Foreign Rule and Anarchy” with the “Time of the Judges and of Peace.”
For the former he puts 3 _x_ + 111 years, for the latter, including
the monarchical time to the building of the Temple, 4 _x_ + 442 years.
He considers the first, less historical than the last (p. 212), and
supposes that the number 480 is perhaps formed out of the latter 442.
At all events, he believes we must start from this number. But I should
prefer an entirely different combination, which promises to lead sooner
to a result. If we place the uncertain and round numbers upon one side,
and the remaining on the other side, we shall obtain the following
survey[348]:
INDETERMINATE NUMBERS. | HISTORICAL NUMBERS.
-------------------------------------+---------------------------------
40. Years in the Desert. |
|
_x_ _Joshua_ (25, according to |
Josephus, A. J. V. 1, 29). |
|
_x_ Successors to Joshua (Joshua |
xxiv. 31). |
|
40. _Othniel_ (Judg. iii. 11). | 8. under Mesopotamia (Judg.
| iii. 8.)
|
| 18. under the Moabites (Judg.
80. _Ehud_ (Judg. iii. 30; according | iii. 14).
to the Seventy 40). |
|
_x_ _Shamgar._ |
|
| 20. under the Canaanites (Judg.
| iv. 3. This Period happens,
40. _Deborah_ (Judg. iv. 4) and | according to Judg. iv. 4,
_Barak_ (Judg. v. 1, 31). | perhaps under Deborah).
|
40. _Gideon_ (Judg. viii. 28). | 7. under the Midianites (Judg.
| vi. 1).
|
| 3. _Abimelech_ (Judg. ix. 22).
| 23. _Tola_ (Judg. x. 2).
| 22. _Jair_ (Judg. x. 3).
| 18. Philistines (Judg. x. 8).
| 6. _Jephthah_ (Judg. xii. 7).
| 7. _Ibzan_ (Judg. xii. 9).
| 10. _Elon_ (Judg. xii. 11).
| 8. _Abdon_ (Judg. xii. 14).
| ---
40. Philistines (Judg. xiii. 1). | 150
|
20. _Samson_ (in the time of the |
Philistines, Judg. xv. 20, |
xvi. 31). |
|
_x_ Anarchy (Judg. xvii. 6, xviii. |
1, xix. 1, xxi. 25). |
|
40. _Eli_ (1 Sam. iv. 18). |
|
20. _Saul_ (1 Sam. vii. 1, 2; |
compare iv. 18, vi. 1; 2 Sam. |
vi. 3; 1 Chron. xiv. 3. |
According to Acts xiii. 21, |
Jos. A. J. VI. 14, 9, Saul |
reigned 40 years). |
|
40. _David_ (2 Sam. v. 4, 5; 1 |
Kings, ii. 11). |
-------------------------------------+---------------------------------
14 times _x_ × 12 years = 168. 150 + 168 = 318 years.
From this juxtaposition alone we obtain a threefold division of the
whole period. In the first division we see from the time of Joshua the
determinate and indeterminate numbers alternating almost regularly (for
_Shamgar_ appears to be included in _Ehud’s_ higher number, and therefore
to have no number himself), and the historical numbers are certainly
not ascribed here to the separate personages, but to the period of the
oppression, therefore the whole time appears to have been one of contest
and startling revolts, which, by means of a succession of powerful men,
ends at length in a victorious assertion of their own dominion.
This second period commences with Abimelech, and is only once interrupted
by the government of the Philistines. Here there is a real succession of
events and separate governments, and therefore no round numbers.
The third division begins with a new, and, as it appears, a far longer
oppression by the Philistines, in which the narrative of _Sampson_ only
forms a passing episode. It seems to me that the anarchical times, which
are entirely omitted by others, are connected with this oppression, and,
although there is no date, that they were of considerable duration. They
form, in a certain degree, the real conclusion of the time of the Judges.
The new, the regal time, begins with Eli, which is always alluded to in
the time of the anarchy. Before the time of Eli the historical thread
was broken; from his time it continues uninterrupted. Eli prepares the
way for the kings. Samuel grows up under him, and his first action after
the death of Eli seems to have been to anoint _Saul_ as king. He appears
to have continued his _office of judge_ under Saul, whom he has rather
chosen as a _general_, as he also afterwards anoints _David_ as king.
This may be the reason why no time is ascribed to him; the Ark of the
Covenant, which was taken as booty in the conquest of Mizpah by the
Philistines, and was retained for seven months (1 Sam. vi. 1), was thus
brought to Kirjath-Jearim, shortly before Saul’s elevation; remained
there twenty years (1 Sam. vii. 2), and was first brought away from that
place at the elevation of David (2 Sam. vi. 3), “_for we inquired not at
it in the days of Saul_” (1 Chron. xiii. 3).
If we now add up the historical numbers, we shall obtain 150 years, so
that there is on an average 12 years for each of the twelve governments.
Now if we apply this mean number (which is best adapted to the purpose,
and which was also that of the kings of Israel) to the fourteen
governments, whose numbers are uncertain, we shall obtain 168 years,
which, together with the 150, gives 318 years. Now if we count these
backward, beginning at Solomon, about 1000 years before Christ, we come
to the year 1318 before Christ, therefore again under the government of
Pharaoh MENEPHTHES.
We thus obtain, also, from this side a simple confirmation of our former
results. It is at least evident, that the numbers in the Book of Judges
can no longer be employed as a refutation of the Manethonic calculation.
But this agreement between the chronology of the time of the Judges, and
the genealogies of the Chronicles, is of manifest importance to Jewish
history.
As soon as we may consider the chronological importance of the
genealogies established, we are enabled to rise still higher on the
same path in the history of Israel, and to obtain a chronological view
concerning the period of the sojourn of the Israelites _in Egypt_.
If in the 40 years of the later generations we can only perceive a
chronological _garb_, without on that account supposing that the
substance of the narratives are unhistorical, still less should we see
in the hundred and more years of the generations from Abraham to Moses,
the true chronological relation upon which these perfectly credible
narratives are founded. The whole array of numbers is rather, as we have
indicated above, to be judged from a perfectly different point of view,
the closer investigation of which does not belong here.
When, for the sake of judging the chronology of the times from Moses to
Jacob, and from Jacob to Abraham, we start from the historical importance
of the genealogies, this period becomes extremely contracted, and we are
led to new historical comparisons, which appear to throw a clear light
upon those times.
In all registers of generations we only find _three_ generations from
_Joseph_ or _Levi_ to _Moses_. In the pedigree of _Judah_, indeed, we
only saw _two_, which was however explained by the unnatural alliance of
Thamar. But _Aaron_ himself, and _Moses_, on the father’s side, stood in
the third degree from _Levi_, but from the maternal side in the second;
for their father, _Amram_, the grandson of Levi, took to wife in Egypt
his aunt _Jochabed_, the daughter of Levi (Exod. vi. 20; Num. xxvi.
59), who bore him Moses and Aaron. Thus one event explains and confirms
another, and allows us still less to doubt the historical reality and the
natural relations which the successive generations bear to each other.
Therefore, unless we wish to regard all the narratives of those times,
and all the accounts, which afterwards refer to them, as mythical and
unhistorical, for which there is not the slightest ground, we must
also here separate the chronological garb from the subject itself, and
recognise, as a necessary conclusion, that _only about ninety years
intervened from the entrance of Jacob to the Exodus of Moses_, and
_about as much_ from the _entrance of Abraham into Canaan_, to _Jacob’s
Exodus_[349], so that from Abraham to Moses only about 180, or if we wish
to make the most of it, 215 years passed, which alone, according to the
present calculation, are reckoned from Abraham to Jacob.
But even this result is by no means only founded upon the internal
impossibility of the numbers hitherto adopted, nor upon the genealogies
alone, but upon a much more general historical connection of the events,
as we find them both in the Egyptian and Israelitish history of those
times.
All the views hitherto adopted from Josephus, and from those who before
his day held the same opinions, down to the most modern scholars, must,
on the supposition that the Jews were the Hyksos—which we have rejected
above (p. 422), as not worth refutation—or at least that they departed
_with_ them, and further that they lived in Egypt from the time of Jacob,
215 or 430 years, necessarily have led them to the conclusion that Joseph
and Jacob came to Egypt during the _dominion of the Hyksos_. But an
attentive and impartial consideration of the passages bearing upon this
point, show beyond doubt that this could not be the case according to the
_Biblical_ accounts, and therefore that either this representation, or
the accepted chronology, must contain errors.
“And Joseph,” it says, Gen. xxxix. 1, “was brought down to Egypt, and
Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard, an Egyptian,
bought him of the hands of the Ishmaelites, which had brought him down
thither.”
Here, as in all the other passages where the _Egyptian_ king is
mentioned, he is called _Pharaoh_. This is an Egyptian designation
and not a _Semitic_ one, as we should have expected if the Semitic
Hyksos[350] had still ruled in Egypt. In that case we should have been
everywhere compelled to admit in this designation, throughout the history
of Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, and Moses, an anachronism which cannot easily
find a parallel. The captain of the king’s body-guard was also an
_Egyptian_, as is proved by his name Potiphar, פוטיפר[351], which is
written by the Seventy Πετεφρής, _i. e._ _Petphra_. Still an _Egyptian_
in so important a situation at a _Semitic_ court might as well form an
exceptional case, as the _Hebrew_ Joseph, according to our opinion, at an
_Egyptian_ court. “And Pharaoh took off his ring from his hand, and put
it upon Joseph’s hand, and arrayed him in vestures of fine linen[352],
and put a gold chain[353] about his neck. And he made him to ride in
the second chariot[354] which he had, and they cried before him, Bow
the knee; and he made him ruler over all the land of Egypt. And Pharaoh
said unto Joseph, I am Pharaoh, and without thee shall no man lift up
his hand or foot in all the land of Egypt. And Pharaoh called Joseph’s
name צפנת פענח (Ψονθομφανήχ), and he gave him to wife _Asenath_,
the daughter of _Potipherah_, PRIEST OF ON.” (Gen. xli. 42, &c.) The
fact that the distinctions here conferred upon Joseph are in perfect
accordance with Egyptian manners[355], would still not be sufficient to
prove that he lived at an Egyptian court, for the Semitic rulers might
possibly have brought with them the same customs, or might have adopted
them. But if such were our belief, it would be impossible to combine
with it the circumstance that Joseph received from Pharaoh expressly
an _Egyptian_ name. For even if the older Hebrew commentators have
attempted to derive the name from the Hebrew, these attempts have long
been rejected by modern scholars[356]. We should be able to decide with
more complete certainty about the Egyptian signification of the name if
we found it written in hieroglyphics. It sounds in Hebrew _Zepnet-ponch_
(_Zaphnath-phaneach_). It appears to me that the last portion can hardly
be referred to any other word than the hieroglyphical 𓋹𓈖𓐍 anch, Coptic
ⲱⲛϩ, ⲁⲛϩ, with the article ⲡ ⲱⲛϩ, the life; the first part is obscure.
Since the Seventy write Ψονθομφανήχ, it is generally supposed that the
two first letters in the Hebrew text have been misplaced, and that the
uniting genitive —_n_ (before the labial —_m_) has been omitted. Both are
possible, but not probable. It seems to me that the Seventy cannot claim
any more authority on this point than any other interpreter. It is not
surprising that, without understanding the hieroglyphical writing, they
were as little capable as we are of explaining the old name from the
popular language. But that they wrote Ψονθ in place of _Zepnet_, or
_Zpent_, seems to prove that they explained the name something like ⲡ
ⲥⲱⲛⲧ ⲙ ⲫⲁⲛϩ _creatio_ (_creator_) vitæ.
But how is it possible that a _Semitic_ king, who, like the six in the
lists of the so-called shepherd kings, must undoubtedly have himself
borne a Semitic name, would have given Joseph an _Egyptian_ name, in
order to do him honour.
_Asenath_ is of course an _Egyptian_ name like that of her father,
_Potiphra_, _i. e._ _Petphra_, and his being called a _High priest
of On_ (Heliopolis) is an additional and more certain proof that the
Semitic nation of the Hyksos were not reigning here, for they would have
destroyed all the Egyptian temples; and they would hardly have permitted
the worship of _Ra_ (Helios) to continue in the neighbourhood of Memphis,
whose High priest must give his daughter to Joseph for a wife, in order
to show him particular honour, and to naturalise him completely.
It is equally evident, from the meeting of Joseph with his brethren, that
he lived at a really Egyptian court. Distrust towards their Phœnician
neighbours was continually kept alive among the Egyptians, therefore it
was easy to form a pretext to attack the Hebrews. “Ye are spies, to see
the nakedness of the land ye are come.” (Gen. xlii. 9, 12, 14.) When the
brethren talk among themselves of the act which they perpetrated against
Joseph, they speak out loud in the presence of Joseph: “They knew not
that Joseph understood them, for he spake unto them by an _interpreter_.”
(Gen. xlii. 23.) Joseph had become so completely an Egyptian, and the
Egyptian language was so exclusively spoken at the court of Pharaoh, that
the brethren could not conjecture any one was near them who understood
their language.
When, therefore, on their second visit to Joseph’s house, they were about
to take their meal, it is said, “And they set for him by himself, and for
them by themselves, and for the Egyptians, which did eat with him, by
themselves: _because the Egyptians might not eat bread with the Hebrews,
for that is an abomination unto the Egyptians_.” (Gen. xliii. 32.) The
native Egyptians could never have expressed this horror, and regulated
their manners accordingly, under the dominion of a Semitic reigning
family. Lastly, it is equally improbable that Joseph would have advised
the immigrating family to call themselves shepherds in order to obtain
from Pharaoh a country set apart for themselves. “And it shall come to
pass when Pharaoh shall call you, and shall say, What is your occupation?
That ye shall say, Thy servant’s trade hath been about cattle from our
youth, even until now, both we, and also our fathers; that ye may dwell
in the land of Goshen; for every shepherd is an abomination unto the
Egyptians.” (Gen. xlvi. 33.) If the shepherd people of the Hyksos reigned
in Egypt, how could the shepherds be an abomination to them?
If it is therefore evident that Joseph lived at an _Egyptian_, and
not at a _Semitic_ court, the old tradition of the Jewish interpreters
that Joseph came to Egypt in the reign of a shepherd king, Apophis, is
entirely destroyed, as well as the view taken by more modern scholars
concerning the Hebrew chronology of that time.
But according to Manetho, the Exodus happened in the reign of Menephthes,
and according to all the Hebrew genealogies, Jacob’s entrance could only
have happened 90 or 100 years earlier. Therefore Sethôs, the father of
the great Ramses, must certainly be the Pharaoh under whom Joseph came
into Egypt. This is most indubitably confirmed by the unmistakeable
agreement which exists between the Hebrew account of the Pharaoh of
Joseph, and what is related by others of King Sethôs. It is said by the
former, “And Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh; for the
Egyptians sold every man his field, because the famine prevailed over
them: _so the land became Pharaoh’s_. And as for the people, he removed
them to cities from one end of the borders of Egypt even to the other
end thereof. Only the land of the priests bought he not; for the priests
had a portion assigned them of Pharaoh, and did eat their portion which
Pharaoh gave them: wherefore they sold not their lands. Then Joseph said
unto the people, Behold, I have bought you this day and your land for
Pharaoh: lo, here is seed for you, and ye shall sow the land. And it
shall come to pass in the increase, that ye shall give the fifth part
unto Pharaoh, and four parts shall be your own.... And Joseph made it
a law over the land of Egypt unto this day, that Pharaoh should have
the fifth part; except the land of the priests only, which became not
Pharaoh’s.” (Gen. lxvii. 20, &c.)
We find the same great alteration in the agrarian conditions of the
country, and connected with it the introduction of a general ground-tax,
from which the priests alone were excepted, ascribed by Herodotus and
Diodorus to the King _Sesostris-Sesoosis_.
We read in Herodotus, ii. 1081, that the king intersected the country
with canals, because the places which were remote from the Nile suffered,
when it retreated, from a scarcity of water. It appears from what
has been observed above, that it was chiefly Ramses who completed the
Egyptian system of canals, although it is very probable that the great
transformation in the condition of the ground which it occasioned had
been already commenced by his father, _Sethôsis_. It is well known that
the fertility of Egypt alone depends upon the proper and well-maintained
regulation of the overflowings. Since the time of _Möris-Amenemha_, who
was the first to bestow any considerable attention upon it, the country
had degenerated, owing to its long foreign rule, and had but just risen
again to complete independence under the mighty Pharaohs of the 18th
Dynasty. It is quite conceivable that such comprehensive and tedious
undertakings for increasing the general prosperity, as a universal
construction of canals, especially in the Delta, could only have been
first undertaken by the earlier kings of the 19th Dynasty, _Sethôsis_
and _Ramses_, who were both of them favoured by long reigns. Therefore
until that time, a general failure of the crops and a famine might have
very frequently occurred, at a low or even a moderate rise of the water,
and perhaps happened for several successive years. Strabo[357] relates
that, before the time of the Prefect Petronius, owing to the water-works
being neglected, famine broke out in Egypt if the Nile only rose 8 ells,
and 14 ells were necessary for a particularly good year; whereas, by
his improvements, it was only necessary for the Nile to rise 10 ells to
produce the best harvest, and if it rose but 8 ells no scarcity ensued.
Famine broke out in Egypt in the Arabian times also from the same
reason[358]. Thus the famine-years in the time of Joseph may be explained
to have occurred in the reign of Sethôs; this event may even have called
attention to the necessity of a better water regulation in the country.
In the following chapter Herodotus says, that the King Sesostris “divided
the land between all the Egyptians by giving an equal-sized square
portion to each, from which he afterwards derived his income by laying
an annual tax upon it. But when the river carried away a part of any
person’s portion, he showed it to the king, who sent people to inquire
and measure how much smaller the piece of land had become, in order that
he might pay the tax for the remainder according to the commands.” This
is essentially the same arrangement which is ascribed to Joseph, the
minister of Pharaoh. Herodotus had already[359] mentioned in an earlier
passage that the priests paid no taxes, but even received their daily
sustenance besides, exactly as it is related in the Mosaic accounts.
Diodorus[360] says of SESOOSIS, that he “divided the whole country into
thirty-six parts,” which the Egyptians called Nomes; over these he placed
Nomarchs, who had the charge of the ROYAL REVENUES, and “ruled everything
besides in their provinces.” Therefore here again there was an entirely
new division and government of the country, in which the taxes to the
king are not forgotten. Afterwards (c. 57) he adds also, that he raised
many great mounds, and upon them _transplanted the towns_ which were
situated too low (μετῴκισεν). The fresh regulations in the country, and
especially the new canals, necessarily created a great number of towns
and villages for the management of the grounds which were portioned out,
and were now partly cultivated for the first time. To this we may most
naturally refer the remark in the Hebrew account that Pharaoh “removed
them to cities from one end of the borders of Egypt even to the other
end thereof.” (Gen. xlvii. 21.) Diodorus (c. 56) also mentions the hard
taskwork which thence became necessary, and that in consequence of it
the “Babylonian prisoners, who could no longer bear the toilsome labour,
rebelled against the king.”
In the very valuable description of the manner in which the Egyptian
administration had subsisted under the _old_[361] kings of the country,
which is drawn from the most ancient sources, Diodorus again mentions
(c. 73, 74) the arrangement of the Nomes, and a division of the property,
by which one-third belonged to the priests, one to the king, the other
to the warriors; and how all the cultivators of the soil, for a small
reward, only performed task-service for the three orders who possessed
land. It is here also expressly mentioned, that the priests were exempt
(ἀτελεῖς) from taxation[362]. But it seems that it is only from the
Mosaic narrative we learn that the universal statute of the taxes imposed
on the remaining possessors of the land was fixed upon exactly the _fifth
part_ of the produce; this narrative here, as well as in other points,
confidently completes our knowledge of those circumstances.
Now if the arrangements we have cited, which in fact so essentially
changed Egypt, that their introduction could not fail to occupy an
important place in the monuments of that time, and to be thus handed down
to posterity, were ascribed in the Greek account to SESOSTRIS-SESOOSIS,
we should, in the next place, be uncertain whether SETHÔS or his son
RAMSES was meant. It is not in itself improbable, that works demanding so
much time, and the extensive alterations in the political circumstances,
might fully occupy two such long reigns as those of both the kings
mentioned; and of the canal works especially, we know that at least two
particular canals of considerable importance were completed by Ramses,
east and west of the Delta, and towns were built beside them. But since
it can now hardly be disputed that those events could not have taken
place either earlier or later than under these two reigns, which embraced
more than a century, it appears to be perfectly justifiable to suppose
that the first and most essential steps to this reform were taken in the
reign of Sethôs, because, according to the genealogical calculation of
time in the Bible, Joseph must have lived and acted in the first half of
the reign of Sethôsis. The succession of kings in the Mosaic accounts
also perfectly agrees with this. We here read of only _three Pharaohs_
during that time. Joseph came to Potiphar in Egypt in the reign of the
first, and rose by his wisdom to be first minister of the king. This
Pharaoh was Sethôsis I., with whom the Manethonic lists begin a new
Dynasty. By means of the new improvements introduced and regulated by
him, the country was saved from the years of famine which had hitherto
been constantly dreaded, and the power of the king was increased and
strengthened.