A. M. 2433. A. C. 1571; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 3763. A. C. 1648. EXOD. CH. i–xiii. Its altitude, if measured by its perpendicular, is 481 feet, but if taken according to the inclination of the pyramid, as it ascends, it is exactly equal to a side of its basis. The ascent to the top of this structure is by degrees, or steps, which run round the whole pyramid in a level, and if the stones were entire on every side, would make a narrow walk. The first of these steps is near four feet in height and three in breadth; but the higher one ascends, they proportionably diminish. They are made of massy and polished stone, so very large, that the breadth and depth of every step is one single stone; but as the weather has in many places worn these steps, this pyramid cannot be ascended without some difficulty. According to the computation of most modern travellers, the steps are 207 or 208 in number, which end on the top, in a handsome platform, covered with nine stones, besides two that are wanting at the corners, of sixteen or seventeen feet square, from whence you have a pleasant prospect of Old Cairo, and the adjacent country. On the sixteenth step from the bottom of this pyramid, there is a door or entry of three feet and a half in height, and a little less in breadth, through which you descend insensibly, much about seventy-six feet, and then come to another passage, which very probably is of the same dimensions with the first entrance, but is so choked up with the sand, which the wind blows in, that it is no easy matter for a man of any bulk to squeeze himself through it. Having passed this strait, however, you meet with nothing deserving observation, till on the left hand you enter a passage which leads into a gallery 16 feet high, and 162 feet long; a very stately piece of work indeed, and not inferior either in curiosity of art, or richness of materials, to the most sumptuous and magnificent buildings! The stone of which this gallery is built, is a white polished marble, very evenly cut into large tables, and jointed so close, as hardly to be perceived by the most curious eye: but what adds a grace to the whole structure, though it makes the passage the more slippery and difficult, is the acclivity or rising of the ascent, which, however, is not a little facilitated by certain holes made in the floor, about six hands' breadth from one another, into which a man may set his feet, while he holds by a bench of marble, which runs all along the gallery, with one hand, and carries his light in the other. are all made of vast and exquisite tables of Thebaic marble, which, if they were not sullied with the steam of torches, would certainly appear very bright and shining, From the top to the bottom of the chamber, there are about six ranges of this stone, which being all sized to an equal height, run very gracefully round it. The roof is flat, and consists but of nine stones, whereof seven, in the middle, are each four feet wide, and 16 feet long, but the other two, which are at each end, appear not above two feet broad apiece, because the other half of them is built into the wall. The stones lie athwart, over the breadth of the chamber, with their ends resting upon the walls on each side. At the end of this glorious room stands an empty tomb, three feet and an inch wide, and seven feet two inches long; the stone which it is made of is the same with the lining of the room, a beauteous speckled marble, above five inches thick, and yet, being hollow within, and uncovered at the top, whenever it is struck it sounds like a great bell: which is just such a wonder as the surprising echo that is heard in this place, and, as some travellers tell us, will repeat the same sound some ten or twelve times together. The figure of this tomb is like an altar, or two cubes finely set together. It is cut smooth and plain, exquisitely finely polished, but without any sculpture or engraving. It is not to be doubted, but that the tomb was placed here before the pyramid was finished; and one reason for its want of ornaments may be what the inhabitants of the country tell us, namely, that it was built for the sepulchre of a king who was never buried in it; and the common opinion is, that it was the same Pharaoh who, by the just judgment of God, was drowned in the Red Sea, These are the principal things that have been observed of this pyramid; only, to give us a still fuller idea of the vastness of its structure, Pliny has taken care to inform us, that it was 20 years in building; that 37,000. men were, every day, employed in the work; and that 1800 talents were expended upon them merely for radishes and onions. Which last article may seem incredible perhaps to those that were never in the country; but when it is considered, that this is the ordinary food of the common people, and that almost all those who were employed in raising these great piles were slaves and mercenaries, who, besides bread and water, had nothing but radishes and onions, there will be no occasion for any surprise or wonder at the supposed largeness of this account. As soon as you come to the end of this gallery, you enter another square hole, much of the same dimensions with the former, which brings you into two little rooms, A building of the like date, and not of inferior granlined with a rich kind of speckled marble; and thence deur, was the labyrinth which stood in the Heracleotic you proceed into the chamber of the tombs or sepulchres, Nome, or province, near the city of Arsinoe, and not far which is very large and spacious, 32 feet long, 16 feet from the lake Moeris. The design of this structure wide, and 19 feet high. This room stands, as it were, seems to have been both for a pantheon, or universal in the heart and centre of the pyramid, equidistant from temple for all the gods that were worshipped in the all the sides, and almost in the midst between the basis several places of Egypt, and also for a general conand the top. The floor, the sides, and the roof of it vention-house, for the states of the whole nation to meet, and enact laws, and determine causes of great importa On this platform Proclus supposed that the Egyptian priestsance: and therefore it is said by some to have been made their astronomical observations; but it is far from being prohable that these structures were designed for observatories, and it is scarce to be conceived that the priests would take the pains to ascend so high, when they might make the same observations with more ease, and as much certainty below, having as free and open a prospect of the heavens, and over the plains of Egypt, from the rock whereon it was built, as from the pyramid itself. -Universal History. built at the common charge of the twelve kings who, in those days, reigned all at once in Egypt, as a monument of their magnificence, and a place for their sepulture. To this purpose Herodotus tells us, that each pro I B. 2. 1 A. M. 2133. A. C. 1571; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 3763. A. C. 1648. EXOD), CH, i–xiii. vince or nome had, in this building, a distinct hall, where its principal magistrates used to meet; that these halls were vaulted, were surrounded with pillars of white stone, finely polished, and had an equal number of doors opposite to one another, six opening to the north, and six to the south, all encompassed by the same wall; that there were three thousand chambers in this edifice, fifteen hundred in the upper part, and as many under ground; and that he viewed every room in the upper part, but was not permitted by those who kept the palace, to go into the subterraneous part, because the sepulchres of the holy crocodiles, and of the kings, who built the labyrinth, were there. What he saw there, as he reports, seemed to surpass the art of man; so many ways out, by various passages, and infinite returns, afforded a thousand occasions of wonder, as he passed from a spacious hall to a chamber, from thence to a private closet, then again into other passages out of the closet, and out of the chambers, into more spacious rooms, where all the walls and roofs were not only encrusted with marble, but richly adorned likewise with figures of sculpture. To this description of Herodotus, others add, that this edifice stood in the midst of an immense square, surrounded with buildings at a great distance; that the porch was of Parian marble, and all the other pillars of the marble of Syene; that within it were the temples of the several deities, and galleries to which one ascended by 90 steps, adorned with many columns of porphyry, images of their gods, and statues of their kings, of a monstrous size; that the whole edifice consisted of stone, the floors were laid with vast tables, and the roof looked like one continued field of stone; that the passages met and crossed one another with so much intricacy, that it was impossible for a stranger to find his way, either in or out, without a guide; and that several of the apartments were so contrived, that upon opening the doors, there was heard within a terrible noise of thunder. Such was the strength of this wonderful building, that it withstood, for many ages, not only the rage of time, but that of the inhabitants of Heracleopolis, who, worshipping the ichneumon, or water-rat, the mortal enemy of the crocodile, which was a peculiar deity of Arsinoe, bore an inconceivable hatred to the labyrinth, which was the sepulchre, as we said, of the sacred crocodiles; and therefore assaulted and demolished it, though a there a The remains of this noble structure are thus described by our author. "The first thing you see is a large portico of marble, facing the rising sun, and sustained by four great marble pillars, but composed of several pieces. Three of these pillars are still standing, but one of the middle ones is half fallen. In the middle is a door whose sides and entablature are very massy; and above is a frieze, whereon is represented an head with wings, stretched out along the frieze, and several hieroglyphics underneath.. Passing through this portico, you enter into a fine large hall, above 40 feet high, all of marble. The roof consists of twelve tables of marble, exquisitely joined, each 25 feet long, and three broad, which cross the room from one end to the other; and as the room is not arched, but flat, you cannot but be struck with admiration at the boldness of its architecture, since it is scarcely conceivable how it could continue so many ages in a position so improper to support so prodigious a weight. At the end of this hall, over against the first door, there is a second portico, with the same ornaments as the first, but less, by which you enter into a second hall, not so big as the first, but covered with ght stones. At the end of this room, straight forwards, there is are some remains of it still to be seen, which retain manifest marks of its ancient splendour. One building more, supposed to be the work of this period, though, according to modern accounts, it still stands firm and entire, is the well of the patriarch Joseph. It is entirely hewn out of a rock, in a kind of an oval or oblong form, being eighteen feet wide, twentyfour long, and in the whole two hundred and seventy-six deep. The depth is properly divided into two parts, which we may call the upper and the lower well; and to each of these there is a wheel, which being turned round by two oxen in each place, draws up the water by a long chain, to which are fastened several leathern vessels, that fill and empty themselves alternately as the wheel goes round. To go down to the second well, as we call it, which is but fifteen feet long, and nine wide, there is a staircase of so easy a descent, that some say the oxen which draw the water below, are every day drove down and up it; though others report, that they are let down and drawn up upon a platform. However this be, it is certain that the staircase turns twelve times round the well, for which reason the Arabs call it the well of the winding staircase, and of these turnings, six have eighteen steps each, and the other six have nineteen, which make two hundred and twenty-two steps in all and to secure you from falling, as you go down, you have, on the left hand, the main rock, and on the right, some of the same rock left, which serves both as a wall to the well on the inside, and on the other side as a wall to the staircase, which, at convenient distances, has windows cut in it, that convey the light down from the mouth of the well. When you go down to the lower well, which has likewise a staircase, but neither so wide, nor so deep as the other, and no parapet on the side of the well, which makes the descent dangerous, it is here that you see the oxen at work, turning the wheel, and drawing the water from a spring at the bottom, about eight or nine feet deep; which water, passing through a pipe into a large cistern, is from thence drawn up again by two other oxen, which turn the wheel above; and so from a reservoir at the top of the well, the water is conveyed into all the apartments of the castle of Grand Cairo, which, by the bye, as Thevenot tells us, both for strength and beauty, is one of the finest palaces he ever saw; a work not unworthy the ancient Pharaohs and Ptolemies who built it, and which comes not behind the pomp and magnificence of the pyramids. Joseph's hall, Joseph's prison, Joseph's granaries, &c., There are some other buildings in this place, such as which the inhabitants ascribe to that patriarch, as they do indeed every fine piece of antiquity: but as there is a third portico, still less than the second, as well as the hall into which it leads, though it has sixteen stones to roof it; and at the end of this third hall, there is a fourth portico set against the wall, and placed there for symmetry only, and to answer the rest. The length of these three halls is the whole depth of the building, in its present condition. It was on the two sides, and especially under ground, that the prodigious number of rooms and avenues, mentioned by the ancients, were built.-What is now remaining of it seems to be no more than a fourth part of the immer edifice, which, in all probability, had four fronts, and twelve halls answering to them: the rest are decayed by time, or demolished by design, as appears from the prodigions ruins which are to be seen all around it. Lucas' Voyages, b. 2. p. 18., &c. A. M. 2433. A. C. 1571; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 3763. A. C. 1648. EXOD. CH. i–xiii. 1 2 little or no probability that any of these came under the ❘ that the learned Spanheim makes several ancient kingperiod we are now upon, we must refer the reader, who❘ doms, as that of the Argives, the Cretans, the Phrygians, is minded to satisfy his curiosity in this matter, to the the Ethiopians, the Phoenicians, the Midianites, Canaanauthors who have purposely treated of them; and shall ites, Idumæans, and Nabatheans, either to have been only take notice farther, that the great Selden, in his founded, or to have flourished in this time. But as Arundel Marbles, reckons the fabulous stories of Greece, these, and other heathen nations, had no historian or such as the flood of Deucalion, the burning of Phaeton, chronologer of their own, and the Greeks, who underthe rape of Proserpine, the mysteries of Ceres, the story took to write for them, for want of a certain knowledge of Europa, the birth of Apollo, and the building of of their affairs, have stuffed their accounts with the rapes Thebes by Cadmus, together with the fables of Bacchus, and robberies of their gods; we thought it more proper Minos, Perseus, Esculapius, Mercury, and Hercules, to stop here than to enter into a barren land, where the to have fallen out under this period; and it is certain country for a long way lies waste and uncultivated; or, if perchance any fruit is to be seen, like the famed fictitious apples about the banks of the Dead Sea, it crumbles at the very first touch into dust and ashes. See Della Valle, Thevenot, Le Bruyn, Lucas, Marco Grimani, &c. travels; and Well's Geography of the Old Testament, vol. 2. See Hist. Vet. Test. THE HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. BOOK IV. CONTAINING AN ACCOUNT OF THINGS FROM THE ISRAELITES' DEPARTURE OUT OF EGYPT, TO THEIR ENTRANCE INTO THE LAND OF CANAAN, IN ALL FORTY YEARS. PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. In contemplating the extraordinary deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt, we must advert to the instrument employed by divine providence in its accomplishment. Moses, who was called to this difficult and perilous task, was pre-eminently fitted by his talents and his temper for its performance. There arose not a prophet like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, in all the signs and wonders which the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh, and to all his servants, and to all his land, and in all that mighty land, and in all the great terror, which Moses showed in the sight of all Israel.' He himself having been rescued when an infant from the most imminent danger, was preserved to be the deliverer of his nation. The redemption of the Israelites from the land of Egypt, is the greatest type of Christ's redemption, of any providential event whatsoever. It was intended to shadow forth that greater redemption from the captivity of sin and Satan, which was wrought out by the Son of God, when he destroyed principalities and powers, and made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in his cross. age, to look for salvation to the Lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world. We must also observe the wisdom and the goodness of God in giving, for the first time, a written communication from himself. That written and infallible word, with its subsequent accessions of infallible wisdom, was the means, as it was designed to be, of carrying on in the world the work of redemption. The word of God had previously been transmitted from age to age by tradition; but now the ten commandments, the five books of Moses, and probably the book of Job, were, by the special command of God, committed to writing, and were laid up in the tabernacle, to be kept there for the use of the church. That the church might derive instruction from typical representation, in the character and actions of intelligent beings, the progress of the redeemed through this world to that rest which remaineth for them in the heavenly Canaan, was shadowed forth by the journey of the children of Israel through the wilderness, from Egypt to Canaan. The low and wretched condition from which they are delivered,—the price paid for their redemption,—the application of that redemption in their conversion to God,-the various trials, difficulties, and temptations which they have to encounter in their christian course,—the manner in which they are safely conducted through this world by their great Leader, to their immortal inheritance, are all typified and represented in the history of Israel from their departure out of Egypt, to their entrance into the promised land. All these things happened unto them for ensamples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.' Nor can we fail to observe in the narrative of the period on which we are now entering, how much the giving of the law at Sinai tended to prepare the way for the accomplishment of this great redemption. It is here seen how the covenant of works operates as a schoolmaster in leading us to Christ; how the law which is holy, just, and good, shuts us up to the faith of the gospel. That it might have full effect in this way, God was pleased to institute at the same time the ceremonial law-full of various and innumerable typical represen- These typical representations were at the time accomtations of good things to come; by which the Israelites panied with clearer predictions of Christ than had before were directed every day, month, and year in their religi- been given. I will raise up a prophet,' says God unto ous actions-in all that appertained to their ecclesias-Moses, from among their brethren, like unto thee, and tical and civil state, so that the whole nation by this law will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak unto was, as it were, constituted in a typical state. The them all that I command him.' It is unnecessary to say, great outlines of gospel truth were thus held forth to the nation; and the people were thus directed, from age to 11 Cor. x. 11, A. M. 2513. A. C. 1491; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 3763. A. C. 1648. EXOD. CH. xiii-xxxiv. 24. how clearly the mediatorial office of the Redeemer is pointed out in this remarkable prophecy. Balaam, also, during this period bore testimony to Christ, in the sublime prediction which he uttered concerning him in the well known words—' There shall come a star out of Jacob, and a sceptre shall arise out of Israel :-Out of Jacob shall come he that shall have dominion.' Finally, we ought to notice in the narrative of God's procedure towards his ancient people, on which we are about to enter, the outpouring of his Holy Spirit on the young generation in the wilderness, or that generation which entered into Canaan. Concerning this generation God had said to their fathers- But your little ones, which you said should be a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which ye have despised.' This generation was, accordingly, brought into Canaan. They were distinguished for their piety, and their zealous adherence to all the will of God. SECT. I. fear that a people unaccustomed to war should, in case In the mean time the king of Egypt had information brought him, that the Israelites, instead of returning to his dominions, were attempting their escape into the deserts of Arabia, by the cape of the Red Sea; and therefore grieving at the loss of so many useful slaves, and supposing that by speedy marches he might overtake CHAP. I.—From their Departure to the Building of those who have wrote upon the subject is,―That though there the Tabernacle: THE HISTORY. WHEN the Israelites set out from Egypt, they made Rameses, the chief city of Goshen, the place of their general rendezvous; and from thence, on the 15th day of the first month, they travelled about ten or twelve miles to Succoth, where they made a stop, and reviewed their company, which consisted of 600,000 persons, besides children and strangers; for strangers of several nations, having seen the wonders which were wrought for their deliverance, left Egypt at the same time, with a purpose to accompany their fortunes. are two places named Rameses, which are a little differently pointed, yet they are but one and the same, or, at the most, that they differ only in this, that the one was the province, and the other the chief city of it; that Succoth, not far from Rameses, in the way to the Red Sea, had its name from the tents (for so the Hebrew word signifies) which the Israelites pitched here, as we find upon the like occasion another place between Jordan and the brook Jabbock, so named: that Etham lay on the confines of Egypt and Arabia Petræa, not far from the Red Sea, and gave the denomination to the wilderness adjacent: that Pi-hahiroth, which in our English, and some other translations, is rendered as one proper name, is by the Septuagint made part of it an appellative, so as to signify a mouth, for so the word pi may mean, or a narrow passage between two mountains, lying not far from the western coast of the Red Sea: that magaol was probably a tower or castle, for the word carries that signification in it, upon the top of one of these mountains, which might give denomination to the While the sense of their deliverance, and God's judg-city, which, as Herodotus informs us, lay not far distant from it; ments was fresh in their minds, Moses was commanded and that Baal-Zephon was by some learned men thought to be an to let the people know, that when they came to be settled idol set up to keep the borders of the country, and to hinder slaves from making their escape. Baal, indeed, in the Hebrew tongue, in the land of Canaan, the first-born both of man and signifies lord; and hence the name is generally applied to the beast, in remembrance of God's having spared their eastern idols; and the word zephon is thought to be derived from first-born when he destroyed the Egyptians, should be the radix zapah, to watch or spy; and from hence it is conjectured, set apart and dedicated to him and as Joseph, dying that this idol has its temple on the top of some adjacent mountain, and that the sacred historian particularly takes notice of it, to in the faith of this their deliverance, had laid an injunc-show how unable it was, whatever opinion the Egyptians might tion upon his brethren, whenever they should go from have of it, to hinder the Israelites from going out of Egypt. thence, to carry his bones out of Egypt, so Moses a took There is but small certainty, however, to be gathered from the care to have the coffin, wherein he had lain for above etymology of words; and therefore the authority of Eusebius should ponderate with us, who makes it not an idol, but a town, 140 years, not left behind. standing upon the northern point of the Red Sea, where the ancients, especially the Jews, think that the Israelites passed it, and where there stands to this day a Christian monastery.— Patrick's and Calmet's Commentaries, his Dissertation on the Passage of the Red Sea, and Wells' Geography of the Old Testament, vol. 2. From Succoth their nearest way to Canaan was certainly through the country of the Philistines; but for a The Jews tell us, that upon the Israelites' departure out of Egypt, every tribe took care to bring along with them the bones of the ancestor of their family; but though they are not always to be credited in matters of this nature, and Josephus does not seem to have dreamed of any such act of filial piety, or else he would, in all probability, have recorded it; yet St Stephen, (Acts vii. 15, 16,) scems to allude to some tradition among them, when he tells us, that Jacob and the fathers went down into Egypt, and were carried over into Sychem, and laid in the sepulchre which Abraham had bought of the sons of Emmor.'Universal History, b. 1. c. 7. c It is not unlikely, that some of the mixed multitude (Exod. xii. 38.) which went along with the Israelites, observing this alteration in their route, and not being able to perceive the reason of it, might forsake them, and returning to Pharaoh, inform him, that they had lost their way, and were entangled among the mountains; or, what is more likely, some spies, which Pharaoh had upon them, seeing them leave the way to Horeb, where they desired to go three days' journey, in order to offer sacrifices, concluded that they never intended to return to Egypt, but were running quite away, and might therefore bring Pharaoh the news thereof, as we may suppose, upon the eighteenth day. — Patrick's It is somewhat difficult to make out the geography of the places where the Hebrews encamped, between their parting from Rameses and their arrival at the Red Sea; but the account of | Commentary. |