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ADDITIONAL NOTES TO EXODUS.

EXCURSUS A: ON EGYPTIAN HISTORY, AS CONNECTED WITH THE BOOK OF EXODUS.

THE question of the exact time in Egyptian history to which the circumstances related in the Book of Exodus belong is one rather of secular interest than of importance for Biblical exegesis. Vital to the Jewish nation as was the struggle in which Moses engaged with the Pharaoh of the time, to Egypt and its people the matter was one of comparatively slight moment-an episode in the history of the sons of Mizraim which might well have left no trace in their annals. Subject races, held as bondmen by the monarchs, were common in the country; and the loss of one such race would not have made any great difference in the general prosperity of Egypt; nor would the destruction of such a chariot and cavalry force as appears to have perished in the Red Sea have seriously crippled the Egyptian military power. The phenomena of the plagues-aggravations mostly of ordinary Egyptian scourges would not necessarily have attracted the attention of any writers, while they would, no doubt, have been studiously concealed by the historiographers of the kings. As M. Chabas observes-" Des événements de ce genre n'ont pas dû être inscrits sur les monuments publics, où l'on n'enregistrait que des succès et des gloires."* No one, therefore, has the right to require of the Biblical apologist that he should confirm the historical narrative of Exodus by producing references to it in the Egyptian records. The events themselves may never have been put on record in Egypt, or, if recorded, the record of them may have been lost. It is not, perhaps, generally known what large lacunae there are in the Egyptian annals, nor how scanty are the memorials even of the best known times. The argument a silentio, always weak, has absolutely no value in a case where the materials on which the history is based are at once so limited and so fragmentary.

Still, an interest will always attach to the connection of sacred history with profane, and speculation will always be rife as to the identity of Pharaohs mentioned in the Bible with monarchs known to us from the Egyptian remains. Readers will naturally expect the writer of such a comment as the present to have some view, more or less distinct, as to the period in Egyptian history whereto the events recorded in Exodus belong, and may fairly claim to have such view put before them for their consideration.

Egyptian history divides itself into three main periods, which are generally distinguished as the times of the Old, the Middle, and the New Empires. The "Old Empire" was certainly anterior to Abraham, and probably lasted from about B.C. 2500 to B.c. 1900. The Middle Empire was the result of a conquest of Egypt by Asiatic invaders, and is known as the period of the Hyksos, or "Shepherd Kings." Its duration, in the opinion of the present writer, did not exceed two hundred years (B.C. 1900-1700). The New Empire was

* Chabas, Recherches pour servir à l'Histoire de l'Egypte aux temps de l'Erode, p. 152.

+See the writer's History of Egypt, vol. ii., p.17; and compare Canon Cook's Essay in the Speaker's Commentary, vol. i., p. 447, who enlarges the time to between two and three centuries."

established by a revolt of the native Egyptians against the Hyksôs (about B.C. 1700),* and is reckoned to have lasted from that time to the Persian conquest under Cambyses (B.C. 527).

It is generally allowed that the exodus belongs to the time of the New Empire. All the characteristics of the period, as set forth in the Biblical narrative, are so thoroughly Egyptian, that we cannot imagine Egypt at the time crushed under the iron yoke of a hated race of foreigners, and a smouldering spirit of discontent everywhere pervading the masses, and ready to burst out into insurrection. If the " Middle Empire" is thus eliminated, and our choice shown to lie between the Old Empire and the New, we cannot hesitate to prefer the latter. Under the Old Empire Egypt had no chariot force; and there is every reason to believe that the horse itself was unknown in the country. § Chronological considerations, moreover, make it impossible to throw the exodus back to a time anterior to B.C. 1900. The result is that modern critics universally, or all but universally, assign the exodus to the time of the New Empire, and that what remains to be determined is, under which dynasty, and after that, under which king, the great migration took place.

The synchronism of the twenty-second dynasty of Manetho with Solomon, which must be regarded as sufficiently established by the identity of the name Shishak with Sheshonk, and the record of Sheshonk I.'s expedition against Palestine engraved on the walls of the Temple of Karnak, || determines the time of the exodus to the earlier portion of the New Empire, and may even be said to leave us a choice between two dynasties only-the first and second of the new régime (Manetho's eighteenth and nineteenth). The twentyfirst dynasty, which did not hold the throne for more than a hundred and thirty years, is manifestly excluded, since its commencement could not be anterior to the judgeship of Samuel; while the space assigned to the twentieth, which is at the utmost a hundred and eighty years, ** is certainly not more than sufficient for the time of the other judges. Hence it is now regarded by almost all commentators and critical historians as certain that the exodus took place under one or other of the two great dynasties which stand at the head of the New Empire lists, and are the most important in the whole range of Egyptian history.

In favour of the eighteenth dynasty, it is urged that the interval of time between the death of Solomon and

Mariette

So Brugsch, History of Egypt, vol. ii., p. 314. makes the date B.C. 1703; Birch, B.C. 1600; Stuart Poole, B.C. 1525.

This is the view of Birch, Brugsch, Lenormant, Chabas, Kalisch, Canon Cook, Ebers, Eisenlohr, and most others.

It is not till the time of the eighteenth dynasty that we have any representation or any mention of chariots. The probability, however, is that they were introduced under the seventeenth.

Birch, History of Ancient Egypt, p. 82.

See Rosellini, Monumenti Storici, pl. 148; Lepsius, Denkmäler, pt. iii, pl. 252.

Lenormant, Manuel d'Histoire Ancienne, vol. i., p. 321. ** Ibid. Manetho said 173 or 135.

EXODUS.

the exodus, whether taken as fixed by the date given in the First Book of Kings (chap. vi. 1) at somewhat more than five hundred years,* or, as might fairly be gathered from the scattered notices in the Books of Samuel and Judges, at about six hundred and fifty years,t brings us to the time of the eighteenth, and not of the nineteenth, dynasty, according to the computations which those. most familiar with the subject have drawn from purely Egyptian sources. This argument must be allowed to have some weight; but its importance is greatly diminished by two facts. These are, the extreme uncertainty of the Egyptian, and the general inexactness of the Biblical, chronology. Egyptologists are not agreed as to the date for the accession of the eighteenth dynasty within two centuries, nor as to its duration within a century.§ The chronological notices in Judges and Samuel are mostly in round numbers,|| and do not claim exactness. The Biblical chronology, moreover, is not continuous, but presents several gaps. ¶ The single text on which an exact chronology could be based (1 Kings vi. 1) is with reason suspected,** and cannot be regarded as determining an otherwise insoluble problem.

A supposed agreement between the general course of events in Egyptian history at the beginning of the eighteenth dynasty and the inferences suggested by the brief narrative of Exodus has been also urged in favour of the view that the exodus is to be assigned to this period. But this argument is too unsubstantial and shadowy to have much force. The facts of Egyptian history obtainable from Exodus are too few, and of too ordinary a character, the inferences too uncertain, to justify the conclusion which has been drawn from them. Indeed, they are capable of being read in a directly opposite sense. A writer, second to few in his knowledge of the Egyptian records, observes that the facts mentioned "point to a divided country and a weak kingdom, and cannot apply to the time of the eighteenth dynasty." The only definite facts seem to be (1) the building of Pithom and Raamses as store-cities by the Pharaoh who began the oppression (Exod. i. 11); (2) his employment of forced labour; (3) the existence at the time of a formidable enemy which threatened Egypt, and which the Israelites might be expected to join (ib. 10); and (4) the long reign of the Pharaoh from whom Moses fled, which cannot have been much less, and may have been considerably more, than forty years. §§

++

The 480 years of this passage date from the fourth year of Solomon. Add 36, the remaining years of his life, and the result is 516 years.

+ See Clinton, Fasti Hellenici, vol. i., 312, where the sum of the years between the exodus and the fourth year of Solomon is estimated at a minimum of 600, and a maximum of 628. + Mariette makes it B.C. 1703; Brugsch, B.C. 1700; Birch, B.C. 1600; Stuart Poole, B.C. 1525; Wilkinson, B.C. 1520.

Brugsch assigns to it 300 years; Mariette, 241; Bunsen, 221; Wilkinson, 196 years

Twenty years (Judges v. 3. xvi. 31; 1 Sam. vii. 2); forty years (Judges iii. 11, v. 31, viii. 28, xiii. 1; 1 Sam. iv. 18); eighty years (Judges iii. 30); three hundred years (Judges xi. 26).

E.g., the judgeships of Joshua, Shamgar, and Samuel; the space between Joshua's death and the accession of Othniel, &c. **See the writer's "Additional Note" on the passage in the Speaker's Commentary, vol. ii., pp. 515, 516. Hales says on the passage, "The period of 480 years is a forgery, foisted into the text" (Chronology, vol. ii., p. 287).

++ Canon Cook in the Speaker's Commentary, vol. i., pp. 455– 461. # R. Stuart Poole in Dr. Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, vol. i., p. 510.

Moses is eighty at his return from Midian (Exod. vii. 7), which must have followed closely upon the death of the Pharaoh from whom he fled soon after he was grown up (Exod. ii. 11-15). St. Stephen regarded him as forty at the time of his flight (Acts vii. 23); but from Exodus alone we should have supposed him younger.

be

Of these facts there is one- -the building of Raamses -which points strongly to the nineteenth dynasty as occupying the throne. The name Raamses first appears in the dynastic lists at this time, and though it may true that the name, or one like it, was previously known in Egypt, and had even been borne by a prince,* yet, until it had been borne by a king it was not likely to become the name of a town.† Moreover, it is exactly at this period of Egyptian history that we first hear of a city called Pi-Ramesu, "the city of Rameses," and that the kings are found to be engaged in the construction of it. They employ in its construction forced labour, and denominate the labourers Aperu, which is a fair Egyptian equivalent of the word Hebrew.‡ Further, Rameses is their capital, and is a sort of suburb of Tanis, which agrees well with the statement of the Psalmist that the miracles of Moses were wrought" in the field of Zoan."§ There is no other period in Egyptian history when Tanis was the capital, excepting under the Middle Empire, under which the exodus would scarcely now be placed by any one.

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The existence at the time of a formidable enemy, which the Hebrews might have been expected to join, suits also the early portion of the nineteenth dynasty. It was just then that, as Dr. Brugsch says, a great nation grew up beyond the frontier on the north-east to an importance and power which began to endanger the Egyptian supremacy in Western Asia." The Hittite power was a real peril to Egypt during the reigns of Rameses I., Seti I., and Rameses II., the first three kings of the dynasty, who were engaged in constant wars against these formidable neighbours. They were induced under the circumstances greatly to strengthen their north-eastern frontier by means of walls and fortresses, and evidently feared invasion from this quarter. Invasion came in the time of Rameses III., though not from the Hittites, but from a people who had temporarily subjected them. As the Israelites were Asiatics, who had immigrated into Egypt from Syria, it might easily be supposed that they would readily join a Syrian invader. No such fears or perils beset the Egypt of the eighteenth dynasty, when the country was at the height of its military glory, and accustomed to carry its arms deep into Asia.

The long reign of the Pharaoh from whom Moses fled agrees well with what we know of Rameses II. Not only did Manetho assign him a reign of above sixty years, according to all the accounts that have come down to us, but his sixty-seventh year is noted upon his monuments. ** Very few Egyptian kings reigned so much as forty years, and it is a noticeable circumstance that, exactly at the period of Egyptian history to which the oppression and the exodus would on other grounds have been referred, there occurs a reign of the unusual duration which is required by the facts of the narrative.

* Aahmes, the first king of the eighteenth dynasty, is said to have had a son called Rames (Cook in the Speaker's Commentary, vol. i., p. 454).

+ No Egyptian king would have given a town the name of a mere subject. Pi-Ramesu, probably begun by Seti I., was named after Rameses II., whom he had associated.

+ See Chabas, Recherches pour servir à l'Histoire de l'Egypte, pp. 142, 143. M. Chabas regards Aperu as "the exact Egyptian translation of the Hebrew" (Hebrews). It is objected that there is no reason for the change of b into p, and that the proper transcript would have been Aberu (Cook in Speaker's Commentary, vol. i., p. 466, note 114). But the sounds of p and b in Egyptian must have been very near, or Pi-Bast would not have become Bubastis, Pi-Hesar Busiris, and the like. Ps. lxxviii. 12, 43.

History of Egypt, vol. ii., p. 2, E.T.

Syncell, Chronograph., pp.72B, 73A, B; Euseb., Chron. Can., i., 20, p. 102. ** Brugsch, History of Egypt, vol. ii., p. 110.

EXODUS.

Confirmation is given to the view, that the events related in Exodus belong to the nineteenth dynasty, by the statement of George the Syncellus that the synchronism of Joseph with Apepi, the last Shepherd King,

was

"universally admitted."* In this case the " new king who knew not Joseph "+ could not be Aahmes, the founder of the eighteenth dynasty, who immediately succeeded Apepi, and with whom Joseph must have been in part contemporary, but must rather have been the founder of the next dynasty, the nineteenth-either Rameses I., or Seti I., his son and successor. Four hundred and thirty years after Apepi will bring us to the nineteenth dynasty at any rate, if not even to the twentieth, since no one now assigns to the eighteenth dynasty more than three hundred, or to the nineteenth more than a hundred and sixty years.

Again, the distorted account of the exodus which was given by Manetho, § inaccurate as it may be in its details, preserves undoubtedly the Egyptian tradition, which placed the events in the reign of an Amenôphis, who was the son of a Rampses (Rameses) and the father of a Sethos. No other king in the Egyptian lists answers to these particulars except Menephthah, who was the son and successor of Rameses II., and the father of Seti II., or Seti-Menephthah. The name Menephthah is, indeed, inaccurately represented by Amenôphis, which is the true Greek equivalent of Amenhotep; but Manetho himself probably called the king Ammenephthes, || which Josephus turned into Amenôphis.

Altogether, the arguments in favour of the nineteenth dynasty being that which held the throne at the time of the events recorded in Exodus seem to preponderate considerably over those which can be adduced in favour of the eighteenth. The eighteenth was too powerful and warlike to have feared invasion, or to have regarded Israel as a danger. It built no "store-cities." It was unacquainted with the name Rameses. It did not hold its court at Tanis. It contained neither king nor prince of the name of Sethos (Seti). The nineteenth was differently situated. It combined the various particulars to which the eighteenth was a stranger. Moreover, it terminated in such a time of weakness as might have been expected to follow the calamities recorded in Exodus; while the eighteenth was glorious to its very close, and gave no indication of diminished greatness.

On the whole, it would seem to be most probable that the Israelites, having come into Egypt in the reign of Apophis (Apepi), the last Shepherd King, who was a thoroughly Egyptianised Asiatic,** remained there as peaceable subjects under the great and warlike eighteenth dynasty for some three hundred years, gradually, as the memory of Joseph's benefits faded, suffering more and more oppression, but multiplying in spite of it, till at length a change of dynasty occurred, and with it a change of policy in respect of them. Moderate ill-usage was succeeded by the harshest possi

* Syncell, Chronograph,, p. 62B. There are no grounds for limiting the statement, as is done by Bunsen, to "all Christian chronographers" (Egypt's Place, vol. ii., p. 438); or, as is done by Canon Cook, to "Josephus and those who drew their information from him" (Speaker's Commentary, vol. i., p. 447).

Exod. i. 8: "Now there arose up a new king over Egypt." The phrase naturally points to the founder of a new dynasty. See Exod. xii. 40. The authority of the Hebrew text far outweighs that of the LXX. and Samaritan Versions, which, moreover, are discordant.

Ap. Joseph. contr. Ap. i. 26, 27.

See Syncell, Chronograph., pp. 72B and 73B.

See the Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology, vol. i., pp. 274, 275; Birch, History of Ancient Egypt, pp. 136, 137.

** Chabas, Les Pasteurs en Egypte, p. 31.

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ble treatment; their "lives were made bitter with hard bondage."* The new king who knew not Joseph" (Exod. i. 8) is perhaps, in the mind of the writer, rather Sethos I. than Rameses I., who reigned but a year and four months.+ Sethos, threatened on his north-eastern frontier by the Hittites, and fearing lest the Hebrews should join them, devised the plans ascribed to the new king" in Exod. i.-set them to build “storecities, Pithom and Raamses," the latter named probably after his son; ‡ when this had no effect, sought to check their increase by means of the midwives; and finally required that all their male offspring should be thrown into the Nile. There is nothing in the character of Seti I., as represented upon his monuments, to render these severities improbable. He was a good son and a good father, but an implacable enemy and a harsh ruler. His treatment of prisoners taken in war was cruel beyond the wont of his time, his campaigns were sanguinary, and his temper fierce and resentful. §

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If Moses was born under Seti I., and bred up by his daughter, the king under whom he found himself when he grew to manhood, and from whom he fled to the land of Midian, must have been Rameses II. Seti associated his son Rameses when he was about twelve years of age, and shortly afterwards he practically transferred to him the reins of power. Rameses II. claims to have held the throne for at least sixty-seven years, and was assigned sixty-six by Manetho. His reign is the longest of all the Egyptian reigns, except that of Phiops. He was a king likely to have continued the "hard bondage of the Israelites, for he was the most indefatigable of builders, and effected the greater number of his constructions by the instrumentality of forced labour. Lenormant says that" during his reign thousands of captives must have died under the rod of the taskmaster, or have fallen victims to over-work or privations of every description;" and that "in all his monuments there was not, so to speak, a single stone which had not cost a human life." It was the sight of oppression such as this which provoked the indignation of Moses, and led to the rash act which caused him to quit Egypt and fly to Midian.

So long as Rameses II. lived, the exile felt that he could not return. It must have been weary waiting for the space of forty years or more, while the great Pharaoh made his expeditions, excavated his canal, ** and erected his numerous buildings. The weariness of prolonged exile shows itself in the name given by Moses to his eldest son: "He called his name Gershom: for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land" (Exod. ii. 22, xviii. 3). At length, "in process of time "-after a reign which exceeded sixty-six years-" the king of Egypt died" (Exod. ii. 23); and Moses, divinely informed of the fact (Exod. iii. 19), returned to Egypt to his brethren.

If Seti I. be the king who commenced the oppression, and Rameses II. the monarch from whom Moses fled, the Pharaoh whom he found seated on the throne upon his return must have been Menephthah. The character of this king, as depicted in the Egyptian monuments, bears a considerable resemblance to that of the adver

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EXODUS.

sary of Moses. He was proud, vain-glorious, disinclined to expose his own person in war, yet ready enough to send his soldiers into positions of peril.* The cruelties that he sanctioned in his Libyan wart are worthy of the monarch who, when a subject people complained of their burthens, met the complaint by making their burthens heavier. He appears in Egyptian history as the weak successor of two great and powerful monarchs; he has one military success, due not to himself, but to his generals, after which his reign is inglorious, and closes in disaster. §

or third

Menephthah held the throne for eight years. During the first four of these his annals are almost a blank. If the Biblical numbers are taken as exact, || it is into this space that the plagues and the exodus must fall. If, on the contrary, we regard the Biblical periods of forty years as intended to be inexact, we may conjecture (1) that Moses returned to Egypt in Menephthah's second year; and (2) that there was some further delay before he made his demands. In that case the great war of Menephthah with the Libyans and their allies, which belongs to his fifth year,** may have been over before the troubles with Israel began. Moses may have come forward shortly after its close to deliver the message with which he was charged; and the struggle between him and Menephthah may have fallen into the latter's fifth and sixth years. Menephthah, like his father, commonly held his court at Tanis. It would be there, "in the field of Zoan," that Moses and Aaron confronted him and wrought their "wonders." The struggle, the departure, the pursuit, the disaster in the Red Sea, may belong to the king's sixth year; and two years afterwards he may have succumbed to revolutionary movements consequent upon the losses which

he suffered in the Red Sea catastrophe. His reign certainly ended amid clouds and darkness, and was followed by a period of civil disturbance, terminating in bloodshed and anarchy.

The troubles of this period, described in the "Great Harris Papyrus,' ,"* together with the remarkable successes of Rameses III., second monarch of the twentieth dynasty, would fall into the period passed by Israel in the "Wilderness of the Wanderings," and would thus naturally obtain no direct mention in the sacred narrative. Rameses may, however, have been the "hornet " which God sent before Israel to break the power of the Canaanites and Hittites (Exod. xxiii. 28), and render the conquest of Palestine more easy. He seems certainly to have made at least one great expedition into Asia, and to have reduced under his sway the whole tract between "the river of Egypt" and the Euphrates. § Had the Israelites been in possession of Palestine at the time, he must have come into contact with them, and have seriously interfered with their independence. As it was, his Syrian wars, by weakening the Canaanite nations, paved the way for the victories of Joshua and the Israelite occupation of the "Land of Promise."

The depressed state of Egypt between the death of Rameses III. and the accession of the first Sheshonk || accounts for the absence of all mention of the Egyptians from the Books of Joshua, Judges, and Samuel. If the exodus had taken place under the eighteenth dynasty, and the Syrian wars of Seti I., Rameses II., and Rameses III. had belonged to the period of the Judges T (as in that case they must), it is inconceivable that neither should the Hebrew records of the time have contained any notice of the Egyptians nor the Egyptian records of the Hebrews.

EXCURSUS B: ON THE EDUCATION OF MOSES (chap. ii. 10).

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Moses would be educated like the sons of princesses generally, not like those of priests, or of persons destined for the literary life. St. Stephen, when he says that Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians," does not (probably) mean more than this. The question then is, In what did the education of princes and young nobles at the time of the exodus consist?

It would consist, in the first place, of orthography and grammar. Moses would be taught to speak the Egyptian language, and to write it, correctly. He would probably not be taught the hieroglyphic character, the knowledge of which was reserved to the priests, but would be familiarised with the ordinary cursive writing-the hieratic, as it was called in later times-which was the common character for books, and even for official documents, in his day. Care would be taken to instruct him in the graces of style, so far as they were understood at the time; and he would be especially practised in epistolary correspondence, which was regarded as one of the most necessary

Lenormant, Manuel d'Histoire Ancienne, vol. i., p. 430. + Chabas, Recherches pour servir, &c., pp. 88-91. Exod. v. 6-18.

Lenormant, Manuel, vol. i., pp. 432-434.

Moses is forty at his flight into Midian (Acts vii. 23), remains there forty years (Acts vii. 30), is eighty when he works his first miracle before Pharaoh (Exod. vii. 7), passes forty years in the wilderness (Deut. xxix. 5), and is a hundred and twenty at his death (Deut. xxiv. 7).

There is some indication of delay on the part of Moses in Exod. iv. 19.

** Brugsch, History of Egypt, vol. ii., p. 123.

Whether his

of all gentlemanlike accomplishments. attention would be turned to poetry, might perhaps be doubtful; ** but he would certainly be taught a clear and perspicuous prose style, such as was required for official reports and other communications between members of the governing class.

The next branch of his education would be arithmetic and geometry. The Egyptians had made considerable progress in the former, and their calculations ran up to billions. In the latter they are said to have been exact and minute, but not to have pushed their investigations very far. It was sufficient for a youth of the upper classes to be able to keep correct accounts; and a speculative knowledge of the intricacies of numbers, or of geometrical problems, scarcely formed a part of the established curriculum.

He would be further instructed in morality, and in the Egyptian views on the subjects of the Divine

* See the Records of the Past, vol. viii., p. 46; and compare Chabas, Recherches, pp. 6-26.

+ Menephthah does not seem to have reigned more than eight years, or two after the exodus. Amon-mes reigned, perhaps, five years; Seti II., two; Siphthah, seven; Setnekht, two or three; and Rameses III. employed, perhaps, fifteen or twenty years in his warlike expeditions. This space of time is amply covered by the "forty years" of the wanderings. See the Note on chap. xxiii. 28.

Brugsch, History of Egypt, vol. ii., p. 152.

Birch, History of Ancient Egypt, pp. 147-156; Lenormant, Manuel d'Histoire Ancienne, vol. i., pp. 445-452.

So Canon Cook, Speaker's Commentary, vol. i., pp. 474, 475. ** The poetry of Moses, his " songs" (Exod. xv. 1-19; Deut. xxxii. 1—43), his "blessing" (Deut. xxxiii.), and his "prayer' (Ps. xc.), indicate an actual study of Egyptian poetry, whether it was a part of his education or not.

EXODUS.

Nature, of the relations subsisting between God and man, of a future life, and of a judgment to come. Egyptian morality was, for the most part, correct so far as it went, and was expressed in terse gnomic phrases, resembling those of the Proverbs of Solomon. The points especially inculcated were obedience to parents and to authorities generally, courtesy to inferiors, and kindness to the poor and the afflicted. The mysteries of religion were the exclusive property of the priests; but life beyond the grave, judgment, reward and punishment, probably metempsychosis, were generally inculcated; and the mystic volume, known as the " Ritual of the Dead," must have been pressed on the attention of all the educated.

It is not to be supposed that one brought up as the son of a princess would attain to the scientific knowledge possessed by Egyptian professionals of different kinds. Moses would not be an astronomer, nor an engineer, nor a physician, nor a theologian, nor even an historian; but would have that general acquaintance with such subjects which belongs to those who have enjoyed a good general education in a highly civilised community. He would also, no doubt, have a knowledge of the main principles of Egyptian jurisprudence. But here, again, his knowledge would be general, not close or intimate; and it would be a mistake to expect, in the Mosaical legislation, reproductions, to any extent, or adaptations, of the Egyptian judicial system.

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