Dead Sea.

The southern boundary, by which this district is separated from the mountains of Idumæa, is the Wady el-Ahsy (el-Kurahy), which opens at the southern end of the Dead Sea. On the north it is bounded by the deep rocky valley, through which the brook Arnon flows, which enters the Dead Sea near the centre of the eastern side. The Arnon divides the Kerek from the highlands of el-Belkah on the east of the Jordan (Vol. i. § 42, 3). In the nature of its soil the Kerek forms a link between the highlands of Palestine beyond the Arnon, which consist for the most part of table-land, and the mountains of es-Sherah, the aspect of which is most rugged and grotesque. But the conformation and geological character of the Kerek are far from being sufficiently known, to enable us to describe its details with accuracy, or to employ all the Old Testament data with any degree of certainty.

VOL. II.

I

FIRST STEP

TOWARDS THE

DEVELOPMENT OF THE NATION.

ISRAEL'S SOJOURN IN EGYPT;

OR

THE PREPARATION OF THE PEOPLE OF THE COVENANT,

A PERIOD OF 430 YEARS.

CONDITION OF THE ISRAELITES

AND

DEVELOPMENT OF THE NATION DURING THE PERIOD SPENT IN EGYPT.

§ 14. (Exodus i.)-The historical records of the Old Testament pass very quickly over the first three centuries and a half of the period of 430 years (1), to which the sojourn of the children of Israel in Egypt extended. Still there is no ground for attributing to these records either faultiness or omissions, pro.. vided we do not measure them by such a standard, as is foreign both to the intention of the records and to the circumstances of the case (2). In accordance with both of these, the historian is content to relate the extraordinarily rapid increase of Jacob's descendants in general but characteristic terms (ver. 6, 7), and then passes at once to a description of the circumstances, which eventually led to Israel's departure from Egypt. The rapidity with which their numbers increased may be learned from the census, taken shortly after the Exodus, from which we may infer that there were in all about two million souls (3). So long as there was a continuance of the good understanding, established by Joseph between the ruling dynasty in Egypt and the Israelitish settlers, so long, that is, as the former could ensure the faithfulness and attachment of the latter,this rapid increase in the number of the Israelites must have been a most welcome thing to the Egyptian rulers; for it enabled them with the greater ease to fulfil the task which the policy of Egypt imposed upon them, of guard