The Egyptians took the lead in early antiquity, with respect to
civilisation and the stupendous productions of human labour and art,
of all other known nations of the world. The pyramids stand by
themselves as a monument of the industry of mankind. Thebes, with her
hundred gates, at each of which we are told she could send out at once
two hundred chariots and ten thousand warriors completely accoutred,
was one of the noblest cities on record. The whole country of Lower
Egypt was intersected with canals giving a beneficent direction to the
periodical inundations of the Nile; and the artificial lake Moeris was
dug of a vast extent, that it might draw off the occasional excesses
of the overflowings of the river. The Egyptians had an extraordinary
custom of preserving their dead, so that the country was peopled
almost as numerously with mummies prepared by extreme assiduity and
skill, as with the living.
And, in proportion to their edifices and labours of this durable sort,
was their unwearied application to all the learning that was then
known. Geometry is said to have owed its existence to the necessity
under which they were placed of every man recognising his own property
in land, as soon as the overflowings of the Nile had ceased. They were
not less assiduous in their application to astronomy. The hieroglyphics
of Egypt are of universal notoriety. Their mythology was of the most
complicated nature. Their Gods were infinitely varied in their kind;
and the modes of their worship not less endlessly diversified. All
these particulars still contributed to the abstraction of their
studies, and the loftiness of their pretensions to knowledge. They
perpetually conversed with the invisible world, and laid claim to the
faculty of revealing things hidden, of foretelling future events, and
displaying wonders that exceeded human power to produce.
A striking illustration of the state of Egypt in that respect in early
times, occurs incidentally in the history of Joseph in the Bible. Jacob
had twelve sons, among whom his partiality for Joseph was so notorious,
that his brethren out of envy sold him as a slave to the wandering
Midianites. Thus it was his fortune to be placed in Egypt, where in
the process of events he became the second man in the country, and
chief minister of the king. A severe famine having visited these
climates, Jacob sent his sons into Egypt to buy corn, where only it
was to be found. As soon as Joseph saw them, he knew them, though they
knew not him in his exalted situation; and he set himself to devise
expedients to settle them permanently in the country in which he
ruled. Among the rest he caused a precious cup from his stores to be
privily conveyed into the corn-sack of Benjamin, his only brother by
the same mother. The brothers were no sooner departed, than Joseph
sent in pursuit of them; and the messengers accosted them with the
words, "Is not this the cup in which my lord drinketh, and whereby
also he divineth? Ye have done evil in taking it away." [19] They
brought the strangers again into the presence of Joseph, who addressed
them with severity, saying, "What is this deed that ye have done? Wot
ye not that such a man as I could certainly divine?" [20]
From this story it plainly appears, that the art of divination was
extensively exercised in Egypt, that the practice was held in honour,
and that such was the state of the country, that it was to be presumed
as a thing of course, that a man of the high rank and distinction of
Joseph should professedly be an adept in it.
In the great contention for supernatural power between Moses and the
magicians of Egypt, it is plain that they came forward with confidence,
and did not shrink from the debate. Moses's rod was turned into a
serpent; so were their rods: Moses changed the waters of Egypt into
blood; and the magicians did the like with their enchantments: Moses
caused frogs to come up, and cover the land of Egypt; and the magicians
also brought frogs upon the country. Without its being in any way
necessary to enquire how they effected these wonders, it is evident
from the whole train of the narrative, that they must have been much
in the practice of astonishing their countrymen with their feats in
such a kind, and, whether it were delusion, or to whatever else we may
attribute their success, that they were universally looked up to for
the extraordinariness of their performances.
While we are on this subject of illustrations from the Bible, it may
be worth while to revert more particularly to the story of Balaam.
Balak the king of Moab, sent for Balaam that he might come and curse
the invaders of his country; and in the sequel we are told, when the
prophet changed his curses into a blessing, that he did not "go forth,
as at other times, to seek for enchantments." It is plain therefore
that Balak did not rely singly upon the eloquence and fervour of
Balaam to pour out vituperations upon the people of Israel, but that
it was expected that the prophet should use incantations and certain
mystical rites, upon which the efficacy of his foretelling disaster
to the enemy principally depended.