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the continent of Asia. He represents him as having subdued Palestine and Phoenicia, and the kingdoms up to Europe; thence passing over to the Thracians; and from them to the Scythians, and coming to the river Phasis. Here he supposes that he stopped his progress, and returned back from hence to Egypt.' Herodotus appears to have examined the expedition of Sesostris with far more exactness than Strabo or Diodorus. He enquired after the monuments or pillars, which Sesostris set up in the nations he subdued; but it no way appears from his accounts that this mighty conqueror attacked any one nation, which was really a part of the Assyrian empire; but rather the course of his enterprises led him quite away from the Assyrian dominions. Sesostris did great things, but they have been greatly magnified. The ancient writers were very apt to record a person as having travelled over the whole world, if he had been in a few different nations. Abraham travelled from Chaldea

Herodot. lib. 2. c. 102, 103.

Id. ibid.

into Mesopotamia, into Canaan, Philistia, and Egypt; the profane writers speaking of him under the name of Chronus say he travelled over the whole world." Thus the Egyptians might record of Sesostris, that he conquered the whole world; and the historians who took the hints of what they wrote from them, might, to embellish their history, give us what they thought the most considerable parts of the world, and thereby magnify the conquests of Sesostris far above the truth. But Herodotus seems in this point to have been more careful; for he examined particulars, and according to the utmost of what he could find, none of the victories of this Egyptian conqueror reached to any of the nations subject to the Assyrians. Sir Isaac Newton mentions Memnon as another Egyptian conqueror, who possessed Chaldea, Assyria, Media, Persia and Bactria, &c. so that it may be thought that some successor of Sesostris (for before him the Egyptians had no conquerors) subdued and reigned over these countries. I shall

*See Euseb. Prep. Evang. 1. 1. c. 10.

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therefore, 3, give a short abstract of the Egyptian affairs from Sesac, until Nebuchadnessar took entirely away from them all their acquisitions in Asia. At the death of Sesac the Egyptian power sunk at once, and they lost all the foreign nations which Sesac had conquered. Herodotus informs us, that Sesostris was the only king of Egypt who reigned over the Ethiopians; and agreeably hereto we find that when Asa was king of Judah, about A. M. 3063, about thirty years after Sesostris or Sesac's conquests, the Ethiopians' were not only free from their subjection to the Egyptians, but were grown up into a state of great power; for Zerah their king invaded Judea with a host of a thousand thousand and three hundred chariots. Our great author says, that Ethiopia served Egypt until the death of Sesostris and no longer; that at the death of Sesostris Egypt fell into civil wars, and

'Herodot. lib. 2. c. 110.

* Usher's Chronol.

The Hebrew word is the Cushites, it should have been translated the Arabians. See vol. i. b. 3. p. 143.

2 Chron. xiv.

was invaded by the Libyans, and defended by the Ethiopians for some time; but that in about ten years the Ethiopians invaded the Egyptians, slew their king and seized his kingdom." It is certain, that the Egyptian empire was at this time demolished: the Ethiopians were free from it, and if we look into Palestine we shall not find reason to suppose that the Egyptians had the service. of any nation there, from this time for many years. Neither Asa king of Judah nor Baasha king of Israel had any dependance upon Egypt, when they warred against each other; and Syria was in a flourishing and independent state, when Asa sought an alliance with Benhadad. About A. M. 3116, about eighty-three years after Sesac, we find Egypt still in a low state, the Philistines were independent of them; for they joined with the Arabians and distressed Jehoram." About one hundred and seventeen years after Sesac, when the Syrians besieged Samaria, it may be thought that the Egyptians were growing

" Newton's Chron. p. 236.

• 1 Kings xv.

9

P 2 Chron xxi, 16,

2 Kings vi. 24.

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powerful again; for the Syrians raised their siege, upon a rumour that the king of Israel had hired the kings of the Hittites and of the Egyptians to come upon them. The Egyptians were perhaps by this time getting out of their difficulties; but they were not yet grown very formidable, for the Syrians were not terrified at the apprehension of the Egyptian power, but of the kings of the Hittites and the Egyptians joined together. From this time the Egyptians began to rise again; and when Sennacherib sent Rabshekah against Jerusalem' about A. M. 3292, the king of Israel thought an alliance with Egypt might have been sufficient to protect him against the Assyrian invasions; but the king of Assyria made war upon the Egyptians, and rendered them a bruised reed," not able to assist their allies, and greatly brake and reduced their power; * so that whatever the empire of Egypt was in those days, there was an Assyrian empire

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