CHAPTER XXIX.

WHO AND WHAT WAS THE PHARAOH OF THE EXODUS?

WE left Ramesses II. on the throne of Egypt; but when

Moses had been thirty-four years in Arabia, death put an end to the reign of this Pharaoh, so glorious in foreign conquests and in embellishments of his country, but so terribly exacting to every one under his rule. To the Israelites,-used as slaves, his government had been a crushing weight.

When he died, every one in Egypt breathed more freely and hoped for a relief from burdens. We turn now to look at his son and successor Menephthah,-and to inquire concerning him; for this monarch seems to be clearly shown by the monuments and by history to be the Pharaoh of the Exodus. We may well take an interest in studying his characteristics, for they were peculiar, and they may very readily have helped to shape those strange events blended with the deliverance of the Israelites. In connection with this subject comes up also an interesting question, Do the Egyptian monuments afford us anything in illustration of the Exodus? With reference to this subject we can scarcely expect much; for these monuments were for the glorification of the country or kings; and this is an event of quite the reverse character; but we may perhaps learn something, if not from what they say, then from their silence.

We have seen how these monuments were accumulated in the time of Ramesses II.; and also how, through the previos reigns, similar architectural structures were erected by the successive sovereigns as ornaments of Egypt and as records of their own great renown. Their tombs also,

which we have not had time to notice, were nearly as wonderful, being great subterranean excavations of halls and passages, in the highest style of embellishment and of glorification of the sovereign.

We come to Menephthah's reign, and then there is a remarkable change, a gap looking not quite as if such a sovereign had never existed, but as if, having commenced his reign, he had presently come to a sudden and disastrous end.

The Exodus is supposed by both Lepsius and Bunsen to have occurred in this reign; the latter dating it in the sixth year and they inform us that the only year of this Pharaoh mentioned on the monuments is the second, and that strictly speaking no historical monument by him exists at all. There is a column (stele) at Silsilis, cut in the rock; but it was one of his sons who dedicated it. The third of the small rock temples there met with (dedicated to Hathor, the Egyptian Venus) it is true was constructed by Menephthah, but this was in the first year of his reign. The subjects of the inscription on it are merely religious. There is no allusion to exploit, no term conveying the idea either of glory or of prowess. An inscription at Silsilis alludes to a building being commenced, for which a quarry was opened, where his second regal year is mentioned. In all the rest of Egypt there is no trace of him except his escutcheon (cartouche), which was placed on the buildings of his father at Thebes, and then his tomb at Niban el Moluk. But even this tomb was not finished by either him or his son.1

"It is true," as Bunsen remarks, "that this is merely a negative proof." But, to quote further from his book, "It must, however, be admitted that if in this countless mass of buildings, sculptures and other monuments which extend down to the sixty-second year of Ramses, a sudden gap is

'These notices of the monuments are mostly compiled from Bunsen, his language being also frequently used.

found, such silence would be eloquent testimony in behalf of some great calamity.

"Now such is precisely the case. The only year of Menephthah mentioned on the monuments is his second ;" and then this writer goes on to speak of Rossellini's admission above, that there is no historical monument by this king.

In the history of Egypt by the Egyptian priest, Manetho, already noticed in this work, we have a much more explicit account of this sovereign. It is quoted literally in the writings of Josephus; and for reasons which we have already given, the truthfulness of Josephus in the extracts can scarcely be doubted. Manetho, after noticing that Amenophis (Menephthah) desired to see the gods as Orus (Horus) one of his predecessors had done, says that he communicated his desire to a friend who "seemed to partake of the divine nature, both as to wisdom and knowledge of futurities." He was informed by the latter that he might succeed in getting sight of them, if "he would clear the whole country of the lepers and of the other impure people," and that he sent them to the quarries on the eastern side of the Nile. Afterward, however, he set apart for them the city Avaris; and we will now quote from Manetho, through Josephus: "But when these men were gotten into it, and found the place fit for a revolt, they appointed themselves a ruler out of the priests of Heliopolis, whose name was Osarsiph, and they took their oaths that they would be obedient to him in all things. He then, in the first place, made this law for them: That they should neither worship the Egyptian gods, nor should abstain from any one of those sacred animals which they have in the highest esteem, but kill and destroy them all; that they should join themselves to nobody but to those that were of their confederacy." Manetho proceeds to say that they fortified themselves at Avaris, and "got other priests and those that

were polluted with them," and also induced some of the shepherd-race formerly sent from the country now to come back, and join their confederacy: that Amenophis (Menephthah) "was in great confusion," and "assembled the multitude of the Egyptians" and took counsel, and had the sacred animals and images of the gods made secure and his son sent to a safe place; after which he marched "with the rest of the Egyptians, being 300,000 of the most warlike of them, against the enemy. Yet did he not join battle with them; but thinking that would be to fight against the gods, he returned back and came to Memphis, where he took Apis and the other sacred animals which he had sent to him, and presently marched into Ethiopia, together with his whole army and multitude of the Egyptians." He adds that the descendants of the Hyksos having joined the confederacy at Avaris, the two ravaged the country and committed many excesses and cruelties upon the inhabitants, and then says, "It was also reported that the priest who ordained their polity and laws was by birth of Heliopolis; and his name Osarsiph from Osiris, who was the god of Heliopolis; but that when he was gone over to these people his name was changed, and he was called Moses.'

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There seems to be scarcely room for doubt that we have, in this Egyptian account, such a version as their priests, from whom Manetho drew his history, would give of the Exodus recorded in our Bible; the facts being accommodated by them to the prejudices of that country.

The testimony of Strabo, although having no particular reference to Menephthah, may properly be introduced at this place. Strabo travelled extensively in Egypt, and doubtless had much intercourse with the Egyptian priests. He says, "Moses, an Egyptian priest, who possessed a considerable tract of Lower Egypt, unable longer to bear with

Con. Ap. i. 26.

what existed there, departed thence to Syria, and with him went out many who honored the Divine Being (tò Oktov). For Moses maintained and taught that the Egyptians were not right in likening the nature of God to beasts and cattle, nor yet the Africans, nor even the Greeks, in fashioning their gods in the form of men. He held that this only was God, that which encompasses all of us, earth and sea, that which we call heaven, and the order of the world and the nature of things. Of these, who that had any sense would venture to invent an image like anything which exists among ourselves? Far better to abandon all images and sculpture, all setting apart of sacred precincts and shrines, and to pay reverence without any image whatever. The course prescribed was, that those who have the gift of good divinations for themselves and others should compose themselves to sleep within a temple; and those who live temperately and justly may expect to receive some good gift from God, those always and none besides." Strabo, who lived about the beginning of our era, is supposed to have taken this account from Hecatæus (549 B. C.), which is given with further and less accurate details in Diodorus, xi.

From these materials, furnished by the monuments and the history by Egyptians, we seem then to have reason fully to conclude; that Menephthah, son and successor of the despotic Ramesses II., was the Pharaoh of the Exodus ;— that the new sovereign was a very superstitious man, and perhaps with moral characteristics such as may be inferred from the fact that the only temple he commenced was to the Egyptian Venus; and that he was weak in mind and vacillating in purpose: and we are struck by the fact, that if our chronology be correct, Horus, who first began to persecute the Israelites, and Menephthah, in whose reign they were quite delivered, were by their extreme idolatrous superstitions affiliated, at the beginning and the end, each