the monarch honoured him with honour galore than which naught could be
more; and, when the Prince paid him over the moneys, he asked, “What be
these dirhams?” “The price of my parents thou paidest to me,” answered
the other. But the King exclaimed, “I gave thee not to the value of thy
father and mother moneys of such amount as this sum. I only largessed
thee with a mare and a suit of clothes which was not defraying a debt
but presenting thee with a present and thereby honouring thee with due
honour. Then Alhamdolillah—laud be to the Lord, who preserved thee and
enabled thee to win thy wish, and now arise and take thy parents and
return in safety to thy bride.” The Prince hereupon thanked him and
praised Allah for the royal guerdon and favours and the fair treatment
wherewith he had been entreated; after which he craved leave to receive
his parents in charge and wend his ways. And when permission was granted
to him, he wished all good wishes to the King and taking his father and
his mother in weal and welfare he went his ways with them, in joy and
gladness and gratitude for all blessings and benefits by Allah upon him
bestowed, till he had returned to his bride. Here he found that his
father-in-law had deceased during his absence, so he took seat in lieu
of him upon the throne of the kingdom; and he and his consort, during
all the days of their life in this world, ceased not eating and drinking
in health and well-being and eating and drinking in joy and happiness
and bidding and forbidding until they quitted this mundane scene to the
safeguard of the Lord God. And here endeth and is perfected the history
of the Youth, the King’s son, and the sale of his parents and his
falling into the springes of the Princess who insisted upon proposing
problems to all her wooers with the condition that if they did not reply
she would do them drain the cup of destruction and on this wise had
slain a many of men; and, in fine, how she was worsted by and she fell
to the lot of this youth whom Allah gifted with understanding to ree all
her riddles and who had confounded her with his question whereto she
availed not to reply; so she was contented to marry him and he, when his
father-in-law died, succeeded to the kingdom which he ruled so well.
M.[229]
NOTE TO P. 105.
The Músà (Moses) of the Moslems is borrowed from Jewish sources, the
Pentateuch and especially the Talmud, with a trifle of Gnosticism
which, hinted at in the Koran (chapt. xviii), is developed by later
writers, making him the “external” man, while Khizr, the Green
prophet, is the internal. But they utterly ignore Manetho whose
account of the Jewish legislator (Josephus against Apion, i. cc. 26,
27) shows the other or Egyptian part. Moses, by name Osarsiph =
Osiris-Sapi, Osiris of the underworld, which some translate rich
(Osii) in food (Siph, Seph, or Zef) was nicknamed Mosheh from the
Heb. Mashah = to draw out, because drawn from the water[230] (or
rather from the Koptic Mo = water, ushe = saved). He became a priest
at An or On (Heliopolis), after studying the learning of the
Egyptians. Presently he was chosen chief by the “lepers and other
unclean persons” who had been permitted by King Amenophis to occupy
the city Avaris lately left desolate by the Shepherd Kings. Osarsiph
ordained the polity and laws of his followers, forbidding them to
worship the Egyptian gods and enjoining them to slay and sacrifice
the sacred animals. They were joined by the “unclean of the
Egyptians” and by their kinsmen of the Shepherds, and treated the
inhabitants with a barbarity more execrable than that of the latter,
setting fire to cities and villages, casting the Egyptian priests
and prophets out of their country, and compelling Amenophis to fall
back upon Ethiopia. After some years of disorder Sethos (also called
Ramesses from his father Rampses) son of Amenophis came down with
the King from Ethiopia leading great united forces, and,
“encountering the Shepherds and the unclean people, they defeated
them and slew multitudes of them, and pursued the remainder to the
borders of Syria.” Josephus relates this account of Manetho, which
is apparently truthful, with great indignation. For the prevalence
of leprosy we have the authority of the Hebrews themselves, and
Pliny (xxvi. 2) speaking of Rubor Ægyptus, evidently white leprosy
ending in the black, assures us that it was “natural to the
Ægyptians,” adding a very improbable detail, namely that the kings
cured it by balneæ (baths) of human blood.[231]
Schiller (in “Die Sendung Moses”) argues that the mission of the
Jewish lawgiver, as adopted son (the real son?) of Pharaoh’s
daughter, became “learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians,” by
receiving the priestly education of the royal princes, and that he
had advanced from grade to grade in the religious mysteries, even to
the highest, in which the great truth of the One Supreme, the
omniscient, omnipotent God was imparted, as the sublime acme of all
human knowledge, thus attributing to Moses before his flight into
Midian, an almost modern conception of an essentially
anthropomorphous Deity.
Further, that his conscious mission when he returned to Egypt was
not merely the deliverance of his people from the Egyptian yoke, but
the revelation to them of this great conception, and so the
elevation of that host of slaves to the position of a nation, to
whose every member the highest mystery of religion should be known
and whose institutions should be based upon it. It is remarkable
that Schiller should have accepted the fables of Manetho as history,
that he should not have suspected the fact that the Egyptian priest
wrote from motives of personal spite and jealousy, and with the
object of poisoning the mind of Ptolemy against the learned Jews
with whom he stood on terms of personal friendship. Thus he not only
accepts the story that the Hebrews were expelled from Egypt because
of the almost universal spread of leprosy among them, but explains
at length why that loathsome and horrible disease should have so
prevailed. Still Schiller’s essay, written with his own charming
eloquence, is a magnificent eulogy of the founder of the Hebrew
nation.
Goethe (“Israel in der Wüste”) on the other hand, with curious
ingenuity, turns every thing to the prejudice of the “headstrong
man” Moses, save that he does grant him a vivid sentiment of
justice. He makes him both by nature and education a grand, strong
man, but brutal (_roh_) withal. His killing the Egyptian is a secret
murder; “his dauntless fist gains him the favour of a Midianitish
priest-prince ... under the pretence of a general festival, gold and
silver dishes are swindled (by the Jews under Moses’s instigation)
from their neighbours, and at the moment when the Egyptians believe
the Israelites to be occupied in harmless feastings, a reversed
Sicilian vesper is executed; the stranger murders the native, the
guest the host; and, with a horrible cunning, only the first-born
are destroyed to the end that, in a land where the first-born
enjoyed such superior rights, the selfishness of the younger sons
might come into play, and instant punishment be avoided by hasty
flight. The artifice succeeds, the assassins are thrust out instead
of being chastised.” (Quoted from pp. 99–100 “The Hebrews and the
Red Sea,” by Alexander W. Thayer; Andover, Warren F. Draper, 1883).
With respect to the census of the Exodus, my friend Mr. Thayer, who
has long and conscientiously studied the subject, kindly supplied me
with the following notes and permitted their publication.
TRIESTE, _October 11, 1887_.
MY DEAR SIR RICHARD,
The points in the views presented by me in our
conversation upon the Hebrews and their Exodus, of which you
requested a written exposition, are, condensed, these:
Assuming that the Hebrew records, as we have them, are in the
main true, _i.e._ historic, a careful search must reveal some
one topic concerning which all the passages relating to it agree
at least substantially. Such a topic is the genealogies,
precisely that which Philippsohn the great Jewish Rabbi, Dr.
Robinson, of the Palestine researches, and all the Jewish and
Christian commentators—I know no exception—with one accord
reject! Look at these two columns, A. being the passages
containing the genealogies, B. the passages on which the
rejection of them is based:
A. │ B.
1. Genesis xxiv. 32, to xxv. 25 │ 1. Gen. xv. 13.
(Births of Jacob’s sons). │
│ 2. Ex. xii. 40, 41.
2. xxxv. 23–26 (Recapitulation of │ 3. Acts vii. 6.
the above). │
3. xlvi. 8–27 (List of Jacob and │These three give the 400 and the
his sons when they came into │ 430 years of the supposed bondage
Egypt). │ of the Bene Jacob, but are offset
│ by Gen. xv. 16 (four generations)
│ and Gal. iii. 17 (Paul’s
│ understanding of the 430 years).
4. Ex. vi. 14–27 (Lineage of Aaron│
and Moses). │
5. Numb. xxxvi. 1–2 (Lineage of │ 4. The story of Joseph, beginning
Zelophehad). │ Gen. xxxvii. 2, gives us the
│ dates in his life; viz., 17
│ when sold, 30 when he becomes
│ Prime Minister, 40 when his
│ father joins him.
6. Josh. vii. 17–18 (Lineage of │
Achan). │
7. Ruth iv. 18–22 (ditto of │
David). │
8. 1 Chron. ii. 9–15 (ditto). │
9. Mat. i. 2–6 (ditto). │
10. Luke iii. 32–37 (ditto). │ 5. 1 Chron. vi. 1–15 (Lineage of
│ Ezra’s brother Jehozadak,
│ abounding in repetitions and
│ worthless).
11. Ezra vii. 1–5 (ditto of │
Ezra). │
The lists of Princes, heads of │
tribes, the spies, the │
commission to divide │
conquered Palestine contain │
names that can be traced │
back, and all coincide with │
the above. │
1. As between the two, the column A. is in my opinion more
trustworthy than B.
2. By all the genealogies of the Davidian line we have Judah No.
1, Solomon No. 12. By Ezra’s genealogy of his own family we have
Levi No. 1, and Azariah (Solomon’s High Priest) No. 12. They
agree perfectly.
3. If there were 400 years of _Hebrew_ (Bene Jacob) slavery
between the death of Joseph and the Exodus, there were 400 - 80
= 320, between Joseph’s death and the birth of Moses. If this
was so there is no truth in the accounts of Moses and Aaron
being the great-grandchildren of Levi (Levi, Kohath, Amram,
Aaron and Moses). In fact, if Dr. Robinson be correct in saying
that at least six generations are wanting in the genealogies of
David (to fill the 400 years) the same must be lacking in _all_
the early genealogies. Reductio ad absurdum!
4. Jacob, a young man, we will say of 40, is sent to Laban for a
wife. He remains in Padan Aram twenty years (Gen. xxxi. 38),
where all his sons except Benjamin were born, that is, before he
was 60. At 30 he joined Joseph in Egypt (Gen. xlvii. 9). Joseph,
therefore, born in Padan Aram was now, instead of 40, over 70
years old! That this is so, is certain. In Judah’s exquisite
pleadings (Gen. xliv. 18–34) he speaks of Benjamin as “the child
of Jacob’s old age,” “a little one,” and seven times he calls
him “the lad.” Benjamin is some years younger than Joseph, but
when the migration into Egypt takes place—a few weeks after
Judah’s speech—Benjamin comes as father of _ten_ sons (Gen.
xlvi. 21), but here _Bene_ Benjamin is used in its broad sense
of “descendants,” for in 1 Chron. vii. 6–12 we find that the
“Bene” were sons, grandsons and _great_-grandsons. To hold that
Joseph at 40 had a younger brother who was a great-grandfather,
is, of course, utterly absurd.
5. According to Gen. xv. 18, the Exodus was to take place in the
fourth generation _born in Egypt_, as I understand it.
Born in Egypt:—
Levi (father of) Judah (father of)
Kohath Pharez
Hezron
1. Amram 1. Ram
2. Aaron 2. Amminadab
3. Eleazar 3. Nahshon
4. Phineés 4. Salma
A conspicuous character in Numbers (xiii. 6, 30; xiv. 24, etc.)
is Caleb. In the first chapter of Judges Caleb still appears,
and Othniel, the son of his younger brother Kenaz is the first
of the so-called Judges (Jud. iii. 9). This also disposes of the
400 years and confirms the view that the Exodus took place in
the fourth generation born in Egypt. Other similar proofs may be
omitted—these are amply sufficient.
6. What, then, was the origin of the notion of the 400 years of
Hebrew slavery?
If the Egyptian inscriptions and papyri prove anything, it is
this: that from the subjugation of Palestine by one of the
Thotmes down to the great invasion of the hordes from Asia Minor
in the reign of Rameses III., that country had never ceased to
be a Pharaonic province; that during these four or five
centuries every attempt to throw off the yoke had been crushed
and its Semitic peoples deported to Egypt as slaves; that
multitudes of them joined in the Exodus under Moses, and became
incorporated with the Hebrews under the constitution and code
adopted at Horeb (=Sinai? or Jebel Aráif?) These people became
“Seed of Abraham,” “Children of Israel,” by adoption, to which I
have no doubt, Paul refers in the “adoption” of Romans viii.
15–23; ix. 4; Gal. iv. 5; Eph. i. 5. In the lapse of ages this
distinction between Bene Israel and Bene Jacob was forgotten,
and therefore the very uncritical Masorites in their edition of
the Old Testament “confounded the confusion” in this matter.
With the disappearance of the 400 years and of the supposed two
or three centuries covered by the book of Judges, the
genealogies stand as facts. The mistake in the case of the
Judges is in supposing them to have been consecutive, when, in
fact, as the subjugations by neighbouring peoples were local and
extended only over one or two tribes, half a dozen of them may
have been contemporaneous.
7. Aaron and Moses were by their father Amram,
greatgrandchildern of Levi—by their mother’s his grandchildren
(Ex. vi. 20). Joseph lived to see his own great-grandchildren.
Moses must have been born _before_ Joseph’s death.
8. There is one point determined in which the Hebrew and the
Egyptian chronologers coincide. It is the invasion of Judea by
Shishak of Egypt in the fifth year of Rehoboam, son of Solomon
(1 Kings xiv. 25). Supposing the Egyptian chronology from the
time of Minephtah II. to be in the main correct, as given by
Brugsch and others, the thirteen generations, Judah—Rehoboam,
allowing three to a century, take us back to just that
Minephtah. In his reign, according to Brugsch, that Pharaoh sent
breadstuffs to the Chittim in “the time of famine.” The Hebrew
records and traditions connect Joseph’s prime ministry with a
famine. By the genealogies it could have been only this in the
time of Minephtah.
9. The Bene Jacob were but temporary sojourners in Goshen and
always intended to return to Canaan. They were independent and
had the right to do so. See what Joseph says in Gen. i. 24–25.
But before this design was executed came the great irruption of
the Northern hordes, which broke the power of the Chittim and
Philistia and devastated or depopulated all Palestine, in the
time of Ramses III. Here was an opportunity for the Bene Jacob
to enlarge their plans and to devise the conquest and possession
of Palestine. According to Josephus, supported by Stephen (Acts
vii. 22), Moses was a man “mighty in works”—a man of military
fame. The only reasonable way of understanding the beginning of
the Exodus story, is to suppose, that, in the weakened condition
of Ramses III., the Hebrew princes began to intrigue with the
enslaved Semites—the Ruthenu of the Egyptian inscriptions—and
this being discovered by the Pharaoh, Moses was compelled to
fly. Meantime the intrigues were continued and when the time for
action came, under one of Ramses’ weak successors, Moses was
recalled and took command.
10. This prepares us for the second query, which you proposed,
that is as to the numbers who joined in the Exodus.
The Masoretic text, from which the English version of the Hebrew
records is made, gives the result of the census at Sinai
(=Horeb) as being 603,550 men, “twenty years old and upwards,
that were able to go forth to war in Israel”—the tribe of Levi
_not_ included. On this basis it has been generally stated, that
the number of the Bene Israel at the Exodus was three millions.
Of late I find that two millions is the accepted number. The
absurdity of even this aggregate is manifest. How could such a
vast multitude be subsisted? How kept in order? How compelled to
observe sanitary regulations? Moreover, in the then enfeebled
state of Egypt, why should 603,550 armed men not have marched
out without ceremony? Why ask permission to go to celebrate a
sacrifice to their God?
But there is another series of objections to these two millions,
which I have never seen stated or even hinted, to which I pray
your attention.
The area of Palestine differs little from that of the three
American States, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut,
the most densely peopled of the Union, containing by the last
census a population of somewhat less than two and a half
millions.
By the second Hebrew census (Numb. xxvi.) taken just before the
death of Moses, the army was 601,730; from which the inference
has always been drawn, that at least 2,000,000, in the
aggregate, Levites 23,000 _males_ still excepted, entered and
possessed the conquered territories.
Take now one of the late maps of Palestine and mark upon it the
boundaries of the tribes as given in the book of Joshua. This
second census gives the number of each _tribal_ army to be
inserted in each tribal territory Reuben, 43,750; Judah, 76,500;
Benjamin, 45,600, etc., etc. By Josh. xii. the land was then
divided between some 40 petty kings and peoples, 31 of whom are
named as having been subjected. If, now, Joshua’s army numbered
over 600,000, why was not the conquest made complete?
Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut are divided into 27
counties. Suppose, now, that these counties were each a separate
and independent little kingdom dependent upon itself, for
defence, what resistance could be made to an army of 600,000
men, all of them grown up during forty years of life in a camp,
and in the full vigour of manhood? And yet Joshua was unable to
complete his conquest! Again, the first subjugation of a part of
the newly-conquered territory as noted in the book of Judges,
was Judah and Simeon by a king of Edom.[232] If Judah could put
an army into the field of 76,500, and Simeon 22,500, their
subjugation by a king of Edom is incredible, and the story
absurd. Next comes King Eglon of Moab and subjugates the tribes
of Reuben and Gad, east of the Dead Sea and the Jordan. And yet
Reuben has an army of over 43,000, and Gad 45,000. And so on.
Accepting the statement that Moses led over 600,000 men “able to
go to war” out of Egypt, and Joshua an equal number to the
conquest of Canaan, the story of the Exodus, of that conquest
and of the subsequent subjugations of various tribes by the
neighbouring kings are all nonsense; the books of Joshua and
Judges are incredible. The difficulty is fully met and overcome,
if we suppose the number to have been exaggerated, as it would
be by adding a cypher to the right of a line of Arabic numerals,
by which 60,000 is made 600,000; the 76,500 warriors of Judah
are reduced to 7,650, and so on.
With an army of 60,000 only, and an aggregate of half a million
of people led out of Egypt, all the history becomes instantly
rational and trustworthy.
There remains one more bubble to be exploded.
Look at these figures, in which a quadruple increase—at least 25
per centum too great—is granted.[233]
1st Generation, the Patriarchs, in number 12
2nd do. Kohath, Pharez, etc. 48
3rd do. Amram, Hezron, etc. 192
4th do. Aaron and Moses 768
—————
Aggregate 1,020
Minus 25 per cent. for deaths, children, etc. 255
—————
Actual number of Bene Jacob 765
—————
But Jacob and his sons brought with them herdsmen, shepherds,
servants, etc. Bunsen puts the number of all, masters and men,
at less than 2,000.
Let the proportion in this case be one able-bodied man in four
persons, and the increase triple.
1st Generation 500
2nd do. 1,500
3rd do. 4,500
4th do. 13,500
——————
29,000
Minus 25 per centum as above 7,250
——————
21,750
Add the real Bene Jacob 765
——————
Aggregate 22,515
——————
Were these people, while Joseph is still alive, the subjects of
slavery as described in Ex. i.? Did they build Pithom and
Ramses, store-cities?
The number is sufficient to lead in the great enterprise and to
control the mixed multitude which was at Sinai, adopted as “Bene
_Israel_,” “Seed of Abraham,” and divided among and incorporated
with the tribes; but not sufficient to warrant the supposition
that with so small a force the Hebrew leaders could for a moment
have entertained the project of conquering Palestine.
A word more on the statement in Ex. i. 11: “And they built for
Pharaoh store-cities, Pithom and Ramses.” All Egyptologists
agree that these cities were built by Ramses II., or certainly
not later than his reign. If the Hebrew genealogies are
authentic, this was long before the coming of Jacob and his sons
into Egypt.
(Signed) A. W. THAYER.
THE TALE OF THE WARLOCK AND THE YOUNG COOK OF BAGHDAD.
=Here we begin with the aidance of Allah Almighty, the Tale of the
Warlock and the Young Cook of Baghdad.=[234]