xxxix. 1.) The mercantile routes from Egypt, event of war the Hebrews might join the standaccording to Herodotus, were the following: 1. ard of the enemy, or return to Palestine, he beFrom Thebes to Meroe (Saba), thence to Azab gan to oppress them by unreasonable demands of and over the straits of Babel-Mandel to Arabia. personal service. When he saw that their num2. From Thebes northwesterly through Oasis bers were not diminished by his severity, he isMagna and the desert of Ammon to Augela. sued the murderous order respecting their infant Here it was met by a road from the northern sons. But in consequence of this very decree, coast of Africa, and continuing on southwest- Moses was introduced to his court, where he erly to the country of the Garamantes, it was had opportunity to acquire that knowledge which, again intersected by a road from the regions of if not indispensably necessary, was very useful to Carthage. Thence it proceeded in a southwest-him as the lawgiver of his nation. This oppresern direction to the Atarantes and Atlantes.*sion was continued for more than eighty years, These routes appear to have been frequented at a very early period, for in Job mention is made of constellations belonging to the southern hemisphere. Moses was well acquainted with the ancient Ethiopia or Cush, and Southern Arabia. He alludes to incense and precious stones from Arabia and Ethiopia, and cinnamon from the East Indies, as well-known articles. He mentions many distant colonies of Egyptians, who are now unknown. He speaks of gold and onyx stones from the interior of Africa.†

VI. CIVIL SOCIETY AT THE TIME OF MOSES.

till at last the Egyptian monarch was compelled to release the Hebrews by supernatural and public calamities, which Moses always accurately predicted, and readily removed as often as Pharaoh relented and promised submission. (Exod. i. 8— 22; ii. 1-10.)

NOTE. The kings by whom the Hebrews were oppressed cannot now be individualized, nor can we ascertain with any degree of certainty even the dynasty to which they belonged. The early history of Egypt is involved in obscurity till the reign of Psammetichus, the fifth king of the twenty-sixth dynasty. We have a few notices by Herodotus, who, in his travels through Egypt in the fifth century before the Christian era, diligently explored the ancient history of the country, and acquired much information from the arwho wrote in the eighth century, has preserved chives under the care of the priests. Syncellus, dynasties. In the third century before Christ, an old chronicle which contains thirty Egyptian Ptolemy Philadelphus employed Manetho, a learned Egyptian priest, to compose a work on the dynasties from the sources then extant. Manetho gives the names of the kings belonging to each educated at Athens, and was afterwards royal dynasty. Eratosthenes, a Cyrenian who was with the work of Manetho, (as indeed he must librarian at Alexandria, apparently dissatisfied have been if he had compared it with Herodotus,) wrote, at the request of Ptolemy Euergetes, a

Into this flourishing country Jacob came with his family, by the invitation of Pharaoh, in the 582nd year after the Deluge. During the four hundred and thirty years that his descendants remained there, till they had increased to a great nation, they learned much from the Egyptians, who, for more than a century united under the Pharaohs of Memphis, were constantly improving their political institutions, perfecting the arts, and extending their knowledge of the sciences, which it was impossible for them to keep wholly secret. Here the Hebrews were made acquainted with the advantages of a well-regulated government, the utility of agriculture, and the value of the arts, to the cultivation of which some of their own nation applied themselves. (Exod. i. 14. 1 Chron. iv. 21-23.) Though most of them continued their Nomadic life, yet what they had seen in Egypt could not fail to exert an important in-catalogue of the Thebain kings for one thousand fluence upon their feelings and habits. (1 Chron. vii. 20-22.) They became so much attached to the country of their adoption, that even those who had acquired sovereignty over the Moabites at length returned to Egypt. (1 Chron. iv. 22.) Their separation and dispersion was prevented by this means, and as the Egyptians despised all Nomadic tribes, they could not easily become intermingled with them. Such a blending of the two nations was the more difficult, because all conditions of life among the Egyptians were strictly hereditary. Thus the Hebrews in Egypt became a numerous and distinct nation, insomuch that about the three hundred and fiftieth year of their residence there, they awakened the suspicions of a jealous government. When a king of a new dynasty ascended the throne, ignorant of the public services of Joseph, and fearing that in the

Herodot. ii. 29; iv. 181-185.

+ Job ix. 9. Gen. x. 6-8. Exod. xxx. 23. Gen. x. 13, 14. Exod. xxviii. 20; xxxix. 13. Job xxii. 24, 25. Heeren, Ideen uber die Politik, den Verkehr und den Handel de vornehmsten Volker der alten Welt. th. i. s. 151-182. 263-330. 448-455. Gatterer, Weltgeschichte, th. i. s. 104-106.

and seventy six years, which differs widely from Manetho's. Diodorus Siculus visited Egypt in the time of Julius Cæsar and Augustus, and has vered, as well as what he learned from others. recorded in his history what he himself discoBut these authors are all inconsistent with each other. Manetho's work would probably deserve more credit than is generally given to it, if we had it uninjured and entire. But the original is lost, and we have only a meagre, imperfect, and, Syncellus made in the eighth century; and even to all appearance, very corrupt extract which this extract was not derived directly from the work of Manetho, but it was copied from Julius Africanus of the third, and Eusebius of the fourth century. The extracts made by these two writers has quoted from Manetho differs from both.* do not agree with each other, and what Josephus Even if these differences could be accounted for, there remain others which are wholly irreconcilable. These extracts from Julius Africanus and

• Against Apion, b. i. sec. 14, 15.

+ Shuckford's Connexion of Sacred and Profane History, vol. iii. b. xi. p. 141-182. Silberschlag, Chronologie der Welt, s. 127-143.

Eusebius are inserted in the appendix to this work. Africanus for the most part appears more accurate than Eusebius, yet there are undoubtedly frequent errors in him, and not seldom in both at the same time. It is evident that these dynasties were not successive but, with the exception of the eleven last, were mostly contemporary; and that Manetho in his arrangement followed a geographical and not a chronological order. Thus the first Thinitic, the eleventh Diospolitic, and the third Memphitic dynasties, are undoubt-confirmed by the assertion of the Arabic histoedly contemporary, and they belong to the period of the first dawning of the civilization and refinement of Egypt. Even the dynasties of the same state seem not always to have followed each other in immediate succession.

by forced marches, and on the third day came up with their encampment near Suez. Thus they were enclosed by the army between the sea and the mountains which surround this place on the south and west.

As Pharaoh now threatened to treat as enemies his Hebrew guests, whom before, contrary to all right, he had treated as slaves, they were wholly free from obligation on their part, and might justly repel force by force. But a people unaccustomed to arms were not able to contend with

a regular military force, provided with a large body of cavalry and six hundred chariots of war. God again interposed, as he had so often done in Egypt, and by night opened a way for his people through the sea. At this place the sea is now one thousand five hundred and fourteen paces broad, and has a sand bank running across to the opposite shore; but at that time it must have been over two thousand paces broad, and much deeper than it now is.*

In the morning Pharaoh perceived that the Hebrews had passed through the sea; and "the Egyptians pursued, and went in after them to the midst of the sea, even all Pharaoh's horses, his chariots, and his horsemen. And it came to pass, that in the morning watch the Lord looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of

fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians, and took off their chariot wheels. that they drave them heavily: so that the Egyptians said, Let us flee from the face of Israel,

VIII. FORM OF GOVERNMENT BEFORE THE
MOSAIC LAW.

the ancient polity of the Hebrews, as we are soon
to describe their new constitution, in which many
features of the old were retained.

Ir is now time that we turn our attention to

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, governed their respective families with unlimited paternal authority. The number of servants in these families was so great, that the power of the patriarchs was by no means inconsiderable. Allowing a fourth part of the males to be capable of bearing arms, it appears from the mention of Abraham's three hundred and eighteen homeborn armed servants, that the whole number of males in this class only, exclusive of those who had been purchased, was twelve hundred and seventy-two. His subjects then must have amounted to several thousands, and hence an estimate may be made of the number of his herds, to attend which so many servants were necessary. With this view of the subject it will no longer appear surprising, that the land of Canaan was scarcely sufficient for the residence of Abraham and Lot. (Gen. xiv. 14; xiii. 6, compare xxxiii. 1—18.)

These patriarchs were powerful princes, as the

for the Lord fighteth for them against the Egyp-emirs of the Nomades are at the present day. tians. And the Lord said unto Moses, Stretch out thy hand over the sea, that the waters may come again upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots, and upon their horsemen. And Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to his strength when the morning appeared; and the Egyptians fled against it; and the Lord overthrew the Egyptians in the midst of the sea. And the waters returned, and covered the chariots, and the horsemen, and all the host of Pharaoh that came into the sea after

them; there remained not so much as one of

them."

By this fearful overthrow, the fame of which as well as that of the miracles in Egypt, was spread through all the neighbouring countries, the deliverance of the Hebrews was not only perfected, and their independence secured; but a fear of Jehovah, and a dread of his people, was impressed upon all the surrounding nations. (Exod. xiv. xv. 12-16. Josh. ii. 10.)

They were completely independent, and owed allegiance to no sovereign; they formed alliances with other princes and even with kings; they maintained a body of armed servants, and repelled force by force. For their vassals, they were the priests who appointed the festivals and presented offerings; the guardians who protected them from injustice; the chiefs who led them in the judges who banished the turbulent, and when necessary inflicted even capital punishment upon transgressors. (Gen. viii. 20; xiv. 14, 24; xv. 9, 10; xxi. 14; xxii. 13; xxxiv. 14; Xxxviii. 24; Job i. 5.)

war;

The twelve sons of Jacob, after the death of their father, ruled their own families with the same authority. But when their descendants had increased so as to form tribes, each tribe,

aw, np, acknowledged a prince, N, as its ruler. This office was at first hereditary, and belonged to the oldest son of the founder of the tribe, but afterwards it probably became elective. The division of nations into tribes very generally still retained by the Beduin Arabs, and even by prevailed in ancient times; and the custom is

the Persians.*

As the numbers of each tribe increased, the less powerful families united themselves with their stronger relatives, and acknowledged them as their superiors. Hence there arose a subdivision of the tribes into collections of families. Such

NOTE.-Respecting the miracles of Moses in Egypt, and the passage of the Hebrews through the Bay of Heroopolis, see Michaelis, Anmerkungen zur Uebersetzung des zweyten Buches Mosis, k. 3-15, and Zerstreute Kleine Schriften gesammelt, brief i. s. 1-142. Compare Niebuhr, Reise, th. i. s. 215, 247 ff. 251. Beschreibung Arab. s. 358, 403, 408 ff. Kleuker, Neue Prüfung und Erklärung der vorzüglichsten Beweise für die Wahrheit und den göttlichen Ursprung des Christenthums und der Offenbarung, th. i. s. 276 ff. Hess, Geschichte Mosis, band i. erstes Buch k. 3 and 4. and Zweytes thousand persons, for it is evident that the num

Buch k. 1-4.

,אלף משפחה בית אבות a collection was called

a house of fathers, a clan, or a thousand; not because each of these subdivisions consisted of a

Shaw's Travels, p. 216. Della Valla, Reise, t. ii. s.

ber varied. (Judges vi. 15. 1 Sam. x. 19; xxiii. 23. Num. xxvi. 5-50.)

Before the departure from Egypt, the Hebrews were under the immediate government of the rulers of these clans, who were denominated

direction of Egyptian overseers, to apportion and press forward the labours exacted from the people. (Exod. iii. 16; iv. 29; v. 10, 14, 21.) But as the Hebrews after their deliverance from Egypt were to become a settled and agricultural

heads of | nation, and were designed to subserve especial ראשי בית אבות ראשי אלפי ישראל,אלפים

houses of fathers, heads of thousands, &c., and were in rank subordinate to the princes, D'] These two classes of rulers were comprehended

,כאשי שבטים זקינס under the general names of

seniors, or heads of tribes. (Num. i. 16; x. 4.) They were fathers rather than magistrates, governing according to the regulations established by custom, according to the principles of sound reason and natural justice. They provided for the general good of the whole community, while the concerns of each individual family still continued under the control of its own father. In general, those cases only which concerned the fathers of families themselves came under the cognizance of the seniors.

Such is the patriarchal form of government which the Nomades, particularly the Beduin Arabs, have in a great measure preserved to the present day. They call their princes, emirs, and their heads of clans, sheichs, elders; under the last of which appellations the Hebrews included both these orders of rulers. The Arabian emirs have their secretaries, who appear to be officers similar to those denominated D among the Hebrews. The Hebrew shoterim, (in the English version translated officers,) whose peculiar business it was to register the genealogies, possessed considerable authority, as will be seen in the sequel, and sustained an important part in the government.*

and important purposes; it was necessary that
they should be provided with new political insti-
tutions, suited to such a condition and destina-
tion. For this purpose Moses led them to the
foot of Mount Horeb, where the people entered
into a peculiar relation with God, upon which
their whole civil constitution was unalterably
grounded.

IX.-FUNDAMENTAL LAW OF THE MOSAIC
INSTITUTIONS.

A correct knowledge of the Creator and Governor of heaven and earth, and of the relation of man to his Almighty Judge, is certainly the principal, if not the sole ground of all morality and of all moral happiness among human beings, influenced as they are by the objects of sense. It constitutes, in fact, man's chief good. (John xvii. 3.) Now, even though we should allow that a superior mind at the present day,-furnished with all the learning of preceding ages, and surrounded by the light of revelation, after so many errors of the ancients have been detected, and so many warnings have been given to guard against false conclusions, can derive this correct knowledge from a view of the universe, or from contemplating the situation and wants of man; yet it was certainly unattainable by those men of high antiquity, in the childhood of the world, With such a political organization, the He- whose minds were unaccustomed to intellectual brews in the land of Goshen continued for the effort, who inherited no learned labours from most part the Nomadic life of their ancestors, for their ancestors, who were destitute of a thorough which the wilds of Egypt and the open plains of acquaintance with the works of nature, and were Arabia Petrea afforded them ample room. In situated in the midst of exposures to error. This early times they had driven their herds through conclusion is confirmed by proof far superior to Arabia to Canaan, and built cities in that country. all speculation, by the history of all nations, Some penetrated into the land of the Moabites even of those which were much more recent in and subjected it to their power. (1 Chron. vii. 21, their origin and more highly cultivated. 24; iv. 22.) They were at length excluded from find, nevertheless, this correct knowledge of God Canaan by the increasing population of the among the pious patriarchs of the highest antiCanaanites; though they possessed in that coun-quity; and unless we will absurdly suppose that try, (in addition to the right of pasturage they had acquired,) certain lands and cities, with many wells and cisterns, which they had inherited from their ancestors. When in Egypt some applied themselves to the arts, and they are mentioned particularly as potters and manufacturers of fine cotton in the service of the crown. (1 Chron. iv. 21, 23.) In Arabia Petrea several distinguished themselves in the structure of the sacred Tabernacle, an evidence that the Hebrews had been much improved by the refinements of Egypt. The Egyptian sovereigns treated them as guests rather than subjects, until the entrance of that foreign dynasty of monarchs, who were ignorant of the services which one of their ancestors had rendered to the nation. But even these monarchs did not change the patriarchal form of their government. On the contrary, the Hebrew shoterim were employed, under the Arvieux, Merkw. Nachrichten. Th. ii. s. 138. Th. iii. s. 128 ff. Exod. iii. 16; v. 10-21.

We

those simple and unlearned fathers were speculative philosophers and profound thinkers, we must acknowledge the truth of the declarations, that God from time to time revealed himself in a supernatural manner to the men of the old world, and that the knowledge thus communicated was afterwards transmitted from father to son. (Gen. i. 28-30; ii. 15 ff; iii. 14 ff; iv. 9; vi. 3, 12 ff; ix. 1-18; xii. 1 ff; xv. 1 ff; xviii. 17 ff, and many other places.)

But it was difficult to preserve the knowledge of God among sensual men, even after it had been revealed. Before the flood profligacy and practical atheism prevailed, (Gen. iv. 16; vi. 2 ff,) and four centuries after, superstition and idolatry had crept in on all sides. Their influence was constantly extending, and at last became universal; and no people, who were left to themselves, ever regained a knowledge of the true God.

That a knowledge of the Deity might not be removed entirely from the earth by the encroach

ments of idolatry God revealed himself to an illustrious Chaldean, and appointed him, with his descendants by Isaac and Jacob, to the important trust of preserving this invaluable treasure in the world, and finally of imparting it to other nations. (Gen. xviii. 16—20, comp. Gen. | xvii. 9-14; xii. 3; xxii. 18; xxviii. 14.)

In time idolatry became so general through the earth, that it acquired the credit of a settled, undoubted truth, and the authority of a plain principle of common sense. Hence, even the descendants of Jacob, though they never entirely forgot the God who created heaven and earth, who caused the deluge, and gave their ancestors such magnificent promises respecting their descendants, became, for the most part, so infected with the idolatry of Egypt during their residence in that country, that all the miracles which they witnessed there, at the Red Sea, and Mount Horeb, were scarcely sufficient to cure them of their superstition, and bring them back to a constant worship of the true God. (Exod. xxxii. 1-35. Amos v. 26.)

That the Hebrews might answer their high destination, and preserve the knowledge of God through succeeding ages, civil institutions were necessary, by which the knowledge and worship of the true God should be connected with the political structure of this nation so intimately, that they must be imperishable so long as the nation remained a nation; and could be annihilated only by the annihilation of the political existence of the people. Such institutions were provided by a civil constitution, which was closely interwoven and inseparably connected with the worship of the true God.

Such a constitution could be established without difficulty, as it was exactly suited to the condition of the world at that time, when the civil regulations of all people were identified with their religion. Though the independent patriarchs, nomadic as well as agricultural, were forced by circumstances to enter into societies, they were never very willing to receive the new constitutions and new laws which were prescribed to them by others. For this reason the ancient legislators, that they might secure the reception and authority of the new order of society introduced by them, always pretended that they had been authorised to impose laws by some divinity. Thus Menes in Egypt gave out that he had received his instructions from Mercury; Cadmus at Thebes, from an oracle; Minos in Crete, from Jupiter; Lycurgus at Sparta, from Apollo; Zathraustes among the Arimaspi, from their national god; Zamolxis, from the tutelar goddess of his nation; and Numa at Rome, from the nymph Egeria.* These lawgivers, however, did not invent the religious systems of their people, as some have erroneously supposed, but they improved the false religions already in existence, and artfully employed them as the means of establishing and perpetuating their civil institutions. But Moses did not, as Strabo and Diodorus Siculus assert, proceed in the same manner. He did not deceitfully pretend that he received his Diodor. Sic. i. 94. Strabo, p. 162. Plutarch. Lycurg.

V. xxix. and Numa, iv.-xvii.

+ Diodor. Sic. i. 94. Strabo, p. 762.

laws from the God Jao, () but he proved his mission to be really divine by such supernatural works and wisdom as no other lawgiver could ever lay claim to. The whole nation heard God himself speak from Sinai. Neither did Moses employ religion to support his political institutions, but he reversed the usual order, and introduced a civil constitution which was designed as a means, and as the event has proved, was in reality a means, of establishing pure religion permanently upon the earth, and of preserving the knowledge and worship of the true God to the latest generations.

He accordingly made the worship of the one only true God the fundamental law of his institutions, which was to remain for ever unalterable, through all the changes which might occur in the lapse of time. The God who created heaven and earth; who caused the deluge; who revealed himself to the ancestors of the Hebrews as the Most High, and gave them promises respecting their far distant descendants; who was acknowledged by Abraham as the Judge of all the earth; and who now revealed himself as Jehovah, that is, as the immutably faithful performer of his promises: in short, he who alone is God, whose are the heavens and the earth, and all that they contain; the God over all, who can neither be seen, nor represented by any image; who loves, feeds, and clothes all men';

this only true God was set forth by Moses, the Mediator between God and the Hebrews, as their national and tutelar deity. This was done in accordance with the prevalent notions of those ages, that every nation must have its tutelar divinity. Jehovah had acquired a peculiar right over the Hebrews, by the miraculous deliverance which he had afforded them from Egyptian bondage; and to him were they all under the most sacred obligations, both on account of that deliverance, and because he is the only true God. (Gen. i. 1 ff. Exod. xx. 8-12. Gen. vi. 7, 8; xiv. 18-20; xvii. 1; xviii. 16-33. Exod. vi. 3. Gen. xii. 1-3; xv. 13-21; xviii. 17 ff; xxii. 17 ff; xxvi. 1-4; xxviii. 12–16; xlix. 1 -27. Exod. xxiv. 8-12; xxxiii. 18-23. Deut. iv. 12, 15, 32-39; vi. 4-6; x. 12—20. Gen. xviii. 25. Exod. vi. 3; xx. 1-11. Deut. v. 5-15.)

The condescending manner in which Jehovah really represented himself to the Hebrews, was yet insufficient to perpetuate the knowledge and worship of the true God among them. He, therefore, through the intervention of Moses, suffered himself to be elected their king by a voluntary choice. (Exod. xix. 4-8. comp. Judg. viii. 23. 1 Sam. viii. 7; x. 18; xii. 1. 1 Chron. xxix. 23.) The land of Canaan was considered as the royal possession, of which the Hebrews were to be the hereditary occupants, and from which they were to render to Jehovah a double tithe, as the Egyptians did to their king. (1 Chron. xxix. 15. Lev. xxvii. 20-38. Num. xviii. 21, 22. Deut. xii. 17-19; xiv. 22, 29; xxvi. 12—15.)

The invisible king then published from the summit of Mount Sinai, with circumstances of awful grandeur, a brief summary of moral and religious duties, among which the worship of the only true God, and a total prohibition of the use of images, held the most conspicuous place.