The Exodus out of Egypt.

Egypt during the sojourn of the Israelites. — The travels of an Egyptian officer through Palestine before the time of Joshua. — Recent excavations at Tel el-Maskhfta. — Discovery of the treasure-chambers built by the Israelites. — Date of the Exodus fixed. — Origin of the word Jéhovah. — The rite of circumcision. — Origin of the name Moses. — Illustrations of Hebrew law and ritual from Phoenician and Assyrian monuments. — Tablet describing the duties of a priest of Bel. — The sacrificial tariff of Marseilles. — Phœnician texts found in Cyprus

Two centuries later, when the troublous times which saw the close of the eighteenth dynasty had ushered in the nineteenth, the same districts had again to be overrun by the Egyptian kings. Once more victories were gained over the powerful Hittites, in their fortress of Kadesh, on the Orontes, and over the tribes of Palestine. Seti I, the father of Ramses II, records among his conquests Beth-Anoth and Kirjath-Anab⁴ in the south, as well as Zor or Tyre. Ramses II himself, the Sesostris of the Greeks, battled for long years against the Hittites on the plains of Canaan, and established a line of Egyptian fortresses as far north as Damascus. The tablets which he engraved at the mouth of the Dog River, near Beyrût, still remain to testify to his victories and campaigns. Representations were sculptured on the walls of Thebes of the forts of “Tabor, in the land of the Amorites,” of Merom and of Salem; and the capture of the revolted city of Ashkelon was celebrated both in sculpture and in song.

But the most interesting record which has come down to us from his reign is the account given by a mohar, or military officer, of his travels through Palestine, at a time when the country was nominally tributary to Egypt. The mohar made his tour during the latter part of the reign of Ramses II, the oppressor of the Israelites, so that the account he has given of Canaan shows us what it was like shortly before its conquest by Joshua. He journeyed as far north as Aleppo in a chariot, which is more than a traveller in Palestine could do now, and describes how his clothes were stolen one night, and how his own groom, or “muleteer,” joined the robbers. Among the places he visited were the Phœnician cities of Gebal, famous for its shrine of Ashtoreth, Beyrût, Sarepta, Sidon, and Tyre, which he says was built on an island in the sea, drinking-water being conveyed to it in boats. Old Tyre, on the continent opposite, seems to have been recently burnt. Hamath, Timnah, Hazor, Tabor, Horonaim, and perhaps Adullam, were also visited, and mention is made not only of the ford of the Jordan, near Beth-Shean, but also of “a passage” in front of the city of Megiddo, which had to be crossed before the town could be entered. Joppa, the modern Jaffa, was surrounded with gardens of date-palms, which have now been supplanted by oranges. The road, however, was not always good. In one place the mohar had to “drive along the edge of the precipice, on the slippery height, over a depth of 2,000 cubits, full of rocks and boulders;” while at another time his groom broke the chariot in pieces by driving over a slippery path, and necessitated the repair of the injured carriage by “the iron-workers” at the nearest smithy. Already, therefore, it is clear, Palestine possessed plenty of smithies at which iron was forged.

That Ramses II was the Pharaoh of the oppression, has long been suspected by Egyptian scholars. The accounts of the wars of himself and his predecessors in Canaan show that up to the date of his death that country was not yet inhabited by the Israelites. Not only is no mention made of them, but the history of the Book of Judges precludes our supposing that Palestine could have been an Egyptian province after the Israelitish conquest. It must have ceased to be tributary to the Pharaohs before it was entered by Joshua. Moreover, the name of the city of Ramses (Raamses) built by the Israelites in Egypt points unmistakeably to the reign of the great Ramses II himself. As has already been observed, the name was given to Zoan after its reconstruction by this monarch, whose grandfather, Ramses I, was the first Egyptian king who bore the name. As Ramses I reigned but a very few years, while his successor, Seti I, associated his son, Ramses II, with him on the throne when the latter was but twelve years old or thereabouts, it could only have been during his long reign of sixty-seven years that Ramses II brought the name by which he had been christened into vogue. It is possible that those Egyptian scholars are right who see the Hebrews in a certain class of foreigners called Aperiu, and employed by Ramses II to work at his monuments; if so, we should have another proof that the Exodus could not have taken place until after his death. The identification, however, is rendered very doubtful by the fact, that long after the time of Ramses II, a document of the reign of Ramses III speaks of 2,083 Aperiu as settlers in Heliopolis, and describes them as “knights, sons of the kings, and noble lords of the Aperiu, settled people, who dwell in this place.” If, therefore, the Aperiu were really the Hebrews, we should have to suppose that some of them who had obtained offices of honour and influence in Egypt remained behind in Heliopolis, the city of Joseph's wife, when their poorer and oppressed kinsmen followed Moses and Aaron into the desert in search of the Promised Land.

However this may be, the question as to the date of the Exodus, and consequently as to the Pharaoh of the oppression, has now been finally set at rest by the excavations recently undertaken at Tel el-Maskhûta. Tel el-Maskhûta is the name of some large mounds near Tel el-Kebîr and other places which were the scene of the late war; and M. Naville, who has excavated them for the Egyptian Exploration Fund, has found inscriptions in them which show not only that they represent an ancient city whose religious name was Pithom, while its civil name was Succoth, but also that the founder of the city was Ramses II. In Greek times the city was called Heroöpolis, or Ero, from the Egyptian word ara, “a store-house,” reminding us that Pithom and Raamses, which the Israelites built for the Pharaoh, were “treasure-cities” (Exod. i. 11). M. Naville has even discovered the treasure-chambers themselves. They are very strongly constructed, and divided by brick partitions from eight to ten feet thick, the bricks being sun-baked, and made some with and some without straw. In these strawless bricks we may see the work of the oppressed people when the order came: “Thus saith the Pharaoh, I will not give you straw.”

The treasure-chambers occupy almost the whole area of the old city, the walls of which are about 650 feet square and 22 feet thick. Its name Pithom—in Egyptian Pa-Tum—signifies the city of the Setting Sun; and since it had another name, Succoth, we can now understand how it was that the Israelites started on their march not from Goshen, but from Succoth (Ex. xiii. 20), that is, from the very place where they had been working. Etham, their next stage, seems to be the Egyptian fortress of Khetam, while Pi-hahiroth (Ex. xiv. 2), is probably Pi-keheret, which is mentioned in an inscription found at Tel el-Maskhûta as somewhere in the neighbourhood of the canal that led from the Nile to the Red Sea.

The Pharaoh under whom the Exodus actually took place could not have been Ramses II himself, but his son and successor, Meneptah II, who ascended the throne about B.C. 1325. His reign lasted but a short time, and it was disturbed not only by the flight of the Children of Israel, but also by a great invasion of Northern Egypt by the Libyans, which was with difficulty repulsed. This took place in his fifth year. Three years later a report was sent to him by one of his officials stating that “the passage of tribes of the Shasu (or Beduins) from the land of Edom had been effected through the fortress of Khetam, which is situated in Succoth (Thuku), to the lakes of the city of Pithom, which are in the land of Succoth, in order that they might feed themselves and their herds on the possessions of the Pharaoh.” The lakes of Pithom must be those of Bâlah and Timsah, on which Ismailia now stands, not far from Tel el-Maskhûta, and Khetam is the Etham of Scripture. It is possible that Timsah, “the lake of crocodiles,” is the yâm sûph, or “sea of papyrus reeds,” of Scripture, which the translators of the Septuagint erroneously identified with the Red Sea.

Among the incidents connected with the deliverance of the Israelites are two which especially deserve notice. When God appointed Moses to his mission of leading his enslaved brethren out of Egypt, He at the same time revealed Himself by the name of “Jehovah,” the special name by which He was henceforth to be known to the Children of Israel. It is unfortunate that this sacred name has descended to the readers of the Authorised Version of the Old Testament in a corrupt and barbarous form. The Hebrew alphabet was designed to express consonants only, not vowels; these were supplied by the reader from his knowledge of the language and its pronunciation. As long as Hebrew was still spoken, there was little difficulty in doing this; but the case was changed when it ceased to be a living language. A traditional pronunciation of the sacred records was preserved in the synagogues; but it necessarily differed in many respects from the pronunciation which had actually been once in use, and was itself in danger of being forgotten or altered. To avoid such a danger, therefore, the so-called Masoretes, or Jewish scribes, in the sixth century after the Christian era, invented a system of symbols which should represent the pronunciation of the Hebrew of the Old Testament as read, or rather chanted, at the time in the great synagogue of Tiberias in Palestine.⁵ It is in accordance with this Masoretic mode of pronunciation that Hebrew is now taught. But there was one word which the Masoretes of Tiberias either could not or would not pronounce. This was the national name of the God of Israel. Though used so freely in the Old Testament, it had come to be regarded with superstitious reverence before the time when the Greek translation of the Septuagint was made, and in this translation, accordingly, the word Kyrios, “Lord,” is substituted for it wherever it occurs. The New Testament writers naturally followed the custom of the Septuagint and of their age, and so also did the Masoretes of Tiberias. Wherever the holy name was met with, they read in place of it Adônai, “Lord,” and hence, when supplying vowel-symbols to the text of the Old Testament they wrote the vowels of Adônai under the four consonants, Y H V H, which composed it. This simply meant that Adônai was to be read wherever the sacred name was found. In ignorance of this fact, however, the scholars who first revived the study of Hebrew in modern Europe imagined that the vowels of Adônai (ă or ĕ, o, and â) were intended to be read along with the consonants below which they stood. The result was the hybrid monster Yĕhovâh. In passing into England the word became even more deformed. In German the sound of y is denoted by the symbol j, and the German symbol, but with the utterly different English pronunciation attached to it, found its way into the English translations of the Old Testament Scriptures.

There are two opinions as to what was the actual pronunciation of the sacred name while Hebrew was still a spoken language. On the one hand, we may gather from the contemporary Assyrian monuments that it was pronounced Yahu. Wherever an Israelitish name is met with in the cuneiform inscriptions which, like Jehu or Hezekiah, is compounded with the divine title, the latter appears as Yahu, Jehu being Yahua, and Hezekiah Khazaki-yahu. Even according to the Masoretes it must be read Yeho (that is, Yăhu) when it forms part of a proper name. The early Gnostics, moreover, when they transcribed it in Greek characters, wrote Iaô, that is, Yahô. On the other hand, the four consonants, Y H V H, can hardly have been pronounced otherwise than as Yahveh, and this pronunciation is supported by the two Greek writers Theodoret and Epiphanios, who say that the word was sounded Yavé. The form Yahveh, however, is incompatible with the form Yahu (Yeho), which appears in proper names; and it has been maintained that it is due to one of those plays on words, of which there are so many examples in the Old Testament. The spelling with a final h was adopted, it has been supposed, in order to remind the reader of the Hebrew verb which signifies “to be,” and to which there seems to be a distinct allusion in Exod. iii. 14.⁶

We must now turn to a second incident which is specially connected with the deliverance out of Egypt. This is the rite of circumcision, which was observed in so solemn a manner at the moment when the Israelites had at last crossed the Jordan and were preparing to attack the Canaanites. It was a rite which had been practised by the Egyptians from the most remote times, and had been communicated by them, according to Herodotus, to the Ethiopians. Josephus tells us that the rite was also practised by the Arabs, to whom Herodotus adds the Syrians of Phœnicia, as well as the Kolkhians and the Hittites of Kappadokia. A similar rite is found at the present day among many barbarous tribes in different parts of the world, and distinguishes not only the Jew but the Mohammedan as well.

The name of Moses seems to be of Egyptian derivation. It would correspond to the Egyptian mes or mesu, “son,” which is borne by more than one Egyptian prince at the period of the Exodus, and forms part of the name of Ramses, or Ra-mesu, “the son of the sun.” The Hebrew spelling of the word with a final h is designed to recall the Hebrew mashâh, “to draw out” or “deliver,” just as the spelling of the Septuagint, Môysês, was influenced by the etymology given by Josephus, which made it a compound of the Egyptian mô, “water,” and ysês, “to rescue from a flood.” Such plays upon words are common in ancient literature, and are still in favour in the East, and we must be on our guard against ascribing to them a scientific value which they do not possess. The name mesu, “son,” would be an appropriate one for a child who had been adopted by an Egyptian lady, and who was brought up at the court of the Pharaoh in “all the wisdom of the Egyptians.”

This chapter would be incomplete unless something were said of the illustrations of the law and ritual of the Israelites afforded by the monuments of the nations around them. These illustrations are to be found among the Phœnicians and the Assyrians. Among both we find traces of sacrifices and institutions which offer many parallels to the ordinances of the Mosaic Law. Besides the Sabbaths already spoken of, the Babylonians and Assyrians had various festivals and fasts, on which certain rites had to be performed and certain sacrifices offered; they knew of “peace-offerings” and of “heave-offerings,” of the dedication of the first-born, and of sacrifices for sin. The gods were carried in procession in “ships,” which, as we learn from the sculptures, resembled in form the Hebrew ark, and were borne on men's shoulders by means of staves. In front of the image of the god stood a table, on which showbread was laid; and a distinction was drawn between the meal-offering and the animal sacrifice. Certain unclean kinds of food were forbidden, including the flesh of swine and “creeping things;” and in the outer courts of the temples were large lavers called “seas,” like the “sea” of Solomon's temple, in which the worshippers were required to cleanse themselves. Many of these regulations and rites came down from the Accadian period.

As a specimen of the rites which had to be performed, we may quote a portion of a tablet which prescribes the duties of the priest in the great temple of Bel at Babylon. The tablet begins: “In the month Nisan, on the 2nd day, two hours after nightfall, the priest must come and take of the waters of the river, must enter into the presence of Bel, and change his dress, must put on a  . . . robe in the presence of Bel, and say this prayer: ‘O my lord, who in his strength has no equal, O my lord, blessed sovereign, lord of the world, speeding the peace of the great gods, the lord who in his might destroys the strong, lord of kings, light of mankind, establisher of trust, O Bel, thy sceptre is Babylon, thy crown is Borsippa, the wide heaven is the dwelling-place of thy liver . . . . O lord of the world, light of the spirits of heaven, utterer of blessings, who is there whose mouth murmurs not of thy righteousness, or speaks not of thy glory, and celebrates not thy dominion? O lord of the world, who dwellest in the temple of the sun, reject not the hands that are raised to thee, be merciful to thy city Babylon, to Beth-Saggil thy temple, incline thy face, grant the prayers of thy people the sons of Babylon.’ ”

Our knowledge of the Phœnician ritual is largely derived from a sacrificial tariff discovered at Marseilles in 1845. The stone on which it is engraved is unfortunately not perfect, but what is left of it runs thus: “In the temple of Baal (the following tariff of offerings shall be observed), which was prescribed (in the time of) the judge  . . . Baal, the son of Bod-Tanit, the son of Bod-(Ashmun, and in the time of Halzi-Baal), the judge, the son of Bod-Ashmun, the son of Halzi-Baal and (their comrades). For an ox as a full-offering, whether it be a prayer-offering or a full thank-offering, the priests (shall receive) ten shekels of silver for each beast, and if it be a full-offering the priests shall receive besides this (300 shekels' weight of flesh). And for a prayer-offering they shall receive (besides) the small joints(?) and the roast(?), but the skin and the haunches and the feet and the rest of the flesh shall belong to the offerer. For a bullock which has horns, but is not yet broken in and made to serve, or for a stag, as a full-offering, whether it be a prayer-offering or a full thank-offering, the priests (shall receive) five shekels of silver (for each beast, and if it be a full-offering) they shall receive besides this 150 shekels' weight of flesh; and for a prayer-offering the small joints(?) and the roast(?); but the skin and the haunches and the feet (and the rest of the flesh shall belong to the offerer). For a sheep or a goat as a full-offering, whether it be a prayer-offering or a full thank-offering, the priests (shall receive) one shekel of silver and two sar for each beast; and in the case of a prayer-offering they shall have (besides this the small joints (?)) and the roast(?); but the skin and the haunches and the feet and the rest of the flesh shall belong to the offerer. For a lamb or a kid or a fawn as a full-offering, whether it be a prayer-offering or a full thank-offering, the priests (shall receive) three-fourths of a shekel of silver and (two) zar (for each beast; and in the case of a prayer-offering they shall have) besides this the small joints(?) and the roast(?); but the skin and the haunches and the feet and the rest of the flesh shall belong to (the offerer). For a bird, whether wild or tame, as a full-offering, whether it be shetseph or khazuth, the priests (shall receive) three-fourths of a shekel of silver and two zar for each bird; and (so much flesh besides). For a bird, or for the offering of the first-born of an animal, or for a meal-offering or for an offering with oil, the priests (shall receive) ten pieces of gold for each . . . . In the case of every prayer-offering which is offered to the gods, the priests shall receive the small joints(?), and the roast(?) and the prayer-offering  . . . for a cake and for milk and for fat, and for every offering which is offered without blood . . . . For every offering which is brought by a poor man in cattle or birds, the priests shall receive nothing  . . . anything leprous or scabby or lean is forbidden, and no one as regards that which he offers (shall taste of) the blood of the dead. The tariff for each offering shall be according to that which is prescribed in this publication . . . . As for every offering which is not prescribed in this table, and is not made according to the regulations which (have been published in the time of  . . . Baal, the son of Bod-Tanit), and of Bod-Ashmun, the son of Halzi-Baal, and of their comrades, every priest who accepts the offering which is not included in that which is prescribed in this table, shall be punished . . . . As for the property of the offerer who does not discharge (his debt) for his offering (he also shall be punished).”

The words that are wanting in the document have been partially supplied from the fragments of another copy of the tariff found among the ruins of Carthage. It will be observed that there is no mention in it of the sacrifice of children, which, as we know, once played a large part in the ritual of the Phœnicians. This is explained by the fact that the tariff belongs to that later age, when Greek and Roman influence had prevailed upon the Phœnician colonists in the west to give up the horrible practice. The place of the child is taken by the 'ayyâl or stag.

The tariff of Marseilles and Carthage has lately been supplemented by some Phœnician texts found in the island of Cyprus, and written in black and red ink upon small pieces of marble. One of these has both faces inscribed, and a translation of its contents is worth giving. On the first face we read: “Expenses of the month Ethanim: On the new-moon of the month Ethanim, for the gods of the new-moon two . . . . For the architects who have built the temples of Ashtoreth, for each house . . . . For the guardians of the sanctuary and the overseers of the temple of Resheph 20 . . . . For the men (who tend) the cattle in the presence of the Holy Queen on this day . . . . For two boys two  . . . For two sacrifices  . . . For two bakers who have baked the cakes for the (Holy) Queen . . . . For the barbers, for their work, two . . . . For the ten masons who have built the foundations and the temples of the Sun-god  . . . To Ebed-Ashmun, the principal scribe, who has been sent on this day, three . . . . For the dogs and their young . . . .” On the other face we have: “On the new-moon of the month Peûlat: For the gods of the new-moon two . . . . For the masters of the days, incense and peace-offering . . . . For the images of the temple of the Sun-god and the other gods . . . . For Ebed-Bast of Carthage . . . . For the man who has bought the withered plants(?) . . . . For the shepherds of the country two . . . . For the 'almâth and the 22 'alâmôth, with a sacrifice . . . . For the dogs and their young three . . . .”

Here we evidently have an account of the payments disbursed by the priests of a temple on particular days. Resheph was a title of the Sun-god, and M. Clermont-Ganneau has pointed out that his name still survives in that of Arsûf, a ruined town to the north of Jaffa. The cakes baked for Ashtoreth, “the Holy Queen,” are the same as those which the Jewish men and women who had fled to Egypt after the destruction of Jerusalem and the murder of Gedaliah declared to Jeremiah that they would still continue to offer to “the queen of heaven” (Jer. xliv. 19). What is meant by the “dogs” is best explained by Deuteronomy xxiii. 18, while the barbers mentioned in the text were required to shave the priests. Mention is also made of them in the Assyrian inscriptions (see Lev. xix. 27, xxi. 5). The 'almâth, or “maiden”—a word which has acquired a special significance in the Christian Church in consequence of its having been used in Isaiah's prophecy of “the Virgin” (Isa. vii. 14)—here seems to mean the chief singer attached to the temple of Ashtoreth. The 'alâmôth are described in the sixty-eighth Psalm (ver. 25) as similarly employed in the worship of Israel. As for the “Masters of the Days,” they are the gods who, as among the Assyrians, were believed to preside over the months of the year. The month Ethanim, to which the first account refers, is mentioned, it will be remembered, in 1 Kings viii. 2, as being the month in which the feast of the dedication of Solomon's temple was held. That temple had been built with the help of Phœnician workmen, and it was therefore natural that the names of the Phœnician months should have become known to the Israelites in connection with it. The Israelites themselves were still contented to speak of the months of the year according to the order in which they came. It was not until after the return from the Babylonish exile that special names for the months were definitely adopted, and that the Jews henceforth called them by the Assyrian names they had heard in Babylonia.

4) Called Anab, “(the city of) grapes,” in Josh. xi. 21.

5) The invention of the existing Masoretic system of vowel-points and accents is ascribed to Mokha of Tiberias (a.d. 570) and his son Moses, who are said to have based it on a system invented shortly before by Akha the Babylonian. Only a very few MSS. are known written in the Babylonian system of punctuation.

6) A coin from Gaza, of the fourth century B.C., is now in the British Museum, on one side of which is the figure of the Canaanitish Baal in a chariot of fire, but otherwise with the attributes of the Greek Zeus, and with the word YHU (i.e., Yahu or Yeho) written above him in old Phœnician letters.