI. 


as  the  angel  counselled.  Counting  from  Benjamin,  Levi 
was  the  tenth,  and  on  him  fell  the  lot,  to  be  holy  to  the 
Eternal,  and  therefore  was  he  chosen  to  the  priesthood.'''^ 
But  the  historical  grounds  for  the  selection  are  a  more 

trustworthy  explanation. 

As  was  befitting,  a  special 
dress  was  appointed  for  the 
priestly  class  thus  appointed. 
It  consisted  of  a  pair  of  short 
white  linen  drawers,  reach- 
ing from  the  loins  to  the 
middle  of  the  thigh,^  and  a 
cassock  of  diamond  or  chess- 
board pattern^  of  the  same 
material,  woven  in  one  piece 
throughout,  which  came 
nearly  to  the  feet,  and  was 
secured  round  the  waist  by 
a  white  linen  girdle,  em- 
broidered with  flowers  in 
blue,  purple,  and  red.  These, 
with  a  round  turban,  like  the 
cup  of  a  flower,  completed  a 
costume  sufiicieut  for  a  hot 
climate.  This  dress,  how- 
ever, was  only  worn  during 
the  performance  of  duty ; 
that  of  the  people  generally 
being  apparently  substituted 
at  other  times.     No  one  was 


1  Beer's  Lehen  Mosis,  p.  27. 

2  Jos.,  Ant,  III.  vii.  1.    Exod.  xxviii.  40-42.     Lev.  viii.  13. 

3  Bahr's  Symbol.,  vol.  il  c.  3,  §  2.     Leyrer  in  Herzog,  vol.  vii 
p.  714. 


STILL  AT   SINAI. 


803 


allowed  to  sleep  in  it,  and  wlien  it  was  soiled  it  was  never 
washed,  but  torn  up  to  make  wicks  for  the  sacred  lamps. 
The  sanctity  of  a  holy  place  in  the  East,  which  had 
required  Moses  to  take  off  his  sandals  at  the  bui'ning 
bush,  found  a  similar  ex- 
pression in  the  case  of  the 
priests,  who  were  required 
to  minister  barefoot ;  and 
this  they  tenaciously  did, 
though  it  not  only  drew 
ridicule  on  them  from 
the  heathen,^  but  often 
seriously  affected  their 
health.3 

In  addition  to  the  dress 
of  his  humbler  brethren, 
the  high  priest  wore,  over 
the  usual  cassock,  an  upper 
sleeveless  robe  of  purple- 
blue,  woven  in  one  piece, 
elaborately  fringed  at  the 
neck,  and  ornamented 
round  the  skirt,  which 
almost  reached  the  feet, 
with  alternate  golden 
bells,  and  pomegranates 
of  blue,  purple,  and  crim- 
son. Above  this  came 
the  ephod,  a  shorter  tunic, 

1  Juv.,  Sat.,  vi.  159.     JJgolini,  vol.  viii.  p.  976  ;    vol.  xiii.  p.  405. 

2  The  Egyptian  priests  also  were  barefooted  at  their  ministra- 
tions, and  Mahommedans  compromise  matters  by  patting  on 
slippers  on  entering  their  mosques.  Eosenmiiller's  Scholia  m 
Vet.  Test.,  vol.  i.  p.  412. 


304 


STILL   AT    SINAI. 


with  slits  for  the  arms,  like  the  robe  beneath ;  the  back 
and  front  being  connected  by  shoulder  pieces  of  broad 
golden  embroidery,  in  which  were  inserted  two  large 
onyx  stones  engraved  with  the  names  of  the  twelve  tribes 
— to  mark  the  representative  character  of  their  wearer. 
Over  this  ephod,  suspended  by  blue  cords  from  golden 
rings,  hung  a  breastplate  of  the  same  rich  materials  as 
the  shoulder  pieces,  folded  into  a  square  pocket  of  a  span 
in  size  each  way.  On  this  flashed 
twelve  precious  stones  set  in 
gold,  in  three  rows,  and  en- 
graved, like  the  shoulder  jewels, 
with  the  names  of  the  tribes. 
With  this  ornament  was  asso- 
ciated, in  some  way,  the  mys- 
terious ^^  Urim  "  and  "  Thum- 
mim,"  in  connection  with  which 
the  Divine  will  was  made  known 
through  the  high  priest,  in  his 
official  capacity.  What  the  words 
really  mean  is,  however,  very 
uncertain.  They  have  been  sup- 
posed to  refer  to  something 
analogous  to  an  ornament  worn 
by  the  president  of  the  High 
Court  of  Justice  in  Egypt,  who 
was  necessarily  a  priest — a  small  figure,  composed  of 
costly  stones,  which  was  called  Truth — forming  perhaps 
an  image  of  the  goddess  Tme,  whose  name  has  been 
supposed  by  some  identical  with  "  Thummim,''  ^  though 

1  Ebers  gives  the  name  of  the  goddess  as  Ma.  She  had  closed 
eyes,  and  wore  an  ostrich  feather  on  her  head.  The  amulet 
called  Ma  was  set  with  precious  stones.  Eine  JEgypt.  Konigs- 
tocJiter,  vol.  i.  p.  219. 


Egtpiian  High  Priest. 


STILL  AT  SINAI.  SOS- 

many  Egyptian  scliolars  reject  tbis  derivation.  It  would 
seem,  however,  as  if  the  translators  of  the  Greek  Bible 
had  been  of  this  opinion,  as  "  Thumraim "  is  always 
rendered  '' Truth  ^'  by  them.  So,  also,  '^Urim^'  is 
thought  traceable  to  the  Egyptian  word  for  '^revela- 
tion/' Hence  it  has  been  suggested  that  the  Urim  and 
Thummim  may  have  been  two  small  images — kept  in  the 
pocket  of  the  breastplate,  or  hung  in  front  of  it — repre- 
senting "revelation '^  and  "  truth,^'  which  in  someway 
gave  oracular  answers  when  consulted.  That  there  were 
figures  of  cherubim  in  the  Holy  of  Holies  is  thought 
to  vindicate  them  from  want  of  harmony  with  the  Mosaic 
system  ;  but,  unfortunately,  no  details  are  given  by  which 
to  test  this  explanation.^  Josephus  imagines  that  the 
precious  stones  on  the  breastplate  were  themselves  the 
Urim  and  Thummim,  and  the  Eabbis  add,  that  they 
flashed  mysterious  answers  when  interrogated.  But  it 
seems  more  in  keeping  with  Scripture  to  regard  the 
names  as  indicating  an  ornament  unconnected  witli 
revelations  from  God,  except  in  so  far  as  these  were  only 
given  through  the  high  priest  when  he  was  clothed  in 
all  the  insignia  of  his  office — the  breastplate  and  its 
associated  emblems  included.^ 

^  Diestel,  in  Herzog,  vol.  xvi.  pp.  742-749.  Knobel,  Exodus,  ou 
cliap.  xxviii.  30.     Ewald,  AUerthumer,  pp.  333-388. 

2  M.  Lenormant  has  found  allusions  in  the  Assyrian  tablets  to 
a  gem  in  a  royal  or  priestly  ring,  the  flashes  from  which  were 
regarded  as  oracular.  This,  he  fancies,  may  explain  the  nature 
of  the  Urim  and  Thummim.  That  these  were  in  the  pocket  of 
the  high  priest's  breastplate— not  outside,  proves,  he  thinks, 
conclusively  that  they  could  not,  as  Josephus  imagines,  be  any  of 
the  gems  in  front  of  that  ornament.  That  the  Urim — "  light  " — 
is  more  frequently  mentioned  in  Scripture  than  the  Thummim— 
"  truth  " — seems  to  him  to  support  the  theory  that  flashes  of  light 
constituted  the  oracle.     La  Divination,  p.  83. 

Philo  bays  that  the  Urim  and  Thummim  were  gems  cut  in  the 

VOL.   II.  X 


306  STILL  AT    SINAI. 

The  headdress  of  the  high  priest  consisted  of  the  com- 
mon turban  of  the  priest  wound  round  with  white  linen/ 
and  bearing  in  fronts  fastened  by  blue  ribbons,  a  plate 
of  pure  gold,  on  which  were  the  words  *^  Holiness  to 
Jehovah."  In  other  respects  his  garments  were  the  same 
as  those  of  other  priests — the  diaper-patterned  cassock, 
the  linen  girdle,  and  the  linen  drawers. 

The  dignity  of  the  priesthood  was  limited  to  the  direct 
descendants  of  Aaron,  the  rest  of  the  tribe  of  Levi  being 
restricted  to  the  humbler  duties  connected  with  religious 
ministrations.  To  them  was  entrusted  the  charge  of  the 
Tabernacle  and  its  furniture,  on  the  march,  and  its 
erection  and  defence  when  the  camp  was  stationary. 
They  had,  moreover,  to  wait  on  the  priests,  and  to  do 
the  subordinate  work  for  them,  in  connection  with  the 
public  ministrations  of  the  sanctuary .^ 

The  consecration  of  Aaron  and  his  sons  to  the  priest- 
hi)od  followed  immediately  after  the  erection  of  the 
Tabernacle,  and  occupied  seven  days,  each  marked  by 
special  ceremonies ;  after  which,  on  the  eighth  day,  they 
were  allowed  to  perform  their  priestly  offices.  But  the 
great  event  did  not  pass  off  without  a  sad  calamity. 
Nadab  and  Abihu,  the  two  elder  sons  of  Aaron,  had 
already  been  honoured  by  being  allowed  to  ascend  Mount 
Sinai  with  the  seventy  elders  and  their  father,  to  wor- 
ship afar  off,  while   Moses  approached  the  Cloud  of  the 

form  of  terapbim.  Vit.  Mos.,  vol.  iii.  p.  152.  Ed.  Mangey.  But 
both  this  and  M.  Lenormant's  idea  seem  iDadmissible. 

In  the  Speaker's  Comment,  it  is  suggested  that  the  Urim  and 
Thummim  were  the  authorized  substitute  for  the  patriarchal 
teraphim,  and  that  they  were  used  for  casting  lots.  To  me  this 
seems  fanciful,  especially  as  regards  the  substitution  for  the 
teraphim. 

I  Kohler,  p.  380.  «  jsTum.  viii  19;  xvii.  2-6. 


STILL  AT   SINAI.  307 

Presence.  Bat  almost  immediately  after  being  set  apart 
to  the  priesthood,  they  committed  the  offence  of  offering 
'^strange  fire /^  apparently  presenting  incense  kindled 
otherwise  than  from  the  perpetual  fire  on  the  altar;  and 
perished  at  the  hand  of  God  for  this  wilful  transgression 
of  His  newly  given  laws.  Can  it  be  that  the  prohibition  of 
the  priesthood  from  tasting  wine  or  strong  drink  before 
entering  the  Tabernacle,  which  immediately  follows  the 
mention  of  the  catastrophe,  is  a  hint  as  to  its  cause  ?  ^ 

The  closing  weeks  of  the  long  stay  at  Sinai  were  fitly 
marked  by  a  celebration  of  the  Passover,  in  commemora- 
tion of  the  deliverance  from  Egypt,  a  year  before;  an 
incident  implying  the  possession  of  immense  flocks,  to 
supply  a  lamb  for  each  household.  A  census  was  then 
taken  of  the  men  from  twenty  years  of  age  and  upwards, 
showing  as  the  result,  a  grand  total  of  603,550,^  exclusive 
of  the  tribe  of  Levi,  and  thus  indicating  an  aggregate, 
in  the  whole  host,  of  from  two  to  three  million  souls. 
The  calculation  was  based  on  the  gross  amount  of  a  head 
tax  of  half  a  shekel,  levied,  for  the  Tabernacle,  on  each 
man ;  a  method  which  left  the  proportion  of  women  and 
children  uncertain.  So  cherished  a  precedent,  however, 
did  it  become,  that  the  attempt  by  the  Romans  "to 
introduce  a  more  correct  enumeration  under  Quirinus, 
in  the  days  of  Herod,  excited  a  furious  insurrection.  A 
separate  census  of  Levi  showed  only  22,000  males,  front  a 
month,  upwards,  in  this,  the  smallest  by  far  of  all  the 
tribes.^ 

Everything  was  now  ready  for  departure  from  Sinai. 
The  Hebrews  had  encamped  on  Er  Rahah  nearly  a  year 

^  Eosenmiiller,  Scholia  on  the  verses,  Lev.  x.  1-3. 
2  Ewald  recognizes  this  great  number  as  correct.     Geschichte, 
vol.  ii.  p.  277. 

^  See  the  fiugres  given  for  the  different  tribes,  in  ISTam.  ii. 


308  STILL  AT   SINAI. 

before,  a  mere  crowd  of  fugitive  slaves,  with  only  the 
rudiments  of  national  organization,  and  the  dimmest 
religious  ideas.  But  the  interval  had  effected  an  immense 
change.  They  had  learned,  with  an  impressiveness  which 
they  could  never  forget,  that  the  gods  of  Egypt,  and  with 
them  all  other  gods,  were  mere  delusions  and  vanities ; 
and  that  the  true  God  of  the  whole  earth  was  an  Almighty, 
Invisible  Spirit.  This  Supreme  Being  had,  moreover, 
taught  them  that,  though  Unseen,  He  was  near  at  hand, 
as  a  divine  Leader  and  Protector.  They  had  been  filled 
with  awe  by  the  terrors  of  His  descent  on  the  Sacred 
Mountain/  but  from  their  midst  they  had  heard  words  of 
tenderness  and  sympathy,  which  kindled  their  souls,  and 
drew  them  in  loving  homage  to  His  feet. 

Nor  was  this  all.     In  recognition  of  the  fact  that  no 

^  In  addition  to  special  miraculous  appearances  and  sounds, 
it  seems  as  if  natural  phenomena  had  played  a  great  part  in  the 
occurrences  of  Sinai.  These  are  spoken  of  in  Scripture  as  accom- 
panied by  appalling  thunder  storms,  with  rain  and  lightning. 
Jud.  V.  4.  Ps.  Ixviii.  7,  8,  9.  Josephus,  also,  describes  them  in 
the  same  way.  Ant.,Y.  iii.  2.  A  modern  traveller,  narrating  the 
incidents  of  a  thunder  storm  he  witnessed  on  the  spot,  says  : 
"  Every  bolt  as  it  burst,  with  the  roar  of  a  cannon,  seemed  to 
awaken  a  series  of  distinct  echoes  on  every  side.  They  swept 
like  a  whirlwind  among  the  higher  mountains,  becoming  faint  as 
some  mighty  peak  intervened,  and  bursting  with  undiminished 
volume  through  some  yawning  cleft,  till  the  very  ground  trembled 
with  the  concussion.  It  seemed  as  if  the  mountains  of  the  whole 
peninsula  were  answering  one  another  in  a  chorus  of  the  deepest 
bass.  Ever  and  anon  a  flash  of  lightning  dispelled  the  pitcliy 
darkness,  and  lit  up  the  mount  as  if  it  had  been  day;  then,  after 
the  interval  of  a  few  seconds,  came  the  peal  of  thunder,  bursting 
like  a  shell,  to  scatter  its  echoes  to  the  four  quarters  of  the 
heavens,  and  overpowering  for  a  moment  the  loud  bowlings  of 
the  wind."  Stewart's  Tent  and  Khan,  pp.  139,  140.  Mr.  Drew 
witnessed  a  thunder  storm  at  Serbal,  and  exclaimed  uncon- 
sciously, "  How  exactly  like  the  sound  of  a  trumpet !  " 


STILL   AT    SINAI.  309 

law,  even  the  highest,  can  be  effective,  without  its  free 
and  intelligent  acceptance  by  those  who  are  to  obey  it, 
their  assent  had  been  required  and  given  to  a  formal 
covenant,  by  which  they  bound  themselves  and  their 
posterity  to  honour  Jehovah  as  their  supreme  Ruler  and 
Lord.  In  consideration  of  this.  He,  on  His  side,  had 
graciously  promised  them  His  special  favour  as  long  as 
they  were  faithful  to  Him.  It  is  hard  to  realize  the 
greatness  of  the  advance  implied  in  such  a  transaction. 
Hitherto,  idolatry  had  reigned  in  all  nations,  but  hence- 
forth, to  the  Hebrews,  Jehovah  was  the  one  supreme 
Power  in  heaven  and  earth ;  filling  all  creation,  by  night 
and  day,  with  His  Presence,  and  controlling  all  things. 
Hence,  even  the  phenomena  of  nature  seemed  to  them 
indications  of  His  nearness  and  direct  agency.  The 
thunder  was  His  voice  in  the  heavens ;  He  made  the 
grass  grow  on  the  mountains,  and  gave  rain  upon  the 
earth.  The  firmament  showed  His  handiwork.  When 
the  earth  trembled  and  shook,  it  was  at  His  approach. 
And  in  the 'same  way  all  human  affairs  were  considered  as 
under  His  rule,  and  all  endowments  of  men  as  His  bounty. 
War  and  peace,  plenty  and  famine,  victory  or  defeat,  the 
wisdom  that  guides,  the  skill  that  executes,  come  from 
Him.  It  was  a  great  step  when  such  a  magnificent 
conception  passed  from  the  bosom  of  individuals  to  the 
creed  of  a  people ;  a  step  directly  leading  to  its  diffusion, 
through  Christianity,  among  all  mankind.^ 

The  laws  given  were  necessary  to  show  Israel  its  duty, 
for  without  laws  there  can  be  no  intelligent  obedience. 
But  the  supreme  aim  had  been  to  impress  the  one  great 
lesson  that  Jehovah,  while  strict  to  avenge  transgression, 
was  tender  in  love,  even  when  forced  to  punish.  That 
He  alone  was  the  God  of  the  whole  earth  was,  however, 
^  Ewald's  Geschichte,  vol.  ii.  p.  171. 


310  STILL  AT   SINAI. 

too  great  a  truth  to  be  realized  at  once.  Nor  was  it  till 
many  generations  had  passed  away  that  the  idols  finally 
lost  their  hold  on  the  minds  of  the  people ;  though  as 
early  as  the  days  of  Moses^  by  a  happy  play  upon  the 
name  Elohim,  they  were  branded,  in  contrast,  as  EHlim, 
or  "  nothings/^  ^ 

The  grandeur  of  the  idea  of  God  thus  conveyed  was, 
hereafter,  to  be  strikingly  shown  by  its  influences  on 
the  national  life  and  religion.  To  trust  in  horses  or 
chariots,  or  in  walled  towns,  seemed  utterly  unworthy  of 
a  people  before  whose  armies  the  Lord  of  the  whole  earth 
went  forth.2  -^qj,  ^{^  ^\^q  thoughts  go  anxiously  out 
beyond  this  life  to  the  unknown  future,  as  in  other 
nations,  for  whom  the  world  had  no  satisfying  joy. 
Penetrated  with  a  sense  of  the  presence  of  Jehovah  in 
their  national  and  individual  affairs,  they  contented  them- 
selves with  the  present ;  their  religion,  in  this  respect, 
dwelling  on  life,  as  that  of  Egypt,  in  its  supreme  concern 
for  the  world  hereafter,  was  chiefly  concerned  with  death. 
Future  existence  was  not  denied  or  contradicted,  but  the 
presence  of  God  so  filled  their  thoughts,  that  it  was  over- 
shadowed, and  made,  as  it  were,  subordinate.  To  secure 
His  favour  here  involved  it  hereafter,  and  hence  was  their 
great  aim.  That  the  eternal  God  was  their  portion  and 
reward  in  the  present,  roused  in  them  such  a  victorious 
joy,  and  held  out  such  prospects  of  earthly  blessing,  as 
took  away  the  thought,  at  once  of  the  terror  of  death,  and 
of  the  rewards  of  a  life  to  come.  They  firmly  believed, 
indeed,  in  a  future  life :  it  had  come  down  to  them  from 
Abraham  as  an  article  of  their  creed.  But,  for  the  time, 
it  was  hidden  in  the  splendid  vision  of  their  adoption  by 
Jehovah  as  His  people,^  and  only  gradually  shone  out  in 

^  Lev.  xix.  4 ;  xxvi.  1  (in  the  Hebrew),  see  p.  122. 

2  Ps.  xliv.  9.  3  Ev7ald's  Geschichte,  vol.  ii.  p.  192. 


STILL   AT   SINAI.  311 

its  due  impori-ance  when  that  glory  had  faded — as  the 
stars  appear  only  when  the  world  grows  dark. 

The  constitution  which  brought  about  such  a  state 
of  things  was  unique.  '^  Our  lawgiver/'  says  Josephus, 
"  had  no  regard  to  monarchies,  oligarchies,  or  republics, 
but  ordained  our  government  to  be  what,  by  a  strained 
expression,  may  be  called  a  '  Theocracy  /  "  ^  It  was  not 
a  rule  of  priests  as  opposed  to  kings,  but  a  direct  govern- 
ment by  God  Himself.  The  will  of  the  individual  and 
of  the  nation  was  in  all  things  to  be  subordinated,  in  the 
heart  and  outward  act,  to  that  of  their  invisible  King. 
The  whole  community  were  to  live  as  the  servants  and 
champions  of  Jehovah,  whose  direct  commands  were 
to  guide  at  once  the  public  and  personal  affairs  of 
the  nation.  They  had  seen  how  weak  the  greatest  of 
human  kingdoms  was  without  the  acknowledgment  of 
God,  and  now  expressed  their  sense  of  His  greatness  by 
recognizing  Him  as  the  One  earthly  as  well  as  spiritual 
Authority  in  the  State. 

Such  a  government,  however,  necessitated  human 
agency,  to  convey  the  commands  of  their  invisible  Ruler 
to  His  subjects,  and  this  it  found,  in  the  first  instance,  in 
Moses ;  as  the  prophet,  or  intermediary,  between  it  and 
God.  He  might  undoubtedly  have  proclaimed  himself 
king,  but  he  had  no  such  worldly  ambition,  and  contented 
himself  with  the  glory  of  transmitting  to  his  people  the 
will  of  Jehovah.  Under  him  the  Theocracy  flourished,  but 
it  was  not  to  be  expected  that  a  successor  should  be  found 
to  fill  such  a  dignity.  The  prophets,  indeed,  were  the 
heirs  of  his  great  office,  but  they  did  not  come  prominently 
forward  till  the  rise  of  Samuel,  and,  meanwhile,  the  people 
were  left  well  nigh  to  themselves.     But  the  want   of  a 

*  Contra  Apion,  ii.  17.  Josephus,  in  fact,  invented  the  word, 
which  expressed  an  idea  till  then  unknown  to  the  Greek  language 


312  STILL   AT   SINAI. 

leader,  thougli  bitterly  felt  after  the  death  of  Moses, 
excited  no  disloyalty  to  the  singular  form  of  government 
he  had  established  ;  and  it  was  not  till  the  end  of  the 
times  of  the  Judges,  when  the  first  theocratic  enthusiasm 
of  the  people  had  faded,  that  they  sought  to  imitate  other 
nations,  by  having  a  human  king. 

The  institution  of  the  hereditary  Levitical  priesthood, 
displacing  that  of  the  heads  of  families,  was,  as  we  have 
seen,  the  direct  result  of  the  catastrophe  of  the  golden 
calf.  It  was  precluded,  however,  from  assuming  such 
power  in  Israel  as  in  other  communities^  by  the  rise 
of  a  succession  of  prophets,  the  direct  representatives 
of  God,  whom  even  the  priests  must  obey.  They  could 
not,  therefore,  form  a  Brahminical  caste,  but  always  held 
a  modest  and  limited  power  in  the  nation.  Nothing, 
indeed,  could  well  be  simpler  than  the  organization  of  the 
tribes  as  they  broke  up  from  Sinai.  The  assembly  of 
the  whole  male  population  was  the  ultimate  authority, 
under  God ;  chieftains  or  elders  exercising  a  patriarchal 
headship  over  each  tribe  and  its  larger  or  smaller 
sections,  and  acting  as  their  leaders;  as  they  had  done 
from  the  days  of  the  patriarchs.  The  priesthood  had  no 
separate  authority,  for  Levi  was  not  the  ruling  tribe,  nor 
was  Aaron,  its  head,  the  leader ;  but  Moses — the  states- 
man and  prophet,  not  the  priest.^ 

^  Stanley's  Jewish  Church,  vol.  i.  p.  157. 


CHAPTER  XI. 


THE    WILDERNESS. 


IT  was  not  till  the  second  month  of  the  second  year 
that  things  were  finally  ready  for  a  fresh  advance. 
Then,  at  last,  it  seemed  as  if  the  great  enterprise  of  the 
conquest  of  Canaan  might  be  undertaken.  The  arrange- 
ments of  the  vast  camp  for  the  march  were  simple. 
Shortly  after  leaving  Sinai  ^  a  council  of  seventy,  of 
which  Hur  seems  to  have  been  the  head,^  was  chosen 
by  the  people,  from  the  elders  or  chiefs  of  all  the  tribes 
except  Levi,  and  solemnly  set  apart  to  their  dignity  by 
Moses,  as  a  kind  of  Senate,  to  aid  him  by  their  counsel, 
and  give  him  the  support  of  leading  families  among  the 
various  tribes ;  for  among  a  people  so  hard  to  govern 
he  often  needed  this  added  help.^  The  democracy  was 
thus  administered  by  the  chiefs  of  tribes  and  their 
divisions,  while  over  all  was  Moses,  assisted  by  his  court 
of  elders.  Grreat  popular  assemblies  decided  questions 
of  national  moment  submitted  to  them,  but  the  Supreme 
authority  in  all  things  was  that  of  God,  expressed 
through  Moses,  as  His  Prophet. 

In  the  open  wilderness  the  camp  was  pitched  in  the 
form  of  a  long  square,  guarding  the   Tabernacle  in  the 


Num.  xi.  16. 


2  Num.  X.  1.    Exod.  xxiv.  9.  14. 


Michaelis,  Mos.  Bechf.,  vol.  i.  p.  279. 


314 


THE    WILDEENESS. 


centre.  When  the  signal  was  given  to  advance,  the 
Levites  struck  the  Sacred  Tent,  and  when  the  order  came 
to  halt  they  raised  it  again;  no  member  of  another  tribe 
daring  even  to  come  near,  on  pain  of  death.  Alike  on 
the  march  and  when  stationary,  as  already  noticed,  they 
alone  formed  the  Tabernacle  guard,  and  took  charge  of 
all  connected  with  the  sacred  furniture  and  vessels.^ 

To  the  east  of  the  Sacred  Tent,  and  thus  in  the  place 
of  honour,  were  the  tents  of  Moses,  Aaron  and  the 
priests  :  on  each  side,  and  behind  it,  were  the  three 
great  divisions  of    the  Levites,  who   numbered,   in   all, 


Naphtali. 


Dan. 


Asher. 


Benjamin. 

W  Levites. 

N 

Levites. 

->E 

Issachar. 

Epbraim. 

Tabkrnaclb. 

Judah, 

Manasseh. 

Levites. 

s 

Zebulon. 

Simeon. 

Reuben. 

Gad. 

only  between  eight  and  nine  thousand  men.^  The  van 
was  held  by  Judah,  supported  by  Issachar  and  Zebulon  : 
the  left  side — that  is,  the  north,  was  covered  by  Dan, 
supported  by  Asher  and  Naphtali :  the  right,  or  south, 
by  Reuben,  supported  by  Simeon  and  Gad ;  and  the  west, 
or  rear,  was  left  to  the  protection  of  Ephraim,  with  whom 
were  associated  Benjamin  and  Manasseh.^ 

1  Num.  ii.  51 ;  iii.  6  fF.  «  Num.  iv.  48. 

'  Each  army  of  three  tribes  had  a  *'  standard/'  and  each  sub- 
tribe  or  clan,  an  "ensign"  (Num.  ii.  2).  The  word  for  standard 
is  derived  from  a  root,  meaning  "  to  shine,"  "  to  glitter,"  and 
perhaps  refers  to  standards  similar  to  those  Used  in  the  Egyp- 
tian  armies,  which   were    blazoned    with   a    king's    name,    or 


THE    WTLDEENESS.  315 

The  space  occupied  by  the  camp  was  perhaps  not  so 
large  as  one  might  have  supposed,  for  in  one  case  at 
least,  in  which  the  precise  spot  is  thought  to  be  still 
known — the  encampment  at  Abel  Shittim^ — the  open 
ground  available  for  it  on  the  east  of  the  Jordan  is  not 
more  than  five  miles  square;  though  the  host  may  have 
been  divided,  only  part  occupying  this  spot.  About 
one-sixth  of  a  square  mile  sufficed  in  a  Roman  camp 
for  20,000  men,  with  ample  space  for  streets,  officers' 
quarters,  accommodation  for  horses  and  baggage;  a 
vacant  interval  of  two  hundred  feet  being,  moreover,  being 
left  inside  the  rampart,  all  round. ^  This  is  equivalent  to 
room  for  120,000  men  in  a  square  mile,  or  about  sixteen 
square  miles  for  the  2,000,000  of  the  Hebrews;  but  the 
''Speaker^s  Commentary ''  suggests  that  as  they  lived 
together  in  families  their  tents  would  not  cover  so  much 
ground.  It  seems  difficult,  however,  to  imagine  an  en- 
campment of  two  millions  of  people,  with  their  cattle, 
and  the  wide  open  space  required  for  the  Tabernacle, 
except  as  covering  a  great  extent  of  country  with  its 
one-storeyed  dwellings.^ 

As  to  the  formation  of  the  columns  on  the  march 
we  know  nothing,  but  some  curious  remarks  of  Kitto 
deserve  notice.     Referring  to  the  marginal  reading*  in 

sacred  boat ;  an  animal  or  some  emblematic  device.     Wilkinson, 
vol.  i.  p.  342. 

^  Num.  xxii.  1.     Note  in  Speaher's  Bible. 

2  Polyhius,  vii.  27. 

3  Paris,  with  its  2,000,000  inhabitants,  contains,  inside  the  forti- 
fications, 7,800  square  hectares  =  30|-  square  miles.  The  ring  of 
fortifications,  closely  hemming  in  the  houses,  which,  indeed,  ex- 
tend in  many  parts  far  beyond  them,  is  36  kilom.  long:  =over 
22  miles.  But  Paris  is  built  in  houses  many  storeys  high 
Brockhaus,  Conv.  Lex.,  art.  Paris. 

*  Exod.  xiii.  18 


816  THE    WILDERNESS. 

connection  witli  the  Exodus,  that  the  Hebrews  marched 
"  by  five  in  a  rank,"  he  adds  :  "  It  is  possible  that  they 
may  have  marched  in  five  large  divisions,  but  that  it 
means  '  five  in  a  rank '  could  only  be  fancied  by  those 
who  had  no  real  conception  of  the  numbers  of  the  people. 
At  this  rate,  if  we  allow  the  ranks  of  only  the  600,000 
men  fit  to  bear  arms  to  have  been  three  feet  asunder, 
they  would  have  formed  a  procession  sixty  miles  in 
length,  and  the  van  would  have  reached  the  Red  Sea 
(in  a  straight  line),  before  the  rear  had  left  Goshen. 
And  if  we  add  to  these  the  remainder  of  the  host,  the 
line  would  have  extended,  by  the  direct  route  from 
Egypt,  quite  into  the  limits  of  the  land  of  Canaan."^ 
In  the  wilderness,  however,  the  four  great  divisions 
enclosing  the  Tabernacle,  each  tribe  under  its  own 
standard,  would,  by  their  broad  front,  shorten  the  length 
of  the  aggregate  columns,  though  even  then,  it  must 
have  been  like  the  migration  of  half  the  people  of  the 
Metropolitan  District  of  London. 

The  movement  of  the  mysterious  cloud  which  rested 
on  the  Tabernacle  was  the  signal  for  striking  or  pitching 
the  camp.2  When  it  was  "  taken  up  "  from  off  it,  the 
advance  was  sounded^  on  silver  trumpets,  by  the  Levites; 
Moses  repeating  the  words,  ^^Rise  up.  Lord,  and  let 
thine  enemies  be  scattered ;  and  let  them  that  hate  Thee 
flee  before  Thee  \''  ^  the  whole  host  re-echoing  them,  far 
and  near,  in  a  mighty  shout,  as  the  Ark  moved  off  before 
them  "  to  search  out  their  next  resting  place."  In  the 
same  way,  the  descent  of  the  cloud  to  its  accustomed 
place  was  the  intimation  to  halt,  and,  then,  as  the  Ark 
was  once  more  solemnly  laid  down  from  the  shoulders 

1  Kitto's  Daily  Bible  Illust.,  vol.  i.  p.  92.  ^  -^am.  ix.  17. 

5  Num.  xi.  33.  *  See  an  allusion  to  this  in  Ps.  Ixviii.  1. 


THE    WILDERNESS.  317 

of  the  Levites,  the  prayer,  caught  up  from  the  lips  of 
Moses,  and  entoned  by  the  whole  camp  rose  with  over- 
powering sublimity:  ^^ Return,  O  Lord,  unto  the  many 
thousands  of  Israel/^  ^ 

The  distance  of  Sinai,  in  a  straight  line,  from  the  south 
of  Palestine  is  less  than  two  hundred  miles,  but  the  con- 
figuration of  the  country  made  a  direct  advance  to  ifc 
impracticable.  The  site  of  the  camp  on  the  plain,  beneath 
the  Sacred  Mount,  had  been  nearly  5,000  feet  above 
the  level  of  the  sea.^  To  ascend  from  Suez  to  this 
table-land  had  been  tedious  and  often  distressing" ;  but 
after  the  rest  and  comparative  comfort  of  the  upland 
valleys,  with  their  pastures  and  flowing  water,  the  descent 
from  the  successive  plateaus,  through  rugged  gorges, 
without  a  trace  of  road,^  must  have  been  equally  hard 
for  so  great  a  multitude — a  nation  on  the  march — not 
yet  accustomed  to  the  difficulties  of  the  way.  The  vast 
crowds  of  human  beings  of  all  ages,  and  of  both  sexes; 
the  trains  of  beasts  and  waggons,  with  the  tents  and 
baggage ;  tlue  herds  and  flocks,  in  long  drawn  suc- 
cession— would  fill  all  the  ravines,  far  and  near,  which 
pointed  at  all  in  the  same  direction,  and  the  progress 
made  must  have  been  equally  slow  and  painful.  Advance 
to  the  north  was  almost  impossible,  from  the  trend  of 
the  hills  across  the  Peninsula,  so  that  it  only  remained 
to  skirt  their  base,  and  take  the  north-eastern  direction 


1  Num.  X.  33-36. 

2  Wady  Feiran  is  about  4,800  feet  above  the  sea  level.  Map 
in  Sinai  and  Palestine. 

3  Even  in  Palestine,  at  this  time,  the  only  tracks,— except  the 
road  from  Jaffa  to  Jerusalem,  which  resembles  a  cart  road  over  a 
ploughed  field,  are  like  the  dry  bed  of  the  most  rocky  river, 
where,  amid  blocks  of  stone,  each  makes  his  way  at  a  foot  pace 
as  best  he  can.     Fal.  Fund  Bept.,  Oct.  1880,  p.  241. 


318  THE    WILDERNESS. 

towards  tlie  shore  of  tlie  gulf  of  Akaba — the  brancli  of 
tlie  Red  Sea  on  the  east  of  the  triangle  of  Sinai.^ 

Fortunately,  they  had  with  them,  at  the  outset,  the 
local  knowledge  of  Jethro  and  the  Kenites,  of  whom  he 
was  sheik,  which  must  have  been  of  the  greatest  value.^ 
Three  days  brought  them  to  "  the  wilderness  of  Paran,''  ^ 
which  seems  to  have  included  a  wide  stretch  of  the  hilly 
limestone  region  elsewhere  known  as  El  Tih,  "  the 
desert."  Here  they  made  their  first  encampment,  but 
with  a  spirit  very  far  from  the  enthusiasm  they  formerly 
felt  when  expecting  to  enter  Canaan.  Far  from  Sinai ; 
with  only  hard  flinty  chalk  underfoot,  and  wide  mono- 
tonous rounded  hills  on  every  side;  the  remembrance 
of  the  brooks  and  herbage  they  had  left  filled  them 
with  discontent  and  murmuring  at  their  present  position, 
though  the  cloudy  pillar  in  their  midst  showed  the 
presence  of  their  Almighty  Protector.  Such  commotions 
had  marked  their  march  from  Suez  to  Sinai,  bufc  they 
had  been  tenderly  dealt  with.  Since  then,  however,  the 
relations  of  God  with  them  had  been  changed.  He  was 
their  accepted  King  and  Head,  whom  they  had  bound 
themselves  to  obey,  and  murmuring  was  now  to  be  visited 
with  severe  displeasure,  as  disloyalty  and  rebellion.  In 
this  case,  ^'the  fire  of  Jehovah  burnt  among  them;" 
perhaps,  terrible  lightning,*  setting  on  fire  the  tents  on 
the  outskirts  of  the  camp,^  though  it  is  not  said  that 
any  lives  were  lost.  But  a  worse  calamity  soon  overtook 
them.    Possibly  the  sight  of  the  sea,  towards  which  they 

*  So  Bimsen,  Major  Palmer,  Professor  Palmer,  Lieut  Coyider, 
and  others. 

2  Jethro's  farewell  salutation  "  go  in  peace  "  (Exod.  iv.  18),  is  still 
used  all  over  the  world  by  the  Jews.     Mill's  Samaritans,  p.  139. 
2  See  vol.  i.  p.  376.       ^  Speaker's  Comment.,  vol.  i.  pt.  2,  p.  688. 

*  Hence  the  name  Taberah  =  burning. 


THE    WILDERNESS.  319 

were  approacTimg,  or  the  miseries  of  their  journey,  had 
awakened  thoughts  of  the  past;  but,  however  roused, 
the  crowds  of  foreign  nationalities  who  had  come  up  with 
them  from  Egypt,  broke  out  into  loud  complaints  at  the 
want  of  the  comforts  they  had  enjoyed  on  the  Nile.  The 
manna,  which  had  been  so  grateful  to  them  at  first,  had 
palled  on  their  tastes,  and  they  longed  for  flesh,  or  for 
the  fish  which  was  so  abundant  in  Egypt,^  and  "the 
cucumbers,  melons,  leeks,  onions,  and  garlic/'  ^  Great 
flights  of  birds  are  common  in  the  district,^  and,  it  may 
be,  added  to  their  discontent,  which  they  expressed  with 
true  Oriental  demonstrativeness,  ''every  man  weeping 
at  the  entrance  of  his  tent/^  A  second  supply  of  quails, 
which  gave  them  flesh  for  a  month,*  soon,  however, 
turned  their  sorrow  into  rejoicing;  for  the  gift  proved 
a  calamity  in  disguise ;  the  people  apparently  eating  so 
intemperately,  after  their  long  abstinence  from  flesh,  as 
to  bring  on  a  violent  outbreak  of  the  plague,  of  which 
many  died.^  Strange  to  say,  Professor  Palmer  found 
on  the  way  to  Akaba  the  remains  of  an  ancient  camp, 
surrounded  by  an  immense  number  of  graves,  which  he 
thinks  identifies  the  spot  with  the  scene  of  this  dreadful 
pestilence.  If  he  be  right,  we  have  still,  in  these  relics, 
the  traces  of  the  Israelitish  abode  at  Kibroth-hattaavah 
— ''  the  graves  of  gluttony  '^ — especially  as  they  occur 
at  the  distance  of  three  days'  journey  from  Sinai  ^ — the 
position  of  the  Israelites  when  the  plague  broke  out. 
He  discovered,  moreover,  a  day's  journey  north   of  this, 

1  Page  4.  2  -^y^-ai.  ii.  5. 

*  Sinai  and  Palestine,  p.  82.    Bitter,  vol.  xiv.  p.  261.    See  p.  213. 

*  It  is  common,  afier  taking  out  the  entrails,  etc.,  to  thrust  such 
birds  into  the  hot  sand  and  dry  them,  so  that  they  will  keep  a 
long  time. 

•^  Num.  xi.  6  Num.  x.  33 ;  xi.  4-34 


320  THE    WILDEENESS. 

the  remains  of  anotTier  great  camp.  Stone  heaps  and 
circles  cover  the  hill  sides  and  elevated  positions  in  every 
direction,  and  the  larger  inclosures,  occupied  by  the  more 
important  personages^  with  the  hearths  or  fire-places,  are 
still  distinctly  traceable.^  That  this  is  no  other  than 
the  Israelitish  station  of  Hazeroth — or  "  the  circles  ^' — 
hardly  admits  of  doubt,  if  Only  from  the  fact  that  the 
name  ^^  Look-outs  of  Hazeroth"^  is  still  given  to  the  spot 
by  the  Arabs. ^  They  have  a  tradition,  moreover,  that  a 
great  Hajj  caravan  lost  its  >way  here  and  wandered  off 
into  the  desert  of  the  Tih;*  a  fact  strikingly  significant, 
since  Hajj  means  a  great  religious  pilgrimage — especially 
that  made  each  year  to  Mecca,  from  all  parts  of  the 
Mahommedan  world.  Bat  no  such  Mahommedan  caravan 
could  ever  have  passed  this  way.  Still  more,  the  word 
Hajj,  which  is  borrowed  from  the  Hebrew/  is  the  very 
expression  used  by  Moses  when  he  asked  leave  from 
Pharaoh  to  go  with  the  Israelites,  to  sacrifice  to  Jehovah 
in  the  wilderness ;  ^  while  that  used  by  the  Arabs,  in  the 
legend  of  the  pilgrims  losing  their  way,  is  the  stem  from 
which  the  desert  of  the  Tih,  or  "wilderness  of  the  wan- 
derings,^' derives  its  name.  The  name  Hazeroth  was 
doubtless  applied  to  their  encampment  here,  from  their 
having  raised  these  wide  rings  of  stones  to  enclose  their 
flocks  and  herds;  branches  of  acacia  and  other  thorny 
trees  or  shrubs  being  thrust  into  the  top,  all  round,  as 
is  still  done  on  Mount  Hermon,^  for  defence  against 
wild  beasts. 

1  The  Desert  of  the  Tih,  p.  7,  8. 

2  Matali  Hudherah  =  Hazeroth.     Major  Palmer's  Sinai,  p.  79. 

3  Palmer's  History  of  the  Jewish  Nation,  pp.  32,  33. 
*  Desert  of  the  Exodus,  1871,  pp.  357  ff. 

5  Heb.  hag.  «  Exod.  x.  9 ;  xii.  14. 

7  Palmer's  El  Tih,  p.  11. 


THE    WILDEENESS.  32 i 

At  this  place  they  remained  at  least  seven  days,  in 
part  through  a  circumstance  that  must  have  greatly 
affected  the  already  troubled  spirit  of  Moses.  Miriam, 
his  sister,  to  whom,  under  God,  he  had  owed  his  preser- 
vation in  infancy,  apparently  bore  a  grudge  at  Zipporah, 
his  wife,  as  '^a  Cushite,"  and  therefore  of  impure  blood.^ 
Persuading  herself  at  last  that  such  a  union  disqualified 
Moses  for  his  great  position  as  Leader,  and  jealous  of 
his  being  the  exclusive  mouthpiece  of  God  to  the  host, 
when  she  herself  was  a  "  prophetess,^'  she  induced  Aaron 
to  join  her  in  claiming  that  they,  also,  should  be  honoured 
by  sharing  Divine  revelations.  But  a  leprosy,  divinely 
inflicted,  instantly  checked  her  ambition,  though  it  could 
not  remove  the  bitter  pains  such  disloyalty,  in  his  own 
circle,  must  have  given  her  great  brother. 

In  this  neighbourhood  one  of  the  most  marked  charac- 
teristics of  the  Hebrews  as  distinguished  from  all  com- 
munities, before  or  since,  showed  itself  prominently  for 
the  first  time,  in  connection  with  the  selection  by  Moses 
of  the  70  elders  as  his  special  council,  already  noticed  ^ — 
the  original,  in  the  belief  of  the  Rabbis,  and  even  of  some 
Christian  theologians,  of  the  Great  Synagogue,  to  which 
Judaism  owed  so  much  after  the  return  from  exile  at 
Babylon.^  After  having  been  confirmed  in  their  dignity 
by  the  people,*  they  assembled  round  the  Sacred  Tent, 


^  Some  fancy  that  Zipporah  had  previously  died,  and  that 
Moses  had  taken  another  wife  from  the  mixed  maltitude  that  had 
come  with  the  Hebrews  from  Egjpb.  Scheukel  is  of  the  opinion 
expressed  in  the  text.  Bih.  Lex.,  vol.  iv.  p.  222.  Ewald,  of  the 
other.     Geschichte,  vol.  ii.  p.  251. 

2  See  p.  313. 

^  See  an  art.  by  Heidenheim,  in  Studien  und  Eritiken,  1853, 
pp.  93  flF.     Eeland's  Antiq.,  XL  iii.  7  ff. 

*  Num.  ii.  24,  26. 
VOL.   II.  Y 


322  THE    WILDERNESS. 

and  the  strange  spectacle  was  seen,  so  peculiar  to  Israel, 
of  tHe  whole  number  breaking  out  into  prophetic  enthu- 
siasm, under  the  influence  of  the  Spirit  of  God.  The 
Lord,  says  the  inspired  narrative,  came  down  in  the 
cloud,  and  having  spoken  with  Moses,  took  of  the  Spirit 
that  was  on  him  and  gave  it  to  them.  While  filled  with 
this  afflatus  they  enjoyed  prophetic  exaltation,  but  when 
it  passed  off  they  sank  into  their  ordinary  state.  But 
the  occasion  gave  an  opportunity  for  noting  the  lofty 
spirit  of  Moses.  Two  of  their  number — Eldad,  '^^^  him 
whom  God  loves  ;^^  and  Medad,  "love^"' — having  received 
the  Divine  impulse,  though  they  had  not  joined  the 
rest  at  the  Tabernacle,  prophesied  where  they  were,  in 
the  camp.  To  the  soldierly  instincts  of  Joshua,  how- 
ever, "  the  minister  of  Moses,  from  his  youth  up,^'  this 
seemed  an  irregularity  to  be  checked  by  his  master. 
"  My  lord  Moses,''  said  he,  "  forbid  them.-"  But  he  only 
received  the  noble  answer,  "  Would  that  all  the  Lord's 
people  were  prophets,  and  that  the  Lord  would  put  His 
Spirit  upon  them  :  "  ^  a  memorable  rebuke,  for  all  ages, 
to  a  narrow  or  jealous  spirit,  whether  in  the  Church  or  in 
common  life. 

Thus,  in  its  very  beginnings,  the  history  of  Israel  is 
not  that  of  an  inspired  book,  or  of  an  inspired  order,  but 
of  an  inspired  people.  The  Spirit  of  God  rests  on  them 
in  a  degree,  and  in  a  manner,  which  we  meet  with  in 
no  other  race.  The  seventy,  chosen  from  all  the  tribes, 
anticipated,  in  their  prophetic  gifts,  a  characteristic  of 
future  generations.  Miriam  in  the  camp  found  a  successor 
in  Deborah  on  Mount  Ephraim,  nor  was  there  a  district 
in  Palestine  which  did  not,  apparently,  see  a  prophet  or 
prophetess  raised  up  in  it  by  God,  before  the  gift  was 

»  Num.  xi.  26-30, 


THE    WILDEENESS.  323 

finally  withdrawn.^  How  great  the  fervour  of  religious 
life  in  a  community,  where  a  succession  of  individuals 
could  be  found,  in  whom  it  rose  to  so  transcendent  an 
elevation  as  is  implied  in  the  very  name  of  prophet ! 

The  region  through  which  the  Israelites  had  hitherto 
marched  was  a  wide  tangle  of  mountains,  with  occasional 
broad  plains,  and  numerous  narrow  wadys,  twisting  hither 
and  thither.  The  granite  and  porphyry  of  Sinai  had 
begun  to  give  way  to  sandstone,  which  now  formed  the 
upper  part  of  the  rocks  ;  some  limestone  hills  to  the  north 
indicating,  here  and  there,  the  proximity  of  the  chalk 
ranges  of  the  Wilderness  of  the  Wanderings.  Except 
in  the  valleys,  if  the  region  was  then  the  same  as  it  is 
now,  they  had  been  refreshed  by  no  sight  of  vegetation; 
for  the  mountains  rose  bare  around  them,  save  where  a 
cleft  gave  footing  for  some  trace  of  green.  Dom  and 
date  palms,  patches  of  broom,  isolated  clumps  of  thorny 
acacias  and  stretches  of  wild  vines,  cheered  the  hollows, 
where  the  sandy  soil  enjoyed  some  moisture;  while  rank 
herbage  marked  the  edge  of  the  few  springs  on  the  route. 
The  colours  of  the  rocks,  indeed,  alone  relieved  it  to  any 
extent  from  its  savage  wildness,  but  these,  seen  through 
the  clear  air  of  evening,  lent  the  silent  landscape  a  peculiar 
beauty.  Antelopes  still  wander  over  this  district,  and 
vultures  circle  in  the  upper  air,  while  huge  flocks  of  birds 
rest  in  it  at  times  after  their  long  flight  from  Africa, 
and  wild  ducks  float  on  the  ponds  of  Ain  el  Hudherah  or 
Ain  el  Alya.  The  horned  viper  hides  in  numbers  in  the 
sand,  and  other  kinds  of  snakes  are  met  with  from  time 
to  time.^  But  the  wadys  and  plains  in  the  line. of  march 
of  the  Israelites  offered  for  the  most  part  a  footing  of 

^  Knobel,  Ber  Prophetismus  der  HehrdeVj  vol.  i.  pp.  39  ff.     Stan- 
ley's Jewish  Church,  vol.  i.  p.  158. 
2  Furrer,  Bib.  Lex.,  vol.  v.  p. '681. 


324  THE    WILDEKNESS. 

hard  limestone  marl ;  the  loose  sand  occurring  chiefly  to 
the  north-west  of  what  must  have  been  their  route.  The 
approach  to  Hazeroth,  however,  had  been  over  sandy 
plains  broken  by  outstanding  sandstone  cliffs,  but  the 
camp  itself  had  been  pitched  on  the  sides  and  in  the 
basin  of  a  hollow,  surrounded  by  weird  and  fantastic 
sandstone  walls,  displaying  on  their  weathered  surface 
the  most  varied  colours — deep  red  and  violet,  and  rich 
gold  and  scarlet,  mingled  with  deep  purple;  masses  of 
greenstone,  and  rose-tinted  granite  showing  here  and 
there.  In  the  middle  of  the  valley,  under  a  high  cliff, 
there  is  now  a  dark  green  palm-grove,  while  a  spring 
bursts  from  a  rock  behind;  a  channel  hewn  in  the  granite 
guiding  the  waters  to  a  tank,  from  which  it  is  led  by 
rude  sluices  into  the  gardens  of  the  Arabs  who  still  cling 
to  the  spot.^ 

But  though  rest  at  isolated  and  widely  separated  spots 
may  have  been  found  here  and  there,  the  journey  in  the 
main,  now,  and  for  many  a  day,  must  have  been  often 
trying.  Burton  thus  describes  travelling  in  the  desert : 
'^  Above,  through  a  sky  terrible  in  its  stainless  beauty, 
and  the  splendours  of  a  pitiless  blinding  glare,  the  simoom 
caresses  you  like  a  lion  with  flaming  breath.  Around,  lie 
drifted  sand-heaps,  upon  which  each  pufi"  of  wind  leaves 
its  trace  in  solid  waves ;  flayed  rocks,  the  very  skeletons 
of  mountains ;  and  hard  unbroken  plains,  over  which  he 
who  rides  is  spurred  by  the  idea  that  the  bursting  of  a 
waterskin,  or  the  pricking  of  a  camels  hoof,  would  be  a 
certain  death  of  torture;  a  haggard  land,  infested  with 
wild  beasts  and  wilder  men ;  a  region  whose  very  foun- 
tains murmur  the  warning  words,  ^  Drink  and  away.' ^ 
.     .     .     We  travelled  five  hours  through  a  country  fan- 

1  Palmer's  Desert  of  the  Exodus,  1871,  pp.  261  ff. 
^  Meceah  and  Medinah,  p.  103. 


THE    WILDERNESS.  325 

tastic  in  its  desolation — a  mass  of  huge  hills,  barren  plains, 
and  desert  vales.  Even  the  sturdy  acacias  here  failed, 
and  in  some  places  the  camel-grass  could  not  find  earth 
enough  for  its  root.  The  road  wound  among  mountains, 
rocks  and  hills  of  granite,  and  Over  broken  ground, 
flanked  by  huge  rocks  and  boulders,  piled  up  as  if  man's 
art  had  aided  nature  to  disfigure  herself.  Vast  clefts, 
seamed,  like  scars,  the  hideous  face  of  the  earth;  here 
they  widened  into  dark  caves ;  there  they  were  choked 
with  glistening  drift  sand.''  i  The  Israelites  were  passing 
through  such  a  "desert  land"  and  "waste  howling 
wilderness."  ^ 

From  Ain  Hudherah  or  Hazeroth  to  the  north  end  of 
the  gulf  of  Akaba  is  about  thirty  hours,  or  nearly  ninety- 
miles,  but  it  is  hard,  if  not  impossible,  to  determine 
whether  the  host  moved  on  to  it  now,  or  touched  it  first 
at  a  later  period.^  It  is  generally  thought,  however, 
that  they  must  have  advanced  north-east,  through  a  wild 
confusion  of  narrow  valleys  and  hills— some  of  great 
height,  others  cleft  into  awful  gorges*— till  they  descended 
to  the  seashore,  where  a  varying  but  well-nigh  uninter- 
rupted breadth  of  strand,  under  the  clifiPs,  enabled  them 
to  reach  the  head  of  the  gulf.  There,  it  would  seem  as  if 
we  had  a  trace  of  the  seventh  station  from  Sinai— Hadarah, 
in  the  easy  but  little  known  pass  near  Jebel  Aradah, 
which  would  lead  them  again,  painfully,  to  the  higher 
level  of  the  Desert  of  the  Wanderings,  then  known  as 

^  Meccah  and  Medinah,  p.  175. 

^  Deub.  xxxii.  10. 

3  Graetz,  vol.  i.  p.  395. 

^  Dean  Stanley  speaks  of  Akaba  as  a  "tremendous  pass." 
Smai  and  Palestine,  p.  10.  The  Sinai  mountains  are,  indeed,  a 
lofty  triangle,  reached  on  all  sides  only  by  a  long  and  difficult 
ascent. 


326  THE    WILDERNESS. 

the  wilderness  of  Paran  or  Zin,  and  now  as  tliat  of  the 
Tih. 

This  region,  in  which  they  were  destined  to  spend  so 
many  years,  is  a  series  of  limestone  plateaus,  ascending  in 
successive  giant  steps,  from  the  Peninsula  of  Sinai  to  the 
hill  country  of  Southern  Palestine.^  The  southern  most 
of  these  plateaus  extends  about  eighty  miles  north  from 
the  point,  where  the  cliffs  of  its  lower  edge  pierce  the 
Sinai  Peninsula  like  a  broad  blunt  wedge.  Only  a  few 
isolated  hills  vary  the  surface,  which  is  generally  flat, 
and  there  are  no  signs  of  ancient  dwellings,  nor  any 
ruins. 

The  district  north  of  this  has,  however,  an  entirely 
different  character ;  rising  in  huge  steps  of  about  eighty 
miles  from  north  to  south,  and  gradually  passing,  in 
successive  terraces,  into  the  hill  country  of  Beersheba. 
The  most  southerly  of  these,  known  as  the  Jebel  Magrah, 
is  a  great  plain  of  fifty  or  sixty  miles  from  east  to  west.^ 
Over  all  this  region  there  still  are  found  fertile  spots, 
with  grass  and  water  ;^  and  signs  of  ancient  populousness 

1  The  ascent  from  the  beginning  of  El  Tih  to  Hebron  is  1,300 
feet.     Map  before  Sinai  and  Palestine. 

2  Palmer's  Desert  of  the  Exodus,  passim. 

'  "  Nothing  can  be  more  incorrect  than  the  vulgar  idea  of  an 
Arabian  oasis,  except  it  be  the  popular  conception  of  an  Arabian 
desert.  One  reads  of  'isles  of  the  sandy  sea/  but  one  never  sees 
them.  The  real  wady  is,  generally  speaking,  a  rocky  valley 
bisected  by  the  bed  of  a  mountain  torrent,  dry  during  the  hot 
season.  .  .  .  Let  the  traveller  who  suspects  exaggeration 
leave  the  Suez  road  for  an  hour  or  two,  and  gallop  northwards 
over  the  sands.  And  then  the '  oases '  and  little  lines  of  fertility, — 
how  soft  and  how  beautiful! — even  though  the  Wady  el  Ward — 
the  Vale  of  Flowers — be  the  name  of  some  stern  flat  upon  which 
a  handful  of  wild  shrubs  blossom  while  struggling  through  a  cold 
season's  ephemeral  existence,"  * 

*  Burton's  Meccah  and  Medinah,  p.  104. 


THE    WILDEENESS.  827 

and  prosperity  appear  in  every  direction.  It  is  tlie 
district  specially  known  in  the  Bible  as  the  Negeb  ^  or 
"  South  Country/' 

Here  Moses  chose  his  headquarters^  in  anticipation  of 
presently  passing  on  to  Canaan.  On  the  eastern  slopes 
of  the  hills  which  form  the  watershed,  lay  a  wady  noted 
for  its  pastures  and  its  abundant  spring,  faoious  since 
the  days  of  Abraham,  and  to  this  the  Hebrews  were  led. 
It  was  Kadesh,  or  Kadesh  Barnea,  their  rallying  point 
and  centre  during  their  whole  sojourn  in  the  Negeb.  It 
lies  about  sixty  miles  south  of  Hebron,  almost  midway 
between  the  Dead  Sea  and  the  Mediterranean  coast^^  and 
was  in  every  way  suited  to  the  design  of  a  sudden 
invasion  of  Palestine.  But  the  great  heart  of  Moses  was 
doomed  to  a  fresh  disappointment.  He  had  hoped  at 
first  to  have  broken  through  into  Canaan  immediately 
after  leaving  Egypt,  but  when  the  faintheartedness  of 
the  people  made  this  impossible,  he  had  trusted  that  the 
year's  stay  at  Sinai,  and  the  more  thorough  organization 
it  secured,  would  have  quickened  the  general  self-reliance 
sufficiently  to  warrant  an  invasion  from  Kadesh.  The 
evidences  of  God's  presence  with  them,  which  they  had 
seen  in  the  Peninsula,  and  the  promises  of  assistance 
He  had  given  them,  must  doubtless  have  kindled  the 
enthusiasm  of  many,  and  it  seemed  as  if  the  sudden  rush 
of  a  whole  people,  in  the  glow  of  such  a  mood,  could 
not  fail  to  carry  all  resistance  before  it. 

To  rouse  them  still  more,  he  determined  to  send  from 
Kadesh  a  number  of  spies,  chosen  from  among  the  chiefs 

^  Gen.  XX.  1.     Negeb  =  the  dry,  the  parched. 

2  Wilson  and  Lange's  Maps.  Furrer  thinks  the  name  Kadesh, 
*'  the  holy,"  is  a  reminiscence  of  Moses  as  a  "  Saint,"  or  that  ib 
was  given  by  the  Hebrews  to  the  spot  as  the  site  of  their  local 
Banctuary  while  in  the  wilderness.     Bib.  Lex.,  vol.  iii.  p.  4)61. 


328  THE    WILDERNESS. 

of  divisions  of  tlie  twelve  tribes.  Of  these,  it  is  signi- 
ficant, as  showing  the  religious  excitement  of  the  time, 
half  bore  such  names  as  Igal,  *'  God  saves  him''  : 
Hoshea,  "  deliverance'^ :  Palti,  "  Jehovah  saves"  :  Gad- 
diel,  " prosperity  is  from  God":  Ammiel,  "the  servant 
of  God";  and  Geuel,  "the  majesty  of  God."  But,  in. 
spite  of  such  names,  they  sadly  failed  in  the  higher 
qualities  which  the  honour  conferred  on  them  demanded. 
Meanwhile  their  instructions  were  wise  and  compre- 
hensive. They  were  to  find  out  all  they  could  as  to 
the  water  supply,  the  climate,  and  the  fertility  of  the 
land  ;  the  number  and  character  of  its  inhabitants,  and 
the  strength  of  their  towns  and  fortresses. 

Starting  from  Kadesh  they  went  northwards,  as 
ordered,^  through  the  Negeb,  or  "  South,"  to  the  hill- 
counti-y  of  Judea,  and  made  their  way  as  far,  apparently, 
as  the  district  round  Merom,  in  the  north,^  and  to 
'^  Eehob,"  which  seems  to  have  stood  on  the  watershed 
between  Merom  and  the  river  Litany,  on  the  road  to 
Hamath  on  the  Orontes,  and  to  be  identified  with  the 
present  Hunin,  where  there  are  the  ruins  of  a  strong 
fortress,  commanding  the  plains  to  the  east.^ 

It  was  the  season  of  the  first  ripe  grapes — which,  at 
Hebron,  is  July  or  August* — and  their  success  in  the 
enterprise  was  complete ;  the  twelve  returning  safely  to 
Kadesh,  after  an  absence  of  about  six  weeks.  But  their 
report  was  far  from  encouraging ;  for,  though  they  could 
not  dispute  the  fertility  of  the  land,  which  was  proved  by 
samples  of  pomegranates  and  figs  brought  back  by  them, 

1  Num.  xiii.  17, 

2  Num.  xiii.  21 ;  see  2  Sara.  x.  6,  8. 

3  Eiepert's  Map.  Kneucker  in  Bib.  Lex.,  vol.  i.  p.  429.  Eit« 
ter's  Erdkunde,  vol.  xv.  p.  242. 

*  Seetzen,  vol.  ii.  p.  92. 


THE    WILDEENESS.  329 

and  by  a  cluster*  of  grapes  so  liuge,  as  to  require  two 
men  to  carry  it  on  a  pole  between  them,  they  gave  such 
an  account  of  the  size  and  fierceness  of  the  inhabitants, 
and  of  the  strength  of  their  fortresses,  as  threw  the 
whole  camp  into  despair.  It  was  a  decisive  moment  in 
their  history,  and  they  were  not  equal  to  it.  Instead  of 
being  ready  to  advance,  they  were  paralyzed  with  fear. 
Even  the  men  wept  aloud,  and  in  their  panic  proposed 
that  they  should  elect  a  leader  and  march  back  to  Egypt, 
rather  than  face  such  terrible  enemies.  In  vain  did 
Joshua  and  Caleb,  the  only  two  of  the  twelve  spies  who 
showed  a  manly  spirit,  seek  to  reanimate  their  courage, 
and  promise  them  a  certain  victory,  if  they  were  faithful 
to  Jehovah.  The  Divine  protection,  they  maintained, 
had  been  withdrawn  from  their  foes,  their  sins  being 
full;  and  they  would  be  given  over  by  Him  into  their 
hands.  But  the  excitement  and  demoralization  were  too 
great  to  listen  to  reason,  and  the  only  return  for  such 
brave  counsels  was  a  cry  from  the  vast  assembly,  to  stone 
the  speakers.  The  Canaanites  were  trained  warriors  : 
they  themselves  had  recently  been  timid  slaves,  driven 
by  the  lash  or  the  stick.  The  fight  with  Amalek  at 
Rephidim  had  stirred  up  that  people  and  the  other 
nations  of  Palestine  to  a  fierce  resistance,  and  the  camp 
of  Israel  was  full  of  women  and  children.     Such  terror 

^  The  grapes  of  Hebron  are  the  finest  in  Palestine.  Eobinson's 
Palestine,  vol.  i.  p.  354.  Rosenmiiller,  I) as  Alte  u.  Neue  Morgen- 
land,  voh  ii.  pp.  251-3,  quotes  numerous  authorities  as  to 
the  weight  of  occasional  single  clusters  of  Palestine  grapes. 
It  is  as  high  in  some  crises  as  10  and  12  lbs.  The  gtapes  are 
sometimes  like  plums,  and  a  single  cluster  can  be  carried  only 
by  two  men,  to  prevent  its  being  crushed.  Kitto  mentions  a 
bunch  grown  in  1819,  on  a  Syrian  vine,  at  Welbeck,  which 
weighed  19  lbs.,  and  was  carried  by  four  labourers,  on  a  staff, 
two  bearing  it  in  rotation.     Palestine,  vol.  ii.  p.  330. 


330  THE   WILDERNESS. 

was  unwortby  a  people  led  by  God  Himself,  but  it  was 
natural.  The  prize  now  within  reach  was  thus  snatched 
from  their  leader  and  themselves,  for  the  issue  of  such 
cowardice  could  not  be  doubtful.  It  was  clear  that  a 
multitude  so  craven  and  fickle  could  not  be  launched 
against  warlike  tribes,  and  hence  nothing  remained  but 
to  continue  in  the  wilderness.  Born  in  slavery,  with 
none  of  the  manhood  of  freemen,  they  were  evidently 
unfit  for  so  great  a  task,  nor  was  it  less  a  necessity  than  a 
terrible  punishment  when  their  Leader  announced,  that 
they  must  wander  outside  the  Land  of  Promise,  till  a 
new  and  more  valiant  race  had  risen  in  their  place.  The 
spies  had  been  forty  days  in  their  journey,  and  for  each 
day  the  host  should  pass  a  year  in  the  wilderness.^  Only 
Joshua  and  Caleb,  the  two  who  had  shown  themselves 
stout-hearted  and  faithful,  were  to  enter  Canaan. 

So  stern  an  announcement  at  once  recalled  the  host  to 
a  sense  of  their  guilt  and  unmanliness,  and  made  them 
for  the  moment  as  braggart  as  they  had  hitherto  been 
pusillanimous.  Murmuring  as  if  God  had  betrayed  them, 
they  determined,  rather  than  turn  back  to  the  desert, 
to  go  up  to  the  attack  at  once,  though  the  Ark  of 
God,  the  pledge  of  His  presence,  remained  in  the  camp 
with  Moses.  But  the-  attempt  only  led  to  ignominious 
failure.  The  inhabitants  of  the  region  between  Israel 
and  Palestine  were  '^  Amalekites  and  Canaanites,^^^  who 
had  occupied  a  comparatively  fertile  expanse  of  country, 
partly   arable,   partly   pastoral,^    between    Kadesh    and 

*  Num.  xiv.  45.  Ewald  points  out  that  forty  years  was  reck- 
oned a  generation  by  the  Hebrews.  Geschichte,  vol.  ii.  p.  480. 
Bertheau,  Bichter,  pp.  xviii.  ff. 

2  Num.  xiv.  45. 

3  This  appears  from  the  two  words  in  used  in  Gen.  xiv.  7,  and 
Num.  xiv.  25,   respectively.      The  former — Sadeh,   means   land 


THE    WILDERNESS.  331 

Engedi.  They  allowed  tlie  invaders  to  penetrate  far 
towards  Palestine,  and  then  turning  upon  them,  pursued 
them  as  far  as  Hormah;^  a  city  which  has  been  identified 
as  situated  on  the  southern  verge  of  the  table-land, 
about  twenty -four  miles  north  of  Kadesh.  Its  name 
at  the  time  of  the  attack  was  not  Hormah,  however,  but 
Zephath,2  "  the  watch-tower  :  ^'  '^  Hormah/'  "  a  deso- 
lated place/'  being  the  name  given  it  after  its  utter 
destruction  by  the  Israelites,  in  the  times  succeeding 
Joshua.  It  was  the  great  point  from  which  the  roads 
across  the  desert,  after  having  been  all  united,  again 
diverge  towards  Gaza  and  Hebron,  and  its  site  is  still 
marked  by  the  ruins  of  a  square  tower  of  hewn  stones, 
with  a  large  heap  of  stones  adjoining,  on  the  top  of  a 
hill,  which  rises  a  thousand  feet  above  the  wady  on  the 
edge  of  which  it  stands.^  Smitten  and  thoroughly 
demoralized,  nothing  remained  but  to  draw  off  the 
camp  to  the  secure  interior  of  the  Negeb  or  "  South,'' 
round  Kadesh. 

The  region  thus  especially  destined  to  be  the  home  of 
Israel  for  a  generation,  is,  as  has  been  said,  the  second 
great  plateau  in  the  ascent  from  the  Sinai  Peninsula, 
stretching  east  and  west  from  the  Mediterranean  to  the 
Dead  Sea,  and  the  broad  sunken  valley  of  the  Arabah,* 
or  "  waste,"   south*  of  it ;    and  from   the   mountains  of 

capable  of  cultivation  :  emeh,  a  pastoral  plain  or  upland,  not  a 
"  valley,"  as  in  our  version.  In  Num.  xiv.  45,  the  region  is 
called  a  "  mountaiu  "  in  reference  to  the  succession  of  vast  ter- 
races by  which  it  had  been  approached  from  the  head  of  the 
gulf  of  Akaba. 

^  Num.  xiv.  45. 

2  Jud.  i.  17. 

^  Dr.  Robinson's  Bib.  Researches,  vol.  i.  pp.  291-295, 

**  The  word  Arab  comes  from  the  same  root — meaning,  there- 
fore, an  inhabitant  of  the  waste  or  wilderness. 


332  THE   WILDEENESS. 

Judali  on  the  norfcli  to  tlie  edge  of  the  "  great  and 
terrible  wilderness  ^' ^  on  the  south.^  On  the  east  it 
friijges  the  west  side  of  the  Arabah,  with  a  line  of  cliffs 
and  hills,  in  some  places  1,400  feet  high,  seamed  into 
tremendous  gorges  by  the  torrents  which  rush,  after 
storms,  from  the  table-land  above.  Over  against  these 
on  the  opposite  side  of  the  Arabah,  rises  the  long  line  of 
the  Mountains  of  Edom,  running  in  the  same  way,  nearly 
north  and  south.  On  the  western  side  of  the  Negeb  the 
descent  to  the  Maritime  Plain  is  more  gradual,  but  there, 
also,  the  country  is  cut  up  into  a  great  number  of  wadys. 
A  broad  chain  of  hills  extends  south-west  from  Hebron 
to  the  cliffs  facing  the  desert  of  the  Tih,  through  the 
centre  of  the  country,  while  successive  terraces  rising 
towards  the  north  stretch  across  it,  till,  at  Sebaita  or 
Hormah,  hills  cover  the  whole  landscape,  passing, 
gradually,  northwards,  into  the  mountains  of  Judea.  The 
Israelites  had  thus  as  their  temporary  home  a  region  of 
rolling  plains,  in  successive  gigantic  steps,  in  the  centre 
of  the  land ;  partly  arable,  but  mostly  pastoral :  hills 
rising  here  and  there,  on  their  edges,  to  1,800  or  even 
2,000  feet^  above  the  sea,  and  overlooking  the  whole 
land,  far  and  near. 

The  present  condition  of  this  district  shows  a  striking 
contrast  to  that  which  marked  it  in  early  ages.  It  has 
no  population  but  a  few  tribes  of  wandering  Arabs ; 
boasts  of  no  cultivated  tracts,  only  two  inhabited 
villages,*  and  seems  as  if  it  could  never  have  supported 
any  considerable  community.  Yet  even  in  the  Wady 
Garaijeh,  which  separates  the  plateau  of  the  Tih,  with  its 
edge  of  cliffs  400  feet  high,  from  the  Negeb,  there  are 

1  Deufc.  viii.  15.     The  Negeb,  by  Wilton,  p.  22.  ^  j^^^  i  ly^ 

8  Prof.  Palmer's  map.    Desert  of  the  Exodus. 
4  Oonder's  Tent  Work,  p.  242. 


THE    WILDERNESS.  333 

tlie  remains  of  a  small  fortress  of  unburnt  bricks  and 
stems  of  acacia  trees,  showing  that,  though  now  scorched 
and  bare,  the  soil  was  once  rich  in  wood.^  In  the  Wady 
Lussan,  north  of  this,  are  extensiv^e  traces  of  terrace 
cultivation ;  long  low  walls,  very  carefully  built,  skirt  the 
hill  side,  with  provision  for  regulating  the  irrigation,  and 
distributing  the  water  collected  after  the  rains.  Wady 
El  Ain,  also,  has  strong  dams  thrown  across  it  for  this 
object.  Everywhere,  the  hills  are  marked  by  the  ruins 
of  ancient  towns  or  villages  and  even  of  many  consider- 
able cities,  often  containing  well-preserved  cisterns  or 
reservoirs;  and  miles  of  hill-sides  and  valleys  are  covered 
with  small  stone  heaps  in  regular  swathes,  along  which 
vines  were  trained,  and  which  still  retain  the  name  of 
'^teleilat  el  anab,'^  or  grape  mounds.  The  spies  could 
thus  have  procured  the  clusters  they  brought  to  the 
camp,  without  carrying  them  from  such  a  distance  as 
would  be  necessary  in  our  day;  in  fact  they  might  have 
gathered  them  near  Kadesh.  In  Joshua,^  indeed,  a  list 
of  no  fewer  than  twenty- nine  cities  of  the  Negeb  is 
given,  where  now  there  is  only  desolation.  Neglect  alone 
has  caused  this  change,  by  letting  the  waters  supplied  by 
the  rains  go  to  waste. 

Thus,  in  the  days  of  Moses,  this  region  must  have  been 
much  better  fitted  to  sustain  a  great  population,  like  that 
of  Israel,  than  could  be  imagined  from  its  present  sterility. 
Nor  was  it  wanting  in  local  interest,  as  the  home  of  the 
patriarch  fathers.  Beersheba,  with  the  tamarisk  grove 
planted  by  Abraham,  lay  to  the  north  of  Kadesh;  while  not 
far  off  was  Jebel  Yalad,  in  which  Mr.  Wilton  sees  the  site 

^  The  Egyptian  monuments  have  a  picture  of  Debir  in  the 
Negeb,  showing  it  embosomed  in  trees,  with  a  stream  flowing 
below  the  hill  on  which  it  stood.     See  vol  i.  p,  350. 

2  Josh.  XV.  21-32. 


334  THE   WILDERNESS. 

of  Eltolad^i  a  town  of  the  Negeb  in  Joshua's  list — the 
scene,  as  lie  thinks,  of  the  birth  of  Isaac,  and  named  after 
the  great  event.^  Close  to  Kadesh  also,  on  the  other  side 
of  the  hills,  to  the  west,  lay  Wady  Jesur,  apparently  the 
Gerar  of  Isaac,  now,  as  then,  partly  arable,  partly  pastoral, 
and  showing  still,  in  every  direction,  the  remains  of  long 
ranges  of  low  stone  walls,  probably  once  the  divisions  of 
cultivated  fields.^ 

Nor  was  animal  life  wanting.  Deer  resorted  to  the 
pools  of  rainwater  left  in  the  torrent  beds,  where  they 
could  quench  their  thirst.*  Doves  bred  in  multitudes  in 
the  precipitous  sides  of  the  gorges  through  which  these 
torrents  rashed  down  from  the  high  ground.^  The  lion 
came  up  only  too  often  from  "  the  swellings  of  Jordan, 
against  the  habitation  of  the  strong,"  ^  that  is,  from  the 
thickets  of  the  Jordan  valley  to  "  the  rock  pastures  "  of 
the  Negeb.  Even  at  this  day,  indeed,  it  seems  not 
unknown  in  these  parts,  for  Mr.  Kinglake  thinks  he  met 
with  the  "  fresh  prints  of  a  lion^s  foot  '*  in  the  desert 
south  of  Gaza."^  The  jackal  was  so  abundant  that  in 
Joshua's  day  one  of  the  local  "  cities ''  was  called  Hazar 
Shual,  "the  jackal  village.''^  The  horse  and  the  ox 
were  not  suited  for  stony  uplands,  and  hence  we  never 
find  them  mentioned  in  the  Bible  in  connection  with  this 
region,  but  there  were  herds  of  camels,  and  flocks  of 
sheep  and  goats ;  and  asses  abounded.  In  every  passage 
respecting  the  Negeb  in  which  riding  is  mentioned,  the 

^  From  its  meaning,  "born  of  God,"  or  "a  supernatural  birth." 

3  The  Negeh,  p.  180. 

3  Ihid.,  p.  240.  This  description  of  the  Negeb  is  from 
Wilton  and  Palmer. 

^  Ps.  xlii.  1.  s  Cant.  v.  12.  «  Jer.  xlix.  19  ;  1.  44. 

'  Eothen,  p.  348.  He  is  not  supported,  however,  by  authorities 
generally,  in  thinking  that  there  are  still  lions  in  Palestine. 

»  Josh.  XV.  29 ;  xix.  3. 


THE    WILDERNESS.  335 

animal  is  either  an  ass — as  the  cases  of  Abraham,  Achsah, 
and  Abigail — or  a  camel,  as  in  those  of  Eliezer,  Rebecca, 
or  the  400  Amalekites.^ 

Water,^  that  prime  necessity  of  eastern  life,  was  to  be 
found  at  all  seasons;  for  the  rains  sink  through  the  porous 
chalk  soil,  and  are  stopped  by  the  hard  limestone 
beneath.  Hence,  as  we  see  in  the  case  of  Isaac,  to  sink 
wells  always  secures  a  ready  supply.^  There  were, 
moreover,  the  torrents  of  the  gorges,  which  could  easily 
be  utilized  by  reservoirs  and  dams,  as  was  afterwards 
done  so  largely  in  this  very  region*  In  spring  the  hills 
were  a-blaze  with  flowers,  and  rich  in  soft  grass ;  and 
even  in  the  hot  summer  there  was  always  pasturage  for 
vast  flocks  and  herds  when  dispersed  into  the  many 
wadys.  Tristram,  indeed,  speaks  of  the  number  of 
camels,  sheep,  and  goats,  gathered  together  at  a  given 
point  in  the  Negeb,  and  Lieut.  Conder,  also,  notes  their 
abundance.*  "  We  wished,^'  adds  Tristram,  "  that  those 
who  cannot  comprehend  how  the  Israelites  had  such  vast 
flocks  and  herds  in  the  wilderness  could  have  witnessed 
the  gathering  of  to-day,  and  how,  in  a  few  hours, 
thousands  upon  thousands  of  cattle  could  be  collected 
in  a  given  track. ^'^ 

^  Gen.  xxii.  3,  5;  xxiv.  10,  61*64.  Josh.  xv.  18.  1  Sam  xxv. 
18,  20,  23;  XXX.  17. 

2  Speaking  of  Arab  songs,  Barton  says  :  "If  you  listen  to  the 
words,  you  will  surely  hear  allusions  to  bright  verdure,  cool 
shades,  bubbling  rills,  or  something  which,  hereabouts,  man  hath 
not,  and  yet  which  his  soul  desires." — Meccah  and  Medinah,  p.  100. 

3  There  are  no  springs  in  the  ISTegeb,  from  the  porousness  of 
the  soil.  The  waters  gather  in  the  wadys,  under  the  surface, 
when  the  limestone  is  reached,  and  flow  towards  the  sea  as 
underground  streams.     Tent  Work,  p.  242. 

*  Ihid.,  p.  248. 

^  The  Land  of  Israel,  p.  384. 


836  THE   WILDERNESS. 

The  years  of  wandering  would  have  their  bright  and 
cloudless  weeks  and  months ;  but  they  would  be  marked 
also  in  these  uplands  by  the  blinding  sandstorms  and 
overpowering  sirocco  winds  of  summer^  while  the  eleva- 
tion of  the  plateau  would  bring  storms  of  snow  and  sleet 
in  winter.^  Nor  would  these  be  the  only  troubles  and 
discipline  of  the  wilderness.  The  number  of  the  Israel- 
ites after  the  forty  years  was  nearly  2,000  men  less  than 
at  their  commencement/  in  spite  of  the  births  during 
that  long  time.  That  this  did  not  rise  from  want  of 
food  we  may  be  certain,  for  they  had  the  manna  till  they 
reached  Canaan.  Like  many  Arab  tribes,  they  may  have 
sowD  grain  yearly  in  suitable  parts/ — palm  trees  here 
and  there  would  aid ;  their  herds  were  large ;  they  had 
wine  to  drink  at  the  feast  of  the  golden  calf  j^  they 
had  bread  and  oil ;  ^  they  were  always  near  the  popu- 
lous mountains  of  Edom,  and  were  able  to  buy  from 
the  Edomites  ^^meat  and  waiter/'  paying  for  both  in 
money  ;^  and  when  commanded  at  last  to  cross  the 
Jordan,  they  had  such  abundance  of  food  of  various 
kinds  that   the    whole   host    could    ^^  prepare    victuals " 

^  Palmer,  passim.     Wilton,  passim. 

2  Num.  i.  2,  3 ;  xxvi.  61. 

'  Gen.  xxvi.  12 ;  xxxvii.  7.  The  clothing  of  the  Hebrews  wag 
Becured  by  their  possession  of  herds  and  flocks,  the  hair  and  wool 
of  which  would,  of  coarse,  be  spun  and  woven  by  the  women. 
There  is  nothing  contrary  to  this  in  Dent.  viii.  4;  xxix.  4,  5.  The 
words,  "  waxes  not  old  upon,"  should  in  both  passages  be  read, 
"  fell  not  from  off ; "  i.e.,  they  were  never  without  suitable 
clothing. 

^  When  the  people  are  said  (Exod.  xxxii.  6)  to  have  held  a 
religious  feast,  the  consecrated  Hesh  and  wine  for  sacrifices  and 
drink-offerings  are  implied  :  *'  They  ate  and  drank." 

s  Lev.  viii.  2,  26,  31 ;  ix.  4 ,  x.  12  ;  xxiv.  e5.     Num.  vii.  13. 

«  Deut.  ii.  6. 


THE    WILDERNESS.  337 

tliree  days  before,  to  be  ready .^  It  seems  beyond  ques- 
tion, therefore,  that  a  destruction  of  life  so  vast  could 
only  have  been  caused  by  severe  and  frequent  wars, 
often  at  first  unsuccessful,  with  the  races  to  whom  the 
Negeb  belonged,  or  with  those  on  its  borders.  In  such 
a  school  their  manly  virtues  would  be  developed ;  nor 
is  it  too  much  to  say  that  such  a  training  alone  explains 
how  the  sons  were,  at  last,  under  Joshua,  so  warlike,  as 
compared  with  their  fathers.^ 

Only  a  very  few  glimpses  are  afforded  of  the  history 
of  the  next  thirty-seven  years  :  but,  few  though  they  be, 
they  throw  interesting  light  on  the  wilderness  life.  On 
one  occasion  ^  the  son  of  an  Israelitish  woman  and  >f  an 
Egyptian,  one  of  the  '^  mixed  multitude'^  which  h.'^d  left 
the  Nile  Valley  with  the  Hebrews,  had  wandered  from  his 
own  quarters  in  the  camp  into  those  of  the  Israelites,* 
which  he  had  no  right  to  enter ;  the  ofi*spring  of  such 
marriages  as  that  of  his  parents  being  excluded  from, 
the  community  till  the  third  generation.^  A  dispute 
having  risen  between  him  and  a  Hebrew,  the  unfortunate 
man  allowed  himself,  in  the  heat  of  passion,  to  blaspheme 
the  name  of  God,  and  was  at  once  brought  before  Moses 
for  the  crime.  The  penalty  was  terrible,  for  the  offence 
struck  at  the  root  of  the  national  constitution,  and 
imperilled  the  very  object  of  the  separation  of  Israel  from 
other  nations.     No  similar  case  had  risen  before,  so  that 

1  Josh.  i.  11. 

2  See  art.  in  Studien  und  Kritihen,  by  Yaihinger,  1871,  p.  771. 
^  Lev.  xxiv.  10. 

^  Each  tribe  was  encamped  by  itself  (Num.  ii.  2).  The  Tarfrum 
of  Palestine  says,  the  offender  sought  to  pitch  his  tent  in  the  tribe 
of  Dan,  and  on  being  resisted  took  the  case  to  the  "  House  of 
Judgment,"  where  it  was  decided  against  him ;  and  that  then,  iu 
the  rage  at  his  defeat,  he  committed  the  crime  alleged. 

5  Deut.  xxiv.  7,  8, 

VOL.    II.  Z 


338  THE    WILDERNESS. 

a  special  law  liad  to  be  made  for  it ;  but  this  was  presently 
announced  in  the  name  of  Jehovah  Himself.  The  blas- 
phemer was  to  be  led  outside  the  camp  and  stoned  to 
death ;  those  who  had  heard  his  words  laying  their  hands 
on  his  head/  and  throwing  the  first  stones^  as  responsible 
for  the  truth  of  the  charge  against  him  ;  ^  the  crowd 
*  around  then  joining  in  the  execution. 

It  is  striking  to  notice,  that  in  the  Hebrew  text  it  is 
only  said  that  he  blasphemed  The  Name  -^  what  that  was 
being  left  unwritten.  On  this  omission  the  later  Jews 
grounded  their  prohibition  of  the  use  of  the  word  Jehovah, 
under  almost  any  circumstances.  "  Those  who  utter  the 
name  of  God  according  to  its  sound,^^  says  the  Talmud, 
''  have  no  position  in  the  world  to  come.^'  *  The  priests 
might  use  it  in  the  temple  services,  but  even  they  were 
not  to  let  it  cross  their  lips  elsewhere.^  In  the  Hebrew 
Bible  the  vowels  of  the  word  Adonai — Lord — are  placed 
below  it,  and  in  the  Greek  it  is  always  suppressed, 
the  word  Kurios,  *^  Lord,^'  being  used  in  its  place ; 
a  practice  followed  by  the  English  version.  Traces  of 
this  aversion  to  utter  the  Divine  name  occur  early  in  the 
Old  Testament,  as  where  it  is  withheld  from  Jacob  at 
Peniel,^  and  from  Manoah.^ 

This  dread  of  using  the  special  name  of  the  Deity 
characterized  antiquity  from  the  earliest  ages,  through 
the  belief  that  it  expressed  the  awful  mysteries  of  the 

^  SeeLev.  i.  4;  xxiv.  14.       ^  Deut.  xvii.  7.       ^  Lev.  xxiv.  11, 16. 

^  Sanhedrin,  x.  §  1.  The  Septuagint  reads,  "  Whosoever  shall 
name  the  name  of  the  Lord  shall  die"  (Nam.  xxiv.  16) ;  and  Philo 
says,  "  He  who  utters  the  name  of  the  Lord  at  an  unfit  time  shall 
die."  (ii.  166). 

5  BuxtorfF's  Heh.  and  Gliald.  Lex.,  p.  2432. 

^  Gen.  xxxii.  29. 

7  Judges  xiii.  18.  *'  Secret,"  there  =  "  Wonderful."  Josephus 
speaks  of  the  name  of  God  as  not  to  be  uttered.     Ant,  II.  xii.  4. 


THE    WILDEENESS.  839 

Divine  essence,  and  was  too  holy  to  be  breathed.  Thus 
the  "  name  of  God  is  in  the  Angel  ^*  who  was  to  lead 
Israel  through  the  wilderness/  and  the  temple  was 
to  be  built  for  "  the  Name/'  ^  but  in  neither  case  is  it 
given.  Such  reverence,  just  in  itself,  early  led,  however, 
to  many  superstitions.  The  knowledge  of  the  secret 
name  of  any  god  or  angel  was  thought  to  convey,  to  him 
who  knew  it,  the  control  of  their  supernatural  powers. 
He  who  discovered  the  hidden  name  of  the  god  Ea,  ot 
the  Accadians,  became  invested  with  attributes  higher 
than  those  of  the  gods.^  The  name,  in  fact,  was  re- 
garded as  a  personification  of  its  owner,  with  which 
was  indissolubly  connected  the  possession  of  his  essen- 
tial characteristics.  Thus  the  Romans  used  the  word 
"numen^^  for  a  divinity,  by  a  mere  play  on  the  word 
"  nomen,''  '^  a  name.''  Among  the  Egyptians  there 
was  a  god  whose  name  it  was  unlawful  to  utter ;  *  and 
it  was  forbidden  to  name  or  to  speak  of  the  supreme 
guardian  divinity  of  Rome.^  Even  to  mention  a  god^s 
name  in  taking  an  oath  was  deemed  irreverent.^  In 
the  Book  of  Henoch  ^  a  secret  magic  power  is  ascribed  to 
the  Divine  Name,  and  '^  it  upholds  all  things  which  are." 
Men  learned  it  through  the  craft  of  the  evil  angel, 
Kesbeel,  who,  in  heaven,  before  he  was  cast  out,  gained 
it  by  craft  from  Michael,  its  original  guardian.  Nor 
did  the  ancient  world,  alone,  regard  a  name  as  thus 
potent.     The  Scandinavians  firmly  believed  that  if  that 

1  Exod.  xxiii.  21. 

2  2  Sam.  vii.  13  :  "  He  shall  build  an  house  for  My  Name." 

3  Lenormant,  La  Magie,  p.  41. 

4  Cic;  Be  Nat.  Beor.',  iu.  22. 

*  Plutarch,  QucBst.  Bom.,  6. 

*  Schol.  Aristoph.,  Ban..,  1421. 

^  Bas  Buch  Henoch,  Kap.  Ixix. 


340  THE    WILDERNESS. 

of  a  figliting  warrior  were  spoken  out  loud,  his  strength 
would  immediately  depart  from  him,  for  his  name  waa 
his  very  essence.^  At  this  day,  moreover,  the  true  name 
of  the  Emperor  of  China  is  kept  a  profound  secret,  never 
to  be  uttered — perhaps  to  impress  his  subjects  with  his 
unapproachable  elevation  above  common  mortals.^ 

Another  incident  recorded  throws  a  strong  light  on 
the  strictness  with  which  the  laws  given  at  Sinai  were 
enforced ;  doubtless  to  stamp  ineffaceably  on  the  heart 
of  the  nation  the  moral  lessons  intended.  A  man  was 
found  gathering  sticks  on  the  Sabbath  day,^  and  was 
instantly  brought  before  Moses.  There  was  no  question 
as  to  the  penalty,  which  had  been  already  declared  to  be 
death  ;  *  but  it  was  not  yet  disclosed  how  it  was  to  be 
inflicted.  Now,  however,  it  was  made  known  that  the 
ofi'ender  was  to  be  taken  outside  the  camp  and  stoned  to 
death,  and  this  was  forthwith  done. 

But  individual  declensions,  inevitable  in  the  establish- 
ment of  a  religion  so  pure  and  lofty,  among  such  a 
people  and  in  such  an  age,  were  not  the  only  difficulties 
with  which  Moses  had  to  contend.  The  great  religious 
revolution,  which  had  substituted  the  priesthood  of  Aarou 
and  the  services  of  the  Levites  for  those  of  the  fathers 
and  elder  sons  of  the  community,  had  not  been  ejffected 
without  opposition,  and  this  came  to  a  head,  at  last, 
in  a  movement  which  might  easily  have  been  perilous. 
Korah,  a  Levite,  and  Dathan  and  Abiram,  of  the  tribe  of 
Eeuben,  the  eldest  son  of  Jacob,  rose  against  Moses,  after 
having  gained  over  to  their  conspiracy  no  fewer  than  two 

1  Good  Words,  1865,  p.  620.  See  on  this  curious  subject,  further, 
Ewald,  Geschichte,  vol.  iv.  pp.  254  ff. 

2  Remusat,  Nouv.  Mel.  As.,  vol.  ii.  p.  6. 

3  Num.  XV.  32-36. 

^  Exod.  xxxi.  14,  15  ;  xxxv.  2. 


THE   WILDEENESS.  341 

hundred  and  fifty  chiefs  of  the  congregation — heads 
of  tribal  divisions — and,  as  such,  their  representatives 
in  the  popular  assembly  of  Israel.^  The  matter  was  the 
more  serious  as  Korah  was  a  full  cousin  of  Moses  and 
Aaron— Izhar,2  his  father,  being  Amram^s  brother.^  He 
now  claimed  priestly  rights  for  himself,  and  his  family ; 
his  two  hundred  and  fifty  supporters,  who  were,  very 
probably,  for  the  most  part,  first-born  sons,  demanding 
them  also.*  Dathan  and  Abiram,  as  Eeubenites,  had 
apparent  ground  for  claiming  worldly  rather  than  spiritual 
advantages  from  their  descent.^  With  them,  for  the 
moment,  was  associated  another  Reubenite — On — but  he 
appears  to  have  presently  withdrawn  from  their  plans, 
for  his  name  does  not  appear  again. 

The  whole  company  of  the  disaffected  having  gathered 
together  before  Moses  and  Aaron,  stated  their  grievance. 
'^  The  two  took  too  much  upon  them,  seeing  that  all  the 
congregation  were  holy,  every  one  of  them,  and  that 
Jehovah  was  among  them  :  why  did  they  lift  up  them- 
selves above  the  congregation  ? ''  It  was  a  protest 
ao-ainst  the  new  priesthood  and  Levitical  service,  and 
a  demand  that  things  should  be  restored  to  their  old 
position  in  these  respects.  But  Moses  met  them  calmly. 
Next  day  would  show  which  side  was  right.  Let  the 
whole  company  present  themselves  with  lighted  censers, 
and  those  whom  God  should  choose  would  be  "  holy.'' 
They  took  too  much  on  them,  he  added.  God  had 
honoured  the  tribe  of  Levi  by  bringing  it  near  Him,  to 
do  the  service  of  His  Tabernacle :  would  they  seek  the 
priesthood  as  well  ? 

Dismissing  them  thus  for  a  time,  Dathan  and  Abiram, 

1  Num.  xvi.  2.     This  is  implied  in  the  Hebrew  words  used. 

2  Izhar  =  fresh  oil.  ^  Exod.  vi.  18. 
4  Exod.  xxii,  29.  «  Gen.  xlix.  3. 


342  THE   WILDERNESS. 

who  had  kept  aloof,  were  next  summoned  to  appear 
before  him.  Instead  of  complying,  however,  they  repelled 
the  command  with  bitter  reproaches  against  Moses. 
''^Was  it  a  small  thing,''  they  asked,  "that  he  had 
brought  them  up  out  of  a  land  flowing  with  milk  and 
honey,  to  kill  them  in  the  wilderness  ?  and  would  he 
now  go  on  even  to  play  the  prince  over  them  ?  Besides, 
where  was  the  grand  country  he  was  to  get  for  them  ? 
where  were  the  fields  and  vineyards  he  had  promised  ? 
Would  he  put  out  their  eyes  to  keep  them  from  seeing 
how  little  his  words  were  in  keeping  with  his  deeds  ? 
We  will  not  come  !  "  ^ 

A  few  hours,  however,  crushed  this  threatening  revolt. 
On  Korah  and  his  company  presenting  themselves  at  the 
entrance  of  the  Tabernacle  with  their  censers,  "  fire  from 
the  Lord  '*  burst  out  on  them,  and  destroyed  the  whole 
two  hundred  and  fifty.^  Nor  was  the  end  of  Dathan  and 
Abiram,  who  remained  in  their  tents,  less  tragical,  for  a 
miraculous  cleft  in  the  earth  suddenly  opened  beneath 
them,  and  they  and  all  belonging  to  them  disappeared 
for  ever.  The  danger,  however,  was  not  over  even  yet. 
The  whole  camp  had  sympathised  with  the  attempt  to 
restore  the  old  state  of  things  for  which  the  Levitical 
reforms  had  been  substituted,  and  now  openly  clamoured 
against  Moses  and  Aaron  for  having,  as  they  asserted, 
"  killed  the  people  of  Jehovah.'"  But  this,  in  the 
end,  added  to  the  triumph  of  the  new  constitution ;  for 
a  divinely-sent  plague  presently  broke  out  in  the  camp, 
and  was  stayed  only  by  Aaron  rushing  with  his  kindled 

^  This  is  a  close  paraphrase  of  the  verses,  Num.  xvi.  13,  14. 
The  Targum  of  Palestine  says,  *'  Wilt  thoa  blind  the  eyes  of  the 
men  of  that  land,  that  thou  mayest  overcome  them." 

2  The  children  of  Korah  did  not  suffer.  Exod.  vi.  24.  Num. 
xxvi.  11.     1  Chron.  xx.  1.     2  Chron.  xx.  19. 


THE    WILDERNESS.  343 

censer  between  tlie  living  and  the  dead^  and  thus  making 
an  atonement  for  the  sin  of  the  rebels.  In  all,  with 
the  number  who  perished  with  Korah,  nearly  15,000  had 
already  fallen.  Henceforward,  the  rights  of  the  Levites 
and  of  the  priesthood  were  unchallenged  during  the  whole 
history  of  the  nation.  The  crisis,  however,  was  not 
suffered  to  pass  away  without  a  memorial  which  should 
keep  it  from  being  forgotten.  The  heads  of  the  twelve 
tribes,  including  Levi,^  were  distinguished  by  carrying  a 
rod  or  sceptre  of  office.  These  were  now  ordered  to  be 
laid  before  Jehovah  in  the  Tabernacle,  that  it  might  be 
shown  by  a  miraculous  sign  in  connection  with  them, 
how  undoubted  was  the  Divine  approval  of  the  choice  of 
Aaron  and  the  Levites  as  the  ecclesiastical  officials  of  the 
host.  Nor  could  there  be  any  hesitation,  for,  on  the  mor- 
row, it  was  found  that  the  ''  rod  of  Aaron,  for  the  house 
of  Levi,  was  budded,  and  brought  forth  buds,  and  bloomed 
blossoms,  and  yielded  almonds.'^ ^  Henceforth,  by  com- 
mand, it  was  laid  before  the  Ark  as  a  standing  testimony 
of  God's  wilL^  The  effect  of  such  a  wonder,  added  to 
all  that  had  preceded,  was  overpowering.  Far  and  near 
through  the  whole  camp  only  one  cry  was  heard  :  "  We 
die,  we  perish,  we  all  perish  :  whoever  comes  at  all  near 
the  dwelling-place  of  Jehovah  dieth  :  shall  we  ever  have 
finished  with  dying  ?  ^'  * 

It  is  to  be  noticed  that  the  Divine  instructions  to  Aaron 

^  Ephraim  and  Manasseh  had  been  reckoned  as  one  tribe — that 
of  Joseph. 

2  Num.  xvii.  8. 

2  The  fact  that  Aaron's  rod  was  thus  said  to  have  been  laid  befoio 
the  Ark  is  a  strong  proof  of  the  historical  truth  of  the  incident. 
For  how  could  an  appeal  have  been  thus  made  to  evidence,  which 
at  any  time  could  have  been  shown  to  be  imaginary,  if  the  rod 
were  not  thus  preserved  ? 

^  SchloUmann  and  Driver, 


344  THE   WILDEENESS. 

respecting  tlie  special  duties  of  the  priests  and  Levites 
are  inserted  immediately  after  the  account  of  this  crisis,^ 
as  if,  till  then^  nothing  had  been  definitely  settled. 

Various  laws  demanded  by  new  and  unforeseen  exi- 
gencies seem,  indeed,  to  have  been  framed  and  published 
from  time  to  time,  during  we  know  not  how  long  after 
Israel  left  Sinai.  In  all  nations  it  must  be  so,  for  no 
legislation  can  anticipate  the  requirements  of  the  future 
in  detail.  Greneral  principles  were  laid  down  in  advance, 
but  as  in  the  case  of  the  blasphemer,  the  Sabbath  breaker, 
and  the  numerous  isolated  enactments  in  Numbers  and 
Deuteronomy,  new  laws  or  more  explicit  definitions  of 
those  already  given,  must  have  been  added  to  the  statute 
book,  year  after  year.  And  this  continued  with  the 
Hebrews  as  with  other  nations ;  for,  just  as  the  laws  of 
William  the  Conqueror,  or  of  Elizabeth,  are  necessarily, 
in  many  respects,  obsolete  in  our  day,  from  the  lapse  of 
time,  and  changes  in  national  customs  and  life,  and  need 
to  be  modified  to  suit  the  present ;  so  the  Mosaic  laws,  in 
the  course  of  ages,  grew  largely  out  of  date  and  incapable 
of  execution,  though  the  great  principles  on  which  they 
rested  remained  the  same.  The  whole  system  of  the 
Rabbinical  laws  of  later  Judaism,  in  fact,  sprang  from 
the  desire  to  adapt  .the  ancient  laws  of  the  Pentateuch  to 
the  times,  by  silently  allowing  many  particulars  to  remain 
in  the  oblivion  into  which  they  had  long  fallen,  and 
developing  others  only  too  elaborately. 

The  efi'ect  of  the  repeated  risings  of  the  people  as  a 
whole,  or  of  sections  of  them,  as  in  the  case  of  Korah, 
must  have  weighed  heavily  on  the  spirit  of  their  great 
leader.  He  saw  all  his  dreams  of  guiding  them  into  the 
Promised  Land  dissipated,  for  he  was  an  old  man,  and 
the  sentence  dooming  the  existing  generation  to  die  in  the 
^  Num.  xviii. 


THE   WILDERNESS.  845 

wilderness  virtually  included  himself:  already  over 
eighty,  he  could  not  hope  to  survive  another  race  of  his 
fellows  ?  With  all  his  sublime  trust  in  Jehovah,  so 
often  shown,  and  embodied  so  grandly  in  the  religious 
history  of  the  nation  on  which  he  impressed  his  spirit, 
he,  at  last,  for  a  moment  despaired,  and  fell  into  the 
same  distrust  as  had  so  often  grieved  his  soul  in  others*^ 
The  people  were  camping  somewhere  in  the  neighbour- 
hood of  the  eastern  hills  of  the  Negeb,  and  once  more 
suffered  greatly  from  want  of  water;  the  wells  and 
torrent  beds  yielding  too  little,  or  perhaps  having  failed 
at  the  time  from  drought.  Loud  reproaches  for  being 
led  from  Egypt  to  such  a  wilderness  rose  on  every  side, 
and  the  old  laments  were  heard,  that  they  had  not  died 
with  their  brethren,  who  had  already  perished  by  the 
way.  They  forgot  the  rock  smitten  at  Eephidim,  and 
the  manna  of  each  day,  and  unhappily  influenced  even 
Moses  and  Aaron  for  the  instant.  As  might  have  been 
expected  from  their  Divine  Protector,  who  had  cared  for 
them  so  long,  a  command  presently  came  that  the  two 
leaders  should  speak  to  the  bare  crag,^  in  the  sight  of  all 
the  people,  and  water  would  flow  from  it.  But  the  lofty, 
immoveable  trust  of  Moses  in  the  Divine  word  was  for 
the  moment  shaken. 

**  They  angered  him  at  the  waters  of  strife, 
So  that  it  went  ill  with  Moses  for  their  sakes ; 
Because  they  rebelled  against  His  (God's)  Spirit,* 
So  that  he  spake  unadvisedly  with  his  hps."  ^ 

Obeying  the  command,  he  was  yet  uncertain  and 
hesitating  as  to  the  result,  and  openly  showed  his  doubts; 
as  if  the  Almighty  could  not  do  whatever  He  pleased,  or 

^  Num.  XX.  10-12.  2  The  word  is  "  crag." 

3  Lengerhe,  p.  669.  *  Ps.  cvi.  32,  33. 


346  THE   WILDERNESS. 

would  not  fulfil  His  word.  ''  Can  I  bring  water/'  cried 
he,  in  the  hearing  of  all,  "from  the  dry,  solid  rock?^'^ 
He  had  been  commanded  to  speak  only,  and  the  water 
would  flow;  but  in  his  excitement,  he  smote  the  hard 
stone.  Water  came  as  had  been  promised,  but  the 
momentary  distrust  brought  a  final  and  formal  exclusion 
of  the  great  leader  and  his  brother  from  the  land  they 
had  so  longed  to  enter. 

^  Knohel,  on  iN'um.  xx.  10.  Moses  smites  the  rock  twice,  and 
not  once  only,  as  if  the  result  depended  on  human  action  in  part, 
and  not  on  the  power  of  God  alone. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

THE    EVE    OP    THE    CONQUEST. 

ALONG-  interval  of  thirty-seven  years  is  passed  over 
without  notice  between  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth 
verses  of  the  twentieth  chapter  of  Numbers.^  At  their 
close  the  discipline  of  the  wilderness  had  done  its  work. 
For  a  generation  Israel  had  led  a  nomadic  life,  passing 
from  place  to  place  as  pasturage  invited,  though  Kadesh 
had  been  their  centre.  The  men  who  had  come  from 
Egypt  gradually  died  out,  and  their  sons  had  grown, 
under  the  inspiration  of  Moses,  and  those  associated  with 
him,  into  a  strong  and  vigorous  nation.  He  had  given 
them  a  constitution  which  was  democratic  in  the  noblest 
sense,  for  every  Israelite,  whether  poor  or  rich,  was  equal 
before  the  law  and  was  a  free  man.  They  had  been 
taught  to  feel  themselves  the  people  of  God;  and  to  treat 
them  like  slaves,  as  the  Pharaohs  treated  the  Egyp- 
tians, was  a  crime  against  Jehovah. ^  Moses,  though  their 
leader  and  dictator,  bore  himself  as  only  the  instrument 
and  voice  of  God,  from  whom  their  laws  came,  and 
to  whom,  supremely,  they  owed  spiritual  and  temporal 
obedience.      All   the  legislation   given    them   had   been 

^  As  the  long  residence  in  Egypt  is  similarly  unnoticed. 
^  Bunsen's  Blhel  Urhunden,  vol.  i.  p.  189 

347 


348  THE   EVE   OF   THE    CONQUEST. 

based  on  tlie  recognition  of  the  highest  moral  law,  and 
embodied  the  purest  and  loftiest  conceptions  of  duty 
to  God  and  man.  Love  of  their  neighbour,  brotherly 
fellowship,  equality  as  Israelites,  gentleness,  and  absolute 
uprightness,  were  the  ideal  he  had  set  before  them. 
Such  maxims  and  laws  were  impressed  on  them  till  they 
became  instinctively  recognized,  however  at  times  con- 
travened or  forgotten.  In  the  words  of  the  prophet, 
these  years  saw  the  kindness  of  their  youth  and  the  love 
of  their  espousals  to  Jehovah,^  when,  as  His  betrothed 
bride,  they  followed  the  Pillar  of  His  Presence  through 
the  wilderness,  in  a  land  that  was  not  sown.^  In  the 
song  of  Moses  we  read  how — 

Jehovah  found  His  people  in  the  waste; 

And  in  the  wilderness,  and  howling  steppes 

He  compassed  them  about,  He  tended  them. 

He  guarded  them  as  the  apple  of  His  eye. 

As  the  eagle  watches  over  her  nest ; 

Hovers  over  her  young,  spreads  wide  her  wings, 

Takes  them  and  bears  them  on  her  feathers ; 

So  Jehovah,  only,  led  them, 

And  no  strange  god  was  with  them.^ 

Nor  were  their  manly  virtues  less  strengthened  and 
developed  than  their  religious  ideas.  The  energies  called 
forth  by  the  necessities  and  perils  of  a  desert  life ;  the 
quickening  breath  of  the  pure  air  of  the  wilderness ;  a 
love  of  freedom  kindled  into  a  passion  by  its  enjoyment 
for  a  generation ;  the  communion  with  nature  in  its 
silent  vastness  and  sublimity,  briuging  them  face  to  face 

^  Lengerke  acutely  remarks  {Keiiaan,  p.  385),  that  the  imagery 
of  the  espousal  of  Jehovah  to  Israel  after  the  Exodus  pre- 
supposes their  having  before  that  time  been  devoted,  in  a  large 
measure,  to  other  gods. 

2  Jer.  ii.  2.         ^  Deut.  xxxii.  8,  IQ.    Knohel,  Graetz,  and  Lange, 


THE    EVE    OP   THE    CONQUEST.  349 

witli  Gnod  and  their  own  thouglits ;  the  interdependence 
fostered  by  common  action  as  a  people ;  the  free  consti- 
tution they  enjoyed,  and,  above  all,  the  grand  religious 
conceptions  which  roused  all  that  was  noble  in  the  soul, 
had  efifaced  the  servile  taint  of  Egypt,  called  out  the 
slumbering  qualities  of  the  race,  and  restored  them  to 
the  vigorous  tone  of  their  shepherd  ancestors. 

But  it  was  necessary  that  the  wandering  life  should 
end,  now  it  had  served  its  purpose,  else  they  might  per- 
manently sink  into  desert  tribes,  like  those  around  them. 
At  last,  therefore,  the  command  was  given  to  prepare  for 
taking  possession  of  the  long-promised  land  of  Canaan. 
How  to  reach  it,  however,  was  as  yet  undetermined. 
Approach  from  the  south  was  barred  by  the  elaborate 
preparations  of  the  inhabitants;  though  a  successful 
attack  on  the  king  of  Arad,^  a  chief  of  the  Negeb,  who 
had  taken  part  in  their  defeat  at  Hormah,  in  Zephath, 
long  years  before,  showed  that  the  present  generation 
were  very  different  men  from  their  fathers. 

But  the  long  years  that  had  passed  since  leaving 
Egypt,  had  told  on  the  strongest  and  most  vigorous 
survivors  of  the  old  Egyptian  times.  Hitherto,  the 
immediate  circle  of  their  great  leader  had  been  unbroken ; 
but  now  it  was  to  render  its  first  tribute  to  death.  Moses 
and  Aaron  were  to  be  spared  to  each  other  a  little  longer 
— only  a  little — but  Miriam  was  to  leave  them.  She 
died  towards  the  close  of  the  wanderings,  at  Kadesh,^  and 
was  buried  there,  as  Josephus  says,  with  great  pomp,^ 
and  amidst  a  general  sorrow,  which  was  expressed,  as  in 
the  case  of  her  brothers  afterwards,  by  a  public  mourning 
for  thirty  days.  Older  than  Moses,  she  could  hardly 
have  been  less  than  120  when  she  died ;  but  henceforth 

Num.  xxi.  21-24.  2  ]srum.  xx.  1. 

3  Ant,  ly.  iv.  6. 


350  THE    EVE    OF    THE    CONQUEST. 

the  two  brothers  were  alone,  aud  it  was  certain  that  ere 
long  even  they  must  be  parted. 

The  direct  route  northwards  being  impracticable,  the 
next  best  lay  up  the  broad  sunken  plain  of  the  Arabah, 
to  the  southern  end  of  the  Dead  Sea,  where  they  could 
pass  round  the  foot  of  the  mountains  of  Edom  into  Moab ; 
which,  with  the  country  of  the  Ammonites,  extended 
along  the  east  side  of  the  Jordan.  The  peoples  of  all 
three  were  related,  by  descent,  to  the  Hebrews,  and 
Moses  might  expect  that  friendly  feelings  would  be 
shown  him  and  his  host,  since  he  only  wished  to  pass 
quietly  through  their  territory,  and  had  no  intention  of 
disturbing  them.  He  therefore  appealed  to  Edom  for 
permission  to  cross  its  northern  edge,  promising  to 
injure  nothing,  and  to  keep  strictly  to  the  beaten  tracks. 
But  the  fear  of  even  a  peaceful  invasion  by  such  a  mul- 
titude expressed  itself  in  a  refusal,  accompanied  with  a 
display  of  force,  to  be  used  if  needed. 

It  only  remained,  therefore,  to  journey  down  the 
Arabah  to  the  head  of  the  gulf  of  Akaba,  a  branch  of  the 
Bed  Sea,  and  turning,  thence,  round  the  south  end  of  the 
mountains  of  Edom,  to  march  northwards  towards  Canaan, 
outside  their  eastern  slope.  But  a  melancholy  interrup- 
tion to  their  progress  was  at  hand.  High  above  the 
hills  in  which  now  stand  the  wondrous  rock-hewn  ruins 
of  Petra,  the  lofty  double  peak  of  Mount  Hor  is  seen  to 
the  north-west.  To  use  the  words  of  Ritter,  it  towers 
in  lonely  majesty,  rising  high  aloft  into  the  blue  sky,  like 
a  huge,  grand,  but  shattered  rock  city,  with  vast  cliffs, 
perpendicular  walls  of  stone,  pinnacles  and  naked  peaks 
of  every  shape.^  On  one  of  the  heights  of  this  great 
natural  altar  Aaron  was  destined  to  breathe  his  last,  in 
the  arms  of  his  son  and  successor,  Eleazar^  and  beside 
*  Ritter,  Erdkunde,  vol.  xiv.  p.  1127. 


THE    EVE    OF    THE    CONQUEST.  351 

the  true  and  loving  brother,  who  had  been  his  guiding 
star  through  life.  The  sublime  mountain  was  a  fitting 
scene  for  the  death  of  such  a  man.  That  he  so  naturally 
took  the  position  becoming  him,  as  the  faithful  instru- 
ment and  conscientious  councillor  of  his  still  more  illus- 
trious brother,  and  as  the  interpreter  and  representative 
of  his  grander  spirit/  shows  his  greatness;  his  lofty 
piety  has  its  record  in  his  life  as  a  whole. 

No  incident  could  be  more  touching  than  the  ascent  of 
the  two  venerable  brothers  and  the  son,  on  such  an  errand. 
The  lonely  height ;  the  robes  taken  from  the  dying  man 
that  they  might  be  put  on  Eleazar,  as  the  successor  in 
his  pontificate ;  the  very  landscape  on  which  his  eyes  now 
rested,  move  us.  If  they  climbed  to  the  top  they 
would  see  around  them  a  wilderness  of  craggy  summits, 
the  very  image  of  desolation,  sinking  into  a  maze  of 
fathomless  defiles,  which  formed  the  ancient  territory  of 
Edom.  To  the  west,  the  valley  of  the  Arabah  lay  at 
their  feet,  like  the  bed  of  a  vast  river,  encumbered  with 
shoals  of  sand,  and  sprinkled  over  with  stunted  shrubs ; 
beyond,  stretched  out  the  desert,  in  which  they  had  wan- 
dered for  now  thirty-eight  years.  To  the  north,  the 
rounded  hills  of  the  Promised  Land,  fading  away  like 
waves  in  the  distance — those  hills  so  ardently  longed  for, 
which  neither  Moses  nor  he  were  ever  to  tread.  To 
the  south,  the  Arabah  stretched  on  towards  the  Red  Sea, 
marking  the  future  path  of  the  tribes,  when  they  would 
"compass  the  land  of  Edom.^'  To  the  east,  the  sky 
rested  on  a  magnificent  range  of  yellow  mountains, 
through  the  valley  between  which  and  Edom,  Israel 
would  presently  march  northwards  to  the  conquest  of  its 
long-sought  inheritance. 

*  Bunsen,  Bibel  Urhunden,  vol.  i.  p.  214, 


352  THE    EVE    OF    THE    CONQUEST. 

A  poor  tomb  on  the  top  of  tlie  mountain  is  honoured  by 
the  Mabommedans  as  tbat  of  Aaron.^  It  has  been  built 
on  the  site  of  a  much  better  edifice,  of  Christian  origin, 
some  of  the  mosaics  of  which  are  still  seen  in  the  floor  of 
the  present  structure.  If  the  great  high  priest  lie  here, 
his  body  is  deep  down,  out  of  sight,  below  the  floor, 
though,  indeed,  no  one  can  believe  that  such  a  vault 
could  have  been  excavated  by  Moses  and  Eleazar.^ 

^  For  a  description  of  Mount  Hor  see  Stephen's  Incidents, 
Bohinson,  Stanley,  Smith's  Dictionary,  Kitto's  Gyclo.  of  Bib.  Idt., 
Bartlett's  Forty  Days  in  the  Desert,  etc. 

2  The  death  of  Aaron  has  been  made  the  subject  of  touching 
legends  by  the  Rabbis.  One  of  them  is  as  follows  :  "  Moses  was 
full  of  grief  when  the  word  of  the  Lord  came  to  him  that  Aaron, 
his  brother,  was  to  die.  That  night  he  had  no  rest,  and  when  it 
began  to  dawn  towards  morning,  he  rose  and  went  to  the  tent 
of  Aaron,  who  was  much  surprised  to  see  his  brother  come  so 
earl 3%  and  said,  *  Wherefore  art  thou  come?  ' 

"  Moses  answered,  '  All  night  long  have  I  been  troubled,  and 
have  had  no  sleep,  for  certain  things  in  the  Law  came  upon  me^ 
and  they  seemed  to  me  heavy  and  unendurable.  I  have  come 
to  thee  that  I  may  relieve  my  mind.*  So  they  opened  the  book 
together;  and  at  every  sentence  they  said,  'that  is  holy,  and 
great,  and  righteous.'  Soon  they  came  to  the  history  of  Adam ; 
and  Moses  stayed  from  reading  when  they  arrived  at  the  Fall, 
and  he  cried  bitterly.  *  O  Adam,  thou  hast  brought  death  into 
the  world ! ' 

"  Aaron  said,  *  Why  art  thou  so  troubled  thereat,  my  brother  ? 
Is  not  death  the  way  to  Eden?'  'It  is,  however,  very  painful,' 
said  Moses.  Think,  also,  that  thou  and  I  must  some  day  die. 
How  many  years  thinkest  thou  we  shall  live  ?  Aaron.  '  Perhaps 
twenty.'  Moses.  '  Oh,  no !  not  so  many.  Aai^on.  '  Then  fifteen.* 
Moses.  *  No,  my  brother,  not  so  many.'  Aaron.  '  Then  surely  it 
must  be  five  ? '  Moses.  *  I  say  again,  not  so  many.'  Then  said 
Aaron,  hesitating,  '  Is  it  then  one  ? '  And  Moses  said,  '  Not  so 
much.' 

"Fall  of  anxiety  and  alarm,  Aaron  kept  silence.  Then  said 
Moses  gently,  '0  my  beloved!  would  it  not  be  good  to  say  of 


THE   EVE    OF   THE    CONQUEST.  353 

After  a  stay  of  thirty  days  under  the  shadow  of  Mount 
Hor,  in  public  mourning  for  Aaron,  the   camp   at  last 

thee  as  it  was  said  of  Abraham,  that  he  was  gathered  to  his 
fathers  in  peace  ?  '     Aaron  was  silent. 

"  Then  said  Moses,  '  If  God  were  to  say  that  thou  shouldest  die 
in  an  hundred  years,  what  wonldst  thou  say?'  Aaron  said, 
'The  Lord  is  righteous  in  all  His  ways,  and  holy  in  all  His 
works.  Moses.  *  And  if  God  were  to  say  to  thee  that  thou 
shouldest  die  this  year,  what  wouldst  thou  answer?'  Aaro7i. 
*  The  Lord  is  righteous  in  all  His  ways,  and  holy  in  all  His  works.' 
Moses.  *  And  if  He  were  to  call  thee  to-day,  what  wouldst  thou 
say?'  Aaro7i.  'The  Lord  is  righteous  in  all  His  ways,  and  holy 
in  all  His  works.'     '  Then,'  said  Moses,  '  arise  and  follow  me.' 

"  At  that  same  hour  went  forth  Moses,  Aaron,  and  Eleazar,  his 
son :  they  ascended  unto  Mount  Hor,  and  the  people  looked  on, 
nothing  doubting,  for  they  knew  not  what  was  to  take  place. 
Then  said  the  Most  High  to  His  angels,  '  Behold  the  new  Isaac: 
he  follows  his  younger  brother,  who  leads  him  to  death.' 

"  When  they  had  reached  the  summit  of  the  mountain,  there 
opened  before  them  a  cavern.  They  went  in,  and  found  a  death- 
bed prepared  by  the  hands  of  angels.  Then  Moses  cried  out  in 
grief,  '  Woe  is  me !  we  were  two,  when  we  comforted  our  sister 
in  her  death;  in  this,  thy  last  hour,  I  am  with  thee,  to  solace 
thee:  when  I  die,  who  will  comfort  me?'  Then  a  voice  was 
heard  from  heaven,  ' Fear  not;  God  Himself  will  be  with  thee.' 

"  On  one  side  stood  Moses,  on  the  other  Eleazar,  and  they  kissed 
the  dying  man  on  the  brow,  and  took  from  off  him  his  priestly 
vestments,  to  clothe  Eleazar,  his  son,  with  tbem.  They  took  off 
one  portion  of  the  sacred  apparel,  and  laid  that  on  Eleazar;  and 
a^  they  stripped  Aaron  a  silvery  veil  of  cloud  sank  over  him 
like  a  pall,  and  covered  him.  Aaron  seemed  to  be  asleep.  Then 
Moses  said,  '  My  brother,  what  dost  thou  leel  ?  '  'I  feel  nothing 
but  the  cloud  that  envelopes  me,'  answered  he.  After  a  little 
pause  Moses  said  again,  '  My  brother,  what  dost  thou  feel  ?  '  He 
answered  feebly,  'The  cloud  surrounds  me,  and  bereaves  me  of 
all  joy,' 

"  And  the  soul  of  Aaron  was  parted  from  his  body.  And  as  it 
went  up  Moses  cried  once  more,  '  Alas,  my  brother !  what  dost 
thou  feel?  '     And  the  soul  replied,  '  I  feel  such  joy  .that  I  would 

VOL.   II.  A   A 


854-  THE   EVE   OF   THE    CONQUEST. 

moved  southwards,  and  having  rounded  the  mountains 
of  Edom  at  the  head  of  the  gulf  of  Akaba — not  to  be  re- 
visited by  Israelitish  wanderers  till  Solomon  made  Ezion- 
geber  the  port  of  his  commercial  navy — turned  north- 
wards towards  Canaan.  But  the  way  was  difficult  and 
trying,  and  the  spirits  of  the  people  again  fell.  Water 
ran  short  for  the  vast  multitude,  and  the  manna  was 
murmured  at  as  only  "  miserable  bread.-"  ^  Once  more, 
IQ  forgetfiilness  of  the  supply  of  all  their  wants  for  so 
many  years,  bitter  reproaches  rose  against  God  and 
Moses.  But  the  region  itself  provided  a  terrible  pun- 
ishment for  such  disloyalty  and  rebellion.  Venomous 
serpents  abounded  in  it,  and  spread  terror  and  death,  till 
a  remedy  was  provided  in  the  "  brazen  serpent,^'  raised 
upon  a  banner  pole  by  Moses,  by  Divine  command.^  A 
strange  confusion  of  texts  has  led  to  the  common  idea 
that  they  were  "  flying  serpents ''  that  thus  assailed 
Israel.  But  there  is  not  a  word  in  Numbers  or  Deutero- 
nomy of  their  being  so.^  It  is  Isaiah  who  speaks  of 
"  flying   serpents ''  *  but   without   any   reference   to   the 

it  had  come  to  me  sooner.  Then  cried  Moses,  *  Oh  thou  blessed, 
peaceful  death  !     Oh,  may  such  a  death  be  my  lot ! ' 

"  Moses  and  Eleazar  came  down  alone  from  the  mountain,  and 
the  people  wailed  because  Aaron  was  no  more.  Bat  the  coffin  of 
Aaron  rose,  borne  by  angels,  in  the  sight  of  the  whole  congrega- 
tion, whilst  the  angels  sang,  '  The  priest's  lips  have  kept  know- 
ledge, and  have  spoken  truth.'"* 

^  Num.  xxi.  5,  light  =  miserable. 

2  The  brazen  serpent,  it  is  well  known,  was  used  by  our  Lord 
Himself  as  a  type  of  His  atoning  death  for  mankind  (John  iii.  14). 
In  both  cases  faith  in  the  remedy  provided  was  the  means  of 
salvation.  "Pole"  is  always  =  banner  pole.  Englishman  s  Ueb. 
Concord. 

*  Num.  xxi.  6-8.     Deut.  viii.  15.  "*  Isa.  xiv.  29 ;  xxx.  6. 

*  Baring  Gould's  Old  Test.  Legends,  vol.  ii.  pp.  127-130. 


THE   EVE   OF   THE    CONQUEST.  355 

incidents  of  the  desert.  He  perhaps  refers  to  a  popular 
fancy  respecting  the  flying  lizard — draco  volans — which 
has  a  membrane  between  its  fore  and  hind  legs,  so 
that  it  can  glide,  like  the  flying  squirrel,  from  one 
spot  or  branch  to  another ;  for  even  in  the  days  of 
Herodotus  these  were  spoken  of  as  "  flying  serpents."  ^ 
But  they  are  perfectly  harmless,  and,  besides,  are  not 
found  in  the  Negeb,  to  which  the  passage  relates.  He 
may,  however,  refer  to  the  springing  of  the  desert 
snakes,  though  even  this  is  not  necessary  to  be  under- 
stood, since  the  Septuagint  translates  the  word  "  flying  " 
by  '^  deadly,"  while  the  Vulgate  substitutes  "  burning."  ^ 
It  is  highly  interesting  to  find  that  in  the  very  neigh- 
bourhood in  which  Israel  was  then  encamped,  travellers 
mention  the  existence  of  serpents  in  great  numbers. 
Thus,  Captain  Frazer  tells  us  that  "all  the  Arabs  say 
there  are  flying  serpents  here,  three  feet  long,  very  veno- 
mous, their  bite  deadly;  they  have  no  wings,  but  malce 
great  springs.''  ^  Mr.  Churton,  when  south-west  of  the 
Dead  Sea,  fell  in  with  a  large  red  coloured  serpent, 
which  came  out  of  a  hollow  tree,  and  was  declared 
by  the  Arabs  to  be  poisonous.^  Burckhardt  writes  : 
'^the  sand  showed  everywhere  tracks  of  these  reptiles. 
My  guide  told  me  they  were  very  numerous  in  these 
parts,  and  that  the  fishermen  were  in  such  dread  of  them, 
that  they  put  out  their  fire  each  night  before  going  to 
sleep,  lest  it  should  attract  them."  In  a  similar  strain 
Schubert  tells  us,  that  "a  large  and  very  mottled  snake 

1  Herod.,  ii.  74;  iii.  109. 

2  On  the  subject,  see  Gesenius,  Isaia,  pp.  496  ff.  Smith's  Did., 
art.  Ser'pents.  Tristram's  Nat.  Hist,  of  the  Bihle.  Wilton's 
Negeh. 

3  Forster's  Sinai,  pp.  137,  138. 
*  Land  of  the  Morning,  p.  130. 


356  THE   EVE    OP   THE    CONQUEST. 

was  brought  us,  marked  with  fiery  red  spots  and  stripes. 
From  its  teeth  it  evidently  belonged  to  one  of  the  most 
poisonous  kinds.  The  Bedouins  say  that  these  creatures, 
of  which  they  are  in  terror,  are  very  numerous  in  this 
locality."  1 

From  this  time  the  trials  of  wilderness  life  may  be 
said  to  have  ended.  Crossing  "the  brook  Zered/'  a 
wady  shaded  by  abundant  vegetation,^  they  left  Edom 
and  the  desert  behind  them,  and  entered  on  the  rich 
uplands  of  Moab..  They  had  wanted  for  nothing  during 
the  past,  but,  yet,  to  reach  a  region  of  flowing  water 
must  have  put  new  life  into  the  whole  host.  The  order 
of  the  day  to  cross  the  brook — "  Up  and  cross  the 
stream  Zered  !  *'^ — was  an  event  so  memorable  that  it 
was  preserved  in  "  the  book  of  the  wars  of  Jehovah,^' 
that  is,  of  "the  Holy  Wars,^'  and  has  been  transcribed 
thence  into  the  Bible.*  They  could  now  dig  wells  and 
dip  their  pitchers  in  fountains.  Ere  long  they  reached 
the  tremendous  chasm  of  the  Arnon,  "the  rushing  river,'' 
the  first  stream  they  had  seen  since  leaving  the  Nile. 
Looking  across  its  width  of  about  three  miles  from  crest 
to  crest,  and  into  its  depths  over  2,000  feet  below,^  its 
sides  rich  with  permanent  verdure,  and  floods  of  bright 
water  sparkling  far  underneath,  the  joy,  after  a  long 
life  in  the  thirsty  and  barren  wilderness,  must  have  been 
indescribable.  They  were,  also,  opposite  Engedi,  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Dead  Sea,  and  could  follow  the  waters 

^  Quoted  by  Bunsen,  Bihel  TJrhunden,  vol.  i.  p.  217. 

2  Deut.  ii.  13,  14. 

3  The  brook  Zered  is  identified  by  Palmer  and  Tristram  as  the 
Wady  el  Ahsa,  at  the  very  south  of  the  Dead  Sea.  Land  of  Moab, 
p.  50. 

^  Deut.  ii.  13.    Num.  xxi.  13-15.     Bihel  Urhunden,  vol.  i.  p.  317. 
^  Tristram's  Land  of  Moah,  126. 


THE    EVE    OP    THE    CONQUEST.  357 

in  their  steep  descent  down  the  wild  and  rich  sandstone 
gorge  to  the  blue  waves.  They  must  have  crossed, 
however,  far  to  the  east,  where  the  stream  is  yet  iacon- 
siderable,  for  they  had  to  sink  wells  to  add  to  the  water 
supply.  But  the  joy  of  being  able  to  do  so  in  a  country 
never  dry  and  barren  like  the  desert,  was  a  great  event, 
celebrated  in  joyous  songs,  one  of  which,  doubtless  com- 
memorating the  digging  of  the  first  well,  known,  ages 
after,  as  the  "  Well  of  the  Heroes,^'  ^  by  the  chiefs 
of  the  camp,  is  happily  still  preserved. 

Spring  up,  O  well — sing  ye  to  it ! 
The  well  which  princes  digged, 
Which  nobles  of  the  people  hollowed  out: 
Eulers  with  their  rods  of  authority 
And  with  their  staves  !  ^ 

The  arrival  in  Moab  marks,  indeed,  the  first  outburst  of 
Hebrew  poetry.  Ordinary  words  would  no  longer  suffice 
to  give  expression  to  the  joy  at  entering  on  fertile 
regions,  and  leaving  the  desert  behind  them. 

Having  been  expressly  forbidden  to  injure  Moab  or 
Ammon,  as  descendants  of  Lot,^  envoys  were  now  sent 
to  the  former,  as  they  had  been  sent  to  Edom,  asking 
permission  to  pass  quietly  through  their  land,  and  promis- 
ing that  no  injury  should  be  done  it.  The  Hebrews  had 
encamped  in  the  "wilderness  of  Kedemoth,^^* — a  dis- 
trict, on  Kiepert^s  map,  about  twenty-five  miles  east  of  the 
Dead  Sea,  and  on  a  hue  about  ten  miles  south  of  its  head, 
— and  remained  there  till  it  should  be  seen  what  they  were 
to  do.  Moab  having  refused  to  accede  to  the  proposal, 
the  same  request  was  next  sent  to  Ammon,  whose  terri- 
tory lay  north  of  Moab,  but  with  no  better  result. 

A  great  national  calamity,  however,  that  had  befallen 

^  Isa.  XV.  8.  Beer  Elim.  ^  Lengerke's  Kenaan,  p.  577.  Num. 
xxi.  17,  18.       3  Dent.  ii.  9  ;  Jud.  xi.  17,  18.       "  Deut.  ii.  26. 


358  THE   EVE    OP   THE   CONQUEST. 

the  Ammonites  some  time  before,  at  last  came  to  tlie  help 
of  Moses.  The  king  of  the  Amorites,  Sihon  '^the  De- 
stroyer/'' ^  had  invaded  Ammon  and  Moab,  apparently 
from  Canaan,  and  wrested  from  them  almost  the  whole 
country  between  the  Arnon,  on  the  south,  and  the 
Jabbok,  which  flows  into  the  Jordan,  on  the  north ;  fix- 
ing his  capital  in  the  strong  fortified  city  of  Heshbon, 
lying  about  3,000  feet  ^  above  the  level  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean, and  over  4,000  above  the  Dead  Sea,  which  is 
visible  from  it.  To  him,  as  to  the  others,  a  friendly 
message  was  sent  from  the  camp  at  Kedemoth,  asking  a 
passage  through  his  kingdom ;  but  only  to  meet  another 
refusal.  An  entrance  to  Palestine  could  now  only  be 
gained  by  war,  which  Moses  would  fain  have  avoided; 
but  the  result  was  decisive.  Sihon^s  army  fled,  and, 
as  later  tradition  reports,  was  slaughtered  at  a  spot 
called  Jahaz,  '^  a  place  trodden  down,"  where  they  had 
crowded  in  an  agony  of  thirst  into  the  bed  of  a  mountain 
stream.  The  whole  country  between  the  Arnon  and 
the  Jabbok,  with  Heshbon  itself,  at  once  passed  into 
the  hands  of  Israel.  Henceforward  the  Arnon  was  the 
boundary  of  their  possessions,  only  the  land  south  of  it 
being  left  to  Moab.^ 

The  wanderers  were  now  masters  of  a  wide  region 
of  splendid  upland  pastures,  intersected  by  numerous 
fertile  valleys,  and  abounding  in  streams.  The  crossing 
of  the  Arnon  and  the  digging  of  the  first  well  had 
already  kindled  the  poetry  of  the  camp ;  but  such  a 
conquest  as  this  was  a  still  more  worthy  theme  for  their 
inspiration.  The  vast  tent  city  of  the  host  therefore  soon 
resounded    with    songs  in  praise  of  the    conquerors  of 

*  Lit.,  lie  who  swept  all  before  him. 

*  Kieperfs  Map. 

8  Num.  xxi.  15,  26.   Deut.  iv.  48. 


THE   EVE    OF   THE    CONQUEST.  359 

Sihon,  now  returning  in  triumph.  Taunts  and  derision 
of  their  foe  mingled  in  these  strains,  of  which  one 
has  happily  come  down  to  us.^ 

1st  Voice. — [As  if  calling  to  the  Amorites  in  derision.] 

"  Come  back  (will  ye  not),  to  Heshbon  ! 
Build  again  and  restore  the  city  of  Sihon  I^ 
For  there  went  forth  fire  from  Heshbon^ 
A  flame  from  the  stronghold  of  Sihon; 
It  has  consumed  the  city  of  Moab  ; 
And  the  lords  of  the  heights  of  Arnon  !  *' 

2nd  Fo ice.— [As  if  an  Amorite  were  recoiinting  the  former 
triumph  of  his  people  over  Moab.] 

"  Woe  to  thee  Moab  I  Thou  art  undone,  thou  people  of  Chemosh. 
His  sons  he  has  given  up  as  fugitives, 
And  his  daughters  into  captivity, 
To  the  king  of  the  Amorites — Sihon."  ^ 
1st  Voice. — [Telling  the  final  victory  of  Israel.] 
"  We  have  hurled  them  down  !   Heshbon  has  perished  even  to 

Dibon!4 
We  have  laid  them  waste  even  to  Kophah 
(We  have  laid  them  waste)  with  fire,  to  Medeba." 

The  war  spirit  now  fairly  roused,  ere  long  found 
fresh  vent  in  an  expedition  northwards  under  two  chiefs, 

^  Num.  xxi.  27-30. 

^  So  utterly  had  it  been  destroyed  that  the  Israelites  them- 
selves had  to  rebuild  it.     Num.  xxxii.  37. 

^  Their  god  Chemosh  being  unable  longer  to  protect  them. 

^  Where  the  Moabite  stone  was  found. 

°  Lengerke  and  some  others  see  a  hint  of  these  early  battles 
in  Njimbers  xxi.  14,  15,  the  words  from  "  what  He  did "  being 
translated  as  follows : — 
"  Jehovah  took  Yaheb  by  storm. 

And  the  streams  of  Arnon  and  the  outflowing  of  the  waters, 

That  turn  to  the  dwellings  of  Ar,* 

And  bend  themselves  to  the  coasts  of  Moab."f 

*  That  is,  the  place  from  which  the  -waters  began  to  descend  toward  the 
Dead  Sea.  Ar  Moab  is  at  the  junction  of  the  Arnon  and  several  other 
streams.  f  Lengerke' s  Kenaan,  p.  576. 


360  THE    EVE    OF   THE    CONQUEST. 

Jair  and  Nobah,  against  Og — "  the  long-necked '' — the 
Amorite  king  of  Gllead  and  Bashan.  The  richness 
of  the  whole  district  was  itself  sufficient  attraction  for 
the  invaders,  for  the  oaks  of  Bashan,  and  the  vast  herds 
of  wild  cattle  that  roamed  its  forest  glades  and  green 
meadows,  were  its  boast  and  glory,  while  the  landscapes 
and  pastoral  wealth  of  Gilead  were  hardly  less  famous. 
Lovely  natural  parks,  frequent  glades  covered  with  heavy 
crops  of  wheat  and  barley,  and  with  trees  and  shrubs 
grouped  in  charming  variety,  dark  forests  forming  the 
background,  charm  the  traveller  even  now.^  The  great 
tribes  of  Reuben,  Gad  and  Manasseh,  whose  hearts  de- 
lighted in  sheep  and  cattle  far  more  than  in  agriculture, 
could  not  resist  such  a  temptation,  and,  in  league 
apparently  with  their  kindred  people,  Ammon,  soon 
overcame  every  difficulty,  and  made  it  their  own. 

Yet  the  task  was  not  an  easy  one,  for  Edrei — ^'  the 
strong  ^' — Og's  capital,  was  in  ordinary  circumstances 
almost  unassailable,  since  it  was,  strange  to  say,  built 
in  a  hollow  artificially  scooped  out  of  the  top  of  a  hill, 
which  the  deep  gorge  of  the  Hieromax  isolates  from 
the  country  round/''  Its  streets  may  still  be  seen 
running  in  all  directions  beneath  the  present  town  of 
Adraha.  But  Kenath,  in  the  district  called  Argob  — 
'^the  stony  ^' — was  still  stronger,  for  it  was  built  in  the 
crevices  of  a  great  island  of  lava  which  has  split,  in 
cooling,  into  innumerable  fissures,  through  whose  laby- 
rinth no  enemy  could  safely  penetrate.  In  these  were 
its  streets  and  houses,  some  of  which,  of  a  later  date,  with 
stone  doors,  turning  on  hinges  of  stone,^  remain  till  this 

*  Tristram's  Land  of  Israel,  p.  562.  It  is  pleasing  to  think 
that  the  Palestine  Fund  Committee  propose  the  survey  of  Gilead. 

-  Riehm,  Edrei. 

*  Smith's  Diet,  of  the  Bible.     Porter's  Giant  Cities  of  Bashan. 


THE    EVE    OF   THE    CONQUEST.  361 

day.  It  would,  indeed,  have  been  perhaps  impossible  for 
Israel  to  have  overcome  a  people  so  strongly  intrenched, 
but  for  the  presence  at  the  time  of  vast  swarms  of 
hornets,  a  plague  common  in  Palestine,  which  drove  the 
population  into  open  ground  where  they  could  be  at- 
tacked.^ Nor  were  these  the  only  fastnesses.  No  fewer 
than  sixty  cities  '^fenced  with  high  walls,  gates,  and 
bars,"^  had  to  be  taken,  but  they  all  fell,  sooner  or  later, 
before  the  vigorous  assaults  of  the  invaders,  and,  long 
afterwards,  there  might  be  seen,  in  the  capital  of  their 
allies,  the  Ammonites,  one  of  the  trophies  of  the  campaign 
— the  gigantic  iron  bedstead  of  King  Og,  or  as  some 
think,  the  huge  sarcophagus^  he  had  prepared  for  himself, 
as  was  the  custom  with   Canaanite  kings.*      In  a  very 

^  Josb.  xxiv.  12.  There  is  a  town  in  Josh.  xv.  33,  called  Zoreah 
— "  place  of  hornets."  The  furious  attack  of  a  swarm  of  hornets 
drives  cattle  and  horses  to  madness.  The  writer  of  the  article 
Hornet,  in  Smith's  Dictionary,  thinks  the  word  is  used  only 
in  a  metaphysical  sense,  to  signify  the  pain  and  alarm  with 
which  the  approach  of  the  hosts  of  Israel  would  inspire  the 
Canaanites.  See  also  Tristram's  Nat.  Hist,  of  the  Bible,  p.  322. 
A  plague  of  flies  forced  Sapor  to  raise  the  siege  of  Nisibis,  and 
bees  are  said  by  lamblichus  to  have  pat  a  Babylonian  array  to 
flight.  The  Phasaleans,  a  Canaanitish  people,  were  also  driven 
permanently  from  their  homes  by  wasps,  or  hornets.  Bocharb's 
Hieros.,  vol.  ii.  pt.  2,  chap.  13. 

2  Deut.  iii,  5. 

•''  Lengerke's  Kenaan,  p.  181. 

■*  E.g.,  Esmunazer,  king  of  Tyre— whose  sarcophagus  is  now 
in  the  Louvre.  Shakespeare  was  non  the  first  who  pronounced 
a  curse  upon  those  who  should  move  his  bones.  M.  Roller  has 
deciphered  the  inscription  on  the  sarcophagus  of  Esmunazer. 
Part  of  it  runs  thus: — "A  curse  is  pronounced  against  rojal 
persons  or  others  who  shall  open  this  tomb,  or  lift  the  tomb 
which  contains  me,  or  transport  me  in  this  tomb.  They  shall 
not  be  buried  with  the  dead,  they  shall  not  lie  in  a  tomb,  they 
shall  not  leave  any  descendants,  and  the  holy  gods  will  deliver 


362  THE    EVE    or   THE    CONQUEST. 

short  time  great  part  of  tlie  land  east  of  the  Jordan, 
except  that  voluntarily  left  in  the  hands  of  their  kindred 
people,  Ammon,  was  in  their  possession,  from  Mount 
Hermon  to  the  Dead  Sea.^ 

The  terror  of  the  invaders  had  now  spread  far  and 
wide — 

The  people  heard  it  and  trembled, 
Terror  seized  the  inhabitants  of  Philistia, 
The  tribes  of  Edom  were  alarmed; 
The  princes  of  Moab  shook  with  fear; 
All  the  inhabitants  of  Canaan  despaired. 
Fear  and  dread  fell  on  them ; 
At  the  greatness  of  Thine  arm, 
They  were  petrified  like  a  stone.  * 

That  the  whole  of  the  country  east  of  the  Jordan  was 
not  conquered  at  once  is,  however,  evident,  from  notices 
of  a  later  date.  The  complete  conquest,  like  that  of  the 
British  tribes  by  the  old  English,  was  effected  only  after 
generations  of  warfare.  But  preparation  for  the  invasion 
of  Western  Palestine  might  forthwith  be  begun,  and, 
therefore,  the  camp  was  pitched,  apparently  for  a  long 
time,  in  the  rich  depression  of  the  Jordan,  immediately 
above  its  entrance  into  the  Dead  Sea.     The  heat  of  the 

them  into  the  hands  of  their  enemies,  who  will  chase  them  from 
their  country."  The  Jewish  World  notes,  as  a  curious  coinci- 
dence in  regard  to  this  curse,  that  the  Duke  de  Luynes  bought 
the  sarcophagus,  and  presented  it  to  the  French  Government. 
He  and  his  only  son  met  their  deaths  in  the  Papal  War,  in 
Italy,  in  1859.  Again,  it  was  through  the  instrumentality  of  the 
Emperor  Napoleon  III.  that  it  was  brought  to  Paris,  and  de- 
posited in  the  Louvre.  He  was  routed  at  Sedan,  and  his  body 
reposes  on  foreign  soil.  His  son  met  with  an  untimely  death, 
far  away  from  his  home,  and  at  the  hands  of  his  enemies. 
There  is  not  a  descendant  left  of  Napoleon  III.  or  the  Duke 
de  Luynes. 

1  Deut.  iii.  1-17.  ^  Exod.  xv.  14-16. 


THE    EVE    OF   THE    CONQUEST.  363 

deep  valley  would  be  intense^  but  abundant  water  and  care- 
ful irrigation  covered  it  with  a  luxuriant  vegetation ;  for 
even  now  a  wilderness  of  garden  borders  its  water-courses, 
making  their  edges  one  of  the  richest  oases  in  the 
country.  Its  name,  "  the  meadow  or  moist  place  of  the 
acacias  " — Abel  Shittim — must,  indeed,  have  been  apt, 
for  many  acacia  trees  still  grow  in  the  tangled  green, 
chiefly  towards  the  western  edge.  It  was  in  these  sultry 
groves  that  Israel  was  to  fall  into  the  sin  of  Baal-peor;  it 
was  here  that  Balaam  saw  them,  close  behind,  from  the 
top  of  the  mountain  dedicated  to  that  god.^ 

With  such  an  enemy  encamped  on  its  very  borders, 
the  terror  of  Moab  lest  all  the  territory  left  to  it  should 
be  overrun,  led  its  king,  Balak — ^^  the  spoiler  '^ — since 
he  could  not  hope  to  overcome  Israel  in  war,  to  try 
ghostly  weapons  against  them.  It  was  a  universal  belief 
in  antiquity  that  magic  spells  and  incantations,  pro- 
nounced against  individuals  or  communities,  had  an  irre- 
sistible power.  The  more  famous  workers  in  magic  arts 
were,  especially,  supposed  to  know  formulao  which  nothing 
could  withstand; 2  perhaps  the  secret  name  of  some  god 
or  demon  higher  than  the  tutelary  divinity  of  those  they 
were  invited  to  curse.  One  of  these  imprecations  has 
fortunately  been  handed  down  to  us.  It  runs  thus — 
"  Dis-pater,  or  Jupiter,  if  thou  preferrest  that  title — or 
by  whatever  other  name  it  is  lawful  to  call  thee — I 
conjure  thee  to  fill  all  this  town  and  army  which  I  name, 
with  flight,   terror,   and   alarm.      Baffle  the  purposes  of 

^  Tristram's  Land  of  Israel  p.  528.  "Their  tents  were  pitched 
from  Keferein — or  Abel  Shittim,  *  the  meadows  of  the  acacias,'  in 
the  north — its  watered  and  marshy  glades  marking  the  northern 
limits  of  the  rich  Ghor — to  Beth  Jeshimoth,  probably  Hamah, 
on  the  southern  desert  expanse."     Ihid  p.  529. 

^  See  page  339. 


364  THE    EVE    OF    THE    CONQUEST. 

those  armies^  enemies^  men,  cities  or  territories  which 
bear  arms  against  us ;  pouring  darkness  on  them  from 
above.  Look  on  those  cities,  territories  and  persons,  and 
their  people,  of  all  ages,  as  accursed  and  given  over  to 
the  conditions,  whatever  they  may  be,  by  which  enemies 
can  be  most  utterly  devoted  to  destruction.  Thus  do 
I  devote  them,  and  I,  and  those  whom  I  represent — the 
Roman  people  and  their  army — stand  for  witnesses.  If 
thou  permittest  me  and  the  legions  engaged  in  this 
matter,  to  come  safely  through  it,  and  this  doom  be 
accomplished,  I  swear  to  sacrifice  to  thee,  0  Mother 
Earth,  and  to  thee,  O  Jupiter,  three  black  sheep.''^^  It 
is  also  recorded  by  Plutarch,  that  before  Crassus  started 
on  his  fatal  campaign  against  the  Parthians,  "Ateius, 
running  to  the  gate,  when  Crassus  was  come  thither,  set 
down  a  chafing  dish  with  lighted  fire  in  it,  and  burning 
incense  and  pouring  libations  on  it,  cursed  him  with 
dreadful  imprecations,  calling  upon  and  naming  several 
strange  and  horrible  deities.  For  the  Romans  believe 
that  there  is  so  much  virtue  in  these  sacred  and  ancient 
rites,  that  no  man  can  escape  the  effects  of  them,  and 
that  the  utterer  himself  seldom  prospers ;  so  that  they  are 
not  often  used,  and  only  on  a  great  occasion.^^  ^  In  our 
own  Burmese  wars,  moreover,  the  generals  of  that  nation 
had  several  magicians  with  them,  who  repeatedly  cursed 
our  troops ;  a  number  of  witches  being  added  when  the 
imprecations  already  made  had  failed. 

Filled  with  a  similar  belief  in  the  efficacy  of  such 
means  of  destroying  an  enemy,  Balak  sent  off  in  hot 
haste  for  a  soothsayer  of  great  fame,  who  lived  at  Pethor, 
on  the  Euphrates ;  hoping  that  his  incantations  might 
deliver  over  Israel  to  Moab  as  an  easy  prey,  and  that  it 

*  Macrobii,  Saturnal.,  lib.  iii.  cap.  9. 

*  Plutarch,  iii.  350,  Crassus. 


THE   EVE   OF   THE   CONQUEST.  365 

thus  might  not  only  save  what  remained  of  its  territory, 
but  perhaps  regain  the  lands  taken  from  Sihon  and  Og, 
which  had  formerly  belonged  to  it. 

Bileam,  or  Balaam,  "  the  devourer  ^' — perhaps  of 
books — was  an  Aramaean  by  birth_,  and  came  from  the 
region  where  the  descendants  of  Abraham  still  cherished, 
more  or  less  purely,  the  faith  of  the  patriarch ;  so  that  he 
had  learned  to  know  of  Jehovah  from  his  own  people. 
That  he  should  have  shown  himself  a  true  prophet, 
though  not  of  the  race  of  Israel,  illustrates  the  cheering 
fact  that  the  presence  of  God  has  never  been  limited  ex- 
clusively to  the  Church,  but  that  even  among  the  heathen 
He  reveals  His  Spirit.  The  characteristics  of  the  inspir- 
ation granted  him  are  identical  with  those  of  the  prophets 
of  Israel.  God  visits  him  in  the  night,  or  he  falls  into  a 
trance  in  which  he  hears  Divine  words,  and  sees  prophetic 
visions,  while  prostrate  on  the  earth ;  his  outer  senses 
wrapped  in  ecstasy,  but  the  inner  senses  of  his  mind 
and  spirit  intent  on  what  was  being  disclosed  to  him. 
His  character  has  always  been  an  enigma.  No  fidelity 
could  have  been  more  signal  than  that  which  he  displays 
to  Jehovah,  when  the  Divine  purpose  to  bless  Israel 
is  made  known.  No  persuasion,  or  prospect  of  reward, 
can  move  him  to  go  with  Balak^s  messengers,  till  God 
permits  him,  and  no  considerations  of  danger  or  advan- 
tage make  him  falter  in  uttering  the  very  words  he  is 
commissioned  to  deliver.  Yet  St.  Peter  tells  us  that  he 
held  the  truth  in  unrighteousness,^  and  in  Joshua  ^  he 
is  called  a  kosem — or  "  diviner  '■' — a  word  only  used  of 
false  prophets.  We  read  also  that  ^^  when  he  saw  that  it 
was  good  in  the  eyes  of  Jehovah  to  bless  Israel,  he  went 
not,  as  before,  to  seek  enchantments,  but  set  his  face  to 
the  wilderness,^'  ^  and  he  himself  expressly  says  that  no 
^  2  Peter  ii.  15.  ^  Josh.  xiii.  22.  ^  ^^^n,  xxiv.  1. 


366  THE   EVE   OF   THE    CONQUEST. 

enchantment  ^  or  divination  ^  lias  power  over  Israel — 
language  which  seems  a  confession  of  failure  on  his  own 
part  in  their  use.  It  may  be  that,  although  sincere 
in  his  worship  of  Jehovah,  he  joined  with  it  too  much 
heathen  superstition ;  and  that  while  afraid  to  go  against 
Him,  he  was  yet  only  too  willing  in  his  heart  to  do  so. 
"  He  was  one  of  those  unstable  men/'  says  an  old  writer, 
*'  whom  the  Apostle  calls  '  double-minded  ' — an  ambi- 
dexter in  religion,  like  Eedwald,  king  of  the  East  Saxons, 
the  first  who  was  baptized ;  who,  as  Camden  relates, 
)iad,  in  the  same  church,  one  chapel  for  the  Christian 
religion,  and  another  for  sacrificing  to  devils.  A  loaf  o£ 
the  same  leaven  was  our  resolute  Rufus,  who  painted 
God  on  one  side  of  his  shield  and  the  devil  on  the  other, 
with  the  desperate  inscription  in  Latin — '  I  am  ready  for 
either.' ''  3 

In  the  narrative  itself  it  would  almost  seem  as  if  this 
double  character  might  be  traced.  Nothing  can  be 
loftier  than  the  words  in  which  he  replies  to  Balak,  when 
the  agonized  king,  in  their  meeting,  asks  him,*  "  Where- 
with shall  I   come    before   the   Lord,  and   bow   myself 

^  The  word  is  Naliash,  derived  from  the  whispering  or  mutter- 
ing of  sorcerers,  like  that  of  serpents. 

2  Kesem,  "  the  divination  of  a  false  prophet." 

Kalisch  gives  the  highest  character  to  Balaam  {Bih.  Studies, 
vol.  i.,  Balaam),  but  Lengerke  shrewdly  notes  that  for  one  with 
his  knowledge  and  belief  in  God,  even  to  have  thought  of  cursing 
Israel,  marks  an  unworthy  nature.  He  adds, "  That  Jehovah  first 
permitted,  then  forbade,  then  again  permitted  the  journey,  is 
only  a  human  way  of  expressing  the  Divine  relations  to  men's 
thoughts,  for  '  God  cannot  repent'  (chap,  xxiii.  19).  The  mean- 
ing is  that  God  was  opposed,  not  to  the  journey,  but  to  the  crafty 
greed  which  impelled  Balaam  to  it."     Kenaan,  p.  584 

3  Ness,  History  and  Mystery,  vol.  i.  app.  p.  88. 
*  Micah  vi.  5. 


THE    EVE    OF    THE    CONQUEST.  367 

before  tlie  high  God  ?  Shall  I  come  before  Him  with 
burnt-offerings,  with  calves  of  a  year  old  ?  Will  the  Lord 
be  pleased  with  thousands  of  rams,  or  with  ten  thousands 
of  rivers  of  oil  ?  Shall  I  give  my  firstborn  for  my  trans- 
gression, the  fruit  of  my  body  for  the  sin  of  mj  soul  ? '' 
In  accordance  with  the  terrible  custom  of  his  country  ^ 
he  was  ready,  if  required,  to  sacrifice  even  his  eldest  son, 
if  it  would  appease  the  Divine  wrath.  Not  even  the 
greatest  of  the  old  prophets  could  have  given  a  purer 
and  more  spiritual  answer  to  this  wild,  despairing  appeal. 
"  He  hath  showed  thee,  0  man,  what  is  good ;  and  what 
doth  the  Lord  require  of  thee,  but  to  do  justly,  and  to 
love  mercy,  and  to  walk  humbly  with  thy  God/' 

Yet  he  enters  heartily,  to  all  appearance,  into  the  idol- 
atrous spirit  of  everything  round  him.  He  feasts  on 
the  flesh  of  beasts  offered  to  heathen  gods,  and  chooses 
as  the  spot  on  which  he  builds  his  first  altars,  one  conse- 
crated to  the  worship  of  Baal.^  He  appears,  moreover, 
to  have  agreed  with  Balak  in  the  thoroughly  heathen 
notion  that  a  spell  would  work  from  one  spot  better 
than  from  another ;  and,  even  in  the  number  of  his  altars 
and  sacrifices,  acts  as  if  he  trusted  to  the  magic  power  of 
sacred  numbers.  The  Hebrews  had  only  one  altar  at  a 
given  place,  but  Balaam  causes  seven  to  be  built  together, 
and  offers  seven  sacrifices — just  as,  at  this  day,  in  India, 
the  number  seven  generally  appears  in  the  sacrifices  or 
offerings  of  the  Hindoos.  If  poor  they  will  offer  seven 
nuts,  limes,  plantains,  or  betel-nuts,  or  seven  measures 
of  rice ;  or,  if  they  cannot  go  so  high,  will  at  least  take 
care  to  have  an  odd  number.^  Nor  is  this  the  only 
analogy  with  heathen  customs.  "  When  an  Indian  king 
goes  forth  to  battle,"  we  are  told,  "  he  makes  a  sacrifice 

*  2  Kings  iii.  27.  ^  Num.  xxii.  41;  xxiii.  1. 

2  Eoberts'  Oriental  Illustrations. 


368  THE    EVE    OP    THE    CONQUEST. 

to  the  goddess  of  the  royal  family,  to  learn  his  prospects 
in  the  coming  struggle,  and  to  bring  down  a  curse  on 
his  enemy.  For  this  purpose  seven  altars  are  placed  in 
front  of  the  temple,  and  near  them  seven  vessels  filled 
with  water,  on  each  of  which  are  mango  leaves,  and  a 
cocoa-nut  with  its  tuft.  Near  each  altar  is  a  hole  con- 
taining fire.  The  victims,  which  may  be  seven,  fourteen, 
or  twenty-one,  and  consist  of  bufialoes,  rams,  or  cocks, 
are  then  brought  forward,  and  a  strong  man  strikes  off 
the  head  of  each  victim  at  a  blow  ;  after  which  the  car- 
case is  thrown  into  the  burning  pit,  with  prayers  and  in- 
cantations. The  priest  then  proceeds  to  the  temple  and 
offers  incense,  returning  after  some  time  and  declaring 
with  frantic  gestures,  what  will  be  the  result  of  the 
battle.  Should  the  response  be  favourable  to  the  inquir- 
ing prince,  the  priest  then  takes  some  of  the  ashes  from 
each  hole,  and  throwing  them  in  the  direction  of  the 
enemy,  pronounces  on  him  the  most  terrible  impreca- 
tions.''^ 

The  story  as  recorded  in  Numbers  is  one  of  striking 
interest.  The  two  journeys  of  the  messengers  of  the 
civilized  Moab  and  of  the  Bedouin  Midian,  to  the  distant 
Euphrates,  for  help  against  the  mighty  host,  described  in 
the  imagery  natural  to  a  pastoral  race,  as  now  "  licking 
up  all  that  were  round  about  them,  as  the  ox  licks  up 
the  grass  of  the  field  ''  ^ — the  hesitation — the  tardy  con- 
sent to  come — the   terrible  apparition  by  the  way,^  all 

^  Roberts'  Oriental  Illustrations. 

2  ISTum.  xxii.  4. 

3  Maimonides  and  Hengsteiiberg,  among  others,  thouglit  the 
incident  happened  in  a  dream  or  trance.  The  Speaker's  Com- 
mentary, vol.  i.  p.  737,  thinks  that  Balaam,  as  an  augur,  gave  a 
meaning,  according  to  his  art,  to  the  natural  sounds  of  the  ass, 
or  to  some  special  noi&e  made  by  it. 


THE    EVE    OF   THE    CONQUEST.  369 

serve  to  excite  and  engage  the  imagination.  The  first 
meeting  of  Balak  and  the  seer  is  equally  impressive. 
Messengers  running  breathless  before,  announce  that 
the  great  man  is  approaching,  and  forthwith  the  king, 
to  do  him  honour,  and  to  hurry  him  towards  the  people 
lie  wished  to  curse,  before  they  advanced  to  the  attack, 
sets  out  from  his  capital,  E-abbah^ — "  the  great  city  ^' — on 
the  uplands,  about  twenty  miles  back  from  the  south-west 
corner  of  the  Dead  Sea, — and  goes  north  to  the  gorge 
of  the  Arnon,  on  the  edge  of  his  territory.  Thence  they 
pass  at  once  to  Kirjath-huzoth^ — ^^street-fort,''  or  ^^Stras- 
burg'' — on  the  southern  slopes  of  the  range  of  Attarus, 
close  to  the  camp  of  Israel.  Next  morning,  seven  sacri- 
fices are  offered  on  the  neighbouring  "  heights  of  Baal,'' 
whence  Balaam  looks  down  on  part  at  least  of  the 
Hebrew  host,  and  thence  he  delivers  his  first  words  : 
"  I  cannot  curse  those  whom  God  does  not  curse.  They 
are  a  people  dwelling  apart  from  other  nations,  under 
the  special  care  of  God,  and  are  destined  to  swell  to 
countless  multitudes."  The  amazed  and  disappointed 
king  hurries  him,  successively,  to  the  bare  top  of  Pisgah 
and  the  summit  of  Peor  "that  looketh  towards  the 
waste,"  in  hopes  of  more  favourable  oracles,  but  only  to 
be  each  time  more  bitterly  mocked.  At  each  point  the 
landscape  furnishes  the  theme  of  the  various  utterances. 
The  great  desert,  at  both,  reaches  on  the  east  away  to 
the  Euphrates.  To  the  south  are  the  red  mountains  of 
Edom;  across  the  Dead  Sea  the  cliffs  of  Engedi,  the 
future  home  of  the  Kenites  ;^  the  wilderness  of  The  South 

1  Rabbah  =  "  the  capital."  2  ]v^um.  xxii.  39. 

^  Lieut.  Conder  proposes  to  identify  their  seat  with  the  steep 
cliff  of  Yekin,  which  dominates  the  desert  plateau  west  of  the 
Dead  Sea,  and  is  one  of  the  most  conspicuous  objects  against  the 
sky  line,  looking  from  the  mountain  summits  on  which  Balaam, 
stood.    Pal.  Fund  Bejports,  Jan.  1881,  p.  37. 

VOL.   II.  B  B 


370  THE    EVE    OF    THE    CONQUEST. 

spreads  out  in  tlie  background — the  home  of  Amalek,  the 
first  enemy  of  Israel ;  beneath,  in  "  the  meadows  of  the 
acacias/' — the  rich  plains  of  the  eastern  Jordan  valley, 
as  distinguished  from  the  cultivated  ''^ fields''  of  the 
table-land  above, — lies  the  vast  encampment  of  Israel; 
and  far  away  to  the  west,  beyond  the  hills  of  Palestine  is, 
as  he  knows,  the  Great  Sea,  from  whose  bosom  rise  the 
"  isles  of  Chittim,"  and  whose  waters  wash  the  shores  of 
the  lands  of  the  future.  The  language  of  the  prophet, 
when  "  he  heard  the  words  of  God,  and  saw  the  vision  of 
the  Almighty,"  while  prostrate  in  a  trance,  but  having 
the  eyes  of  his  mind  and  spirit  open,  are  well  said  by 
Herder  to  show  a  wonderful  dignity,  compression,  vivid- 
ness and  fulness  of  imagery  ?  ^  He  sees  in  thought 
the  home  of  Israel  in  Canaan,  with  its  sweeping  valleys, 
marked  in  winter  by  rushing  streams ;  ^  its  plains  spread- 
ing out,  in  wide  verdure,  like  the  gardens  on  the  banks 
of  his  native  Euphrates,^  adorned  with  the  perfumed 
and  precious  aloe-tree,  and  the  stately  cedar.  It  has 
waters  above  and  beneath — the  rains  and  the  springs. 
The  pitcher  is  dipped  into  its  flowing  brooks,  and  the 
husbandman  scatters  his  seed  in  sure  expectation  of 
abundant  showers. 

Its  enemies  all  conquered,  it  will  lie  down  like  a  mighty 
lion,  which  no  one  dares  rouse.  Hereafter,  but  "not 
now,"  a  Star  will  come  out  of  Jacob — bright  as  those 
of  his  eastern  skies, — and  a  sceptre  "  rise  out  of  Israel," 
and  ''  smite  in  pieces  both  sides  of  Moab,"  and  destroy 
its  warriors.  One  by  one,  he  sees  the  kingdoms  around 
fall  before  the  people  of  God — language  realized  first  in 
the  triumphs  of  David,  but  still  more  grandly  in  those 
of  the  greater   Star  that,  like  him,   should  rise   out  of 

*  Geist  d.  Ebr.  Poesie,  vol.  ii.  p.  221. 

*  Nachal.  ^  Nahar. 


THE    EVE    OF    THE    CONQUEST.  371 

BetHehem.  From  Israel  his  vision  passes  to  his  own 
distant  Assyria^  which  is  destined  to  carry  off  the  Kenite 
to  captivity,  from  his  strongholds  in  the  rocks  of  Engedi. 
But,  now,  terror  seizes  the  prophet,  for  the  doom  of  all 
others  was  at  last  to  fall  on  his  native  land — "  Who  shall 
live,"  cries  he,  ^^  when  God  doeth  this  " — for  ships  shall 
come  over  the  western  seas,  and  overcome  ^^Assur  and 
Eber" — the  races  beyond  the  Euphrates — and  they,  also, 
shall  perish  for  ever.  A  wondrous  glance  at  the  time 
when  the  arms  of  the  West  broke  up  the  great  Asiatic 
kingdoms  for  ever.^ 

But  though  not  allowed  to  curse  Israel,  he  found 
means  to  injure  it.  The  worship  of  Baal  by  the  Midian- 
ites  was  accompanied  by  licentious  rites  frequent  in 
the  religions  of  antiquity,  and  to  these  the  Israelites,  who 
had  been  friendly  with  Midian  in  the  wilderness,  were 
invited,  at  Balaam's  suggestion.^  Repeating  the  sin 
of  their  fathers  at  Sinai,  after  the  heathen  feast  of  the 
golden  calf,  they  abandoned  themselves  to  the  impurity 
that  followed  that  of  Baal. 

Idolatry,  thus,  once  more  threatened  to  infect  the  chosen 
people,  after  all  the  efforts  of  Moses  to  free  them  from  it 
by  long  seclusion  from  other  races,  in  the  wilderness.  In 
vain  were  the  most  stern  commands  issued  by  Moses 
to  slay  every  transgressor,  and  hang  up  his  dead  body  for 
a  warning.  A  plague  broke  out,  of  which  24,000  died, 
and  brought  a  multitude,  weeping,  to  the  door  of  the 
Tabernacle,  but  the  offence  was  not  finally  ended  till  the 
zeal  of  Phinehas,  a  grandson  of  Aaron,  spread  profound 
terror  into  the  hearts  of  all.  But  the  greatness  of  the 
crime  and  depth  of  the  fall,  on  the  part  of  the  people, 
dwelt  in  the  memory  of  successive  generations,  for  even 

^  Stanley's  Jewish  Church,  vol.  i.  p.  192.  Lengerke's  Kenaan, 
pp.  586  ff.  2  jy^uia,  2^xxi.  16. 


372  THE    EVE    OF   THE    CONQUEST. 

after  hundreds  of  years  we   find  Hosea  reminding  his 
contemporaries  how  God  found  Israel : — 

"  Like  grapes  in  the  wilderness, 
Like  the  first-ripe  figs  in  spring ; 
But  they  went  to  Baal-peor, 

They  consecrated  themselves  to  that  shameful  idol, 
And  became  abominations  like  their  love."  ^ 

So  great  a  catastrophe,  kindling  such  indignation  and 
shame  amongst  those  zealous  for  Jehovah,  naturally 
resulted  in  a  religious  war  against  Midian,  its  author. 
Instead  of  a  mere  soldier,  Phinehas,  the  priest,  took  the 
command,  and  the  Ark  preceded  the  host,  amidst  the 
blast  of  the  sacred  trumpets.  Nothing  could  stand  before 
the  impetuous  attack.  An  immense  slaughter  of  the 
Midianites  followed;  the  five  chiefs  of  its  tribes,  and 
Balaam,  the  great  Eastern  prophet,  falling  amidst  the 
slain,^  and  the  assailants  securing  a  huge  booty  in  cattle 
and  slaves.  But  the  friendship  which  had  existed 
between  Midian  and  Israel  was  broken  ofi"  for  many 
generations. 

Bashan  and  Gilead,  which  lay  as  yet  unappropriated, 
were  specially  adapted  for  a  pastoral  rather  than  an 
agricultural  population.  Hence,  the  tribes  of  Eeuben 
and  Gad,  and  the  half  of  Manasseh,  who   still  retained 

^  Hos.  ix.  10.  In  Ps.  cvi.  28,  it  is  said,  They  joined  themselves 
unto  Baal-peor  and  ate  the  sacrifices  of  the  dead — that  is,  of  dead 
idols,  as  contrasted  with  the  living  God.  See  Num.  xxv.  2. 
Hitzig,  EwaJd,  Kay,  Lengerke,  Olshausen,  Moll. 

2  The  women  captives  slain  were  those  who  had  taken  part 
either  then  or  formerly  in  the  rites  of  Baal-peor,  which  required 
all  after  a  certain  age  to  surrender  themselves  to  the  impurities 
of  the  worship.  The  aggregate  number  of  cattle  captured  was 
675,000  sheep,  72,000  beeves,  and  61,000  asses.  Thirty-two 
thousand  maidens,  also,  wpre  taken,  and  golden  chains,  bracelets, 
and  ear-rings,  to  the  weight,  in  all,  of  16,750  shekels  (Num.  xxxi.) 


THE    EVE    OF   THE    CONQUEST.  373 

their  love  of  the  old  shepherd  life  of  their  ancestors/ 
set  their  hearts  on  obtaining  it  from  Moses,  and  in  the 
end  did  so,  though  only  on  the  condition  that  they 
should  join  their  brethren  in  the  approaching  invasion 
of  Western  Palestine,  The  part  assigned  to  Eeuben 
stretched  from  the  deep  chasm  of  the  Arnon,  north,  to 
a  line  with  the  head  of  the  Dead  Sea ;  Gad  secured 
the  region  from  the  limits  of  Reuben's  territory  to  the 
Jabbok,  across  the  whole  breadth  of  the  country,  and 
also  a  strip  along  the  east  side  of  the  Jordan,  to  the  Sea 
of  Chinnereth,^  better  known  as  the  Lake  of  Galilee. 
Thence,  to  the  foot  of  Lebanon  was  made  over  to 
Man  ass  eh. 

Seen  from  the  western  hills,  this  whole  region  forms 
a  high  table-land  facing  the  west  as  a  wall  of  purple 
mountain,  with  a  singularly  horizontal  outline.  But 
on  a  nearer  approach,  the  flat  outline  breaks  into  hill 
and  valley  in  the  northern  parts,  and  in  the  southern 
into  deep  ravines  and  gorges,  through  which  the  waters 
of  the  uplands  make  their  way  to  the  Jordan  and  the 
Dead  Sea.  The  general  level,  however,  rises  high 
above  that  of  the  sea  —  Heshbon  being  3,000  feet 
above  it;  Rabbah  of  Ammon,  2,770;  Gerasa,  1,800  ;  and 
Bozrahj  2,970.^    The  territory  of  Reuben  is  still  esteemed 

^  That  these  tribes  alone  still  clung  to  the  Arab  life  of  their 
forefathers  implies,  as  before  said,  that  the  others  had 
adopted  a  settled  life  in  Egypt.  Agriculture  had  been  the  rule 
then  with  the  Hebrews.  See  Exod.  i.  14;  xvi.  3.  Num.  xi.  5. 
Deut.  xi.  10.  Either  as  slaves  or  otherwise,  the  "  service  of  the 
field"  had  become  general,  as  it  afterwards  was  in  Palestine. 
The  example  of  Isaac  and  Jacob  had,  in  fact,  changed  the  race 
from  shepherds  to  farmers. 

2  Derived  by  some  from  Kinnoor — a  harp;  from  its  shape. 
Gennesareth  comes  from  it  by  a  change  of  letters  frequent  in  the 
East,  3  Conder's  Map. 


374  THE    EVE    OP   THE    CONQUEST. 

beyond  all  others  by  tbe  Arab  sheepmasters,  and  bears 
the  special  name  of  '^Mishor/^^  as  a  contrast  with  the 
rough  and  bare  rocks  of  the  western  hills.  It  is  a  wide 
expanse  of  rolling  downs,  covered  with  short  smooth  turf, 
which,  in  its  season,  springs  into  one  vast  waving  ocean 
of  grass,  stretching  away  to  the  wastes  of  the  far  eastern 
desert.  Here  the  king  of  Moab,  in  later  times,  found 
it  easy  to  raise  his  yearly  tribute  to  Israel  of  100,000 
lambs,  and  100,000  rams  with  the  wool.  In  such  a 
district  the  Reubenites  could  multiply  their  flocks 
without  limit.  But  the  result  was  fatal  to  the  tribe. 
Preferring  tent  life,  it  gradually  sank  into  so  many  Arab 
encampments.  No  judge,  prophet,  or  hero  from  it  has 
come  down  to  us,  nor  did  it  take  any  part  in  the  great 
crises  of  national  history.  Distance,  the  difference  of 
occupations,  and  the  exposure  to  Arab  and  heathen  in- 
fluences, gradually  estranged  its  sons  from  their  western 
brethren.  They  lingered  among  their  sheep  folds,  and 
preferred  the  shepherd^s  life  and  the  bleating  of  the 
flocks,  to  the  sound  of  the  trumpet,  or  the  danger  of 
battle,  when  appealed  to  for  their  help;  contenting 
themselves  with  idly  debating  the  matter  by  the  side 
of  their  streams.^  *'  Unstable  as  water  they  never  ex- 
celled,"^ but  ere  long  faded  away  from  distinct  individu- 
ality as  a  tribe.  Disputes  with  desert  Arabs,  forays 
from  which  they  drove  off  myriads  of  camels,  asses  and 
cattle,  are  their  only  annals.     Preferring  the  tent  to  the 

1  Mishor  =  level  downs;  hence  ibis  applied  to  a  country  without 
rock  or  stone.  It  is  the  special  name  of  the  upland  pastures  east 
of  the  Jordan.  Thus  "all  the  cities  of  the  Mishor"  (Deut.  iii.  10). 
"  The  Mishor  of  the  Eeubenites  "  (Deut.  iv.  43).  "  The  Mishor  of 
Medeba"  (Josh.  xiii.  9,  16).  "  All  her  cities  that  are  in  the 
Mishor"  (ver.  17).  See  also  Josh.  xx.  8,  where  plain  =  Mishor,  as 
in  1  Kings  xx.  23,  25 ;  1  Chron.  xxvi.  10 ;  Jer.  xxi.  13 ;  xlviii.  8,  21. 
2  Jud.  V.  15,  16.  3  Qen,  ^lix.  4. 


THE    EVE    OP   THE    CONQUEST.  375 

town,  they  did  not  even  retain  tlie  religion  of  their 
western  brethren,  but  in  the  end  gave  themselves  up 
"to  the  gods  of  the  people  of  the  land,  whom  God 
destroyed  before  them."  ^ 

The  territory  of  Gad  embraced  great  part  of  Gilead 
— a  region  of  surpassing  beauty  and  fertility.  It  still 
abounds  in  magnificent  woods  of  sycamore,  beech,  tere- 
binth, ilex,  and  enormous  fig-trees,  broken  by  rich  mea- 
dows, and  park-like  glades.  Graceful  hills,  broad  valleys, 
and  luxuriant  herbage  are,  indeed,  its  most  striking 
features,  for  it  is  much  like  Bashan,  which,  as  already 
noticed,  gloried  in  its  mighty  oaks  and  in  the  vast  herds 
of  wild  cattle  in  its  forests.^ 

The  want  of  marked  character  shown  by  Reuben  could 
not  be  attributed  to  Gad,  whose  typical  heroes,  the  eleven 
who  swam  the  Jordan  to  join  David  at  the  lowest  ebb 
of  his  fortunes,  were  fitting  representatives  of  the  tribe. 
"  Strong  men  of  might,  men  of  war  for  the  battle,  that 
could  handle  shield  and  buckler ;  their  faces  were  like 
the  faces  of  lions,  and  like  roes  upon  the  mountains  for 

»  1  Chron  v.  25. 

2  "  The  country  is,  in  fact,  surpassingly  beautiful  in  its  verdant 
richness  and  variety.  Lovely  knolls  and  dells  opened  ab  every 
turn ;  winding  streamlets  fringed  with  oleanders  or  sparse  oaks 
and  herbage  glittered  in  the  sun ;  the  branches  vocal  with  the 
song  of  birds.  Bising  to  higher  ground,  we  cantered  through  a 
noble  forest  of  oaks,  then  we  rode  for  a  mile  or  two  over  luxuriant 
green  corn,  from  which  the  peasant  women  were  hoeing  out 
thistles.  Men  were  ploughing  and.  preparing  for  cotton  planting; 
their  long  firelocks  piled  in  the  centre  of  the  field,  to  be  rushed 
to  on  the  slightest  alarm.  Thence  we  would  ride  for  some  time 
through  a  rich  forest  of  scattered  olive  trees,  left  untrained  or 
uncared  for,  but  often  with  corn  in  the  open  glades.  Then  we 
would  cross  another  little  wady,  and  wind  up  its  steep  sides 
till  we  reached  again  a  rolling  plain  or  thin  forest,  or  a  fertile 
expanse  of  corn." — Land  of  Israel,  p.  468. 


376  THE    EVE    OP   THE    CONQUEST. 

swiftness/^  ^  But  the  history  of  the  tribes  will  be  more 
fittingly  noticed  as  our  narrative  proceeds. 

To  the  half  of  Manasseh  was  assigned  the  northern 
part  of  the  conquered  territory  which  it  had  mainly 
won ;  for  the  Manassites  at  this  time  were  certainly  the 
most  warlike  of  the  tribes.  Machir,  Jair,  and  Nobah, 
its  chiefs,  were  not  shepherds,  like  the  Reubenites,  but 
valiant  warriors,  whose  deeds  are  frequently  recorded.^ 
It  was  Jair  who  took  all  the  tract  of  Argob,  with  its 
sixty  great  cities ;  and  Nobah  who  took  Kenath  and  its 
dependencies ;  and  we  are  told  that  because  Machir  was 
a  man  of  war,  therefore  he  had  Gilead  and  Bashan.^ 
These  districts,  as  we  have  seen,  were  the  most  difficult 
in  the  whole  country,  for  they  embraced  the  hills  of 
Gilead,  and  the  almost  impregnable  tract  known  as  the 
Lejah,  or  ^'  refuge,^'  from  the  security  which  its  natural 
fortifications  afforded.  But  Manasseh  also,  like  Reuben 
and  Gad,  affected  by  its  position  and  its  isolation,  gradu- 
ally fell  into  the  wandering  shepherd  life,  and  ceased 
to  be  a  power  in  Israel.  Nor  did  it  even  remain  true 
to  its  ancient  faith,  but,  like  the  other  tribes  of  the  east 
of  Jordan,  gave  itself  up  to  the  local  idolatry.* 

A  new  census  of  the  people  which  was  now  taken 
showed  an  aggregate,  in  all  the  tribes,  of  601,730  men. 
This,  with  the  revision  of  his  laws,  was  apparently  the 
last  public  act  in  the  life  of  Moses.  He  was  now  at  the 
close  of  his  magnificent  career,  for  it  was  not  fitting  that 
his  glory  as  the  great  proj^het,  should  be  confused  with 
that  of  a  conqueror,  by  his  leading  the  people  over  the 
Jordan.  But,  before  he  left  them,  his  loving  spirit  broke 
out  once  more,  as  the  father  of  Israel,  in  farewell 
addresses  which  breathe  the  highest  spirit  of.  poetry.     In 

1  1  Chrop.  xii.  8.  ^  j^^^^  ^xxii.  39.       Deut.  iii.  18-15. 

2  Josh.  xvii.  1.  *  1  Chron.  v.  25. 


THE    EVE    OP    THE    CONQUEST.  377 

one  he  utters  a  strain  intended  to  animate  them  to  the 
contest  on  which  they  were  entering;  in  a  second  he 
gives  his  blessing  to  the  separate  tribes;  and  in  the 
third  he  leaves  them  the  legacy  of  the  song  known 
specially  by  his  name.  In  this  last,  it  is  noticeable,  that 
he  nine  times  speaks  of  God  as  The  Bock — a  name  which 
only  Sinai  and  the  desert  could  have  suggested  :  and 
the  pastoral  riches  he  promises  are  such  as  only  the 
eastern  side  of  the  Jordan  afforded — ''  The  butter  of 
kine,  the  milk  of  sheep,  with  fat  of  lambs,  and  rams  of 
the  breed  of  Bashan,  and  goats,  with  the  fat  kidneys 
of  wheat  ^'^ — incidental  proofs  of  the  authenticity  of  the 
composition.  Another  lyric  is  attributed  to  him,  and, 
if  his,  seems  in  its  fitting  place  as  a  dying  gift  to 
mankind.  The  ninetieth  Psalm,  known  as  the  Prayer 
of  Moses  the  Man  of  God,  contrasting  the  shortness  of 
human  life  with  the  eternity  of  Him  who  existed  from 
everlasting,  ^'before  ever  the  mountains  were  brought 
forth,^'  points,  perhaps,  to  inspiration  caught  under 
the  shadow  of  Sinai,  but  may  well  have  been  written 
with  its  image  rising  before  his  memory  at  the  end  of 
his  earthly  course. 

But  his  time  had  come.  '^His  eye  was  not  dim, 
nor  his  natural  force  abated,'*  yet  he  had  finished  his 
work.  A  new  era  was  opening,  for  which  another  was 
the  fit  leader.  He  was  now,  himself,  to  enter  on  his 
reward.  But  before  departing  to  his  rest,  a  glimpse  was 
to  be  granted  hitn  of  the  goodly  land  into  which  his 
people  were  about  to  pass.  Climbing  "  from  the  plains 
of  Moab,*'  the  sunken  level  of  the  Ghor,  on  the  edge 
of  the  Jordan,  "  to  the  mountain  of  Nebo,  to  the  top  of 
Pisgah,  that  is  over  against  Jericho,  the  Lord  showed 
him  "  the  future  inheritance  of  his  race.  Tristram  tells 
^  Deut.  xxxii.  13,  14. 


378  THE    EVE    OP   THE    CONQUEST. 

US,  tliat  on  the  loffcy  hills  overlooking  the  mouth  of  the 
Jordan,  every  condition  required  for  the  Pisgah  both  of 
Balaam  and  Moses  is  met.  The  height  cannot  be  less 
than  4,500  feet,  so  that  the  crowning  summit  completely 
overlooks  Hebron  and  the  mountains  of  Central  Jadea. 
To  the  eastward,  the  ridge  slopes  gently  for  two  or  three 
miles,  and  then,  sweeping  forth,  rolls  in  one  boundless 
plain,  stretching  far  into  Arabia,  till  lost  in  the  horizon ; 
one  waving  ocean  of  corn  and  grass.  "  As  the  eye  turns 
southward  the  peak  of  Jebel  Shihan  first  stands  out 
behind  Jebel  Attarus.  Beyond  and  behind  these,  sharply 
rise  Mounts  Hor  and  Seir,  and  the  red  granite  peaks 
of  Arabia.  Still  turning  westward,  the  landscape 
sinks  in  two  or  three  lines  of  gigantic  terraces  as  it 
descends  to  the  Dead  Sea,  which  lies  beneath,  like  a 
strip  of  molten  metal.  Far  beyond  it  the  ridge  of 
Hebron  can  be  traced.  Northward  lies  the  deep  bed 
of  the  river  Jordan,  with  the  site  of  IsraePs  last  camp. 
Beyond  the  river  rises  the  top  of  Gerizim,  and,  farther  still, 
the  plain  of  Esdraelon  opens,  and  the  shoulder  of  Carmel, 
or  some  other  intervening  height,  shows  to  the  right  of 
Gerizim.  Northwards  again  the  eye  catches  the  outline  of 
Tabor  and  Gilboa.  Snowy  Hermon,  mantled  with  cloud, 
and  the  highest  range  of  Lebanon  behind  it,  looks  down 
over  all;  and  to  the  north-east  the  vast  Hauran  stretches 
out  till  it  Joins  the  uplands  of  Moab  and  Ammon/^  ^ 

A  sight  of  this  magnificent  panorama  having  been 
vouchsafed  the  great  leader,  the  hour  came  when  he 
should  depart.  Somewhere  in  the  Abarim  range,  on  a 
summit  dedicated  to  the  god  Nebo,  he  took  his  last  look 
of  the  land  he  was  not  to  enter;  seeing  much,  but  know- 
ing that,  even  beyond  the  magnificent  sweep  of  that  wide 
landscape,  there  lay  still  more  that  must  be  hidden  for 
^  Tristram's  Land  of  Israel,  pp.  542-3  (condensed). 


THE    EVE    OF    THE    CONQUEST.  379 

ever  from  Ms  eyes.  From  that  height  he  came  down  no 
more;  but  when  he  died  or  where  he  was  buried  was 
known  to  none,  lest  his  tomb  might  become  a  centre  of 
idolatrous  pilgrimage.  As  in  life,  so  in  death,  self  was 
nothing,  his  duty  all.  Josephus,  though  writing  from 
imagination,  could  not  be  in  material  error  when  he 
says,  that  "  he  withdrew  among  the  tears  of  the  people ; 
the  women  beating  their  breasts,  and  the  children  giving 
way  to  uncontrollable  wailing.  At  a  certain  point  in  his 
ascent  he  made  a  sign  to  the  weeping  multitude  to 
advance  no  farther,  taking  with  him  only  the  elders,  the 
high  priest  Eleazar,  and  the  general,  Joshua.  At  the  top 
of  the  mountain  he  dismissed  the  elders,  and  then,  as  he 
was  embracing  Eleazar  and  Joshua,  and  still  speaking  to 
them,  a  cloud  suddenly  stood  over  him  and  he  vanished 
in  a  deep  valley.'''  ^ 

It  was  a  fitting  tribute  to  such  a  man  that  Israel 
publicly  lamented  his  loss  for  thirty  days.  They 
naturally  felt  themselves  like  orphans.  He  had  not  only 
raised  them  from  a  horde  of  slaves  to  a  nation,  but  had 
given  them  a  creed  and  institutions  which  would  for  ever 
secure  for  them  a  distinct  national  existence.  As  the 
prophet  of  God  he  had  made  them  the  depositaries  of 
truths  unknown  to  the  world  besides ;  the  possession  of 
which  would  make  them  the  benefactors  of  all  ages.  His 
laws  and  morals  were  destined  to  mould  them  to  an  ideal 
only  to  be  surpassed  by  the  revelations  of  Christianity. 
His  sympathy  with  his  charge  had  been  sublime.  He 
could  say  of  himself,  that  he  had  borne  them  as  a  nurse 
bears  a  child.  His  patience  and  hopefulness  with  them 
had  been  wonderful.  His  gentleness,  and  self-oblivion, 
had  given  him  supreme  authority  and  reverence.  He 
could  boast  before  them  that  he  had  taken  nothing  from 
1  Jos.,  Ant.,  lY.  viii.  48. 


380  THE    EVE    OF   THE    CONQUEST. 

any  one,  and  tliat  lie  had  injured  none.  His  utter 
freedom  from  all  littleness  of  soul  had  been  shown  by 
his  wishing  that  all  Israelites  were  prophets  like  himself. 
In  all  respects,  indeed,  he  had  been  a  man  apart  from 
his  fellows,  and  immeasurably  above  them,  and  the 
remembrance  that  such  an  one  had  stood  at  the  (Cradle 
of  their  infant  nation  gave  all  its  following  generations 
a  grand  impulse  to  a  noble  life.^ 

The  legends  of  the  death  of  Moses  are  too  lengthy  to 
be  given  in  full,  but  the  conclusion  of  one  of  them  may 
be  quoted.  "  And  when  he  had  gone  up  the  mountain,^' 
says  one  portion,  '^  he  met  three  men  who  were  digging 
a  grave,  and  he  asked  them,  '  For  whom  do  you  dig  this 
grave  ?  '  They  answered  '  For  a  man  whom  God  will  call 
to  be  with  Him  in  Paradise.^  Moses  asked  leave  to  help 
in  digging  the  grave  of  such  a  holy  man.  When  it  was 
completed,  he  asked,  ^  Have  you  taken  the  measure  of 
the  deceased  ?  '  *  No.  But  he  was  of  thy  size,  lie  down 
in  it.'  Moses  did  so.  The  three  men  were  the  angels 
Michael,  Gabriel,  and  Sagsagel.  The  angel  Michael  had 
begun  the  grave,  the  angel  Gabriel  had  spread  the  white 
napkin  for  the  head,  the  angel  Sagsagel  that  for  the  feet. 
Then  the  aogel  Michael  stood  on  one  side  of  Moses,  the 
angel  Gabriel  on  the  other  side,  and  the  angel  Sagsagel 
at  the  feet,  and  the  majesty  of  God  appeared  above  his 
head. 

*'  And  the  Lord  said  to  Moses,  '  Close  thine  eyelids,' 
and  he  obeyed.  Then  the  Lord  said,  '  Press  thy  hand 
upon  thy  heart,'  and  he  did  so.  Then  God  said,  '  Place 
thy  feet  in  order,'  and  he  did  so.  Then  the  Lord  God 
addressed  the  spirit  of  Moses,  and  said,  ^  Holy  soul,  my 
daughter,    for    120  years  hast  thou  inhabited  this    un- 

^  See  GraetZf  vol.  i.  pp.  57,  58,  for  an  estimate  of  the  character 
of  Moses. 


THE    EVE    OF   THE    CONQUEST.  381 

defiled  body  of  dust.  Bat  now  thine  hour  is  come,  go 
forth  and  mount  to  Paradise/  But  the  soul  answered, 
trembling  and  with  pain,  '  In  this  pure  and  undefiled 
body  have  I  spent  so  many  years  that  I  love  it,  and 
I  have  not  the  courage  to  desert  it/  'My  daughter,' 
replied  God,  'come  forth !  I  will  place  thee  in  the  highest 
heaven,  beneath  the  cherubim  and  seraphim  who  bear 
up  My  eternal  throne/  Yet  the  soul  doubted  and 
quaked.  Then  God  bent  over  the  face  of  Moses  and 
kissed  him.  And  the  soul  leaped  up  in  joy,  and  went 
with  the  kiss  of  God  to  Paradise.  Then  a  sad  cloud 
draped  the  heavens,  and  the  winds  wailed,  '  Who  lives 
now  on  earth  to  fight  against  sin  and  error  ?  ^  And  a 
voice  answered,  '  Such  a  prophet  never  arose  before.'' 
And  the  Earth  lamented,  'I  have  lost  the  holy  one/ 
And  Israel  lamented,  'We  have  lost  the  Shepherd.' 
And  the  angels  sang,  '  He  is  come  in  peace  to  the  arms 
of  God/ ''  1 

^  Weil's  Legends,  p.  142.  Baring  Gould's  Old  Testament 
Legends,  vol.  ii.  p.  133.  Orientals  have  a  genius  for  legends  of 
the  death  of  saints.  What  could  be  finer  than  the  following 
Mussulman  legend  of  the  death  of  Abraham  ?  "  The  Angel  of 
Death  when  bidden  to  take  the  soul  of  the  prophet,  hesitated  about 
doing  so  without  his  consent.  So  he  took  upon  him  the  form  of 
a  very  old  man,  and  came  to  Abraham's  door.  The  patriarch 
invited  him  in,  and  gave  him  to  eat,  but  he  noted  with  surprise 
the  great  infirmity  of  the  old  man,  how  his  limbs  tottered,  how 
dull  was  his  sight,  and  how  incapable  he  was  of  feeding  himself, 
for  his  hands  shook,  and  how  little  he  could  eat,  for  his  teeth  were 
gone.  And  he  asked  hira  how  old  he  was.  Then  the  angel 
answered  '  I  am  202.'  Now  Abraham  was  then  200  years  old. 
So  he  said  'What!  in  two  years  shall  I  be  as  feeble  and  helpless 
as  this  ?  0  Lord,  suffer  me  to  depart :  now  send  the  Angel  of 
Death  to  me,  to  remove  my  soul.'  Then  the  angel  took  him ; 
having  first  watched  till  he  was  on  his  knees  in  prayer."  * 

*  Weil,  p.  98. 


'^^^^^^^  §  ^^M^^^^* 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

THE    CONQUEST    OF    CANAAN. 

THE  state  of  Palestine  in  tlie  days  of  Thothmes  III. 
has  been  described  from  the  Egyptian  records, 
in  earlier  pages,  and  fortunately  some  aids  may  be 
obtained  from  the  same  sources  for  learning  its  state 
and  that  of  the  districts  north  and  south  of  it,  when  Israel 
was  about  to  invade  it.  A  letter  of  an  Egyptian^  officer, 
dating  from  the  reign  of  Rameses  II.,  ''  the  Oppressor," 
has  reached  our  times,  and  contains  some  curious  informa- 
tion. Fords  are  more  common  than  bridges ;  cypresses, 
oaks  and  cedars,  "  reaching  to  heaven,^^  abound ;  there 
are  many  lions,  wolves,  and  hyenas,  which  are  hunted 
by  the  Shasous  or  Arabs.  The  roughness  of  the  tracks 
towards  Palestine  almost  shakes  the  traveller  to  pieces. 
A  thief  enters  the  stable  at  night  and  steals  his  clothes, 
and  his  servant,  instead  of  aiding  his  master,  takes  the 
opportunity  of  running  off"  into  the  desert,  with  what 
he  could  besides,  and  joins  a  wandering  tribe.  Some 
of  "  the  enemy ''  add  to  the  trouble  by  plundering  the 
baggage  left.  When  he  reaches  Tyre  he  finds  that  water 
is  carried  to  it  in  boats.     He  has  to  take  care,   in  one 

*  Travels  of  an  Egyptian,  translated  by  M.  C.  W.  Goodwin. 
Cambridge  Essays,  1858.  Voyage  d'un  Egypfien  en  Syrie  en 
Phenicie,  etc.,  by  M.  F.  Chabas,"  1866. 


THE  CONQUEST  OF  CANAAN.  883 

place,  apparently  in  Lebanon,  of  a  ravine  3,000  feet 
deep,  with  a  very  difficult  track,  and  is  in  danger  from 
huge  hyenas.  At  another  part  the  way  is  full  of 
rocks  and  roUiog  stones,  without  a  practicable  passage, 
and  is,  besides,  obstructed  by  hollies,  Indian  figs,  aloes, 
and  bushes.  On  one  side  is  a  precipice  rising  sheer  above 
him,  against  which  the  horses  dash  the  chariot,  breaking 
the  pole  and  making  progress  impossible,  except  on  foot. 
The  gardens  at  Joppa,  however,  restore  his  spirits ;  but 
here,  once  more,  a  robber  steals  his  bow,  dagger,  and 
quiver.  On  his  renewed  journey  his  reins  are  cut  in  the 
night  and  the  hoises  run  away.  When  they  are  recovered, 
the  chariot  is  broken  to  pieces  on  a  rough  hill-track,  and 
workmen  in  wood,  metal,  and  leather,  have  to  be  procured 
to  repair  it.  The  route  followed  seems  to  have  been 
along  the  Maritime  Plain  to  Tyre ;  thence  over  Lebanon, 
and  thence  to  the  Jordan,  and  finally  across  the  central 
hills  to  Joppa.^  The  object  of  the  journey  seems  to  have 
been  to  collect  the  tribute  due  to  Egypt,  and  this  implies, 
that  although  Canaan  may  have  revolted  from  the 
Pharaohs  after  the  disastrous  reign  of  Menepbtah  II.,  the 
districts  conquered  by  Thothmes  III.,  including  the 
plains  of  Esdraelon  and  Philistia  and  a  part  of  the  Negeb, 
were  till  then  attached  to  the  Egyptian  monarchy.  If  so, 
no  fewer  than  one  hundred  and  nineteen  towns  named  by 
Thothmes  were  subject  to  the  southern  power. 

Reference  has  been  made  at  an  earlier  page  to  the 
booty  taken  by  Thothmes  III.,  from  Palestine  and  the 
adjacent  countries,  biit  the  records  of  Rameses  II.  show 
their  condition  in  the  age  of  Moses  itself.     The  Egyptian 

^  This  is  the  route  supposed  by  sorae  to  be  intimated.  Lieut. 
Conder,  however,  thinks  the  traveller  started  from  near  Aleppo, 
crossed  Lebanon,  to  the  Lake  of  Galilee,  and  returned  thence  by 
Joppa  to  Egypt.     Pal.  Fund  Reports,  1876,  pp.  74  ff. 


384  THE  CONQUEST  OP  CANAAN. 

king  brought  back  from  them, "he  tells  us,  gold,  glass,  gums, 
cattle,  male  and  female  slaves,  ivory,  ebony,  boats  laden 
with  all  good  things,  horses,  chariots  inlaid  with  gold 
and  silver,  or  painted,  goblets,  dishes,  iron,  steel,  dates, 
oil,  wine,  asses,  cedar,  suits  of  armour,  fragrant  wood,  war 
galleys,  incense,  gold  dishes  with  handles,  collars  and 
ornaments  of  lapis  lazuli,  silver  dishes,  vases  of  silver, 
precious  stones,  honey,  goats,  lead,  spears  of  brass, 
colours,  beer,  bread,  geese,  fruit,  milk,  pigeons :  the 
plunder,  in  fact,  of  a  rich  and  civilized  country.  The 
meadows  of  Palestine,  its  fortresses,  its  groves,  and  its 
orchards  are  mentioned,  showing  that  prosperity  of  every 
kind  abounded.^  It  was  no  savage  or  unoccupied  region 
therefore  that  was  to  be  conquered  by  Joshua,  but  a  land 
strongly  defended,  full  of  people,  and  provided  with  all 
appliances  for  resistance.  Nor  was  it  without  marked 
culture,  for  its  libraries  gave  a  name  to  some  of  its  cities. 
Nothing,  however,  could  withstand  the  fiery  enthusiasm 
of  the  Hebrews,  who  came,  like  the  valiant  Franks  in  the 
fifth  century,  as  the  last  great  wave  of  national  migration, 
to  seek  new  homes.^  It  was  well  that  they  had  failed 
forty  years  before,  when  still  imperfectly  grounded  in  their 
religious  principles,  for  they  would  then  assuredly  have 
adopted  the  idolatry  of  the  Canaanites.  Forty  years', 
seclusion  in  the  wilderness,  with  its  terrible  discipline, 
crowned  by  the  calamity  and  shame  of  Baal-peor,  had  made 
fchem,  at  least  for  the  time,  fierce  zealots,  to  whom  the 
idols  of  Palestine  were  abominations  as  hateful  as  the 
hideous  gods  of  Mexico,  with  their  human  sacrifices,  in 
the  eyes  of  the  invading  Spaniards;   an  aversion  which, 

^  Lepsius,  Benhmdler,  Abth.  iii.  Bl.  30a,  30b,  31a.  In  Josh.  xix.  5 
Hazar-susah  =  "  Horse- village"  occurs,  and  Befch-marcaboth  =» 
*'  House  of  Chariots." 

2  Ewald's  Geschichte,  vol.  ii.  p.  336. 


THE  CONQUEST  OP  CANAAN.  385 

in  spite  of  temporary  apostasies  on  their  part^  in  t"he  end 
wrought  the  overthrow  of  the  whole  system  so  utterly, 
that  we  are  indebted  for  the  names  of  some  of  the 
Canaanite  deities  rather  to  their  revival  by  Milton,  in 
his  ''  Paradise  Lost/'  than  to  the  pages  of  Scripture. 

Yet  the  difficulties  of  the  Hebrews  were  immense.  To 
the  iron  chariots/  the  horses,  and  the  fortresses  of  the 
country ,2  and  its  formidable  leagues  of  chiefs  and  kiugs, 
they  could  oppose  only  a  rude,  half-armed  militia,  with 
inadequate  military  training.  They  had  to  overcome 
those  who  fouglit  for  their  homes  and  their  country,  and 
were  familiar  with  every  part  of  it.  But  an  enthusiasm, 
like  that  which  made  the  ragged  and  worn  levies  of 
France  irresistible  in  the  first  campaigns  of  the  Great 
Eevolution,  filled  every  bosom;  sustained  in  this  case, 
moreover,  by  a  profound  belief  among  the  invading  force, 
that  God  was  at  their  head.  Though  only  on  foot,  they 
felt  such  confidence,  under  this  lofty  inspiration,  that 
they  despised  the  strong  fortresses  they  would  have  to 
attack,  and  captured  the  chariots  and  horses  only  to 
show  their  contempt  of  such  aids  by  burniug  the  one 
and  cutting  the  sinews  of  the  other.^  Asses,  not  horses, 
were  the  glory  of  Israel ;  their  chiefs  habitually  using 
them,  and  even  their  kings  till  the  time  of  Solomon 
having  only  mules,  at  the  best. 

The  supreme  authority  over  the  nation  and  the  army 

^  It  has  been  thought  that  the  "iron  cliariots"  meant  chariots 
provided  with  sharp  sickles  at  the  hubs  of  the  wheels.  But  these 
were  not  used  in  Asia  before  the  time  of  Cyrus,  and  were  wholly 
unknown  in  Egypt,  where  the  common  chariots  were  of  wood 
clamped  with  iron.  Chariots  with  sickles  at  the  wheels  are  first 
mentioned  in  2  Mace.  xiii.  2.     See  Schenkel's  Lex.,  vol.  v.  p.  287. 

2  Keil's  Archdologie,  p.  749. 

»  Deut.  xvii.  16.  Josh.  x.  20 ;  xi.  6,  9  ;  xvii.  1^-18.  Jud.  v.  8, 
22.    1  Sam.  xv.  4.     2  Sam.  viii.  4. 

VOL.   II.  C  C 


386  THE  CONQUEST  OF  CANAAN. 

had  been  entrusted  by  Moses,  before  his  death,  to 
Joshua,  his  faithful  *'  minister  '^  since  the  days  of  the 
Mount  of  God.  Born  about  the  time  when  his  great 
?cnaster  fled  to  Midian,  the  future  hero,  brought  up  as  a 
slave,  like  his  brethren,  was  in  the  prime  of  life  at  the 
Exodus,  and  had  already  so  commended  himself  to  the 
keen  eye  of  Moses  on  the  march  to  Sinai,  that  the  repell- 
ing of  the  attack  made  by  Amalek  at  Rephidim  had  been 
entrusted  to  him.  A  scion  of  the  great  tribe  of  Ephraim, 
his  birth  commanded  the  loyalty  of  all  its  members,  and 
of  the  nation  at  large ;  for  Ephraim,  as  the  representative 
of  Joseph,  was  as  yet  its  recognized  head.  But  his  own 
qualities  were  in  themselves  fitted  to  attract  confidence. 
With  no  claim  to  be  a  prophet,  but  rather  disliking 
those  who  may  have  seemed  to  him,  as  a  soldier,  talkers 
rather  than  actors,^  he  bore  himself  only  as  a  warrior, 
with  a  given  task  to  accomplish,  and  resolute  to  carry 
it  out.  To  Moses,  God  had  appeared  in  the  burning 
bush  :  to  Joshua,  the  final  commission  and  Divine  en- 
couragement was  given  by  the  vision  of  a  "  man '' — ^'  the 
Captain  of  the  host  of  Jehovah,'' — '^  with  His  sword  drawn 
in  His  hand.''  Nor  is  it  without  significance  as  an  index 
to  his  character,  that  he  forthwith  advances  to  meet  the 
apparition,  doubtless,  spear  in  hand ;  but  presently,  on 
learning  its  nature,  takes  off  his  war-shoes,  as  standing 
on  holy  ground,  and  worships,  prostrate  on  the  earth. ^ 
But  the  choice  of  the  plain  unpretending  soldier  proved 
its  wisdom  by  its  result.  Had  Phinehas,  the  warlike  and 
fiercely  zealous  son  of  Aaron,  been  selected,  a  priestly 
stamp  would  inevitably  have  marked  the  future  of  Israel; 
if,  indeed,  a  priest-royalty  had  not  been  founded  in  his  line. 
Or,  had  a  son  of  Moses  been  appointed  successor  to 
his  father,  there  is  no  security  that  he  would  have  been 
1  Num.  xi.  28.  2  j^sh.  v.  13-15. 


THE  CONQUEST  OF  CANAAN.  387 

equal  to  tlie  office,  and  tlie  foundation  of  hereditary  mon- 
archy in  his  family  could  scarcely  have  been  avoided. 

The  river  Jordan,  which  now  rolled  its  swollen  current 
between  Israel  and  Western  Palestine,  is  primarily  due 
to  the  junction  of  three  mountain  streams,  the  Hasbany, 
the  Leddan,  and  the  Banias,  which  collect  the  waters  of 
numerous  fountains  and  springs  of  Lebanon,  and  begin 
their  course,  the  first  at  the  height  of  1,700  feet,  the 
second  at  6417  feet,  and  the  third  1,140  feet,  above  the  sea.^ 
Uniting  at  >  the  lower  end  of  the  plain  El  Huleh,  they 
turn  great  part  of  it  into  a  morass,  veiled  by  an  almost 
impenetrable  jungle  of  tall  reeds  ;  the  haunt  of  innumer- 
able waterfowl  and  other  birds,  and  of  the  wild  boar  and 
many  other  beasts.  The  deeper  central  part,  however, 
forms  a  lake,  the  "  Merom  *'  of  the  Bible,  over  four  miles 
long  and  nearly  three  broad,  and  373  feet  above  the  sea. 
For  two  miles  after  leaving  this,  the  river  flows  sluggishly 
till  it  enters  a  narrow  gorge,  with  high  and  somewhat 
precipitous  hills  on  each  side.  Down  this  it  rushes  for 
the  next  nine  miles  as  a  foaming  torrent,  descending 
nearly  900  feet  to  the  level  of  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  which 
lies  682  feet^  below  the  Mediterranean.  The  Sea  of 
Galilee  is  shaped  like  a  pear,  the  broad  end  to  the  north; 
its  greatest  width  8  miles,  its  extreme  length  12^;  its 
borders  a  succession  of  hills  from  1,000  to  1,500  feet 
liigh,  occasionally  receding  from  the  shore  and  forming 
small  plains,  of  which  one  is  the  famous  Plain  of  Genne- 
sareth.  Between  the  Sea  of  Galilee  and  the  Dead  Sea, 
a  distance  of  Q6  miles,  the  channel  is  a  chasm  called 
the  Ghor,  from  1  to  12  miles  broad  j  in  some  parts 
fertile  in  the  extreme,  in  others  utterly  barren ;  the 
mountains  of  Palestine  bounding  it  on  the  west ;  the 
great  eastern  plateau  on  the  other  side.  Within  this 
1  Kitto's  Cyc,  art  Jordan  »  Tent  Work,  p.  290. 


388  THE  CONQUEST  OF  CANAAN. 

strange  bed  the  river  descends  with  innumerable  wind- 
ingSj  through  a  lower  valley  it  has  worn  to  a  depth  of 
from  40  to  100  feet  below  the  level  of  the  Ghor ;  its 
sides  deeply  fringed  with  a  tropical  jungle — known  in 
Scripture  as  the  '*"  pride ''  or  "swelling  of  the  Jordan/'^ 
and  in  former  times  the  special  haunt  of  lions.  So  tor- 
tuous is  its  course,  that  in  the  66  miles  between  the  Sea 
of  Galilee  and  the  Dead  Sea  in  a  direct  line,  it  darts  at 
so  many  angles  over  its  rough  bed  as  to  make  its  whole 
length  nearly  200  miles  ;  and  in  this  distance  it  leaps  and 
rushes  over  twenty-seven  rapids,  including  in  all,  a 
descent  of  606  feet.^  It  need  hardly  be  said  that  such 
a  river  is  not  navigable  in  any  part,  and  that  the  lake 
in  which  it  disappears  never  had  a  port.^ 

It  was  now  the  month  Abib,  part  of  our  April  and 
May,  when  the  barley  and  flax  harvests  were  ripe.  The 
melting  of  the  snows  in  Hermon,  as  usual  at  this  season, 
had  raised  the  stream  till  its  yellow  waters  had  over- 
flowed the  lower  banks,  which  stretch,  back  and  upwards, 
to  a  second  border  fringed  with,  a  thick  jungle  of  reed 
and  cane,  running  at  a  varying  depth  beneath  the  outside 
cliffs  which  form  the  first  approach  to  the  river.  How 
high  the  waters  had  risen  is  not  stated,  but  when  Canon 
Tristram  last  visited  these  parts  they  had  been  fourteen 
feet  above  their  usual  level  at  the  last  spring  floods.* 

1  Jer.  xlix.  19  ;  1.  44.     Zech.  xi.  3. 

2  Palestine  Fund  Reports.     Conder's  Handboolc,  p.  215. 

^  The  Jordan  shows  in  its  channel  four  broad  regions,  connected 
by  two  narrow  ones,  with  a  marshy  lake  and  valley,  highest  of 
all ;  suggestive  of  a  former  chain  of  great  lakes  connected  by  a 
river,  but  now  gradually  drained  off  till  three  small  sheets  of 
-water  alone  remain,  with  the  broad  dry  beds  of  two  others.  There 
have  been,  in  fact,  four  successive  Dead  Seas,  the  highest  level  ot 
which  was  600  or  700  feet  above  that  of  the  present  Dead  Sea. 
Tent  Work,  pp.  217,  218.  *  Land  of  Israel,  p.  223. 


THE  CONQUEST  OF  CANAAN.  389 

That  such  a  time  should  have  been  chosen  for  crossing 
might  well  impress  on  Israel  the  supernatural  aid  it 
enjoyed,  and  could  not  fail,  proportionally,  to  discourage 
the  enemy. 

Two  young  men  ^  having  been  selected  to  act  as  spies, 
and  sent  over  the  river,  the  last  preparations  were  made 
for  crossing,  and  thus,  undesignedly,  for  deciding  the 
future  history  of  the  chosen  people  as  that  of  a  settled, 
agricultural  community,  rather  than  wandering  shepherd 
tribes.  On  the  fifth  day,  apparently,  the  spies  returned, 
having  bravely  swum  across  the  river, — like  the  eleven 
mighty  men  from  the  uplands  of  Gad,  when  they  cast  in 
their  lot  with  David,^ — and  brought  a  report  which  em- 
boldened both  Joshua  and  the  people  in  their  enterprize 
more  than  ever.  They  had  been  in  great  danger,  but  had 
been  saved  by  the  fidelity  of  Rahab,  a  woman  of  Jericho, 
to  whose  house  they  had  gone ;  repaying  her  by  the  pro- 
mise of  protection  to  herself  and  her  family  when  the  city 
should  be  taken — a  pledge  which  Joshua  and  the  tribes 
faithfully  kept.  Indeed,  she  was  afterwards  married  to  a 
Hebrew,  and  so  completely  adopted  into  the  nation,  that 
she  became  one  of  the  ancestors  of  David,  and  throuo-h 
him,  of  our  Lord.  Nor  were  her  family  and  connections 
forgotten;  they  too  lived  permanently  in  Israel  on  a 
footing  of  friendship  and  equality.^ 

*  Septuagint:  2  i  Chron.  xii.  15.     See  p.  375. 

2  It  has  been  sought  to  explain  Rahab's  position  as  that  of  a 
hostess.  But  there  are  neither  hosts  nor  hostesses  in  Eastern 
khans  ;  nor  would  it  have  been  possible  for  men  to  have  lodged 
at  the  house  of  any  respectable  Eastern  woman.  Rahab's  being 
asked  to  bring  out  the  spies  to  the  soldiers  sent  for  them,  is  in 
strict  keeping  with  Eastern  manners,  which  would  not  permit 
any  man  to  enter  a  woman's  house  without  her  permission.  The 
fact  of  her  covering  the  spies  with  the  bundles  of  flax  which  lay 
on  her  house-roof  to  dry  is  an  "  undesigned  coincidence,"  which 


390  THE  CONQUEST  OF  CANAAN. 

An  order  was  now  issued  that  the  people  should 
'^  sanctify ''  themselves  by  a  strict  legal  purification,^ 
and  preparation  of  heart,  in  anticipation  of  the  wonders 
to  be  wrought  by  God  on  their  behalf.  Next  day  the 
crossing  took  place.  The  cloudy  pillar  had  disappeared, 
apparently,  with  the  death  of  Moses ;  but  in  its  absence, 
as  a  symbol  of  the  presence  of  God  with  the  host,  the 
sacred  Ark  was  borne  before  the  host,  on  the  shoulders 
of  priests.  Behind  them,  at  a  reverent  distance  of  more 
than  half  a  mile,  came  forty  thousand  men  from  the 
Transjordanic  tribes,  forming  the  van,  contrary  to  the 
rule  as  to  their  position ;  ^  then,  according  to  tradition, 
the  women  and  children,  in  the  centre :  the  rest  of  the 
armed  men  following  in  their  rear.  But  now  was 
seen  an  amazing  miracle.  As  soon  as  the  feet  of  the 
priests  had  been  wetted  in  the  utmost  edge  of  the  Jordan, 
though  not  till  then,  the  waters  parted  before  them,  and 
they  passed  on — their  bare  feet  sinking  in  the  soft  bottom 
as  they  advanced^ — to  the  middle  of  the  channel,  and 
there  stood  till  the  whole  host  had  passed  over.  The 
stream,  meanwhile,  checked  in  its  course,  '^  rose  up,'^  we 
are  told,  "  upon  an  heap,  very  far  ofi",  by  Adam,  the  city 

strikingly  corroborates  the  narrative.*  It  was  the  time  of  the 
barley  harvest,  and  flax  and  barley  are  ripe  at  the  same  time  in 
the  Jordan  Yalley,  so  that  the  bundles  of  flax  stalks  might  have 
been  expected  to  be  drying  just  then.  That  Rahab  had  them 
implies,  further,  that  the  women  of  the  country  made  their  own 
linen,  from  the  very  first  process.  Flax  grows  in  the  Jordan 
Yalley  to  more  than  three  feet  in  height  and  has  a  stalk  as  thick 
as  a  cane. 

^  Exod.  xix.  10.      Lev.  xi.  44. 

2  Num.  xxxii.  20.      Josh.  iv.  12. 

3  Josh.  iv.  18. 

*  Blxmt's  Undesigned,  Coincidences,  p.  105. 


THE  CONQUEST  OP  CANAAN.  391 

tbat  is  near  Zarefcan/'  ^  near  tlie  moutli  of  the  Jabbok; 
that  is,  at  a  distance  of  about  thirty  miles  north.  The 
people  could,  therefore,  cross  along  a  great  breadth  of 
front,  which  would  immensely  facihtate  the  passage. 

An  event  so  wonderful  could  not  be  allowed  to  pass 
without  a  memorial,  and  a  double  one  was  appointed, 
worthy  of  it  in  expressive  simplicity.  Twelve  of  the 
large  stones  laid  bare  in  the  bed  of  the  river  were  ordered 
to  be  carried  over  to  the  western  side  and  raised  on  the 
upper  terrace  of  the  valley,  in  the  centre  of  the  new 
camping  ground,  while  a  second  twelve  were  placed  on 
the  spot  in  the  channel  where  the  feet  of  the  priests  had 
stood  during  the  crossing.  But  such  is  the  tendency 
to  associate  superstition  with  even  the  simplest  reli- 
gious memorials,  among  a  rude  people,  that  the  circle  of 
Gilgal  seems  ultimately  to  have  become  the  seat  of 
idolatry.^ 

The  site  thus  chosen,  has  been  fortunately  identified, 
after  more  than  3,000  years,  by  the  intelligent  labours 
of  the  members  of  the  Palestine  Survey.  The  name 
Jiljulieh,  which  is  the  same  word  as  Gilgal,  still  clings  to 
a  mound  about  three  miles  south-east  from  the  spot 
where,  apparently,  the  city  of  Jericho  must  have  stood ; 
near  the  beautiful  fountain  known  as  the  Sultan's  Spring, 
and  close  to  the  steep  background  of  the  limestone  hills 
of  Judah.  The  host  of  the  Hebrews,  at  the  camp  thus 
chosen  for  them,  were  about  500  feet  above  the  bed  of 
the  Jordan,  and  had  the  stream  from  the  Wady  el  Kelt 
close  on  the  south.  The  river  they  had  crossed  lay 
underneath  them  about  4  J  miles  to  the  east.     An  open 

1  Sinai  and  Palestine,  p.  298,  oi.  Zaretan  must  have  been  near 
Succoth,  at  the  ford  of  the  Jordan,  near  the  mouth  of  the  Jabbok. 
1  Kings  vii.  46. 

2  Hosea  iv.  13;  ix.  15 ;  xii.  11.     Amos  iv.  4 ;  v.  5. 


392  THE  CONQUEST  OP  CANAAN. 

plain  stretclied  on  all  sides  and  permitted  free  move- 
ment; the  wall  of  the  hills  of  Judah  rising  1^000  feet 
above  the  level  of  the  camp,  at  the  distance  of  about  3 
miles  to  the  west.^  The  name  Gilgal  was  given  in  direct 
allusion^  we  are  told^  to  the  rolling  away  of  the  last  trace 
of  the  degradation  and  '^  reproach  *'  of  their  Egyptian 
slavery,  by  the  circumcision  of  the  host,  which  had  been 
neglected  in  the  wilderness,  but  was  now  commanded  by 
Joshua,  as  the  appointed  acknowledgment  of  their  na- 
tional covenant  with  God  at  Sinai.^  It  was  meet,  on  the 
threshold  of  so  great  an  enterprise,  which  was,  in  fact,  a 
claim  from  Jehovah  to  fulfil  the  promise  given  by  Him 
to  their  fathers,  of  bringing  them  into  Canaan  as  its 
conquerors,  that  they  should,  on  their  side,  fulfil  the 
condition  He  had  imposed  as  the  badge  of  their  conse- 
cration to  Him  as  a  people.^  It  was  prudent,  also,  that 
a  feeling  of  strong  separation  from  the  race  they  were 
about  to  attack,  and  of  their  superiority  to  them,  as  the 
chosen  people  of  God,  should  be  thus  duly  impressed  on 
them.  But  another  allusion  may  well  have  been  to  the 
circle  *  of  twelve  stones,  raised  by  Joshua's  orders ;  the 
first  sanctuary  of  Israel  in  Palestine.  Many  similar  rings 
still   exist   in    Moab    and   elsewhere,   and   indeed   such 

*  Oonder's  Tent  Work,  pp.  201  f.  Palestine  Fund  Large  Map  of 
Palestine,  sheet  18. 

2  Gen.  xvii.  10-14. 

3  Circumcision  was  the  condition  of  God's  giving  them  the  land 
(Gen.  xvii.  7).  It  had  fallen  into  abeyance  during  the  wilder- 
ness life.  Even  the  Passover  had  not  been  kept  after  leaving* 
Sinai,  because,  as  Jewish  commentators  explain,  it  was  not  to  be 
held  again  till  the  people  had  entered  Canaan.f 

^  Gilgal  =  a  circle.  In  Neh.  xii.  27-29,  we  read  more  fully  of 
"the  Gilgal "  =  "  the  circle."  In  Isa.  xxxiii.  28,  it  is  translated 
•*  wheel." 

*  Num.  ix.  5.  t  Ex.  xii.  25 ;  xiii.  5-10. 


THE  CONQUEST  OP  CANAAN.  393 

cromleclis  and  dolmens  were  associated  with  tlie  earliest 
forms  of  religion  in  almost  every  country. 

Gilgal  formed  a  basis  for  future  operations,  and 
remained  the  head  quarters  of  the  army  and  of  the  tribes 
for  some  years;  the  Tabernacle  being  set  up  in  it  as 
the  national  sanctuary^  till  it  was  at  a  later  time  re- 
moved to  Shiloh.  Meanwhile,  two  additional  associations 
connected  themselves  with  the  spot :  in  the  celebra- 
tion of  the  first  Passover  kept  in  Canaan — the  first  also 
since  their  leaving  Sinai ;  and  by  the  cessation,  on  the 
day  after,  of  the  fall  of  manna,  and  its  replacement 
by  the  "  old  corn  of  the  land,'^  found,  doubtless,  in  the 
houses  and  barns  of  the  inhabitants.-^ 

The  taking  of  Jericho  was  evidently  the  first  task 
before  Israel,  for  it  stood  at  the  entrance  of  the  main 
passes  up  to  the  interior,  and  was  thus  the  key  of  the 
land.  Till  it  had  fallen  they  could  not  advance,  for  their 
rear  would  be  left  exposed  ;  but  when  it  was  once  taken, 
they  would  be  free  to  move  forward.  The  copiousness 
of  its  water  supply,  and  the  consequent  fertility  of  the 
soil,  heightened  by  the  almost  tropical  heat  of  a  neigh- 
bourhood 600  or  700  feet  below  the  level  of  the  sea, 
might  well  have  been  another  inducement  to  the  Hebrews 
to  make  it  their  own ;  but  they  were  in  no  mood  to 
spare  either  the  qity  or  its  inhabitants,  and  looked  upon 
the  whole  place  as  accursed. 

It  was,  indeed,  a  delightful  spot.  The  torrent  of  the 
Wady  Kelt,  issuing  from  between  the  tremendous  preci- 
pices between  which  it  finds  its  way  from  the  table-land 
above,  flowed  across  the  plain  to  the  Jordan,  amidst 
luxuriant  verdure,  faintly  represented  even  now  by  a 
green  line  of  tangled  thickets.  A  little  to  the  north,  two 
copious  springs  welled  out  in  permanent  brooks  from  the 
»  Josh.  V.  10-12. 


894  THE  CONQUEST  OP  CANAAN. 

foot  of  the  liills^  whicli  form,  north  and  south,  the  back- 
ground of  the  plain — the  hills  in  whose  caverns  the  spies 
had  hidden.  The  landscape  created  by  such  streamlets, 
in  so  warm  a  climate,  and,  then,  covered  with  rich  culti- 
vation, can  still  be  imagined  from  the  glades  of  tangled 
shrub  now  marking  their  course — glades  which,  but  for 
their  rank  luxuriance  and  oriental  vegetation,  almost 
recall  the  scenery  of  an  English  park.^ 

Such  a  scene  must  have  had  unspeakable  charms 
to  the  Hebrews,  in  its  contrast  to  the  long  privations 
of  the  wilderness.  From  their  camp  at  Gilgal,  the  eye 
wandered  over  a  vast  grove  of  majestic  palms,  nearly 
three  miles  in  breadth  and  eight  miles  long,  interspersed 
now,  in  the  late  spring,  with  ripening  corn  fields. 
The  grey  mountains  rising  behind,  only  heightened 
the  charms  of  the  landscape  by  their  dreary  bare- 
ness. At  their  base,  and  thus  commanding  the  whole 
view,  embowered  in  verdure,  were  the  temples  and 
palaces  of  Jericho,  a  city  famous  for  its  wealth  and 
luxury  no  less  than  for  its  position,  but  the  object  of 
the  bitter  hatred  of  Israel,  as  a  centre  of  that  idol 
worship  which  had  left  amongst  them  the  burning 
memories  of  Baal-peor.  It  was,  indeed,  the  local  seat  of 
the  worship  of  Ashtoreth,  the  consort  of  Baal — its  very 
name  meaning  the  City  of  the  Moon,^  which  was  the 
symbol  of  that  goddess.  Hence  it  represented  all  that 
was  foulest  and  most  revolting  in  the  heathenism  of 
the  Canaanites,  which  Israel  had  been  taught  to  regard 
as  an  abomination  to  Jehovah,  and  as  such  to  be  rooted 
out  by  the  sword  of  Divine  justice,  now  entrusted  to  their 
hands.  The  only  thought  they  could  entertain  towards 
it,  therefore,  was  one  of  loathing  abhorrence,  fittingly 

^  Sinai  and  Palestine,  p.  300. 
*  Hitzig,  Geschichte,  p.  98. 


THE  CONQUEST  OF  CANAAN.  395 

expressed  in  the  command  they  presently  received  from 
Joshua^  to  devote  it  to  destruction,  sparing  from  the 
universal  ruin  and  effacement  only  objects  o£  metal, 
which  could  be  cleansed  from  defilement  in  the  purifying 
furnace. 

The  lesson  taught  by  the  capture  of  this  stronghold 
was  in  keeping  with  that  of  the  passage  of  the  Jordan. 
Human  agency  was,  in  both  cases,  superseded  by  the 
direct  and  manifest  power  of  God,  and  Israel  made  to 
feel  His  presence  and  His  resistless  might.  In  crossing 
the  swollen  river,  they  had  simply  looked  on  while  nature 
was  controlled  on  their  behalf.  In  the  taking  of  Jericho, 
they  had  only  to  obey  commands  which  had  no  natural 
relation  to  such  an  enterprise.  Safe,  as  it  fancied,  within 
its  high  and  strong  walls,  and,  doubtless,  well-provisioned, 
the  city  appeared  as  if  it  could  defy  the  assault  of  a 
force,  however  numerous,  which  had  no  materials  for 
a  siege;  nor  would  it  fear  blockade,  in  the  near  pro- 
spect of  relief  which  it  was  justified  in  entertaining. 
The  crowded  population  must  indeed,  at  first,  have  been 
terror-struck  at  the  approach  of  the  conquerors  of  Gilead 
and  Bashan,  else  they  would  have  opposed  the  crossing 
of  the  river ;  but  when,  instead  of  an  attack,  they  saw 
only,  day  by  day,  strange  circuits  of  the  town  by  the 
forces  of  the  enemy,  guarding  their  priests  as  they  bore 
the  Ark  on  their  shoulders,  amidst  the  sound  of  trumpets^ 

^  It  is  not  certain  whether  the  trumpets  were  of  ram's  horns 
or  only  of  that  shape.  The  phrase  is,  literally,  "trumpets  of 
soundings"  or  "  of  jubilee."  It  is  singular  to  notice  the  constant 
recurrence  of  th^  number  seven.  Seven  priests  go  before  the 
Ark,  with  seven  trumpets,  for  seven  days,  going  seven  times 
round  the  city  on  the  seventh  day.  The  Passover  and  the  Feast  of 
Tabernacles  each  lasted  seven  days.  The  consecration  of  priests 
also  took  seven  days.  Seven  victims  were  required  on  special 
occasions.     To  ratify  an  oath,  was  "to  seven  it."    The  number 


396  THE  CONQUEST  OP  CANAAN. 

— tlieir  panic  may  well  have  turned  to  confidence.  That 
the  walls  should  give  way  and  open  a  wide  breach  after 
the  seven  circuits  of  the  seventh  day  must  have  raised 
only  one  thought  in  the  bosom  of  all  Israel — that  the 
victory  was  not  theirs  but  God's.  It  is  not  even  hinted 
that  one  of  the  earthquakes,  so  common  in  that  region, 
happened  at  the  time,  though  such  a  coincidence  has 
been  imagined. 

The  terrible  sternness  with  which  Joshua  destroyed 
the  whole  population  of  the  city,  and  even  the  cattle 
found  in  it,  has  seemed  to  many  in  strange  contradic- 
tion to  the  mercy  inculcated  elsewhere  in  the  Bible,  and 
even  to  the  instincts  of  nature.  Yet  Israel  was  expressly 
commanded  to  "  smite  and  utterly  destroy  the  Canaanite 
race,  showing  no  mercy,''  ^  and  ''  to  save  alive  nothing 
that  breathed,"  ^  and  it  would  seem  that,  at  least  in  some 
cases,  Joshua  literally  carried  out  this  universal  proscrip- 
tion. Not  only  at  Jericho,  but,  we  are  told,  throughout 
all  the  hill  country,  the  Negeb,  the  lowlands,  and  the 
slopes,  "he  left  none  remaining,  but  destroyed  all  that 
breathed,  as  the  Lord  God  of  Israel  commanded."  ^     Yet 

seems  to  have  been  regarded  as  the  symbol  of  completeness  or 
perfection,  and  to  have  been,  as  such,  connected  intimately  with 
everything  relating  to  God.  It  was  sacred  also  among  the 
Persians  (Esth.  i.  10,  14),  among  the  ancient  Indians,  and,  to 
some  extent,  among  the  Greeks  and  Eomans. 

1  Deut.  vii.  2.  2  Deut.  xx.  16. 

3  Josh.  X.  40.  It  was  not  uncommon  among  ancient  nations  to 
"  devote  "  persons  or  things  to  utter  destruction.  Thus  Csesar 
tells  us  that  among  the  Gauls,  "  when  they  have  resolved  to  fight, 
they  often  devote  those  things  they  may  take  in  the  war,  to  Mars, 
and  when  they  have  conquered,  they  burn  the  animals  taken." 
JBetl.  Gall.,  vi.  17.  Tacitus  tells  us  of  the  Hermunduri,  that 
they  were  successful  in  a  war  with  the  Catti,  "  because  the 
victors  devoted  the  opposing  army  to  Mars  and  Mercury,  by 
which  vow  horses,  men,  and  all  things  taken   are  given  up  to 


X  THE  CONQUEST  OF  CANAAN.  397 

it  is  doubtful  if  this  is  to  be  accepted  in  the  widest 
sensCj  for  we  find  the  regions  thus  named  as  entirely 
depopulated,,  filled,  for  ages  after,  with  Canaanite  towns 
and  cities,  so  strong  as  not  only  to  shake  off  the  Hebrew 
yoke,  and  drive  Israel  permanently  to  the  hills,  but 
even,  in  some  cases,  to  attack  them  there  and  reduce 
them  from  time  to  time  to  dependence.  Still,  the  fact 
remains  that  the  exterminafcion  of  whole  peoples  was 
divinely  commanded,  and  that  the  neglect  to  carry  it  out 
to  the  uttermost  is  named  as  a  criminal  disobedience  to 
Jehovah,  for  which  Israel  had  to  pay  a  terrible  penalty.^ 

But  if,  on  the  one  hand,  the  character  of  the  religion 
of  the  Canaanites  be  remembered,  and,  on  the  other,  the 
Divine  purpose  to  develop  among  the  Israelites  a  pure 
and  lofty  Theocracy,  through  which,  hereafter,  the  highest 
manifestation  of  the  kingdom  of  God  on  earth  was  to 
be  made  known  among  men,  the  apparent  diflficulty  in 
accepting  the  policy  commanded  to  Joshua,  disappears. 
The  heathenism  of  Palestine  and  Syria  was  so  foul  and 
degrading  in  every  sense,  that  there  is  no  State,  even  at 
this  time,  which  would  not  put  it  down ;  if  necessary,  by 
the  severest  penalties.  Its  spread  to  Rome  was  bewailed 
1,500  years  later  by  the  satirists  of  the  day  as  a  calamity 
marking  the  utter  decay  of  the  times.^  It  was  impera- 
tive, therefore,  that  the  land  in  which  the  Chosen  People 
were  to  be  educated  in  the  true  religion,  so  as  to  become 
the  disseminators  of  its  doctrines  through  the  world, 
should  be  cleared  of  whatever  would  so  certainly  neutra- 
lize  the   gracious   plans    of  the   Almighty.       Nor  is  it 

destruction."  Ann.,  xiii.  67.  Livy  also  mentions  a  Eoraan  law, 
which  runs,  "whoever  injured  a  tribune  of  the  people,  an  sedile, 
judge,  or  decemvir,  his  head  shall  be  devoted  to  Jupiter,  and  his 
family  sold  into  slavery :  "  iii.  55. 

^  Jud.  ii.  2 .  "  Juvenal.  Sat.,  iii.  62. 


398  THE  CONQUEST  OP  CANAAN. 

wonderful  that  no  other  means  of  securing  this  great  end 
presented  itself  to  the  Hebrew  legislator  or  reformer,  in 
the  presence  of  such  hideous  immorality  and  corruption, 
than  the  rooting  it  out  with  the  edge  of  the  sword.^ 

The  results  that  actually  followed  the  imperfect  obedi- 
ence to  the  Divine  command  show  at  once  the  necessity 
and  the  true  mercy  which  it  embodied,  in  spite  of  its 
sternness.  Eager  to  enjoy  the  new  land  to  which  they 
had  come,  the  Israelites  soon  lost  their  first  enthusiasm, 
and  sought  ignoble  ease,  by  friendly  alliances  and  inter- 
marriage with  their  heathen  neighbours.  But  the 
frequent  and  profound  lapses  into  idolatry  through  this 
course,  proved  how  real  was  the  danger,  to  protect  them 
from  which  the  proscription  of  the  Canaanites  had  been 
dictated. 

Nor  must  it  be  forgotten  that  the  nations  of  Palestine 
had  had  repeated  warnings  and  a  long  time  for  reforma- 
tion. Forty  years  had  passed  since  the  news  of  the 
passage  of  the  Eed  Sea,  and  of  the  wonders  in  Egypt, 
had  proclaimed  the  greatness  of  Jehovah  above  all  gods. 
The  recent  conquest  of  the  kings  of  Gilead  and  Bashan 
had  no  less  vividly  shown  that  a  mighty  invincible  Power 
fought  on  the  side  of  Israel,  and  rightfully  claimed  uni- 
versal homage.  The  certain  punishment  of  impurity  by 
this  Almighty  Being  had  been  seen,  moreover,  in  the 
fatal  plague  with  which  He  had  smitten  even  His  own 
people  for  mingling  in  the  abominations  of  Baal-peor. 
Rahab,  in  Jericho,  had  heard  of  these  judgments,  and, 
doubtless,  the  conviction  of  the  people  at  large  through 
the  land,  however  they  may  have  stifled  reflection,  was 
the  same  as  hers,  that  "  Jehovah,  the  God  of  Israel,  was 
God  in  heaven  above  and  in  earth  beneath.'^  ^ 

The  customs  of  these  remote  times  must  not,  besides, 
^  Schlottman,  in  Biehm,  p.  129.  ^  Josh.  ii.  11, 


THE  CONQUEST  OF  CANAAN.  399 

be  forgotten;  for  a  mode  of  executing  Divine  judgments 
that  might  seem  terrible  in  our  age,  was  only  the  natural 
course  of  things  in  antiquity.  To  kill  all  the  men,  or 
even  all  the  population  of  a  conquered  town,  was  the 
common  practice  in  war.  "  I  fought  against  the  city  ** 
(Ataroth,  of  the  tribe  of  Gad),  says  King  Mesha,  on  the 
Moabite  stone,  "  and  took  it,  and  slaughtered  all  the 
men,  to  please  Chemosh,  the  god  of  Moab,^'  '^aud  I  put 
in  it,  in  their  stead,  the  men  of  Schiran  and  of  Schacharath, 
to  inhabit  it.'^  ''I  took  the  town  Nebo  (from  Israel), 
and  put  to  the  sword  all  its  inhabitants,  seven  chiefs 
of  the  tribes  .  .  .  the  women  and  the  children,  for 
Chemosh  had  uttered  a  curse  against  it.'^  ^  Joshua's 
course,  therefore,  though  in  his  case  the  execution  of  a 
righteous  judgment  for  terrible  iniquity,  and  an  all-wise 
preparation  for  a  grand  scheme  of  favour  to  mankind  at 
large,  was  only  that  of  the  Canaanites  themselves  in  their 
own  wars,  which  would  have  been  carried  out  on  Israel 
had  they  been  conquerors. 

The  humanity  of  our  day,  we  must,  moreover,  remem- 
ber,  has  been  attained  only  by  the  development  of  right 
feelings  through  thousands  of  years,  and  implies  a  public 
sentiment  which  the  world  in  Joshua's  day,  and  for  ages 
after,  was  wholly  unable  to  comprehend  or  accept. 

If,  further,  contrasted  with  usages  of  war  in  at  least 
some  cases  in  these  fierce  times,  the  sternness  of  Joshua 
seems  wonderful  in  its  dignified  restraint.  Compare  his 
action  with  that  of  the  Assyrian  king,  Assur-Nasir-Pal, 
sometimes  called  Sardanapalus. 

"  They  brought  me  word,"  (says  that  monarch) 
"That  the  city  of  Suri  had  revolted.     .     .     . 
Chariots  and  army  I  collected.     From  the  rebellious  nobles 

^  Studien  u.  Kriiiken,  1871,  p.  69-4. 


400  THE  CONQUEST  OF  CANAAN. 

I  stripped  off  their  skin  and  made  them  into  a  trophy. 

Some  I  left  in  the  middle  of  the  pile  to  decay. 

Some  I  impaled  on  the  top  of  the  hill,  on  stakes. 

Some  I  placed  by  the  side  of  the  pile,  in  order,  on  stakes. 

I  flayed  many  within  view  of  my  land,  and 

Arranged  their  skins  on  the  walls. 

I  brought  Ahijababa  to  Nineveh.     I  flayed  him  and 

Fastened  his  skin  to  the  wall.     .     .     ." 

"  I  drew  near  to  Tila. 
I  besieged  the  city  with  onset  and  attack. 
Many  soldiers  I  captured  alive. 

Of  some  I  chopped  off  the  hands  and  feet ;  of  others  I  cut  off 
The  noses  and  ears,  and  I  destroyed  the  eyes  of  many. 
One  pile  of  bodies  I  reared  up  while  they  were  yet  alive, 
And  I  raised  another  of  heads  on  the  heights  within  their  town. 
Their  boys  and  their  maidens  1  dishonoured."  ^ 

The  strange  incident,  presently  to  be  noticed,  of  fhe 
march  of  Israel  to  Shechem,  helps  us  to  realize  the  spirit 
in  which  Joshua  and  the  nation  had  hitherto  carried  out 
their  mission  of  conquest  and  retribution.  Fresh  from 
the  scenes  of  Jericho  and  Ai,  they  gathered  between 
Ebal  and  Gerizim,  to  listen  to  the  words  of  the  Law, 
which  proclaimed  a  blessing  upon  purity,  justice,  order, 
and  truthfulness  between  man  and  man ;  demanded 
absolute  obedience  to  a  holy  God;  and  denounced  curses 
on  impurity,  injustice,  sensuality,  and  wrong  doing.^ 
Mere  bloodthirstiness  or  savage  ferocity  cannot  be  rightly 
attributed  to  a  people  capable  of  such  a  transaction, 
however  different  their  ideas  in  some  respects  may  have 
been  from  ours.  In  Jericho,  as  already  said,  they  saw 
only  the  pollution  which  had  brought  on  them  terrible 
punishment   after   Baal-peor,    and   their    fierceness    was 

^  Records  of  the  Past,  vol.  iii.  pp.  39-50.     Cuneiform  Inscrip.  of 
Western  Asia,  vol.  i.  pp.  17-27. 
2  Josh.  viii.  33,  34. 


THE  CONQUEST  OF  CANAAN.  401 

that  of  a  people  eager  to  act  as  the  ministers  of  Jehovah, 
at  once  in  preventing  a  repetition  of  a  temptation  so 
great,  and  in  striking  terror  into  the  country  at  large, 
as  a  preparation  for  its  conquest.  It  was  certain,  also, 
that  the  camp  at  Gilgal  could  not  be  safe  with  such  a 
stronghold  of  the  enemy  at  hand.  For  their  own  sakes, 
moreover,  the  hatefulness  of  idolatry  in  the  sight  of 
God,  as  shown  in  His  demanding  the  utter  destruction 
not  only  of  the  transgressors,  but  even  of  all  they  had, 
and  of  the  very  city  itself,^  needed  to  be  burned  in  on 
their  souls. 

"The  Israelites^  sword,''  says  Dr.  Arnold,  '*  in  its 
bloodiest  executions,  wrought  a  work  of  mercy  for  all 
the  countries  of  the  earth,  to  the  very  end  of  the  world. 
They  seem  of  very  small  importance  to  us  now,  those 
perpetual  contests  with  the  Canaanites,  and  the  Midianites, 
and  the  Ammonites,  and  the  Philistines,  with  which  the 
Books  of  Joshua,  and  Judges,  and  Samuel,  are  almost 
filled.  We  may  half  wonder  that  God  should  have 
interposed  in  such  quarrels,  or  have  changed  the  course  of 
nature,  in  order  to  give  one  of  these  nations  of  Palestine 
the  victory  over  another.  But  in  these  contests,  on  the 
fate  of  one  of  these  nations-  of  Palestine,  the  happiness 
of  the  human  race  depended.  The  Israelites  fought,  not 
for  themselves  only,  but  for  us.  It  might  follow  that  they 
should  thus  be  accounted  the  enemies  of  all  mankind : 
it  might  be  that  they  were  tempted  by  their  very  distinct- 

^  A  city  which  was  "  devoted  "  to  God  by  a  curse  could  not  be 
rebuilt,  Deut.  xiii.  15-17.  Bat  this  seems  to  have  been  under- 
stood, in  the  case  of  Jericho,  only  to  its  being  rebuilt  as  a  fortified 
place;  for  we  find  it  inhabited  in  the  time  of  the  Judges,  and 
Joshua  himself  gave  it  to  Benjamin.  Jud.  iii.  13.  2  Sam.  x.  5. 
In  the  same  way  Agamemnon  is  said  to  have  uttered  a  curse  ou 
Ilium,  and  Scipio  on  Carthage. 

VOL.   II.  D   D 


402  THE  CONQUEST  OP  CANAAN. 

ness,  to  despise  other  nations.  Still  they  did  God^s 
work ;  still  they  preserved^  unhurt^  the  seed  of  eternal  life^ 
and  were  the  ministers  of  blessing  to  all  other  nations, 
even  though  they  themselves  failed  to  enjoy  it."  ^ 

The  country  which  now  invited  conquest  lay  before  the 
camp  of  Israel  as  a  great  mass  of  hills_,  rising  from  the 
back  of  Jericho  in  height  above  height,  till  in  its  central 
elevation  it  towered  fully  4,500  feet  above  the  spot  on 
which  they  stood.  Western  Palestine  is,  indeed,  little 
more  than  a  wide  tangle  of  mountains,  seamed  by  valleys, 
which  on  both  sides  run  east  and  west,  and  form  the  only 
roads  through  the  labyrinth.  The  Dead  Sea  close  by 
Gilgal,  lay  1,300  feet  below  the  Mediterranean,^  the  city 
of  Jericho  standing  about  600  feet  above  it ;  but  many 
of  the  heights  before  them  towered,  at  12  or  14  miles' 
distance,  to  a  height  of  2,600  feet  above  its  level.  Some 
of  the  cliffs  on  the  Dead  Sea  rose  2,000  feet  above  the 
waters  below,  but  some  hills  beyond  them,  north  of 
Hebron,^  rose  2,000  feet  higher,  and  others,  in  various 
parts  of  the  land,  were  still  loftier.*  Bethlehem  was 
2,550  feet  above  the  Mediterranean;  Jebus,  the  future 
Jerusalem,  43  feet  more  ;  the  hill  behind  it  on  the  east, 
our  Mount  of  Olives,  2,683  ;  Neby  Samuel,  a  little  to  the 
north,  2,935 ;  Mounts  Gerizim  and  Ebal,  in  the  centre 
of  the  land  at  Shechem,  rose  to  the  height  of  2,849 
and  3,076  feet  respectively;  and  Shecbem  itself  lay  in 
a  valley  1,800  feet  high,  while  the  tops  of  Mount  Carmel 
and  Mount  Tabor  had  almost  the  same  elevation.  Mount 
Jurmuk,  a  few  miles  north-west  of  the  Sea  of  Galilee, 

^  Arnold's  Sermons,  vol.  v.  pp.  35-37. 

2  The  Dead  Sea  is  exactly  1,292  feet  below  the  Mediterranean. 
Conder's  Map,  in  Handhooh.     Tent  Work,  p.  214 

3  Kas  esh  Shukf  is  2,679  feet  above  the  level  of  the  Dead  Sea; 
Masada,  1,702  feet.  *  Conder's  Map. 


THE  CONQUEST  OP  CANAAN.  403 

was  4,000  feet  liigh ;  and  the  town  of  Safed,  close  by, 
looked  over  the  country  from  a  height  of  2,800  feet. 
Nor  were  these  the  only  heights  worthy  to  be  called 
mountains.  Across  the  Jordan,  "the  hill  of  Bashan^'^ 
cast  its  shadow  from  an  elevation  of  5,900  feet,  and,  on  the 
northern  limit  of  the  land,  the  great  summits  of  Lebanon, 
*'the  white,"  attracted  the  eye  from  all  parts  of  Pales- 
tine. That  of  Mount  Hermon  especially,  over  9,000  feet 
high,  closed  the  northern  view  from  almost  all  points  : 
from  the  plain  along  the  coast,  from  the  mountains  of 
Samaria,  from  the  plateau  of  Bashan,  its  pale  blue  snow- 
capped cone  formed  the  grandest  feature  in  the  horizon.  ^ 
The  whole  land,  however,  "  from  Dan  to  Beersheba," 
was  very  small  in  proportion  to  the  size  of  most  countries, 
though  roomy  ^  in  contrast  to  the  narrow  ribbon  of  fertile 
land  on  the  edges  of  the  Nile,  which  has  an  average 
breadth  of  seven  miles.*  It  was  in  all  only  about  the 
size  of  Wales.  Except  along  the  seashore,  the  one 
plain  in  the  whole  region  large  enough  to  be  readily 
noticeable  on  the  map,  was  that  of  Esdraelon,  which 
measures  fourteen  miles  north  and  south,  by  nine  east 
and  west,  and  runs  into  the  land  from  the  coast  on  the 
upper  side  of  the  Carmel  hills ;  a  range  which  stretches 
south-west  from  the  Bay  of  Acre  till  it  joins  the  hills  of 
Samaria.  .  Along  the  edge  of  the  Mediterranean,  how- 
ever, a  level  strip  runs  from  north  to  south  the  whole 
length  of  the  country  ;  narrow  on  the  north,  in  Phenicia ; 
broadening  to  an  average  of  five  miles  before  it  reaches 

^  Jebel  DJTieUb,  in  the  Ledja.  The  heights  are  taken  from 
the  Great  Map  of  the  Palestine  Survey,  and  from  Kiepert  and 
Condor's  Maps. 

2  Maclean's  Joshua,  p.  106. 

3  Exod.  iii.  8. 

*  Orelli,  Lurch's  Seilige  Land,  p.  42. 


404  THE  CONQUEST  OF  CANAAN. 

the  promontory  of  Carmel,  and  forming  a  distinct  district- 
south  of  that  point,  under  the  names  of  the  plains  of 
Sharon  and  of  Philistia.  It  has  been  formed  partly  by 
the  waste  of  the  central  hills,  partly  by  the  accumulation 
of  sand  in  dunes  along  the  shore.  Towards  the  south  its 
breadth  has  been  gradually  increased  by  the  deposit  of 
mud  from  the  mouths  of  the  Nile,  which  is  traceable  as 
far  north  as  Gaza.  The  surface  is  undulating,  with  low 
hillocks  of  hardened  sand,  and  is  naturally  fertile.  Deep 
gullies,  running  westward  to  the  sea,  carry  down  the 
drainage  of  the  hills — some  of  them  showing  permanent 
streams,  and  all  marked  by  high  banks.  Their  waters, 
however,  especially  in  the  north,  are  dammed  back  be- 
fore reaching  the  coast,  and  form  marshes  so  extensive 
as  to  reduce  the  arable  land  about  one-fourth.  The 
*'  Maritime  Plain,^'  as  this  tract  is  called,  is  about  eighty 
miles  long,  and  is  raised  from  100  to  200  feet  above  the 
sea,  which  it  borders  with  a  long  line  of  low  cliffs.  Its 
breadth  at  its  northern  end,  below  Carmel,  is  eight 
miles  ;  at  Gaza  about  twenty.^ 

Between  this  outside  fringe  and  the  mountains  runs  a 
breadth  of  low  chalk  hills,  averaging  about  500  feet  in 
height,  known  in  the  Bible,  if  Lieut.  Conder  be  right, 
as  the  Shephelah,  though  this  name  has  hitherto  been 
assumed  to  refer  to  the  whole  Maritime  Plain. ^  Behind 
these  rise,  north  and  south,  the  masses  of  the  central 
mountains,  which,  from  the  Mediterranean,  seem  like  a 
purple  wall  of  nearly  equal  height. 

This  truly  highland  region — the  Canaan  of  the  Bible 
— though  now  only  a  confusion  of  bare  limestone  hills, 

^  Conder's  Handbook  to  the  Bible,  p.  215. 

2  See  Sinai  and  Palestine,  p.  480.  Gesenius'  Lex.,  8tli  edit., 
defines  it  as  meaning  "  a  low  place,"  and  applies  it  to  the  lowlands 
from  Joppa  to  Gaza.     Conder's  Tent  Work,  p.  276. 


THE  CONQUEST  OF  CANAAN.  405 

often  painful  from  their  sterility,  was,  in  all  probability, 
as  richly  wooded  and  as  fertile  in  the  days  of  Joshua  as 
the  hills  and  valleys  of  Gilead  and  Bashan  are  still.  The 
destruction  of  the  forests  west  of  the  Jordan,  and  the 
consequent  drying  up  of  the  streams  through  the  country, 
seem  the  only  reasons  for  the  strange  contrast  offered 
by  its  two  sides.  On  the  east,  every  valley  has  its  ever- 
flowing  brook,  while  not  a  few  wide  gorges  pour  down 
bright  rushing  streams,  throughout  the  year,  into  the 
Jordan  and  Dead  Sea.  But  on  the  west  there  is  not 
a  single  permanent  watercourse.  Its  wadys  are  only 
torrent  beds,  dry  except  after  storms  ;  though  at  times 
filled  by  these  with  wild  floods  which  sweep  all  before 
them.  Such  torrent  beds  are,  and  have  always  been, 
the  only  available  passes  into  the  hills,  from  the  low- 
lands on  either  side. 

The  ascent  from  Jericho  to  the  central  uplands  must 
always  have  been  through  the  gloomy  defile  of  Wady 
Kelt,  which  rises  between  towering  precipices  of  utterly 
bare  rock,  with  steep  and  difiicult  footing,  to  the  plateau 
above.  In  such  a  gorge,  with  many  side  clefts  in  the 
mountain  walls,  from  which  an  enemy  might  at  any 
moment  break  out  to  dispute  the  passage,  it  was  necessary 
to  use  every  precaution  against  surprise.  At  its  upper 
end  stood  a  town  called  Ai,  "  the  ruins,^^  commanding 
the  road  to  Jebus,  or  Jerusalem,  and  the  approaches  to 
Central  Palestine.  Close  to  it,  on  another  hill,  rose  Bethel, 
and  both  must  be  taken,  to  make  farther  advance  possible. 
Spies,  accordingly,  were  once  more  sent  out  to  "  view 
the  country,^^  but  in  this  case  tkeir  under-estimate  of  the 
strength  of  the  enemy  led  to  disaster.  Two  or  three 
thousand  men,  they  reported,  were  enough  to  take  Ai,  and 
it  would  be  useless  for  more  to  be  sent.  About  three 
thousand  men  therefore  ascended  the  pass  to  attack  it. 


406  THE  CONQUEST  OF  CANAAN. 

but  only  to  meet  witli  a  repulse,  and  tlie  loss  of  thirty-six 
of  their  number.  Such  a  check  at  the  very  opening  of  the 
war  wafe-far  more  serious  than  it  would  have  been  later. 
The  terror  among  the  enemy,  which  was  the  strength  of 
Israel,  would  at  once  cease  with  a  gleam  of  success,  and 
in  that  case  the  odds  against  Joshua  would  indeed  be 
immense.  Hitherto  confident  of  victory,  as  the  army  of 
God,  it  seemed  as  if  He  had  forsaken  Israel,  and  ^'  their 
hearts  melted  and  became  as  water ; ''  even  Joshua,  and 
the  elders  of  the  people,  rending  their  clothes  and  putting 
dust  on  their  heads  in  sign  of  profound  mourning,  and 
casting  themselves  on  their  faces  before  the  Ark  the  whole 
day.  A  panic  was  on  the  point  of  setting  in,  if  the  people 
could  not  be  roused  and  re-inspirited.  But  the  cause  of 
the  disaster  was  presently  disclosed.  The  whole  of  the 
spoil  of  Jericho  had  been  solemnly  devoted  to  destruction, 
as  if  the  possession  of  any  part  of  it  would  bring  pollu- 
tion, and  the  prohibition  had  been  obeyed  with  remark- 
able exactness.  There  had,  however,  been  one  exception. 
A  man  of  the  tribe  of  Judah,  unfortunately  for  all,  had 
taken  some  gold  and  silver  and  a  mantle  of  fine  Mesopo- 
tamian  manufacture,^  contrary  to  orders.  It  was  a  military 
as  well  as  religious  offence,  for  Joshua  had  no  doubt  felt 

1  Lit.,  **  a  mantle  of  Shinar."  The  looms  of  the  Euphrates 
were  famous  in  antiquity.  "  Assyrian  garments,"  in  later  times, 
became  a  proverb.  In  the  Nineveh  sculptures  the  dress  of  the 
king  consists  of  a  long  flowing  garment  descending  to  the  ankles, 
elaborately  embroidered,  and  edged  with  fringe  and  tassels.  Id 
was  confined  at  the  waist  by  a  girdle,  to  which  were  attached 
cords  with  large  tassels,  falling  down  almost  to  the  feet.  Over 
this  robe  a  second,  nearly  of  the  same  length,  but  open  in  front, 
appears  to  have  been  thrown.  It  was  also  embroidered  and 
edged  with  tassels.  Layard's  Nineveh,  vol.  ii.  p.  319.  See  vol.  i. 
p.  301.  The  discipline  of  the  Hebrews  must  have  been  well  nigh 
perfect,  when  Achan  alone  yielded  to  the  temptation  to  plunder. 


THE  CONQUEST  OF  CANAAN.  407 

that  to  let  Ms  soldiers  enrich  themselves  with  the  plunder 
of  a  wealthy  city  would  weaken  discipline,  and  dull  the 
edge  of  the  lofty  enthusiasm  which  was  their  strength. 
The  offender  and  his  household,  with  all  belonging  to  it, 
including  even  his  cattle,  were,  therefore,  at  once  separ- 
ated from  the  camp ;  Achan  being  put  to  death,  and  his 
oxen,  asses,  and  sheep  destroyed,  at  the  express  com- 
mand of  God.^  His  body  was  then  burnt,  with  the  car- 
cases of  the  beasts,  and  all  his  property,  and  a  huge  cairn 
raised  over  them  as  a  memorial.  Some  have  thought 
that  his  wife  and  family  were  put  to  death  with  him, 
on  the  ground  that  his  having  buried  the  spoil  in  his 
tent  implied  their  complicity  in  his  crime,  but  the  words 
do  not  seem  to  require  this — the  plural  used,  referring,  it 
may  be,  to  his  cattle  of  various  kinds. ^  If,  however,  the 
family  perished,  we  may  be  assured  of  their  guilt,  for 
otherwise  they  would  doubtless,  like  the  children  of 
Korah,  have  been  spared.^ 

The  capture  of  Ai,  by  a  clever  stratagem,  was  now  at 
once  effected.  The  whole  district  is  full  of  deep  gorges 
and  hollows,*  and  in  some  of  these  a  force  of  30,000  men 
was  concealed  behind  the  city,  while  another  body  of 
5,000  showed  itself  in  the  ravine  on  the  other  side, 
and  drew  out  the  garrison  after  them  by  a  pretended 
flight;  the  gates  being  left  open  and  undefended.  On 
this,  at  a  signal  given  by  Joshua,  lifting  up  towards  Ai 
the  light  spear  which  he  always  bore  in  his  hand  or  kept 
slung  at  his  back,  the  men  in  ambush  pressed  into  the 
town,  and  having  set  it  on  fire,  came  out  at  the  front 
gates  to  intercept  the  garrison  as  they  rushed  back.  But 
they  were  already  lost ;  for  the  feigned  retreat  now  turned 

^  Josh.  vii.  15. 

*  Kohler's  Lehrbuch,  p.  376.     Hesse's  Joshua,  p.  102. 

'  Num.  xxvi.  11.  •*  Land  and  Book,  p.  671. 


408  THE  CONQUEST  OF  CANAAN. 

into  a  fierce  attack  in  front  and  rear.  In  a  few  hours 
nothing  remained  of  Ai  but  the  blackened  stones.  Before 
night  its  king  had  been  hanged  on  one  of  the  trees  near 
the  town  ^  and  the  inhabitants  had  perished^  though  the 
Israelites  were  permitted,  in  this  case_,  to  retain  the  spoil 
and  the  cattle.^  Bethel,  two  miles  west/  also  fell  now 
into  Joshua^s  hands,  though  it  was  apparently  after- 
wards retaken  by  the  Canaanites. 

A  sure  footing  in  the  land  had  now  been  obtained, 
and  such  a  dread  of  the  invaders  excited  amongst  the  in- 
habitants as  of  itself  made  them  resistless.  Indeed,  the 
population  of  Central  Palestine  seems  to  have  fled  before 
them,  for  no  intimation  of  a  struggle  with  them  is  found 
either  in  Joshua  or  Judges.  Perhaps  the  subdivision 
into  small  communities,  incapable  of  prompt  united  action, 
may  have  aided  the  general  demoralization,  and  it  is 
noticeable  besides,  that  very  few  fortified  towns  are 
mentioned  in  this  region.*  Bub  the  terrible  fate  of 
Jericho  and  Ai  sufficiently  account  for  a  universal  panic, 
and  abandonment  of  all,  before  the  advancing  Hebrews. 
There  seems,  indeed,  to  be  an  allusion  to  such  a  general 
flight,  in  a  verse  of  Isaiah.^  "  In  that  day/'  says  he,  "  his 
strong  cities  shall  be  as  the  forsaken  tract  of  the  wood- 
land, and  of  the  summits,  which    men  forsook   because 

^  Deut.  xxi.  22,  23,  requires  that  a  body  shall  not  hang  on 
a  tree  after  sunset.  The  body  was  thus  hung  up  only  after 
death. 

2  The  site  of  Ai  is  now  called  "  The  Tell,"  or  mound  of  ruins. 
Canon  Williams.     See  also  Pal.  Fund  Be'ports,  1881,  p.  36. 

3  Ihid.,  p.  37.  Bethel  lay  2,890  feet  above  the  sea.  Great  Pal. 
Map. 

*  Josh.  ii.  9,  24;  v.  1;  ix.  9,  24.  In  the  list  of  conquered  cities 
in  chap.  xii.  there  are  none  in  Central  Palestine  except  Ai  and 
Bethel.     See  vol.  i.  pp.  353-4. 

5  Isa.  xvii.  9.     See  Tent  Work  in  Palestine,  p.  43. 


THE  CONQUEST  OP  CANAAN.  409 

of  the  Children  of  Israel ;  '^  ^  words  which  the  Septuaginfc 
renders,  more  explicitly,  ''the  cities  will  be  forsaken,  as 
the  Amorites  and  the  Hittites  forsook  theirs  before  the 
sons  of  Israel/'  Some  of  the  fugitives  seem  even  to 
have  emigrated  to  Africa,  if  we  can  trust  the  statement 
of  Procopius^  that  two  marble  pillars  were  to  be  seen 
in  the  Numidian  town  Tigisis,  with  a  Phenician  inscription, 
in  these  terms — ''  We  are  those  who  fled  from  the  face 
of  Jesus  (Joshua)  the  robber,  the  son  of  Nun/'  Suidas  ^ 
states  this  also;  giving  the  words  as — ''We  are  Cauaan- 
ites,  whom  Jesus  the  robber  drove  out,"  and  the  Taluiud 
states  that  the  Girgasites  driven  out  by  Joshua  wandered 
to  Africa.* 

Such  amazing  success  opened  the  way  soon  after  for 
an  incident  without  parallel  in  the  history  of  any  other 
nation.  God  had  commanded,  through  Moses,^  that  the 
tribes  should,  as  soon  as  practicable,  assemble  at  Shechem, 
in  the  centre  of  the  land,  to  renew  their  allegiance 
to   Him,  and    to  hear  once   more  the   proclamation    of 

^  So  Gesenius  and  Ewald.     Thus,  many  Israelite  cities  were 
abandoned  after  the  defeat  of  Gilboa.     1  Sam.  xxxi.  7. 
2  Be  Bello  Vandalico,  ii.  10.  ^  s.  v.  Xavadv. 

*  Jerus.  Tr.  Schehiit,  vi.  36  c.  Ewald  rejects  the  story  of  Pro- 
copius,  but  Graetz  accepts  it.  Joshua's  fierce  measures  at 
Jericho  and  Ai,  like  Cromwell's  storming  of  Drogheda,  had 
proved  more  merciful  in  the  end  than  a  gentler  course  could 
have  been.  Joshua  could  have  said,  as  Cromwell  did  after 
Drogheda,  "I  am  persuaded  that  this  is  a  righteous  judgment 
of  God  and  that  it  will  tend  to  prevent  the  effusion  of  blood  for 
the  future."*  But  this  sternness  ended  the  Irish  war.  Had 
the  Israelites  followed  up  with  vigour  their  first  successes, 
nothing  could  have  hindered  their  crusliing  all  opposition,  and 
rendering  themselves  absolute  masters  of  the  whole  of  Palestine 
for  all  time  to  come.  But  they  left  their  work  half  done  and 
paid  a  heavy  penalty  in  consequence. 

*  Deut.  V.  11.  f  Carlyle's  Cromwell,  ii.  152. 


410  THE  CONQUEST  OF  CANAAN. 

the  conditions  on  whicli  He  gave  them  the  country. 
Accordingly,  all  the  nation,  including  the  women  and 
children,  and  even  the  multitude  of  other  races  which  had 
come  up  with  them  from  Egypt,  were  led  on  a  stupendous 
pilgrimage,  from  the  banks  of  the  Jordan  at  Gilgal,  to 
the  valley  between  Mounts  Ebal  and  Gerizim,  in  the 
midland  hills.  It  was  a  spot  sacred  in  the  history  of 
Israel,  for  there  Abraham  and  Jacob  had  in  turn  pitched 
their  tents,  and  there  the  latter  had  bought  the  field 
in  which  they  were  now  to  bury  the  mummy  of  Joseph, 
as  he  had  commanded  their  forefathers,  hundreds  of 
years  before.  The  well  that  Jacob  had  dug  was  also 
before  their  eyes,  and  the  oak  beneath  which  he  had 
buried  the  idolatrous  images  and  ear-rings  of  his  encamp- 
ment. The  valley  itself,  perhaps,  the  most  beautiful 
spot  in  Palestine,  was  worthy  of  the  great  national  act 
they  had  assembled  to  perform.  Running  north  and 
south,  with  a  width  of  from  a  quarter  to  half  a  mile, 
it  is  hemmed  in  between  the  twin  mountains  Ebal  and 
Gerizim,  the  summits  of  which  are  two  miles  apart,  in 
a  line.  Bright  rivulets  fed,  as  the  natives  say,  by  no 
fewer  than  eighty  springs,  run  down  the  slopes  and 
sparkle  over  the  sunny  glen;  gardens  musical  with 
many  birds  surround  the  walls  of  Nablus,  the  modern 
representative  of  Shechem,  which  nestles  close  under  the 
shadow  of  Gerizim ;  figs,  walnuts,  mulberries,  oranges, 
lemons,  pomegranates,  vines,  and  plums,  filling  the  scene 
with  rich  luxuriance,  the  more  striking  by  its  vivid 
contrast  with  the  barren  stony  mountains  around. 
Gerizim,  on  the  south  side  of  the  valley,  towers  1,000 
feet  above  it  in  a  huge  dome  of  chalk,  hollowed  into 
many  caves  at  its  foot,  and  surmounted  by  dark  blue 
limestone  rising  in  ledges  and  shelves  to  the  summit. 
Ebal,  on  the  north  side,  rises  in  a  gentler  slope  of  steel 


THE  CONQUEST  OF  CANAAN.  411 

blue  rock,  with  precipitous  cliffs  atop,  200  feet  higher 
than  Gerizim ;  its  north  side,  like  that  of  the  other  hill, 
rich  in  springs,  from  the  dip  of  the  strata,  but  its  south, 
even  when  richlj  covered  with  corn  in  summer,  de- 
pendent on  rain  and  irrigation  for  its  fertility.^  Thou- 
sands of  flowers  of  every  colour  springing  up  amongst 
the  grass,  in  the  valley  itself  and  on  the  slopes,  in  the 
meadows  and  open  ground,  make  the  spot  still  more 
delightful.  Wherever  water  reaches,  either  naturally  or 
otherwise,  it  is  paradise,  but  above  that  limit  the  barren- 
ness is  well  nigh  complete.  Yet  it  is  a  wondrous  valley 
in  the  thirsty  East.^ 

Having  selected  huge  stones,  and  made  them  smooth 
with  a  coating  of  "  plaster,^^  Joshua  caused  an  abstract 
of  the  Law  to  be  inscribed  on  them,  and  then  set  them 
up  on  Mount  Ebal.^  An  altar  of  unhewn  stones  was 
next  raised,  close  by  them,  that  their  erection  might  be 
consecrated  by  burnt  sacrifices  and  peace  offerings.  The 
tribes  which  had  sprung  from  the  lawful  wives  of  Jacob 
then  took  up  their  place  on  Mount  Ebal,  while  those 
descended  from  the  handmaids  of  Leah  and  Rachel,  with 
Reuben,  stood  on  the  slopes  of  Mount  Gerizim,  the 
priests,  with  the  Ark,  occupying  the  valley  between  the 
two  hills,  surrounded  by  the  elders,  officers  and  judges 
of  the  nation.  The  whole  Law,  as  given  by  Moses,  was 
now  read  aloud  to  the  vast  multitude — those  on  Mount 
Ebal  responding  with  a  loud  Amen  to  the  rehearsal  of 
the  curses  for  disobedience,  and  those  on  Mount  Gerizim, 

^  Tent  Work  in  Palestine,  p.  32.     Pal.  Fund  Bep.,  1873,  p.  70. 

'  Farrer's  Paldstina,  p.  236. 

^  Kieperb's  map  gives  the  heights  above  the  Mediterranean 
as:— Ebal,  2,990  feet;  the  valley,  1,853  feet;  Gerizim,  2,b28 
feet.  Conder,  2,848-8  feet  for  Gerizim,  and  3,076*5  for  Ebal. 
Tent  Work,  pp.  33,  36. 


412  THE  CONQUEST  OF  CANAAN. 

similarly,  to  tlie  recital  of  the  blessings  for  obedience. 
Such  a  scene  transacted^  about  twelve  hundred  years  be- 
fore the  first  Punic  War/  and  one  thousand  years  before 
Socrates,^  is  unique  in  the  history  of  the  world  ;  for  when 
did  any  other  nation  thus  pledge  itself  to  a  high  religious 
life  as  the  recognized  condition  of  its  prosperity  ?  Even 
the  curses  pronounced  are  peculiar  to  Israel ;  for  they 
are  directed  not  only  against  such  crimes  as  murder ;  but 
also  against  idolatry ;  disobedience  to  parents  ;  inhumanity 
to  the  blind,  to  strangers,  widows,  or  orphans;  or  the 
removal  of  the  landmark  of  a  neighbour.  Modern  legis- 
lation is  slowly  striving  towards  a  standard  so  generous, 
pure,  and  lofty. 

That  the  laws  should  have  been  inscribed  on  plaster 
might  seem  ill  fitted  to  secure  their  permanent  preserva- 
tion, but  the  dryness  of  the  climate  makes  even  such 
material  as  lasting  as  the  hardest  stone  elsewhere.  The 
inscriptions  on  the  rocks  at  Sinai,  though  only  surface 
scratches,  are  as  distinct  as  ever,  after  perhaps  two 
thousand  years ;  and,  in  Egypt  and  Palestine,  inscriptions 
and  paintings,  on  plaster,  are  still,  after  the  lapse  of 
even  longer  periods,*  as  perfect  as  when  first  made. 

A  difficulty  has  been  raised  as  to  the  possibility  of 
the  voice  being  heard  over  the  space  required  by  so 
great  a  multitude,  but  Canon  Tristram  tells  us  that  '^a 
single  voice  might  be  heard  by  many  thousands,  shut  in 
and  conveyed  up  and  down  by  the  enclosing  hills.  In 
the  early  morning  we  could  not  only  see  from  Gerizim 

1  The  table  in  Schenkel's  Bibel  Lexicon  gives  B.C.  1420  as  the 
date  of  the  Conquest  of  Palestine.  Ewald  assigns  B.C.  1460  asr 
the  date. 

2  B.C.  264-241. 

3  B.  B.C.  469-8,  d.  B.C.  399. 

"*  Thomson,  Land  and  Booh,  p.  471. 


THE  CONQUEST  OE  CANAAN.  413 

a  man  driving  his  ass  down  a  path  on  Mount  Ebal,  but 
could  hear  every  word  he  uttered,  as  he  urged  it ;  and 
in  order  to  test  the  matter  more  certainly,  on  a  sub- 
sequent occasion  two  of  our  party  stationed  themselves 
on  opposite  sides  of  the  valley,  and  with  perfect  ease 
recited  the  commandments  antiphonally/'  ^ 

Having  thus  formally  consecrated  themselves  once 
more  to  Jehovah,  and  having  taken  possession  of  Pales- 
tine in  His  name,  subject  to  the  condition  of  obedience 
to  His  Law,  which  He  imposed — the  vast  multitude 
returned  to  Gilgal,  which  was  still  the  head  quarters  of 
the  tribes.  But  the  lengthened  interval  of  quiet  which 
had  followed  the  first  victories  was  presently  to  be  rudely 
disturbed.  The  conquest  of  the  central  district  had 
alarmed  the  numerous  petty  kings  of  the  Negeb  and 
of  the  western  lowlands,  and  led  them  for  a  time  to 
league  together,  to  drive  back  the  invaders  beyond  the 
Jordan. 

The  submission  of  some  Canaanite  towns  ^  near  Jebus 

^  Tristram's  Land  of  Israel,  p.  152.  See  also  Land  and  Booh, 
p.  473-4.  At  Masada,  Tristram  tells  us,  he  and  a  friend  could  nob 
only  carry  on  a  conversation  with  a  third  person  at  more  than 
600  yards  distance,  but  several  of  the  remarks  made  by  Dr. 
Tristram  and  his  friend  to  each  other  were  distinctly  heard. 
Land  ofMoah.  p.  33.     See  also  Pal.  Fund  Rejp.,  1870,  p.  58. 

2  The  "cities"  confederated  with  Gibeon,  "the  town  on  the 
hill,"  were  Chephirah,*  eleven  miles  from  Jerusalem,  in  Benjamin  ; 
Beerothjfbetween  Jerusalem  and  Bethel ;  and  Kirjath-jearim,  "  the 
town  of  the  groves,"  in  allusion  to  its  olive,  fig,  and  oLher  planta- 
tions; four  miles  from  Beeroth.  They  guarded  the  top  of  the 
pass  of  Bethhoron,  which  has  always  been  the  great  route  to 
the  sea-places  and  the  south.  The  "  old  sacks  "  were  probably  the 
large  hair-cloth  bags  in  which  Orientals  pack  up,  for  convenient 
transport  on  the  backs  of  animals,  all  they  need  for  a  journey, 
including  their  tent  cover,  boxes,  pots,  provisions,  etc.     A  long 

*  The  hamlet,     f  The  wells. 


414  THE  CONQUEST  OP  CANAAN. 

or  Jerusalem,  brouglit  matters  to  a  crisis.  Gibeon,  the 
chief  of  these,  hopeless  of  successful  resistance,  and 
anxious  to  escape  destruction,  had  made  peace  with 
Joshua,  and  by  their  clever  craffc  had  secured  their  lives 
and  those  of  their  allies,  though  they  were  all  degraded 
to  permanent  slavery.  These  towns,  however,  com- 
manded the  summit  of  the  great  passes  to  the  coast  and 
to  the  south,  cutting  off  the  inhabitants  of  these  districts 
from  those  of  the  north,  and  leaving  the  invaders  free  to 
destroy  each  in  turn.  Taking  advantage,  therefore,  of 
Joshua^s  absence  at  Gilgal,  the  chiefs,  or  *'  kings,"  of 
Jebus  or  Jerusalem ;  of  Hebron,  20  miles  south  of  it ;  of 
Jarmuth  or  Yarmuth,  16  miles  south-west  of  it,  a  mile 
and  a  half  off  the  road  to  Gath;  of  Lachish,  15  miles 
nearly  south  of  Yarmuth,  on  the  last  slopes  of  the  hill 
country,  a  strongly  fortified  town ;  and  of  Eglon,  a  town 
10  miles  east  of  Lachish,  on  the  Gaza  road;  five  in  all, 
each  with  its  petty  district,  banded  together  and,  pressing 
up  into  the  hill  country,  invested  Gibeon,  the  elders  of 
which  instantly  sent  word  to  Joshua  at  Gilgal,  demanding 
help.  Acting  with  quick  decision,  he  set  off"  at  once  on 
receiving  the  summons,  climbing  all  night  up  the  Wady 

journey  makes  them  look  worn  and  old.  "  Wine  bottles "  are 
made  of  the  skins  of  goats,  etc.,  turned  inside  out.  When  torn, 
they  are  patched,  or  tied  up  with  a  cord.  "  Old  shoes  and 
clouted,"  are  worn-out  sandals,  which  are  seldom  seen,  and 
would  only  be  met  with,  under  ordinary  circumstances,  after 
travelling  far.  The  "  old  garments  "  were  very  unlike  what  an 
embassy  should  have  worn,  and  seemed  so  strange  as  naturally 
to  suggest  a  great  distance  from  home.  Bread  is  baked  each  day 
in  the  East,  and  becomes  very  hard  when  kept.  The  Gibeonites 
had  only  such  as  had  been  long  baked,  as  if  they  had  had  no 
means  of  getting  any  since  starting  on  their  mission.  They 
were  made  "  Nethinim,"  "  devoted  to  God,"  and  had  to  discharge 
duties  usually  devolving  on  the  lowest  classes ;  hewing  the  wood 
and  drawing  the  water  for  the  Tabernacle  and  for  the  community. 


THE  CONQUEST  OF  CANAAN.  415 

Kelt,  at  the  head  of  a  great  force  of  chosen  men,  and 
before  sunrise  had  reached  the  open  ground  at  the  foot 
of  the  rounded  hill  on  which  Gibeon  stands,  and  on 
which  the  "  kings  ^'  were  encamped.  Such  energy  was 
in  itself  an  earnest  of  victory.  The  sight  of  the  foe, 
before  whom  nothing  had  hitherto  stood,  their  sudden 
and  terrible  war  cry  and  rushing  onset,  at  once  filled  all 
hearts  in  the  camp  of  the  five  towns  with  dismay,  result- 
ing forthwith  in  a  headlong  flight  to  the  pass  leading 
down  to  the  plains.  To  reach  this  only  one  way 
offered;  the  long  ascent  to  Upper  Beth-horon,  "the 
house  of  caves,'^  and  thence  down  the  rough,  rocky,  and 
steep  gorge  leading  to  Beth-horon  the  Lower — a  track 
stretching  sometimes  over  the  upturned  edges  of  the 
limestone  strata,  sometimes  over  sheets  of  smooth  rock, 
sometimes  over  smooth  rectangular  stones,  sometimes 
over  steps  cut  in  the  rock.^  Rough  as  it  was,  however, 
it  was,  even  in  after  days,  "  the  king's  way,'^  as  the  only 
passage  to  the  plains,  or  from  thence  to  the  hills.  By  it 
the  Philistines  were  hereafter  to  invade  Israel  in  the  days 
of  Saul.2  Here  Judas  Maccabaeus  was  to  overcome  the 
Syrian  commander,  Nicanor;^  and  by  this  road  St.  Paul 
was  to  come  as  a  prisoner,  in  his  night's  march  to 
Csesarea.*  Rushing  in  wild  fear  down  the  long  gorge, 
with  its  walls  of  bare  rock,  the  panic  and  destruction 
were  increased  by  one  of  the  sudden  and  terrible  storms 
frequent  in  Palestine ;  great  hailstones  dashing  heavily 
on  them   as    they  ran.^      Then    occurred   that   incident 

*  Stanley's  Jewish  Church,  vol.  i.  p.  242. 

2  1  Sam.  xiii.  18.  »  i  Mace.  vii.  39.  *  Acts  xxiii.  31. 

^  Thunder,  lightning,  and  a  deluge  of  hail  (Jos.,  Ant.,  Y.  i.  17). 
In  1859  a  very  similar  disaster  overtook  the  Austrians  at  the 
battle  of  Solferino.  Commodore  Porter  describes  a  hail-storm  on 
the  Bosphorus  in  1831,  while  he  was  crossing  in  a  boat.     One  of 


416  THE  CONQUEST  OF  CANAAN. 

which  had  already  been  the  theme  of  the  poets  of  Israel 
before  the  Book  of  Joshua  was  written,  and  had  been 
recorded  in  the  '^  Book  of  Jasher/^  or  "  the  Upright," 
apparently  a  collection  of  odes  in  praise  of  the  heroes  of 
Israel.  The  ascent  from  Gilgal,  through  the  night,  and 
the  subsequent  pursuit,  left  the  sun  still  high,  though  tho 
moon  had  begun  to  show  its  pale  crescent  in  the  west. 
But  the  wild  storm  darkened  the  sky,  and  it  seemed 
possible,  after  all,  that  the  enemy  would  escape  and 
leave  the  victory  incomplete,  for  the  hills  would  ere  long 
intercept  the.  light. 

"Then  spake  Joshua  to  Jehovah  in  the  day  when 
Jehovah  delivered  up  the  Amorites  before  the  children 
of  Israel,  and  he  said  in  the  sight  of  Israel,— 

'  Sun,  stand  thou  still  upon  Gibeon  ; 

And  thou,  Moon,  in  the  valley  of  Ajalon.* 

And  the  sun  stood  still, 

And  the  moon  stayed, 

Till  the  people  had  avenged  themselves  ou  their  enemies. 

"  Is  not  this  written,"  it  is  added,  ^'  in  the  Book  of 
Jasher  ?"  ^     Driving  and  driven,  the  pursuers  and  pur- 

the  boatmen  had  his  hand  literally  smashed,  a  second  was  much 
injured  in  the  shoulder,  and  the  others  were  all  more  or  less 
hurt.  One  hailstone  broke  the  blade  of  an  oar.  Two  men  were 
killed  on  shore,  and  many  had  limbs  broken.  Some  of  the  pieces 
of  ice  picked  up  were  over  a  pound  in  weight,  and  many  three- 
quarters  of  a  pound. 

^  The  Book  of  Jasher  is  also  alluded  to  in  2  Sam.  i.  18  :  "Also 
lie — David — bade  them  teach  the  children  of  Israel  the  (song  of 
the)  bow  :  behold  it  is  written  in  the  Book  of  Jasher."  The 
quotation  from  this  book  apparently  ends  at  the  close  of  verse  15, 
for  it  is  evident  that  Joshna  did  not  return  to  Gilgal  immediately 
after  the  battle,  but  only  after  the  campaign  to  the  south  country 
had  closed  (ver.  43).  In  explanation  of  the  passage,  Mr.  Groser, 
Secretary  of  the  Sunday  School  Union,  says,  verses  12  to  15,  "  as 
extracts   from  recognized  poetry,   should   assuredly   be  treated 


THE  CONQUEST  OF  CANAAN.  417 

sued,  in  wild  confusion  rushed  downwards  to  tlie  plains ; 
but  at  last  the  five  kings,  utterly  exhausted  and 
despairing,  sought  refuge  in  a  cave  at  Makkedah  on  the 
edge  of  the  lowland ;  only,  however,  to  be  presently 
discovered  and  blocked  up  in  their  hiding-place  by  a  great 
stone,  duly  guarded  while  the  merciless  pursuit  was  con- 
tinued. The  great  Maritime  Plain  had  now  been  reached, 
with  its  numerous  fortified  cities,  and  in  these  the  few 
who  had  escaped  at  length  found  safety  for  the  time. 
Then,  and  not  till  then,  Joshua  returned,  and  having 
taken  the  five  kings  from  their  rude  prison,  after 
making  his  chief  men  place  their  feet  on  their   necks, 

as  such.  If  the  literal  meaning  were  put  on  other  passages  of 
a  similar  kind,  the  result  would  be  striking;  as,  for  example, 
Deborah  says  that  '  the  stars  in  their  courses  fought  against 
Sisera,'  or  *  the  hills  melted  like  wax  at  the  presence  of  the 
Lord.'  "  The  Rev.  Samuel  Cox  thinks  the  true  explanation  is 
that  Joshua  besought  God  that  the  black  clouds  of  the  storm 
driving  up  the  pass  from  the  sea  ought  not  be  allowed  to  blot 
out  the  sun  and  thus  bring  night  prematurely,  before  his  victory 
was  complete.  When  the  sun  shone  out  again  from  the  tempest, 
and  the  moon  stood  clear  in  the  sky,  his  prayer  would  be 
answered. 

"  It  is  astonishing,"  says  Herder,  *'  that  this  fine  passage  has 
been  so  long  misunderstood.  Joshua  attacked  the  Amorites  in 
the  early  morning,  and  the  battle  continued  till  night ;  that  is, 
for  a  long  day  which  seemed  to  protract  itself  into  night,  to  com- 
plete the  victory.  The  sun  and  moon  were  witnesses  of  Joshua's 
great  deeds,  and  held  their  course  in  the  midst  of  heaven  till  the 
triumph  was  perfect.  Who  does  not  recognize  this  as  poetry, 
even  if  it  had  not  been  quoted  from  the  Book  of  Poems  on  Heroes. 
In  the  usual  language  of  the  Hebrews  such  expressions  were 
neither  bold  nor  unusual."     Heh.  Poesie,  vol.  i.  p.  237. 

Agamemou,  in  the  Iliad,  utters  the  same  prayer  as  Joshua : — 

"  Jove  greatest,  Jove  most  glorious,  sky  dweller,  cloud  bediglit, 
Let  not  the  sun  nor  darkness  fall  and  wrap  the  world  in  night, 
Till  Priam's  stately  palace  I  cast  in  ruin  low." — Iliad,  ii.  412. 
VOL.    II.  E   B 


418  THE  CONQUEST  OF  CANAAN. 

as  a  sign  of  triumpli  over  enemies  lately  so  dreaded, 
himself  speared  or  ran  tliem  through,  and  ordered 
their  dead  bodies,  as  a  mark  of  additional  dishonour,  to 
be  hung  up  on  trees  till  the  evening,  when  they  were 
taken  down,  as  the  Jewish  law  required,^  and  thrown 
ignominiously  into  the  cave. 

But  the  campaign  was  not  yet  ended,  for  the  foe  might 
rally  if  left  in  quiet.  Town  after  town  on  the  plain  was 
therefore  stormed — as  far  as  Hebron  in  the  south,  and 
round  by  the  Negeb,  below  the  hills  of  Judea ;  nor  did 
the  army  return  to  Gil  gal  till  the  whole  of  the  hill 
country,  the  lowlands,  and  the  slopes,  "  with  all  their 
kings,''  had  been  overrun  and  for  the  time  subdued.^ 

The  centre  and  the  south  of  Palestine  had  now  been 
conquered,  and  the  Israelites  had  secured  a  solid  footing 
in  the  land.  But  resistance  still  smouldered,  for  the  north 
had  not  been  invaded,  and  there  were  yet  Canaanite  com- 
munities in  different  parts  that  had  escaped  the  brunt  of 
war.  The  destruction  of  Jericho  ;  the  sacking  and  burn- 
ing of  Ai  and  Bethel ;  the  submission  of  Gideon  and  its 
confederate  towns ;  the  surrender  of  Central  Palestine  by 
the  flight  of  its  inhabitants;  the  crushing  defeat  of  the 
southern  kings,  and  the  seizure  of  their  territory,  showed 
that  the  Hebrew  occupation  threatened  the  whole  land. 
A  final  league  of  native  chiefs  whose  populations  still 
furnished  the  materials  of  a  fighting  host  was  there- 
fore formed,  to  stem  the  invasion,  if  possible.  The 
head  of  this  confederation  was  Jabin,  ''he  whom  God 
watches,''  king  of  Hazor,  ''  the  enclosed "  or  ''  forti- 
fied," in  the  northern  hills,  half-way  between  the  sea- 
coast  and  Lake  Merom.  Invitations  to  join  a  general 
rising  were  sent  out  by  him  to  the  chiefs  of  Madon, 
a  place  possibly  represented  by  the  ruin  Madin,  west 
1  Deut.  xxi.  23.  2  ^q^}^^  x.  40. 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    CANAAN.  419 

of  the  Sea  of  Galilee ;  ^  of  Shimron,  the  present 
village  Simunieh,  west  of  Nazareth;  and  of  Achshaph, 
the  existing  village  El  Yasif,  in  the  tribe  of  Asher ;  to 
the  far  off  chiefs  on  the  north,  in  the  mountains, 
towards  Lebanon ;  to  those  in  the  Ghor  of  the  Jordan, 
south  of  the  sea  of  Galilee ;  to  those  in  the  lowlands  and 
elsewhere,  and  to  Dor,  a  city  on  the  coast,  near  Mount 
Carmel ;  ^  to  all  the  Canaanites,  in  fact,  east  and  west ; 
to  the  Amorites,  Hittites,  and  Perizzites  throughout  the 
land;  to  the  Jebusites  on  the  hill  of  the  future  Jeru- 
salem, in  the  south;  and  to  the  Hivites  under  Mount 
Hermon  in  the  north.  All  alike  eagerly  embraced  the 
opportunity  of  making  one  last  grand  struggle  to  crush 
the  invader.  It  was  a  final  and  supreme  effort,  like 
that  of  our  forefathers  in  Northumberland,  after  the 
defeat  of  Senlac.  A  host  gathered  ''as  the  sand  that 
is  upon  the  sea-shore  in  multitude,^'  with  a  great  force 
of  chariots  and  horses,  which  Israel  had  only  footmen 
to  oppose.  The  rendezvous  of  this  great  confederation 
was  appointed  on  the  plains  east  of  Lake  Merom,  the 
present  El  Huleh,  half-way  between  the  Sea  of  Galilee 
and  the  mountains  of  Lebanon,  and  there  they  speedily 
gathered. 

But  Joshua,  though  now  a  man  of  about  ninety,  was 
equal  to  the  emergency.  The  tribes,  who  were  still 
encamped  at  Gilgal,  ready  for  battle  at  any  moment,  were 
called  out  at  once,  and  by  a  swift  and  secret  march,  suc- 
ceeded in  taking  the  foe  by  surprise,  which,  as  usual 
in  an  Eastern  army,  led  to  a  precipitate  and  confused 
flight.  Then,  once  more,  came  the  fierce  pursuit  and  re- 
lentless slaughter  for  thirty  miles  straight  north  over  the 
hills,  probably  by  the  camel  path  still  used,  past  Laish  and 
Ijon;  then  over  the  cleft  of  the  Leontes,  north-west,  as 
*  Conder's  Handbook,  p.  425.  "  Bihel  Lex.,  arb.  Bor. 


420  THE  CONQUEST  OF  CANAAN. 

far  as  Sidon  and  Misrepliotli-maini/  on  tlie  coast,  with 
its  limekilns  and  smelting  furnaces.  Nor  did  it  end 
till  Mizpeh,  tlie  watcli  tower,  far  off,  at  the  foot  of 
Lebanon,  was  reached. 

An  ordinary  army,  after  such  a  victory,  would  have 
prized  above  all  else,  the  opportunity  of  putting  them- 
selves on  an  equal  footing  with  their  enemy,  by  util- 
izing the  captured  horses  and  chariots,  they  themselves 
having  none.  But  the  enthusiasm  of  the  Israelites, 
divinely  led,  set  no  value  on  such  human  aid.  They 
believed  that  the  invisible  chariots  of  God  were  amongst 
them.  One  of  their  inspired  poets  at  a  later  date  only 
embodied  the  feelings  of  Joshua's  host,  when  he  sang : — 

"  The  Almighty  scattered  kings  in  it; 
It  was  white  (with  the  robes  or  armour  of  the  slain)  as  snow  on 

Mount  Salmon ;  ^ 
The  chariots  of  God  are  twenty  thousand,  even  thousands  twice 

told  over ; 
Jehovah  is  among  them."  ^ 

As  through  many  subsequent  generations  of  warriors,  one 
sentiment  animated  every  bosom,  as  the  host  swept  on 
to  the  charge,  or  met  that  of  their  foes  : — 

"  Some  trust  in  chariots  and  some  in  horses ; 
But  we  will  remember  the  name  of  Jehovah,  our  God."^ 

The  battle  was  "not  theirs  but  God's," ^  and,  as  in  the 
past,  the  horses  were  crippled  and  the  chariots  burnt,  in 
obedience  to  Divine  command.^  Jabin's  capital,  Hazor, 
was  levelled  with  the  ground,  but  the  towns  which  stood 
on  hills  were  preserved  for  the  use  of  the  victors  them- 

^  Gonder,  p.  420.     Apparently  the  ancient  Sarepta,  now  known 
as  Sarafem.     The  word  means  "burnings  by  the  waters  " 
2  A  hill  near  Mount  Gerizim.  ^  Ps.  Ixviii.  14,  17. 

*  Ps.  XX.  7.         ^  1  Sam.  xvii.  47.   2  Chron.  xx.  15.         ^  Josh.  xi.  6, 


THE  CONQUEST  OF  CANAAN.  421 

selves^  as  more  easily  defensible.  The  spoil  of  the  cities 
and  towns,  moreover,  and  their  cattle,  were  distributed 
among  the  conquerors;  the  women  and  children  taken  as 
slaves,  and  the  male  prisoners  put  to  death,  as  was  the 
custom  of  the  age. 

Thus,  in  the  words  of  Scripture,^  Israel  had  received 
from  God  '^  great  and  goodly  and  strong  cities  which 
they  had  not  built :  houses  full  of  all  good  things,  which 
they  had  not  filled;  wells  dug,  which  they  had  not 
digged;  vineyards  and  olive  trees  which  they  had  not 
planted ;  fruit  trees  in  abundance,  and  a  fat  land."" 

The  division,  among  the  tribes,  of  the  territory  thus 
gained,  was  the  next  great  work.  Five  years  had  passed 
since  the  crossing  of  the  Jordan,  ^  and  their  leader  was 
"  still  as  strong  as  in  the  day  when  Moses  had  sent  him, 
forty-five  years  before,  from  Kadesh  Barnea,  to  spy  out 
the  land.*'  ^  A  great  popular  assembly  was  held  at 
Gilgal,  *  under  the  presidency  of  Joshua,  Eleazar  the 
high  priest,  and  the  elders.  Two  and  a  half  tribes  had 
already  secured  their  share  of  the  conquests,  on  the  east 
of  the  Jordan,  and  thus  nine  and  a  half  had  to  be 
provided  for.  Over  all  these  the  great  tribe  of  Joseph, 
divided  into  the  two  sections  of  Ephraim  and  Manasseh, 
claimed  precedence,  at  once  from  their  descent,  and  from 
the  fact  that  Joshua  belonged  to  their  number.  They 
demanded,  therefore,  the  best  part  of  the  country — the 
central  hills,  which  are  specially  rich  in  water  and  very 
fruitful,  and  apparently  acted  at  once,  of  their  own 
accord,  in  the  matter ;  Ephraim  taking  possession  of  the 
part  north  and  south  of  Shechem,  with  its  rolling  hills 

'  Deut.  vi.  10, 11.     See  also  Neh.  ix.  25. 

^  Josh.  xiv.  10.      Diestel,  in  Biehm  (p.  770),  thinks  the  war 
lasted  seven  years.     So  does  Lengerke  (Kenaan),  p.  647. 
3  Josh.  xiv.  7,  11.  "*  Josh.  xiv.  6. 


422  THE  CONQUEST  OF  CANAAN. 

and  sunny  valleys.  Sliechem  ^  itself,  where  the  bones 
of  Joseph  were  now  buried,  and  where  Abraham  and 
Jacob  had  long  encamped,  thus  became  their  chief 
town,  and,  from  its  central  position,  in  a  measure  the 
capital  of  the  whole  country.  The  half  tribe  of  Manasseh, 
which  had  abandoned  tent  life,  and  thrown  in  its  lot 
with  Ephraim,  had  the  district  immediately  to  the  north 
of  this,  but  they  were  cramped  in  their  limits  by  the 
presence  of  Canaanite  fortresses  in  the  rich  plain  of 
Esdraelon,  which  they  coveted.  Assuming  that  Joshua, 
as  one  of  themselves,  would  not  refuse,  the  united 
*  House  of  Joseph,'  therefore,  asked  him  to  let  the  other 
tribes  help  them  to  drive  out  the  enemy.  But  he  was 
less  pliable  than  they  had  hoped.  "  The  hill  country  is 
not  enough  for  us,''  said  they,  "  and  all  the  Canaanites 
that  dwell  in  the  valley-land  have  chariots  of  iron, 
both  they  of  Bethshean  (in  the  rich  Jordan  depression, 
east  of  Gilboa)  and  her  towns,  and  they  who  are  of 
the  plain  of  Esdraelon."  "  Thou  art  a  great  people," 
replied  the  hoary  leader,  with  subdued  irony,  '^  and  hast 
great  power;  thou  shalt  not  have  one  lot  only.  The 
hill  country  shall  be  thine ;  it  is  now  forest,  but  thou 
shalt  cut  it  down;^  even  its  outlying  parts  shall  be 
thine ;  for  thou  shalt  drive  out  the  Canaanites,  though 
they  have  iron  chariots,  and  though  they  be  strong."^ 
Disappointed,  thus,  in  their  selfish  schemes,  they  con- 
tented themselves  with  what  they  had  received. 

The  breaking  up  of  the  great  camp  by  this  separation 

*  See  vol.  i.  p.  440. 

2  This  verse  seems  to  connect  the  destruction  of  the  forests  of 
Western  Palestine  with  the  Israelite  invasion.  But  the  loss  of 
the  trees  has  destroyed  the  water  supply,  to  the  permanent 
injury  of  the  country. 

*  Josh.  xvii.  16-18. 


THE  CONQUEST  OP  CANAAN.  423 

of  the  tribe  of  Josepli  from  it^  was  the  signal  for  the  rest 
to  take  similar  care  for  their  own  future.  Four  tribes 
turned  their  eyes  to  the  north,  and  four  to  the  south. 
Finding,  it  may  be,  the  land  northward  opened  to  them 
in  a  measure  by  the  victory  over  Jabin ;  the  former 
descended  into  Esdraelon,  and  pushed  their  way 
gradually  to  the  foot  of  Hermon.  Naphtali  and  Asher 
occupied,  between  them,  the  high  lands  stretching  from 
the  Jordan  to  the  Phenician  plain,  along  the  sea-coast, 
on  the  east  and  west;  the  portion  of  Asher  reaching 
from  Carmel  northwards,  and  that  of  Naphtali  bending 
upwards  from  the  south  of  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  to  meet  it. 
But  Asher  could  not,  any  more  than  Ephraim,  hold  his 
own  against  the  chariots  of  the  Canaanites,  and  was  soon 
contented  to  live  among  them,^  rejoicing  in  the  posses- 
sion of  some  of  the  richest  land  in  Palestine,  which 
yielded  the  oil  in  which  he  was  to  'Mip  his  foot,'^ 
the  "  bread,^^  which  was  to  be  "  fat,''  and  "  the  royal 
dainties,''  in  which  he  was  to  delight.  ^  Sinking  into 
purveyors  for  the  Phenician  cities,  they  soon  lost  their 
high  tone,  until  national  spirit  had  so  faded  away,  that 
when  Zebulon  and  Naphtali  ^^  jeoparded  their  lives  to  the 
death,"  in  the  struggle  against  Sisera,  Asher  cravenly 
sought  its  own  interests  in  the  havens  and  villages 
of  its  heathen  allies.^  Naphtali  held  the  interior  of 
Upper  Galilee,  with  its  lofty  heights,  from  one  of  which 
the  city  of  Safed*  looks  down,  at  an  elevation  of  2,700 

^  Jud.  i.  31,  32. 

2  Gen.  xlix.  20.     Deufc.  xxxiii.  24. 

3  Jud.  v.  17,  18.  For  the  crops  of  Asher's  district,  see 
Bohinson,  vol.  iii.  p.  102.  Kenrick's  Plienicia,  p  31.  Reland,  p, 
817.  The  Phenician  coast  cities,  Acre,  Sidoti  and  Tyre,  with  their 
vast  maritime  activity,  lay  at  the  foot  of  the  mountains  of  Asher. 

*  The  "  high  watch  tower."     8e;pp,  vol.  ii.  p.  201. 


424  THE  CONQUEST  OF  CANAAN. 

feet  above  the  sea.  E-icli  forests  still  clothe  the 
mountains,^  and  the  valleys  boast  of  soil  as  rich  as  any 
in  the  land.  Such  a  region  could  only  have  been 
conquered  or  held  by  a  brave-hearted  people,  and  this 
character  Naphtali  always  retained.  In  the  blessing 
of  Jacob,  the  tribe  is  compared  to  a  towering  terebinth, 
with  a  goodly  crest, ^  and  they  showed  themselves  at 
all  times  worthy  of  so  proud  a  symbol.  The  district 
obtained  by  Zebulon  ran  across  from  the  Kishon  to  the 
Jordan,  including  the  country  round  Nazareth,  and  the 
hills  on  the  north  side  of  Esdraelon.  It  enjoyed,  like 
Naphtali,  the  fisheries  of  the  sea  of  Galilee,  and  it  had 
also  the  agricultural  wealth  of  the  plain  of  El  Battauf, 
behind  Nazareth,  while,  fortunately  for  itself,  its  bounds 
did  not  reach  to  the  open  sweep  of  Esdraelon,  which 
was  beyond  all  parts  else  exposed  to  war.  Up  among 
the  hills,  it,  too,  like  Naphtali,  preserved  its  manly 
vigour,  and  bore  itself  nobly  in  the  struggle  for  free- 
dom, against  the  swarming  enemy  around.  The  tribe 
of  Issachar  had,  in  one  sense,  perhaps  the  finest  position 
iu  the  country — for  it  made  its  home  in  the  rich  plain 
of  Esdraelon.  But  it  was  able  to  do  so  only  at  the 
price  of  its  independence,  for  the  strong  Canaanite  city 
of  Acre  guarded  it  on  the  west,  and  that  of  Bethshean 
at  its  eastern  end,  while  the  fortresses  of  Taanach  and 
Harosheth  overlooked  it  from  spurs  of  the  southern 
hills.^     But  "he  saw  that  rest  was  good  and  the  land 

1  Van  de  Velde,  vol.  i.  p.  293. 

2  Ewald's  Gescliichte,  vol.  ii.  p.  380. 

3  Then,  as  now,  the  plain  itself  had  apparently  no  towns  ;  the 
terrors  of  Arab  inroads  driving  the  settled  population  to  the 
shelter  of  the  hills  north  and  south.  The  plain  was  no  doubt 
tilled  throughout,  but  the  homes  of  the  people  were  chiefly  on 
the  neighbouring  heights. 


THE  CONQUEST  OF  CANAAN.  425 

pleasant,  and  lie  bowed  Ms  back  to  bear_,  and  became 
a  slave  to  tribute."  The  blessing  of  Jacob  rightly 
described  him,  as  '^  a.  strong  boned  he-ass" — the  heavy 
beast  for  the  field,  not  that  for  the  pad — ^^  couching 
down  between  two  hedgerows,"^  resting  in  dull  quiet 
and  ease.  From  the  first,  the  tribe  fell  back  from  its 
manhood,  and  it  bore  only  a  very  subordinate  part  in 
the  future  history  of  the  nation.  ^ 

The  remaining  tribes  sought  homes  in  the  south,  with 
more  or  less  mutual  help,  but  without  any  organized 
support  of  the  whole  people.  The  small  tribe  of  Ben- 
jamin,— a  client,  in  some  sense,  of  Ephraim,  and  only 
separated  from  it  in  sympathies  after  the  final  division 
of  the  kingdom  under  Eehoboam — obtained  a  confined 
but  fruitful  district  on  the  south  of  its  great  patron 
tribe ;  embracing  whatever  it  could  conquer  of  the 
space  between  Jerusalem  on  the  south,  and  Bethel  on 
the  north,  and  from  the  Jordan  to  the  west  side  of  the 
central  hills.  The  Gibeonites  and  their  connected 
towns  thus  lived  in  their  midst,  while,  on  the  south,  the 
Jebusites  held  the  strong  fortress,  hereafter  to  become 
Jerusalem.  But  the  bravery  and  vigour  of  the  tribe 
were  in  striking  contrast  to  its  numerical  weakness. 
Ephraim,  in  fact,  owed  to  it  much  of  its  military 
strength.  Always  ready  to  maintain  its  quarrels  by  its 
slingers  and  bowmen,  who  were  famous  for  their  skill 
and  courage,^  and  by  its  swordsmen,  who  were  noted  for 

»  Gen.  xlix.  15, 16. 

2  Graetz  thinks  that  the  battle  of  Merom  was  fought  only  by 
the  northern  tribes,  and  that  it  took  place  as  the  result  of 
NaphtaU  and  Asher  invading  the  territories  of  Jabin  and  his 
allies,  to  obtain  the  districts  allotted  them.  Geschichte,  vol.  i. 
p.  67. 

*  Gen.  xlix.  27.     Jud.  xx.  15.     1  Chron.  xii.  2. 


426  THE  CONQUEST  OP  CANAAN. 

equal  dexterity  in  the  use  of  tlieir  weapon  with  either 
hand,  it  was  pre-eminently  a  soldier  clan. 

The  great  tribe  of  Judah/  which,  at  the  conquest, 
boasted  more  fighting  men  than  Ephraim,  and  had  a 
higher  military  reputation,  early  entered  into  possession 
of  its  portion  of  the  land.  The  districts  assigned  to  the 
seven  smaller  tribes  were  fixed  by  lot,  after  their  limits 
had  been  determined  by  three  men  chosen  from  each, 
but  the  enjoyment  of  the  award  was  left  to  the  future, 
when  the  Canaanites  should  be  dispossessed,  which 
they  too  often  never  were.  With  Judah,  however,  the 
case  was  different.  Acting  independently,  like  Ephraim, 
it  at  once  invaded  the  territory  it  had  chosen,  though 
it  had  to  struggle  long  for  its  quiet  possession.  It 
seems  as  if  it  had  felt  itself  aggrieved  by  the  seizure 
of  the  richest  part  of  the  country  by  the  descendants  of 
Joseph,  and  had  withdrawn  as  far  as  possible  from  them. 
The  Kenites,^  who  were  not  only  allies  but  related  in 
blood,  had  already  settled  in  the  far  south,  on  the  edge  of 
the  desert,  and  it  appears  to  have  turned  to  them  to  find 
a  home  the  more  easily  by  their  help.  Jerusalem,  itself, 
fell  before  its  fierce  attack,  and  was  burned,^  but  only  to  be 
recovered,  after  a  short  time,  by  the  Jebusites,  in  whose 
hands  it  was  left  without  further  struggle.  But  though 
this  central  stronghold  was  lost,  Judah  still  held  the  land 
on  all  sides  of  it  except  the  north,  and  appears  even  to  have 
become  friendly  with  its  possessors.  The  limits  gained 
were  soon,  however,  too  strait,  and  had  to  be  widened  by 
successive  wars,  in  which  Simeon  lent  useful  aid.* 

1  The  tribe  of  Judah  was  known,  from  the  time  of  Isaiah,  as  the 
House  of  Jacob,  in  contrast  to  Ephraim  and  the  northern  tribes 
who,  as  has  been  noticed,  were  spoken  of  as  the  House  of  Joseph. 
Isa.  ii.  6,  6;  viii.  17  ;  xiv.  1,  etc. 

«  See  page  369.  ^  j^d.  i.  7,  8.  •♦  Jud.  i.  3. 


THE  CONQUEST  OP  CANAAN.  427 

The  first  conquest  in  these  tribal  campaigns  was  the 
town  and  district  of  Bezek,  in  the  Maritime  Plain^  south 
of  Lydda.  The  ferocious  boast  of  its  "  king  " — a  petty 
tyrant — that  he  had  overthrown  seventy  "kings,^^  and 
after  miserably  maiming  them,  had  let  them  gather 
their  meat  under  his  table,  throws  a  strong  light  on  the 
character  of  the  times.  The  sternness,  which  inflicted 
on  such  a  monster  the  misery  he  had  caused  to  so  many 
of  his  equals,  was  only  just  retribution.^ 

The  town  and  district  of  Hebron  fell  next  before  the 
fierce  invaders.  It  had  passed  again  into  the  power  of 
the  Canaanites  since  Joshua  had  taken  it,^  but  Caleb,  the 
the  only  other  survivor  of  the  spies  of  forty-five  years 
before,^  claimed  it,  at  once  on  the  ground  of  a  promise 
from  Moses  and  as  a  gift  from  Joshua.  He  had  passed 
through  it  in  his  dangerous  journey  as  a  spy,  when  in  his 
full  manly  strength,  but  he  eagerly  urged  that,  old  as 
he  was,  he  was  still  as  able  to  fight  as  when  at  his  best, 
and  demanded  to  lead  the  attacking  force.*  The  finest 
grapes  of  Palestine  grew  on  the  slopes  of  its  valley, 
and  it  was  specially  dear  to  the  Israelite,  as  the  site 
of  the  cave  of  Machpelah,  in  which  lay  the  bodies  of 
the  founders  of  the  race.  A  remnant  of  the  once 
dreaded  Anakim  held  it,  but  nothing  could  resist  the 
fierceness  and  determination  of  Caleb  and  his  men,  and 
the  town  and  district  passed  into  his  possession,  to 
become  henceforth  the  capital  of  the  southern  tribes, 
till  the  storming  of  Jebus,  in  the  time  of  David. 

Debir,  ^Hhe  oracle  town,^^  called,  formerly,  Kiriath 
Sepher,   "the   book  town,''^    about   three  miles  west  of 

^  The  Athenians  cut  off  the  thumbs  of  all  the  men  of  Egina 
who  fell  into  their  hands,  to  pieveiit  their  holding  the  lance 
again.     Valerius  Max.,  IX.  ii.  8. 

2  Josh.  X.  36,  37.  ^  Josh.  xiv.  6-15.  ■*  Josh.  xv.  14 


428  THE  CONQUEST  OF  CANAAN. 

Hebron,  next  invited  conquest,  and,  to  kindle  enthusiasm, 
the  hand  of  a  daughter  of  Caleb  was  offered  as  a  prize 
to  any  brave  leader  who  should  take  it.  Such  a  hero 
was  presently  found,  in  the  person  of  Othniel,  ''  the  Lion 
of  God^"  a  younger  brother  of  Caleb,^  and  Achsah  his 
niece  forthwith  became  his  bride.  But  the  new  con- 
quest lay  on  the  edge  of  the  Negeb,  outside  the  rich 
valley  of  Hebron,  and  the  prospect  of  such  an  inheritance 
did  not  please  the  damsel,  when  Othniel,  her  husband, 
led  her  home  to  it,  doubtless  with  a  great  cavalcade  of 
his  friends,  amidst  gladdening  music  ;2  Caleb  himself 
accompanying  the  procession,  to  do  the  young  pair 
honour.  Suddenly  alighting  from  her  ass,  as  if  some 
misfortune  had  befallen  her,  she  begged  her  father 
"  to  give  her  a  dowry ''  worthy  of  the  name,  "  for  you 
have  given  me  a  waterless  place ; ''  "  pray  give  me  the 
springs  of  water  "  yonder  "  as  well : ''  apparently  those 
which  gush  out  at  the  "  Carmel ''  of  Judah,  where  the 
fruitful  plain  of  Hebron  slopes  down  eastwardly  to  the 
less  favoured  Negeb.^ 

Zephath,  the  ancient  enemy  of  Israel,  was  now  also 
destroyed,  its  site  receiving  the  appropriate  name  of 
Hormah,  or  ^'  desolation/'  *  Gaza,  Askelon,  and  Ekron,^ 
strong  cities  on  the  rich  Maritime  Plain,  were  also,  like 
Jerusalem,  taken  and  held  for  a  time,  but  the  chariots 
of  the  Canaanites  made  them  untenable,  and  Judah  had 
to  retire  again  to  the  hills.  But  while  Asher  and  Naph- 
tali  had  to  guard  the  northern  marches,  Judah  was  safe 
on  the  southern  border,  protected  by  the  friendly  Kenites, 
descendants  of  Jethro's  tribe,  and  even  by  Arabs,  with 

^  Jud.  i.  13;  iii.  9.  1  Chron.  iv.  13.  Some,  however,  think  he 
was  Caleb's  nephew. 

2  Van  Lennep's  Bihle  Lands,  etc.,  p.  550. 

8  Wilton,  The  Negeh,  vol.  i.  p.  6.         ^  Jud.  i.  17.        ^  Jud.  i.  18. 


THE  CONQUEST  OF  CANAAN.  429 

wTiora  it  formed  alliances.^  On  the  west  t"he  lowland 
population  was  too  strong  for  it ;  on  the  east,  a  terrible 
wilderness  stretched  from  the  line  of  Jerusalem  to  the 
Dead  Sea.  Only  the  hill  country  between  remained, 
therefore,  to  the  tribe. 

Simeon  had  at  first  been  stronger  than  Judah,  but  soon 
decayed  under  the  adverse  influences  of  its  history.  Its 
lot  had  fallen  in  the  Negeb  or  South  Country,  embracing, 
in  a  wide  sweep,  all  the  land  between  the  Dead  Sea  and 
the  Mediterranean,  as  far  south  as  the  Wady  el  Arish,  or 
"  River  of  Egypt.-*^  At  first,  with  the  help  of  Judah,  it 
had  been  able  to  seize  some  of  the  rich  towns  in  the 
plains,  but  it  soon  lost  them,  and  had,  henceforth,  to  live 
under  the  protection  of  its  neighbour,  with  no  well  defined 
territory,  and  with  not  even  a  single  town  it  could  call 
its  own.  The  downs  that  had  fallen  to  its  lot  served 
for  pasturage  to  wandering  camps,  but  the  bulk  of  the 
tribe  lived  in  the  cities  of  Judah,  though  without  having 
any  voice  in  their  councils.  It  kept  its  distinctness, 
however,  as  late  as  the  times  of  David,  but  ultimately 
was  almost  entirely  lost  in  the  stronger  tribe. 

The  fortunes  of  Dan  were  even  harder  than  those  of 
Simeon.  Nominally,  its  territory  extended  from  the  west 
of  that  of  Ephraim  and  Benjamin,  to  the  sea-coast,  thus 
including  the  districts  of  the  cities  of  Lydda,  Ekron, 
Beth-Dagon,  and  Joppa;  but  though  it  overran  these  at 
first,  it  was  forced  back,^  ere  long,  into  the  hills,  where 
the  available  space  was  quite  inadequate  to  the  wants  of 
a  community  boasting  of  64,000  fighting  men.  Having 
no  patron  tribe  such  as  Simeon  or  Benjamin  enjoyed, 
it  seems  to  have  been  forced,  for  a  long  time,  to  lead  a 

*  Thus  Abigail,  David's  sister,  was  married  to  an  Ishmaelite. 
1  Chron.  ii.  17. 
2  Josh.  xix.  41.     Jud.  i.  34,  35.     1  Sam.  vii.  15. 


430  THE  CONQUEST  OF  CANAAN. 

carap  life,  crowded  together  in  a  spot  known,  even  in 
later  times,  as  the  "  Camp  of  Dan,^^^  near  Kiriath  Jearim, 
''the  forest  city,^'  a  few  miles  west  of  Jerusalem,  on  the 
confines  of  Benjamin  and  Judah.  Such  a  state  of  things, 
however,  was  soon  intolerable,  and  as  we  shall  hereafter 
have  to  notice  more  fully,  drove  a  number  of  the  Danites 
to  emigrate  to  the  north,  where  detached  Canaanite  com- 
munities offered  an  easy  prey.  Six  hundred  men,  there- 
fore, with  their  wives  and  children,  wandered  to  the  foot 
of  Mount  Hermon,  and  having  overcome  some  Sidonians 
living  there,  took  their  land,  which  was  of  extraordinary 
fertility,  and  changed  the  name  of  the  conquered  town 
from  Laish  to  Dan.^ 

The  tribe  of  Levi  having  been  separated  to  the  offices 
of  religion,  was  appointed  to  receive  its  support  from 
the  community  at  large,  and,  therefore,  had  no  distinct 
territory  assigned  it.  It  was  to  receive  the  tithes  of  the 
whole  produce  of  the  land,  from  which,  however,  it  was 
required  to  pay  a  tithe  to  the  priests,  in  acknowledgment 
of  their  higher  consecration.  Forty-eight  towns,  with 
a  circle  of  meadow  land  round  each,  for  the  pasturage 
of  its  flocks  and  herds  were,  however,  set  apart  for 
its  residence,  all  over  the  country,  that  its  services, 
required  in  many  ways,  might  be  everywhere  available. 
To  appoint  these  towns,  of  which  three  on  each  side  of 
the  Jordan  were  cities  of  refuge,  to  which  the  manslayer 
might  flee,  was  the  last  public  act  of  Joshua. 

It  would  seem,  from  what  has  been  said,  that  the  whole 
country  had  at  first  been  invaded,  and,  in  a  measure, 
conquered,  but  that  a  reaction  soon  began,  by  which  the 
Canaanites  speedily  recovered  themselves,  so  as  to  drive 
out  the  Israelites,  in  their  turn,  from  all  the  lowlands,  to 
the  difficult  mountain  heights  and  valleys.     It  must  thus 

1  Jud.  xiii.  25:  xviii.  12.       ^  josh.  xix.  47.    Jud.  xviii.  27-29. 


THE  CONQUEST  OF  CANAAN.  431 

have  required  many  years^  before  the  tribes  were  in  any 
measure  peaceably  in  possession  even  of  what  they  ulti- 
mately retained.^  The  Book  of  Judges^  indeed,  recalls  a 
slow  conquest,  like  that  by  which  the  old  English,  step 
by  step,  drove  back  the  native  British,  or  the  French 
gained  fast  hold  of  Algeria.  Without  cavalry  or  horses, 
the  Hebrews  might  overrun  the  country,  but  could  hold 
only  the  parts  capable  of  natural  defence,  and,  hence, 
Canaanite  strongholds  showed  themselves  permanently, 
like  islands,  in  every  direction,  above  the  flood  of  the 
intruding  population.  Yet  Israel  tenaciously  held  its 
ground,  and,  in  the  end,  overpowered  the  native  ele- 
ment ;  making  the  whole  country,  except  the  sea-coast, 
thoroughly  its  own.^  The  untrained  vigour  of  its  war- 
riors, however,  contrasted  with  the  developed  military 
skill  and  appliances  they  overcame,  only  intensified  the 
feeling,  that  they  were  indebted  for  their  triumph  to  a 
higher  than  human  power,  and  this  sentiment  continued 
vivid,  century  after  century. 

"O  God,"  [writes  a  Psalmist,]  "we  have  heard  with  our  ears, 
Our  forefathers  have  told  us, 
What  wonders  Thou  didst  in  their  day; 
In  the  days  of  old. 
How  Thou  didst  drive  out  and  uproot  the  heathen  with  Thy 

hand; 
How  Thou  didst  break  in  pieces  the  nations  and  cast  them  out. 
For  they  [Israel]  got  not  the  land  with  their  own  sword, 
Neither  did  their  own  arm  save  them: 
But  Thy  right  hand  and  Thine  arm, 

And  because  the  light  of  Thy  countenance  was  favourable  to 
them."  3 

»  Josh.  xvii.  15-18.     Jud.  i.  19,  34 

2  Deut.  xxxii.  13 ;  xxxiii.  29.     Ps.  xviii.  34.     Is.  Iviii.  14.     Hab. 
iii.  19. 
*  Ps.  xliv.    I  have  adopted  one  or  two  modifications  from  Graetz. 


432  THE  CONQUEST  OF  CANAAN. 

Gil  gal  continued  the  centre  of  tlie  nation  and  the  seat 
of  the  Tabernacle  and  of  the  Ark  as  long  as  the  country- 
was  still  disturbed;  the  Levites  and  the  high  priest 
naturally  fixing  their  dwelliugs  beside  the  sanctuary. 
It  thus  attained  a  measure  of  sacredness  which  long 
survived;  popular  assemblies  being  gathered  at  it,  and 
pilgrimages  made  to  it.^  But  its  position  was  unsuited 
as  a  permanent  capital,  and  hence,  as  soon  as  the  tribes 
separated  to  their  respective  territories,  the  Tabernacle 
was  removed  to  the  previously  insignificant  Shiloh,  a 
more  central  locality,  in  the  hills  of  Ephraim,  Joshua's 
tribe,  where  it  continued  for  centuries.^  Thus  the  reli- 
gious metropolis  was  distinct  from  the  political ;  Shiloh 
being  the  one  and  Shechem  the  other.  It  seems  strange 
that  Bethel — hallowed  by  so  many  memories  of  the 
patriarchs — should  not  have  been  chosen ;  but  there  are 
indications  of  a  long  struggle  for  that  spot,  again  and 
again  renewed,  which  rendered  it  unsafe  for  a  treasure 
so  sacred  as  the  Ark.^ 

The  great  war  of  conquest  being  ended,  Joshua  laid 
aside  his  office  and  retired  to  a  well-earned  retreat  at 
Timnath-serah,  in  his  own  tribe  of  Ephraim ;  ^  exercising 
henceforth  only  a  moral  power,  which  was  readily  acknow- 
ledged. But  his  retirement  was  the  beginning  of  a 
national  decline.  The  constitution  of  Israel  permitted 
no  king  or  ruler  except  in  war,  and  the  tribes  naturally 
reverted  more  and  more~to  a  simple  patriarchal  govern- 
ment, which,  though  favourable  to  the  development  of 
popular  liberty,  tended  to  isolation  and  weakness,  and 
made  energetic  and  prompt  action  at  any  time  difficult. 
The  determination  to  extend  their  limits  and,  at  the  same 

^  Hosea  iv.  15  ;  ix.  15  ;  xii.  12.    Amos  iv.  4 ;  v.  5. 

2  1  Sam.  i.  3.     Ps.  Ixxviii.  60,  68.     Jer.  vii.  12. 

3  Ewald,  vol.  ii.  p.  393.     "  Josh.  xix.  60. 


THE  CONQUEST  OF  CANAAN.  433 

time,  to  act  apart,  was  a  fruitful  source  of  danger,  nor 
could  the  same  vigorous  national  spirit,  or  the  same  high 
religious  tone  as  hitherto  be  maintained,  when  the  com- 
monwealth was  broken  up  into  fragments.  The  closing 
years  of  Joshua's  life  were  thus  like  the  waning  of  the 
moon,  in  which  darkness  grows  ever  deeper — a  darkness 
reflected  in  his  addresses  to  the  people,  urging  on  them, 
with  intense  earnestness,  the  necessity  of  honouring  the 
covenant  they  had  made  with  Jehovah  at  Mounts  Ebal 
and  Gerizim,  as  their  fathers  had  at  Sinai.  Shortly 
before  his  death,  indeed,  he  felt  it  necessary  to  make 
them  solemnly  renew  it,  and  raise  a  stone  memorial  of 
their  having  done  so.-^  At  last,  twenty-five  years  after 
crossing  the  Jordan,  he  died  at  his  own  inheritance,  full 
of  years  and  glory,  at  the  age  of  110,  and  the  light  of 
Israel  for  the  time  faded  away. 

It  was  left  to  the  investigations  of  our  own  day  to 
link  together  the  present  and  the  distant  past,  by  the 
discovery  of  what  seems  almost  beyond  question  to  be 
the  tomb  of  the  great  successor  of  Moses.  M.  Victor 
Guerin,  who  has  the  credit  of  this  striking  identification, 
writes  of  it  thus  :  ^  "  Two  hours  and  a  half  north-west  of 
of  Djufna,  the  ancient  Gophna,  are  the  ruins  of  Tibneh. 
They  cover  the  slopes  and  the  crest  of  a  hill  which  is 
surrounded  on  the  north  and  east  by  a  deep  ravine.  On 
the  south  side,  the  hill  sinks,  in  terraces,  to  a  valley 
formerly  covered  in  part  with  houses,  and  marked  by  a 
magnificent  evergreen  oak,  which  is  one  of  the  finest 
in  Palestine.  Advancing  still  south,  the  last  slopes  of 
a  hill  facing  Tibneh  are  met  :  their  rocky  sides  revealing 
several  tombs,  the  remains  of  an  ancient  necropolis.  On 
the  top  of  the  height  is  a  small  Mussulman  village,  with 

^  Josh.  xxiv.  26.  ^  In  a  note  read  by  him  at  the  Academie 
des  Inscriptions  et  Belles  Lettres,  28th  Oct.,  1864 

VOL.    II.  F    F 


434  THE  CONQUEST  OF  CANAAN. 

several  ancient  cisterns,  and  a  number  of  finely-cut 
stones  of  antique  masonry  built  into  the  modern  houses. 

*'  The  tombs  have  been  hewn  out  at  different  levels 
on  the  north  slopes  of  the  hill,  eight  being  more  notice- 
able than  the  rest.  One,  however,  is  much  the  most 
remarkable.  An  oblong  vestibule  cut  in  the  rock  is  sup- 
ported by  four  pillars,  two,  at  the  side,  half  separated 
from  the  hill :  the  others,  in  the  centre,  entirely  so. 
They  have  no  capitals,  and  are  ornamented  at  their  tops 
only  by  a  few  simple  mouldings.  Immediately  behind 
them,  the  face  of  the  rock,  forming  the  front  wall  of  the 
tomb,  is  pierced  by  no  fewer  than  288  small  openings,  in 
eight  rows ;  some  square,  some  triangular,  but  mostly  half- 
round.  At  the  right  side  of  this  rock  partition  is  the 
low  and  narrow  door  of  the  tomb,  leading  into  a  chamber 
with  fifteen  compartments,  of  which,  however,  only  four- 
teen have  been  intended  to  receive  the  dead.  The  place 
of  honour  in  this  pale  assembly  was  evidently  reserved  for 
the  occupant  of  a  small  chamber  facing  the  entry  :  the 
other  loculi  being  designed  for  members  of  his  family.''^ 

"A  first  sight  of  this  tomb  forces  the  conclusion  that  it 
was  intended  for  some  one  very  illustrious,  whose  place 
of  rest  was  honoured,  from  time  to  time,  with  solemn 
illuminations  by  lamps,  placed  in  the  multitude  of  small 
niches  in  the  vestibule.  It  is  not  rare  to  see  a  few  such 
in  the  interior  of  tombs,  but  there  is  no  other  instance  of 
provision  being  made  for  illumination  from  the  outside. 
No  one  can  be  fancied  as  reckoned  worthy  of  such 
honour  but  one  who  was  an  object  of  public  veneration, 
and  who  could  this  be  at  what  is  seemingly  beyond 
doubt  Timnath-serah — but  Joshua  ?  ^^  ^ 

'*  The  tomb  shows  marks  of  the  highest  antiquity,  for 
it  is  similar  to  those  made  by  the  Canaanites  for  them- 
1  M.  Guerin  here  goes  into  details  of  the  identification. 


THE  CONQUEST  OF  CANAAN.  435 

selves,  before  the  arrival  of  the  Hebrews  in  their  country. 
The  very  measures  used  in  its  construction  seem,  on  close 
examination,  to  be  the  old  Egyptian  system,  which  the 
Hebrews,  as  we  know,  brought  with  them  from  the  Nile/' 
In  1870,  moreover,  additional  confirmation  of  this 
being  really  the  tomb  of  Joshua,  was  obtained  from  a 
discovery  made  in  it  by  the  Abbe  Richard.  He  had  just 
explored  the  ruins  of  Gilgal,  where  Joshua  caused  the 
sons  of  Israel  to  be  circumcised  with  stone  knives,  and 
gathered  in  a  radius  of  a  few  kilometres,  after  so  many 
centuries,  a  large  number  of  small  flint  knives,  scattered 
over  the  ground,  and  sometimes  buried  in  it.  But  as  it 
is  said  in  our  Greek  Bible,  that  the  Israelites,  when  they 
interred  Joshua,  buried  with  him  the  flint  knives  which 
they  had  used  for  circumcision  at  Gilgal,  the  Abbe  deter- 
mined to  search  whether  any  such  knives  still  remained 
in  the  tomb  which  was  reputed  to  be  his,  at  Timneh — or 
Timnath-serah.  ^  Judge  of  his  delight,  then,  when  on  a 
visit  to  the  tomb,  in  company  with  a  priest  from  Jeru- 
salem and  the  sheik  of  the  village  El-Birzeit,  he  found 
in  it  a  great  number  of  flint  knives,  in  the  soil  of  the 
diff'erent  sepulchral  chambers.  ^ 

^  Two  passages  in  the  SeptuRgint  record  this.  1st.  Josh.  xxi. 
42,  "  And  they  gave  him  (Joshua)  the  city  which  he  had  asked — 
Thamnasarach,  in  Mount  Ephraim,  and  Joshua  built  the  city  and 
lived  in  it.  And  Joshua  took  the  knives  of  circumcision,  with 
which  he  had  circumcised  the  sons  of  Israel  on  the  journey  in  the 
desert,  and  laid  them  up  in  Thamnasarach."  2nd.  Chap.  xxiv. 
30,  "  And  they  buried  him  in  Thamnasarach  in  Mount  Ephraim, 
in  the  north  of  Mount  Galaad  (Gaas,  in  Jud.,  ii.  9).  And  they 
placed  by  him,  for  a  memorial,  the  stone  knives  with  which  he  had 
circumcised  the  sons  of  Israel  in  Gilgal  when  he  led  them  from 
Egypt  as  the  Lord  commanded.     And  they  are  there  to  this  day." 

2  Guerin,  Descrip.  de  la  Palestine;  8amarie,  vol.  ii.  pp.  100-102. 
See  also  Lieut.  Conder,  in  Pal.  Fund  Reports,  1878,  p.  22.  In 
Tent  Work,  p.  118,  however,  he  questions  the  identification. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

THE    TIME    OF    THE   JUDGES. 

MOSES  had  given  Israel  a  body  of  civil  and  religious 
law,  but  he  had  left  them  without  anything  equi- 
valent to  a  political  constitution.  His  great  aim  had  been 
to  establish  among  them  the  worship  of  Jehovah  as 
their  invisible  King  and  God,  so  firmly,  as  to  preclude 
the  possibility  of  their  falling  permanently  from  it.  He 
had  found  established  a  body  of  customs  and  laws, 
sanctioned  by  immemorial  usage  in  the  Hebrew  tribes 
and  other  branches  of  the  Arab  race,  who  were,  like  them- 
selves, descendants  of  Abraham, — and  had  necessarily 
adopted  these,  after  purifying  them  from  all  idolatrous 
taints  and  raising  them  in  their  details  to  as  high  a 
moral  tone  as  was  possible  in  such  an  age.^  But  he  had 
silently  omitted  any  reference  to  a  special  political  order ; 
his  only  allusion  to  a  possible  change  being  that,  if  kings 
were  hereafter  appointed,  they  should  avoid  having  great 
numbers  of  horses,  lest  it  should  promote  intercourse 
with  Egypt,  from  which  horses  were  mostly  obtained; 
that  in  the  pame  way  they  should  not  multiply  wives, 
lest  they  should  be  led  by  them  into  idolatry ;  and  that 
they  should  not  amass  great  treasures  of  silver  and  gold.^ 
Hence,  on  the  separation  of  the  tribes  to  their  respective 

1  Jer.  vii.  22.   Matt.  vi.  38.   Matt.  xix.  8. 

2  Deut.  xvii.  14-20, 

436 


THE  TIME  OP  THE  JUDGES.  437 

territories,  they  at  once  reverted  to  tlie  patriarchal  sim- 
plicity of  their  ancestors.  As  in  the  tents  of  Abraham, 
the  father  of  the  family  was  the  ruler,  and  his  authority 
passed  to  his  descendants  in  the  person  of  the  eldest 
son,  through  successive  generations.  Michaelis  fitly 
compares  this  primitive  organization  of  society,  which 
was  that  of  all  the  Arab  tribes,  as  well  as  of  the 
Hebrews,  to  the  clans  of  the  Scotch  Highlanders.^  It 
had  prevailed  in  the  slave  huts  of  Egypt,  and  survived 
to  the  time  of  Saul.  The  chiefs  of  the  tribe  and  of  its 
subordinate  sections,  in  due  limitation,  commanded,  and 
all  its  members  obeyed.  The  complicated  intricacy  of 
our  system  of  government  was  unknown,  and  would 
have  been  useless,  for  there  were  only  fathers  and 
children.  Not  only  had  the  Hebrews  no  diplomatic  rela- 
tions with  other  nations ;  they  had  neither  commerce  nor 
manufactures,  and  hardly  any  bond  existed  even  between 
the  different  tribes. 

There  was,  hence,  no  central  and  supreme  power, 
because  there  was  no  national  government  or  adminis- 
tration. Each  tribe  was  independent ;  all  the  local 
authorities  were  hereditary;  no  new  laws  were  made, 
for  those  of  Moses  were  final ;  there  were  no  public 
enterprises,  for  such  things  were  unknown.  There  were, 
in  fact,  strictly  speaking,  no  functionaries  to  appoint  or 
to  pay ;  no  public  exchequer ;  neither  taxes,  nor  duties, 
unless  the  tithe  payable  to  the  priests  and  Levites  be 
regarded  as  a  tax,  and  not,  rather,  as  a  quit  rent  imposed 
by  God  on  the  tribes,  in  return  for  their  enjoyment  of  the 
land,  and  ordered  by  Him  to  be  paid  to  His  represen- 
tatives who  had  had  only  some  towns  allowed  them. 

This    simplicity    in    social    organization    characterized 
private  life  no  less  than  public.    As  each  village  was  self- 
*  Mosaisches  Becht,  vol.  i.  §  xlvi.  p.  262. 


438  THE  TIME  OF  THE  JUDGES. 

complete  and  independent,  except  in  its  shadowy  rela- 
tion to  the  chief  of  the  tribe,  so  each  family  had  within 
itself  nearly  all  it  required.  Much  that  seems  indispens- 
able to  us  was  as  unknown  and  useless  as  it  is  to 
the  Bedouin  of  to-day.  Of  our  artificial  tastes,  our 
refinements  of  luxury  and  of  the  table,  the  Hebrews 
knew  nothing.  There  was  no  working  class  among  them ; 
and  only  here  and  there  the  few  crafts  needed  for  their 
elementary  wants.  All  lived  on  the  produce  of  the 
field  or  flock.  The  wheat  had  been  grown  by  the  house- 
holder himself;  the  flesh  and  milk  of  his  sheep  or  goats 
and  the  fruit  of  his  vine,  or  fig-tree,  were  his  constant 
food.  His  clothes  were  spun,  woven  and  sewed  by  the 
women  of  the  household,  and  they  baked  his  bread  and 
cooked  his  meals ;  there  were  no  arts  or  trades,  neither 
shoemakers,  bakers,  grocers  nor  butchers ;  ouly  farmers 
and  shepherds.  Commerce  was  limited  to  an  occasional 
exchange  of  the  produce  of  the  land,  or  of  the  flock,  with 
the  busy  Phenicians  or  with  passing  caravans,  for  some 
rich  cloth  or  jewels,  or  for  arms,  or  articles  of  utility. 
The  community  was  as  independent  in  the  wants  of  life 
as  in  government. 

Nor  were  there  any  special  arrangements  such  as  we 
have,  to  maintain  peace  and  order.  There  were  neither 
judges  to  dispense  justice,  police  to  guard  the  laws,  nor 
court  houses  for  the  trial  of  off'enders.  The  elders  of 
each  petty  community  decided  cases  at  the  gate  of  the 
village  or  town,  and  the  execution  of  their  sentences 
was  carried  out  by  those  interested,  without  the  inter- 
vention of  public  oflficers.  In  the  same  way  private 
transactions  were  settled  at  the  gate,  without  lawyers  and 
without  writing,  but  before  the  inhabitants,  who  served 
as  witnesses.^ 

1  Gen.  xxiii.  3  ff.     Ruth  iv.  1  ff.     See  vol.  i.  p.  403. 


THE  TIME  OP  THE  JUDGES.  439 

In  only  two  cases  was  a  higher  authority  than  the 
heads  of  families  or  clans  felt  to  be  needed :  in  difficult 
legal  questions^  and  in  the  event  of  war.  For  the  first  of 
these  Moses  had  provided,  but  nothing  had  been  deter- 
mined as  regarded  the  other. 

If  the  elders  could  not  settle  any  special  dispute,  or 
if  their  decision  were  questioned,  recourse  was  to  be  had 
to  the  priests ;  ^  the  only  rule,  in  the  Mosaic  legislation, 
which  in  any  measure  bound  the  whole  nation  together 
in  their  civil  relations.  But,  as  has  been  said,  no 
provision  was  made  in  reference  to  war.  There  was  no 
standing  army,  and  the  endless  subdivision  of  the  com- 
munity into  independent  fragments  made  one,  in  our 
sense,  impossible.  Professional'  soldiers,  in  fact,  did 
not  exist,  nor  was  there  any  disciplined  force  whatever. 
If  the  country  were  invaded,  each  man  armed  himself 
as  he  could,  and  followed  the  head  of  his  village,  who 
led  his  contingent  to  the  rallying  place  of  the  clan; 
perhaps  at  some  point  where  all  the  other  clans  of  the 
same  tribe  were  to  meet;  but  in  such  hasty  gather- 
ings, when  those  only  who  chose  assembled,  there 
was  neither  gradation  of  rank  nor  any  military  order. 
Organized  battalions,  payment  of  troops,  uniform,  com- 
missariat, or  strategy  wei'e  alike  unknown.  Force  or 
surprise  were  the  only  military  conceptions.  Each  man 
supplied  his  own  food,^  or  got  it  by  plunder,  or  by  a 
requisition  of  the  band  on  some  town  or  individual.^ 
There  was  no  provision  for  any  lengthened  campaign, 
such  as  our  ancient  militia  undertook  in  our  civil  wars 
or  in  France,  and  hence  there  could  be  nothing  more 
than  mere  raids  or  forays,  like  those  of  the  Bedouins  of 
to-day;  swift  marches,  ending  in  an  attack  or  surprise, 

1  Deut.  xvii.  8-12.  2  1  Sam.  xvii.  17. 

^  Jud.  viii.  5.     1  Sara.  xxv.  11. 


440  THE    TIME    OF    THE    JUDGES. 

followed  by  a  dispersion  of  the  force  to  their  respective 
homes. 

In  such  an  utter  disintegration  of  the  community,  no 
one,  in  ordinary  times,  could  claim  the  chief  authority, 
and  each  individual  did  '^what  was  right  in  his  own 
ejes."  ^  Patriotism,  in  a  large  sense,  could  scarcely 
exist,  where  each  village  was  entirely  self-governing,  and 
absorbed  the  interests  of  its  population.  It  was  only 
when  oppression  had  become  unendurable,  that  some 
spirit  nobler  than  the  crowd,  raising  a  cry  for  united 
action  against  the  enemy,  was  able  to  rouse  his  neigh- 
bourhood, or  perhaps  a  large  district,  to  common  action, 
in  which  he,  necessarily,  was  the  leader.  Such  a  hero 
was  forthwith  accepted  as  a  "  Judge/'  though  he  was 
rather  a  military  leader;  the  peculiar  title  rising  doubtless 
from  the  constant  union  of  supreme  judicial  authority,  in 
the  East,  with  the  highest  power.  But  those  only  who 
pleased  gathered  round  him,  under  the  immediate  leader- 
ship of  their  own  chiefs  of  villages,  clans,  and  tribes.^ 
His  power  over  such  volunteers  depended,  moreover,  on 
their  pleasure  or  on  his  skill  in  the  management  of  men. 
If  victorious,  he  could  speak  as  a  master,  but  before  the 
battle  he  could  do  little  more  than  persuade.^  Even  this 
authority,  moreover,  passed  away  with  the  public  danger ; 
for  the  momentary  union  of  the  people  at  large  ceased 
when  no  longer  necessary,  and  all,  including  the  liberator 
himself,  returned  to  their  homes  and  their  private  affairs. 
The  judge  no  longer  ruled,  because,  except  in  times  of 
war,  there  were  no  public  interests  to  protect  or  advance. 
Yet  he  could  hardly  be  said  to  sink  into  private  life,  for 
his  fame  commanded  respect  and  guaranteed  peace,  and 
he  was  naturally  consulted  in  cases  of  difficulty,  as  one 
whose  wisdom  or  influence  claimed  recognition.  But  he 
1  Jud.  xviii.  6.        ^  j^^.  v.  2,  9.        ^  j^^^  i  3.  ^^i  15.1 7^ 


THE  TIME  OP  THE  JUDGES.  441 

had  no  defined  authority  and  was  only  the  first  and  most 
honoured  citizen  of  the  community.^ 

In  the  early  ages  of  the  Hebrew  settlement  in  Pales- 
tine the  popular  aversion  to  the  authority  of  any  one 
individual  over  the  nation  was  universal  and  profound. 
So  accustomed  were  they  to  simple  patriarchal  forms, 
that  even  Joshua,  after  the  conquest  and  division  of  the 
land — notwithstanding  the  exceptional  position  he  had 
held  as  their  divinely  appointed  head — retired  to  his 
inheritance  at  Timnath-serah,  appointing  no  successor 
to  his  dignities,  and  claiming  no  rank  for  his  family,  but 
spending  his  closing  years  in  modest  privacy,  occupied 
only  with  his  personal  aS'airs.  Henceforth,  indeed,  we 
find  him  claiming  no  higher  authority  over  the  tribes 
than  to  gather  them  together  after  the  lapse  of  years,^ 
when  his  end  was  approaching,  to  remind  them  of  the 
benefits  with  which  God  had  loaded  them,  and  to  induce 
them  to  renew  their  covenant  with  Him.  Nor  was  this 
dislike  to  central  authority  easily  overcome  even  by  the 
experience  of  ages  of  trouble,  caused  by  disunion  and 
consequent  weakness.  When  the  tribes  chose  Saul  as 
king,  the  hereditary  Arab  instincts  were  still  so  strong, 
that  he  himself  saw  at  first  no  more  in  his  new 
dignity,  than  that  of  chief  of  the  army  sent  against 
Ammon,  and  took  for  granted,  when  the  war  was  over, 
that  he  should  return  to  his  plough  and  his  fields.^ 
During  the  first  year  of  his  reign,  indeed,  he  was  more 
a  "  Judge  '^  than  a  king,  for  he  had  neither  a  permanent 
force,  nor  an  administration,  nor  royal  revenues,  nor  a 
capital,  and  exercised,  in  fact,  no  other  functions  than  to 
defend  the  country  against  its  enemies.  It  was  long 
before   he   had   a   rude    court,   and   the   nucleus  of  his 

^  Vigouroux,  vol.  iii.  pp.  47,  48.        ^  Josh,  xxiii.  1,  see  p.  432. 
*  1  Sam.  X.  26 :  xi.  6. 


442  THE  TIME  OP  THE  JUDGES. 

army  was  only  slowly  formed  as  the  community  passed, 
by  imperceptible  degrees,  from  patriarchal  government 
to  that  of  royalty.  Nor  do  the  exceptional  cases  of 
Jephthah  and  Gideon,  in  one  of  which  power  for  life 
was  demanded,  and  in  the  other  offered,  form  any  real 
contradiction  to  this  characteristic.^  Public  opinion  in 
the  days  of  those  heroes  was  slowly  coming  round  to 
favour  centralization,  but  still  wavered  till  the  days  of 
Saul. 

It  must  not  be  thought,  moreover,  that  the  Judges 
ruled  over  all  the  tribes,  at  least  till  the  time  of  Eli  and 
Samuel.  Their  office  was  strictly  military,  for  their 
very  name  in  Hebrew — Sofetim — means  ''saviours'^  or 
'liberators."  None  of  them,  except  Othniel,  seems  to 
have  ruled  over  Judah  and  Simeon.  Deborah  is  the 
heroine  and  prophetess  only  of  the  northern  tribes. 
Gideon  is  the  liberator  of  the  centre  of  Palestine : 
Jephthah,  of  the  districts  beyond  the  Jordan,  and  Samson 
does  not  appear  to  have  had  authority  over  even  his 
own  tribe  of  Dan,  but  appears  as  Judge  only  in  virtue 
of  his  personal  exploits.^ 

To  such  a  primitive  condition  of  society,  the  calamities 
are,  no  doubt,  to  be  attributed,  which  so  often  led  to  the 
rise  of  dictators,  in  the  person  of  successive  "Judges/' 
The  tribes,  which  were  too  weak  to  resist  oppression 
when  they  acted  singly,  would  have  been  too  strong  to 
attack  had  they  been  united.  But  the  long  retention  of 
their  Arab  fondness  for  patriarchal  government  was  not 
without  its  wise  purpose  in  the  arrangements  of  Provi- 
dence. Their  religious  development  demanded  isolation 
from  their  neighbours,  and  was  secured,  among  other 
means,  by  their  being  placed  in  a  country  secluded  from 

1  Jud.  viii.  22 ;  xi.  9. 

»  Jud.  XV.  10-13.    Ewald,  Gesch.,  vol.  ii.  pp.  615,  616. 


THE  TIME  OP  THE  JUDGES.  443 

tlie  outer  world  by  the  desert  on  the  south  and  east ;  by 
their  forced  restriction  to  the  mountain  districts,  cut  off 
from  the  Mediterranean  by  the  rich  maritime  plains  on 
the  west;  and  by  their  being  shut  in  on  the  north  by  the 
barrier  of  the  Lebanon  range.  They  were  thus  guarded, 
as  far  as  possible,  from  intercourse  with  the  heathen 
around  the  tn,  and  had  only  to  blame  their  own  supineness 
for  isolated  remains  of  idolatry  having  been  left  in  their 
midst,  through  their  failure  in  carrying  out  euergetically 
the  command  of  God  to  sweep  the  land  clear  of  it,  while 
the  enthusiasm  of  their  first  attack  was  still  at  its  height, 
and  dread  of  them  paralyzed  resistance.  Bat,  not  con- 
tented with  even  such  care  to  protect  them  from  corrupt- 
ing influences,  God  had  specially  discountenanced  their 
having  a  monarchy  like  that  of  the  nations  round ;  ^  He, 
Himself,  promising  to  be  their  Strength  and  Deliverer, 
and  even  proclaiming  Himself  expressly  their  King.^ 
Nothing  could  impress  on  them  more  vividly  this 
dependence  on  Him,  than  their  helplessness  against  their 
enemies  when  they  forsook  Him,  and  their  repeated 
deliverance  by  instruments  whom  He  raised  up  when  they 
once  more  penitently  sought  His  aid.  It  was,  moreover, 
a  great  safeguard  to  them  that  they  escaped  the  corrupt- 
ing influence  of  a  strong  central  power  which,  in  all 
probability,  would  have  favoured  idolatry.  Even  when 
they  at  last  adopted  monarchy,  their  kings,  as  a  rule, 
set  the  example  of  apostasy,  for  only  three  or  four,  out 
of  more  than  forty  who  reigned  over  Judah  or  Israel, 
remained  true  to  Jehovah,  and  the  fashion  thus  set  by 
a  court  naturally  spread  through  the  whole  land.  The 
isolation  of  patriarchal  government,  on  the  other  hand, 

^  Exod.  XV.  18 ;  xviii.  19,    Deub.  xxxiii.  3.    Jud.  viii.  23.    1  Sam, 
viii.  7  ff. 
2  1  Sam.  X.  19;  xii.  12. 


4i4  THE    TIME    OF    THE    JUDGES. 

limited  religious  defection  to  restricted  areas,  and  made 
it  possible  for  the  people  to  recover  themselves  from  it, 
again  and  again,  by  the  healthy  influence  of  neighbour- 
iug  districts  still  true  to  the  ancient  faith. 

The  religion  of  the  Canaanites  was  a  terrible  snare 
for  a  people  whose  fathers  had  lived  amidst  the  pompous 
idolatry  of  the  Nile,  and  who,  themselves,  had  to  learn, 
and  act  upon,  the  lofty  doctrines  of  a  spiritual  religion 
wholly  incomprehensible  to  the  heathen  world  around 
them.  To  the  simple  mind  of  these  early  ages,  the 
sublimity  of  the  doctrines  taught  by  Moses  was  so  far  in 
advance  of  current  ideas,  that  it  was  dark  by  its  very 
excess  of  light.  It  is  difficult,  moreover,  to  rise  to  any 
extent  above  the  universal  belief  and  modes  of  thought 
of  an  age,  especially  when  they  are  based  on  the  ignorant 
simplicity  and  moral  obliquity  from  which  idolatry  has 
its  rise.  The  system  prevailing  in  Canaan  was  in  reality 
ODly  the  worship  of  natural  phenomena  wrongly  ex- 
plained, and  perverted  to  the  sanction  of  the  grossest 
impurity  aud  cruelty.  Yet  it  reigned  over  all  Western 
Asia,  in  spite  of  its  revolting  characteristics,  through  the 
instinctive  craving,  common  to  all  ages,  for  material  and 
visible  embodiments  of  religious  ideas,  and  must  have 
been  terribly  seductive  to  a  people  to  whom  these  were 
rigidly  denied.  But  above  all,  the  contrast  between  the 
noble  purity  of  the  religion  of  Moses,  and  the  license 
given  to  the  sensual  passions  by  that  of  Palestine,  must 
have  appealed  with  terrible  force  to  all  but  the  loftiest 
spirits.  While  we  may  blame  Israel,  therefore,  for  its 
repeated  falls,  the  blame  may  well  be  mingled  with  pity. 

The  chief  god  of  the  Canaanites  was  Baal — the  Sun, 
who  was  worshipped  under  diSerent  names.  In  one 
part  he  was  Moloch,  in  another  Chemosh,  but  his  worship 
was  everywhere  alike  fierce   and   cruel.      His    consort. 


THE  TIME  OP  THE  JUDGES.  445 

Astarte,  or  Ashtoreth,  tlie  Moon  and  the  planet  Yenus, 
had  abominations  peculiar  to  her  worship.  But  a  detailed 
description  of  the  local  idolatry,  as  a  whole,  will  be  more 
appropriate  hereafter.  The  influence  it  exerted  on  Israel 
was  very  hurtful  even  in  the  times  of  the  Judges,  though 
it  seems  chiefly  to  have  affected  those  portions  of  the 
people  who  came  into  contact  with  the  native  population 
in  their  isolated  communities  here  and  there,  or  in  their 
cities  on  the  sea-coast.  The  bulk  of  the  nation,  living 
quietly  in  their  upland  valleys,  and  shut  off  from  com- 
munication with  strangers,  appear  rather  to  have  fallen 
into  neglect  of  rehgion  than  to  have  adopted  that  of 
their  neighbours.  The  grand  success  of  the  reformation 
achieved  by  Samuel,  and  such  glimpses  of  Hebrew  life  as 
are  given  in  the  Book  of  Ruth,  seem  to  imply,  that  as  a 
whole,  there  was  always  a  latent  religious  life  in  the  mass 
of  the  people,  needing  only  to  be  roused  and  purified. 
It  was  not  till  the  later  days  of  the  Kings  that  idolatry 
gained  a  strong  footing  in  Israel  at  large.  Through 
the  whole  time  of  the  Judges  it  only  required  that 
the  slumbering  sensibility  of  the  multitude  should  be 
appealed  to  in  times  of  public  excitement,  to  kindle  the 
grandest  zeal  for  Jehovah.  So  it  was  under  Deborah, 
and  Gideon,  to  mention  no  others,  and  so  it  continued 
for  centuries  later. 

The  want  of  a  leader  after  Joshua's  death,  and  the 
breaking  up  of  the  tribes  into  separate  communities, 
naturally  checked  the  career  of  conquest,  for  the  strength 
of  individual  tribes  was  unequal  to  the  lasting  subjugation 
of  the  Canaanites  in  their  respective  bounds.  Gradually, 
therefore,  the  sword  was  sheathed,  and  friendly  relations 
sought  with  those  whom  they  had  been  commissioned  to 
drive  out  of  the  land.  Nor  were  the  Phenicians  and 
other  Canaanite  peoples  displeased  with  a  condition  of 


446  THE    TIME    OF   THE    JUDGES. 

things  whicli  left  fbe  caravan  roads  open  for  tlie  com- 
merce to  which,  they  were  devoted.  The  conquerors 
were,  in  fact,  being  gradually  conquered  in  their  turn, 
by  too  close  intimacy  with  their  heathen  neighbours.  The 
language  of  the  Hebrews  was  almost,  if  not  quite,  the 
same  as  theirs,^  and  there  was  not  a  little  in  some  of 
their  modes  of  thought  and  expression  in  religious  matters 
that  sounded  very  like  those  familiar  in  Israel.  The 
Moabite  stone  speaks  of  Chemosh  as  "  saving  ^'  the  king 
"  from  all  his  enemies,  and  giving  him  his  desire  on  all 
them  that  hated  him.'''  ^  He  is  said  "to  be  angry  with 
Moab,"  as  Jehovah  is  spoken  of  as  being  "  angry  with 
Israel,'^  ^  and  national  calamities  are  directly  ascribed  to 
this.  He  is  described  as  commanding  King  Mesha  to 
"  go  up  against  Israel,^'  as  Israel  is  required  by  Jehovah 
to  "  go  up  against  the  Canaanites.'^  *  Baal  and  Astarte, 
in  their  multiplied  local  titles,  would  doubtless  be  re- 
garded as  only  different  presentations  of  the  same  God — 
*^  the  Creator  of  the  Universe."  The  very  names  given 
to  children  by  Israelite  and  Canaanite  mothers  were  often 
strangely  alike.  Both  had  Eleazar,  "  God  has  helped,^' 
and  Nathanael,  "  God  has  given.''  If  Jonathan  meant 
"  Jehovah  has  given,"  Baaljothan  was  its  equivalent  in 
the  language  of  the  country.  The  Hebrew  name  Han- 
niel,  "  the  favour  of  God,"  had  its  counterpart  in  Han- 
nibal, "the  favour  of  Baal."  With  so  much  in  common, 
especially  the  use  of  the  same  language,  it  seems  less 
strange  that  some  of  the   Hebrews    should   so   readily 

*  Thus  Rahab  speaks  freely  with  the  spies,  and  we  never  hear 
of  any  difficulty  afterwards.  The  Hebrews  Lad  adopted  "the 
language  of  Canaan,"  as  long  ago  as  Abraham's  day,  and  had 
abandoned  the  use  of  their  native  Aramaic.     See  vol.  i.  p.  381. 

2  See  Ps.  liv.  7  ;  lix.  10  ;  xcii.  11. 

»  2  Kings  xvii.  18.  ^  Jud.  i.  2. 


THE    TIME    OP   THE    JUDGES.  447 

have  grafted  the  heathenism  around  on  the  worship  of 
Jehovah,  especially  as  the  Levitical  system  was  evidently 
much  in  abeyance  for  the  first  centuries  after  the 
conquest.  Altars  of  Baal,  or  Ash  tore  th,  moreover,  were 
numerous  on  every  side — on  the  hill  tops,  and  on  artificial 
mounds ;  ^  in  groves  on  the  hill  slopes  ;  under  green  trees 
elsewhere ;  in  valleys ;  at  the  gates  and  market-places  of 
the  towns,  and  on  the  flat  house-tops  j^  while  their  temples 
adorned  every  considerable  place.  To  minds  alive  to  the 
lofty  purity  and  spirituality  of  the  Hebrew  religion  there 
might,  indeed,  be  no  danger  of  confounding  it  with  the 
materialism  and  grossness  of  Canaanite  idolatry.  But  when 
we  remember  how  many,  even  in  our  own  age,  think  they 
can  reconcile  a  pantheistic  confusion  of  God  and  nature, 
"with  a  profession  of  Christianity,  it  is  less  to  be  wondered 
at  that  the  ignorant  and  simple  of  such  a  remote  age — 
married  as  many  of  them  were  to  Canaanite  wives  devoted 
to  Ashtoreth — should  have  made  a  fatal  compromise 
between  the  worship  of  Baal,  the  Sun-god,  the  "  Lord  of 
all,"  and  Jehovah.  Their  fathers  had  accepted  even  so 
gross  a  symbol  of  the  true  God,  as  the  golden  calf. 

The  craving  for  quiet  to  enjoy  the  rich  inheritance  on 
which  they  had  entered,  must,  also,  have  tended  greatly 
to  lower  the  tone  of  feeling  in  Israel.  The  long  wilder- 
ness life  gave  an  unspeakable  relish  to  the  comforts  of 
a  settled  home  ;  especially  in  a  community  that  had  so 
entirely  abandoned  the  Arab  tastes  of  their  fathers  in 
this  respect,  that  even  after  forty  years  in  the  desert  they 
were  eager  to  have  fixed  abodes  instead  of  moving  tents. 
This  selfish  love  of  ease,  indeed,  often  left  neighbouring 
tribes  unaided  in  their  struggle  with  native  or  foreign 
enemies.     Familiar  relations  were  cultivated  with  their 

*  1  Kings  xi.  7.     2  Chron.  xxxiii.  19.     Eivald,  vol.  iii.  p.  418. 

*  Deut.  xii.  2.     Jer.  vii.  31 ;  xi.  13;  xxxii.  39. 


448  THE  TIME  OP  THE  JUDGES. 

neiglibours,  and  intermarriages  became  common ;  Israel- 
ites taking  Canaanite  wives,  and  giving  their  daughters 
to  Canaanite  husbands.^  Sucb  mixed  marriages  doubt- 
less were  more  frequent  in  the  border  districts,  to  which 
peace  was  vital ;  but  what  part  had  not  native  com- 
munities within  its  own  bounds  ?  Asher,  Naphtali, 
Zebulon,  and  especially  Issachar,  living  as  it  did  on 
Esdraelon,  almost  as  subjects  of  the  Canaanites,  may 
have  been  more  exposed  than  some  others  to  this  dan- 
ger; but  Ephraim  and  Manasseh  must  have  had  constant 
intercourse  with  the  Canaanites  of  the  plain  of  Sharon ; 
and  the  heathen  Jebusites^  held  Jerusalem,  in  the  terri- 
tory of  Benjamin.  In  Dan,  we  find  Samson  taking  a 
Philistine  wife;  and  in  Judah,  Absalom's  general,  Amasa, 
far  later,  was  the  son  of  an  Ishmaelite  and  a  Hebrew 
woman.^  David  himself,  indeed,  married  the  daughter 
of  Talmai,  the  chief  of  Geshur,  on  the  north-east  of 
Bashan ;  and  these  must  only  have  been  illustrations  of 
an  ordinary  rule.  But  in  the  tribes  beyond  the  Jordan, 
with  their  exceptional  preference  of  Arab  tent-life,  inter- 
marriages with  the  daughters  of  Moab  and  Ammon  were, 
doubtless,  very  common ;  related  as  these  peoples  were 
to  them  in  blood.  Levi  appears  to  have  kept  itself 
purest,  but  even  in  it,  Moses,  himself,  had  set  the 
example  by  marrying  a  Cushite  wife,  and  it  may  be 
taken  for  granted  that  each  of  the  tribes  had  among 
them  numerous  children  of  the  foreign  multitude  who 
had  come  with  their  fathers  from  Egypt. 

From  intermarriage  with  the  heathen  to  taking  part 
in  their  idolatrous  worship  was  only  a  step.  The  Canaan- 
ites had  already  holy  places  for  sacrifice  or  pilgrimage,  to 

1  Jud.  iii.  6. 

*  Jebusites  =  Treaders  under  foot.     LengerJce, 

«  2  Sam.  xvii.  25.     1  Chron.  ii.  17. 


THE    TIME    OF    THE    JUDGES.  449 

whicli  were  attached  legends  powerful  in  their  influence 
over  ignorant  minds.  Some  of  the  hills  and  valleys  on 
the  bounds  of  Israel  had  long  been  held  sacred.  Mount 
Carmel  had  for  ages  been  the  seat  of  one  oracle/  and 
Mount  Tabor  boasted  another.^  At  the  pool  of  Hermon 
was  the  famous  temple  of  Baal  Gad — the  god  of  good 
fortune.  Bethel,  in  Benjamin,  was  an  ancient  sanctuary 
and  a  place  of  pilgrimage.^  Possibly  the  ahens  who 
had  come  up  with  Israel  from  Egypt  may  have  favoured 
these  places  first;  but,  if  so,  they  soon  found  many  to 
follow  them.  Hence  Jehovah-worship  was  merged,  at 
least  here  and  there,  in  the  prevailing  idolatry.  "  They 
served  the  idols  (of  the  Canaanites).  Yea,  they  sacri- 
ficed their  sons  and  their  daughters  to  Shedim  (ox- 
gods),*  and  shed  innocent  blood,  even  the  blood  of  their 
sons  and  daughters,  whom  they  sacrificed  to  the  idols 
of  Canaan,  and  the  land  was  polluted  with  blood.''^  ^ 

The  Sanctuary  at  Shiloh,  where  priests  and  Levites 
ministered,  was  remote  from  many  of  the  tribes,  and  lay, 
besides,  in  the  territory  of  Ephraim ;  a  people  disliked 
for  their  pride  and  selfishness.  In  the  general  anarchy 
of  tribal  division  and  patriarchal  rule,  private  altars  were 
erected  by  individuals.  The  Levites,  who  should  have 
settled  as  the  public  teachers  of  religion  in  their  own 
cities,  were  inadequately  provided  for,  and  had  to  wander 
whither  they  could  for  a  living.  The  story  of  Micah 
illustrates  the  age  in  this  and  other  particulars.  His 
house  stands  on  the  ridge  of  the  hills  of  Ephraim,  and  he 
has  dedicated  to  Jehovah  1,100  shekels  of  silver,  which 

^  Raumer,  PaldsUna,  p.  45. 
2  Movers,  vol.  i.  pp.  26,  671. 
^  Graetz,  vol.  i.  p.  101. 

^  Ges.  Lex.  8th  edition.     Baal  is  called  the  "  heifer  Baal "  in 
Tobit  i.  5.  5  ps^  cvi.  36-38. 

VOL.    II.  G   Q 


450  THE    TIME    OP   THE    JUDGES. 

he  presently  owns  lie  has  stolen,  for  the  purpose,  from  his 
mother.^  Both  then  concur  in  their  appropriation  to 
religious  uses,  such  as  their  ideas  dictate.  The  house 
becomes  almost  a  castle,^  and  a  chamber  in  it,  called 
"  a  House  of  God/'  is  set  apart  as  a  temple,  in  which  are 
set  up  two  silver  images,  one  sculptured  and  one  molten, 
clothed  in  a  mask  and  the  priestly  mantle  called  an 
ephod,  to  resemble  as  nearly  as  possible  the  Oracle  at 
Shiloh.^  No  Levite  being  available,  a  son  of  the  house 
is  installed  as  priest,  and  this  strange  medley  of  heathen- 
ism and  Jehovah-worship  forthwith  goes  on  with  all 
sincerity.  A  wandering  Levite,  however,  who  proves  to 
be  a  grandson  of  Moses,*  comes  to  Micah's  house,  from 
Bethlehem  Judah,  in  search  of  employment,  and  is 
appointed  priest  for  the  poor  reward  of  ten  silver  shekels 
a  year  and  a  suit  of  clothes. 

But,  ere  long,  the  tribe  of  Dan,  feeling  themselves 

*  Kobler  thinks  that  the  images  were  made  with  200  shekels  of 
the  stolen  money,  devoted  to  Jehovah  on  her  son  restoring  the 
1,100,  and  confessing  his  theft.     Lehrhucli,  vol.  ii.  p.  56. 

-  The  word  for  "  gate,"  Jud.  xviii.  16,  is  never  used  of  that  of  a 
house — always  of  that  of  the  enclosing  wall  of  a  town  or  fortress. 

3  Stanley's  Jewish  Church,  vol.  i.  p.  295.  Of  the  two  images  one, 
apparently  as  large  as  a  man  was  called  Tera'phim*  from  its  mask, 
and  Ephod,  from  its  mantle.  Such  images  were  used  as  Oracles 
(Zech.  X.  2),  and  as  appurtenances  of  public  worship  (Hos.  iii.  4) ; 
but  the  custom  was  finally  put  down  by  Josiah  (2  Kings  xxiii.  24). 
See  Ewald's  AUerthumer,  pp.  256-8. 

**  Jiid.  xviii.  30.  The  name  Moses  has  been  changed  by  the 
Babbis  to  Manasseh,  to  hide  the  fact  that  a  grandson  of  their 
great  legislator  had  fallen  so  low.  In  the  Hebrew  text  the  word 
translated  Manasseh  is  written  M^SH.  Without  the  N  inserted 
above  by  the  Kabbis  it  reads  Moses.  The  Vulgate  has  Moses. 
The  Sept.,  Manasses— thanks  to  its  authors  being  Jews. 

*  The  plural  Teraphim  is  translated  "an  image"  in  1  Sam.  xix.  3, 16. 
The  singular  is  never  used  in  Scriptare. 


THE  TIME  OF  THE  JUDGES.  451 

cramped  up  in  too  narrow  bounds^  send  off  five  men  in 
search  of  new  settlements,  and  these,  as  they  pass  Micah's 
house,  and  lodge  in  the  caravanserai  at  hand,  are  arrested 
by  the  sound  of  a  well  known-voice.  Asking  him  "  Who 
brought  him  hither  ?  and  how  much  he  made  in  this 
place  ?  and  what  he  had  to  do  here  ?  '*  he  tells  them  his 
strange  story,  and  how  Micah  feels  sure  that  Jehovah 
will  now  do  him  good  when  he  has  a  Levite  for  priest. 
They  learn  also  about  the  sacred  images  he  has  in  his 
care,  and  presently  pass  on. 

Returning  the  same  way,  however,  some  time  after,  as 
the  guides  of  six  hundred  of  their  clansmen  towards  the 
north,  they  bring  them  to  Micah^s  house.  They,  too, 
would  like  to  have  the  Levite  as  their  priest,  and  the 
precious  images  would  be  of  priceless  value,  as  a  pro- 
tection in  their  new  homes.  They  determine  therefore 
to  rob  Micah  of  his  treasures,  and  to  induce  the  Levite 
to  join  their  fortunes.  His  house  was  at  Micah^s  gate- 
way, and  there  the  six  hundred  gather,  talking  with 
their  old  neighbour,  while  the  five  men  steal  into  Micah's 
sacred  chamber,  and  having  brought  out  both  the  images 
and  the  teraphim  and  ephod,  are  far  off  with  them,  in 
company  with  the  Levite  and  their  six  hundred  brethren, 
before  the  loss  is  discovered.  Their  new  ecclesiastic 
had  indeed  some  faint  scruples  about  going  with  them, 
but  these  quickly  yielded  before  a  promise  that  he 
should  be  priest,  not  of  a  single  house,  but  to  a  whole 
tribe  and  family  in  Israel.^ 

Thas,  in  the  years  following  Joshua's  death,  the  minis- 
ters of  religion  were  both  poor  and  strangely  scattered 
over  the  land ;  no  general  system  of  public  worship  had 
been  set  up,  and  the  gravest  corruptions  had  already 
taken  root.  It  is  not  therefore  surprising  that  the  hill 
*  Jud.  xviii.  14-19. 


452  THE  TIME  OF  THE  JUDGES. 

tops  were  soon  marked  by  altars,  alongside  wliich  the 
sharp  pointed  stone  symbols  of  Baal  were  raised.  Some 
in  the  northern  tribes  worshipped  the  Phenician  or  Syrian 
Baal  and  Astarte ;  and  many  beyond  the  Jordan  gave 
themselves  up  to  honour  Chemosh  and  Moloch,  the  gods 
of  Moab  and  Ammon.  In  the  more  southern  parts, 
bordering  on  the  Maritime  Plain,  Dagon,  the  god  of  the 
Philistines,  had  many  adherents;  and  everywhere  house 
gods,  under  the  old  name  of  teraphim,  were  consulted 
as  oracles,  as  in  the  case  of  Micah's  Levite.  Jehovah 
was  still  acknowledged,  but  He,  also,  was  represented  by 
an  image.  A  wild  confusion  of  ideas,  in  fact,  prevailed, 
in  keeping  with  an  age  when  everything  was  unsettled, 
and  lawlessness  in  common  life  reacted  in  every  direc- 
tion. Old  modes  of  thought,  still  surviving  from  the 
days  of  Egypt,  or  revived  by  contact  with  the  idolatry 
around,  mixed  themselves  up  with  the  new  and  lofty 
conceptions  learned  from  Moses — their  incompatibility 
not  having  yet  been  realized.  So  heathen  in  their 
feelings,  indeed,  did  many  become,  as  often,  like  the 
Canaanites,  to  name  their  children  after  the  idols.  Thus 
a  son  of  Saul,-^  was  kuown  as  Ishbaal — "the  man  of 
Baal^'j  while  two  of  his  sons  and  one  of  his  grandsons 
have  names  ending  in  Bosheth — "shame,^^  a  word 
used  by  the  Jews  as  a  contemptuous  substitute  for 
Ashtoreth.2 

In  these  wild  times,  however,  the  recollection  of  the 
wonderful  story  of  the  Exodus,  Sinai,  and  the  wilderness, 
-gtill  lingered  in  many  minds,  and  kept  them  true  to 
Jehovah.  Indeed,  if  the  inscription  on  the  famous 
Samaritan  Pentateuch,  not  the  only  similar  one  existing, 

^  1  Chron.  ix.  39.  Jerubbaal,  the  name  taken  by  Gideon,  means, 
like  Meribbaal,  the  son  of  Jonathan  (1  Chron.  ix.  40),  "  a  contender 
againtit  Baal."  ^  Kalisch. 


THE  TIME  OF  THE  JUDGES.  453 

begenuine,  some  faithful  souls  still  honoured  the  "Law  '* 
by  diligently  transcribing  it  for  wider  use.  On  the  back 
of  that  ancient  MS.  one  reads  with  awe  the  words:  "I, 
Abishuah,  son  of  Phinehas,  son  of  Eleazar^  son  of  Aaron 
the  priest,  the  favour  of  Jehovah  be  on  them — for  His 
glory  I  have  written  this  holy  Torah  (copy  of  the  Law), 
in  the  entrance  of  the  Tabernacle  of  the  Congregation, 
on  Mount  Gerizim,  even  Bethel,  in  the  thirteenth  year 
of  the  possession  by  the  children  of  Israel  of  the  land  of 
Canaan  and  all  its  boundaries.  I  thank  the  Lord.'^^ 
Another  Samaritan  MS.  has,  at  the  end  of  Genesis,  the 
following  note,  which  is  equally  startling  :  *'  This  holy 
Torah  has  been  made  by  a  wise,  valiant,  and  great  son, 
a  good,  a  beloved,  and  an  understanding  leader,  a  master 
of  all  knowledge,  by  Shelomo,  son  of  Saba,  a  valiant 
man,  leader  of  the  congregation  by  his  knowledge  and 
his  understanding ;  and  he  was  a  righteous  man,  an  inter- 
preter of  the  Torah,  a  father  of  blessings — of  the  sons  of 
Nun — may  the  Lord  be  merciful  to  them  ! — and  it  was 
appointed  to  be  dedicated  holy  to  the  Lord,  that  they 
might  read  therein  with  fear  and  prayer  in  the  House  of 
the  High  priesthood — in  the  seventh  month,  the  tenth 
day ;  and  this  was  done  before  me,  and  I  am  Ithamar, 
son  of  Aaron,  son  of  Ithamar  the  High  Priest :  may  the 
Lord  renew  his  strength !  Amen.^^  ^  Nor  could  there 
have  been  wanting  those  who  recalled  to  the  multitude 
the  glorious  past,  and  reproved  the  degradation  into 
which  some  of  their  brethren  had  fallen.  Among  the 
Levites  who  guarded  the  Tabernacle  and  the  Ark  at 
Shiloh,    some,    no    doubt,    lifted    their    voices    against 

1  Tent  Work,  p.  26.  The  Rev.  M.  Lowy  recently  made  this  entry 
the  subject  of  a  paper  read  before  the  Society  of  Biblical  Archae- 
ology. 

2  Tent  Work,  p.  27. 


454  THE  TIME  OF  THE  JUDGES. 

the  evil  around  them.  Such  a  '^messenger  of  God''^ 
we  find  living  at  Gilgal^  and  making  his  appearance 
at  an  assembly  of  the  people  at  Bethel,  reproaching 
them  for  having  forsaken  their  covenant  with  Jehovah, 
and  for  having  made  one  with  idols ;  and  tracing  to  this 
unfaithfulness  all  the  calamities  they  were  sufi'ering  at 
the  hands  of  the  Canaanites.^  Nor  was  it  without  sig- 
nificance that  enough  sensibility  still  remained  in  those 
who  heard  him,  to  melt  them  to  tears  at  such  words. 
But,  unhappily,  their  sorrow  was  only  passing. 

In  Shiloh  itself,  the  religious  centre  of  the  tribes,  there 
seems  to  have  been  no  more  provision  for  the  moral  instruc- 
tion of  the  nation,  than  amongst  the  scattered  Levites. 
Sacrifices  were  offered  to  Jehovah  as,  in  the  Canaauite 
towns,  to  Baal  or  Astarte;  but  we  have  no  indications 
that  the  priest^s  lips  kept  knowledge,  or  that  they  sought 
teaching  at  His  mouth.^  The  Ark,  with  its  priceless 
treasure  of  the  two  Tables,  was  regarded  rather  as  a 
defence  against  the  enemy  in  the  field,  than  as  a  source 
of  instruction.  After  the  harvest,  at  the  time  of  the 
gathering  of  the  grapes,  the  people  were  wont,  in  larger 
or  smaller  numbers,  to  assemble  at  the  Tabernacle  with 
their  wives  and  children,*  at  a  yearly  feast  or  Haj.  The 
fathers  brought  an  ofiering ;  after  presenting  part  of 
which  on  the  altar,  the  priest  got  his  portion,  and  the 
rest  served  for  a  feast  in  the  family  circle.  Dances 
followed  among  the  vineyards  round,  but  there  is  no  trace 
of  any  loftier  religious  service. 

^  The  Speahers  Comm.  reads,  "The  Angel  of  Jehovah,"  but 
Bertlieau  and  De  Wette  translate  it  as  above;  so  do  Zarz, 
Ewald  and  Paulas  Cassel.  That  the  inhabitants  of  Canaan  were 
not  to  be  driven  out  before  them,  because  of  their  sins,  is  tliO 
ground  of  their  sorrow. 

2  Jud.  ii.  1  flf.        3  Mai.  ii.  7.        *  Jud.  xxi.  19.    1  Sam.  i.  3. 


THE  TIME  OF  THE  JUDGES.  455 

This  gloomy  time  lasted  through  generations;  for, 
from  the  d^ath  of  Joshua  to  the  election  of  San],  was  a 
period  of  over  400  years.^  With  warlike  neighbours 
round  them,  eager  to  reconquer  so  fair  a  land,  it  could 
not  fail  to  bring  frequent  peril  and  even  disaster.  Again 
and  again,  whole  districts  were  attacked,  spoiled,  and 
even  reduced  to  helpless  submission — their  brethren 
quietly  looking  on,  intent  only  on  their  own  interests. 
But  such  trouble  ultimately  served  its  end  as  a  whole- 
some discipline,  recalling  the  sufferers  to  their  ancient 
faith,  which  thus,  in  the  end,  became  fixed  in  the 
national  heart.  When  the  need  was  greatest,  men  always 
moreover  rose,  in  the  providence  of  God,  who  by  heroic 
devotion,  delivered  the  section  of  their  brethren  oppressed 
for  the  time,  and  indicated  God's  faithfulness  to  the  race. 
These  were  the  Judges  or  ''  Saviours  "  of  Israel. 

^  The  exact  time  is  fixed  variously  by  diiferent  authorities — 
some  thinking  it  480  years,  others  420,  and  so  on,  but  all  agree 
that  it  was  over  400  jears  long. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

THE    JUDGES. 

r  I  IHE  religious  enthusiasm  in  Israel,  kindled  by  Moses 
-L  during  the  wilderness  life,  and  intensified  by  the 
incidents  of  the  conquest,  survived,  in  a  measure,  during 
the  remaining  years  of  Joshua  and  even  of  the  elders 
who  survived  him,  and  "had  known  all  the  works  of 
Jehovah  that  He  had  done  for  the  nation,^'  through 
its  second  great  leader.  Gradually,  however,  as  the 
generation  passed  away  that  had  seen  the  great  deeds  of 
these  first  days,  and  the  miraculous  help  God  had  vouch- 
safed Israel,  lower  influences  came  into  play,  and  the 
high  tone  of  the  past  was  forgotten.  Eleazar  the  high 
priest,  the  son  of  Aaron,  and  his  successor,  had  died 
about  the  same  time  as  Joshua,^  and  was  buried,  as  it 
would  seem,  about  four  miles  outside  the  valley  of 
Shechem,  on  the  spur  of  one  of  the  hills  of  Ephraim, 
known  as  the  hill  of  Phinehas ;  ^   the  name  of  the  illus- 

^  So  says  Josephus,  Ant,  Y.  i.  29.  In  the  entrance  of  Eleazar 
to  the  Holy  Land  we  have,  in  addition  to  Joshua  and  Caleb,  a 
third  person  of  the  generation  of  the  Exodus,  who  crossed  the 
Jordan.  Perhaps  he  was  spared  as  the  high  priest ;  or  are  the 
words  respecting  that  generation  dj'ing  in  the  wilderness  to  be 
taken  in  a  general,  not  a  literal  sense  r 

2  Lieut.  Oonder  identifies  the  "  hill  of  Phinehas  as  the  spot  on 
which  the  present  village  Awertah  stands,  in  the  plain  outside  the 

456 


THE    JUDGES.  457 

trions  son  having  taken  tlie  place  of  that  of  his  father. 
Consecrated  as  third  high  priest,  and  according  to  the 
Rabbis,  the  son^  of  a  Midianite  mother/  he  became, 
in  a  measure,  the  successor  of  Joshua.  Full  of  fiery 
zeal,  and  sternly  uncompromising  in  his  devotion  to 
Jehovah,  he  had  already  in  his  youth  signalized  himself 
by  the  act  which  put  a  close  to  the  licentious  outburst 
at  Baal-peor,  and  stopped  the  plague  then  destroying 
the  camp.  Henceforward,  he  became  a  noted  and  fore- 
most man  in  Israel,  especially  as  the  heir  to  the  high 
priesthood,  and  from  the  special  commendation  vouch- 
safed him  by  Jehovah.^  As  much  soldier  as  priest,  it 
was  he  who  led  the  avenging  host  against  Midian, 
taking  with  him  the  sacred  Ark.*  Though  in  a  nomi- 
nally inferior  position  till  his  father^s  death,  it  is,  never- 
theless, he,  rather  than  Eleazar,  who  seems  to  have 
been  the  moving  spirit  in  the  maintenance   of  the  old 

valley  of  Shechem,  on  the  east  side  of  the  chain  of  hills  of  which 
Ebal  and  Gerizim  are  a  parb.  The  tomb  of  Eleazar  is  *a  rude 
structure  of  masonry  in  a  court  open  to  the  air.'  It  is  eighteen 
feet  long,  plastered  all  over,  and  shaded  by  a  splendid  terebinth. 
That  of  Phinehas  is  apparently  an  older  building,  and  the  walls 
of  its  court  have  an  arcade  of  round  arches,  now  supporting  a 
trellis,  covered  with  a  grape  vine,  and  the  floor  is  paved."  Tent 
Worl,  p.  41. 

^  Dean  Stanley  speaks  of  the  name  Phinehas  as  Egyptian,  and 
as  the  last  trace  of  the  sojourn  of  Israel  on  the  ISTile;  but  Fiirst, 
Gesenius,  Riehm,  and  Schenkel,  derive  it  from  the  Hebrew,  and 
explain  it  as  meaning  "  Oracle  Mouth  "  or  "  Brass  Mouth." 

2  Wagenseil's  Sota,  vol.  viii.  p.  6. 

3  God  promised  that  the  high  priesthood  should  continue  in 
his  family,  and  this  was  literally  ftilfilled.  It  was  interrupted, 
indeed,  when  Eli,  of  the  race  of  Ithamar,  was  priest,  but  the  line 
of  Phinehas  resumed  the  dignity  in  the  person  of  Zadok,  Solo- 
mon's high  priest,  and  continued  to  hold  it  till  the  fall  of  Jeru-. 
salem.     1  Chron.  xvi.  39,  40. 

*  Num.  xxxi.  6. 


458  THE    JUDGES. 

religious  fervour  and  strictness  during  the  ever  darkening 
times.  Thus  we  see  him  the  commander  of  the  Levite 
guard  of  the  Tabernacle  and  camp,  and,  when  the  Ben- 
jamites  had  committed  an  act  of  atrocious  immorahty, 
it  was  he  who  gave  the  command  to  prosecute  the  war 
against  them  which  ended  in  their  being  almost  exter- 
minated.^ At  an  earlier  time,  when  the  Reubenites  had 
built  a  huge  altar  on  some  height  on  the  western  edge 
of  the  Jordan,^  it  was  Phinehas  who  headed  the  depu- 
tation to  remonstrate  with  them,  and  only  their  earnest 
deprecation  of  any  design  to  forsake  Jehovah,  kept  him 
from  making  it  the  occasion  of  the  first  great  civil  war.* 
'^  So  great  was  his  courage,^^  says  Josephus,  '^  and  so 
remarkable  his  bodily  strength,  that  he  would  never 
relinquish  any  undertaking,  however  difiicult  or  danger- 
ous, without  gaining  a  complete  victory.^^  * 

After  a  time,  however,  he  died,  and  with  him  the  age 
of  stern  fidelity  to  the  national  covenant  with  Jehovah 
seems  to  have  come  to  a  close.  Weary  with  years  of 
struggle ;  satisfied  with  what  they  had  acquired ;  tempted 
to  seek  friendship  with  the  Canaanites  by  the  similarity 
of  language,  the  opportunities  of  profit,  the  seductions  of 
neighbourhood,  by  their  own  want  of  military  science, 
and  by  the  weakness  of  tribal .  division ;  their  warlike 
feelings  gave  way  to  a  desire  for  ease  and  quiet. 

It  was,  indeed,  humanly  speaking,  only  what  might 
have  been  expected.  The  Phenicians  and  other  Ca- 
naanites could,  doubtless,  have  been  overwhelmed,  had 
the  tribes  remained   united  under  a   competent  leader, 

1  Jud.  XX.  28.  2  josi-i  xxii.  10.  ^  j^sh.  xxii.  10-34 

^  The  mother  of  Phinehas  was  Putiel,  a  name  remarkable 
as  formed  of  the  Egyptian  word  Puti  or  Poti,  devoted  to,  and 
the  Hebrew  word  El,  God.  De  Vogue's  Inscriptions  Semitiques, 
p.  125. 


THE   JUDGES.  459 

and  liad  the  burning  enthusiasm  of  the  first  attack  been 
utilized  to  carry  out  the  war  to  the  uttermost.  Bub 
the  resignation  of  his  high  office^  as  Dictator,  by  Joshua, 
and  the  dispersion  of  the  tribes  to  their  respective  terri- 
tories, let  the  golden  opportunity  pass,  never  to  return. 
The  rush  of  invasion  had  already  spent  its  force,  and  now 
the  rods  which  could  not  even  be  bent  when  united,  were 
easily  broken  in  detail  when  apart.^  The  strength  of  the 
Phenicians  was,  in  fact,  out  of  proportion  to  that  of 
Israel.  In  Joshua^s  days  they  still  paid  tribute  to  Egypt 
as  they  had  done  for  400  years  before,  enjoying  in 
return  a  monopoly  of  the  Egyptian  trade,  which  they 
had  developed  with  great  energy.  Their  progress  in  the 
-^gean  Sea  had  been  arrested  by  the  growing  power  of 
the  Greeks  and  other  races,  but  they  still  retained  various 
islands,  as  the  outposts  of  their  foreign  commerce.  They 
had  already  reached  Sicily,  Malta,  and  the  distant 
northern  coast  of  Africa,  and  had  everywhere  planted 
trading  factories,  like  those  of  the  European  nations  in 
modern  times  in  India;  and  these  colonies  may  very  prob- 
ably have  been  strengthened  by  an  extensive  emigration 
from  Palestine,  to  escape  the  terror  of  Joshua's  sword.^ 
But  even  these  far-scattered  settlements  did  not  mark 
the  limits  of  their  commercial  enterprises,  for  this  was 
the  time  when,  as  Humboldt  says,  their  flag  waved  at 
once  in  Britain  and  in  the  Indian  Ocean .^ 


1  God  had  from  the  first  said  that  He  would  drive  out  the 
native  populations  by  "little  and  little,"  and  not  "in  one  year," 
"  lest  the  land  become  desolate  and  the  beast  of  the  field  multiply 
against"  Israel.     Exod.  xxiii.  30. 

2  See  page  408.  Maspero  believes  that  the  monumental  in- 
Bcription,  recording  the  flight  of  Canaanites  to  Africa,  was 
genuine.     Histolre  Ancienne,  p.  292. 

^  Wilkins,  Phenicia,  p.  45. 


4.60  THE    JUDGES. 

The  vast  wealth  of  Sidon  and  the  other  native  towns 
must  have  been  eagerly  coveted  by  the  Israelites,  but 
it  was  beyond  their  reach.  They  could  not  stand  up 
ao-ainst  the  long  spears  of  the  lowland  races,  and  dreaded 
their  terrible  iron  chariots.  Giving  up  the  hope,  there- 
fore, ere  long,  of  mastering  the  rich  sea-coast,  they 
kept  to  the  hills ;  but,  as  the  passes  by  which  commerce 
flowed  to  Egypt,  Arabia,  Babylon,  and  Assyria,  ran 
through  these,  the  Phenicians  were  more  than  willing 
to  live  quietly  with  those  who  commanded  them.  Hence 
the  Israelites  were  allowed  to  settle  in  their  towns  ;i  very 
likely  with  some  conditions  of  dependence,  though  still 
living  apart,  and  adhering,  in  the  main,  to  their  own 
laws  and  customs.  The  inland  Canaanite  populations, 
moreover,  which  survived  Joshua's  terrible  onset,  soon 
recovered  from  their  depression,  and  became  in  turn 
the  assailants.  Their  troubles  had,  in  fact,  regenerated 
the  remnant  of  the  nation,  and  kindled  a  desperate 
resolution,  before  which  the  Hebrews,  very  soon,  quailed. 
Even  the  usually  unwarlike  Sidonians  indeed,  after  a 
time  overcame  and  oppressed  them,  selling  them  abroad 
as  slaves,  and  treating  them  at  home  as  serfs,^  till  "the 
soul  of  the  Lord  was  grieved  for  their  misery .'' 

The  first  cry  of  distress,  however,  rose  not  through 
the  fresh  vigour  of  the  Canaanites,  but  was  extorted 
by  an  invader  from  the  far  banks  of  the  Euphrates.  The 
decay  of  national  life  and  religion  had  gradually  become 
extreme.  Living  contentedly  among  the  remnants  of  the 
heathen  races,  the  Hebrews  freely  intermarried  with 
them,  and,  as  the  result,  too  often  worshipped  Baal  and 
Ashtoreth  as  well  as  Jehovah.  But  it  is  for  ever  true 
that  the  character  of  a  nation's  religion  is  an  index  to  its 

^  Jud.  i.  27-36. 

^  Jud.  X.  16.  See  also  Movers,  Die  Phonizier,  vol.  ii.  pp.  302-315. 


THE   JUDGES.  461 

national  health  and  vigour,  and  little  of  either  could 
survive  the  moral  degeneracy  into  which  they  had  fallen. 
Under  these  circumstances  a  king,  unrecognized  as 
yet  in  the  Assyrian  records,  made  his  appearance,  and 
compelled  some  of  the  tribes  to  pay  him  tribute  for  eight 
years.  At  last,  however,  trouble  had  its  fitting  result, 
in  leading  the  sufferers  back  to  the  God  of  their  fathers, 
who  had  done  such  great  things  for  them  while  they 
honoured  His  covenant;  and  the  religious  revival  soon 
brought  deliverance.  Othniel,  ''the  lion  of  God,'^  the 
younger  brother  or  nephew  of  the  heroic  Caleb,  headed 
a  general  rising,  which  drove  the  oppressor  from  the 
district  he  held,  and  secured  its  quiet  for  forty  years, 
till  OthnieFs  death.  He  is  the  only  Judge  mentioned 
as  connected  with  the  tribe  of  Judah. 

The  next  of  the  isolated  notices  of  these  times  brings 
before  us  a  new  enemy.  The  king  of  Moab — Eglon, 
"  the  bullock,'^  perhaps  a  name  of  contempt  given  him 
by  Israel, — uniting  his  bands  with  those  of  a  related 
people,  the  Ammonites,  and  with  the  Amalekites,  the 
old  enemies  of  Israel,  was  able  to  overpower  Benjamin, 
doubtless  after  a  bitter  struggle,  and  take  the  town  of 
Jericho,^  which  was  in  the  tribe,  and  had  apparently 
been  rebuilt  in  some  measure,  perhaps  on  another  site.^ 
Eighteen  years  of  tribute  and  oppression  followed,  but  a 
deliverer  at  last  rose,  in  the  person  of  Ehud,  a  Benjamite, 
a  young  man,^  but  already  held  in  high  estimation  by 
his  people,  and,  apparently,  a  prophet.'*  Chosen  to 
superintend  the  payment  at  Jericho  of  the  tribute  of  his 
brethren,  he  prepared  himself  for  a  far  different  errand 

^  Graetz  thinks  it  was  Zoar,  but  most  understand  it  as  Jericho. 
-  Jud.  iii.  13.     Conder  says  the  site  of  the  later  city  was  not 
the  same  as  that  of  the  earlier,  owing,  no  doubt,  to  Joshua's  curse. 
^  Se^tuagint.  ^  Jud.  iii.  20. 


462  THE   JUDGES. 

by  binding  a  dagger,  sixteen  inclies  long,^  on  his  right 
tbigb,  under  the  mantle  or  abba,  which  his  position 
entitled  him  to  wear.  The  tribute,  which  was  doubtless 
in  kind,  having  been  delivered  to  the  king  in  person,  and 
an  opportunity  thus  afforded  of  noticing  details  of  his 
house,  its  approaches,  and  its  internal  arrangements,  he 
left,  and  dismissed  the  tribute-bearers  to  their  homes. 
But,  instead  of  climbing  the  mountain  pass  with  them, 
he  went  off  to  the  graven  images,^  which  already  had 
been  set  up  at  Gilgal,  and  having  thus  let  sufficient  time 
elapse,  returned  alone  to  Eglon,  announcing  that  he  had 
a  secret  message  for  him.  Falling  into  the  snare,  the 
king  forthwith  ordered  silence ;  an  intimation  that  all 
should  withdraw.  He  was  at  the  time  in  his  summer 
apartment,  raised  on  the  roof  for  coolness,  and  eagerly 
listened  for  Ehud's  communication.  But  the  wily 
Benjamite  wished  to  be  sure  of  his  prey,  and  now  further 
hinted  that  his  message  was  from  God.  At  this  intimation, 
Eglon  rose,  perhaps  from  reverence  for  what  was  from 
above ;  perhaps  to  defend  himself,  in  alarm  at  the  men- 
tion of  a  message  from  the  God  of  the  Hebrews,  which 
only  could  be  hostile  to  him.  In  an  instant,  while  he 
thus  exposed  himself  to  the  blow,  Ehud,  a  left-handed 
man,  like  many  of  his  tribe,  snatched  the  dagger  from 
under  his  cloak,  and  buried  it  to  the  hilt   in   Eglon's 


^  The  text  (Jud.  iii.  16)  says,  "a  cubit"  and  this  Lieut.  Conder 
seems  to  prove  so  demonstratively  to  have  been  sixteen  inches. 
To  av^oid  fractional  parts,  however,  the  usual  estimate  of  18  inches 
is  adopted,  except  where  stated.     See  Te7it  Work,  p.  187. 

2  The  word  translated  "  quarries,"  Jud.  iii.  19,  26,  is  Pesillim, 
which  is  rendered  in  the  other  forty-nine  places  in  which  it  is 
used,  "  graven  "  or  "  carved  images,"  and  only  in  this  incident 
"quarries."  The  special  rendering  here  adopted  is  that  of  the 
Targum. 


THE   JUDGES.  463 

body.  Passing  instantly  through,  the  anteroom^^  and 
into  the  porch,  he  locked  the  doors,  and  quietly  left, 
without  exciting  suspicion.  Nor  was  it  until  some  time 
after  that  the  king's  fate  was  known;  his  servants 
refraining  from  forcing  the  doors  lest  he  might  wish 
privacy.  Meanwhile,  Ehud  had  escaped  beyond  the 
images  at  Gilgal,  to  the  woody  slopes  of  Seirath,^  in 
the  south  part  of  the  hill  country  of  Ephraim,  bordering 
on  Benjamin,  and  there,  from  spot  to  spot,  blew  with  his 
trumpet — perhaps  a  long  horn — the  well-known  war 
summons,  gathering  a  multitude  behind  him,  armed  as 
they  were  able  on  the  moment.  With  these  he  forth- 
with rushed  down  the  passes  to  the  fords  of  the  Jordan, 
to  prevent  the  escape  of  the  enemy  to  Moab.  Ten  thou- 
sand men,  all  reputable,  and  all  men  of  valour,  fell  before 
this  bold  stroke,  and  Moab  was  driven  from  the  land, 
which  thenceforward  enjoyed  a  rest  of  eighty  years,  at 
least  in  this  part.  But  the  memory  of  these  dark  days 
remained  long  after,  in  the  name  of  the  Benjamite  village 
Chephar-ha-ammonai,  "  the  hamlet  of  the  Ammonites,'^  ^ 
and  perhaps  in  that  of  Michmash,  which  some  think 
derived  from  Chemosh,  the  Moabite  god. 

The  invasion  under  Egion  had  been  on  the  south-east, 
but  the  next  recorded  was  from  the  opposite  side  of 
Palestine,  where  the  Philistines,  on  the  Maritime  Plain, 
had  already  begun  the  raids  into  the  Hebrew  uplands, 
which  were  afterwards  to  become  so  terrible.  To  resist 
them,  one  Shamgar,  otherwise  unknown,  appeared  at 
the  head  of  a  rising,  perhaps  in  Dan  and  Benjamin, 
in  which  he  drove  back  and  ultimately  cut  off  and 
slew,  a    foraging   party  of  six  hundred  men,  who   had 

^  This  is  the  true  meaning  of  the  last  clause  of  Jud.  iii.  22. 
2  Seirath  means  "  overgrown  with  bushes  or  woods." 
2  Josh,  xviii.  24 


464  THE    JUDGES. 

come  up  from  the  plains  to  rob  and  plunder.  This 
could  not,  however,  have  been  the  first  of  such  inroads, 
for  the  Israelites  had  already  been  so  thoroughly- 
disarmed,  that  Shamgar^s  only  weapon  was  the  long 
and  heavy  ironshod  ox-goad  still  in  use  in  Palestine ;  ^ 
which,  however,  was  formidable  in  the  hands  of  a  strong 
man.  But  an  isolated  effort  like  this  was  inadequate 
to  secure  the  freedom  of  the  district,  for  we  find  the 
country  at  large  still  harried  and  oppressed  until  after 
Deborah^s  victory.^ 

It  is  difficult  to  put  together  or  make  a  connected 
narrative  of  the  incidents  briefly  recorded  in  the  Book 
of  Judges.  Hence,  the  quiet  mentioned  as  following 
the  deliverance  of  Benjamin  and  Southern  Ephraim  from 
Moab  may  refer  to  those  parts  only,  rather  than  to 
the  country  at  large,  especially  as  the  notice  of  Shamgar 
immediately  follows.  In  any  case,  however,  a  long 
interval  of  peace  gave  breathing  time  to  the  tribes  as 
a  whole,  and  tended  in  many  ways  to  their  advance- 
ment. The  chief  men  rode  in  state  on  white  asses  ;^  the 
rich  sat  on  costly  saddles  or  carpets.  Reuben,  Gad  and 
Manasseh,  had  vast  flocks  on  the  east  of  the  Jordan.* 
Dan  mingled  with  the  Philistines  of  Joppa,  and  busied 
itself    with    their   sea-faring   pursuits.      Asher,    in    the 

*  "  In  ploughing  they  use  goads  of  an  extraordinary  size. 
Upon  measuring  of  several,  I  found  them  about  eight  feet  long 
and  at  the  bigger  end  six  inches  in  circumference.  They  were 
armed  at  the  lesser  end  with  a  sharp  prickle  for  driving  the 
oxen,  and  at  the  other  end  with  a  small  spade,  or  paddle,  of  iron, 
strong  and  massy,  for  cleansing  the  plough  from  the  clay  that 
encumbers  it  in  working."  MaundrclV s  Journey^  p.  149  (date 
April  15,1696).  The  Se:pt.  has  "ploughshare"  for  "ox-goad." 
Jud.  iii.  31.  ^  Jud.  v.  7. 

3  Jud.  V.  10.     "  Sib  in  judgment,"  sit  on  carpets,  or  saddles. 

4  Jud.  V.  16. 


THE    JUDGES.  465 

northj  took  in  tlie  same  way  to  tlie  busy  sea- shore,  whicli 
they  nominally  owned  from  the  Bay  of  Acre  to  Tyre.^ 
There  was  rich  plunder  of  coloured  robes,  and  em- 
broidered needlework^  to  be  torn  from  the  necks  of  the 
daughters  of  Israel,  or  secured  in  the  sack  of  her  towns, 
when  the  enemy  came  into  the  land.  Commerce,  more- 
over, had  increased,  so  that  the  caravan  routes  in  the 
valleys  or  plains  were  much  in  use,^  and  thus  the  tribes 
were  growing  richer  and  stronger  each  year. 

But  the  religious  revival  which  had  roused  Benjamin 
against  Moab,  like  others  before  it,  gradually  died  away, 
and  the  northern  tribes  especially  had  turned  again, 
more  or  less,  to  the  worship  of  Baal,  until  at  last,  about  a 
hundred  and  sixty  years  after  Joshua's  deafch,^  Jehovah 
once  more  let  loose  their  enemies  on  them,  to  drive 
them  back  to  Himself  by  the  stern  discipline  of  foreign 
oppression  and  tyranny.  The  petty  kingdom  of  Hazor, 
which  Joshua  had  overrun,  a  century  and  a  half  before, 
had  recovered  itself,  and  a  successor  to  the  Jabin  of  that 
day,  bearing  the  same  name,  reigned  in  the  town,  which 
had  been  rebuilt.  Strengthening  himself  by  a  force  of 
chariots,  which  he  gradually  increased  to  nine  hundred,^ 

*  Jud.  V.  17  (Graetz),  "  abode  in  his  breaches  "  =  at  his  creeks 

2  Jnd.  V.  30. 

3  Jud.  V.  6. 

*  Kohler's  Lehrhuch,  vol.  ii.  p.  48. 

5  Eameses  IL,  in  the  poem  of  Pentaur,  asserts  that  the  Hifctites, 
in  a  battle  at  Esdraelon,  had  2,500  chariots  of  war,  at  the  time 
of  the  Oppression  of  Israel  in  Egypt ;  and  the  Egyptian  monu- 
ments record  that  Kameses  III.  captured  in  the  same  plain 
994  Canaanite  chariots.  Thothmes  III.,  long  before,  after  his 
victory  on  this  field  also,  took  no  fewer  than  2,041  horses,  and 
924  chariots.  Maspero,  Histoire  Ancienne,  p.  204.  Chabas,  Etudes 
p.  434.  Cavah'y,in  our  sense,  was  not  used  {Ihid.  p.  437).  Ash- 
toreth  was  the  patroness  of  war  chariots.    Naville,  Mythe  d'Horus, 

VOL.   II.  H    H 


466  THE   JUDGES. 

he  was  able  at  last  to  overpower  the  Israelites  of  the 
north,  and  to  keep  them  in  painful  subjection  for  twenty 
years.  Strong  fortresses  held  by  him  or  his  allies 
at  Taanach,  Megiddo,  and  Bethshean,  on  the  south  of 
Esdraelon,  effectually  cut  off  help  from  the  southern 
tribes,  and  reduced  those  in  the  north  to  great  distress. 
All  trade  or  even  movement  over  the  country  ceased  ; 
the  people  hid  themselves  in  the  upland  valleys,  or 
behind  the  strong  walls  of  their  towns;  the  elders  of  the 
villages  and  of  the  tribes  were  alike  dispirited  and  help- 
less, and  no  one  ventured  to  attempt  resistance.^  Men 
were  glad  to  hurry  on  their  necessary  errands  by  secret 
mountain  paths,  and  the  open  roads  were  deserted.  ^ 
The  population  were,  in  fact,  cowed  and  paralyzed ;  for 
against  the  overwhelming  force  of  the  Canaan ites  they 
could  at  best  present  only  an  almost  unarmed  multitude, 
among  whom  an  ox-goad  was  the  welcome  substitute  for 
a  sword,  and  who  could  hardly  boast  of  a  spear  or  shield 
among  40,000  men.^ 

In  this  emergency  it  was  to  a  woman — when  all  men 
were  afraid — that  deliverance  was  due.  An  early  Joan 
of  Arc,  fired  like  her  distant  successor,  alike  with  a  grand 
patriotism  and  a  lofty  religious  enthusiasm,  had  pondered 
the  miseries  of  her  brethren,  till  her  heroic  soul  burst 
into  a  flame  of  zeal  for  the  overthrow  of  their  oppressor, 
and  of  indignation  at  the  cowardice  of  her  people,  who 
dared  not  strike  for  liberty.      It  was  no  case  of  narrow 

p.  13.  Some  Canaanite  chariots,  on  the  Egyptian  monuments,  are 
drawn  by  oxen,  and  I  have  seen  oxen  trained  to  run  very  fast ; 
but  the  chariots  taken  by  Joshua  were  drawn  by  horses  (chap.  ii. 
6).  The  Canaanite  chariots  had  not  scythes  or  knives  at  their 
wides  as  has  been  supposed.     See  p.  385. 

^  Jud.  V.  7.     "  The  inhabitants  "  etc.,  should  be  "  the  rulers." 

2  Jud.  V.  6.  ^  Jud.  V.  8. 


THE    JUDGES.  467 

tribal  loyalty,  for  she  lived  in  the  south,  in  the  hills  of 
Ephraim,  between  Ramah  and  BetheL  on  the  central 
thoroughfare  of  Palestine,  a  position  to  which,  perhaps, 
she  owed  her  knowledge  of  the  evil  plight  of  the  northern 
tribes.^ 

Deborah,  ^'  the  Bee,^^  with  all  her  enthusiasm,  was  no 
ascetic,  but,  in  keeping  with  the  aversion  of  her  race 
to  a  single  life,  was  the  wife  of  one  Lapidoth — ''  the 
Torches  " — of  whom  we  know  nothing  more.  Born  with 
the  grand  gift  of  genius,  she  could  embody  her  high 
thoughts  in  the  rythmical  verse  in  which  her  countrymen 
delighted.  Her  songs  flew  far  and  wide,  rousing  a 
national  spirit  in  the  dispirited  and  demoralized  tribes — 
painting,  no  doubt,  the  glories  of  the  past,  and  the 
mighty  deeds  God  had  wrought  for  them  by  the  hands 
of  leaders  He  had  raised  among  them,  and  it  may  be 
taunting  them  with  their  degeneracy  in  submitting  to 
be  slaves.  So  great  was  her  fame  for  wisdom,  that  she 
became  the  centre  of  moral  and  even  judicial  power  over 
an  ever- widening  district.  Seated,  for  the  sake  of*  its 
shade,  under  a  palm-tree,^  which  afterwards  bore  her 
name,  and  could  not  have  been  far  from  another  at  Baal 
Tamar — Baal  of  the  Palm,^  if  it  was  not  identical  with 
it,*  "  the  children  of  Israel  came  up  to  her   for   judg- 

'  Ewald  supposes  she  belonged  to  Issachar;  Hitzig  that  she 
belonged  to  Naphtali,  but  Kohler,  with  justice,  rejects  these  ideas 
as  arbitrary,  and  thinks  she  belonged  to  Benjamin  or  Ephraim. 

2  "Thousands  of  palms  still  wave  their  noble  heads  dreamily 
ia  the  air  in  almost  all  parts  of  the  land,  especially  on  the  sea, 
coast  from  Gaza  to  Beirut.  Even  in  the  high-lying  Jerus.ilem 
they  grow  in  the  open  air,  and  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Nazareth 
I  discovered  a  whole  grove  of  them,"  Farrer,  in  Schenkel's  Lex\ 
vol.  i.  p.  580. 

^  Jud.  XX.  33. 

*  Stanley's  Smai  and  Palestine,  p.  146. 


468  THE   JUDGES. 

nieut/^  Tlius  aided,  the  impulse  of  her  great  soul  was 
naturally  contagious,  till  the  whole  land,  from  Benjamin 
to  the  far  north  of  Naphtali,  was  moved  with  a  common 
aspiration  for  national  freedom,  and  a  resolute  deter- 
mination to  obtain  it.  New  chiefs,  doubtless  men  of 
vigour,  were  appointed,^  to  supersede  for  a  time  the  local 
elders,  and  secret  preparations  everywhere  made  for  a 
rising.  A  leader  of  the  whole  movement  was,  however, 
still  needed,  and  Deborah  chose  one  from  the  scene  of 
the  deepest  oppression.  On  the  shores  of  the  Lake  of 
Galilee,  south  of  where  Tiberias  now  stands,  in  a  place 
called  Kedesh,  apparently  an  ancient  holy  place  of  the 
Canaanites,  lived  the  chief  on  whom  she  had  fixed — 
Barak,  or  Barca — '^  the  thunderbolt,^'  an  Israelite  in  his 
heart,  though  the  s'pirit  of  the  times  had  given  him  a 
Phenician  name.^  He  must  already  have  gained  reputa- 
tion, to  be  known  so  far  off  as  the  confines  of  Benjamin. 
Him  Deborah  summoned  to  her  in  the  south,^  and  com- 
manded, in  the  name  of  Jehovah,  as  whose  prophetess 
she  spoke,  to  march  to  Mount  Tabor  on  the  plain  of 
Esdraelon,  with  10,000  men  of  Naphtali  andZebulon; 
promising  that  God  would  draw  to  him  Sisera,  Jabin's 
commander,  with  his  chariots  and  his  host,  and  deliver 
them  into  his  hands.  But  Barak  was  apparently  less 
resolute  and  heroic  than  Deborah.  "  He  did  not  know," 
he  said,  "  the  propitious  day  on  which  the  Lord  would 
send   forth    His    angel    before    him   to    give    him   the 

*  Jud.  v.  8.         ^  The  family  name  of  Hannibal  was  Barca. 

^  Dean  Stanley,  writing  before  the  results  of  the  Palestine 
Survey  were  known,  thinks  Kadesh  Naphtali  the  place — a  spot 
in  the  far  north,  close  to  Jabin's  town,  Hazor,  in  the  mountains 
of  Naphtali — on  a  hill  overlooking  a  green  and  well  watered 
yalley.  I  cannot,  however,  but  think  Conder  is  right  in  the 
identification  he  has  made,  which  I  have  adopted  above. 


THE    JUDGES.  469 

victory ; "  ^  she,  herself,  must  come,  to  let  him  be  sure 
of  it,  else  he  would  not  undertake  the  task.  He  could 
not  trust  the  promise  of  God,  which  must  be  fulfilled 
whether  Deborah  went  with  him  or  not.  But  if  he 
hesitated,  she  knew  no  fear.  Go  with  him?  Assuredly 
she  would.  "  But,"  added  she,  "  my  going  will  take 
away  your  glory,  for  the  victory  will  be  called  mine,  not 
yours/'  Making  her  way  north  with  him,  therefore,  to 
Kedesh,  the  two  finally  organized  the  revolt.  Messages 
sent  far  and  near,  were  answered  by  10,000  men  gather- 
iug  from  the  two  tribes,  at  the  rendezvous  at  Tabor. 
Issachar,  from  the  very  plain  of  Esdraelon,  for  once 
broke  away  from  its  servitude,  and  sent  bands  of  volun- 
teers. Ephraimites  gathered  from  their  hills,  the  old 
home  of  Amalek,^  the  fiercest  enemy  of  Israel,  and, 
following  them,  came  valiant  crowds  from  Benjamin — the 
most  warlike  of  the  tribes — men  skilled  in  the  bow,  and 
so  famous  with  the  sling  as  to  be  reputed  to  throw 
stones  to  a  hairbreadth  and  not  miss  ;  ^  able,  moreover, 
to  use  either  their  right  or  left  hand  with  equal  skill  and 
strength.  Both  parts  of  Manasseh,  also,  east  and  west  of 
the  Jordan,  rallied  to  the  struggle,  sending  their  chiefs 
as  well  as  men.^  It  was  the  first  time  since  the  con- 
quest that  the  national  spirit  had  been  roused  to  such 
a  pitch  or  the  tribes  brought  to  act  together  to  such  an 
extent.  But  the  absent  were  as  conspicuous  as  those 
who  answered  the  appeal.  The  people  of  Meroz,  a  town 
seemingly  at  the  head  of  the  pass  to  Bethshean,  at  the 
east  end  of  the  plain,  might  have  done  good  service,  but 
refused  to  come  to  the  help  of  Jehovah,  amongst  the 
mighty  men  sent  forth  by  their  brethren,  and  drew  down 

^  Septuagint.  2  gee  p.  479. 

»  Jud.  XX.  16.     1  Chron.  viii.  40;  xii.  2.     2  Chron.  xvii.  17. 

*  Jud.  v.  14. 


470  THE    JUDGES. 

on  them  a  curse  whicli  apparently  was  carried  out  by 
their  extermination,  and  the  utter  demolition  of  their 
homes.^  By  the  brooks  of  Keuben  there  were  great  dis- 
cussions, but  it  ended  in  its  clans  leaving  their  brethren 
to  struggle  unaided,  while  they  themselves  stayed  among 
their  sheepfolds,  to  pipe  to  their  flocks.  ^  Gad,  also, 
refused  to  come ;  Dan  would  not  leave  its  boats  at 
Joppa ;  and  Asher  stayed,  with  craven  indifference,  in 
the  creeks  and  bays  of  Acre.  Of  the  great  tribe  of 
Judah,  or  of  Simeon,  nothing  is  said.  Jealousy  of 
Ephraim  probably  kept  them  aloof.  To  Zebulon,  which 
had  been  busiest  enrolling  volunteers,^  was  to  be  given 
the  palm  in  the  approaching  battle,  as  the  people  that 
jeoparded  their  lives  to  death ;  Naphtali,  dwelling  in  the 
hills,*  earning  also  an  illustrious  name. 

Tabor,  a  mountain  rising  1,500  feet  above  the  plain 
of  Esdraelon  at  its  north-east  end,  is  steep  on  the  north, 
but  bare  and  shapeless  on  the  south,  and  stands  isolated, 
except  on  the  west,  where  a  narrow  ridge  connects  it 
with  the  hills  of  Nazareth.  It  is  still  covered  with  oaks, 
pistacias,  and  other  trees  and  undergrowth,  in  which  the 
fallow  deer  finds  a  home,  but  its  top  is  treeless,  and  forms 
a  comparatively  level  circuit  of  half  an  hour's  walk,  com- 
manding wide  views  of  the  plain  from  end  to  end.^  No 
spot  could  have  been  better  chosen  for  the  rendezvous  of 
Israel,  for  it  could  not  be  attacked  by  the  chariots  of  the 
Canaanites,  and  its  summit,^  afforded  a  lofty  watch-tower 
from  which  Deborah  and  Barak  could  see  all  their  move- 
ments. 

1  Jud.  V.  23.       2  ju(j.  V.  16,  16.        3  jud.  v.  14        ■*  Jud.  v.  18. 

'  A  village  on  the  slopes  of  Tabor  still  bears  the  name  of 
Deborah,  For  the  description,  see  Tent  Work,  p.  69.  Munk's 
Paldstina,  Leipzig,  1871,  vol.  i.  p.  8. 

^  The  Great  Ma,])  of  Palestine  Survey,  Sheet  VI.,  gives  the 
height  as  1,850  feet  above  the  sea. 


THE    JUDGES.  471 

News  of  tlie  gathering  of  tlie  tribes  had  been  con- 


W'' 


^'-'^'"'mmisM^ 


veyed   to  Sisera,  the  commander  of  the  forces  of  Jabin 
and   his  alHes,  by  the  Kenites  of  Zaanaim — a  spot  still 


472  THE    JUDGES. 

bearing  tlie  same  name,  on  the  plateau  over  tlie  Sea 
of  Galilee,  east  of  Tabor  ^ —  an  Arab  tribe  whichj  though 
for  the  time  on  terms  of  peace  with  Jabin,  had  always 
been  friendly  with  Israel,  from  the  remembrance  of  the 
marriage  of  Moses  to  the  daughter  of  its  sheik  Jethro. 
A  part  of  it  had  remained  in  the  wilderness  south  of 
Judah,  but  another  branch  had  moved  north  and 
pitched  its  tents,  for  the  time,  under  the  terebinths 
of  Zaanaim — the  place  of  ^^  wanderings."  With  Arab 
duplicity  they  now  betrayed  Israel,  as  their  chief's  wife 
was  presently  to  betray  its  arch  enemy.^ 

The  commander  of  the  Canaanite  army  bore  the  title 
of  Sisera — "  the  Leader,'^ — and  appears  to  have  been 
the  vassal  king  of  Harosheth,  so  called  from  the  beautiful 
woods  above  the  Kishon.^  It  was  then,  no  doubt,  a 
strong  fortress,  overlooking  the  country  which  its  lord 
had  subdued;  but  is  now  a  miserable  village,  at  the  point 
where,  through  a  narrow  gorge,  the  stream,  hidden 
amongst  oleander  bushes,  enters  the  plain  of  Acre.* 
Collecting  his  forces  in  Esdraelon — the  only  open  space 
in  northern  Palestine  where  chariots  had  favourable 
ground  for  their  manoeuvres,  he  made  his  headquarters 
at  Taanach,  a  Canaanite  town  and  fortress  at  the  south- 
west of  the  plain,  on  a  long  spur  of  the  Carmel  range, 
now  clad  with  olive-trees,  and  marked  by  a  stone  village 
still  called  Taanak.     Tabor  rose  at  a  distance  of  about 

1  Jud.  iv.  11.     See  also  Tent  Work,  p.  69.        ^  j^^^  iy_  12. 

^  Kneucher  thinks  it  means  "  the  guard  of  the  land,"  others 
translate  it  "  the  clearings,"  or  "  the  quarries." 

^  The  Tell  or  mound  of  Harosheth  is  of  great  size  and  double, 
and  is  situated  just  below  the  point  where  the  Kishon  in 
one  of  its  turns  beats  against  the  rocky  base  of  Carmel,  leaving 
no  room  even  for  a  footpath.  A  castle  standing  there  would 
effectually  command  the  pass  up  the  valley  of  the  Kishon 
into  Esdraelon.     Thomson's  Land  and  Booh,  p.  436. 


THE    JUDGES.  473 

sixteen  miles  to  the  north-east ;  its  top  just  visible  above 
the  hills  of  Little  Hermon,^  dotted  with  the  two  villages, 
Endor  and  Nain,  and  forming  the  underside  of  a  recess 
in  the  great  plain,  at  the  head  of  which  Tabor  stands. 
The  whole  surface  of  Esdraelon  is  seamed  with  dry 
watercourses,  which  receive  the  drainage  of  the  hills 
from  all  sides,  and  swell  into  torrents  after  storms. 
These  unite  in  the  north-west,  into  one  channel,  known 
in  the  days  of  Sisera  as  the  Kishon — or  "  winding  '* — 
which  pours  through  a  deep  tortuous  bed  about  15  feet 
deep  and  15  to  20  yards  wide,  into  the  Bay  of  Acre.^ 
The  most  dangerous  part  in  its  course,  however,  is  close 
to  Tabor,  where  the  springs  from  which  it  rises  form  a 
chain  of  pools  and  brooks,  fringed  with  reeds  and  rushes, 
and  speedily  turned  into  a  wide  and  treacherous  quag- 
mire after  rain.  Here,  ''  at  Endor,^'  ^  Sisera^s  host  was 
doomed  to  be  mired  and  to  perish.* 

The  plain  of  Esdraelon  has  in  all  ages  been  the  battle- 
field of  Palestine.  Here  fought  Thothmes  III.,  Rameses 
II.,  and  Rameses  III. ;  here  Pharaoh  Necho  won  that  sad 
battle  of  Megiddo,  in  which  king  Josiah  was  slain,  amidst 
a  slaughter  so  terrible  that  the  great  conflict  of  the 
Apocalypse  is  called,  from  it,  the  battle  of  Armageddon 
— "  the  hill  of  Megiddo.^^  ^  Here  have  fought  in  turn 
the  armies  of  Assyria,  of  the  Crusaders  and  of  Bonaparte, 

'  Height  1,600  feet.     Ch-eat  Map  of  Palestine  Survey,  Sheet  IX. 

2  Porter's  Handbooh,  pp.  383-4. 

*  Ps.  Ixxxiii.  10. 

4  Tent  Worlc,  p.  69. 

^  The  site  of  Megiddo  seems  to  have  been  identified  by  Lieut. 
Conder  in  Migedda,  at  the  foot  of  Gilboa — a  mound,  from  which 
five  springs,  "  the  Waters  of  Megiddo,"  burst  forth.  Tent  Woi% 
p.  232.  The  position  hitherto  assigned  it,  close  to  Legio,  is  there- 
fore, apparently,  incorrect. 


474  THE   JUDGES. 

and  it  was  on  the  mountains  of  Gilboa,  at  its  east  end, 
tliat  Saul  and  Jonathan  perished. 

The  signal  for  attack  was  given  by  Deborah.  "  Up/' 
cried  she  to  Barak,  *^This_,  this,  and  no  other  is  the  day,''^ 
and,  forthwith,  the  ill-armed  host  of  Hebrew  footmen 
bravely  poured  down  from  their  mountain  security  to 
rush  on  tbe  chariots  of  the  enemy,  drawn  up  below,  in 
the  open  plain.  The  day  lowered  as  they  moved  off,  and, 
at  last,  as  the  two  ill-matched  forces  met,  a  terrible 
storm  of  sleet  and  hail  from  the  east,  burst  over  the  plain, 
on  the  backs  of  the  Hebrews  and  in  the  faces  of  the 
Canaanites.  "  The  stars  in  their  courses  fought  against 
Sisera^':  and  as  ^Hhe  rains  descended,"  "the  winds 
blew,"  and  "  the  flood  came  '*  and  "  beat  vehemently  " 
against  his  host,  turning  the  deep  red  soil  into  a  quag- 
mire in  which  his  chariots  could  not  move,  and  filling  the 
dry  watercourses  with  rushing  torrents  in  which  many 
of  them  were  overwhelmed.  So  great  indeed  was  the 
carnage,  that  centuries  after,  a  Psalmist  speaks  of  the 
dead  as  manuring  the  ground.^  The  day  was  hopelessly 
lost  to  the  Canaanites,  and  nothing  remained  but  to 
try  to  escape  with  life.  Leaving  his  chariot,  Sisera  fled 
on  foot  to  the  north-east,  under  the  slopes  of  Tabor, 
across  the  great  lava  plateau,  on  which  stood,  near  the 
modern  Bessum,^  the  black  tents  of  Heber  the  Kenite, 
his  master's  ally,  where  he  might  hope  for  temporary 
refuge. 

The  tents  of  Arabs  have  in  all  ages  been  the  same. 
They  are  commonly  large,  and  held  up  by  nine  poles  in 
three  rows,  on  which  rests  a  covering  of  coarse  cameFs 
hair  cloth,  or  ox  hides  sewn  together,  often  not  reaching 
the  ground.  The  ropes  which  hold  this  in  its  place  are 
fixed  to  pegs  driven  into  the  earth  by  a  huge  wooden 
*  8eptuagint.        ^  Ps.  Ixxxiii.  10.         *  Tent  Work,  p.  69. 


THE   JUDGES.  475 

mallet,  and,  all  round,  are  suspended  rough  hangings, 
which  can  be  removed  at  pleasure,  or  are  left  to  form  a 
screen.  The  tent  is  divided  into  two  parts,  separated  by 
a  carpet  which  hangs  from  the  middle  poles  :  the  one  on 
the  left,  in  entering,  being  reserved  for  the  men  ;  the 
other,  on  the  right,  forming  the  women^s  chamber.  In 
this  are  gathered  the  cooking  utensils,  the  skin  water- 
bottles,  the  milk,  the  butter,  etc.  The  bed,  as  usual  in 
the  East,  is  only  a  mat  or  two  laid  on  the  ground,  or  on 
a  bank  of  earth  raised  at  the  side  of  the  tent;  the  cloak 
worn  by  day  serving  as  a  covering  by  night.^ 

Such,  no  doubt,  was  the  tent  of  Heber.  At  its  door- 
way Sisera  found  Jael,  the  sheik's  wife,  and,  trusting 
to  the  peace  between  Jabin  and  the  tribe,  asked  her 
for  passing  shelter.  Whether  she  intended  treachery 
from  the  first,  cannot  be  known.  Receiving  him  gra- 
ciously, she  not  only  offered  him  the  protection  he  asked, 
but  took  him  into  her  own  division  of  the  tent,  which  no 
man  would  think  of  entering  in  search  of  him.^  But  her 
next  act  looks  like  premeditated  betrayal.  The  Arabs 
have  a  delicious  preparation  of  curdled  milk,  called 
"  Lebben,''  which  is  offered  to  guests  as  a  delicacy ;  but 
whilst  most  refreshing  to  a  traveller  who  is  tired  and 
hot,  it  also  acts  as  a  strong  and  speedy  soporific.^  On 
the  request  of  the  fugitive,  for  water  to  quench  his  over- 
powering thirst,  Jael  eagerly  brought  him  a  draught 
of  Lebben,  in  a  special  dish,  the  pride  of  her  tent;*  not, 

*  Burckhardt,  Notes  on  the  Bedouins,  etc.,  vol.  i.  pp.  37-43. 
Bonar,  The  Desert  of  Sinai,  p.  399.  See  Illustration,  page  206  of 
this  volume. 

2  Pococke  writes,  "  I  was  kept  in  the  harem  for  greater 
security,  do  stranger  ever  daring  to  come  into  the  women's 
apartment,  unless  introduced.     See  p.  389,  note  3. 

3  Tent  Worh,  p.  70.  -*  Jud.  v.  25. 


476  THE   JUDGES. 

perhaps^  without  the  knowledge  of  its  sure  effect  in  cast- 
ing the  drinker  into  a  deep  and  long  sleep.  The  inviting 
beverage  finished,  the  weary  man  lies  down,  doubtless 
grateful  to  his  benefactor,  and  uttering  many  thanks  in 
his  feeling  of  perfect  safety,  as  Jael  carefully  covered  him 
with  a  cloak.  He  had  partaken  of  Arab  hospitality  and 
had  her  repeated  assurances  that  she  would  keep  his  pre- 
sence secret.  But  the  sight  of  the  great  foe  of  Israel,  a 
race  of  her  own  blood,  asleep  before  her,  as  he  presently 
was,  soon  raised  far  other  thoughts  than  he  had  dreamed 
possible — if,  indeed,  she  had  not  entertained  them  before. 
What  a  service  it  would  be  if  she  could  free  her  kindred 
people  from  their  oppressor  !  Nor  did  the  suggestion 
long  wait  for  the  act.  Taking  up  one  of  the  tent  pegs, 
and  the  mallet  used  to  drive  it,  she  crept  up  silently  to  her 
victim,  sunk  in  the  sleep  of  the  weary,  and  with  a  terrible 
blow  drove  the  bolt,  crashing,  through  his  temples,  with 
such  force  that  it  entered  the  ground  on  which  he  had 
been  lying.  One  convulsive  bound  and  a  contortion 
of  agony  and  he  was  a  lifeless  corpse.  ^'  Between  her 
feet  '^  (as  she  strode  over  him),  says  the  Song  of  De- 
borah, "  he  sank,  he  fell  down,  he  lay  dying."*^  ^ 

The  results  of  Deborah's  victory  were  felt  in  many 
directions.  No  other  battle  needed  ever  after  to  be 
fought  with  the  Canaanites;  and  the  Israelites  themselves 
learned  a  lesson  of  the  advantages  of  national  union, 
which  influenced  their  whole  future.  Their  self-reliance, 
moreover,  was  strengthened;  for  it  was  their  first  great 
victory  since  the  days  of  Joshua,  and  they  had  gained  it 
against  the  most  discouraging  odds.  As  a  lesson  in  war 
it  was  invaluable,  and  its  results  quickened  the  passion 
for  freedom  which  already  had  begun  to  root  itself  in  the 

1  Jud.  V.  27. 


THE    JUDGES.  477 

heart  of  Israel.  Nor  was  it  without  a  powerful  effect  on 
their  religious  history  that  their  national  degradation  and 
misery  had  ended  as  soon  as  they  abandoned  idolatry, 
and  sought  the  favour  and  help  of  Jehovah.  That  the 
result  was  due  to  Him  and  not  to  themselves,  however 
valiantly  they  had  fought,  was  not  only  proudly  owned, 
but  enshrined  in  the  poetry  of  the  nation,  as  the  prevail- 
ing note  of  the  odes  and  lyrics  which  an  occasion  so 
august  called  forth.  Thus,  the  magnificent  "  Song  of 
Deborah  ''  opens  with  its  acknowledgment,  and  it  forms 
the  key  note  throughout. 

That  the  leaders  acted  as  became  them  in  Israel, 
That  the  people  showed  themselves  valiant/ 
Praise  ye  Jehovah  ! 

Hear  0  ye  Kings  !  give  ear  O  Princes ; 

I  to  Jehovah,  even  I,  will  sing ; 

I  will  sound  the  harp  to  Jehovah,  Israel's  God  ! 

Jehovah!  when  thou  wentest  forth  from  Seir, 
When  thou  marchedst  hither  from  the  land  of  Edom, 
The  earth  trembled  and  the  heavens  streamed  down ; 

The  clouds  poured  forth  waters; 
The  mountains  melted  before  Jehovah — • 

Sinai  (flowed  down)  before  the  face  of  Jehovah,  before  the  God  of 
Israel ! 

The  guilt  of  Meroz  was,  that  it  did  not  come  to  the 
help  of  Jehovah,  and  the  victory  is  over  His  enemies. 
The  dimly  felt  honour  of  being  the  people  of  God  thus 
first  took  an  articulate  form,  and  henceforth  became  a 
mighty  power  in  the  nation. 

^  Paulus  Gassel  translates  the  first  two  lines ; 

*'  That  the  long  hair  of  the  valiant  hung  wild  on  Israel 
In  the  consecration  of  the  people— Praise  Jehovah  !  " 
Bat  this  seems  very  fanciful. 


478  THE    JUDGES. 

A  striking  parallel  to  the  victory  of  Deborah  is  recorded 
by  Plutarch  in  his  Life  of  Timoleon.  That  general,  at 
the  battle  of  the  Crimesus^had  attacked  the  Carthaginians; 
but  their  heavy  armour  and  stout  shields  easily  repelled 
the  Greek  spears.  Suddenly,  however,  when  it  had  come 
to  sword  thrusts,  violent  peals  of  thunder,  and  vivid 
flashes  of  light  burst  from  the  mountains,  and  the  dark- 
ness which  had  been  hovering  about  the  higher  grounds 
and  crests  of  the  hills,  descended  on  the  place  of  battle, 
bringing  a  tempest  of  rain,  wind,  and  hail  with  it,  on  the 
backs  of  the  Greeks,  but  full  in  the  faces  of  the  Cartha- 
ginians. The  rain  beating  on  them  and  the  lightning 
dazzliug  them,  distressed  the  inexperienced ;  and  in 
particular  the  claps  of  the  thunder,  and  the  noise  of  the 
rain  and  hail  beating  on  their  arms,  prevented  them  ^rom 
hearing  the  command  of  their  officers.  In  addition  to 
this,  the  very  mud  was  a  great  hindrance  to  the  Cartha- 
ginians, who  were  loaded  with  heavy  armour ;  and  their 
sliirts,  underneath,  getting  drenched,  the  foldings  about 
the  bosom  filled  with  water,  and  grew  cumbersome  to 
them  as  they  fought ;  making  it  easy  for  the  Greeks  to 
throw  them  down,  and  impossible  for  them  to  rise  again, 
with  weapons  in  their  hands.  The  river  Crimesus,  also, 
swollen,  partly  by  the  rain,  and  partly  by  the  stoppage 
of  its  course  from  the  numbers  passing  through  it,  over- 
flowed its  banks,  and  the  level  ground  on  its  sides  was 
filled  with  rivulets  and  currents  that  had  no  certain 
channel,  in  which  the  Carthaginians  stumbled  and  rolled 
about,  and  found  themselves  in  great  difficulty  ?  ^ 

As  the  most  ancient  of  Hebrew  lyrics,  Deborah's  song 
has  a  supreme  interest.  The  following  is  a  literal  version 
of  the  part  of  it  not  already  quoted. 

>  Plutarch,  Timoleon.     BryderCs  Translation. 


THE    JUDGES.  479 

In  the  days  of  Sbamgar,  son  of  Anath, 
In  the  days  of  Jael,^  the  roads  lay  idle, 
And  wanderers  went  round  about  by  secret  paths. 

Leaders  ^  had  ceased  in  Israel ;  there  were  none 
Till  thou  didst  arise,  O  Deborah,  as  leader  : 
Till  thou  arose  as  Mother  in  Israel.^ 

They  chose  new  holy  judges  : 

Then  were  the  gates  of  (the  enemy's)  towns  taken  by  storm, 

Though  neither  shield  nor  spear  could  be  seen 

Among  forty  thousand  of  Israel. 

My  heart  thanks  you,  ye  leaders  of  Israel, 

And  you  brave  ones  who  freely  offered  yourselves  from  the  people; 

Praise  ye  Jehovah  (with  me) ! 

Ye  who  ride  on  white  dappled  she  asses ; 
Ye  who  sit  on  fine  carpets ; 
And  ye  (poor  ones)  that  walk  on  the  roads, 
Sing  ye ! 

Clear  rising  from  the  sweet  singers,  where  they  water  the  flocks, 

Let  men  praise  the  righteous  deeds  of  Jehovah; 

The  righteous  deeds  of  His  leading  in  Israel, 

For  then  did  the  people  storm  the  gates  of  their  foes. 

Up  then !     Up  then  !     Deborah  ! 
Up  then  !     Up  then  !  sing  the  song  of  battle ! 
Up,  Barak !  and  lead  back  thy  captives. 
Thou  son  of  Abiuoam ! 

Then  a  small  band  of  chiefs  and  of  the  people  rushed  down : 
Jehovah,  Himself,  went  down,  to  my  help,  amongst  the  mighty; 
From  Ephraira  (came)  those  whose  root  is  in  Amalek,^ 
After  them,  Benjamin,  thou  with  thy  people  1 


^  Some  unknown  person.     It  speaks  of  the  past  and  cannot 
refer  to  the  wife  of  Heber.     For  Deborah's  song,  see  Jud.  v.  2-31, 
2  Herder  has  "  popular  assemblies  "  instead  of  '*  leaders." 

*  Graetz. 

*  The  hills  of  Amalek ;  the  old  name  of  the  hills  of  Ephraim. 


480  THE    JUDGES. 

The  leaders  came  down  out  of  Machir,* 

And  from  Zebulon  those  who  held  the  rod  of  the  chief; 

And  the  princes  of  Issachar,  with  Deborah; 

Issachar  pressed  close  behind  Barak,  on  foot,  into  the  valley. 

By  the  streams  of  Eeuben  there  are  great  consultations  ! 

"Why  lingerest  thou,  in  the  sheep  folds,  to  hear  the  strains  of  the 

pipe  ? 
By  the  streams  of  Reuben  are  great  consultations ! 

Gilead  stays  on  the  other  side  Jordan ; 

And  Dan— why  drawest  thou  thy  boats  to  the  beach?  ^ 

Asher  sits  by  the  edge  of  the  sea 

And  clings  to  his  harbours. 

Zebulon  is  a  people  throwing  away  his  life  to  the  death, 

And  ISTaphtali — on  the  heights  of  the  laud ! 

The  kings  came — they  fought, 

The  kings  of  Canaan  delivered  battle 

At  Taanach,  by  the  waters  of  Megiddo. 

■ — But  not  even  a  piece  of  silver  have  they  won ! 

The  skies  themselves  fought  (for  us), 

The  very  stars,  from  their  paths,  fought  against  Sisera.' 

The  stream  Kishon  washed  them  away, 
The  brave  stream — the  stream  Kishon ! 
Step  forth  now,  my  soul,  with  pride !  * 

^  Manasseh.  Machir  is  usually  Eastern,  but,  here,  it  includes 
Western  Manasseh,  also. 

2  Graetz. 

3  "The  season  was  probably  that  of  the  autumn  storms,  which 
occur  early  in  November.  At  this  time  the  meteoric  showers 
are  commonest,  and  are  remarkably  fine  in  effect,  seen  in  the 
evening  light  at  a  season  when  the  air  is  specially  clear  and 
bright.  The  scene  presented  by  the  fiery  falling  stars,  as  the 
defeated  host  fled  away  by  night,  is  one  very  striking  to  the 
fancy,  and  would  form  a  fine  subject  for  the  artist's  pencil." 
Tent  Wo7'h,  p.  70. 

*  Yigouroux  makes  this  line — "And  I  have  trampled  under 
foot  the  strong." 


THE  JUDaES.  481 

Then  stamped  tlie  hoofs  of  the  horses, 
In  the  swift  flight  of  the  mighty  ones  ! 

"Curse  ye  Meroz,"  cried  the  messenger  of  Jehovah, 
*'  With  a  curse  curse  her  inhabitants, 
Because  they  did  not  come  to  the  help  of  Jehovah, 
To  the  help  of  Jehovah,  among  the  heroes ! " 

Blessed  above  women  be  Jael, 
The  wife  of  Heber  the  Kenite — 
Blessed  above  women,  in  the  tent ! 

He  begged  for  water,  she  gave  him  milk : 
In  the  bowl  of  the  sheik  she  handed  him  cream : 
But  she  stretched  out  her  hand  to  the  tent  pin ; 
Her  right  hand  to  the  hammer  of  the  workman, 
And  hammered  Sisera;  shivered  his  skull; 
Broke  it  in  pieces;  pierced  through  his  temples! 
Between  her  feet  he  drew  himself  up,  he  fell,  he  lay; 
Between  her  feet  he  drew  himself  up,  and  fell — 
Where  he  drew  himself  up,  there  fell  he,  dying. 

Behind  the  window  lattice  ajar,  looks  out 
The  mother  of  Sisera,  and  frets — 
*'  Why  is  his  chariot  so  long  in  coming  ? 
Why  are  its  wheels  so  slow  ?  " 

The  wisest  of  her  ladies  answer  her 

— She  herself  repeating  the  words — 

"  For  certain  they  have  found  and  are  dividing  the  spoil 

— A  girl,  ay,  two  girls,  for  each  man; 

Plunder  of  rich  coloured  stuffs  for  Sisera — plunder  of  embroidered 

rich  coloured  stuff:s,  for  the  neck  of  his  queen ! 
A  coloured  twice  embroidered  piece  for  the  neck  of  his  queen  !  " 

So  perish  all  thine  enemies,  Jehovah ! 

But  may  they  that  love  Him  be  like  the  sun  when  he  rises  in 
his  might ! 

A  difficulty  has  been  found  by  some  in  the  praise 
given  by  Deborah  to  Jael  for  what  must  be  held, 
according  to  our  better  light,  a  treacherous  murder.    But 

VOL.    II.  I  I 


482 


THE   JUDGES. 


it  cannot  be  just  to  transfer  to  remote  and  rude  nations, 
in  which  ideas  of  morality  were  necessarily  imperfect, 
the  standard  gradually  accepted  by  ourselves,  eighteen 
centuries  after  the  higher  revelation  of  Jesus  Christ. 
Nor  is  there  any  Divine  sanction  of  Jael's  deed,  though 
Deborah,  in  the  exultation  of  victory,  may  have  seen  only 
its  bearing  on  the  freedom  of  her  people. 


CHAPTER  XYI. 

GIDEON    TO    SAMSON. 

THS  dates  of  the  incidents  recorded  in  tlie  Book  of 
Judges  are  necessarily  perplexing,  since  gome  of 
them  may  have  been  contemporaneous;  but  we  cannot 
be  wrong  in  assigning,  if  only  from  internal  evidence, 
the  rise  of  Gideon,  the  greatest  of  all  the  Judges,  to  a 
period  considerably  later  than  that  of  Deborah. 

The  story  of  the  past  had  painfully  repeated  itself. 
Peace  and  prosperity  had  lowered  the  moral  tone  of  the 
tribes,  and  time  had  softened  that  abhorrence  of  idolatry 
which  had  been  kindled  by  the  enthusiasm  of  Deborah. 
Disunion,  and  the  virtual  lapse  of  all  government,  had 
made  the  tribes  an  easy  prey  to  any  vigorous  foe  whom 
the  attractions  of  their  territory,  or  the  lust  of  conquest, 
might  bring  against  them.  And  such  an  enemy  too  soon 
appeared. 

The  scourge  of  God  by  which  He  was,  this  time,  to 
bring  them  to  a  better  mind,  was  an  invasion  of  the 
Arab  tribes  of  the  deserts  east  and  south  of  Palestine : 
the  Midianites,  who  had  gradually  spread  northwards 
from  the  Peninsula  of  Sinai; — and  the  old  enemies  of 
Israel,  the  Amalekites,  whom  they  had  fought  at  Sinai; 
by  whom  they  had  been  defeated  at  Hormah  in  their  first 
attempt  to  enter  Palestine ;  who  in  alliance  with  Ehud, 

483 


484  GIDEON   TO    SAMSON. 

the  Moabite,  liad  oppressed  Benjamin,  but  whose  lands  in 
Central  Canaan,  Epliraim  had  now  made  its  own.  With 
these,  moreover,  were  joined  a  number  of  other  Arab 
tribes  known  as  the  Sons  of  the  East.  The  plains  and 
valleys  of  Palestine  had  in  all  ages  been  the  very  "  gates 
of  Paradise ''  to  these  dwellers  in  the  waste,  as  indeed 
they  still  are  to  their  descendants.  Banding  together  in 
a  vast  host  of  120,000  men  ^'that  drew  sword,'' ^  they 
now  streamed  over  the  fords  of  the  Jordan,  year  by  year 
— migrating  thither,  with  their  households  and  herds, 
in  such  numbers  as  could  only  be  compared,  by  those 
whom  they  invaded,  to  a  flight  of  locusts  ;  which,  indeed 
they  rivalled  in  destructiveness.^  The  results  to  the 
country  may  be  judged  from  those  of  similar  Bedouin 
inroads,  on  a  small  scale,  in  our  own  day.  A  few  years 
ago  the  whole  Ghor,  or  depressed  channel  of  the  Jordan, 
was  in  the  hands  of  the  f  ellahin,  or  peasants,  and  much  of 
it  was  sown  with  corn.  Now,  the  whole  of  it  is  in 
those  of  the  Bedouins,  who  eschew  all  agriculture,  except- 
ing in  a  few  spots  cultivated,  here  and  there,  by  their 
slaves.  The  same  thing  is  going  on  all  over  the  plain 
of  Sharon,  where,  both  in  the  north  and  south,  land 
is  going  back  to  a  state  of  nature,  and  whole  villages 
vanishing  from  the  face  of  the  earth.    Since  1838  no  fewer 

1  Jud.  viii.  10. 

2  The  Rev.  F.  W.  Holland  says  of  the  locusts,  while  still  young 
and  without  wings,  that  he  has  seen  troops  of  them,  in  Palestine, 
covering  the  ground  for  a  mile  in  length  and  20,  30,  or  even  50 
yards  across.  When  they  approach  a  village  in  their  steady  and 
constant  advance,  the  people  turn  out,  light  fires  round  their 
fields,  dig  trenches  and  fill  them  with  water,  and  try  to  beat 
the  swarming  thousands  back  with  their  cloaks  and  branches  of 
trees,  but  in  spite  of  all  they  swarm  up  the  trees  and  strip  them 
of  every  green  leaf,  and  crunch  up  every  blade  in  the  gardens  ou 
their  line  of  march.     Tristram's  Nat.  Hist,  of  the  Bible,  p.  317. 


GIDEON   TO   SAMSON.  4S5 

than  twenty  "have  been  thus  erased  from  the  niap_,  and 
their  scanty  population  extirpated.^  Except  on  the  eastern 
branches,  there  is  not  now  a  single  inhabited  village  in 
the  whole  plain  of  Esdraelon,  and  not  more  than  a  sixth 
of  its  soil  is  cultivated.  The  peasants  prefer  an  hour's 
hard  climb  to  a  safe  home  in  the  hills  on  each  side,  to 
living  in  the  open,  which  wild  Arabs  ever  and  anon  scour 
on  their  fleet  horses,  in  hope  of  plunder.  In  Gideon's 
day  their  inroads  were  not  only  on  a  gigantic  scale,  but 
were  systemafcically  repeated  each  summer;  the  standing 
grain  being  trampled  under  foot  and  eaten  by  their 
flocks  and  camels,  which  were  let  loose  on  them;  the 
threshed  crops  carried  off*,  and,  also,  all  the  sheep  or 
oxen  or  asses  they  could  find,  over  the  wide  stretch  from 
Esdraelon  to  Gaza,  in  the  distant  south-west. 

War  has  always  been  cruel,  but  it  was  infinitely  more 
so  in  antiquity  than  now,  nameless  and  awful  as  are 
the  sufferings  it  entails  at  the  best.  The  story  of 
Saneha,  which  is  at  least  as  old  as  the  days  of  Abraham, 
tells  us  how  it  was  waged  even  in  the  petty  raids  of 
chief  on  chief. 

*'  Every  land,"  says  he,  "which  I  visited,  I  caused  to  yield 
Of  the  forage  of  its  pastures.     I  divided  its  cattle  among  my 

men, 
I  took  away  its  women  and  children  as  slaves : 
I  smote  the  men.^ 

*  *  #  * 

He  wished  to  divide  my  cattle 

Among  the  troop  of  his  followers  :  ' 

He  wished  to  take  from  me  my  oxen,  bulls  and  goats. 

#  *  *  * 


*  Tristram's  Lanid  of  Israel,  p.  494. 

2  Story  of  Saneha,  150-153. 

3  Ihid.,  166,  167. 


486  GIDEON    TO    SAMSON. 

I  devoted  his  wives  to  Mentu  (the  Egyptian  god  of  war), 
I  took  his  goods,  I  divided  his  cattle  (among  my  men), 
I  took  possession  of  the  things  that  were  in  his  house, 
I  stripped  his  chamber  ; 
I  got  great  treasure  and  wealth,  I  got  much  cattle.' 

No  wonder  that  the  Israelites  betook  themselves  to 
the  fissures  and  clefts  of  the  hills,  hollowed  out  by  the 
torrents,  and  to  the  natural  caverns  and  fastnesses  in 
the  rocks. ^ 

The  vast  host  was  under  two  emirs,  Zebah  "  the  man- 
killer  ;  ^'  and  Zalmunna,  "  the  pitiless,^'  ^  with  two  sub- 
ordinate sheiks,  Oreb,  "the  raven ;^^  and  Zeeb  "the 
wolf;'^*  the  four — as  they  led  on  their  wild  followers 
— arrayed  in  scarlet  cloaks,^  like  the  sheiks  of  to-day,  with 
gold  chains  and  crescent-shaped  ornaments  round  the 
necks  of  their  camels,  and  on  their  own  persons ;  their 
hordes,  as  well  as  themselves,  wearing  gold  ear-rings,  and 
their  wives  and  daughters  nose  jewels,  also.^  Mounting 
from  the  depths  of  the  Jordan  valley,  probably  by  the 
Wady  El  Jalud,  past  the  meadows  of  Bethshean,  their  first 
attraction  on  the  west  of  the  river,  they  pitched  their  tents 
far  and  near  on  the  east  end  of  Esdraelon,  from  Gilboa 
westwards.  Such  a  host,  on  a  smaller  scale,  is  described 
by  Leslie  Porter,^  as  seen  by  him  in  the  spring  of  1857, 
when  the  Bedouin  sheik,  Akeil  Agha,  assembled  his 
men  in  Esdraelon,  after  the  massacre  of  the  Kurds  at 
Hattin,  to  divide  the  plunder.  "  They  spread  over  the 
plain,  countless  as  locusts ;  their  camels  beyond  number, 
like  the   sands  on  the  seashore.     When  I  looked  at  the 

1  Story  of  Saneha,  205,  208-212. 

2  Jnd.  vi.  2.  3  Lii^,^  w  shadow  is  denied." 

^  Similar  names  are  still  common  among  the  Arab  chiefs  east 
of  the  Jordan. 

5  Jud.  viii.  26.  «  Jud.  viii.  25,  2d. 

"  Handbooh  for  Palestine,  p.  346. 


GIDEON    TO    SAMSON.  487 

wild  and  fierce  crowds  of  this  disorderly  army, — on  the 
spoils  and  booty, — if  seemed  as  if  I  had  before  me  the 
very  spectacle  of  the  great  invasion  of  the  Midianites  in 
the  days  of  Gideon/^ 

Prophets^  had  been  sent  to  Israel  urging  its  sons  to 
return  to  Jehovah,  as  the  only  means  of  averting  this 
calamity,  but  the  land  had  been  wasted  for  seven  succes- 
sive years  before  they  listened  to  them,  and  penitently 
sought  the  one  great  Deliverer — often  tried  and  never 
failing — the  God  of  their  fathers.  Then,  at  last,  the  ever 
Merciful  raised  a  helper  for  them. 

Among  the  clans  or  "  thousands  '^  of  western  Manasseh, 
one  of  the  poorest  ^  was  that  descended  from  Abiezer,  a 
son  of  Gilead,  the  grandson  of  the  patriarch  Manasseh ;  ^ 
but  in  the  households  of  this  humble  sept,  that  of  Joash 
seems  to  have  held  a  foremost  place.  He  had  boasted 
of  a  family  of  magnificent  sons,  "  each  like  the  son  of  a 
king;  '' ^  but  all,  save  the  youngest,  had  fallen  on  Mount 
Tabor,  in  endless  fights  with  these  Midianites.^  Thus 
the  seven  years  of  misery  had  not  passed  in  weak  submis- 
sion, though  the  brave  spirits  of  the  land  had  only  lost 
their  lives  in  the  vain  struggle.  Even  the  youngest  son, 
Gideon,  ^'the  tree -feller,' '  that  is,  the  impetuous  war- 
rior, had  already  earned  such  a  name  as  "  a  mighty  man 
of  valour,'^  that  the  Midianites  themselves  were  afraid  of 
him.^  His  home  and  fields  were  at  Ophrah,  on  the  very 
scene  of  the  invasion,  and  he  already  had  grown  sons,^ 
and  a  separate  household,  with  his  own  body  of  slaves, 
and  even  an  armour  bearer.^ 

Modest,  like  all  truly  great  men,  Gideon  had  not  thought 

1  Jud.  vi.  7.  ^  Perhaps  "poorest"  means  "feeblest." 

3  Josh.  xvii.  2.  *  Jud.  viii.  18.  «  Jud.  viii.  19. 

6  Jud.  vii.  14.  ?  Jud.  viii.  20. 

8  Jud.  vi.  27 ;  vii.  10. 


488  GIDEON   TO   SAMSON. 

of  heading  a  general  revolt,  till  roused  directly  by  God 
to  do  so.  A  vision  appeared  to  him  under  circumstances 
illustrating  the  sad  state  of  the  times.  He  was  at  the 
moment  busy  threshing  wheat  cut  down  almost  before  it 
was  ripe — his  extemporized  threshing- floor_,  the  ground 
by  his  rock-hewn  wine  press,  which  was  known  in  those 
days  from  "  the  terebinth/'  ^  that  rose  grandly  before  it. 
The  wine  press  itself,  with  its  huge  hollow  for  the  grapes, 
was  his  rude  barn,  to  preserve  the  grain  from  the  Arabs. 
As  in  the  case  of  Moses,  a  miracle  finally  overcame  the 
self-distrust  which,  in  his  humility,  had  hitherto  kept 
him  back. 

That  very  day  saw  the  reality  of  the  "  new  spirit  from 
God,''  with  which,  as  the  narrative  tells  us,  he  was 
clothed.^  Building  an  altar  on  the  spot  hallowed  by  the 
visit  of  the  angel,  he  dedicated  it  to  Jehovah- Shalom — 
'^  Jehovah  (who  brings)  better  days."  ^  Joash,  his  father^ 
had  so  far  yielded  to  the  evil  ways  of  the  time,  as  to 
have  built  an  altar  to  Baal,  on  the  top  of  the  cliff  in  which 
was  the  wine  press,  and  also  an  Asherah  *  at  its  side,  but" 
the  new  altar  to  Jehovah  could  not  tolerate  such  abomina- 
tions near  it.  Waiting  till  darkness  fell,  Gideon  bravely 
threw  down  the  one,  with  the  help  of  ten  of  his  slaves, 
and  not  only  cut  down  the  other,  but  split  it  up  for  fuel ; 
and  having  laid  it  on  the  altar  of  Jehovah,  used  it  to 
consume,  in  sacrifice  to  Him,  a  bullock  which  his  father 
had  apparently  consecrated  to  Baal.  But  the  brave  deed 
was  like  to  have  cost  him  dear ;  for  the  people  of  Ophrah, 
still  afraid  of  their  idols,  would  fain  have  stoned  him, 
when  they  discovered  it,  and  were  only  kept  from  doing 

1  Jud.  vi.  11.  2  ju(j_  ^i  34 

*  Lit.,  "  Jehovah-peace." 

*  A  rough  woodeu  pillar — part  of  the  stem  of  a  tree — the 
symbol  of  the  goddess  of  fertility. 


GIDEON    TO    SAMSON.  489 

SO  by  the  clever  irony  of  Joasli,  who  reminded  them 
that  if  Baal  were  a  god  he  would  defend  himself.^ 

Meanwhile,  the  annual  invasion  of  the  Arab  host  had 
taken  place,  but  Gideon  was  now  prepared.  Sounding  the 
war  trumpet  through  his  district,  his  own  clan  of  Abiezer 
at  once  rallied  to  him.  Messengers  were  then  sent 
through  all  Western  Manasseh,  Asher,  Zebulon,  and 
Naphtali,  the  tribes  nearest  Esdraelon,  and  they  also 
obeyed  its  summons.  But  the  strength  of  the  enemy, 
and  the  failure  of  previous  efforts  against  them,  made 
even  a  Gideon  still  hesitate.  All  irresolution,  however, 
was  at  last  removed  by  a  double  sign  of  the  presence 
and  help  of  Jehovah — the  wet  fleece^  and  the  dry — 
signs,  says  Bwald,  illustrating  Gideon's  own  character; 
warm  and  zealous,  while  all  around  were  indififerent 
and  cold ;  calm  and  cool,  when  all  around  were  excited.^ 
No  fewer  than  33,000  men  had  answered  his  call  to 
battle,  but  he  felt  that  so  many  were  not  needed,  at 
least  for  the  first  attack.  Proclaiming  through  the  host 
that  all  who  were  fainthearted  were  free  to  depart,  no 
fewer  than  22,000  withdrew.  But  even  the  11,000  left 
were  more  than  were  needed  for  a  victory  in  which 
Jehovah   was   to   make  bare  His  arm.     At  the  foot  of 

*  The  name  *'  Jerubbaal,"  given  henceforth  to  Gideon,  means, 
according  to  Ewald,  "The  Contender  for  God;"  Kohler  makes 
it,  the  '*  Contender  against  Baal." 

2  The  copiousness  of  the  dew  in  Palestine  is  amazing.  "lb 
costs  us  as  much  trouble,"  says  Irwin,  "to  protect  ourselves  frcm 
the  dew  by  night,  as  from  the  heat  by  day.  So  heavy  is  it 
that  in  the  morning  the  coverings  under  which  we  had  lain  are  as 
wet  as  if  they  had  been  dipped  in  the  sea."  Eosenmiiller,  Alte 
nnd  Neue  Morgenl.,  vol.  iii.  p.  32.  Often,  says  Furrer,  the  dew  is 
so  heavy  that  the  tents  seem  in  the  morning  to  have  been  soaked 
with  heavy  rain.     Bih.  Lex.,  vol.  v.  p.  496. 

3  Ewald,  vol.  ii.  p.  542. 


490  GIDEON   TO   SAMSON. 

Mount  Gilboa^  in  the  north-west  of  Esdraelon,  flows  even 
now  a  copious  spring,  known  as  Ain  Djaloud,  formerly 
Ain  Harodj  *'  the  Spring  of  Trembling,"  from  the  scene 
it  witnessed  in  Gideon's  story. ^  It  streams  from  under 
a  huge  rock,  worn  out  within  to  a  cavern^  and  forms  a 
great  pool  of  the  purest  water,  in  the  shape  of  a  half 
circle,  from  which  many  could  drink  at  once.  There 
are  now  numbers  of  little  fish  in  it,  and  the  bottom  has 
at  one  time  been  paved,  but  many  of  the  stones  are  out 
of  their  places.  Pouring  from  this,  the  water  flows  in 
two  channels,  partly  lined  with  stone,  which  turn  two  mills 
close  at  hand,  and  then  flow  on  to  the  east,  to  make  their 
way  down  the  steep  Wady  el  Djaloud,  to  the  Jordan.^ 

To  this  basin  Gideon  led  his  men  to  drink,  and  care- 
fully noting  who  were  cool  and  self-restrained  enough, 
even  with  the  enemy  near,  to  lift  the  water  composedly  in 
their  hand  as  a  cup,  he  selected  them  as  those  on  whom 
he  could  safely  trust,  sending  away  all  who,  in  their  fear, 
knelt  hurriedly  down  and  dipped  their  faces  in  the^spring. 
But  the  number  left  him  was  only  300.  With  these, 
however,  he  determined  to  assail  the  innumerable  foe; 
nor  were  they  backward  in  daring — so  high  had  his  spirit 
and  theirs  now  risen.  Providing  every  man  with  a  horn, 
a  torch,  and  an  earthen  pot,  he  disclosed  his  plan;  that 
the  300  should  divide  into  three  equal  companies,  and 
approach  the  Arab  camp  from  opposite  sides  in  the  dead 
of  the  night.  Then,  at  a  signal  from  his  war  horn, 
all,  in  a  moment,  should  break  their  pots  and,  displaying 
their  blazing  torches,^  rush  on  with  the  terrible  war  cry 

*  Lieut.  Conder  tells  us  that  this  spring  is  also  called  by  the 
fellahin,  Ain  el  Jem'ain,  "the  Spring  of  the  Two  Troops."  Tent 
Work,  p.  233. 

2  Guei  in,  Description  de  la  Palestine,  Samarie,  vol.  i.  p.  308. 

*  Beschreibung  von  Ar alien,  p.  304 


GIDEON   TO   SAMSON.  491 

of  Israel,  to  the  shout  of  '^  For  Jehovah  and  Gideon  '^ — 
*'  The  sword  of  Jehovah  and  Gideon  ! ''  The  use  of  the 
same  stratagem  strangely  reappears  in  an  Arab  battle, 
in  the  middle  of  last  century,  described  by  Niebuhr; 
and  in  Egypt,  in  our  own  day,  the  use  of  pitchers  or 
pots,  to  hide  lights,  is  familiar.  "  The  Zabit  or  Agha  of 
police,^'  says  Lane,  ^^in  making  his  nightly  rounds,  bears 
a  torch  which  burns  without  flame,  except  when  waved 
briskly  through  the  air,  but  then  it  lights  up  at  once. 
The  end  is  sometimes  hidden  in  a  small  earthenware  jar, 
or  covered  in  some  other  way,  when  the  flame  is  not 
wished  to  be  seen.^^  ^ 

Everything  was  now  ready,  but,  for  his  final  assur- 
ance, Gideon,  by  a  providential  impulse,  resolved  to 
make  matters  doubly  sure  by  venturing  with  Phurah,  his 
armour  bearer,  into  the  camp  of  the  Midianites,  in  the 
dead  of  the  night.  Stealing  down  the  hill  side,  there- 
fore, the  two  crept  unnoticed  to  the  outside  of  the  host, 
which,  like  all  Arab  armies  had  no  sentinels.  There 
Gideon  had  the  joy  of  hearing  a  man  tell  his  neighbour 
a  dream  he  had  had  of  a  barley  cake — the  commonest 
kind  of  bread — having  tumbled  into  the  host  of  Midian, 
and  coming  against  the  tent  of  the  emir  in  command, 
and  overthrowing  it,  so  that  it  ''  lay  along.''  "  That 
can  be  nothing  else,"  replied  the  listener,  "  than  the 
sword  of  Gideon,  the  son  of  Joash,  a  man  of  Israel — 
his  God  has  delivered  Midian  and  all  our  host  into  his 
hand." 

Returning,  with  a  grateful  heart,  he  now  sent  off  the 
three  companies  at  once  to  their  posts,  and  on  the  signal 
being    given,    about  eleven  o'clock   at  night,^  the  hills 

*  Lane's  Modern  Egyptians,  vol.  i.  p.  120,  Fifth  Edition. 
^  The  beginning  of  the  middle  watch.    There  were  three.    Fiom 
Bunset  to  10  p.m. ;  from  10  to  2  a.m. ;  and  from  2  a.m.  to  sunrise. 


492  GIDEON    TO    SAMSON. 

around  blazed  witli  three  hundred  torclies,  and  echoed 
with  the  blast  of  three  hundred  horns,  and  the  fierce  war 
cries  of  the  assailants.  A  panic  instantly  seized  the  unor- 
ganized Arab  camp,  encumbered  with  herds  and  camels, 
besides  women  and  children.  Fleeing  for  life,  amidst  wild 
cries  of  alarm,  each  thinking  his  neighbour  an  enemy, 
the  vast  multitude  poured  in  hideous  confusion  down  the 
steep  descent  of  Wady  el  Djaloud,  towards  the  ford  of 
the  Jordan,  to  reach  their  own  side  of  the  stream.  But 
Gideon  would  not  let  them  escape.  The  thousands  of 
the  northern  tribes  who  had  come  out  to  his  aid  were 
instantly  sent  in  pursuit;  and  messengers  hastened  off 
through  all  the  hill  country  of  Ephraim,  to  rouse  the  men 
of  that  great  tribe  to  seize  the  fords  in  their  territory, 
and  cut  off  the  fugitives.  Part  had  already,  however, 
made  their  escape  for  the  time,  over  the  ford  of  Beth- 
abara,  just  above  the  entrance  of  the  Djaloud  into  the 
Jordan,  but  Ephraim  reached  the  lower  fords  in  time  to 
arrest  the  retreat  of  the  great  body  of  the  flying  hordes, 
with  their  two  secondary  leaders,  the  sheiks  Oreb  and 
Zeeb.  The  slaughter  here  was  so  terrible,  that  Isaiah 
speaks  of  the  disaster  that  overtook  the  Arabs  as  only 
to  be  ranked  with  that  of  Egypt  at  the  Red  Sea,  or  the 
destruction  of  the  host  of  Sennacherib.^  Nor  is  he  alone 
among  the  sacred  writers,  in  this  estimate  of  the  great- 
ness of  Gideon's  victory.  In  imagery,  both  obvious 
and  vivid  to  every  native  of  the  hills  and  plains  of 
Palestine,  the  author  of  the  eighty- third  Psalm,^  describes 
the  enemy  as  driven  over  the  uplands  of  Gilead  like  the 
chaff  blown  from  the  threshing  floors ;  chased  away  like 
the  rootless  dry  weeds  which  come  in  rolling  globes 
before  the  wind,  over  the  levels  of  Esdraelon  and  Philistia 
—as  flying  with  the  fierce  haste  and  wild  confusion  of 
^  Isa.  X.  26.  5?  Ps.  Ixxxiii.  13,  14. 


GIDEON   TO    SAMSON.  493 

the  flames  on  a  wooded  mountain,  as  they  leap  from  tree 
to  tree  and  hill  to  hill,  when  by  chance  set  on  fire  in  the 
drought  of  a  tropical  climate.^  Among  the  rest  fell  the 
two  leaders;  the  one  at  a  rock,  which  henceforth  bore  his 
name — Oreb;  the  other  at  a  winepress,  henceforth  known 
as  Zeeb.^ 

Gideon,  meanwhile,  was  no  less  resolute  to  make  the 
victory  as  decisive  as  possible.  He  had  gained  two 
battles,  but  a  third  was  needed,  and  therefore  crossing 
the  Jordan,  he  and  his  men,  "  faint,  yet  pursuing,^' 
followed  the  course  taken  by  Zeba  and  Zalmunna,  the 
two  emirs  who  had  been  over  all  the  host,  and  at  last 
overtook  them  at  Karkor,  perhaps  near  Kenath  in  the 
Hauran,  and  there  finally  scattered  the  remnant,  num- 
bering 10,000,  who  had  still  kept  together,  and  took 
the  two  princes  alive.  Never  was  deliverance  more 
complete.  As  we  have  already  seen,  the  day  of  Midian 
''  with  its  confused  noise  and  its  garments  rolled  in 
blood,^'  was  still  fresh  in  the  popular  mind  in  the  days  of 
Isaiah,*  and  the  Hebrew  poet,  in  after  ages,  could  find  no 
fitter  emblem  of  the  destruction  of  the  enemies  of  his 
people,  than  that  their  nobles  should  be  made  like  Oreb 
and  like  Zeeb,  and  their  princes  as  Zebah  and  as 
^Zalmunna.* 

So  magnificent  a  triumph  raised  Gideon  at  once  to  the 
highest  honour,  and  led  the  tribes  who  had  benefited  so 
greatly  by  his  leadership,  to  ofi'er  him  kingly  rank,  for 
himself  and  his  family  after  him.  But  he  was  as  modest 
as  he  was  great  and  brave.  The  times,  indeed,  were  not 
yet  ripe  for  monarchy,  though  the  union  and  strength  it 
would  bring  were  overcoming  the  aversion  of  the  nation 

^  See  Bib.  Diet,  art.  Oreh.       2  j^a.  vii.  25.       ^  jga.  ix.  4,  5. 
*  Ps.  Ixxxiii.  11.     See  also  1  Sam.  xii.  11.     Isa.  x.  26.     Heb.  xii. 
82. 


494  GIDEON   TO   SAMSON. 

to  central  power.  Yet  it  is  certain  that  few  men  have 
ever  been  fitter  for  the  highest  rank.  Even  his  appear- 
ance was  kingly.^  He  could  be  stern  when  necessary, 
as  when  he  ordered  the  elders  of  two  towns,  Succoth  and 
Penuel,  that  had  refused  to  give  food  to  his  men,  in  their 
long  pursuit  of  the  common  enemy,  to  be  beaten  to  death 
with  the  terrible  thorns  of  the  acacia;^  but  he  could  be 
wise  and  temperate  also,  as  when  he  calmed  the  anger 
of  Ephraim  ^  at  not  having  been  summoned  to  the  fight  in 
the  beginning,  by  telling  them  that  their  victory,  since  it 
slew  Oreb  and  Zeeb,  was  greater  than  his  own.* 

The  last  notice  of  this  great  man  throws  a  striking 
light  on  the  imperfect  religious  ideas  of  the  times. 
Instead  of  the  royalty  ofi"ered  him,  he  had  only  asked  for 
the  golden  ear-rings  ^  taken  from  the  Arab  host,  that  he 
might  dedicate  them  to  Jehovah.  But  he  did  so  in  a 
way  that  showed  the  superstitious  darkness  of  the  age. 
No  less  a  weight  of  gold  thus  procured  than  1,700  shekels 
had  been  cast  as  a  cheerful  gift  on  his  wide  cloak,  spread 
out  on  the  ground  to  receive  it.  This  he  forthwith 
caused  to  be  made  into  a  gorgeous  ephod,  to  be  used 
by  himself,  or  by  a  Levite,  as  an  oracle ;  in  supersti- 
tious and  unauthorized  imitation  of  the  ephod  of  the 
high  priest  at  Shiloh,  from  the  Urim  and  Thummim 
on  which  Divine  responses  were  given.  Heuceforth 
that  place  was  no  longer  the   centre  for  the  northern 

»  Jud.  Tiii.  18. 

2  Jud.  viii.  16.  "  Taught,"  in  our  version,  is  translated 
**  threshed,"  in  the  Sept.,  Vtdg.,  and  by  Geseuius  and  Bertheau. 

^  He,  a  Manassite,  could  not  have  hoped  that  the  proud 
Ephraimites  would  follow  one  of  his  tribe,  which  they  despised. 

4  Jud.  viii.  3. 

5  Negem  =  generally  nose  jewel-*,  but  here,  in  the  case  of  men 
having  worn  them,  ear-rings.  Yet  as  women  also  had  been 
among  the  Midianites,  there  would  be  nose  jewels  also. 


GIDEON   TO   SAMSON.  495 

tribes.  Nor  was  this  all.  The  ephod  seems  to  have 
become  an  object  of  idolatrous  worship,  leading  the 
people  astray  from  the  service  of  Jehovah.  But  in  so  dark 
an  age,  with  the  Mosaic  system  so  feebly  established  that 
Gideon,  though  not  a  priest,  had  himself  been  divinely 
ordered  to  offer  sacrifice,^  it  is  easy  to  understand  the 
error  of  even  so  staunch  a  worshipper  of  Jehovah. 

The  noble  fidelity  which  declined  the  crown,  because 
Jehovah  was  already  the  rightful  king,^  found  little 
response  in  the  bosom  of  some  at  least  of  those  whom  he 
had  so  nobly  served.  It  was  natural  that  among  his 
numerous  sons,  ambition  should  show  itself  after  his 
death.  He  had  imitated  royalty  in  one  point  only — 
that  of  having  numerous  wives ;  one,  a  slave  woman  of 
Shechem  ^ — a  son  of  whom  exhibited  a  sad  contrast  to 
his  father.  The  rich  booty  of  all  kinds  yielded  by  the 
great  victory  over  Midian,  had  doubtless  caused  great 
changes  in  a  people  so  simple,  and  introduced  a  taste  for 
show,  and  a  pride  of  life,  which  would  especially  be  seen 
in  the  towns.  A  closer  union  with  the  eagerly  commer- 
cial Phenicians  was  one  of  the  results ;  the  larger  towns 
becoming  more  than  hitherto  marts  for  Canaanitish  mer- 
chandise, and  homes  for  colonies  of  the  heathen.  Appar- 
ently to  give  these  foreigners  security  for  their  persons 
and  property,  and  to  protect  their  caravans,  coming  and 
going,  leagues  were  formed,  under  the  sanction  of  their 
god,  Baal-berith  or  El-berith,  the  "  protector  of  the 
covenant,"  and  a  temple  was  allowed  to  be  built  to  him 
in  Shechem,*  and  perhaps  in  other  towns  also. 

1  Jud.  vi.  26.  2  jud.  viii.  23.  3  j^^.  viii.  31. 

■*  Graetz  thinks  that  the  league  was  not  one  of  Israelibish  towns 
among  themselves,  but  rather  for  the  protection  of  foreigners 
only.  Hence,  he  says,  Gaal  and  his  brethren,  who  were  not 
Israelites,  were  only  sent  away  by  Abimelech — not  punished. 


496  GIDEON   TO   SAMSON. 

In  tills  growing  prosperity  local  rivalries  found  a 
proportionate  impulse.  Oplirali^  which  was  probably  a 
Manassite  town/  seemed  likely  to  throw  that  city,  tho 
old  capital  of  Ephraim,  into  the  shade,  by  the  presence 
and  influence  of  Gideon's  sons,  who  bore  themselves,  as 
a  whole,  worthily  of  their  great  father.  But  Abimelech, 
his  one  unworthy  son,  lent  himself  only  too  readily  to  the 
jealous  hatred  of  the  haughty  tribe.  Seeing  his  oppor- 
tunity for  personal  advancement  in  the  heated  state  of 
local  feeling,  he  planned  with  his  mother's  family  in 
Shechem,  that  the  city  and  its  connected  towns  should 
choose  him  for  king,  and  thus  raise  themselves,  finally, 
above  Ophrah.  It  was  better  for  them,  he  hinted, 
to  be  ruled  over  by  one  man  than  by  seventy,  the 
number  of  Gideon's  sons,  including  perhaps  his  grand- 
children. Besides,  he  was  their  ^^bone  and  their  flesh." 
The  bait  took.  A  subsidy  was  procured  from  the  temple 
of  Baal  in  Shechem,  and  given  to  Abimelech,  and  with 
this  he  raised  a  band  of  men,  such  as  troublous  times 
always  produce,  ready  to  do  anything  required  of  them. 
With  these  he  at  once  began  war  on  his  brothers,  whom 
he  finally  overcame,  and  ruthlessly  put  to  death — appar- 
ently by  beheading — on  "  one  stone ;  "  very  likely  that 
famous  for  his  father's  sacrifice  and  altar,  which  would 
naturally  be  the  local  sanctuary. 

One,  however,  Jotham — ''^  Jehovah  is  perfect" — escaped 
the  massacre,  and  made  his  way  to  Mount  Gerizim,  which 
overlooks  the  broad  valley  of  Shechem,^  at  the  very  time 

1  Ophrah  is  thought  by  Conder  {Bible  Handbook,  p.  221),  to  be 
the  same  as  Phathon  or  Ferata  near  Shechem ;  its  old  name  in 
the  Samaritan  Chronicle  being  Ophrah.  But  this  would  make 
Gideon,  a  Manassite,  have  had  his  home  from  the  first  in 
Ephraim,  which  yet  he  did  not  summon  to  his  aid. 

2  It  is  1,600  feet  broad  between  Ebal  and  Gerizim.  Boh.  Palest.^ 
v^ol.  iii.  p.  316. 


GIDEON   TO   SAMSON.  497 

■wHen  tlie  men  o£  the  city  and  neighbourliood  had 
assembled  below,  round  the  oak  of  "  the  watchpost/'  or 
of  '^  the  monument/^ — perhaps  the  memorial  erected  by 
Joshua^ — to  hail  Abimelech  as  King  ^ ;  the  first  in  the 
history  of  Israel.  Suddenly,  however,  Jotham,  who  had 
inherited  the  sagacity  and  ready  wit  of  his  father  and 
grandfather,  presented  himself  high  overhead  on  one  of 
the  rocky  spurs  that  project  from  Gerizim  into  the  valley, 
and  from  its  inaccessible  security  broke  forth  to  the 
astonished  multitude  in  a  striking  address  ;  the  earliest 
recorded  Parable ;  forcing  them  to  hear  his  solemn  warn- 
ing against  the  course  they  were  pursuing.  The  imagery 
he  employed  was  taken  from  the  scene  around.  In  the 
fables  of  India  and  Greece,  beasts  and  birds  are  supposed 
to  speak  or  act,  but  in  Palestine  the  vegetable  world  is 
introduced,  and  in  no  spot  in  the  land  was  there  such 
a  luxuriance  of  verdure  as  at  his  feet.^  "  The  trees,''' 
said  he,  "  once  sought  a  king,  and  came  in  turn  to  the 
olive,  the  fig-tree,  and  the  vine,  asking  each  successively 
to  reign  over  them.  They  all,  however,  declined  to 
exchange  their  honoured  usefulness  in  bearing  fruit,  for 
barren  glory.  '  Should  1/  said  the  olive,  '  the  chief  of 
all  the  trees  in  the  valley  of  Shechem,  leave  my  fatness, 
which  gods  and  men  extol  in  me,  to  wave  over  the  trees?'* 
'  Should  I  forsake  my  sweetness,'  said  the  fig-tree, 
*  with  its  broad  green  shade,  and  my  good  fruit,  to  wave 
over  the  trees  ? '  '  Should  I  leave  my  wine,  which 
cheereth  gods  and  man,'  said  the  trailing  vine,  ''  and  go 
to  wave  over  the  trees  ?  '     But  the  worthless  thornbush 

^  Josh.  xxiv.  26.     See  Bertheau,  Bichter,  p.  139. 
2  The  men  of  Shechem  are  said  to  have  joined  with  "all  the 
house  of  Millo,"  apparently  a  "  fortress  "  near  Shechem. 
^  Stanley's  Jeivish  Church,  vol.  i.  pp.  348-9. 
*  Literal  meaning. 
VOL.    II.  K  K 


498  GIDEON   TO   SAMSON. 

had  no  sucli  scruples.  It  eagerly  grasped  at  tlie  dignity 
when  offered  it,  and  boastingly  promised  to  take  faith- 
ful subjects  under  its  shadow ;  as  if  in  its  meanness  it 
could  protect  anything ;  but  threatened  to  burn  up  all 
who  resisted  it,  even  the  mighty  cedars  of  Lebanon. 
If/'  continued  Jotham,  "  your  choice  of  Abimelech,  the 
meanest  of  my  father's  sons,  for  king,  be  what  Gideon's 
memory  deserves,  for  the  victory  that  freed  you  from 
Midian — Abimelech,  who  has  killed  all  my  father's  true- 
born  sons  but  myself — may  you  find  joy  in  each  other ! 
But  if  it  be  not,  a  fire  will  come  from  the  worthless 
thorn-bush  you  have  this  day  raised  over  you,  that  will 
burn  you  up  ;  ay,  and  a  fire  will  break  out  from  you,  that 
will  devour  him  !  "  These  words  uttered,  he  disappeared, 
making  his  way  to  Beor,  apparently  in  the  far  ofi'  tribe  of 
Benjamin. 

The  frightful  policy  by  which  Abimelech  had  sought 
to  secure  his  position,  by  the  murder  of  his  brothers, 
formed  an  evil  precedent  in  Israel.  Long  after,  it  was 
repeated  by  Jehu,  in  his  extermination  of  Ahab's  family,^ 
and,  by  Athaliah  in  the  massacre  of  Ahaziah's  children.^ 
Similar  barbarity  seems,  indeed,  to  have  been  familiar  to 
the  East  in  all  ages.  In  Turkey  it  prevailed  till  a  genera- 
tion ago,  and  in  Persia  it  is  still  the  practice  to  blind  the 
brothers  of  a  Shah,  and  any  other  collateral  heirs  to  the 
throne,  at  the  commencement  of  a  new  reign.^      Such  a 


1  2  Kings  X.  1-7.  2  2  Kings  xi.  1. 

^  Lady  M'Neil,  wife  of  the  late  ambassador  in  Persia,  one  day 
saw  one  of  the  princes,  a  boy  of  ten,  with  a  handkerchief  tied  over 
his  eyes,  groping  about  the  apartment.  On  asking  what  he  was 
doing,  the  lad  replied  that  he  knew  his  eyes  would  be  put  out 
when  the  king,  his  father,  died,  and  he  was  trying  what  it  meant 
to  be  blind.  His  father  had  had  the  throne  secured  to  him  by 
iiis  uncle,  the  former  king,  having  exterminated  all  the  "  seed 


GIDEON    TO   SAMSON.  499 

beginning  of  Abimelech^s  royalty  showed  his  character, 
and  he  remained  true  to  it  throughout.  Heartlessly 
selfish^  unprincipled,  and  unscrupulous,  he  was  not  long 
before  he  roused  his  subjects  to  rebellion.  Affecting  the 
king,  he  had  an  army,  a  revenue,  and  the  beginning  of  an 
administration,  in  the  person  of  a  viceroy,  Zebul,  whom 
he  left  in  charge  of  Shechem,  while  he  himself  moved  to 
Aruma,  on  the  hill  top,  two  or  three  miles  to  the  north- 
west.^ His  tyranny,  meanwhile,  became  so  insupportable, 
that  bands  from  Shechem  waylaid  and  plundered  all 
connected  with  him,  whom  they  could  catch,  and  even 
tried  to  entrap  himself.  Gaal,  a  Canaanite  of  Shechem, 
sent  thither  from  Abimelech  with  armed  men,  apparently 
to  put  down  the  townsmen,  presently  fraternized  with 
them.  A  merry  making  at  the  vine  harvest,  held  in  the 
temple  of  Baal,^  brought  matters  to  a  head  by  a  wild 
traitorous  speech  of  Gaal,  in  which  he  proposed  to 
dethrone  Abimelech  and,  as  one  of  the  old  race,  himself 
to  rule  over  his  brethren.  This  treason  Zebul  instantly 
reported  to  his  master,  who  showed  that  he  inherited  the 
energy  of  his  father,  if  not  his  moral  worth.  Gaal  and 
his  men  were  soon  defeated  and  expelled  from  the  town,^ 
and  a  second  fight,  on  the  next  day,  overthrew  the  men  of 
Shechem  and  left  it  in  the  cruel  hands  of  Abimelech; 
who,  after  killing  all  he  could  find,  threw  down  the 
houses,  and  sowed  the  ground  with  salt,  as  if  to  curse 
it  and  make  it  barren  henceforth.  A  remnant  of  the 
population  had,  however,  fied  to  a  chamber^  in  the  temple 
of  Baal,  where  they  might  hope  to  find  a  sanctuary.     But 

royal."  In  our  own  day  King  Thebau,  in  Barmah,  has  done  the 
same  thing  fco  make  his  own  throne  safe. 

^  Van  de  Yelde,  Syria  and  Palestine,  vol.  ii.  p.  303. 

2  Jud.  ix.  27.  3  Jud.  ix.  41. 

*  "  An  hold  "=  a  sunken  chamber. 


500  GIDEON   TO    SAMSON. 

Abimelecli  knew  neither  pity  nor  reverence.  Marching 
with  his  men  to  the  neighbouring  hill^  Salmon — '^the 
shady '' — he  set  the  example  of  cutting  down  a  bough 
with  his  own  hands,  and  all  with  him  doing  the  same, 
the  whole  returned,  and  having  piled  the  mass  of  fuel  on 
the  part  of  the  temple  where  the  people  were  shut  in, 
burned  alive  about  1,000  men  and  women. ^ 

From  Shechem  he  passed  on  to  Thebez,  the  present 
Tubas,  on  the  main  road,  about  half  way  between  Shechem 
and  Bethshean,  and  tried  the  same  plan  with  its  in- 
habitants, who  had  fled  to  a  strong  tower  in  the  city,  after 
their  first  defeat.  But  the  curse  of  Jotham  was  on  his 
track.  As  he  pressed  close  to  the  tower,  to  help  in 
laying  the  fuel  to  burn  it,  a  woman  cast  down  on  him  an 
upper  millstone  and  fractured  his  skull,  leaving  him 
only  life  enough  to  ask  his  armour  bearer  to  run  him 
through,  to  save  him  the  shame  of  dying  by  a  woman's 
hand.2 

In  the  wild  confusion  of  the  times.  Tola,  a  man  of 
Issachar,  perhaps  a  connection  of  Abimelech,^  rose  next, 

1  The  "  house  of  Millo,"  Judges  ix.  20,  is  understood  by  Ber- 
theau  to  have  been  the  name  for  the  stronghold  to  which  the  in- 
habitants of  Shechem  fled  (pp.  46-48).  He  thinks  it  was  probably 
on  Mount  Gerizim.  Graetz,  on  the  contrary,  considers  Migdal 
Shechem  (the  tower  of  Shechem)  was  a  town  near  Shechem.  The 
"  hold,"  he  imagines,  was  a  subterranean  entrance,  through  which 
Abimelech,  like  Pelissier  with  the  Arabs  in  our  own  day,  killed 
those  inside  by  the  smoke.     For  the  hill  Salmon,  see  p.  420. 

2  So  King  Pyrrhus  was  killed  at  Argos  by  a  heavy  tile  thrown 
on  his  head  by  the  mother  of  a  woman  whose  son  was  in  danger. 
Falling  insensible  from  his  horse,  a  Greek  presently  beheaded 
him.  So,  also,  at  Ceuta,  is  shown  a  stone  with  which  a  woman 
from  a  tower  fractured  the  skull  of  the  Portuguese  commander 
of  one  of  the  sieges  of  the  town.  Urquhart's  Pillar  of  Hercules, 
vol.  i.  p.  96. 

3  So  Vulg.  and  Sept. 


GIDEON    TO    SAMSON.  501 

SO  far  as  we  know,  to  the  leadership;  but  nothing  is 
told  of  his  deeds,  either  in  peace  or  war,  except  that  he 
defended  the  northern  tribes  for  tweaty-three  years  from 
whatever  dangers  imperilled  them.  But  while  on  the 
west  of  Jordan  there  was  only  a  struggle  for  existence, 
the  Manassites  or  Gileadites,  on  the  east  of  the  river,  were 
enlarging  their  boundaries.  They,  also,  had  suffered 
from  a  branch  of  the  Midianites  who  ranged  over  the 
desert  slopes  beyond  the  Hauran,  but  had  burst  on 
Gilead  each  spring,  in  desolating  raids.  From  these 
insatiable  foes  Gideon  had  delivered  them,  and  his  victory 
had  even  extended  the  territory  of  the  tribe.  Meanwhile, 
at  its  head,  stood  the  Gileadite,  Jair — "God  gives  light" 
— a  vigorous  and  successful  leader,  who  kept  such  an 
approach  to  royal  state  that  his  thirty  sons  rode,  like 
princes,  on  as  many  ass  colts.  Under  him  new  tracts 
were  won,  but  what  districts  his  conquests  included  is  not 
told.  They  were,  however,  extensive  enough  to  be 
known,  from  the  encampments  they  afforded,  as  the  tent 
villages  of  Jair,^  each  of  them  having  one  of  his  sons  as 
its  sheik.  Beyond  this  nothing  is  told  of  his  judge- 
ship. 

The  Arab  patriarchal  government,  or  fragmentary 
isolation,  had  now  lasted  three  hundred  years,  with 
ever-increasing  disaster  and  anarchy  as  its  result. 
Everywhere  the  national  spirit  was  dying  away,  and 
the  national  religion  decaying.  The  tribes  were,  in  part, 
being  lost  in  the  heathen  communities  around.  On 
the  northern  border,  the  idols  of  Syria  ^  and  of  Sidon 
replaced  Jehovah,  or  were  worshipped  with  Him.  On 
the  south-west  those  of  the  Philistines;  and  on  the  east, 

^  Havoth  Jair. 

2  The  Hebrew  words  for  "  to  divine,"  "to  practise  magic,"  "  idol 
priests,"  and  others,  similar,  are  from  the  Syrian. 


602  GIDEON   TO    SAMSON. 

those  of  Moab  and  Ammon,  had  many  followers.^  But 
this  apostasy  only  increased  the  general  misery.  East 
and  west,  at  once,  enemies  harried  them,  for  they  had 
no  strength,  such  as  union  gives,  to  hold  their  ground. 
The  necessity  for  a  monarchy  was  being  brought 
home  to  all.  While  the  Canaanites,  under  kings,  had  been 
steadily  recovering  national  vigour,  the  Hebrews  of  the 
west  had  decayed;  and  those  of  the  east  were  sinking 
into  mere  roving  shepherds.  The  old  Canaanite  race  of 
Ammon,  crushed  by  their  forefathers  under  Joshua,  had 
risen  once  more  to  formidable  power,  and  not  only 
lorded  it  over  Gad  and  Reuben,  but,  crossing  the  Jordan, 
invaded  Judah,  Benjamin,  and  Ephraim.  Nor  was  the 
western  side  of  the  country  less  harassed,  for  there  the 
Philistines  from  the  seacoast  were  plundering  and  spoil- 
ing far  and  near. 

Deliverance  was  at  last  efifecfced  on  the  east  of  the 
Jordan  by  Jephthah,  a  Gileadite  of  the  tribe  of  Manasseh, 
whose  history  and  character  are  a  vivid  illustration  of 
the  dark  unsettledness  of  the  age.  An  illegitimate  son, 
he  had  been  driven  from  home  by  his  brothers,  and 
thenceforward  betook  himself  to  a  wild  marauding  life, 
on  the  borders  of  the  tribe,  at  the  head  of  such  a  band 
as  evil  times  make  possible.  With  them  he  had  for 
years  maintained  a  rough  life,  levying  imposts  on  weak 
Ammonite  towns,  plundering  caravans,  and  surprising 
villages,  like  the  Arabs  of  those  and  later  days.  His 
fame,  such  as  it  was,  had  thus  gradually  spread  over 
Gilead,  and  led  at  last,  when  the  bondage  to  Ammon 
grew  unendurable,  to  a  deputation  of  elders  being  sent 
him  to  implore  his  return,  to  head  a  rising.^     But  his 

1  Jud.  X.  6. 

2  The  Hebrews  who  sent  this  deputation  had  gathered  to  select 
a  leader  for  the  proposed  rising.     They  "encamped"  at  Mizpeh— 


GIDEON   TO    SAMSON.  503 

wild  haughty  soul  had  felt  deeply  his  expulsion,  and  he 
would  only  consent  to  come  back  on  the  solemn  oath, 
sworn  on  the  altar  of  the  local  sanctuary  at  Mizpeh/  that 
if  he  freed  the  land,  he — the  banished  one — should  be 
its  ruler  for  life.  On  this  condition  he  put  himself  at 
the  head  of  the  tribe,  and  after  fruitless  attempts  at 
negociation,  burst  on  the  enemy  with  such  fury  that  he 
swept  them  before  him  over  the  uplands,  from  Minnith, 
near  Heshbon,  to  the  Meadow  of  the  Vines,  near  Kabbah, 
and  took  from  them  twenty  towns.^ 

The  messages  Jephthah  had  sent  the  Ammonites  show 
that  the  great  deeds  God  had  wrought  for  Israel  in 
former  days,  had  been  handed  down  among  the  tents  of 
the  eastern  tribes,  and  doubtless  in  the  homes  of  the 
western,  from  generation  to  generation,  as  cherished 
traditions,  which  might  yet  bring  back  the  nation  to 
its  ancient  religious  life.  But  contact  with  Moab  and 
Ammon,  and  the  worship  of  their  sanguinary  gods  along 
with  Jehovah,  or  in  His  stead,  had  given  Jephthah  a 
creed  in  which  zeal  for  God  was  darkly  mingled  with 
heathen  ideas,  borrowed  from  the  rites  of  Chemosh; 
whom  he  seems  to  have  recognized  as  in  some  sense  a 
true  divinity.^     In  the  excitement  of  anticipated  battle, 

generally,  "The  Mizpeh"— the  Watch-tower,  doubtless  the  spot 
on  a  hill  top  where  Jacob  had  erected  his  boundary  mark  be- 
tween himself  and  Laban.  It  had. become  a  local  sanctuary  and 
place  of  national  assembly. 

^  Religious  disintegration  had  gone  so  far  that,  instead  of  the 
one  authorized  centre  of  worship  at  Shiloh,  there  was  The  Mizpeh 
in  the  east,  Ophrah  in  Manasseh,  Dan  in  the  north,  and  Gilgal  on 
the  Jordan,  with  perhaps  others. 

2  The  phrase,  "  The  Spirit  of  the  Lord  coming  on  Jephthah,"  is 
explained  in  the  Talmud  as  "  Force  of  mind  for  great  undertak- 
ings, and  bodily  strength,"  being  granted  him :  a  sense  which  has 
a  deep  and  wise  meaning.  *  Jad.  xi.  24 


604  GIDEON   TO   SAMSON.  / 

he  had  vowed  to  devote  as  a  burnt  offering  to  Jehovah 
"  whomsoever "  ^  should  come  out  of  the  doors  of  his 
house  to  meet  him  on  his  triumphal  return,  if  victory 
were  granted  him.  He  had  been  accustomed  to  see 
human  sacrifices  offered  to  Chemosh,  and  knew  how 
Balak  long  ago,  in  the  extremity  of  his  terror,  had  pro- 
posed to  burn  his  eldest  son.^  Eeligious  teaching  of  a 
purer  kind  he  had  had  none,  for  Shiloh  was  far  away  in 
Ephraim,  with  which  Gilead  had  in  these  centuries  ceased 
to  have  any  relations  of  friendliness.  In  his  fierce  super- 
stitious ignorance  he  fancied,  doubtless,  that  a  slave,  if 
the  first  to  greet  him  as  he  came  back,  would  be  pointed 
out,  by  the  fact  of  his  doing  so,  as  a  specially  acceptable 
sacrifice  to  Jehovah.  But  as  it  happened,  the  news  of 
his  splendid  deeds  had  outrun  his  approach  to  Mizpeh, 
and  his  only  child — a  young  daughter — in  her  pride  at 
her  father's  glory,  had  prepared  a  welcome  for  him,  with 
the  songs  and  dance  with  which  heroes  returning  from 
war  were  met,  and  this,  in  her  innocent  joy,  she  led.' 
The  bearing  of  father  and  daughter  in  so  sad  a  calamity 
is  equally  striking.  He  is  crushed  by  its  greatness ;  but 
she  rises  with  a  noble  grandeur  of  soul  above  her  own 
sorrow,  and,  in  her  darkened  conceptions  of  God,  almost 
glories  that  He  has  granted  the  victory,  even  at  the  price 
of  her  sacrifice.*  She  only  asks  that  she  be  left  for  two 
months  to  bewail  her  early  unmarried  death — so  sad  to 
Hebrew  women — in  the  lonely  depths  of  the  mountains. 
Then  comes  the  last  awful  scene  :  '^  He  did  with  her 
according  to  his  vow.''  No  wonder  that  such  a  story 
should  linger  in  the  popular  memory,  and  that,  for 
generations  after,  the  maidens  of  the  land,  in  sympathy 

1  Literally  so.  Judg.  xi.  31.     ^  Micah  vi.  7.      »  Judith  xv.  12, 13. 
*  Her  grand  submission  shows  how  deeply  rooted  in  that  age 
was  the  idea  that  human  sacrifice  was  due  to  the  gods. 


GIDEON   TO   SAMSON.  505 

"with  such  a  victim  of  mistaken  devotion — the  first  and 
last  human  sacrifice  offered  by  well-meaning  ignorance 
to  Jehovah — should  bewail  her  fate,  and  praise  her  grand 
resignation  to  it^  on  the  hills  which  had  witnessed  her  last 
days.^ 

Only  one  other  incident  is  told  of  Jephthah's  rule,  but 
it  marks  his  character  in  its  darkest  shades.  He  had 
asked  aid  from  the  haughty  tribe  of  Ephraim,  west  of  the 
Jordan,  in  his  great  straggle  with  Ammon,  and  they  had 
refused  it.  But,  quarrelsome  as  they  were  proud,  they 
no  sooner  heard  of  his  victory,  than  they  sent  an  insolent 
message  to  him,  asking  why  he  had  not  sought  their 
help,  and  telling  him  that  they  would  burn  his  house 
with  fire  for  not  having  done  so ;  backing  their  words  by 
invading  Gilead  with  a  huge  force.  Statesman-like  and 
gentle,  Gideon  had,  in  a  similar  case,  soothed  angry 
passions  by  soft  words ;  but  Jephthah  returned  defiance 
for  defiance,  and  marched  out  to  drive  them  back.  It 
was  hard,  indeed,  for  the  wounded  pride  of  Gilead  to 
stand  the  taunt,  that  they  had  fled  from  the  Ammonites 
into  Ephraim  and  into  Western  Manasseh;^  hard  because 
it  was  probably  true ;  but  an  evil  like  civil  war  was  worth 
avoiding  by  at  least  an  attempt  at  the  restoration  of 
friendship.  In  the  battle  that  followed,  Ephraim,  with 
all  its  boasting,  was  defeated,  and  then  came  a  dire 
crime.  Hurrying  his  men  to  the  fords  of  the  Jordan, 
Jephthah  ordered  them  to  kill  every  fugitive  Bphraimite 
seeking  to  cross.  To  pronounce  a  given  test-word.  Shib- 
boleth, as  Sibboleth,  was  enough.  Whoever  did  so 
was  remorselessly  killed  as  belonging  to  Ephraim.     How 

^  lb  is  to  be  noticed  that  while  the  usual  title  of  a  "  Judge  " 
was   Shophet,  an  adoption  of  the   Phenician   word   for  a  chief 
magistrate— that  given  to  Jephthah  is  Katzia — a  leader. 
Jad.  xii.  4. 


506  GIDEON   TO   SAMSON. 

savage  and  revengeful  the  soul,  that  in  such  a  quarrel 
carried  out  its  hatred  by  slaughtering,  as  he  did,  by  this 
test,  42,000  of  his  brethren  ! 

The  low  ebb  to  which  Israel  had  sunk  in  her  eastern 
tribes  had  its  counterpart  in  the  south-west.  A  new 
enemy,  destined  to  give  huge  trouble  in  the  future,  was 
now  rising  into  strength.  The  Philistines,  though  men- 
tioned in  the  distant  times  of  Abraham,  and  already 
forming  a  confederacy  of  five  cities  in  the  Maritime  Plain 
in  the  days  of  Joshua,  holding  it  from  "the  river  of 
Egypt  '^  to  "  Ekron,^'  ^  had  risen  to  formidable  strength 
as  an  aggressive  power,  apparently  only  in  the  later  part 
of  the  age  of  the  Judges.  Their  name,  from  which  that 
of  '' Palestine ''  is  derived,  means  *' the  strangers''  or 
immigrants ;  ^  and  as  they  are  several  times  called 
Cherethites^  in  Scripture,  their  original  home  has  been 
assumed  by  some  to  have  been  the  island  of  Crete,  which 
this  name  seems  to  indicate.  Others  have  held  that  they 
must  have  passed  from  Cyprus  to  Palestine,  the  name  of 
that  island  sounding  something  like  Caphtor — the  locality 
given  as  their  former  home  in  Genesis.^  There  seem, 
indeed,  to  have  been  successive  arrivals,  the  last  in  the 
time  of  Rameses  III.,  who  was  reigning  about  the  year 
B.C.   1200,^  that  is,  about  the  time  of  Jephthah.^     An 

1  Josh.  xiii.  3  ;  xv.  4,  47. 

^  It  is  lit.  Plischti,  which  Maspero  notes  as  recalling  Pelasgi. 

3  In  Hebrew,  "Crethi,"  which  is  translated  in  the  Targam  of 
Jonathan  by  "bowmen." 

4  See  vol.  i.  p.  247. 

5  Brugsch,  vol.  ii.  p.  9. 

^  Conder's  Handhooh,  p.  19.  Lengerke  recognizes  the  Philis- 
tines as  Semitic.  Kenaan,  p.  195.  So,  Munk,  Paldstina,  p.  199. 
He  thinks  they  first  came  from  Egypfc,  as  a  migration  from  the 
Semitic  colonies  of  the  Delta.  Hitzig  says  they  were  related  to 
the  Greeks.     Sayce  tells  us  that  Phenicia  was  Keft  in  Egyptian, 


GIDEON   TO   SAMSON.  507 

attack  on  Egypt  by  Philistines,  among  other  tribes, 
had  been  driven  back  by  that  prince,  but  many  of  the 
invaders,  instead  of  returning  to  their  own  countries, 
had  preferred  to  enter  the  service  of  their  conqueror, 
as  mercenaries ;  the  Philistine  part  of  them  obtaining 
permission  to  settle  among  their  brethren  of  earlier 
immigrations,  in  the  south-west  of  Palestine;  to  guard 
Egypt  from  the  north.^ 

The  territory  thus  reinforced  by  such  a  military  colony, 
commanded  the  passes  to  the  mountain  home  of  Israel. 
Gaza,  Askelon,  Ashdod,  Ekron,  and  Gath,  its  five  cities, 
had  long  been  famous,  but  now  became  dangerously 
strong.  Thothmes  III.,  Seti  I.,  and  Rameses  II.,  had 
kept  garrisons  of  Semitic  mercenaries  at  Gaza,^  and  the 
last  of  these  monarchs  had  stormed  and  taken  Askelon, 
after  a  rebellion,  about  the  same  time  as  Deborah  over- 
threw Sisera  on  Esdraelon.^  The  original  population — 
the  Avites* — had  long  been  degraded  to  the  service  of 
these  fierce  masters,  who,  however,  had  adopted  their 
language  and  their  religion.  In  Joshua's  day,  the  cities 
of  the  Philistine  plain  are  not  included  in  the  lists  of 
those  held  by  Judah,  though  their  district  had  been 
assigned  to  that  tribe.  ^  The  fear  of  rousing  Egypt,  and 
the  strength  of  the  Philistines,  had,  in  fact,  kept  Israel 
from  attempting  their  conquest,  and  hence  the  Anakim,^ 
chased  from  Hebron,  and  the  Amorites,  dispossessed  of 
their  mountains,  found  a  safe  refuge  behind  the  walls  of 
their  cities,  which  became  gradually  the  centres  of  small 

and  Keft-ur  (Caphtor),  "  Greater  Phenicia,"  the  name  of  the  Delta, 
from  the  Phenician  settlements  in  it. 

^  Maspero,  p.  302.  ^  Papyrus  Anastasi,  III.  pi.  v.  6. 

^  Gonder,  p.  19. 

*  Avites — dwellers  in  the  Ivvah  or  lowlands.     Lengerke. 

^  Josh.  xii.  12.     ^  Anakim  =  the  long-necked.    Lengerke,  p.  183. 


508  GIDEON   TO   SAMSON. 

principalities^  governed  by  a  military  chief  bearing  the 
title  of  Seren,  or  sometimes,  as  at  Gatli,  of  king.  These 
five  dignitaries  acted  together,  as  heads  of  a  confedera- 
tion ;  offered  in  common  the  public  sacrifices,  and  made 
war  in  concert,  at  the  head  of  their  respective  con- 
tingents; their  principal  force  consisting  of  chariots, 
and  archers  whose  skill  was  proverbial  in  Israel.^ 

Such  was  the  nation  with  which  Israel  was  to  wage 
war  with  a  splendid  tenacity  for  the  next  hundred  years. 
About  this  time,  in  the  Providence  of  God,  a  child  was 
born,  who  was  destined  to  rouse  his  countrymen  to  their 
long  struggle  for  independence,  if  not  during  his  life, 
at  least  by  his  ever  growing  fame  after  his  death.  The 
birth  of  Samson  is  the  opening  of  a  new  period,  which 
culminated  in  the  reign  of  David,  but,  as  such,  it  belongs 
to  the  glorious  age  it  introduced,  rather  than  to  the 
gloomy  past  which  it  in  a  manner  closed. 

^  See  on  this  whole  subject,  Starke,  Gaza  und  die  Philistdische 
Kuste.    Hitzig,  Die  Philistder,  Jena,  1852. 


INDEX. 


Aaron,  rod  of,  swallows  up  the  other 
rods,  130  ;  death  of  sons  of,  306-7; 
rod  of,  buds,  343 ;  death  of,  351. 

Abigail,  sister  of  David,  marriage  of, 
with  an  Ishmaelite,  429. 

Abimelech,  496 ;  hailed  king,  497 ; 
reign  of,  499  ;  death  of,  500 ;  hor- 
rible cruelty  of,  at  Shechem,  500. 

Acacia  trees  and  wood,  291. 

Achan,  destruction  of,  406-7. 

Ai,  taking  of,  405-8. 

Altar,  brazen,  297-8. 

Altars,  private,  449. 

Amalekites,  256-7. 

Amenhotep  IV.,  54. 

Ammonites,  battle  with  the,  358 ; 
traces  of,  in  Benjamin,  463. 

Ancient  custom  of  "  devoting " 
armies,  etc.,  to  destruction,  396-7. 

Animals,  and  vegetables,  worship  of, 
61-4 ;  sacred,  capital  punishment 
for  killing,  63. 

Apis,  temple  of,  14,  15  ;  duration  of 
worship  of,  16  ;  sepulchres  of  god, 
16  ;  description  of  the  ox,  64. 

Apopi,  Joseph's  king,  description  of, 
34-5. 

Arabs,  modern  customs  of,  243-4 ; 
worship  of,  239  ;  mode  of  baking 
among  the,  167;  derivation  of 
word,  331 ;  chiefs,  names  of,  486. 

Arks,  sacred,  294. 

Asher,  tribe  of,  purveyors  to  Phe- 
nician  cities,  423. 

Ashes,  scattering  of,  by  priests  to 
avert  evil,  146. 

Asses  and  mules,  385;  white,  464, 
479. 

Ashtoreth,  altars  to,  447,  452. 

Baal,  worship  of,  371. 

Baalbek,  temple  of,  19. 

Baal-berith,  495. 

Balaam,  365;  ass  of,   368;   Christ's 

advent  predicted  by,  370-1. 
Barak,  468. 


Bashan,  and  Og,  its  king,  860-1. 

Bathing,  amongst  Egyptians  a  re- 
ligious requirement,  93. 

Beetle,  sacred,  of  Egyptians,  143. 

Benjamin,  military  character  of 
tribe  of,  425-6 ;  position  of  tribe  of, 
425. 

Benjamites,  almost  exterminated, 
458. 

Bethabara,  ford  of,  492. 

Bethel,  taking  of,  408. 

Beth-horon,  descent  of  Lower,  415. 

Black  art,  etymology  of,  131. 

Boils,  plague  of,  146. 

Bottles,  wine,  in  the  East,  414. 

Bread  in  the  East,  414. 

Bricks,  inscription  on,  85. 

Brick-making  in  Egypt,  130 ;  hard- 
ships of  the  Hebrews  in,  130  j 
Papyrus  describing,  83-7. 

Bush,  the  burning,  121-2. 

Caleb  takes  Hebron,  427. 

Calf,  golden,  18,  252,  279,286;  wor- 
ship, 278-80. 

Cambyses,  at  On,  24. 

Canaan,  difficulties  in  conquering, 
385  ;  meaning  of,  508 ;  chariots  of 
war  in,  465-6. 

Canaanites,  chariots  and  armour  of, 
420,  422  ;  flight  of,  before  Joshua, 
408-9 ;  fugitives  in  Nubia,  traces 
of,  409 ;  religion  of  th?,  444 ;  pH. 
grimages  of  the,  448-9. 

Cauaanitish  emigrants  to  Africa, 
459. 

Captives  in  Egypt,  treatment  of,  100. 

Caravan  journey,  Palmer's  descrip- 
tion  of,  210-11. 

Caravans,  league  of  Baal-berith 
formed  for  protection  of,  495. 

Cattle,  death  of,  by  murrain,  145. 

Cave-men,  70. 

Census  taken,  307,  376. 

Chairs,  Egyptian,  98. 

Charcoal,  Arab  trade  in,  218, 


510 


INDEX. 


Chariots,  385. 

Charms,  51,  122. 

Children,  exaggerations  respecting 
the  birth  of  Hebrew,  89 ;  food  of 
Egyptian,  12. 

Christians,  double-minded,  366. 

Circumcision,  89,  392 ;  Joshua's 
stone  knives  for,  435. 

Commandments,  the,  270-2. 

Copper,  early  use  of,  228-31. 

Covenant,  book  of  the,  274;  re- 
newal of  the,  289. 

Covenants,  Arab,  276. 

Crete,  meaning  of,  506. 

Crimesus,  battle  of,  parallel  to 
Deborah's  victory,  478. 

Crocodile,  worship  of,  30. 

Curses,  curious  fulfilment  of,  362. 


Dan,  position  of  tribe  of,  429-30. 
Dances,  sacred,  186,  281-2. 
Darkness,  plague  of,  151 ;  "  that  may 

be  felt,"  explanation  of,  152. 
David,  name  of,  in  "  Son  of  Sirach," 

512. 
Dead,    book  of   the,    104;  honours 

paid  to,  in  Egypt,  175. 
Dead  Sea,  388,  402. 
Deborah,  442-5,  467 ;  song  of,  477- 

481 ;  victory    of,     results    of,   on 

Israelites'  future,  476 ;  village  of, 

470. 
Delta,  fertility  of  the,  6. 
Dew  in  the  East,  489. 
Disinfectants     used     in      Egyptian 

palace,  99. 
Dynasty,  Seventeenth,  expiration  of, 

58. 


Eastern  thrones,  barbarous  means 
of  securing,  498-9. 

Ebal  and  Gerizim,  description  of, 
410 ;  law  read  at,  400,  411-12. 

Edom,  refusal  to  let  Israelites  pass 
through,  350. 

Eglon,  death  of,  461. 

Egypt,  meaning  of  word,  1  ;  deifica- 
tion of  sovereigns  of,  5,  25,  43,  51, 
57-8, 82 ;  monuments  of  Ancient,  5, 
6,  15 ;  tombs  of.  Job's  descrip- 
tion of,  7 ;  dykes  of,  6,  7,  9 ; 
day  in,  8;  night  in,  119;  huts, 
Hebrew,  in,  9 ;  gnats,  clouds 
of,  in,  11;  plants,  luxuriant 
growth  of,  in,  12;  vegetables  of, 


12 ;  peasants'  food  in,  12 ;  uni- 
versity city  of,  13 ;  temples  of, 
22,  23 ;  court  ceremonial  of,  28 ; 
navigation  of,  29-31 ;  pictures  of 
every-day  life  and  work  in,  30; 
glory  and  prosperity  of,  30,  31,  43  ; 
invasion  of,  by  shepherds,  31-2 ; 
vast  intrenched  camp  in,  under 
Hyksos,  32  ;  naval  officer  of,  inter- 
esting story  of  a,  38-9  ;  buildings 
of,  length  of  time  required  in 
raising,  39  ;  and  Canaan,  common 
origin  of  the  peoples  of,  40 ;  paint- 
ing of,  emblematic,  41 ;  religions 
of,  61 ;  Clement  of  Alexandria's 
account  of  the  gods  of,  62 ; 
Strabo's  visit  to  sacred  crocodile, 
63  ;  influence  of  religion  in,  on  the 
Hebrews,  60;  slaves,  cruelty  to 
the,  and  lower  classes  of,  78-9; 
sacred  procession  in,  Clement  of 
Alexandria's  description  of,  103  ; 
invasion  of,  by  Syrians,  Greeks, 
etc.,  126 ;  Delta,  the  weak 
point  of,  128 ;  rods  of  office  used 
in,  130;  terrible  heat  of,  130; 
wonder-workers  of,  131-2;  waters 
of,  turned  into  blood,133-9j  this  the 
greatest  dishonour  to  religion  of, 
135  ;  frog,  emblem  of  the  sun,  and 
divine  in,  139  ;  firstborn,  death  of 
the,  in,  159, 162 ;  breaking  up  of  the 
kingdom  of,  after  Exodus,  182-3 ; 
foreigners,  jealousy  towards;  in, 
24;  triumphal  procession  in,  42; 
immoral  influence  of,  on  Hebrews, 
66 ;  immorality  of,  66-7. 

Egyptian  words  incorporated  in  the 
Hebrew,  72  ;  libraries,  inscriptions 
over,  105 ;  spoils,  taken  in  war, 
127,  383-4;  troops,  ferocity  of, 
127 ;  ceremonial  cleanliness  of, 
140-2 ;  trees,  fondness  of  the, 
for,  148-9  ;  pilgrimages,  religious, 
of  the,  150 ;  armour,  187-8,  299. 

Ehud  delivers  Israel  from  Moabites, 
461-3. 

Eleazar,  death  and  burial  of,  456 ; 
spared  as  well  as  Joshua  and  Caleb 
to  enter  Canaan,  456. 

Elim,  description  of  oasis  of,  204-5. 

Embalming,  176. 

Endor,  473. 

Ephraim,  district  held  by  tribe  of, 
422 ;  tribe  of,  disliked  by  other 
tribes,  and  reasons  for  same, 449. 

Esdraelon,  plain  of,  403, 422-24, 473. 


INDEX. 


611 


Exodus,  description  of  the,  167, 171 ; 
Egyptian  account  of  the,  196-9  ; 
Strabo's  account  of,  271-2. 


Fish,  abundance  of,  in  Egypt,  4. 

Flagellants,  281. 

Flax,  importance   of    crops    of,    in 

Egj-pt,  147. 
Flies,  fatal  to  horses,  141 ;  plague  of, 

143  ;   trouble  caused    at   present 

day  by,  144. 
Fly-gods,  142. 
Frogs,  plague  of,  139. 


Galilee,  Sea  of,  387. 

Garments,  Assyrian,  406. 

Gaza,  garrison  at,  507. 

Generation,  length  of  a  Hebrew, 
330. 

Gennesareth,  meaning  of,  373. 

Gibeon,  cities  confederated  with, 
413. 

Gideon,  442,  445  ;  fleece  of,  489 ; 
greatness  of  victory  of,  492  ; 
kingly  character  of,  494 ;  meaning 
of,  487  ;  overthrows  his  father's 
altars,  488-9  ;  parallel  stratagem 
amongst  modern  Arabs,  491 ;  re- 
ligion and  superstition  of,  494  ; 
rise  of,  483  ;  sons  of,  slaughter  of, 
by  Abimelech,  496 ;  stratagem  of, 
490. 

Gilead,  360. 

Gilgal,  assembly  held  at,  421 ;  circle 
of,  391-2  ;  graven  images  at,  462  ; 
Tabernacle  at,  432. 

Goshen,  monotonous  aspect  of,  7  ; 
fertility  of,  3,  4 ;  name  of,  still  re- 
remaiuing,  2 ;  position  of,  1 ;  pre- 
sent condition  of,  3,  5. 

Grape  gathering,  festival  of,  454. 


Hail,  plague  of,  147. 

Hailstorms,  great,  415-6. 

Hannibal,  meaning  of  name,  446. 

Harosheth,  472. 

Hashop,  reign  of  queen,  45,  46. 

Hawk,  the  sacred,  23. 

Hebrews,  times  of  sojourn  in  Egypt, 
troubled,  37  ;  occupations  of,  be- 
fore the  Exodus,  59 ;  civilization 
acquired  in  Egypt  by,  67-8,88,  90; 
military  unions  of,  71 ;  writing,  the 
art  of,  amongst,  71  i  organization  of, 


in  Egypt,  60,  70 ;  Egyptian  policy 
of  repression  towards  the,  74 ; 
rations  given  to  the,  81 ;  fear  of 
Egyptians  at  increase  of,  88  ;  tra- 
ditions respecting  the,  89 ;  meaning 
of  name,  121  ;  desire  of,  to  sacri- 
fice in'  the  wilderness,  125 ;  forced 
labour  of  the,  127 ;  in  Egypt,  re- 
ligious training  of,  by  Aaron,  154; 
poverty  of  the,  in  Egypt,  155 ; 
borrow  from  Egyptians,  155-6 ; 
ecclesiastical  year  begins  from  day 
of  Exodus  of  the,  156;  probable 
number  of,  at  Exodus,  166,  208-9, 
224;  permission  given  for  depar- 
ture of  the,  163  ;  camping-place  of, 
on  east  of  Red  Sea,  185 ;  length  of 
captivity  of,  in  Egypt,  185  ;  water 
supply,  difficulties  of  obtaining 
sufficient,  209  ;  quails  sent  for 
food,  211,  212 ;  immortality,  ideas 
of  among  the,  310  ;  government 
of  the,  313  ;  camp  of  the,  314-16 ; 
march  of,  very  toilsome,  317 ;  fire 
sent  by  God  to  punish,  318  ;  quails 
sent  for  punishment  to  the,  319 ; 
encampments,  remains  of,  319-20  ; 
names.  Scripture  for  individuals, 
328  ;  condemned  to  wander  for 
forty  years,  330-1 ;  defeated  at 
Hormah,  331 ;  clothing  and  food 
of,  during  wanderings,  336 ;  idols, 
hold  they  had  on  the  minds  of  the, 
310,  348  ;  poetry,  357  ;  aversion  to 
government  by  an  individual,  441 ; 
Canaanites  had  same  language 
as,  446 ;  Canaanite,  intermarriages 
amongst  the,  447-8 ;  slaves  to 
Sidonians,  460 ;  condition  of,  under 
later  Judges,  464  ;  words  for  idola- 
try taken  from  Syrians,  501. 

Hero-worship  incompatible  with 
honour  to  God,  91. 

High  priesthood,  hereditary,  457. 

Hittites,  high  civilization  of,  44, 45 
great  wars  of  the,  74. 

Horeb,  meaning  of  word,  120. 

Hornets,  361. 

Horse,  first  mention  of  the,  in  Egypt, 
43. 

Hyksos,  residence  in  2oan  of,  25 ; 
resemblance  of  present  population 
to,  27  ;  gradual  civilization  of,  33  ; 
etymology  of  word,  33 ;  personal 
appearance  of  the,  33  ;  driven  out 
of  Egypt,  36  ;  belief  by  some  that 
they  were  Israelites,  40. 


512 


INDEX. 


Images,  put  down  by  Josiah,  450. 

Immortality  of  soul,  in  Egypt, 
thought  to  depend  on  embalm- 
ment, 107. 

Incantations  and  spells,  363-4. 

Incense,  297. 

Isis,  temple  of,  14. 

Israel,  apostasy  of  502;  chiefs  of 
tribes  of,  70 ;  Kenites  betray,  472  ; 
subdued  by  Jabin's  successor,  465  ; 
worship,  authorized  centres  of,  in, 
503. 

Israelites,  conquests  of,  moral  as- 
pect of  the,  402 ;  elders  amongst, 
439;  their  conquests  ascribed  to 
God,  431 ;  hanging  amongst  the, 
408,418  ;  idolatry  of,  various  causes 
of,  443-4 ;  influence  of  heathenism 
on,  452 ;  justice  dispensed  at  the 
gate  by  the,  438  ;  military  organi- 
zation entirely  unknown  to,  439  ; 
troubles  after  Joshua's  death,  455  ; 
simplicity  of  domestic  life  amongst 
early,  438. 


Jacob,  dying  words  of,  68-9  j  well 
of,  410 ;  house  of,  426. 

Jael,  475. 

Jair,  501. 

Jasher,  book  of,  416. 

Jebel  Musa,  Mount  of  Moses,  112. 

Jebusites,  meaning  of,  448. 

Jehovah  Shalom,  meaning  of,  488. 

Jephthah,  442-502;  the  vow  of, 
503-4  ;  daughter  of,  504 ;  quarrel 
of,  with  Ephraim,  505. 

Jericho,  393-7  ;  rebuilding  of,  401. 

Jerubbaal,  489. 

Jerusalem,  burning  of,  425-6. 

Jethro,  etymology  of  word,  108. 

Jews,  salutations  of  the,  318. 

Joash,  sons  of,  487- 

Jordan,  river,  387-8;  crossing  of, 
390-1. 

Joseph,  sale  of,  28  ;  Egyptian  dynas- 
ties before,  28 ;  date  of  his  entrance 
into  Egypt,  75  ;  high  position  of, 
57 ;  wife  of,  17-19  ;  vizier  to  Shep- 
herd king,  34 ;  affection  of  the 
Egyptians  for,  89 ;  burial  of 
mummy  of,  in  Palestine,  410,  422  ; 
house  of,  422-426. 

Joshua,  character  of,  386 ;  victory 
over  the  five  kings,  415-18 ;  captive 
kings,  treatment  of,  in  time  of, 
417-18  J    Jabin    and    Canaanitish 


confederation  overwhelmed,  418- 
20  ;  sun  commanded  to  stand  still 
by,  416 ;  renewal  of  national  cove- 
nant by,  441 ;  Canaanites,  slaughter 
of  by,  397-8 ;  and  Saul,  length  of 
time  between,  455  ;  retirement  of, 
from  office  of  general,  433  ;  age  of, 
419-421 ;  death  of,  433  ;  supposed 
tomb  of,  433-4. 

Jotham,  496. 

Judah  and  Israel,  kings  of,  mostly 
apostates,  443 ;  tribe  of,  position 
of  the,  426. 

Judges,  social  relations  of,  to  the 
people,  440  ;  origin  of  the  peculiar 
title,  440 ;  Hebrew  meaning  of  the 
name,  442,  455  ;  latent  religious  life 
of  the  Israelites  under  the,  445. 

Judgment,  future,  in  Ancient  Egypt, 
105. 


Kadesh  Barnea,  327. 

Karnak,  temple  of,  49,  50. 

Kenites,   descendants  of  Abraham, 

108. 
Kiriath-jearim,  meaning  of,  413. 
Kishon,  the  river,  472-3. 
Korah,  children  of,  407 ;  Dathan,  and 

Abiram,  342-8. 

Labyrinth,  palace  of  the,  30. 

Lamp,  sacred,  296-7. 

Law,  giving  of,  267 ;  the,  transcribed 

for  wider  use,  453. 
Lebanon,  meaning  of,  403. 
Leprosy,  196-199;    Miriam  afflicted 

with,  321. 
Levi,   legend  respecting  priesthood 

of,  301-2 ;    means  of  support  of 

tribe  of,  430 ;  the  tribe  of,  69,  72, 

90,  115,  116,  286. 
Levites,  poverty  of,  449,  450. 
Lice,  plague  of,  140-2. 
Locusts,  484 ;  plague  of,  148-9. 

Machpelah,  cave  of,  427. 
Magicians,     Eastern,     131 ;       wine 

turned  different  colours  by,  138. 
Manna,   212,  216 ;   and  sweet  syrup 

from  trees,  214-15,  219-24  ;  cessa- 

tion  of,  393. 
Manuscript,  ancient  Samaritan,  453. 
Marah,  waters  of,  201-2. 
Marriage   of    brothers  with   sisters, 

45 ;  Hebrew  women's  feeling  about, 

504. 


INDEX. 


613 


Massacre  of  all  male  Heljrew  infants, 
91,  92. 

Measures,  Jewist,  names  of,  72. 

Medicine,  knowledge  of,  in  Ancient 
Egypt,  104. 

Megiddo,  473. 

Memphis,  secure  site  of,  13 ;  White 
Castle  of,  13 ;  meaning  of,  13 ; 
Persian  possession  of,  14  ;  temples 
and  priests  of,  14,  15  ;  remains  of, 
15  ;  founding  of,  28. 

Menes,  first  Egyptian  king,  28  ;  civil- 
ization of  Egypt  under,  28,  29. 

Merom,  battle  of,  425. 

Meroz,  curse  of  the  people  of,  469, 
470,  477,  481. 

Messengers,  Eastern,  speed  of,  168. 

Micah,  story  of,  449-51. 

Midianites,  battle  with  the,  372 ; 
invasion  of,  483 ;  ear-rings  and 
nose  jewels  of,  494. 

Milk,  curdled,  a  soporific,  475. 

Millo,  the  house  of,  500. 

Milton,  Paradise  Lost,  385. 

Mines,  gold  and  minerals,  31,  44. 

Miriam,  leprosy  of,  96 ;  death  of, 
349. 

Mirrors,  Egyptian  copper,  298. 

Mishor,  374. 

Mizpeh,  sanctuary  at,  503. 

Moab,  uplands  of,  356. 

Moabite  stone,  359. 

Moeris,  Lake,  a  vast  reservoir,  30. 

Moloch,  worship  of,  277,  282,  284. 

Monotheism  amongst  Egyptians,  60, 
104. 

Monuments,  antiquity  of,  6. 

Moses,  miracles  of,  26  ;  parents  of, 
90  ;  mother  of,  her  high  character, 
90;  birth,  date  of,  91;  ark  of, 
similar  story  of  king  of  Assyria, 
91,  92  ;  birthplace,  92 ;  name,  etc., 
of  the  princess  who  saved,  94,  95  ; 
etymology  of  word,  95  ;  childhood, 
96 ;  Josephus'  account  of,  102 ; 
beauty,  102 ;  Jewish  traditions 
respecting,  102  j  education  of, 
103;  flight  of,  to  Midian,  107; 
name  of  son  of,  108 ;  influence  of 
Sinai  life  on,  113  ;  slays  Egyptian, 
106,  118 ;  circumcision  of  sons  of, 
123 ;  leprosy  of,  123 ;  meeting 
of  Aaron  and,  124;  rod  of, 
changed  to  serpent,  123,  130; 
and  Pharaoh,  relative  ages  of,  129  ; 
life  of,  threatened,  152;  mighty 
nature  of  the  -undertaking  of,  169  j 

YOL.   II. 


song  of,  187;  reason  for  going 
through  Sinai  desert,  233-4 ;  rock 
struck  by,  243-254  ;  and  Jethro, 
meeting  of,  259-60 ;  appoints 
judges,  260  ;  pleads  with  Jehovah, 
285,  289  ;  horns  of,  explained,  290 ; 
strikes  the  rock,  345-6  ;  poems  of, 
376-7;  death  of,  377;  character 
of,  379-81 ;  legends  respecting 
death  of,  380-1 ;  his  advice  as  to 
kings,  436 ;  grandson  of,  poverty 
of,  450. 

Mountains,  holy,  114. 

Mummies,  remains  of,  16,  23. 

Musical  instruments  of  the  Hebrews, 
190. 

Names  and  their  meanings,  Hebrew 
and  Canaanite,  446 ;  numerous,  for 
towns,  25;  secret,  of  gods,  338, 
364. 

Naphtali,  and  its  proud  symbol,  424. 

Navy,  Solomon's  port  for  his,  354. 

Negeb,  or  "  South  Country,"  326-7, 
332-36. 

Nethinim,  414. 

Nile,  branches  of,  6 ;  breadth  of  the,  5 ; 
canals  of  the,  9 ;  civilization  in  the 
valley  of  the,  7 ;  heightof  inundation 
of,  30;  Herodotus'  remark  about 
the,  5  ;  hymn  to,  134 ;  inundations 
of,  8,  9,  12;  Napoleon's  remark 
concerning  the,  3 ;  natural  dis- 
colouration of,  136-7;  registration 
of  the  increase  of  waters  of,  during 
the  inundation,  187;  religious 
homage  paid  to  the,  137. 

Nilometer,  15. 

Numbers,  supposed  magic  power  of 
some,  367-8. 

Obelisks,  emblematic,  20. 

On,  or  Heliopolis,  etymology  of,  17; 
description  of  temple  of,  20,  21 ; 
founding  of,  30 ;  Hebrew  residents 
in,  17;  observatory  of,  18;  pan- 
theon of,  17 ;  remains  of,  24 ;  temple 
services  at,  18. 

Onions,  medicine  for  fever,  12. 

Oppression,  the  Hebrew,  72-3,  77' 

Oracles,  427,  449-50. 

Oreb  and  Zeeb,  death  of,  493. 

Osiris,  fable  respecting,  24. 

Othniel,  the  Judge,  461 ;  marriage 
of,  to  Caleb's  daughter,  428. 

Ox-goad,  464  n. 

L   I 


514 


INDEX. 


Paintings,  frescoes,  preservation  of, 
in  the  East,  412.  _ 

Palestine,  Assyrian  invasion  of,  460-1; 
barley  and  flax  harvest,  388,  390 ; 
Book  town  of,  427 ;  caravan  roads 
through,  465  ;  condition  of,  at  time 
of  conquest  by  Israelites,  382-4; 
corn  valleys  of,  510 ;  date  of  con- 
quest of,  412 ;  derivation  of  word, 
506;  division  of,  among  twelve 
tribes,  421-2 ;  eastern,  373-7 ;  for- 
tresses of,  466,  472,  497 ;  grapes  of, 
427 ;  Arab  inroads  on,  486 ;  linen 
making,  390;  lions  and  other  wild 
animals,  334,  382 ;  Maritime  Plain, 
404;  mountains,  height  of,  402-3, 
411 ;  palms  in,  467 ;  passes  of,  460 ; 
plains,  insecurity  of  the,  485;  re- 
ligious development  favoured  by 
position  of,  442-3  ;  routes,  vaiious, 
and  dangers  of  the  same,  from 
Egypt  to,  192-6;  size  of,  403; 
Strasburg,  analogous  name  in, 
369 ;  trees,  and  water  supply  of, 
422 ;  pines  of,  329,  333 ;  wealth  of 
kings  of,  48,  384. 

Papyrus  plants,  93. 

Parable,  Jotham's,  the  earliest  re- 
corded, 497. 

Passover,  Mill's  description  of  mo- 
dern observance  of,  160-2 ;  institu- 
tion of  the,  156-8 ;  second  celebra- 
tion of,  307 ;  symbolical,  159. 

Patriotism,  difficulty  for  it  to  exist, 
440. 

Peasantry,    condition    of   Egyptian, 

9,  10.       ^ 
Pelusium,feteat,intime  of  Moses,  99. 
Pentateuch,  Samaritan,  452-3. 
Pharaoh,  Arab  traditions  respecting 

punishment  of,  207;  chariots  of, 
175;  coronation  of  the,  57-8;  de- 
lay in  pursuing  Hebrews,  reasons 
for,  176 ;  despotism  of  the,  66,  7S, 
129 ;  destruction  of,  with  host  in 
Red  Sea,  180-1 ;  deification  of  the, 
129 ;  difficulty  of  the  succession  to 
the  throne  of  the,  54-56 ;  harden- 
ing of  his  heart,  152 ;  Hebrews, 
pursuit  of  the,  173;    meaning  of, 

10,  28;  Menephtah,  death  of  son 
of,  163 ;  numerous  family  of,  126 ; 
nurse,  position  of,  at  court  of 
the,  56;  ode  addressed  by  court 
laureate  to,  129;  represented  as 
bringing  water  out  of  the  rock, 
234;  the,  of  the  Exodus,  73-5. 


Pheniclan  colonies,  459. 
Phenicians,  strength  of  the,  459. 
Philistia  and  Sharon,  plains  of,  404. 
Philistines,  archers  and  chariots  of 

the,  508 ;  and  Egyptians,  relations 

between,  506-7 ;  cities  of  the,  506-7 ; 

civilization  of    the,  508;     rise  of 

the,  506. 
Phinehas,  and   Eleazar,    tombs    of, 

456-7;     character    and    work    of, 

457-8 ;    meaning    of   name,    457 ; 

mother  of,  457-8. 
Phoenix,  woi'ship  of,  18,  64. 
Pilgrimages,  religious,  among  Egypt- 
ians, 125. 
Pillar  of  fire  and  cloud,  180. 
Pisgah,  377-8. 

Plato,  his  residence  in  On,  24. 
Plague,  God  sends  the,  286,  319,  342; 

first,  133;  second,  139;  third,  140; 

fourth,  142  ;  fifth,  144 ;  sixth,  14,6  , 

seventh,  147 ;   eighth,  148 ;  ninth, 

150. 
Plagues  of  Egypt,  a  triumph  over 

the  local  gods,  148,  154. 
Priestesses  of  Amon,  101. 
Priesthood,  first-born  sons  originally 

constituted    the,    340-1  j    rise    of 

Aaronic,  300,  306. 
Priests,  feet  of,  bare  during  worship, 

303;    limited  power  of    Hebrew, 

312. 
Prisoners    of     war,     Assyrian    and 

general,  ancient  treatment  of,  399, 

400,  421. 
Prophets,  312,   322-3  ;   and  priests, 

dress   of    Egyptian,    101,    302-4; 

meaning  of,  118,  190. 
Pyramid,buildingof  great,55 ;  Cheops 

builder  of  great,  29 ;    Khunaten's, 

destruction    of,    by    priests,    58 ; 

translation  of  word,  7. 
Pyramids,  building  of,  6,  7. 
Pyrrhus,  king,    killed  in  same  way 

as  Abimelech,  500. 

Quails,  flights  of,  213,  214. 
Quarries,  Egyptian,  6,  11,  15,  39,  78. 

Rahab  and  the  spies,  389. 

Rameses  II.,  city  built  by,  81-2; 
description  of  palace  of,  where 
Moses  was  brought  up,  96 ;  the 
persecutor  of  the  Hebrews,  73-5 ; 
a  great  builder,  75,  77-8. 

Red  colour,  symbol  of  evil  in  Egypt, 
135,  146. 


INDEX. 


615 


Bed  Sea,  derivation  of  name  of, 
208,  182,  192 ;  Hebrews  pass  the, 
176-8 ;  passage  of,  description  in 

.  Psalms,  179  ;  tra  ditions  of  crossing 
of,  191. 

Kefuge,  cities  of,  430. 

Keligion,  an  index  to  a  nation's 
health  and  vigour,  460,  461. 

Respect,  habits  of,  Eastern  and 
Western,  121. 

Resurrection,  belief  of  the  Ancient 
Egyptians  in,  65. 

Sabbath,  observation  of,  in  vnlder- 

ness,  221. 
Sacks,  Oriental  travelling,  413. 
Sacrifices,  human,  18,  367. 
Samuel,  reformation  under,  445. 
Samson,  limited  authority  of,  442. 
Sand  whirlwinds,  darkness  produced 

by,  151. 
Sanctuary,  297-8. 
Sarcophagi,  361. 
Saul,  children  of,  called  after  idols, 

452  ;  first,  judge  rather  than  king, 

441. 
Seasons,  the  three  Egyptian,  8. 
Seirath,  meaning  of,  463. 
Sentinels,  unknown  amongst  Arabs, 

491. 
Serapeion,  15,  16. 
Serbonis,  quicksands   and   bogs  of, 

193. 
Serpent,  the  brazen,  354;  guardian 

genius  of  Cairo,  132  ;  worship,  132. 
Serpents,  amazing  power  of  jugglers 

over,  133 ;  flying,  355. 
Seven  the  number,  395. 
Seventy,  council  of,  313,  321. 
Shamgar,  463. 
Slieba,  parallel  visit  to  that  of  the 

Queen  of,  55, 
Shechem,  capital  of  Palestine,  422; 

temple  to  Baal  at,  495 ;  valley  of, 

496. 
Sheiks,  dress  of,  486. 
"  Shepherd,"  meaning  of,  1. 
Shibboleth,  505. 

Shiloh,  religious  metropolis  of  Pales- 
tine,   482 ;    weakness  of    priests' 

teaching  at,  454. 
Shur,  wilderness  of,  200. 
Sidon,  wealth  of,  460. 
Simeon,  tribe  of,  426,  429. 
Sin,  wilderness  of,  210,  324,  326. 
Sinai,  forests  of,  109,   110 ;  inscrip- 

tions,  235-41 ;  mineral  springs  in, 


207 ;  mines,  208,  219,  226 ;  mines, 
terrible  account  of  sufferings  in, 
228 ;  Law,  mountain  of  the,  247- 
253,  262;  peninsula,  description 
of,  109 ;  fliora  and  fauna  of,  110, 
111 ;  physical  appearance  of,  207- 
8,  225,  246,  323-4;  population  of, 
218,  219;  trees  at,  destruction  of, 
diminution  of  rainfall  by,  215; 
thirst  and  terrible  heat  desci-ibed 
by  Burton,  201. 

Sineh,  flight  of,  from  Egypt,  107. 
'  Sisera,  468  ;  death  of,  476  ;  meaning 
of  name,  472  ;  the  mother  of,  481. 

Slave-hunts  in  Egypt,  77- 

Slaves,  Egyptian,  11,  7,  77-8;  fugi- 
tive,  in  Ancient  Egypt,  87-8. 

Slingers,  dexterity  of,  469. 

Soul,  immortality  of  the,  Egyptian 
doctrine  of,  65. 

Sounds,  distant,  distinctness  of,  in  the 
East,  412,  413. 

Sphinx,  the  great,  51. 

Spies,  sending  forth  of  the,  327. 

"  Spirit  of  the  Lord"  explained,  503. 

"  Spring  of  trembling,"  490. 

Standards,  ancient,  314. 

Stars  fighting  against  Sisera,  mean- 
ing of,  474,  480. 

Stephen  of  Byzance,  94. 

Stoning  to  death,  338-340. 

Store  cities,  80. 

St.  Paul,  route  to  Csesarea,  415. 

Strabo,  visit  of,  to  Heliopolis,  24. 

Sun,  spring  of  the,  19. 

Sunset,  description  of  Egyptian,  8. 

Tabernacle,  287-290;  badger  sldns 
in  the,  110,  292  ;  furniture  of,  294  j 
•wine  prohibited  priests  before  en- 
tering the,  307. 

Tabor,  mount,  description  of,  470  ; 
tribes  which  took  part  in  battle  of, 
470. 

Taskmasters,  10,  11,  29,  80,  81,  85, 
86, 106, 117. 

Tent-life,  effect  of,  on  Reuben,  Gad, 
and  Manasseh,  374-5. 

Tents,  Arab,  474-5;  rapidity  with 
which  Orientals  strike  their,  204. 

Thebes,  Ebers'  description  of  crowd 
in,  11. 

Theocracy,  Josephus  invents  the 
word,  311. 

Thothmes  III.,  the  Egyptian  Alex- 
ander the  Great,  47-8. 

Thothmes  IV.,  dream  of,  51,  52. 


516 


INDEX. 


Tola,  500,  501. 

Tombs,  illumination  of,  434. 

Torches,  modern  Egyptian,  491. 

Torrent  beds,  405. 

Torrents,  217.^ 

Trees,  large  size  of,  14. 

Tribes,  twelve,  simplicity  of  social 
organization  of,  437;  commerce 
almost  entirely  unknown  amongst, 
437-8 ;  number  of  the  Hebrew, 
68;  relative  positions  of  the  ten, 
68-9. 

Troy  and  Carthage,  curses  on,  401. 

Trumpets,  895  ;  of  war,  463. 

Turquoise  mines,  6,  29,  226. 

Tyre,  508-9. 

Universities  of  Egypt,  18. 
Unleavened  bread,  feast  of,  159. 
Urim  and  Thummim,  304-6. 

Venus,  the  Assyrian,  92. 
Victory,  songs  of,  50. 

Walls,  Egyptian  fortified,  1,  2,  3. 


War,  ferocious  cruelty  in  the  usages 

of,  427,  485,  505-6. 
Water,  plants   used  for  sweetening, 

202-3. 
Water-carrier,  92. 
Watches  of  the  night,  491. 
Weapon,  ox-goad  used  as,  464. 
Wheat,  threshing,  488. 
Wine-press,  488. 
Women,  apartments  of,  in  tents,  etc., 

475. 

Year,  fixed  length  of,  18. 

Zeba  and  Zalmunna,  486 ;  capture  of, 
493. 

Zebulon,  position  of,  424. 

Zipporah,  meaning  of,  108. 

Zoan,  a  Phenician  colony,  25  ;  plan 
of,  on  walls  of  temple  of  Karnak, 
128 ;  meaning  of,  26 ;  date  of,  24, 
25  ;  etymology  of,  25  ;  description 
of,  128 ;  meeting  of  Pharaoh  and 
Moses  at,  126  ;  ruins  of,  26  ;  Egyp- 
tian  scribe's  description  of,  3. 


TEXTS 

ILLUSTRATED. 

Genesis 

PAGE 

PAGE 

PAGE 

xiv.  7     

256,  330 

xlix.  20 



423 

vii.  7     ... 

... 

...      93 

XV.  13    

...     185 

„27 



... 

425 

„  11    ... 

... 

...     130 

„  16 

...     184 

1.3... 



... 

176 

„    15    ... 

... 

...     137 

xvii.  7    

...    392 

„   16    ... 

... 

...    157 

„  10-14      ... 

...     392 

Exodus 

„   18    ... 

... 

...     139. 

XX.  1      

...     327 

i.  10 

89 

viii.  9     ... 

...    140 

xxii.  35 

...     335 

„  14 



■79 

,373 

,,    13,  17 

... 

...     141 

xxiii.  3 

...     438 

ii.  1 

90 

,  155 

„   24  ... 

... 

...     144 

xxiv.  10,  61-64 

...     335 

„  23 



115 

,,    1,20, 

25 

...    157 

XXV.  7     

...     185 

iii.l 

262 

,263 

ix.  1,  13 

... 

...    157 

„    16 

...       69 

„  8 



403 

„  6      ... 

... 

...     145 

xxvi.  5 

...     265 

„13 



... 

67 

„    31,32 

... 

...    147 

„  .12 

...    336 

„22 



... 

155 

„    34  ... 

...     152 

xxviii.  18 

...    275 

iv.  18 



... 

318 

X.  9-11,  24  150, 

157,  320 

xxxi.  45 

...    275 

„  22 



... 

154 

xi.  2      ... 

... 

...     155 

xxxii.  29 

...     338 

„  24-27      ... 

... 

123 

„  5       ... 

...     145 

xxxvi.  10,  11 

...      69 

„  27 



... 

114 

„  35     ... 

... 

...     156 

„      29,  30 

...      70 

„  31 



... 

125 

xii.  6     ... 

... 

...     161 

XXX vii.  7 

...     336 

V.  1 

... 

187 

„   10   ... 

... 

...     162 

xli.  18    

...      72 

„  1.3, 

17    Z 

... 

157 

„  11    ... 

... 

...     163 

xlvii.  6,  11    ... 

2 

„  15 

... 

130 

„   23    ... 

... 

...     158 

„  15,  10  ... 

3 

„  6,  14 

,19  '.'.*. 

... 

117 

„   12    ... 

... 

...     158 

ixlix.3 

...     341 

vi.  18 

... 

341 

„   14    ... 

... 

...     320 

„    6   

...      69 

„  20 



... 

90 

„   25    ... 

... 

...    392 

„  15, 16    ... 

...     425 

;,24 



... 

342 

„  30   ... 

... 

...     158 

INDEX. 


517 


PAOB 

PAGB 

PAGB 

xii.  34  

... 

259 

xxxii.  28       

283 

iv.  48     ... 

314 

„  37   

224,  1G6 

„     29       

301 

vii.  3      ... 

252 

„  38   

... 

215 

„     32       

286 

„   13    ... 

336 

„   40,41    ... 

184 

xxxiii.  4-6    

288 

ix.  5       ... 

392 

xiii.  4     

... 

157 

„      7-11  

288 

„  17     ... 

316 

„    5-10      ... 

... 

392 

„       11      

289 

X.  1 

313 

„    13 

... 

277 

„       14      

289 

„  33-36 

...    317,319 

»    17 

172 

„      18      

289 

xi 

319 

„    18 

315 

,168 

„      30      

459 

„  4-34 

319 

„    21 

180 

xxxiv.  4-35 

290 

„  5      ... 

373 

xiv.  2    

... 

172 

„     29       

289 

„  16     ... 

...    117,313 

»   3 

... 

173 

XXXV.  2 

340 

„  26-30 

322 

„   5    

... 

174 

xxxviii.  8      

298 

„  28     ... 

386 

„    12 

... 

170 

„       26    

166 

„  31     ... 

212 

,,    16 

... 

177 

„  33     ... 

316 

„    19,  20    ... 
„    24 

... 

180 
181 

Leviticus. 

i.  4 

viii.  13 

„  2,26,31       ... 

ix.  4       

x.  1-3    

„  12      

xi.  44     

xvii.  7    ...       64,  67 
xviii.  3 

„      9,11     

„    23 

xix.  28 

„     4 

xxi.  5     

xxiii.  16        

,,    41        

xxiv.  5 

„    5-10    

„    7 

„  10 

„  14 

„  11,  16    

xxvi.  1 

338 
302 
336 
386 
307 
336 
390 
,278 

m 

94 
278 
281 
310 
281 
156 
187 
336 
296 
296 
337 
338 
338 
310 

Xiii.  21  ... 
„   17... 

328 

328 

„    30,  31    ... 

XV.  18    

„   '^l    

».20    

XVI.  1       

„   3     

„   13 

xvii.  3    

211 

182 
443 
215 
281 
262 
,373 
212 
215 

„    22  ... 

,,    29  ... 
xiv.  25   ... 

„    43,45 

„    45  ... 
XV.  32-36 
xvi.  2     ... 

,,   13,  14 

24 

253 

330 

253 

...    330,331 

340 

341 

342 

„    4    

„  6,  7      ... 

„    16 

xviii.  3,  4     ... 

... 

254 
243 
256 
259 

xvii.  8    ... 
„    13... 
xviii. 
XX.  1       ... 

343 

68 

343 

349 

„    7 

,,  11 

„  12 

... 

259 
260 
260 

„    10-12 
xxi.  5     ... 
„    6-8 

345 

354 

354 

„16 

„  19 

xix.  1     

... 

260 
443 
261 

„     14,15 
„    15-26 
„     13-15 

359 

358 

356 

„  7,8       ... 

266 

„    21-24 

349 

„  10 

„   22 

XX.  18    

„  24,  26      ... 

390 
299 
250 
275 

xxii.  1    ... 

;;  '39::: 

„     41  ... 

...    315,362 

368 

369 

367 

xxi.  8     

298 

xxiii.  1  ...  ■ 

367 

xxii.  29 

275 

341 

Numbers. 

,,      19 

366 

xxiii.  21 

339 

i.2 

70 

xxiv.  1 

365 

xxiv.  5 

299 

„2,  3     

336 

„    7 

257 

„    9,14    ... 

... 

313 

„5,  6     

224 

„     16 

338 

„  18 

... 

284 

,,45,46        

166 

XXV.  2    ... 

372 

XXV.  22 

... 

295 

ii 

307 

xxvi.  11... 

...     342,407 

„    29 

... 

296 

„  2      337,  314 

„    51... 

...     224,336 

xxvii.  16 

... 

293 

„  5       

319 

„    62.. 

286 

xxviii.  40-42 

... 

302 

„  24,  26       

321 

xxxi. 

372 

XXX.  1-6 

... 

297 

„  32      

224 

„    6  ... 

457 

xxxi.  14,  15  ... 

... 

340 

„  51      

314 

„     16... 

371 

„     20        ... 

277 

iii.  6      

314 

xxxii.  20 

390 

xxxii.  6 

187 

336 

„  39    

286 

„     37 

359 

„    20       ... 

253 

„  43    

166 

„     39 

376 

„    25       ... 

286 

iv.  15     

294 

xxxiii.  10 

208 

618 


TNDEX. 


xxxiii.  12 

TkGt-E 

...    226 

Joshua 

PAGB 

Jul 

)GES. 

PAoa 

„      13      ... 

...    241 

i.lO      

...    117 

i.  2 

446 

„11      

...    337 

,.3 

...  -426,44^ 

Detjt. 

ii.ll     

...    398 

„7,8    ... 

426 

„  9,  24 

...     408 

„  13      ... 

428 

i.  2       

...    262 

iii.  2      

...    117 

„  16      ... 

108 

ii.6       

...     336 

iv.  12,  18      ... 

...     390 

„17     ... 

...    331,332 

„9       

...    357 

V.  1         

...     408 

„  19-34... 

431 

„13     

...    356 

„  10-12 

...     393 

„  27-36... 

460 

„  13,  14      ... 

...     356 

„  13-15 

...     386 

,,31,32... 

423 

„  26     

...     357 

vii.  14-17      ... 

...      70 

„  34,  35 

429 

iii.  1-17       ... 

...     362 

„     15 

....     407 

ii.  1       ... 

454 

„  5      

...    361 

viii.  33,  34    ... 

...    400 

„  2        ... 

397 

10     

...     374 

„    33 

...    117 

„  9        ... 

435 

„  13-15       ... 

...     376 

ix.  24     

...     408 

„  17, 18 

357 

„  25     

...     189 

X.  20      

...    385 

iii.  6      ... 

448 

iv.  20     

...     146 

„  36,  37      ... 

...     427 

„  9       ... 

428 

„  43     

...    374 

„  40     

396,  418 

„13     ... 

...    401,461 

„  48     

...     358 

xi.          

...     408 

„  16     ... 

462 

V.  11      

...     409 

„6       

...     420 

„  19-26 

462 

vi.  1] 

...     421 

„6-9    

...     385 

„20     ... 

461 

vii.  2      

...     396 

xii.  12    

...    507 

„22     ... 

463 

viii.  4     

...     336 

xiii.  3    

...     506 

iv.  11     ... 

...    108,472 

„    15 

332,  354 

„  22 

...     365 

„12     ... 

472 

ix.21     

250,  253 

„    9,16,17 

...     374 

v.  2-9   ... 

440 

X.  3-5, 10      ... 

...     290 

xiv.  6     

...    421 

„  2,  31 ... 

...    477,479 

xi.  10     

...    373 

xiv.  7-11       ... 

...    421 

„  4       ... 

308 

xii.  2      

...    447 

„  10  

...    421 

„  6       ... 

...    465,466 

xiii.  15-17    ... 

...    401 

XV.  4-47 

...    506 

,,  7       ... 

...    464,  466 

xvi.  18 

...    117 

„    14   

...    427 

„  8,22... 

385 

xvii.  7    

...    338 

„    18 

...     335 

„  8        ... 

...    466,468 

„    8,  12     ... 

...     439 

„    29   

...     334 

„  10      ... 

464 

„    14-20   ... 

...    436 

„    21-32     ... 

...     333 

„  14      ... 

...    469,  470 

„    16 

...     385 

„    33    

...     361 

„  15,  16 

470 

XX.    9   

...     117 

xvi.  20 

...     277 

„  16      ... 

464 

„   16    

...    396 

xvii.  1    

...    376 

„  17,  18 

423 

xxi.  22,  23    ... 

...    408 

„    2    

...     487 

„  17     ... 

465 

„    23 

...    418 

„    15-18    ... 

385,  431 

„  18      ... 

470 

xxiii.  18 

...    278 

„    16-18   ... 

...     422 

„  23      ... 

470 

xxiv.  7,  8      ... 

...    337 

xviii.  24 

...     463 

„  25      ... 

475 

XXV.  18 

...     256 

xix.    3 

...     334 

„  27      ... 

476 

xxvi 

...     215 

„     21, 23-27 

...      92 

„  30      ... 

465 

xxix.  4,  5 

...    336 

„     41 

...    429 

vi.  2       ... 

486 

„    9 

...    117 

47 

...     430 

„  7      ... 

487 

xxxi.  28 

...    117 

XX.  8      

...     374 

„  11     ... 

488 

xxxii.  8,  10  ... 

...     348 

xxi.  42 

...    435 

„  26     ... 

495 

„      10       ... 

...     325 

xxii.  10 

...    458 

„  27     ... 

487 

„      13       ... 

...    431 

„    10-34  ... 

...    458 

„  34     ... 

488 

„      17       ... 

...      64 

xxiii.  1 

...    441 

vii.  10   ... 

487 

,,...13,14... 

...    377 

,.,     2 

...     117 

„   14    ... 

487 

xxxiii.  3        ... 

...    443 

xxiv.  1 

...     117 

„   25    ... 

493 

»     17      ... 

...      67 

„    12 

...    361 

viii.  3    ... 

494 

,,      24      ... 

...    423 

23        ... 

...      67 

„    5     ... 

439 

„      29      ... 

...    431 

;,    26        ... 

...    497 

„    10  ... 

484 

xxxiv.  7 

...    185 

„    30 

...    435 

„    15-17 
„    16  ... 

440 

494 

TNDEX. 


619 


PAOB 

PAGB 

PAGB 

viii.  18 

487,  494 

xviii.  6,  7 

...    281 

xxiii.  4 

117 

„    19 

...    487 

xix.  16   

...     450 

XXV.  1-3        

190 

20 

...    487 

XXV.  11 

...    439 

xxvi.  29 

117 

„    22 

...     442 

XXV.  18,  20,  23 

...     335 

»     10 

374 

„    23 

443,  495 

xxvii.  8 

...     253 

„    25,26    ... 

...     486 

XXX.  1-19      ... 

...    257 

2  Chronicles 

„    26 

...    486 

„    17 

...    335 

xvii.  17 

'  469 

„    31 

...     495 

XX.  15    

420 

ix.  20     

...     500 

2  Samuel. 

„    19    

342 

„  27    

...     499 

i.  18      

...    416 

xxxiii.  19      

447 

„  41    

...     499 

vi.  5       

...     191 

X.6       

...     502 

„  6       

...    281 

Nehemiah. 

„  16      

...     460 

„  14     

...     300 

ix.  25     

421 

xi.  9       

...     442 

vii.  13    

...     339 

xii.  27-29     

392 

„  24      

...     503 

viii.  4    

...     385 

,,  31      

...     504 

„     18 

...    300 

Esther. 

xii.  4      

...     505 

X.  5        

...     401 

i.  10-14 

396 

M    15    

...     257 

„  6-8    

...     328 

iv.ll     

267 

xiii.18 

...     338 

xiii.  13 

...      94 

,   25   

...     430 

xvii.  25 

...    448 

Job. 

XV.  10-13      ... 

...     442 

xxii.  11 

...    295 

xxviii.  2-4    

228 

xvii.  7-13      ... 

...     299 

xxiv 

...     163 

xviii.  3 

...     299 

Psalms. 

„    6 

...    440 

1  Kings. 

xviii.  7-11    

268 

,,  12 

...     430 

i.  50      

...    298 

„    9-15    

267 

„  14-19    ... 

...    451 

ii.  28     

...     298 

„    10 

295 

„  16 

...     450 

vii.  46    ...     ... 

...     391 

„    34 

431 

,.  27-29    ... 

...     430 

viii 

...     300 

XX.  7      

420 

„  30 

...     450 

„    51 

...     146 

xxvi.  15 

139 

XX.  2      

...      71 

xi.7      

...     447 

xxix.  3-9       

267 

„  15    

...     425 

xviii.  26-28  ... 

...     281 

xiii.  4    

187 

„  16    

...     469 

XX.  23-25      ... 

...     374 

xliv 

431 

„  28    

...    458 

lii.l    

334 

„  33    

...    467 

2  Kings. 

liv.  7     

446 

xxi.  2     

...     281 

iii.  27    

...    367 

lix.  10    

446 

«    19 

...     445 

X.  1-7    

...     498 

Ixviii.  1 

316 

xi.  1      

...     498 

„      8 

263 

EUTH 

xvii.  18 

...     446 

„     14-17 

420 

iv.  1       

...     438 

xxiii.  24 

...     450 

„      25,26 

„     7,  8,  9       ... 

191 
308 

1  Samuel. 

1  Chronicles. 

Ixxvii.  12-20 

190 

i.  3        

432,  454 

ii.  17     

429, 448 

„       17,  18       ... 

180 

ii.  27,  28       ... 

...      90 

iv.  13     

...    428 

Ixxviii 

190 

vii.  15    

...     422 

„  22     

...      88 

„      12-43        ... 

126 

viii.  7     

...     443 

V.  25     

375, 376 

„      12      

25 

X.  19      

...     443 

vi.  2       

...      90 

„      26      

212 

„  26      

...     441 

vii.  21    

...68,88 

„      43      

26 

xi.  5       

...    441 

„    24    

...      88 

„      51      

163 

xii.  11    

...     493 

viii.  40 

...     469 

,,        04       ...      ... 

189 

„  12    

...     443 

ix.  39     

...     452 

„      60-68 

432 

xiii.  18 

...     415 

„  40     

...     452 

Ixxx.  1 

295 

XV.  4      

...     385 

xii.  2   • 

425, 469 

Ixxxiu.  10     ...     473,474 

xvi.  12 

...     146 

„    8      

...    376 

„      11     

493 

xvii.  17 

...     439 

„    15    

...    389 

„      13,14      ... 

492 

„    42 

...     146 

xvi.  39,  40    ... 

...     457 

xcii.  11 

446 

»   47 

...    420 

XX.  i 

...    342 

xciv.  9 

3J0 

520 


INDEX. 


xcvi.  5  ... 

xcvii.  4,  5 

xcix.  1  ... 

cv 

cvi. 

„  28  ... 
„  32,33 
„    36-38 

cxiv. 

cxv.  1     ... 

cl.  3-5   ... 


PAGB 
122 

268 
295 
190 
190 
372 
345 
449 
190 
190 
191 


Song  of  Solomon. 

V.  10      146 

„  12      334 

Isaiah. 

ii.  5,  6   426 

viii.  17 426 

ix.  4,  5 493 

X.  26      492,493 

xiv.  1     426 

„    29 354 

XV.  8      357 

xvii.  9    408 

XXX.  6    354 

xxxiii.  28      392 

xlviii.  10       146 

Iviii.  14 431 

Ixv.  9    189 

Jeremiah. 

ii.  2       348 

vii.  12    432 

„    22    436 

„    22,23     300 

„    31    447 

xi.  4      146 

„  13     447 

xvi.  6     281 

xxi.  13 374 

xxxii.  39       447 

xli.  5      281 

xliii.  13 17 

xlvii.  5 281 

xlviii.  8-21   374 

„     29-41 189 


xlix.  19  ... 

„     19  ... 

1.44       ... 


PAGE 

...     334 

...     388 
334, 388 


EZEKIEL. 

ix.  3       295 

X.  4-18 295 

XX.  25     301 

„  26    277 


Amos. 

iv.  4      391,  432 

V.  5 391,  432 

„  25      300 

„  26      278 


vi.  5 

»7 


MiCAH. 


504 


Habakkuk. 
iii.  19    431 

Zechariah. 

X.  2       450 

xi.  3      388 

Mala  CHI. 
ii.  7       454 


TOBIT. 


i.  5... 


PAGH 

449 


Judith. 
XV.  12,  13     504 

1    MACCABiEUS. 

vii.  39    415 


„  7,8 

67, 278 

2 

MACCABiEUS. 

xxiii.  8 

Q7 

xiii.  2 



385 

,,    3-8      

278 

Matthew. 

Daniel. 

vi.  38 



436 

iii.  18 

HOSEA. 

152 

xix.  8 

John. 

436 

iii.  4 



450 

iii.  14 



354 

iv.  13 



391 

„15 



432 

Acts. 

ix.  10 



372 

ii.  20 



138 

„    15 

'.*.!    *.'.'.  39i, 

432 

vii.  6 

...•   

184 

xii.  11 

391 

„   20 



102 

„    12 

,,, 

432 

„   30 



114 

xxiii.  31        

415 

Joel. 

iii.  6 



511 

EOMANS. 

xi.  6 



149 

ii.  14, 

15       

105 

1  Corinthians. 

X.  4       245 

2  Corinthians. 

iii.  7      290 

Galatians. 
iii.  17     > 184 

2  Timothy. 
iii.  8      131 

Hebrews. 

xi.  23    102 

xii 32,493 


ii.l5 


2  Peter,