MOSES—THE RECORDER.
The narrative in connection with the Storehouses of the King would be
incomplete without a brief survey of the life of the inspired writer
who recorded all the particulars regarding them; and as almost every
existing religion is derived from his writings, it will not be deemed
superfluous. Moses was born in 1571 B.C. At this time a proclamation
was issued throughout the land of Egypt, dooming every male born to the
Hebrews to immediate destruction. The elders and wise men advised the
King to do this, because they feared that a war might come upon them,
and they feared that the Israelites might so increase and spread in the
land that they might drive them away from their own country. At first
they gave the Israelites hard work to reduce their numbers, but, as
that was unavailing, they advised the King, who did not know Joseph,
nor remember all the good that he had done for the Egyptians, to adopt
this barbarous method of reducing the numbers of the Israelitish
inhabitants of Goshen.
It was foretold to Amram, a descendant of Levi, the son of Jacob, that
the child, out of dread of whose nativity the Egyptians had doomed the
Israelite children to destruction, should be his, and be concealed from
those who watched to destroy him; and having been brought up in a
surprising way, he should deliver the Hebrew nation from the distress
they were under from the Egyptians. His memory should be famous while
the world lasts; and this not only among the Hebrews, but foreigners
also; and that this child should also have such a brother that he would
himself obtain God’s Priesthood, and his posterity should have it after
him to the end of the world. Amram and his wife Jochebed were in great
perplexity, and fear increased upon them on account of this prediction.
And when the child was born they nourished him at home privately for
three months. But after that time Amram—fearing he would be
discovered, and, by falling under the King’s displeasure, both he and
his child would perish, and so he should make the promise of God of
none effect—determined rather to entrust the safety and care of the
child to God, than to depend on his own concealment of him, which he
looked upon as a thing uncertain, and whereby both the child, so
privately to be nourished, and himself should be in imminent danger;
but he believed that God would in some way procure the safety of the
child, in order to realise the truth of his own predictions. When they
had thus determined, they made an ark of bulrushes, after the manner of
a cradle, and of a size sufficiently large for an infant to be laid in
without being too straitened. They then daubed it over with slime,
which would naturally keep the water from entering between the
bulrushes, and put the infant into it, and setting it afloat upon the
river, they left its preservation to God; so the river received the
child, and carried him along. Now Thermuthis, the daughter of Pharaoh,
was diverting herself by the banks of the river; and seeing a cradle
borne along by the current, she sent some that could swim, and bade
them bring the cradle to her. When those that were sent on this errand
came to her with the cradle, and she saw the little child, she was
greatly in love with it, on account of its largeness and beauty.
Thermuthis bade them bring her a woman that might afford her breast to
the child. Now Miriam, the sister of Moses, was standing near when this
happened, and, when she had this order given her, she went and brought
the mother, and the child gladly took her breast, and seemed to stick
close to it; and so it was that, at the Queen’s desire, the nursing of
the child was entirely entrusted to its mother.
The following names were given to Moses by the different persons
interested in him:—
Moses, “I have drawn him from out the water,” by Thermuthis,
Pharaoh’s daughter.
Heber, “Because he was reunited to his family,” by his father Amram.
Yekuthiel, “I hoped in God,” by his mother Jochebed.
Yarah, “I went down to the river to watch him,” by his sister
Miriam.
Abigedore, “For God had repaired the breach in the house of Jacob,
and the Egyptians ceased from that time to cast the infants into
the water,” by his brother Aaron.
Abi Socho, “For three months he was hidden,” by his grandfather
Caath.
Shermaiah Ben Nethaniel, “Because in his day God heard their
groaning and delivered them from their oppressors,” by the children
of Israel.
Moses became as a son to Thermuthis, the daughter of Pharaoh, as a
child belonging rightly to the palace of the King.
The first exploit of Moses was as a general of the Egyptian army, which
he led into Ethiopia; he marched by land, and on the way gave a
wonderful demonstration of his sagacity. The ground was difficult to be
passed over, because of the multitude of serpents; these it produces in
vast numbers, and, indeed, is singular in some of those species, which
other countries do not breed, and yet such as are worse than others in
power and mischief, possessing unusual keenness of sight. Some of these
serpents ascend from the ground unseen, and also fly in the air, and so
come upon men unawares, and do them mischief. Moses invented a
wonderful stratagem to preserve the army safe and without hurt; for he
made baskets, like unto arks, of sedge, and filled them with ibises,
Egyptian birds, and carried them along with them. These birds are the
greatest enemies to serpents imaginable, for they fly from them when
they come near them, and as they fly they are caught and devoured by
them. As soon, therefore, as Moses came to the land which bred these
serpents, he let loose the ibises, and by their means repelled the
serpentine kind; using them as his assistants before the army came upon
that ground. When, therefore, he proceeded thus on his journey he came
upon the Ethiopians before they expected him; and, joining battle with
them, he beat them and overthrew their cities, and, indeed, made a
great slaughter of the Ethiopians. Moses laid siege to Saba, afterwards
called Meroë, the capital of Ethiopia, a strong city encompassed by the
Nile and by two other rivers, Astapus and Astaboras, and strongly
fortified with great ramparts, insomuch that when the waters come with
the greatest violence it can never be overthrown; these ramparts also
make it next to impossible for even such as have crossed over the
rivers to take the city. However, while Moses was uneasy at the army’s
lying idle (for the enemies durst not come to battle), this accident or
incident occurred: Tharbis, the daughter of the King of Ethiopia,
happened to see Moses as he led the army near the walls, and fought
with great courage, and admiring the subtlety of his undertakings, and
taking him to be the author of the success of the Egyptians, she fell
deeply in love with him, and sent to him the most faithful of all her
servants to discourse with him about their marriage. He thereupon
accepted the offer, on condition that she would procure the delivering
up of the city; and gave her the assurance of an oath to make her his
wife, and that when he had once taken possession of the city he would
not break his oath to her. No sooner was the agreement made than its
condition was fulfilled; and when Moses had cut off the Ethiopians he
gave thanks to God, and consummated his marriage, and led the Egyptians
back to their own land.[2]
Now the Egyptians, after they had been preserved by Moses, entertained
a hatred to him, and were very eager in compassing their designs
against him, suspecting that he would take occasion, from his great
success, to raise a sedition and bring innovations into Egypt; so they
told the King he ought to be slain. The King had also some intentions
of his own to the same purpose; and, being instigated by the elders and
wise men, he was ready to undertake to kill Moses. But when Moses
learned this he went away privately and joined the army of Kikanus, the
King of Ethiopia, at that time suppressing a rebellion in Assyria, and
soon became a great favourite with the King and with all his
companions. Then Kikanus became sick and died in Ethiopia, and his
soldiers buried him and reared a monument over his remains, inscribing
upon it the memorable deeds of his life. After the death of King
Kikanus the army appointed Moses to be their King and leader. This took
place in the hundred and fifty-seventh year after Israel went down into
Egypt. The Ethiopians placed Moses upon their throne and set the crown
of state upon his head, and they gave him the widow of Kikanus for a
wife; but the widow of Kikanus was a wife to Moses in name only. When
Moses was made King of Ethiopia the Assyrians again rebelled as they
had done before; but Moses subdued them and placed them under yearly
tribute to the Ethiopian dynasty. Moses reigned in Ethiopia in justice
and righteousness. But the dowager Queen of Ethiopia, Adonith, who was
a wife to Moses in name only, said to the people: “Why should this
stranger continue to rule over you? Would it not be more just to place
the son of Kikanus upon his father’s throne, for he is one of you?” The
people, however, would not vex Moses, whom they loved, by such a
proposition; but Moses voluntarily resigned the power which they had
given him, and departed from their land. And the people of Ethiopia
made him many rich presents, and dismissed him with great honours.[3]
Moses being still fearful of returning to Egypt, travelled towards
Midian, and sat there to rest by a well of water. And the seven
daughters of Jethro, the priest of Midian, came there and drew water
and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock; and Moses helped
them, and at the invitation of their father he dwelt with them, and
married Zipporah, one of his daughters.
And in process of time the King of Egypt died, and the children of
Israel sighed by reason of the bondage; and God sent Moses to them to
deliver them. After the enthronement of the next King, Moses and his
brother Aaron came before Pharaoh and asked permission for the
Israelites to leave Goshen on a three days’ journey into the
wilderness, to hold a religious festival unto the Lord their God. But
Pharaoh refused; and thereupon Moses and Aaron showed miraculous signs
and deeds. Still the King persisted in his refusal; till at last the
anger of the Lord became great towards Pharaoh. God then commanded
Moses and Aaron to prepare the Passover sacrifice, saying: “I will pass
over the land of Egypt and slay the first-born, both of man and beast.”
The Israelites did as they were commanded, and at midnight the angel of
the Lord passed over the land and smote the first-born of Egypt, both
of man and beast. Then there was a great and grievous cry through all
the land, for there was not a house without its dead; and Pharaoh and
his people rose up in alarm and consuming grief, and called for Moses
and Aaron and bade them be gone, supposing that, if once the Hebrews
were gone out of the country, Egypt would be freed from its miseries.
They also gave the Israelites gifts, some in order to get them to
depart quickly, and others on account of their neighbourhood, and the
friendship they had with them.[4]
So the Hebrews went out of Egypt, while the Egyptians wept, and
repented that they had treated them so hardly. And Moses took the bones
of Joseph, the builder of the Storehouses of the King, with him; for
Joseph had strictly sworn the children of Israel, saying: “God will
surely visit you; and ye shall carry up my bones away hence with you.”
And they took their journey from Goshen, and encamped in Etham, in the
edge of the wilderness. This was in the eightieth year of the age of
Moses, and the eighty-third of his brother Aaron.
But the King soon regretted that he had let the Hebrews depart, so he
resolved to go after them to bring them back. Accordingly he pursued
after them with six hundred chariots, fifty thousand horsemen, and two
hundred thousand footmen, all armed. On coming up to the Hebrews they
seized on the passages by which they imagined the Hebrews might fly,
shutting them up between precipices and the sea; for there was on each
side a ridge of mountains that terminated at the sea, which were
impassable by reason of their roughness, and obstructed their flight.
Wherefore they were in great distress, as they had no weapons of war
for defence, nor was there a way of escape. So there was sorrow and
lamentation among the women and children, who had nothing but
destruction before their eyes, being encompassed with mountains, the
sea, and their enemies, and discerned no way of flying from them.
At this juncture Moses called all the people, and when they were ready
he stood on the sea-shore and prayed to God in these words: “Thou art
not ignorant, O Lord, that it is beyond human strength and human
contrivance to avoid the difficulties which we are now under; but it
must be Thy work altogether to procure deliverance to this army, which
has left Egypt at Thy appointment. We despair of any other assistance
or contrivance, and have recourse only to that hope we have in Thee;
and if there be any method that can promise us an escape by Thy
providence, we look up to Thee for it. And let it come quickly, and
manifest Thy power to us; and do Thou raise up this people to good
courage and hope of deliverance, who are deeply sunk into a
disconsolate state of mind. We are in a helpless place, but still it is
a place that Thou possessest; still the sea is Thine, the mountains
also that enclose us are Thine, so that these mountains will open
themselves if Thou commandest them; and the sea also, if Thou
commandest it, will become dry land. Nay, we might escape by a flight
through the air, if thou shouldst determine we should have that way of
salvation.”[5] When he ended his prayer, Moses lifted up his hand and
smote the sea with his rod, which parted asunder at the stroke, and,
receding, left the ground dry, as a road and a place of flight for the
Hebrews. Seeing the assistance of the Almighty thus vouchsafed in
answer to his prayer, he entered in first, and made the Hebrews follow
him; they obeyed and went on earnestly, as led by God’s presence. The
Egyptians supposed at first that they were distracted, and were going
rashly upon manifest destruction. But when they saw that they were
going a great way without any harm, and that no obstacle or difficulty
fell in their journey, they made haste to pursue them, hoping that the
sea would be calm for them also. They put their horse foremost, and
went down themselves into the sea. By this time the Hebrews had got
over to the land on the opposite side without any hurt. Whence the
others were encouraged, and more courageously pursued them, as hoping
no harm would come to them; but they were mistaken, for as soon as ever
the whole Egyptian army was within it, the sea flowed to its own place,
and came down with a torrent raised by storms of wind, and encompassed
the Egyptians. Showers of rain also came down from the sky, and
dreadful thunder and lightning, with flashes of fire. Thunderbolts also
were darted upon them; nor was there anything which used to be sent by
God upon men as indications of His wrath which did not happen at this
time, for a dark and dismal night oppressed them. And thus did the King
of Egypt and all his men perish, so that there was not one man left to
be a messenger of this calamity to the rest of the Egyptians.[6] On the
next day Moses gathered together the weapons of the Egyptians, which
were brought on shore by the current of the sea, the force of the winds
assisting it; and he armed the Hebrews with them. After returning
grateful thanks for this miraculous deliverance, he led the people to
Mount Sinai, as he was ordered by God beforehand. Here he instructed
them, and prepared them against the time when they should enter the
land of Canaan, which country they considered their inheritance, and to
which they looked as the destination of their journey. And Moses gave
them, among other lessons, the Ten Commandments, which were engraved
upon two stone slabs or tables, five on each table, and two and a half
upon each side of them. The First Commandment taught that there is but
one God, and that they ought to worship Him only; the Second commanded
them not to make the image of any living creature, to worship it; the
Third, that they must not swear by God in a false matter; the Fourth
that they must keep the seventh day, by resting from all sorts of work;
the Fifth, that they must honour their parents; the Sixth, that they
must abstain from murder; the Seventh, that they must not commit
adultery; the Eighth, that they must not be guilty of theft; the Ninth,
that they must not bear false witness; the Tenth, that they must not
admit the desire of anything that is another’s.[7] These two tables
were, for security, placed in a box or ark, made of wood that was
naturally strong and could not be corrupted. This ark was called, in
the Hebrew language, Eron. Its construction was thus: its length was
five spans, but its breadth and height were, each of them, three spans.
It was covered all over with gold, both within and without, so that the
wooden part was not seen. It had also a cover united to it by golden
hinges in a wonderful manner; which cover was every way evenly fitted
to it, and had no irregularities to hinder its exact conjunction. There
were also two golden rings fastened to each of the longer boards, and
passing right through the wood; through them gilt bars passed along
each board, that it might thereby be moved and carried about as
occasion should require; for it was not drawn in a cart by beasts of
burden, but borne on the shoulders of the priests. Upon this cover were
two images, which the Hebrews call cherubims; they are flying
creatures, but their form is not like to that of any of the creatures
which men have seen, though Moses said he had seen such beings near the
throne of God.[8]
As the people were dwelling in tents, and were marching towards the
land of Canaan by easy marches, Moses made a tent called the
Tabernacle, in which he placed the ark containing the two tables. This
Tabernacle served as a church in the wilderness, and wherever they
travelled they carried it about with them. Moses appointed his brother
Aaron to be the High Priest; and after the death of Aaron, Eleazar, his
son, became his successor, and the garments of his high office were put
upon him. The family of the Levites were the priests.
Moses remained with the Hebrews forty years, and laboured to make them
a religious and God-fearing people; but they frequently revolted
against him, murmuring whenever they were in distress, and tried his
patience to the utmost, till he forgot himself, and also complained
against God, for which he was forbidden to enter the land of Canaan.
Therefore, when he had admonished and repeated to the people all the
laws he had given them, he brought them to the border of Canaan, and
gave over the charge of the Hebrews to Joshua, his disciple and their
commander. Now, as Moses went from them to the place where he wished to
vanish out of their sight, they all followed after him weeping; but he
beckoned with his hand to those that were remote from him, and bade
them stay behind in quiet, while he exhorted those that were near him
that they would not mourn so at his departure. Whereupon they thought
they ought to grant him that favour, to let him depart according as he
himself desired; so they restrained themselves, though weeping still
towards one another. All those who accompanied him were the Senate, and
Eleazar the High Priest, and Joshua, their commander. Now as soon as
they were come to the mountain called Abarim (which is a very high
mountain, situate over against Jericho, and one that affords, to such
as are upon it, a prospect of the greatest part of the excellent land
of Canaan), he dismissed the Senate; and, as he was going to embrace
Eleazar and Joshua, and was still discoursing with them, suddenly a
cloud stood over him, and he disappeared in a certain valley out of
their sight.[9]
Moses was one hundred and twenty years old when he left the camp of the
Israelites. He spent forty years of his life in teaching the Laws of
God to the people in the wilderness. He was one that exceeded all men
that ever were in understanding, and made the best use of what that
understanding suggested to him. He had a very graceful way of speaking
and addressing himself to the multitude; and as to his other
qualifications, he had such a full command of his passions, as if he
had hardly any such in his soul, and only knew them by their names, as
rather perceiving them in other men than in himself. He was also such a
general of an army as is seldom seen, as well as a king and a prophet
as was never known, and this to such a degree, that whatsoever he
pronounced one would think he heard the voice of God Himself. So the
people mourned for him thirty days, nor did any grief so deeply affect
the Hebrews as did this upon the departure of Moses; nor were those who
had witnessed his conduct the only persons who desired him, but those
also who perused the laws he left behind him greatly longed for him,
and from those laws learned the extraordinary virtue he was master
of.[10] At this period of his life his eye was not dim, nor his natural
force abated. “And Joshua, the son of Nun, was full of the spirit of
wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands upon him; and the children of
Israel hearkened unto him, and did as the Lord commanded Moses. And
there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the
Lord knew face to face, in all the signs and the wonders, which the
Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh, and to all his
servants, and to all his land, and in all that mighty hand, and in all
the great terror which Moses showed in the sight of all Israel.”[11]
Although he wrote in the holy books that he died, it was for fear lest
they should say that, because of his extraordinary virtue, he went to
God.[12]
Moses was as we shall see, a great traveller, and acquainted with the
vast wilderness that extends from the centre of Africa to the jungles
of Bengal, that consists of rugged mountains and of sandy wastes; it
was traversed by three river-basins or valley plains. In its centre was
the basin of the Tigris and Euphrates. On its east was the basin of the
Indus; on its west was the basin of the Nile. Each of these river
systems was enclosed by deserts; the whole region resembling a broad
yellow field with three green streaks running north and south. The
inhabitants of these regions were not in the habit of travelling beyond
the confines of their own valleys. They resembled islanders, and they
had no ships. But the intermediate seas were navigated by the wandering
tribes, who sometimes pastured their flocks by the waters of the Indus,
sometimes by the waters of the Nile. It was by their means that the
trade between the river-lands was carried on. They possessed the camels
and other beasts of burden requisite for the transport of goods. Their
numbers and their warlike habits, their intimate acquaintance with the
watering-places and seasons of the desert, enabled them to carry the
goods in safety through a dangerous land; while the regular profits
they derived from the trade, and the oaths by which they were bound,
induced them to act fairly to those by whom they were employed. At this
time, 1451 B.C., a mighty tide of the Aryans immigrated to the basin or
valley plain of the Indus. They called themselves Arya, or noble, and
spoke a language the common source of Sanskrit, Prakrit, Zand, Persian,
and Armenian in Asia. They settled down as agriculturists in the
districts surrounding the Indus, their wealth consisting of flocks and
herds; thence, after a time, they overran by successive irruptions the
plains of the Ganges, and spread themselves over the regions called
Aryavarta, occupying the whole of Central India. They were the
promoters of the moral and intellectual progress and civilization in
India; and notwithstanding all the diversities of the Hindoo
populations throughout India, their religious faith has been preserved
in their one language and one literature, furnishing a good evidence of
the original unity of the Indo-Aryans. Their leader and legislator was
known by the name of Manu, who was no other than Moses. After leaving
the camp of the Israelites he travelled to the Indus; the form of
Government he established there was the counterpart or duplicate of the
one he established among the Hebrews; the laws and customs were the
very same; the most careful comparison will confirm the fact. Moses was
afraid that the Hebrews would trace his footsteps, so he sank his
identity by assuming a foreign name: thus, for Moses he used Manu; for
Abraham, Brahman; for Amram, Ram. All the remarkable Biblical events
are familiar to the Brahmans, and the record of the creation as
contained in the Bible was given in the Rig-veda of the Hindoos. The
narrative of the finding of Moses by the daughter of Pharaoh has a
corresponding record, but as he was more than one hundred and twenty
years old when he arrived in India, the account is that the Lawgiver
was cradled by a large sea-serpent on the bosom of the great waters for
ages, whilst he was in a state of somnolence.
The origin of the belief in the Transmigration of the Soul is also
taken from an event in the life of Moses, which is recorded in the
Hebrew Talmud thus: The Lord said to Moses, “Behold, thy days approach
that thou must die.” On this Moses thought that he had committed but a
slight offence, which would be pardoned; for ten times had Israel
tempted God’s wrath and been forgiven through his intercession, as it
is written: “And the Lord said, I have pardoned according to thy word.”
But when he became convinced that he would not be pardoned, he made the
following supplication: “Sovereign of the universe, my trouble and my
exertion for Israel’s sake is revealed and known before Thee. How I
have laboured to cause thy people to know Thee, and to believe in Thy
Holy Name, and practise Thy holy law, has come before Thee. O Lord, as
I had shared their trouble and their distress, I hoped to share their
happiness. Behold, now, the time has come when their trials will cease,
when they will enter into the land of promised bliss, and Thou sayest
to me, Thou shalt not pass over this Jordan. O Eternal, great and just,
if thou wilt not allow me to enter into this goodly land, permit me at
least to live on here in this world.”
Then God answered Moses, saying: “If thou wilt not die in this world,
how canst thou live in the world to come?” But Moses continued: “If
thou wilt not permit me to pass over this Jordan, let me live as the
beasts of the field; they eat of the herbs and drink of the waters, and
live and see the world; let my life be even as theirs.”
And God answered: “Let it suffice thee; do not continue to speak unto
me any more on this matter.” Yet again Moses prayed: “Let me live even
as the fowls; they gather their food in the morning, and in the evening
they return unto their nests. Let my life be even as theirs.”
And again God said: “Let it suffice thee; do not continue to speak to
me any more on this matter.” Then Moses proclaimed: “He is the Rock;
His work is perfect, and His ways are just; the God of Truth, just and
upright is He.”[13]
The Persians, known in India as Parsees, are worshippers of the element
of fire. This fire-worship originated from an event that took place in
Persia when the Hebrews were captives in that country. The King of
Persia gave the Hebrews leave to sacrifice to the Lord as Moses had
commanded them; and when the prophet Nehemiah had prepared the
sacrifice, the priests and the Israelites offered up this prayer: “O
Lord, Lord God, Creator of all things, Who art fearful and strong, and
righteous and merciful, and the only and gracious King, the only giver
of all things, the only just, almighty, and everlasting, Thou that
deliverest Israel from all trouble, and didst choose the fathers, and
sanctify them: Receive the sacrifice for Thy whole people Israel, and
preserve Thine own portion, and sanctify it. Gather those together that
are scattered from us, deliver them that serve among the heathen, look
upon them that are despised and abhorred, and let the heathen know that
Thou art our God. Punish them that oppress us, and with pride do us
wrong. Plant Thy people again in Thy holy place, as Moses hath spoken.”
And the priests sang psalms of thanksgiving.
Now when the sacrifice was consumed, Nehemiah commanded the water that
was left to be poured on the great stones. When this was done, there
was kindled a flame; but it was consumed by the light that shined from
the altar. So when this matter was known, it was told the King of
Persia that, in the place where the priests that were led away had hid
the fire, there appeared water, and that Nehemiah had purified the
sacrifices therewith. Then the King, inclosing the place, made it holy,
after he had tried the matter and convinced himself of the fact.[14]
The Mohammedans are the followers of Mohammed, and the Koran that he
gave them, he told his followers, “is not a new invented fiction, but a
confirmation of those Scriptures which have been revealed to Moses
before it, and a distinct explication of everything necessary in
respect either to faith or practice, and a direction and mercy unto
people who believe.”[15]
As for the Israelites, though they are now scattered over the face of
the whole earth, yet the Tabernacle, and the Altar of Incense, and the
Ark containing the two Stone Tables on which were engraven the Ten
Commandments given by God, by the hand of Moses, are still in Mount
Abarim, hidden there by Jeremiah the prophet, before the sack and
burning of the Temple of Solomon by the Babylonians. They are in a
cave, wherein Jeremiah laid them and stopped the door, saying, “As for
that place, it shall be unknown until the time that God gather his
people again together, and receive them unto mercy. Then shall the Lord
show them these things, and the glory of the Lord shall appear, and the
cloud also, as it was showed under Moses, and as when Solomon desired
that the place might be honourably sanctified.”[16]
After the departure of the Israelites from the land of Egypt, that
country was reduced to the lowest depth of misery. The King, with all
his chariots, horsemen, and footmen were all overwhelmed and destroyed;
there was no firstborn of man (or beast) to mourn the loss of their
kindred. The land was desolate, and the Storehouses of the King stood
out in their grandeur to remind the survivors of their ingratitude to
the relatives of the man who built them, to preserve the Egyptians
during the seven years of the grievous famine that afflicted the land
of Egypt. They must have avoided the sight of these monuments, thereby
to forget the misery and desolation they had brought on themselves by
their cruel treatment of the Hebrews. The Egyptian priests knew what
these buildings were, for they were the historians of their country;
but when Herodotus visited Egypt and made minute inquiries regarding
the Pyramids, they gave him a confused account, telling him, however,
that for one hundred and six years the Egyptians suffered all kinds of
calamities, and that for this length of time the temples were closed
and never opened. From the hatred they bore them, the Egyptians were
not willing to mention the names of their kings, but called the large
Pyramids after Philition (Zaphnath-paaneah, Psothom Phanech), a
shepherd who at that time kept his cattle in those parts.[17] Philition
is a corruption of the other two names given to Joseph by Pharaoh;
while the shepherds were the brothers of Joseph, and Goshen—Gizeh of
our time—the region where they dwelt, as commanded by the King. The
Greeks could make nothing out of the information gathered by Herodotus.
In course of time the first Republic of France sent a traveller into
Upper and Lower Egypt, and the inhabitants of the land of Egypt had so
far forgotten the events of the past that they showed him an enclosed
space as the granaries of Joseph. The traveller says: “You see at
ancient Cairo the granaries of Joseph, if the name of granaries can
with propriety be given to a vast space of ground surrounded with walls
twenty feet in height, and divided into a sort of courts which have no
roof, or any other covering whatever, in which are deposited the grains
brought out of Upper Egypt for the revenue, where they are the food of
a multitude of birds, and the receptacle of their ordure. The walls of
this enclosure are of a bad construction; they have nothing in their
appearance which announces an ancient building, and the love of the
marvellous alone could have attributed its elevation to the patriarch
Joseph.”[18] The French Government gained nothing, and its attention
was diverted from the Storehouses of the King. Since that time many
explorers have gone to the Pyramids, and spent princely fortunes in
trying to solve the mystery as to what they were and who built them.
But the Arabs are too cunning and too indolent to tell the truth; for
they know from experience that, if the truth were known, they would be
made to assist in repairing the Storehouses of the King, just as many
of the people were set to cut the Suez Canal, when the French
discovered an old undertaking of the reign of Necho, which had been
left unfinished because the oracle declared that the king was making
the canal for a barbarian. Wherefore the Arabs reckon that, ignoring
all knowledge, they gain a good livelihood as guides, by taking
travellers to the Pyramids, which is little trouble to them, but brings
them “plenty backsheesh.”