THE EXODUS OF ISRAEL.

MODERN scholarship is learning more and more the lesson of respect for the narrative of the Pentateuch. The contrast between the flippancy of Von Bohlen and his contemporaries and the considerate deference of Lepsius, Brugsch, Birch, and Poole is instructive. The latter writers, as Mr. Poole himself remarks, "treat its text as an authority to be cited side by side with the Egyptian monuments." One result, already reached, has been to assert the substantial contemporaneousness of the narrative of the Exodus with the transaction. The same distinguished Egyptologist, R. S. Poole, has recently declared to the world that "the German and Dutch critics" who "have labored with extraordinary acuteness and skill upon the Mosaic documents alone," and the result of whose labors "has been to reduce the date of the documents, except a few fragments, by many centuries," must now retract their position and recede from their dates, in the presence of the monuments. "The Egyptian documents," he proceeds, "emphatically call for a reconsideration of the whole question of the date of the Pentateuch. It is now certain that the narrative of the history of Joseph and the sojourn and Exodus of the Israelites-that is to say, the portion from Genesis xxxix to Exodus xv-so far as it relates to Egypt, is substantially not much later than B. c. 1300; in other words, was written while the memory of the events was fresh. The minute accuracy of the text is inconsistent with any later date. It is not merely that it shows knowledge of Egypt, but knowledge of Egypt under the Ramessides and yet earlier." He proceeds to set forth these striking coincidences in detail, and adds, "They have not failed to strike those foreign Egyptologists who have no theological bias," and "it is impossible that they [the Egyptologists] can,

* Not far from the date assigned by him and many Egyptologists for the Exodus.

for instance, hold Kuenen's theory of the date of the Pentateuch, so far as the part relating to Egypt is concerned." He also remarks, for reasons indicated by him, that "no one can doubt that the first four books of Moses are substantially of the same age" ("Contemporary Review," March, 1879, pp. 757-759). It is refreshing to see the archæologists at length firmly taking their stand against the mere literary critics-the men of facts against the men of extravagant speculation. It is a result which some have foreseen.

This extending conviction, not only of the trustworthiness of the narrative, but of its proximity to the events, gives new interest to the examination. The last half-century of research in Egypt and Arabia has done much for the collateral elucidation of the narrative.

Aside from any miraculous aspects of the case, the Exodus must be recognized as one of the most extraordinary achievements in history; and the man who could guide it to a prosperous issue must have been second to no man in the catalogue of great names. It is, indeed, difficult to name a successful enterprise which can bear a moment's comparison in magnitude and difficulty with the taking up of a whole people, men, women, and children, and all their portable effects, removing the great heterogeneous company in the face of a mighty, warlike nation, carrying them through a vast desert scantily supplied with water and destitute of the accumulated products of the soil, occupied only by hostile tribes, and then planting them so effectually in their new home as to make of them a nation of wealth and power, and of unity unparalleled. The immigration of four hundred thousand Tartars in a single night from the confines of Russia into their own native deserts, sometimes cited in illustration, bears but the remotest resemblance to it. The tourist who travels over the region, attended by a dozen Arabs and as many camels, to carry and care for him on the way, will ordinarily be not the least ready to believe that no natural force or genius was adequate, except as reënforced by some such agencies as are recorded in the Hebrew history. The narrative, however, records the most complete preparation that the case admitted: a leader who had himself twice passed over the region, and was now intrusted with absolute authority; long expectation, and seasonable notice at last ; a definite time and place of rendezvous; an organized arrangement-for they went up "harnessed," or rather, in orderly array; a method of march and encampment as thorough as that of the best modern army, with many sanitary provisions; proposals to a resi

dent of the wilderness to be "instead of eyes" (Num. x, 31), and negotiations, however unsuccessful, with the tribes on the way.

The substantial fact of the expedition is no more to be questioned than the Norman Conquest.* Never was an event so vitally incorporated with a nation's history, observances, and literature, in every form, as was the Egyptian residence and rescue with those of Israel. It is, however, a matter of some curiosity to see how far it was known to other nations. We trace the knowledge through Roman, Greek, and Egyptian sources. All these several statements, while mixed with various and obvious absurdities, agree in certain fundamental facts, and all repeat certain ignominious reports concerning the Hebrews, whereby the baffled and defeated nation endeavored to cover its own shame and disaster. These confused accounts have at length been made intelligible by modern discoveries.

The truth loving Tacitus shows (History, v, 1-8) how carefully he had inquired, and how considerable was the number of sources accessible to him, all tinged with the hostile spirit. After enumerating five differing accounts of the Jews, three of them asserting their migration from Egypt or Ethiopia, he gives the statement of "most authors," namely, that the Israelites were expelled from Egypt on occasion of a contagion in the land, as a race hateful to the gods; that, in the desert and at a time of despair, Moses assumed the command, persuading them to obey a "celestial leader"; that they were brought to the verge of destruction for want of water, but relieved by an abundant supply to which they were guided by a herd of wild asses; and that on the seventh day they entered Judea, drove out the inhabitants, and took possession. He adds that the Jews worship in their innermost shrine the image of the animal that saved them from perishing by thirst, and that they abstained from the flesh of the swine, as the hated cause of their own foul disease (scabies). He gives other circumstances, containing a curious mixture of fact and error, characterizing their institutions, traits, and history, on the whole, remarkably well from the hostile standpoint. He could not understand their worship, and was in part misinformed about it. We get briefly from Diodorus

* Both Ewald and Bunsen insist also that the numbers given in the narrative are unquestionably historical.

The reader is reminded of the figure, found in a room on the Palatine, representing a man with an ass's head upon the cross, and the inscription, “Anaxamenos worships God."

Siculus, a century earlier, the Greek account (xxxiv, 1): That the friends of Antiochus Epiphanes advised him while besieging Jerusalem to storm and destroy it, informing him that the ancestors of the Jews were banished from the whole land of Egypt as impious and hateful to the gods.

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The Egyptian traditions are still more remarkable, both because of what they admit and what they would conceal. They have been further confused by passing down to us through a Jewish channel, and, by the mistake (not unnatural) whereby the Hyksos, or Shepherd race of usurpers, an Asiatic horde, were more or less blended in the story with the Hebrews. No certain allusion to the Jews is found on the monuments. The threefold mention of the "Aperu" or "Aperiu" was thought a few years since by Chabas and most Egyptologists to designate the Hebrews. But Brugsch firmly disputes it; and Birch, who seems once to have accepted it (Bunsen's Egypt," vol. v), now doubts it without absolutely denying. No use, therefore, can be made of it unless further light is gained. But it is noteworthy that these Aperu were employed in carrying stones for the fortress of Rameses II. There certainly was no reason to expect that a race of slaves would figure, except accidentally, on monuments that were but commemorations of the glory of Egyptian monarchs; and still less probability that a great empire, which was terribly defeated and humbled by that enslaved race in throwing off the yoke, would anywhere place deliberately on record any allusion to its own disgrace. But the facts were not lost from the memory of Egypt, and have come down to us, preserved in part by Josephus in his quotations from Manetho, Chæremon, Apion, and Lysimachus. Of these, Manetho was an Egyptian priest of the third century before Christ; Chæremon, also an Egyptian priest of Alexandria, somewhat later; Apion still later, although in the first century before Christ, a Libyan by birth and an Alexandrian by citizenship, and a careless and reckless writer; while Lysimachus is otherwise unknown. These writers all repeat the charge of the leprous or diseased condition of the Jews, name Moses as their leader, and give numbers ranging from 110,000 to 280,000, apparently warriors. Three of them assert that the Israelites were expelled by or-der of the gods and to avert their displeasure. Lysimachus speaks of their being commanded by Moses to overthrow the temples and images of the gods, and of a destitution of the fruits of the land caused by their presence. He mentions the drowning in the sea, but fastens it on the wrong party, the "lepers"; also the exposure

to destruction in the desert; their "kindling fires and lamps " by night; keeping a fast, and committing themselves to Moses, by whom they were led "through the desert" to Judea. Manetho and Chæremon make a still more remarkable admission of the calamitous state to which Egypt and its monarch were reduced. Chæremon relates that the diseased people, numbering 280,000, headed by Moses and Joseph, a sacred scribe, proceeded against the monarch of Egypt ("Amenophis"); that the King could not sustain the attack, but fled to Ethiopia, leaving his wife concealed in a cavern ; that he remained there until his son Rameses (so Bekker's text), born in the cavern, grew to manhood, chased the Jews to Syria, and then brought back his father from Ethiopia. Manetho tells the same story still more in detail. Clearing it of its confusion with the Shepherds, we are told that the King (Amenophis), having been warned by the gods to clear the country of lepers, sent eighty thousand lepers and diseased persons to the quarries; that the prophet who gave the warning, fearing the anger of the gods should violence appear to have been done them, and foreseeing that they and their allies would conquer and hold Egypt thirteen years, committed suicide, leaving a letter to the King, containing the warning; that the King, alarmed, granted them permission to go to the city Avaris; that they allied themselves to the people of Jerusalem and made a revolt, headed by Osarsiph, who changed his name to Moses, and made laws for the overthrow of the gods and destruction of the sacred animals; that the King, greatly alarmed by the warning of the dead prophet, committed his son, five years old, to the care of a friend, charged the priests to hide the sacred animals, and, with 300,000 of his best warriors, advanced to meet the common enemy, but, fearing he should be fighting against the gods, retreated without a battle, and marched his whole army into Ethiopia, to remain for the fated thirteen years; that the rebels, left in possession of Egypt, committed all manner of outrages, setting the villages on fire, and particularly venting their fury on the gods, sacred animals, and priests, the latter being themselves compelled to destroy the sacred animals, and being then ejected from the country naked. Afterward the King returned from Ethiopia with a great army, and, being joined by his son with another army, conquered the rebels and pursued them to the borders of Syria.

These narratives possess no little interest. The disparagement, amounting to caricature, with which they are charged, betrays the hostile source, and stands guarantee for all the admissions. And