nineteenth dynasty the power of Egypt | tion of the "new king who knew not faded the twentieth and twenty-first Joseph." If this view is correct, Jodynasties achieved nothing worthy seph would have come into Egypt of record; but with the twenty-second under one of the later kings of the we enter upon a period that is inter- Shepherd dynasty. But, plausible as esting from its associations with bib- this theory is, the uncertainty in which lical history, the first of this dynasty, scriptural chronology is involved preSheshonk I. (Seconchis) B.C. 990, be- vents us from coming to any definite ing the Shishak who invaded Judæa conclusion. Lepsius and other emin Rehoboam's reign and pillaged the inent Egyptologers place the arrival Temple (1 Kings xiv. 25). Of this of the Israelites under the eighteenth event and of the subsequent history dynasty, and the Exodus under the of Egypt, we shall have further occa- nineteenth, in the year 1314 B.C. He sion to speak. identifies the chief oppressor, from whom Moses fled, with the great king of the nineteenth dynasty, RAMESES II., and the Pharoah of the Exodus with his son and successor Menptah, or

It was necessary to give this summary of ancient Egyptian history before discussing the difficult question of the period of the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt. The chronology PHTHAHMEN. of Egypt is now so far settled that Mr. Poole, however, takes an enthe accession of the eighteenth dynasty tirely opposite view, and places not may be regarded as fixed to within a only the arrival of the Israelites in few years of B.C. 1525. The era of Egypt, but also the Exodus, within the Exodus, in the system of Ussher, the dynasties of the Shepherd kings is B.C. 1491. The obvious conclu- (Dict. of the Bible, art. Egypt). It sion agrees with the statement of Ma- seems impossible to come to any defnetho, that Moses left Egypt under inite conclusion upon the subject. The Amosis, the first king of the eighteenth difficulty of a solution is still further dynasty. The same king, as we have increased by the uncertainty as to the already seen, expelled the Shepherd length of the sojourn of the Israelites Kings; and there is, in fact, no doubt in Egypt, whether it was 215 years, that the great power of the eighteenth according to the Septuagint, or 430 dynasty was connected with this ex-years, according to the Hebrew. This pulsion. In this change of dynasty point is discussed in § 9 of the premany writers see a uctural explana- ceding chapter.

M

The Egyptian Bastinado. See p. 139. (Wilkinson.)

BOOK III.

FROM MOSES TO JOSHUA. THE EXODUS OF THE CHOSEN NATION, AND THE GIVING OF THE LAW FROM SINAI. A.M. 2404-2553. B.C. 1600 (cir.)-1451.

CHAPTER XI.

THE EGYPTIAN BONDAGE AND THE MISSION OF MOSES, TO THE EXODUS. A.M. 2404-2513. B.C. 1600 (cir.)-1491.

§ 1. The people of Israel oppressed. § 2. The birth and education of Moses. § 3. His choice to suffer with his people. § 4. His flight from Egypt and residence in Midian. § 5. God appears to him in the burning bush-The mission of Moses and Aaron to Israel and Pharaoh. § 6. Moses returns to Egypt and meets Aaron—Their reception by the people. § 7. Their first appeal to Pharaoh-Increase of the oppressionThe renewal of Jehovah's covenant. § 8. The conflict with Pharaoh -The Ten Plagues of Egypt. § 9. Institution of the Passover. § 10. The death of the first-born of Egypt, and the Exodus of the Israelites.

§1. "Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph." So begins the story of the affliction of the Israelites in Egypt, and of that marvellous deliverance, which has given to the second book of the Bible its Greek title of EXODUS. The date of this event may be placed about or after the beginning of the sixteenth century B.C., according to the common chronology; and it probably signifies a change of dynasty. But whether that change consisted in the expulsion of the Shepherds and the rise of the great Eighteenth Dynasty of native kings, is unfortunately most uncer

2 Ex. i. 8.

66

tain. At all events, we see the new monarch dreading some war, in which the enemy might be aided by the people of Israel, who were more numerous and mightier than his own subjects," and dreading also their escape out of the land." He therefore adopted the policy of reducing them to slavery; which was made more rigorous the more the people increased. Their labor consisted in field-work, and especially in making bricks and building the "treasure-cities" (probably for storing up corn) Pithom and Raamses. Still they multiplied and grew; and Pharaoh adopted a more cruel and atrocious course. He commanded the Hebrew midwives to kill the male children at their birth, but to preserve the females. The midwives, however, "feared God" and disobeyed the king; and they were rewarded by the distinction given to their families in Israel. Their names were Shiphrah and Puah. The king then commanded the Egyptians to drown the new-born sons of the Israelites in the river, but to save the daughters."

§ 2. Pharaoh's edict of infanticide led, by the providence of God, to the rearing up at his own court of the future deliverer of Israel. AMRAM, the son of Kohath, son of Levi, had espoused Jochebed, who was also of the tribe of Levi; and they had already two children, a daughter called MIRIAM (the same name as the Mary of the New Testament), and a son named AARON. Another son was born soon after the king's edict. With maternal fondness, increased by the boy's beauty, and in faith (as it seems) on a prophetic inti

2 See p. 135.

8

3 Ex. i. 8, 9; compare Ps. cv. 24. "Come on, let us deal wisely with them (comp. Ps. cv. 25; Acts vii. 19; also Ps. lxxxiii. 3, 4; Prov. xvi. 25, xxi. 30).

the land of Rameses" (Gen. xlvii. 11), which was a part of the land of Goshen. (See p. 117.) Pithom is apparently the town called Patumus by Herodotus.

6

Comp. Acts vii. 19. 7 Ex. i. 15-21. 8 Their descent from Levi appears

5 These two cities were in the land of Goshen. We read that Joseph by the genealogical table at the botsettled his father and brethren "in tom of this page.

mation of his destiny, his mother hid him for three months.' When concealment was no longer possible, Jochebed pre pared a covered basket of papyrus daubed with bitumen to make it water-tight, and placed it among the rushes on the banks of the Nile, or one of the canals, leaving Miriam to watch the result at a distance. To that very spot the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe. She saw the ark, and sent one of her maidens to fetch it. As she opened it, the babe wept, and, touched with pity, she said, "This is one of the Hebrews' children." At this moment Miriam came forward, and having received the princess's permission to find a nurse, she went and fetched the child's mother. While she reared him as the son of Pharaoh's daughter, she doubtless taught him the knowledge of the true God and the history of the chosen race. In all other respects Mores" was brought up as an Egyptian prince, and "he was educated" in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.' St. Stepher. adds that "he was mighty in words and in deeds;" and whatever we may think of the traditions about this period of his life, it was certainly a part of his training for his great mission.

13

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10

§ 3. The narrative in Exodus passes over this period, to the crisis at which he decided to cast in his lot with his own people, when "by faith he refused to be called (renounced the rank of) the son of Pharaoh's daughter; choosing rather oppression with the people of God than the fleeting enjoyment of sin, deeming the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he regarded the recompense;"a most striking passage, which not only implies a deliberate choice, but the hope of Messiah's coming and the expectation of rewards and punishments. So St. Stephen says that it came into his heart to visit his brethren the children of Israel, and that he supposed his brethren would have understood how that God by his hand would deliver them.1

Ex. ii. 1, 2; comp. Heb. xi. 23. 10 The name applies to the foundling of the water's side-whether according to its Hebrew or Egyptian form. Its Hebrew form is Mosheh, from Mâshah, "to draw out "-"because I have drawn him out of the water. But this (as in many other instances, Babel, etc.) is probably the Hebrew form given to a foreign word. In Coptic, mo= water, and ushe saved.

11 In our version the word "learn. ed" means this. It is the particle of the old transitive verb, though modern readers take it in the modern sense.

12 Acts vii. 22.

13 These traditions represent him as educated at Heliopolis as a priest, and taught the whole range of Egyptian, Chaldee, Assyrian, and Greek literature. 14 Heb. xi. 26.

15 Acts vii. 23-25.

These passages bring out the full meaning of his own simpler statement that "he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens."16

9917

9918

The time of this event was "when Moses was grown," or "when he was come to years,' or, as St. Stephen states, "when he was full forty years old." This date is confirmed by the whole narrative in the Pentateuch, which divides the life of Moses into three equal periods of 40 years each. We may say that for his first forty years he was an Egyptian; for the second forty an Arabian; and for the third forty the leader of Israel.

an

Moses then went forth to view the state of his brethren. The first sight he saw was one so common that our eyes can see it on the monuments of Egypt at this very day; Egyptian overseer beating one of the slaves who worked under him. But the sight was new to Moses, and, stung with indignation, after looking round to see that no one was near, he killed the Egyptian on the spot, and buried his body in the sand. His hope that this deed might prove a token of the coming deliverance was soon checked. On his next visit he found that the oppressed could oppress each other, and his interference was scornfully rejected by the wrong-doer, with a dangerous allusion to his having killed the Egyptian.' The expression" Who made thee a prince and a judge over us ?"—seems to imply a willful rejection of his mission; at all events, it was a token of that spirit of which he had long after such terrible experience in the wilderness.20

19

21

§ 4. The story reached the ears of Pharaoh, and the life of Moses was threatened; not for the first time, if we may believe tradition. He fled into the desert which surrounds the head of the Red Sea, and which was inhabited by the people of Midian, who were descended from Abraham and Keturah. As he sat down beside a well (or rather, the well, for it was one famous enough to be so distinguished), the seven daughters of JETHRO (elsewhere called REUEL and HOBAB), the chief sheykh" of the Midianites, came to water their flocks, probably at the regular noontide gathering of the sheep.

16 Ex. ii. 11.

principally in the desert north of the

17 Heb. xi. 24; μéyaç may possibly Peninsula of Arabia. The portion of mean a great man,

18 Acts vii. 23.

the land of Midian, where Moses took up his abode, was probably the Peninsula of Sinai.

22 The offices of prince and priest are both included in the title used in

The Midianites were Arabs dwelling the original.