Egypt

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that troubles or oppresses; anguish
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary



EGYPT.?Habitable and cultivable Egypt consists practically of the broad fan-shaped? Delta opening on to the Mediterranean, and the narrow valley of the Nile bordered by deserts as far as the First Cataract (beyond which is Nubia, i.e. Ethiopia), with a few oases westward of the valley. Amongst the latter may be counted the Fayyum, which, however, is separated from the river only by a narrow ridge, and is connected therewith by a canal or natural channel conveying the waters of the river to the oasis. The Greek name Aigyptos may perhaps be connected with Hakeptah, a name in vogue during the New Kingdom for Memphis, the northern capital. Egypt was divided anciently into Upper and Lower, the latter comprising the Delta and a portion of the valley reaching above Memphis, while Upper Egypt (the northern portion of which is often spoken of as Middle Egypt) terminated at the First Cataract (Aswan). Each of these main divisions was subdivided into nomes, or counties, varying to some extent at different times, 22 being a standard number for the Upper Country and 20 for the Lower. Each nome had its capital city?the god of which was important throughout the nome?and was generally governed by a nomarch. The alluvial land of Egypt is very fertile and easy to cultivate. Its fertility is independent of rainfall, that being quite insignificant except along the Mediterranean coast; it depends on the annual rise of the Nile, which commences in June and continues till October. If the rise is adequate, it secures the main crops throughout the country. In ancient times there may have been extensive groves of acacia trees on the borders of the alluvium kept moist by soakage from the Nile; but at most seasons of the year there was practically no natural pasture or other spontaneous growth except in marshy districts.
In this brief sketch it is impossible to bestow more than a glance upon the various aspects of Egyptian civilization. The ancient Egyptians were essentially not negroes, though some affirm that their skulls reveal a negro admixture. Their language shows a remote affinity with the Semitic group in structure, but very little in vocabulary; the writing for monumental and decorative purposes was in pictorial ?hieroglyphic? signs, modified for ordinary purposes into cursive ?hieratic? and in late times further to ?demotic?: the last form preserves no traces of the pictorial origins recognizable by any one but a student. The Egyptian, like the old Hebrew writing, cannot record vowels, but only the consonantal skeletons of words.* [Note: Egyptian names in this and other articles by the same writer, if not in their Grecized or Hebraized forms, are given, where possible, as they appear to have been pronounced in the time of the Deltaic Dynasties and onwards, i.e. during the last 1000 years B.C. This appears preferable to a purely conventional form, as it represents approximately the pronunciation heard by the Hebrew writers. The vowels are to be pronounced as in Italian.]
The Egyptian artist at his best could rise to great beauty and sublimity, but the bulk of his work is dead with conventionality, and he never attained to the idea of perspective in drawing. The Egyptian engineers could accurately place the largest monoliths, without, however, learning any such mechanical contrivances as the pulley or the screw. The ?wisdom of the Egyptians? was neither far advanced nor profound, though many ideas were familiar to them that had never entered the heads of the nomads and inferior races about them. Their mathematics and astronomy were of the simplest kind; yet the Egyptian calendar was infinitely superior to all its contemporaries, and is scarcely surpassed by our own. The special importance attached by the Egyptians to the disposal and furnishing of the body after death may have been inspired by the preservative climate. From an early time the elaboration of doctrines regarding the afterlife went on, involving endless contradictions. We may well admire the early connexion of religion with morality, shown especially in the ?Negative Confession? and the judgment scene of the weighing of the soul before Osiris, dating not later than the 18th Dynasty; yet in practice the Egyptian religion, so far as we can judge, was mainly a compelling of the gods by magic formul?. The priesthood was wealthy and powerful, and the people devout. The worship of animals was probably restricted to a few sacred individuals in early Egypt, but a degree of sanctity was afterwards extended to the whole of a species, and to almost every species.
1. The History of Egypt was divided by Manetho (who wrote for Ptolemy I. or II.) into 31 dynasties from Menes to Alexander. The chronology is very uncertain for the early times: most authorities in Germany place the 1st Dyn. about B.C. 3300, and the 12th Dyn. at B.C. 2000?1800. These dates, which depend largely on the interpretation of records of astronomical phenomena, may perhaps be taken as the minimum. The allowance of time (200 years) for the dark period between the 12th and the 18th Dyns. seems insufficient: some would place the 12th Dyn. at B.C. 2500?2300, or even a whole ?Sothic? period of 1460 years earlier than the minimum; and the 1st Dynasty would then be pushed back at least in equal measure. From the 18th Dyn. onwards there is close agreement.
The historic period must have been preceded by a long pre-historic age, evidenced in Upper Egypt by extensive cemeteries of graves containing fine pottery, instruments in flint exquisitely worked, and in bone and copper, and shapely vessels in hard stone. Tradition points to separate kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt towards the close of this period. Menes, the founder of the 1st Dyn., united the two lands. He came probably from This, near Abydos, where royal tombs of the first three Dyns. have been found; but he built Memphis as his capital near the dividing line between the two halves of his kingdom. The earliest pyramid dates from the end of the 3rd dynasty. The stupendous Pyramids at Gizeh are of Cheops, Chephren, and Mycerinus of the 4th Dyn., from which time we have also very beautiful statues in wood, limestone, and diorite. In the 5th Dyn. the relief sculpture on tombs reached its highest excellence. The 6th Dyn. is notable for long inscriptions, both religious texts in the pyramids and biographical inscriptions in the lesser tombs. The first eight Dyns., of which the 7th and 8th are utterly obscure, constitute the Old Kingdom. After the first two Dyns., best represented at Abydos, its monuments are concentrated at Memphis, but important records of the 6th Dyn. are widely spread as far south as the First Cataract, parallel with the growing power and culture of the nomarchs. Expeditions were made even under the 1st Dyn. to the copper and turquoise mines in the peninsula of Sinai, and cedar wood was probably then already obtained from Lebanon by sea. Under the 6th Dyn. Nubia furnished troops to the Egyptian armies from the distant south as far perhaps as Khartum. But at the end of it there was a collapse, probably through insufficient control of the local princes of that time by the nomarch.
In the next period, the Middle Kingdom (Dyns. 9?17), we see the rise of Thebes; but the 9th and 10th Dyns. were from Heracleopolis, partly contemporary with the 11th Dyn., which eventually suppressed the rival house. The monuments of the 11th Dyn. are almost confined to the neighbourhood of Thebes. Under the Amenemh?s and Senwosris of the 12th Dyn., Egypt was as great as it was in the 4th Dyn., but its power was not concentrated as then. The break-up of the old Kingdom had given an opportunity to a number of powerful families to grow up and establish themselves in local princedoms: the family that triumphed over the rest by arms or diplomacy could control but could not ignore them, and feudalism was the result, each great prince having a court and an army resembling those of the king, but on a smaller scale. The most notable achievement of these Dyns. was the regulation of the lake of M?ris by Amenemh? III., with much other important work for irrigation and improvement of agriculture. Literature also flourished at this period. The traditional exploits of the world-conqueror Sesostris seem to have been developed in late times out of the petty expeditions of Senwosri III. into Nubia, Libya, and Palestine. The 13th and 14th Dyns. are represented by a crowd of 150 royal names: they are very obscure, and some scholars would make them contemporary with each other and with the following. The 15th and 16th Dyns. were of the little-known Hyksos or ?Shepherd kings,? apparently invaders from the East, who for a time ruled all Egypt (c. B.C. 1650). Excepting scarabs engraved with the names of the kings, monuments of the Hyksos are extremely rare. Their names betray a Semitic language: they were probably barbarian, but in the end took on the culture of Egypt, and it is a strange fact that inscribed relics of one of them, Khyan, have been found in places as far apart as at Cnossus in Crete and Baghdad; no other Egyptian king, not even Thetmosi III., has quite so wide a range as that mysterious Hyksos. The foreign rulers are said to have oppressed the natives and to have forbidden the worship of the Egyptian deities. The princes of Thebes, becoming more or less independent, formed the 17th Dyn., and succeeded in ousting the hated Hyksos, now probably diminished in numbers and weakened by luxury, from Upper Egypt. The first king of the 18th Dyn., Ahmosi, drove them across the N.E. frontier and pursued them into Palestine (c. B.C. 1580).
The 18th Dyn. ushers in the most glorious period in Egyptian history, the New Kingdom, or, as it has been called on account of its far-reaching sway, the Empire, lasting to the end of the 20th Dynasty. The prolonged effort to cast out the Hyksos had welded together a nation in arms under the leadership of the Theban kings, leaving no trace of the old feudalism; the hatred of the oppressor pursued the ?pest? far into Syria in successive campaigns, until Thetmosi I., the second successor of Ahmosi, reached the Euphrates. Thetmosi II. and a queen, Hatshepsut (c. 1500), ruled for a time with less vigorous hands, and the latter cultivated only the arts of peace. Meanwhile the princes of Syria strengthened themselves and united to offer a formidable opposition to Thetmosi III. when he endeavoured to recover the lost ground. This Pharaoh, however, was a great strategist, as well as a valiant soldier: as the result of many annual campaigns, he not only placed his tablet on the bank of the Euphrates, by the side of that of Thetmosi I., but also consolidated the rule of Egypt over the whole of Syria and Ph?nicia. The wealth of the conquered countries poured into Egypt, and the temple of the Theban Ammon, the god under whose banner the armies of the Pharaohs of two dynasties had won their victories, was ever growing in wealth of slaves, lands, and spoil. Amenhotp III. enjoyed the fruits of his predecessors? conquests, and was a mighty builder. His are the colossi at Thebes named Memnon by the Greeks. The empire had then reached its zenith. Under Amenhotp IV. (c. 1370), in some ways the most striking figure in Egyptian history [the latest discoveries tend to show that the king was not more than 14 years old when the great innovation took place. He may thus have been rather a tool in the hands of a reformer], it rapidly declined: the Hittites were pressing into Syria from the north, and all the while the Pharaoh was a dreamer absorbed in establishing a monotheistic worship of Aton (the sun) against the polytheism of Egypt, and more especially against the Theban and national worship of Ammon. He changed his own name to Akhenaton, built a new capital, the ?Horizon of Aton,? in place of Thebes, and erased the name and figure of Ammon wherever they were seen. Art, too, found in him a lavish patron, and struck out new types, often bizarre rather than beautiful. But for the empire Pharaoh had no thought or leisure. The cuneiform letters found in the ruins of his newfangled capital at el-Amarna show us his distracted agents and vassals in Syria appealing to him in vain for support against the intrigues and onslaughts of rebels and Invaders. His father Amenhotp III. had carried on an active correspondence with the distant kings of Babylonia, Assyria, and Mitanni in Mesopotamia; but after a few years Akhenaton must have lost all influence with them. Shortly after Akhenaton?s death the new order of things, for which he had striven so long and sacrificed so much, was abolished, its triumph having lasted for but 10 or 15 years. Ammon worship was then restored, and retaliated on the name and figure of the heretic king and of his god.
Although the 18th Dyn. was so powerful and active, and had built temples in Nubia as well as in Syria, the Delta was neglected. Only on the road to Asia, at Heliopolis and Bubastis, have relics been found of these kings. Until Akhenaton?s heresy, their religious zeal was devoted to honouring Ammon. The 19th Dyn., on the other hand, was as active in the Delta as in other parts of Egypt, and although Ammon remained the principal god of the State, Ptah of Memphis and R? the sun-god of Heliopolis were given places of honour at his side. There is a famous series of reliefs at Karnak of the Syrian war of Seti I. (c. 1300); but his son Ramesses II. (c. 1290?1220) was the greatest figure in the Dynasty: he was not indeed able to drive back the Hittites, but he fought so valorously in Syria that they could make no advance southward. They were compelled to make a treaty with Pharaoh and leave him master of Syria as far as Kadesh on the Orontes. Ramesses II. was the greatest builder of all the Pharaohs, covering the land with temples and monuments of stone, the inscriptions and scenes upon them in many cases extolling his exploit against the Hittites at the battle of Kadesh, when his personal prowess saved the Egyptian camp and army from overwhelming disaster. Towards the end of his long reign of 67 years disorders multiplied, and his son and successor Mineptah had to face encroachments of the Libyans on his own soil and revolt in his frontier possessions in Palestine. Mineptah, too, was old, but by the fifth year of his reign he was able to boast of peace and security restored to his country. The 19th Dyn. ended, however, in utter confusion, a Syrian finally usurping the throne. In the 20th Dyn. the assaults on Egypt were renewed with greater violence than ever by Libyans from the west and by sea-rovers from the islands and coasts of the eastern Mediterranean. But Setnekht and his son and successor Ramesses III. (c. 1200?1165) were equal to the occasion. The latter was victorious everywhere, on sea and on land, and a great incursion from the north, after maiming the Hittite power, was hurled back by the Egyptian king, who then established his rule in Syria and Ph?nicia over a wider area than his celebrated namesake had controlled. Ramesses XII. was followed by sons and others of his own name down to Ramesses XII., but all within glorious reigns. Under them the empire flickered out, from sheer feebleness and internal decay.
Egypt now (c. 1100) enters upon a new period of history, that of the Deltaic Dynasties. Thebes was no longer the metropolis. The growth of commerce in the Levant transferred the centre of gravity northward. After the fall of the New Kingdom, all the native dynasties originated in various cities of Lower, with perhaps Middle, Egypt. The later Ramessides had depended for their fighting men on Libyan mercenaries, and the tendency of the Libyans to settle on the rich lands of Egypt was thus hastened and encouraged. The military chiefs established their families in the larger towns, and speedily became wealthy as well as powerful; it was from such families of Libyan origin that the later ?native? dynasties arose. Dyn. 21 was from Tanis (Zoan); parallel with and apparently subject to it was a dynasty of priest-kings at Thebes. The pitiful report of a certain Unamun, sent from Thebes to obtain wood from Lebanon, shows how completely Egypt?s influence in Syria and the Levant had passed away at the beginning of this dynasty. The 22nd Dyn. (c. 950?750) arose in Bubastis, or perhaps at Heracleopolis in Middle Egypt. Its founder, Sheshonk I., the Biblical Shishak, was energetic and overran Palestine, but his successors quickly degenerated. The 23rd Dyn., said to be Tanite, was perhaps also Bubastite. There were now again all the elements of feudalism in the country except the central control, and Egypt thus lay an easy prey to a resolute invader. We find at the end of the 23rd Egyptian Dyn. Pankhi, king of Ethiopia, already in full possession of the Thebaid (c. 730). Tefnakht, prince of Sais, was then endeavouring to establish his sway over the other petty princes of the Delta and Middle Egypt. Pankhi accepted the implied challenge, overthrew Tefnakht, and compelled him to do homage. Tefnakht?s son Bocchoris alone forms the 24th Dynasty. He was swept away by another invasion led by Shabako (c. 715), who heads the Ethiopian or 25th Dynasty. Shabako was followed by his son Shabitku and by Tahrak. The kings of this dynasty, uniting the forces of Egypt and Ethiopia, endeavoured to extend their influence over Syria in opposition to the Assyrians. Tahrak (Tirhakah) was particularly active in this endeavour, but as soon as Esarhaddon was free to invade Egypt the Assyrian king had no difficulty in taking Memphis, capturing most of the royal family, and driving Tahrak southward (c. 670). The native princes were no doubt hostile at heart to the Ethiopian domination: on his departure, Esarhaddon left these, to the number of 20, with Assyrian garrisons, in charge of different parts of the country; an Assyrian governor, however, was appointed to Pelusium, which was the key of Egypt. None the less the Ethiopian returned as soon as the Assyrian host had withdrawn, and annihilated the army of occupation. Esarhaddon thereupon prepared a second expedition, but died on the way. Ashurbanipal succeeding, reinstated the governors, and his army reached Thebes. On his-withdrawal there was trouble again. The Assyrian governor of Pelusium was accused of treachery with Niku (Neko), prince of Sais and Memphis, and Pekr?r of Pisapt (Goshen), and their correspondence with Tahrak was intercepted. They were all brought in chains to Nineveh, but Niku was sent back to Egypt with honour, and his son was appointed governor of Athribis. Soon after this failure Tahrak died: his nephew Tandamane recovered Memphis, but was speedily expelled by Ashurbanipal, who advanced up the river to Thebes and plundered it.
Meanwhile the family of Neko at Sais was securing its position in the Delta, taking advantage of the protection afforded by the Assyrians and the weakening of the Ethiopian power. Neko himself was killed, perhaps by Tandamane, but his son Psammetichus took his place, founding the 26th Dynasty. Counting his reign from the death of Tahrak (c. 664), Psammetichus soon ruled both Upper and Lower Egypt, while in the absence of fresh expeditions all trace of the brief Assyrian domination disappeared. The 26th Dyn. marks a great revival; Egypt quickly regained its prosperity after the terrible ravages of civil wars and Ethiopian and Assyrian invasions. Psammetichus I., in his long reign of 54 years, re-organized the country, safeguarded it against attack from Ethiopia, and carried his arms into S.W. Palestine. His son Neko, profiting by the long weakness of Assyria, swept through Syria as far as Carchemish on the Euphrates, and put the land to tribute, until the Babylonian army commanded by Nebuchadrezzar hurled him back (B.C. 605). His successors, Psammetichus II. and Apries (Hophra), attempted to regain influence in Syria, but without success. Apries with his Greek mercenaries became unpopular with the native soldiery, and he was dethroned by Ahmasi (Amasis). This king, although he made alliances with Cr?sus of Lydia, Polycrates of Samos, and Battus of Cyrene during a reign of 46 years, devoted himself to promoting the internal prosperity of Egypt. It was a golden age while it lasted, but it did not prevent the new Persian masters of the East from preparing to add Egypt to their dominions. Cyrus lacked opportunity, but Cambyses easily accomplished the conquest of Egypt in B.C. 527, six months after the death of Amasis.
The Persian Dynasty is counted as the 27th. The memory of its founder was hateful to the Egyptians and the Greeks alike; probably the stories of his mad cruelty, though exaggerated, have a solid basis. Darius, on the other hand (521?486), was a good and considerate ruler, under whom Egypt prospered again; yet after the battle of Marathon it revolted. Xerxes, who quelled the revolt, and Artaxerxes were both detested. Inaros the Libyan headed another rebellion, which was backed by an Athenian army and fleet; but after some brilliant successes his attempt was crushed. It was not till about B.C. 405 that Egypt revolted successfully; thereafter, in spite of several attempts to bring it again under the Persian yoke, it continued independent for some 60 years, through Dyns. 28?30. At length, in 345, Ochus reconquered the province, and it remained subject to Persia until Alexander the Great entered it almost without bloodshed in 332 after the battle of Issus.
Throughout the Hellenistic (Ptolemaic and Roman) period the capital of Egypt was Alexandria, the intellectual head of the world. Under the Ptolemys, Egypt on the whole prospered for two centuries, though often torn by war and dissension. [In the reign of Philo-metor (c. B.C. 170) a temple was built by the high-priest Onias for the Jews in Egypt after the model of the Temple at Jerusalem (Josephus, BJ VII. x. 3). The ruins have been recognized by Flinders Petrie at Tell el-Yahudieh.] From B.C. 70 there is a conspicuous absence of native documents, until Augustus in B.C. 30 inaugurated the Roman rule. Egypt gradually recovered under its new masters, and in the second cent. of their rule was exceedingly prosperous as a rich and well-managed cornfield for the free supply of Rome.
2. Egypt in the Bible is Egypt under the Deltaic Dynasties, or, at earliest, of the New Kingdom. This applies not only to the professedly late references in 1 and 2Kings, but also throughout. Abraham and Joseph may belong chronologically to the Middle Kingdom, but the Egyptian names in the story of Joseph are such as were prevalent only in the time of the Deltaic Dynasties. There were wide differences in manners and customs and in the condition of the country and people at different periods of the history of Egypt. In the Biblical accounts, unfortunately, there are not many criteria for a close fixing of the dates of composition. It may be remarked that there were settlements of Jews in Pathros (Upper Egypt) as early as the days of Jeremiah, and papyri indicate the existence of an important Jewish colony at Syene and Elephantine, on the S. border of Egypt, at an equally early date. The OT writers naturally show themselves much better acquainted with the eastern Delta, and especially the towns on the road to Memphis, than with any other part of Egypt. For instance, Sais, the royal city of the 26th Dyn. on the W. side of the Delta, is not once mentioned, and the situation of Thebes (No-Amon) is quite misunderstood by Nahum. Of localities in Upper Egypt only Syene and Thebes (No) are mentioned; in Middle Egypt, Hanes; while on the eastern border and the route to Memphis (Noph) are Shihor, Shur, Sin, Migdol, Tahpanhes, Pi-beseth, On; and by the southern route, Goshen, Pithom, Succoth, Rameses, besides lesser places in the Exodus. Zoan was not on the border routes, but was itself an important centre in the East of the Delta, as being a royal city. There are but few instances in which the borrowing of Egyptian customs or even words by the Hebrews can be traced; but the latter were none the less well acquainted with Egyptian ways. The Egyptian mourning of 70 days for Jacob is characteristic (Gen_50:3), so also may be the baker?s habit of carrying on the head (Gen_40:16-17). The assertion that to eat bread with the Hebrews was an abomination to the Egyptians (Gen_43:32) has not yet been satisfactorily explained. The Hebrews, no doubt, like the Greeks in Herodotus, slew and ate animals, e.g. the sheep and the cow, which Egyptians in the later days were forbidden to slay by their religious scruples. Circumcision was frequent in Egypt, but how far it was a general custom (cf. Jos_5:9) is not clear. Prophecies of a Messianic type were current in Egypt, and one can be traced back to about the time of the Hyksos domination. It has been suggested that in this and in the custom of circumcision are to be seen the most notable influences of Egypt on the people of Israel.
3. Religion.?The piety of the Egyptians was the characteristic that struck the Greeks most forcibly, and their stupendous monuments and the bulk of the literature that has come down to us are either religious or funerary. An historical examination of all the phenomena would show that piety was inherent in the nature of the people, and that their religious observances grew and multiplied with the ages, until the Moslem conquest. The attempt will now be made to sketch some outlines of the Egyptian religion and its practices, as they appear especially in the last millennium B.C. The piety of the Egyptians then manifested itself especially in the extraordinary care bestowed on the dead, and also in the number of objects, whether living or inanimate, that were looked upon as divine.
The priests (Egyp. ?the pure ones? or ?the divine fathers?) were a special class with semi-hereditary privileges and duties. Many of them were pluralists. They received stipends in kind from the temples to which they were attached, and in each temple were divided into four phyl? or tribes, which served in succession for a lunar month at a time. The chief offices were filled by select priests entitled prophets by the Greeks (Egyp. ?servants of the god?; Potiphera (Gen_41:45) was prophet [of R?] in On), of which there was theoretically one for each god in a temple. Below the priests in the temple were the pastophori (Egyp. ?openers,? i.e. of shrines), and of the same rank as these were the choachytes (Egyp. ?water-pourers?) in the necropolis. These two ranks probably made offerings of incense and libations before the figure of the god or of the deceased. The priestly class were very attentive to cleanliness, wearing white linen raiment, shaving their heads, and washing frequently. They abstained especially from fish and beans, and were probably all circumcised. The revenues of the temples came from endowments of land, from offerings and from fees. The daily ritual of offering to the deity was strictly regulated, formula) with magic power being addressed to the shrine, its door, its lock, etc., as it was being opened, as well as to the deity within; hymns were sung and sistrums rattled, animals slaughtered, and the altar piled with offerings. On festal occasions the god would be carried about in procession, sometimes to visit a neighbouring deity. Burnt-offerings, beyond the burning of incense, were unknown in early times, but probably became usual after the New Kingdom. Offerings of all kinds were the perquisite of the priests when the god (image or animal) had bad his enjoyment of them. Oracles were given in the temples, not by an inspired priest, but by nods or other signs made by the god; sometimes, for instance, the decision of a god was sought in a legal matter by laying before him a papyrus in which the case was stated. In other cases the enquirer slept in the temple, and the revelation came in a dream. The oracles of the Theban Ammon and (later) of Buto were political forces: that of Ammon in the Oasis of Siwa played a part in Greek history. The most striking hymns date from the New Kingdom, and are addressed especially to the solar form of Ammon (or to the Aton during Akhenaton?s heresy); the fervour of the worshipper renders them henothelstic, pantheistic, or even theistic in tone. Prayers also occur; but the tendency was overwhelmingly greater to magic, compelling the action of the gods, or in other ways producing the desired effect. Preservative amulets, over which the formul? had been spoken or on which such were engraved, abound on the mummies of the later dynasties, and no doubt were worn by living persons. The endless texts inscribed in the pyramids of the end of the Old Kingdom, on coffins of the Middle Kingdom, and in the Book of the Dead, are almost wholly magical formul? for the preservation of the material mummy, for the divinization of the deceased, for taking him safely through the perils of the under world, and giving him all that he would wish to enjoy in the future life. A papyrus is known of spells for the use of a mother nursing her child; spells accompanied the employment of drugs in medicine; and to injure an enemy images were made in wax and transformed by spells into persecuting demons.
Egyptian theology was very complex and self-contradictory; so also were its views about the life after death. These were the result of the amalgamation of doctrines originally belonging to different localities; the priests and people were always willing to accept or absorb new ideas without displacing the old, and to develop the old ones by imagination in different directions. No one attempted to reach a uniform system, or, if any had done so, none would abide long by any system. Death evidently separated the elements of which the living man was composed; the corpse might be rejoined from time to time by the hawk-winged soul, while at other times the latter would be in the heavens associating with gods. To the ka (life or activity or genius) offerings were made at the tomb; we hear also of the ?shade? and ?power.? The dead man was judged before Osiris, the king of the dead, and if condemned, was devoured by a demon, but if justified, fields of more than earthly fruitfulness were awarded to him in the under world; or he was received into the bark of the sun to traverse the heavens gloriously; or, according to another view, he passed a gloomy and feeble existence in the shadows of the under world, cheered only for an hour as the sun travelled nightly between two of the hour-gates of the infernal regions. No hint of the Pythagorean doctrine of metempsychosis, attributed by Herodotus to the Egyptians, has yet been found in their writings; but spells were given to the dead man by which he could voluntarily assume the form of a lotus, of an ibis or a heron or a serpent, or of the god Ptah, or ?anything that he wished.? Supplies for the dead were deposited with him in the grave, or secured to him by magic formul?; offerings might be brought by his family on appropriate occasions, or might be made more permanent by endowment; but such would not be kept up for many generations.
As to the deities, the king was entitled the ?good god,? was a mediator between god and man as the religious head of the State and chief of the priesthood, and his image might he treated as divine even during his lifetime. A dead man duly buried was divine and identified with Osiris, but in few cases did men preserving their personality become acknowledged gods; such was the case, however, conspicuously with two great scribes and learned men?Imhotep, architect of king Zoser of the 3rd dynasty, and Amenhotp, son of Hap, of the time of Amenhotp III. (18th dynasty), who eventually became divine patrons of science and writing: the former was considered to be a son of Ptah, the god of Memphis, and was the equivalent of Asklepios as god of healing. Persons drowned or devoured by crocodiles were accounted specially divine, and Osiris from certain incidents in his myth was sometimes named ?the Drowned.? The divinities proper were (1) gods of portions of the universe: the sun-god R? was the most important of these; others were the earth-god Geb, the sky-god Shoon, and the goddess Nut, with stellar deities, etc. (2) Gods of particular qualities or functions: as Thoth the god of wisdom, Mei goddess of justice and truth, Mont the god of war, Ptah the artificer god. (3) Gods of particular localities: these included many of classes (1) and (2). Some of them had a wide vogue from political, mythological, or other reasons: thus, through the rise of Thebes, Ammon, its local god, became the King of the Gods, and the god of the whole State in the New Empire; and Osiris, god of Busiris in the Delta, became the universal King of the Dead, probably because his myth, shown in Passion Plays at festivals, made a strong appeal to humanity. Around the principal god of a temple were grouped a number of other deities, subordinate to him there and forming his court, although they might severally be his superiors in other localities; nine was the typical number in the divine court, and thus the co-templar deities were called the Ennead of the principal god, though the number varied considerably. Each principal god or goddess, too, had a consort and their child, forming a triad; these triads had been gradually developed by analogy from one group to another, as from that of Osiris, Isis, and Horus described below.
Some of the deities were of human form, as Ptah, Osiris, Etom, Muth, Neith, besides those which were of human origin. Bes, the god of joy and of children, was a grotesque dwarf dancer. Others were in the form of animals or animal-headed?canine, as Anubis and Ophois; feline, as Mihos (Minsis) and the goddesses Sakhmis and Bubastis. Thoth was ibis-headed; Horus, R?, and Mont had the heads of falcons. Besides the sacred animal whose head is seen in the representations of the god, there were others which did not affect his normal form, although they were considered as incarnations of him. Thus the bull Apis was sacred to Ptah, Mnevis to Etom, Bacis to Mont; and in addition to the ibis, the ape was, in a more complete sense than these, an embodiment of Thoth. In the late ages most mammals, birds, reptiles, fishes, and several insects were looked upon as sacred,?some only in particular localities, others universally, such as the cow sacred to Hathor, Isis, etc., and the cat sacred to Bubastis; after death, the sacred animals were mummified, fully or in part, separately or in batches, according to their size and sanctity.
R?, the sun-god, was the ruler of heaven and the archetype of the living king; other ruling gods, such as Ammon, Suchos the crocodile-god, Mont the war-god, were identified with R?, whose name was then generally added to theirs. The popular Osiris legend was the supreme factor in the Egyptian religion, however, from the 26th Dynasty and onwards. Osiris was the beneficent king of Egypt, slain and cut in pieces by his wicked brother Seth, sought for by his sister-wife Isis, and restored by her magic to life; Isis bore him Horus, who avenged his father by overcoming Seth. The dead Osiris was an emblem of the dead king and of the sun in the night, Horus of the succeeding or reigning king and of the next day?s sun; thus the tragedy and the triumph were ever renewed. Not only dead kings, but also all the blessed dead, were assimilated to Osiris, and triumphed through Horus and his helpers. With the Osiris legend are connected the best features in the Book of the Dead, the remarkable judgment scene, and the negative confession, implying that felicity after death depended on a meritorious life. Seth, once god of several localities and a type of power, as an element of the myth, was the type of darkness and wickedness; and in late times he, together with his animals the ass and the hippopotamus, and Suchos the crocodile-god, were execrated, and his worship hardly tolerated even in his own cities. Ptah the god of Memphis had an uninteresting personality; the inhabitants of that populous capital reserved their emotions for the occasions when Apis died and a new Apis was found, assimilating the former to Osiris and probably the latter to Horus. The dead Apis, which was buried with such pomp and expenditure, was called the Osiris Apis?Osirapis or Serapis. With some modification, this Serapis, well known and popular amongst natives and foreign settlers alike, was chosen by Ptolemy Soter to be the presiding deity of his kingdom, for the Egyptians, and more especially for the Greeks at Alexandria. He was worshipped as a form of Osiris, an infernal Zeus, associated with Isis. His acceptance by the Greek world, and still more enthusiastically by the Romans and the western half of the Roman world, spread the Osiris Passion?otherwise the Isiac mysteries?far and wide. This Isiac worship possessed many features in common with Christianity: on the one hand, it prepared the world for the latter, and influenced its symbols; while, on the other, it proved perhaps the most powerful and stubborn adversary of the Christian dogma in its contest with paganism.
F. Ll. Griffith.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909

The genealogies in Genesis 10 concern races, not mere descent of persons; hence, the plural forms, Madai, Kittim, etc. In the case of Egypt the peculiarity is, the form is dual, Mizraim, son of Ham (i.e. Egypt was colonized by descendants of Hain), meaning "the two Egypts," Upper and Lower, countries physically so different that they have been always recognized as separate. Hence, the Egyptian kings on the monuments appear with two crowns on their heads, and the hieroglyph for Egypt is a double clod of earth, representing the two countries, the long narrow valley and the broad delta. The Speaker's Commentary suggests the derivation Mes-ra-n, "children of Ra," the sun, which the Egyptians claimed to be. It extended from Migdol (near Pelusium, N. of Suez) to Syene (in the far S.) (Eze_29:10; Eze_30:6 margin). The name is related to an Arabic word, "red mud."
The hieroglyphic name for Egypt is Kem, "black," alluding to its black soil, combining also the idea of heat, "the hot dark country." The cognate Arabic word means "black mud." Ham is perhaps the same name, prophetically descriptive of "the land of Ham" (Psa_105:23; Psa_105:27). The history of states begins with Egypt, where a settled government and monarchy were established earlier than in any other country. A king and princes subordinate are mentioned in the record of Abram's first visit. The official title Pharaoh, Egyptian Peraa, means "the great house" (De Rouge). Egypt was the granary to which neighboring nations had recourse in times of scarcity. In all these points Scripture accords with the Egyptian monuments and secular history. The crown of Upper Egypt was white, that of Lower red; the two combined forming the pschent.
Pharaoh was Suten, "king," of Upper Egypt; Shebt, "bee" (compare Isa_7:18), of Lower Egypt; together the SUTEN-SHEBT. The initial sign of Suten was a bent reed, which gives point to 2Ki_17:21; "thou trustest upon the staff of this bruised reed ... Egypt on which if a man lean it trill go into his hand and pierce it." Upper. Egypt always is placed before Lower, and its crown in the pschent above that of the latter. Egypt was early divided into nomes, each having its distinctive worship. The fertility of soil was extraordinary, due to the Nile's overflow and irrigation; not, as in Palestine, due to rain, which in the interior is rare (Gen_13:10; Deu_11:10-11; Zec_14:18). The dryness of the climate accounts for the perfect preservation of the sculptures on stone monuments after thousands of years. Limestone is the formation as far as above Thebes, where sandstone begins.
The first cataract is the southern boundary of Egypt, and is caused by granite and primitive rocks rising through the sandstone in the river bed and obstructing the water. Rocky sandstrewn deserts mostly bound the Nilebordering fertile strip of land, somewhat lower, which generally in Upper Egypt is about 12 miles wide. Low mountains border the valley in Upper Egypt. In ancient times there was a fertile valley in Lower Egypt to the east of the delta, the border land watered by the canal of the Red Sea; namely, Goshen. The delta is a triangle at the Nile's mouth, formed by the Mediterranean and the Pelusiac and Canopic branches of the river. The land at the head of the gulf of Suez in centuries has become geologically raised, and that on the N. side of the isthmus depressed, so that the head of the gulf has receded southwards. So plentiful were the fish, vegetables, and fruits, that the Israelites did "eat freely," though but bondservants.
But now political oppression has combined with the drying up of the branches and canals from the Nile and of the artificial lakes (e.g. Moeris) and fishponds, in reversing Egypt's ancient prosperity. The reeds and waterplants, haunted by waterfowl and made an article of commerce, are destroyed and Goshen, once "the best of the land," is now among the worst by sand and drought. The hilly Canaan, in its continued dependence on heaven for rain, was the emblem of the world of grace upon which "the eyes of the Lord are always," as contrasted with Egypt, emblem of the world of nature, which has its supply from below and depends on human ingenuity. The Nile's overflow lasts only about 100 days, but is made available for agriculture throughout the year by tanks, canals, and forcing machines. The "watering with the foot" was by treadwheels working sets of pumps, and by artificial channels connected with reservoirs, and opened, turned, or closed by the feet.
The shadoof, or a pole with a weight at one end and a bucket at the other, the weight helping the laborer to raise the full bucket, is the present plan. Agriculture began when the inundating water had sunk into the soil, a month after the autumn equinox, and the harvest was soon after the spring equinox (Exo_9:31-32). Herodotus, Diodorus, Strabo, and the monuments confirm Gen_47:20; Gen_47:26, as to Joseph's arrangement of the land, that the king and priests alone were possessors and the original proprietors became crown tenants subject to a rent or tribute of one-fifth. Joseph had taken up one-fifth in the seven plenteous years. Naturally then he fixed on one-fifth to be paid to the king, so that he might, by stores laid up, be prepared against any future famine.
The warriors too were possessors (Diodorus, 1:73, 74; and Egyptian monuments), but probably not until after Joseph's time, since they are not mentioned in Genesis, and at all events their tenure was distinct from the priests', for each warrior received (Herodotus, 2:168) 12 aruroe (each axura a square of 100 Egyptian cubits); i.e., there were no possessions vested in the soldier caste, but portions assigned to each soldier tenable at the sovereign's will. The priests alone were left in full possession of their lands. Lake Menzaleh, the most eastern of the existing lakes, has still large fisheries, which support the people on its islands and shore. Herodotus (ii. 77) and Plutarch are wrong in denying the growth of the vine in Egypt before Psammetichus, for the monuments show it was well known from the time of the pyramids. Wine was drunk by the rich people, and beer was drunk by the poor as less costly.
Wheat was the chief produce; barley and spelt (asin Exo_9:32) ought to be translated instead of "rie," Triticum spelta, the common food of the ancient Egyptians, now called by the natives doora, the only grain, says Wilkinson, represented on the sculptures, but named on them often with other species) are also mentioned. The flax was "boiled," i.e. in blossom, at the time of the hail plague before the Exodus. This accurately marks the time just before Passover. In northern Egypt the barley ripens and flax blossoms in the middle of February or early in March, and both are gathered before April, when wheat harvest begins. Linen was especially used by the Egyptian priests, and for the evenness of the threads, without knot or break, was superior to any of modern manufacture. Papyrus is now no longer found in the Nile below Nubia. In ancient times, light boats were made of its stalks, and paper of its leaves.
It is a strong rush, three-cornered, the thickness of the finger, 10 or 15 ft. high, represented on the monuments. The "flags" are a species called tuff or sufi, Hebrew suph, smaller than that of which the ark was made (Exo_2:3), "bulrushes," "flags" (Isa_18:2; Isa_19:7). The lotus was the favorite flower. Camels are not found on the monuments, yet they were among Abram's possessions by Pharaoh's gift. But it is certain Egypt was master of much of the Sinai Peninsula long before this, and must have had camels, "the ships of the desert," for keeping up communications. They were only used on the frontier, being regarded as unclean, and, hence, are not found on monuments in the interior. The hippopotamus, the behemoth of Job, was anciently found in the Nile and hunted. The generic term tannim, "dragon," (i.e. any aquatic reptile, here the crocodile) is made the symbol of the king of Egypt (Eze_29:3-5.)
God made Amasis the hook which He put in the jaws of Pharaoh Hophra (Apries), who was dethroned and strangled, in spite of his proud boast that "even a god could not wrest from him his kingdom" (Herodotus, 2:169). Compare Isa_51:9-10. Rahab, "the insolent," is Egypt's poetical name (Psa_87:4; Psa_89:10; Isa_51:9). Psa_74:13-14; Thou brokest the heads of the dragons in the waters, ... the heads of Leviathan, ... and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness"; alluding to Pharaoh and his host overthrown in the Red Sea and their bodies cast on shore and affording rich spoil to Israel in the wilderness. Compare "the people ... are bread for us" (Num_14:9). The marshes and ponds of Egypt make it the fit scene for the plague of frogs. Locusts come eating all before them, and are carried away by the wind as suddenly as they come.
The dust-sprung "lice" are a sort of tick, as large as a gram of sand, which when filled with blood expands to the size of a hazel nut (Exo_8:17; Exo_8:21, etc.). The "flies" were probably the dog-fly (Septuagint) whose bite causes severe inflammation, especially in the eyelids; compare Isa_7:18, "the fly that is in the uttermost parts of the rivers of Egypt" Oedmann makes it the beetle, kakerlaque, Blatta orientalis, which inflicts painful bites; peculiarly appropriate, as the beetle was the Egyptian symbol of creative power.
ORIGIN. - The Egyptians were of Nigritian origin; like modern Nigritians, the only orientals respectful of women. There was no harem system of seclusion, the wife was "lady of the house." Their kindness to Israel, even during the latter's bondservice, was probably the reason for their being admitted into the congregation in the third generation (Deu_23:3-8). An Arab or Semitic element of race and language is added to the Nigritian in forming the Egyptian people and their tongue. The language of the later dynasties appears in the demotic or enchorial writing, the connecting link between the ancient language and the present Coptic or Christian Egyptian. The great pyramid (the oldest architectural monument in existence according to Lepsius) is distinguished from all other Egyptian monuments in having no idolatrous symbols.
Piazzi Smith says, when complete, it was so adjusted and exactly fashioned in figure that it sets forth the value of the mathematical term pi, or demonstrates the true and practical squaring of a circle. The length of the front foot of the pyramid's casing stone, found by Mr. W. Dixon, or that line or edge from which the angular pi slope of the whole stone begins to rise, which therefore may be regarded as a radical length for the theory of the great pyramid, measures exactly 25 pyramid inches, i.e. the ten-millionth part of the length of the earth's semi-axis of rotation; 25 pyramid inches were the cubit of Noah, Moses, and Solomon "the cubit of the Lord their God." It is a monument of divinely-ordered number before the beginning of idolatry. (See WEIGHT AND MEASURE.)
RELIGION. - Nature worship is the basis of the Egyptian apostasy from the primitive revelation; it degenerated into the lowest fetishism, the worship of cats, dogs, beetles, etc., trees, rivers, and hills. There were three orders of gods; the eight great gods, 12 lesser, and those connected with Osiris. However, the immortality of the soul and future rewards and punishments at the judgment were taught. The Israelites fell into their idolatries in Egypt (Jos_24:14; Eze_20:7-8.) This explains their readiness to worship the golden calf, resembling the Egyptian ox-idol, Apis (Exodus 32).
THE TEN PLAGUES. -The plagues were all directed against the Egyptian goes, from whom Israel was thus being weaned, at the same time that Jehovah's majesty was vindicated before Egypt, and His people's deliverance extorted from their oppressors. Thus, the turning of the Nile into blood was a stroke upon Hapi, the Nile god. The plague of frogs attacked the female deity with a frog's head, Heka, worshipped in the district Sah, i.e. Benihassan, as wife of Chnum, god of cataracts or of the inundation; this was a very old form of nature worship in Egypt, the frog being made the symbol of regeneration; Seti, father of Rameses II, is represented on the monuments offering two vases of wine to an enshrined frog, with the legend "the sovereign lady of both worlds"; the species of frog called now dofda is the one meant by the Hebrew-Egyptian zeparda (Exo_8:2), they are small, do not leap much, but croak constantly; the ibis rapidly consumes them at their usual appearance in September, saving the land from the "stench" which otherwise arises (Exo_8:14).
The third plague of dust-sprung lice fell upon the earth, worshipped in the Egyptian pantheism as Seb, father of the gods (Exo_8:16); the black fertile soil of the Nile basin was especially sacred, called Chemi, from which Egypt took its ancient name. The fourth plague, of flies (Exo_8:21), was upon the air, deified as Shu, son of Ra the sun god, or as Isis, queen of heaven. The fifth was the murrain on cattle, aimed at their ox worship (Exo_9:1-7). The sixth, the boils from ashes sprinkled toward the heaven, was a challenge to Neit, "the great mother queen of highest heaven," if she could stand before Jehovah, also a reference to the scattering of victims' ashes to the wind in honor of Sutech or Typhon; human sacrifices at Hellopolis, offered under the shepherd kings, had been abolished by Amosis I, but this remnant of the old rite remained; Jehovah now sternly reproves it 'by Moses' symbolic act.
The seventh, the hail, thunder, and lightning; man, beast, herb, and tree were smitten, so that Pharaoh for the first time recognizes Jehovah as God; "Jehovah is righteous, and I and my people are wicked" (Exo_9:27). The eighth, the locusts eating every tree, attacked what the Egyptians so prized that Egypt was among other titles called "the land of the sycamore." The destruction at the Red Sea took place probably under Thothmes II., and it is remarkable that his widow imported many trees from Arabia Felix. The ninth, darkness, the S.W. wind from the desert darkening the arm: sphere with dense masses of fine sand, would fill with gloom the Egyptians, whose chief idol was Ra, the sun god.
The tenth, the smiting of the firstborn of man and beast, realized the threat, "against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment" (Exo_12:12); for every town and nome had its sacred animal, frog, beetle, ram, cow, cat, etc., representing each a god; Remphan and Chiun were adopted from abroad. (See EXODUS.) Egyptian religions law depended on future rewards and punishments; the Mosaic law on the contrary mainly depended on temporal rewards and punishments, which only could have place in a system of miraculous and extraordinary divine interposition. The Mosaic law therefore cannot have been borrowed from the Egyptians. The effect of the divine plagues on the Egyptians is seen in the fact that a "mixed multitude," numbering many Egyptians who gave up their idols to follow Israel's God, accompanied Israel at the Exodus (Exo_12:38), besides Semitics whose fathers had come in with the Hyksos.
POWER AND CONQUESTS OF KINGS. -The kings seem to have been absolute; but the priests exercised a controlling influence so great that the Pharaoh of Joseph's time durst not take their lands even for money. Tablets in the Sinaitic peninsula record the Egyptian conquest of Asiatic nomads there. The kings of the 18th dynasty reduced the countries from Syria to the Tigris under tribute, from 1500 to 1200 B.C. Hittites of the valley of the Orontes were their chief opponents.
RELATION TO ISRAEL. - Egyptian power abroad declined from 1200 to 990 B.C. the very interval in which David's and Solomon's wide empire fits in; then Shishak reigned and invaded Judah. The struggle with Assyria and Babylonia for the intermediate countries lasted until Pharaoh Necho's defeat at Carchemish ended Egypt's supremacy. Except Zerah and Shishak (of Assyrian or Babylonian extraction), the Egyptian kings were friendly to Israel in Palestine. Solomon married a Pharaoh's daughter; Tirhakah helped Hezekiah; So made a treaty with Hoshea; Pharaoh Necho was unwilling to war with Josiah; and Pharaoh Hophra (Apries) raised the Chaldaean siege of Jerusalem as Zedekiah's ally. In Africa they reduced the Rebu or Lubim. W. of Egypt; Ethiopia was ruled by a viceroy "prince of Kesh." The many papyri and inscriptions, religious, historical, and one a papyrus tale about two brothers, the earliest extant fiction (in the British Museum), show what a literary people the Egyptians were.
Geometry, mechanics, chemistry (judging from Moses' ability, acquired probably from them, to burn and grind to powder the golden calf), astronomy (whereby Moses was able to form a calendar, Act_7:22), and architecture massive and durable, were among Egypt's sciences. Magic was practiced (Exo_7:11-12; Exo_7:22; Exo_8:18-19; Exo_9:11; 2Ti_3:8-9). Pottery was part of Israel's bondservice (Psa_81:6; Psa_68:13). The Israelites' eating, dancing, singing, and stripping themselves at the calf feast, were according to Egyptian usage (Exo_32:5-25). Antiquity and dynasties. - The antiquity of the colonization of Egypt by Noah's descendants is shown by the record of the migration of the Philistines from Caphtor, which must have been before Abram's arrival in Palestine, for the Philistines were then there. (See PHILISTINES; CAPHTOR.)
The Caphtorim sprang from the Mizraim or Egyptians (Gen_10:13-14; Jer_47:4; Amo_9:7). The Egyptians considered themselves and the Negroes, the red and the black races, as of one stock, children of the god Horus; and the Shemites and Europeans, the yellow and the white, as of another stock, children of the goddess Pesht. No tradition of the flood, though found in almost every other country, is traceable among them, except their reply to Solon (Plato, Tim., 23) that there had been many floods. There are few records of any dynasty before the 18th, except those of the 4th and 12th; but the names of the Pharaohs of the first six dynasties have been found, with notices implying the complete organization of the kingdom (Rouge, Recherches). The Memphite line under the 4th dynasty raised the most famous pyramids. The shepherd kings came from the East as foreigners, and were obnoxious to native Egyptians.
Indeed so intense was Egyptian prejudice that foreigners, and especially Easterners, are described as devils; much in the same way as the Chinese regard all outside the Celestial empire. A Theban line of kings reigned in Upper Egypt while the shepherds were in Lower. Hence arose the opinion that a shepherd king, not a native Egyptian, was the foreigner Joseph's patron; Apophis is generally named. Pharaoh's invitation to Joseph's family to settle in Goshen (Gen_46:34; Gen_47:6), not among the Egyptians, may indicate a desire to strengthen himself against the Egyptian party. The absence of mention of the Israelites on the monuments would be accounted for by the troubled character of the times of the shepherd kings. But see below. The authorities for Egyptian history are
(1) the monuments;
(2) the papyri (the reading of hieroglyphics having been discovered by Young and Champollion from the trilingual inscription, hieroglyphics, enchorial or common Egyptian letters, and Greek, in honor of Ptolemy Epiphanes, on the Rosetta stone);
(3) the Egyptian priest Manetho's fragments in Josephus, containing the regal list beginning with gods and continued through 30 dynasties of mortals, from Menes to Nectanebo, 343 B.C., these fragments abound in discrepancies;
(4) accounts of Greek visitors to Egypt after the Old Testament period. The two most valuable papyri are the Turin papyrus published by Lepsius; and the list of kings in the temple of Abydos, discovered By Mariette, which represents Seti I with his son Rameses II worshipping his 76 ancestors, beginning with Menes. The interval between the 6th and 11th dynasties is uncertain, the monuments affording no contemporary notices. The kings of this period in Manetho's list were probably rulers of parts only of Egypt, contemporary with other Pharaohs. The Pharaohs of the 12th dynasty, and the early kings of the 13th, were lords of all Egypt, which the shepherd kings were not; the latter must therefore belong to a subsequent period. Sculpture and architecture were at their height in the 12th dynasty, and the main events of the time are recorded in many inscriptions.
From the fourth king of the 13th dynasty to the last of the 17th, the period of the Hyksos or shepherd kings, the monuments afford no data for the order of events. The complete list of the ancestors of Seti I gives no Pharaoh between Amenemha, the last king of the 12th dynasty, and Aahmes or Amosis, the first of the 18th, who expelled the Hyksos. From the 18th dynasty Egypt's monumental history and the succession of kings are somewhat complete, but the chronology uncertain. No general era is based on the ancient inscriptions.
Apephis or Apepi was the last of the Hyksos, Ta-aaken Rasekenen the last of the contemporary Egyptian line. Abram's visit (Gen_12:10-20) was in a time of Egypt's prosperity; nor is Abram's fear lest Sarai should be taken, and he slain for her sake, indicative of a savage state such as would exist under the foreign Hyksos rather than the previous native Egyptian kings; for in the papyrus d'Orbiney in the British Museum, of the age of Rameses II of a native dynasty, the 19th, the story of the two brothers (the wife of the elder of whom acts toward the younger as Potiphar's wife toward Joseph) represents a similar act of violence (the Pharaoh of the time sending two armies to take a beautiful wife and murder her husband on the advice of the royal councilors), at the time of Egypt's highest civilization; and this attributed not to a tyrant, but to one beloved and deified at his decease.
So in an ancient papyrus at Berlin a foreigner's wife and children are taken by the king, as an ordinary occurrence. Moreover, in the Benihassan monuments, on the provincial governor's tomb is represented a nomadic chief's arrival with his retinue to pay homage to the prince. The pastoral nomads N.W. of Egypt, and the Shemites in Palestine, are called Amu; the chief, called Abshah in this papyrus (father of a multitude numerous as the sand, meaning much the same as Abraham), is the hak, i.e. sheikh, with a coat of many colors. Shasous is another name for wandering nomads; and Hyksos = prince of the Shasous. The story of Saneha (i.e. son of the sycamore) in one of the oldest papyri relates that he, an Amu, under the 12th dynasty, rose to high rank under Pharaoh, and after a long exile abroad was restored and made "counselor among the chosen ones," to develop the resources of Egypt (just as Joseph), taking precedence among the courtiers.
This proves there is nothing improbable in the account of Abram's kind reception and Joseph's elevation by the Pharaoh of a native dynasty, earlier than the foreign Hyksos, who were harsh and fierce, and more likely to repel than to welcome foreigners. Asses, regarded as unclean under the middle and later empire, were among Pharaoh's presents to Abram (Gen_12:16). Horses are omitted, which accords with the earlier date, for they were unknown (judging from the monuments) to the 12th or any earlier dynasty, and were probably introduced from Arabia by the Hyksos. So that Abram's visit seems to have been under an early Pharaoh, perhaps Amenemha, the first king of the 12th dynasty; Joseph's visit two centuries later, toward the end of the 12th or the beginning of the 13th. Thenceforward, horses abounded in the Egyptian plains and were largely bought thence by Solomon (1Ki_4:26; 1Ki_10:25; 1Ki_10:29) in defiance of the prohibition, Deu_17:16; compare 2Ki_7:6.
SHEPHERD KINGS. - Salatis ("mighty", in Semitic) was first of the shepherd dynasty, which lasted about 250 years and comprised six kings, Apophis last. The long term, 500 years, assigned by Manetho to the shepherd kings, (and by Africanus 800,) is unsupported by the monuments, and is inconsistent with the fact that the Egyptians, at the return to native rulers under the 18th dynasty, after so complete an overthrow of their institutions for five or eight centuries (?), wrote their own language without a trace of foreign infusion, and worshipped the old gods with the old rites. The only era on Egyptian monuments distinct from the regnal year of the sovereign is on the tablet of a governor of Tanis under Rameses II, referring back to the Hyksos, namely, the 400th year from the era of Set the Golden under the Hyksos king, Set-a-Pehti, "Set the Mighty." Set was the chief god worshipped by the Hyksos from the first.
From Rameses II (1340 B.C.) 400 years would take us to 1740 or 1750 B.C. 250 years of the Hyksos dynasty would bring us to 1500 B.C. for their expulsion, and 250 before 1750 B.C. would be Abram's date. Thus the period assigned to the dynasties before Rameses by Lepsius is much reduced. Joseph was quite young at his introduction to Pharaoh, and lived 110 years; but if Apophis, the contemporary of Rasekenen, the predecessor of Aahmes I who took Avaris and drove out the Hyksos, were Joseph's Pharaoh, Joseph would have long outlived Apophis; how then after his patron's expulsion could he have continued prosperous? Moreover, Apophis was not master of all Egypt, as Joseph's Pharaoh was; Rasekenen retained the Thebaid, and after Apophis' defeat erected large buildings in Memphis and Thebes.
The papyrus Sallier I represents Apophis' reign as cruel and ending in an internecine He and his predecessors rejected the national worship for of Sutech = Set = the evil principle Typhon exclusively; his name Apepi means the great serpent, enemy of Ra and Osiris. Sutech answers to the Phoenician Baal, and is represented in inscriptions as the Hittites' chief god, and had human sacrifices at Heliopolis under the Hyksos, which Aahmes I suppressed.
JOSEPH'S PHARAOH. - There is nothing of Joseph's history which does not agree with the most prosperous period of the native dynasties; their inscriptions illustrate every fact recorded in Genesis concerning Joseph's Pharaoh. Shepherds were, according to Genesis, "an abomination to the Egyptians" in Joseph's time; this is decisive against his living under a shepherd king. The names of the first three of the 48 kings of the 13th dynasty in the papyrus at Turin resemble Joseph's Egyptian title given by Pharaoh as his grand vizier Zafnath Paanaeh the food of life," or "the living" (compare the apposite title of the type, Joh_6:35). Joseph may therefore have lived trader an early Pharaoh of the 13th dynasty, prior to the Hyksos, or else of the 12th; compare the story of Saneha under Osirtasin above. This 12th dynasty was especially connected with On or Heliopolis, where Osirtasin I, the second king of that dynasty, built the temple, and where his name and title stand on the famous obelisk, the oldest and finest in Egypt.
On was the sacerdotal city and university of northern Egypt; its chief priest, judging from the priests' titles, was probably a relative of Pharaoh. As absolute, Pharaoh could command the marriage of Joseph to the daughter of the priest of On, however reluctant the priesthood might be to admit a foreigner. Moreover, Joseph being naturalized would hardly be looked on as such, especially as being the king's prime minister. The "Ritual," 17th chapter, belongs to the 11th dynasty, and is the oldest statement of Egyptian views of the universe. It implies a previous pure monotheism, of which it retains the unity, eternity, self-existence of the unseen God; a powerful confirmation of the primitive Bible revelation to Adam handed down to Noah, and thence age by age becoming more and more corrupted by apostasies from the original truth; the more the old text of the "Ritual" is freed from subsequent glosses, the more it approaches to revealed truth.
A sound pure morality in essentials and the fundamentals of primeval religion underlies the forms of worship, in spite of the blending with superstitious. This partly accounts for Joseph's making such a marriage. Chnumhotep, a near relative and favorite of Osirtasin I, is described on the tombs of Benihassan as having precisely such qualities as Pharaoh honored in Joseph: "he injured no little child, oppressed no widow, detained for his own purpose no fisherman, took from work no shepherd or overseer's men; there was no beggar in his days, no one starved in his time; when years of famine occurred, he plowed all the lands producing abundant food; he treated the widow as a woman with a husband to protect her." The division of land permanently into 36 nomes (Diodorus, 1:54), the redistribution of property, and the tenure under the crown subject to a rent of the fifth of the increase, are measures which could only emanate from a native Pharaoh.
Long afterward, Rameses II himself, or else popular tradition, appropriated these works to him or to his father Seti I; also the name Sesostris was appropriated to him. Had it been the work of the Hyksos, it would have been undone on the restoration of the legitimate Pharaohs. Amenemha III, sixth king of the 12th dynasty, first established a complete system of dikes, cocks, and reservoirs, to regulate the Nile's inundation; he caused the lake Moeris to be made to receive the overflow and have it for irrigation in the dry season. Moeris (from the Egyptian mer a "lake") was near a place, Pianeh, "the house of life," corresponding to Joseph's title, Zafnath Paanah the food of life." Probably was the Pharaoh to whom Joseph owed his elevation, for Joseph was just such a minister as would carry out this Pharaoh's grand measures. The restoration of this lake would be the greatest boon to modern Egypt.
Amenemha III also formed the Labyrinth as a place of assembly for the representatives of the nomes on national matters of moment. The table of Abydos represents him as the last king of all Egypt in the old empire, and as such receiving worship from his descendant, Rameses. The Israelites remained undisturbed under the Hyksos, partly as offering no temptation to their cupidity, partly from the Hyksos' respect to the Israelites' ancestor Joseph's high character in his dealings with the Hyksos' ancestors when visiting Egypt in the famine. The Hyksos would have less motive for molesting the Israelites than for molesting native Egyptians. Restoration of the native dynasties; Pharaoh at the Exodus. Aahmes I (Amosis), founder of the 18th dynasty, married Neterfurt, an Ethiopian princess, named and portrayed on many monuments. With Ethiopian allies thus obtained, probably, he marched on Avaris in northern Egypt, Apophis' stronghold, and overthrew and expelled the Hyksos. Of him it could best be said "there arose up a new king" (
Exo_1:8), new to most Egyptians and especially those of northern Egypt.
He "knew not Joseph," and found Joseph's people Israel in Goshen, settled in the richest land, rather favored than molested by the preceding Hyksos kings, in numbers (Exo_1:9) exceeding the native population, and so perhaps likely to join (Exo_1:10) any future invaders such as the Arab Hyksos had been, and commanding the western approach to the center of the land. His policy then was to prevent their multiplication, and set them to build depositories of provisions and arms on the eastern frontier: Pithom (either = Pachtum en Zaru, "the fortress of foreigners," in the monuments of Thothmes III., or more probably "the sanctuary of Tum," connected with a fortress), and Rameses, from Ra "the sun god" and mesu "children," the Egyptians' peculiar name to distinguish themselves from foreigners (Mizraim is related), a name naturally given in a district associated with the sun god's worship.
Aahmes I named his son Rames, and being the restorer of the sun worship would be most likely to name one treasure city Raamses the city of Rameses II, Meiamon, named from himself, in the 19th dynasty, in the midst of a flourishing population, was vastly changed from the earlier Raamses built by Israel in the midst of their oppressed and groaning population. In an inscription of the 22nd year of Aahmes I Fenchu are described as transporting limestone blocks from the quarries of Rufu to Memphis and other cities; the name means "bearers of the shepherd's staff," an appropriate designation of the nomadic tribes of Semitic origin near Egypt, including the Israelites, who are designated by no proper name, though undoubtedly they were in Egypt in the 18th dynasty. Lepsuis fixes the accession of Aahmes I at 1706 B.C. Thethroes II was probably the Pharaoh who perished in the Red Sea, the year of the Exodus 1647 B.C. (1652 B.C., Smith's Bible Dictionary)
The interval between the temple building, 1010 B.C., (See CHRONOLOGY.) and the Exodus is calculated by advocates of the longer chronology to be 638 years. The 480 years interval between the Exodus and Solomon's temple is probably a copyist's error (1Ki_6:1). However, the later date, 1525 B.C., for Aahmes I, and 1463 for the last year of Thothmes II, would support the shorter interval 480; and if two stouts found at the temple built by Thothroes III at Elephantine refer to the same time (?), one giving his name, the other stating that the 28th of the month Epiphi was the festival of the rising of Sothis, i.e. Sirius, the date would be 1445 B.C.; and as the temple was built in the last seven years of his 48 years' reign, the last year of Thothmes II would be 1485-1492, in accordance with 1Ki_6:1. Probably nearly 100 years (including the 80 years from Moses' birth to his return from Midian) elapsed between the accession of Aahmes I and the Exodus.
On his death the dowager queen, an Ethiopian, Nefertari, was regent, Moses' second marriage to an Ethiopian subsequently may have been influenced by his former connection with Pharaoh's daughter, and by the court's connection with Ethiopia. Her son Amenophis (Amenhotep I) succeeded. He, with his admiral Ahmes, led an expedition into Ethiopia against an insurgent. Moses as the adopted child of the king's sister naturally accompanied his master, and proved himself as Stephen says (Act_7:22), and Josephus in detail records, "mighty in words and in deeds." His connection with Ethiopia would thus be intimate. During the reign of Thothmes I, Moses was in Midian. Thothmes I, according to a rock inscription opposite the island of Tombos, subjugated the region between Upper Egypt and Nubia proper; and Ethiopia was henceforth governed by princes of the blood royal of Egypt, the first being named Memes, a name related to that given by Pharaoh's daughter to her adopted son, Moses.
A sepulchral inscription records a great victory of Thothmes I in Mesopotamia. The acquisition of Nubia ("the land of gold") furnished the means of acquiring chariots, for which after this date Egypt was famous. Aahmes (Amessis in Josephus), wife and sister of Thothmes I (an incestuous marriage unknown to the early Pharaohs), succeeded him as regent for 20 years. Then Thothroes II, son of Thothmes I, in the beginning of his short reign warred successfully against the Shasous or N.E. nomadic tribes. He was married to his sister Hatasou, who succeeded as queen regnant. At his death the confederate nations N. of Palestine revolted, and no attempt to recover them was made until the 22nd year of Thothemes III.
The sudden collapse after a brilliant beginning, his death succeeded by the reigning of a woman for so long after him instead of his son, the absence of the glorious records which marked his predecessors' reigns, and no effort being made to regain Egypt's former possessions, all accord with the view that the plagues which visited Egypt, the Exodus after the slaying of the firstborn, and the final catastrophe at the Red Sea, occurred in his reign. Of course no monument would commemorate the king's and the nation's disasters. Moses returning from Midian at the close of the reign of Thothmes II found him at Zoan (i.e. Tunis or Avaris), the city taken by Aahmes I in Lower Egypt (Psa_78:12); the restlessness of the neighboring Shasous or Bedouins would require his presence there.
This Pharaoh was weak, capricious, and obstinate, and such a one as Hatasou (a superstitions devotee as the inscriptions prove, and there fore furious at the dishonors done through Moses' God to her favorite idols and priests, and above all at the crowning calamity, the death of her firstborn) would urge on to avenge all her wrongs on the escaped bondservants. On her beautiful monument at Thebes she is represented with masculine attire and beard, and boasting of the idol Ammon's favor and of her own gracious manners.
Each fit of terror which each fresh plague excited in the monarch soon gave way to renewed hardening of, his heart under her influence, until the door of repentance was forever shut against him; compare 2Co_7:10; Pro_29:1. Artapanus, a Jewish historian quoted by Alexander Polyhistor (Fragm. Hist. Greek, 3:223), Sylla's contemporary, wrote: "the Memphites say that Moses led the people across the bed of the sea at the ebb of the tide; but they of Heliopolis that the king was with a vast force pursuing the Jews, because they were carrying away the riches borrowed of the Egyptians. Then God's voice commanded Moses to smite the sea with his rod, so the sea parted asunder, and the host marched through on dry ground."
ISRAEL IN EGYPT. - The Egyptian monuments illustrate Israel's oppression in many points. Bricks were the common material of building, and for the king's edifices were stamped with his name. Chopped straw was used, as hair by plasterers, to make them more durable. Captives did the work in the royal brickfields; taskmasters with rods and the bastinado punished the idle. The entire stalk was left standing in cutting the wheat, so that stubble was easy to find in the fields. Though field labor is light, yet from the continued succession of crops and intense heat the cultivators' lot is a hard one. The storing of water in vessels of wood and stone (Exo_7:19) is uniquely Egyptian. Reservoirs and cisterns were needless where the Nile and its canals made water so plentiful. But its turbid water at certain seasons needs purification for drinking; so it is kept in stone or wooden vessels until the sediment falls to the bottom.
The arts which Israel as a nomadic race knew not when they entered Egypt, such as writing, gem setting, working metals, carving, tanning, dyeing, linen weaving, building, they acquired before they left, and probably some Egyptians accompanied them (Exo_12:38). Thothmes III remained against his will a subject, while his sister ruled for 17 years. On ascending the throne he effaced her titles on the monuments, and reckoned his own reign from his predecessor's death. In the 22nd year of his reign, according to the inscriptions in his temple dedicated to Ammon on his return, he marched to encounter the allied kings of all the districts between the Euphrates and the Mediterranean. He defeated them with great slaughter at Megiddo. The chiefs presented him as tribute gold, silver, bronze, lapis lazuli, precious coffers, gold- and silver-plated chariots, highly wrought Phoenician vases, a gold inlaid bronze harp, ivory, perfumes, wine; proofs of the high civilization of the then lords of Palestine.
The confederacy which gave unity and strength to its Canaanite and other inhabitants was thus, in God's special providence, broken by Thothmes III just 17 years before Israel's invasion, to prepare an easy conquest for them. He defeated their "892 chariots" (curiously answering to Jabin's 900, Judges 4); also the "Cheta" or Hittites, and the "Rutens" or Syrians of Mesopotamia, Assur, Babel, Nineveh, Shinar, and the Remenen or Armenians. He brought home numerous captives, who are represented in Ammon's temple at Abd el Kurna making bricks, as the Israelites had done. His wars ended in the 40th year of his reign, i.e. just at the close of Israel's 40 years in the desert, when about to enter Canaan. Thus, the terror of Midian and Moab at Israel's approach (Num_22:3-4) is partly accounted for, as they were still smarting under Thothmes' defeat.
Egypt retained only such strongholds as commanded the N. road by the coast rate Syria, and left the petty kings (broken-spirited and disunited, and, as Scripture represents, liable to panics before any new foe) to keep their almost impregnable forts. The Israelites in the desert of Tih, out of the way of the coast road, offered no inducement to the conqueror. Had they remained in the peninsula of Sinai, they would have been within his reach; for its western district was subject to Egypt from the time of Snefru, the last Pharaoh of the 3rd dynasty. The most ancient existing monument records that he defeated the Ann, the old inhabitants, and founded a colony at Wady Mughara. The copper mines there were worked under Churn (Cheops) of the 4th dynasty and other monarchs long after, though it seems they were not worked and the Sinai peninsula not occupied by Egyptians at the date of the Exodus.
To the mines of this district attention has of late afresh been drawn. It may seem strange that the Pharaohs, supreme in western Asia up to Saul's time, yet allowed Israel to invade and permanently occupy Palestine. But Egypt's policy was to be content with plunder, tribute of submissive chieftains, and prisoners; and not, like Assyria, to occupy conquered countries permanently. The warrior caste, the Calasirians and Hermotybians, preferred returning to their settled homes to cultivate the fields after the inundation each year. Besides, Israel attacked Egypt's enemies, the Hittites and Amorites; and the Israelite kingdom, while not so large as to excite the jealousy of Egypt, was large enough to prevent the reunion of the powers overthrown by Thothmes III. His successor, Amenhotep II, in making war transported his troops to Phoenicia by sea, as the representations on Aahmes' tomb at El-kab, of this period, show.
He conquered the Rutens (according to an inscription in Amada in Nubia), advanced as far as Nineveh, and hanged seven princes of the confederates at Tachis, a city in Syria, with head downward, on the prow of his ship. Amenhotep III also conducted expeditions to the Soudan, but mainly was occupied in erecting magnificent works. He was married to a remarkable woman, not of royal birth or Egyptian creed, Tel, daughter of Juan (akin to Judah) and Tuaa. In 1Ch_4:17 Mered, son of Ezra two generations after Caleb founded a family by an Egyptian wife (See BITHIAH , daughter of Pharaoh, a name closely resembling Tei daughter of Juaa. Its settlement was at Eshtemoa in the hills of Judah S. of Hebron. Amenophis IV, Tei's son (whose features are distinctly Semitic), revolutionized, under her influence, Egypt's religion as to its grosser idolatries, such as the phallus worship of Khem, and introduced a more spiritual worship. His name Khun Aten (akin to Adon "THE LORD"), i.e. glory of the sunbeam, refers to the Semitic name for God.
Thus, Egypt remained supreme in Mesopotamia in the earlier part of the judges' period. Then, during internal struggles, the Egyptian yoke was thrown off, and then scope was left for the invasion of Israel by Chushan Rishathaim of Mesopotamia, about a century after Joshua. He being expelled on one side, by Othniel, (and the Rutens or Assyrians consequently losing the ascendancy, toward the end of the 18th dynasty,) and Egypt being prostrated on the other side, Moab, Ammon, Amalek, under king Eglon, and Midian or Edom, naturally grew into power. The Cheta or Hittites also gradually extended their power from Cilicia to the Euphrates, holding Syria's strongholds, and encroaching on the powers of Palestine during all the time of the 19th dynasty. Manetho's testimony. - Manetho's account recognizes the scriptural fact that:
(1) the Israelites whom he confounds with the Hyksos had been employed in forced labors, and that they
(2) went forth from the region about Avaris (related to the Hebrew, i.e. Goshen) "by permission"
(3) of the Theban king whose father (i.e. the first king of the 18th dynasty) had driven out the Hyksos from the rest of Egypt, and that
(4) they took with them their "furniture and cattle" and traversed the region between Egypt and Syria, and settled in Judaea, and that the king in resisting them felt
(5) "he was fighting against the gods," and
(6) was afraid for the safety of his young son.
Elsewhere he calls them "lepers," and confounds Moses with Joseph of Heliopolis (On) whom he makes leader of the Exodus (perhaps drawn from the fact that Israel and Moses carried with them Joseph's body, Exo_13:19) under the name Ostirsiph (i.e. rich in food zaf), and notices the historical fact that it was with an Ethiopian army the Theban king ejected (the lepers and their allies) the shepherds. (See above.) The "leprosy" attributed to them is drawn from the leprous hand whereby Moses proved his divine mission (Exo_4:6), also from its prevalence among the Hebrew (Leviticus 13; 14). In the two centuries' interval between the early judges and Deborah, the chief strongholds of Palestine were occupied by the Canaanites, Hittites, Jebusites, etc., during Egypt's 19th dynasty, and are so represented in the monuments describing the attacks on them by Seti I. and Rameses II.
The open country was held by the Amorites. against whose iron chariots Israel could not stand (Jdg_1:19); so the district from the S. border northward is called in the monuments" the land of the Amorites." Compare Jdg_5:6, "the highways were unoccupied ... the villages ceased ... war was in the gates (of the strongholds). Was there a shield or spear seen among 40,000 in Israel?" Thus the Egyptian armies in traversing Syria would encounter no Israelite in the field and would only encounter Israel's foes. Seti I, 150 years after the Exodus, overwhelmed the anti-Egyptian confederacy of tribes from Cilicia to Mesopotamia, headed by the Assyrians. Under Rameses II, the Assyrians are not even mentioned in his great campaign in his fifth year. The Hittites or Cheta, N. of Palestine (Jdg_1:26), became the great power opposed to Egypt under Seti I. Sisera is a Chetan name; and his master Jabin ruled the whole country in Merneptah's reign.
Seti I overcame the Shasous, i.e. the warlike nomads who overran Palestine, Moah, Ammon, Amalek the Hittites, etc., his aim being to conquer Syria and to occupy Kadesh which was its chief city (Edessa, on the Orontes). Rameses Merammon (Sesostris) was associated in the kingdom with his father from infancy, and succeeded him as sole king, with a family of 27 princes, at his death. Rameses reigned 67 years (according to the monument at Tunis), but it is uncertain how long before his father's death his reign is counted. He venerated his father in his early inscriptions, afterward effaced "Seti" for his own name. He is made by some the "new king" (Exodus 1). But facts and dates contradict it; and the assumption is false that he reigned 67 years after his father. The fortresses of Zaru and Pa-Ramesses which he enlarged existed previously, and therefore afford no argument for his being the Pharaoh who set Israel to work at Pithem and Rameses (which moreover are not certainly identical with Zaru and Pa-Ramesses).
Rameses set certain Aperu (identified by some with "Hebrew," by others explained" workmen") to work on the frontier in the region where Israel's forefathers had been bondservants in hard service. Four Egyptian documents quoted by Cook (Speaker's Commentary) contain the following particulars bearing on e question. The report of one. Kawisar (a Chetan), a commissariat officer at Pa-Ramesson, states to Rameses II that he has distributed rations to the Aperu who drew stores for the great fortress (Bekken) and to the soldiers. Another report, that of a scribe, Keniamen, to the kazana or high officer of Rameses' household, implies by their being employed to draw stones S. of Memphis, that the Aperu, if Israelites, were prisoners of war under military surveillance, not (as the Israelites before the Exodus) residents working in their own district under Egyptian taskmasters.
Moreover, 2,083 Aperu resided under Rameses III, 800 worked in the Hamamat quarry under Rameses IV similarly. These could not have been stayers behind after Israel's Exodus, for the Egyptians would not then have tolerated them. Rameses, in his 21st year, made a treaty with Chetasar, king of the Cheta, on equal terms, and married his daughter. Palestine thus remained in quiet between the times of Eglon and Shamgar. Merneptah succeeded, and defeated confederate Libyans, Asiatics, and Tyrrhenians, Sicilians and Achaeans. Had Moses returned to Egypt at that time he would surely have mentioned some of these races in Genesis 10. In Merneptah's reign southern Palestine was for the first time occupied by the Philistines, and northern Palestine subdued by Jabin the Canaanite king and his captain Sisera, who was chief of the Syrian confederates, with 900 chariots answering to the 892 taken by Thethroes III on the same battlefield, Megiddo.
This was about 1320 B.C., which year all Egyptologers agree occurred in Merneptah's reign. Rameses III was the last Egyptian who gained great victories in Syria, transporting his forces there by sea, and conquering the Cheta. This overthrow of the Chetan confederacy, after Jabin's defeat by Deborah, secured peace to Palestine. When Egypt's monarchy became weaker some years later, Midian oppressed Israel (Judges 6). But Egypt retained a general ascendancy in Syria and Mesopotamia until the end of the Second dynasty, answering to the end of the period of the Judges.
Thus, God's providence secured Israel from being crushed by tire overwhelming rival empires; and meanwhile the nation's character' was being molded and its resources prepared for the high place width it assumed among the great, kingdoms under Saul, David, and Solomon. The general scheme and facts above (as also the table below) are drawn in part from Cook's interesting essay in the Speaker's Commentary, also from Professor Rawlinson's, Dr. Birch's, and Hengstenberg's works:
YEAR DYNASTIES CONTEMPORARY EVENTS RECORDED ON THE MONUMENTS SCRIPTURAL PARALLEL EVENTS
B.C. 2700 ... FIRST DYNASTY: THINITES (named from This, W. of the river, or Abydos). Begins with Menes.
B.C. 2470 ... SECOND; also THINITES (contemporaneous - In the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, a tablet records poraneous with the Fourth). a king of the 2nd dynasty whose existence is known to us by the Tablet of Abydos
B.C. 2650 ... THIRD; MEMPHITES The last of the 3rd dynasty, with whom real history begins, Snefru, conquers the Anu, plants a colony at Wady Mughara, and occupies the W. of the Sinai peninsula and explores its turquoise and copper mines.
B.C. 2500 ... FOURTH; MEMPHITES Erection of the pyramids of Jizeh by Suphis and Sensuphis, the Great one the oldest of the three. The names Suphis, or Shofo (or Cheops), and Nou-shofo (Chephren, Herodotus), were found in "the chambers of construction," but hieroglyphics are not in the Great Pyramid itself. Explained by Piazzi Smith that they were shepherd kings (compare
Gen_49:24) of an earlier dynasty than those of the 14th and 17th dynasties; from Jerusalem, holding the (pure faith of Melchizedek, and therefore hated Manetho and Herodotus) by the Egyptians. as foreigners and opponents of idolatry; forbidding any sculptures or painted emblems of the idols, in the pyramid, which was designed as the sacred standard of metrology of time, capacity, weight, line, square and cubic measure, heat, latitude, temperature, and indicated the mean density and true figure of the earth, standing in the political center of the earth. Shofo warred with the Arabs, according to the monuments.
FIFTH: ELEPHANTINES (contem-poraneous with the Fourth).
B.C. 2200 ... SIXTH; MEMPHITES (contemporaneous - In the Boulak Museum, Cairo, a monumental inscription raneous with the Ninth and exists, set up by Una, scribe and crown-bearer Eleventh). to King Teta, and "priest of the place of his pyramid," to Pepi, successor of Teta, of the 6th dynasty.
SEVENTH; MEMPHITES
EIGHTH; Memphites
NINTH; HERACLEOPOLITES (contemporaneous with the 6th and 11th dynasties)
TENTH; Heracleopolites
ELEVENTH; DIOSPOLITES (contemporaneous with the 6th and 9th dynasties)
About B.C. 2000 TWELFTH; DIOSPOLITES: Seven Dawn of poetry and philosophy; astronomy added Abram was graciously received. Pharaohs: Amenemha I, the five Epact days to the old 360. The capital Osirtasin I, Amenemha II, shifted from Memphis to Thebes. Foreigners Osirtasin II, Osirtasin III, from western Asia received and promoted by the Amenemha III, Amenemha IV; early Pharaohs. The latter execute great works and a queen, Ra-Sebek- of irrigation, to guard against famine. This Nefrou. 12th dynasty worshipped Amen (the occult god, hidden in nature), at Thebes. The Labyrinth, and the artificial Lake Moeris, their work.
THIRTEENTH: DIOSPOLITES (contemporary with the Shepherds). Pharaohs named Sebek-hotep.
About B.C. 1750 Fourteenth; XOITES, in Upper The early Pharaohs lords of all Egypt. Then the Joseph under an early Egypt (contemporaneous Hyksos, chief of the Shasous or" Nomads," seize Pharaoh, of the 13th dynasty, with the 15th and 16th N. Egypt; introduce worship of Sut, Sutech, or or under Amenemha III, dynasties in Lower Egypt). Baal-Salatis, the first Hyksos king; Apepi, the the sixth king of the 12th
FIFTEENTH; HYKSOS, or SHEP- last, overcome by Aahmes I; and Avaris, Tanis, dynasty. HERDS (contemporaneus with or Zoan, the Hyksos stronghold, taken, and the the 14th and 16th dynasties), Shepherds expelled. Rasetnub (the Saites of Sixteenth: SHEPHERDS (contemporaneous - Manetho) was leader of the Hyksos; his name temporaneous with the occurs on a tablet of Rameses II, 1300 B.C., who 14th and 15th dynasties). says Rasetnub's era was 400 years before, i.e. 1700 B.C.; also on a lion at Bagdad (Dr. Birch).
About B.C 1525; SEVENTEENTH; APEPI, or but Lepsius, APOPHIS, last of the Hyksos. B.C. 1706 Ta-aaken Rasckenen, last of the contemporary Egyptian Pharaohs.
B.C. 1525... or EIGHTEENTH: DIOSPOLITES: Expels the Shepherds. Great buildings by forced Aahmes I., the" new king" B.C. 1706 Aahmes I (Nefertari, a Nubian labor. Theban worship restored. Expedition who imposed bond-service queen, regent), Amenhotep I, into Ethiopia under Amenhotep I. Successful upon Israel, building Thothmes I (Aahmes regent), expeditions into Nubia and Mesopotamia under forts in their own land. Thothmes II, Thothmes III, Thothmes I. First part of reign of Thothmes II Moses was saved and adopted Amenhotep IV (Khun-Aten); prosperous. Ends in a blank, followed by a by an Egyptian princess. B.C. 1463; or three kings, Horemheb, ille- general revolt of the Syrian confederates. Hata- Flees into Midian. Re- B.C. 1485. gitimate. son queen regnant for 17 or 22 years. Thothmes turn of Moses. The Exodus.
Lepsius, B.C. III recovers the ascendancy in Syria in the Pharaoh and his army 1647 22nd year, and invades Mesopotamia, and reduces perish in the Red Sea. Nineveh. His wars end in the 40th year of his Israel was in the wilderness reign. Monuments of him exist in El Karnak, for forty years. Joshua in the sanctuary of Thebes. Amenhotep II invades the 40th year enters Syria by sea; overthrows the confederates N. of Canaan. Israel acquires Palestine. Amenhotep III, and his queen Tel, most of Canaan. a foreigner favor a purer worship. Raise the temple at Thebes, where the vocal Memnon and its fellow now stand. Amenhotep IV, Khun-Aten, completes the religious revolution. A period Chushan Rishathaim invades follows of internal struggles, during which Israel. Mesopotamia threw off Egypt's yoke.
NINETEENTH. Rameses I, Seti I, Wars with the Cheta, now the dominant race in The interval between Chushan Rameses II, Merneptah I, Syria. Seti I subdues the Shasous or nomads Rishathaim and Seti II, Am-Emmeses, Siptah, from Egypt to Syria, the Cheta, and Mesopota- Jabin. Palestine still in Tauser. mians. The great hypostyle hall of El Karnak the hands of the Amorites built. Bas-reliefs of his successes on the N. wall. and Canaanites. Toward The empire's highest civilization. Rameses II the end of this period, co-regent with his father many years. Defeats subject to the Philistines the Cheta; contracts a treaty with their king, on the south, and whose daughter he marries. Captives employed to the Cheta or Hittites in enlarging fortresses, etc. The Aperu employed on the north. Revolt at Pa-Ramesses and Zaru. Reigns, dating, from against Jabin. Over- B.C. 1320 ... his co-regency, 67 years in all. The temples he throw of the Chetan built in Egypt and Nubia outshone all others. Sisera, in Merneptab's reign.
TWENTIETH; Rameses III. Successes in Africa and Asia. The Cheta subdued. Events in Judges, after 12 more of the same name, Aperu employed in the king's domains; also in Deborah and Barak. with distinguishing surnames. the quarries. Rameses III records his successes on his great temple of Medeenet Haboo in western Thebes; among them a naval victory in the Mediterranean over the Tokkaree (Carians) and Shairetana (Cretans). Other Shairetana (Cherethim) serve in his forces. After Rameses III anarchy succeeded, the high priests usurping the throne at Thebes, and a Lower Egypt dynasty, the 21st, arising at Tanis. Solomon's wife was probably of the latter dynasty. Sheshonk I (Shishak), head of the 22nd dynasty, reunited the kingdom 990 B.C. He received Jeroboam Solomon's enemy, who went forth from him to take the kingdom of the ten tribes.
Outside the southern wall of the temple of El Karnak is a list of Sheshonk's conquests, among them "the kingdom of Judah." The overthrow of his successor (Zerah), Osorkon I, by Asa caused the decline of the dynasty (2Ch_14:9). The 25th dynasty was an Ethiopian line which boldly withstood the progress of Assyria. So, either Shebek II or Shebek I, Sabacho, was ally to Hoshea, Israel's last king (2Ki_17:4). Tirhakah, the third of this dynasty (2Ki_19:9), made a diversion in favor of Hezekiah when threatened by Sennacherib.
The 26th dynasty was a native line, Saites. Psammetik I (664 B.C.) Neku (Necho) his son marched against Assyria, and unwillingly encountered and slew Josiah at Megiddo, 608 B.C. 2Ch_35:21; "I come not against thee, thou king of Judah, but against the house wherewith I have war; for God commanded me to make haste; forbear thee from meddling with God, who is with me, that He destroy thee not": characteristic of the kindly relations which all along subsisted between Israel and Egypt after the Exodus; the recognition of God is remarkable. Necho was routed at Carchemish by Nebuchadnezzar, 605 B.C. (Jer_46:2.) He "came not again any more out of his laud, for the king of Babylon had taken from the river of Egypt unto the river Euphrates all that pertained to the king of Egypt" (2Ki_24:7.)
Pharaoh Hophra, his second successor, after temporarily raising the siege of Jerusalem as Zedekiah's ally (Jer_37:5; Jer_37:7; Jer_37:11), was afterward attacked by Nebuchadnezzar in his own country. Next, Amasis reigned prosperously; but his son, after a six months' reign, was conquered by Cambyses, who reduced Egypt to a province of the Persian empire 525 B.C. He took Pelusium, the key of Egypt, by placing before his army dogs, cats, etc., held sacred in Egypt, so that no Egyptian would use weapon against them. The Ptolemies, successors of the Greek Alexander the Great, ruled for three hundred years, and raised Egypt to eminence by their patronage of literature; but they were a foreign line.
Thus, Ezekiel's prophecies (Ezekiel 29-32) were fulfilled. Jeremiah's prediction is fulfilled in the disappearance of Memphis and its temples; Jer_46:19, "Noph shall be waste and desolate without an inhabitant"; "I will destroy the idols, and I will cause images to cease out of Noph." Eze_30:13; "and there shall be no more a prince of the land of Egypt." Cambyses slew Apis, the sacred ox, and burnt the other idols. From the second Persian conquest, upward of 2,000 years ago, no native prince of an Egyptian race has reigned. (See PHARAOH; EXODUS; MOSES; ALEXANDRIA.)
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
By Andrew Robert Fausset, co-Author of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown's 1888.

E'gypt. (land of the Copts). A country occupying the northeast angle of Africa. Its limits appear always to have been very nearly the same. It is bounded on the north by the Mediterranean Sea, on the east by Palestine, Arabia and the Red Sea, on the south by Nubia, and on the west by the Great Desert. It is divided into upper Egypt ? the valley of the Nile ? and lower Egypt, the plain of the Delta, from the Greek letter; it is formed by the branching mouths of the Nile, and the Mediterranean Sea. The portions made fertile by the Nile comprise about 9582 square geographical miles, of which only about 5600 is under cultivation. ? Encyclopedia Britannica. The Delta extends about 200 miles along the Mediterranean, and Egypt is 520 miles long from north to south from the sea to the First Cataract.
Names. ? The common name of Egypt in the Bible is "Mizraim." It is in the dual number, which indicates the two natural divisions of the country into an upper and a lower region. The Arabic name of Egypt ? Mizr ? signifies "red mud". Egypt is also called in the Bible "the land of Ham," Psa_105:23; Psa_105:27, compare Psa_78:51, ? a name most probably referring to Ham the son of Noah ? and "Rahab," the proud or insolent: these appear to be poetical appellations. The common ancient Egyptian name of the country is written in hieroglyphics (Kem, which was perhaps pronounced Chem. This name signifies, in the ancient language and in Coptic, "black", on account of the blackness of its alluvial soil. We may reasonably conjecture that Kem is the Egyptian equivalent of Ham. See Names.
General Appearance, Climate, Etc. ? The general appearance of the country cannot have greatly changed since the days of Moses. The whole country is remarkable for its extreme fertility, which especially strikes the beholder when the rich green of the fields is contrasted with the utterly bare, yellow mountains or the sand-strewn rocky desert on either side. The climate is equable and healthy. Rain is not very unfrequent on the northern coast, but inland is very rare. Cultivation nowhere depends upon it. The inundation of the Nile fertilizes and sustains the country, and makes the river its chief blessing.
The Nile was, on this account, anciently worshipped. The rise begins in Egypt about the summer solstice, and the inundation commences about two months later. The greatest height is attained about or somewhat after the autumnal equinox. The inundation lasts about three months. The atmosphere, except on the seacoast, is remarkably dry and clear, which accounts for the so perfect preservation of the monuments, with their pictures and inscriptions. The heat is extreme during a large part of the year. The winters are mild.
Smith's Bible Dictionary
By Dr. William Smith.Published in 1863

a country of Africa, called also in the Hebrew Scriptures the land of Mizraim, and the land of Ham; by the Turks and Arabs, Masr and Misr; and by the native Egyptians, Chemi, or the land of Ham. Mr. Faber derives the name from Ai-Capht, or the land of the Caphtorim; from which, also, the modern Egyptians derive their name of Cophts. Egypt was first peopled after the deluge by Mizraim, or Mizr, the son of Ham, who is supposed to be the same with Menes, recorded in Egyptian history as the first king. Every thing relating to the subsequent history and condition of this country, for many ages, is involved in fable. Nor have we any clear information from Heathen writers, until the time of Cyrus, and his son Cambyses, when the line of Egyptian princes ceased in agreement with prophecies to that effect. Manetho, the Egyptian historian, has given a list of thirty dynasties, which, if successive, make a period of five thousand three hundred years to the time of Alexander, or three thousand two hundred and eighty-two years more than the real time, according to the Mosaic chronology. But this is a manifest forgery, which has, nevertheless, been appealed to by infidel writers, as authority against the veracity of the Mosaic history. The truth is, that this pretended succession of princes, if all of them can be supposed to have existed at all, constituted several distinct dynasties, ruling in different cities at the same time; thus these were the kingdoms of Thebes, Thin, Memphis, and Tanis. See WRITING.
2. In the time of Moses we find Egypt renowned for learning; for he was instructed “in all its wisdom;” and it is one of the commendations of Solomon, at a later period, that he excelled in knowledge “all the wisdom of the children of the east country, and all the wisdom of Egypt.”
Astronomy, which probably, like that of the Chaldeans, comprehended also judicial astrology, physics, agriculture, jurisprudence, medicine, architecture, painting, and sculpture, were the principal sciences and arts; to which were added, and that by their wisest men, the study of divination, magic, and enchantments. They had also their consulters with familiar spirits, and necromancers, those who had, or pretended to have, intercourse with the infernal deities, and the spirits of the dead, and delivered responses to inquirers. Of all this knowledge, good and evil, and of a monstrous system of idolatry, Egypt was the polluted fountain to the surrounding nations; but in that country itself it appears to have degenerated into the most absurd and debased forms. Among nations who are not blessed by divine revelation, the luminaries of heaven are the first objects of worship. Diodorus Siculus, mentioning the Egyptians, informs us, that “the first men, looking up to the world above them, and, struck with admiration at the nature of the universe, supposed the sun and moon to be the principal and eternal gods.” This, which may be called the natural superstition of mankind, we can trace in the annals of the west, as well as of the east; among the inhabitants of the new world, as well as of the old. The sun and moon, under the names of Isis and Osiris, were the chief objects of adoration among the Egyptians. But the earliest times had a purer faith. The following inscription, engraven in hieroglyphics in the temple of Neith, the Egyptian Minerva, conveys the most sublime idea of the Deity which unenlightened reason could form: “I am that which is, was, and shall be: no mortal hath lifted up my veil: the offspring of my power is the sun.” A similar inscription still remains at Capua, on the temple of Isis: “Thou art one, and from thee all things proceed.” Plutarch also informs us, that the inhabitants of Thebais worshipped only the immortal and supreme God, whom they called Eneph. According to the Egyptian cosmogony, all things sprung from athor, or night, by which they denoted the darkness of chaos before the creation. Sanchoniathon relates, that, “from the breath of gods and the void were mortals created.” This theology differs little from that of Moses, who says, “The earth was without form, and void; darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”
3. A superstitious reverence for certain animals, as propitious or hurtful to the human race, was not peculiar to the Egyptians. The cow has been venerated in India from the most remote antiquity. The serpent has been the object of religious respect to one half of the nations of the known world. The Romans had sacred animals, which they kept in their temples, and distinguished with peculiar honours. We need not therefore be surprised that a nation so superstitious as the Egyptians should honour, with peculiar marks of respect, the ichneumon, the ibis, the dog, the falcon, the wolf, and the crocodile. These they entertained at great expense, and with much magnificence. Lands were set apart for their maintenance; persons of the highest rank were employed in feeding and attending them; rich carpets were spread in their apartments; and the pomp at their funerals corresponded to the profusion and luxury which attended them while alive. What chiefly tended to favour the progress of animal worship in Egypt, was the language of hieroglyphics. In the hieroglyphic inscriptions on their temples, and public edifices, animals, and even vegetables, were the symbols of the gods whom they worshipped. In the midst of innumerable superstitions, the theology of Egypt contained the two great principles of religion, the existence of a supreme Being, and the immortality of the soul.
The first is proved by the inscription on the temple of Minerva; the second, by the care with which dead bodies were embalmed, and the prayer recited at the hour of death, by an Egyptian, expressing his desire to be received to the presence of the deities.
4. The opulence of Egypt was for ages increased by the large share it had in the commerce with the east; by its own favourable position, making it the connecting link of intercourse between the eastern and western nations; and especially by its own remarkable fertility, particularly in corn, so that it was, in times of scarcity, the granary of the world. Its extraordinary fertility was owing to the periodical inundation of the Nile; and sufficient proofs of the ancient accounts which we have of its productiveness are afforded to this day. The Rev. Mr. Jowett has given a striking example of the extraordinary fertility of the soil of Egypt, which is alluded to in Gen_41:47 : “The earth brought forth by handfuls.” “I picked up at random,” says Mr. Jowett, “a few stalks out of the thick corn fields. We counted the number of stalks which sprouted from single grains of seed; carefully pulling to pieces each root, in order to see that it was but one plant. The first had seven stalks, the next three, the next nine, then eighteen, then fourteen. Each stalk would have been an ear.
5. The architecture of the early Egyptians, at least that of their cities and dwellings, was rude and simple: they could indeed boast of little in either external elegance or internal comfort, since Herodotus informs us that men and beasts lived together. The materials of their structure were bricks of clay, bound together with chopped straw, and baked in the sun. Such were the bricks which the Israelites were employed in making, and of which the cities of Pithom and Rameses were built. Their composition was necessarily perishable, and explains why it is that no remains of the ancient cities of Egypt are to be found. They would indeed last longer in the dry climate of this country than in any other; but even here they must gradually decay and crumble to dust, and the cities so constructed become heaps. Of precisely the same materials are the villages of Egypt built at this day. “Village after village,” says Mr. Jowett, speaking of Tentyra, “built of unburnt brick, crumbling into ruins, and giving place to new habitations, have raised the earth, in some parts, nearly to the level of the summit of the temple. In every part of Egypt, we find the towns built in this manner, upon the ruins, or rather the rubbish, of the former habitations. The expression in Jer_30:18, literally applies to Egypt, in the meanest sense: ‘The city shall be builded upon her own heap.' And the expression in Job_15:28, might be illustrated by many of these deserted hovels: ‘He dwelleth in desolate cities, and in houses which no man inhabiteth, which are ready to become heaps.' Still more touching is the allusion, in Job_4:19, where the perishing generations of men are fitly compared to habitations of the frailest materials, built upon the heap of similar dwelling-places, now reduced to rubbish: ‘How much less in them that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust!'”
6. The splendid temples of Egypt were not built, in all probability, till after the time of Solomon; for the recent progress made in the decyphering of hieroglyphics has disappointed the antiquaries as to the antiquity of these stupendous fabrics. It is well observed by Dr. Shuckford, that temples made no great figure in Homer's time. If they had, he would not have lost such an opportunity of exerting his genres on so grand a subject, as Virgil has done in his description of the temple built by Dido at Carthage. The first Heathen temples were probably nothing more than mean buildings, which served merely as a shelter from the weather; of which kind was, probably, the house of the Philistine god Dagon. But when the fame of Solomon's temple had reached other countries, it excited them to imitate its splendour; and nation vied with nation in the structures erected to their several deities. All were, however, outdone, at least in massiveness and durability, by the Egyptians; the architectural design of whose temples, as well as that of the Grecian edifices, was borrowed from the stems and branches of the grove temples.
7. It appears to be an unfounded notion, that the pyramids were built by the Israelites: they were, probably, Mr. Faber thinks, the work of the “Shepherds,” or Cushite invaders, who, at an early period, held possession of Egypt for two hundred and sixty years, and reduced the Egyptians to bondage, so that “a shepherd was an abomination to the Egyptians” in Joseph's time. The Israelites laboured in making bricks, not in forming stones such as the pyramids are constructed with; and a passage in Mr. Jowett's “Researches,” before referred to, will throw light upon this part of their history. Mr. Jowett saw at one place the people making bricks, with straw cut into small pieces, and mingled with the clay, to bind it. Hence it is, that when villages built of these bricks fall into rubbish, which is often the case, the roads are full of small particles of straws, extremely offensive to the eyes in a high wind. They were, in fact, engaged exactly as the Israelites used to be, making bricks with straw; and for a similar purpose, to build extensive granaries for the bashaw; “treasure-cities for Pharaoh.”
The same intelligent missionary also observes: “The mollems transact business between the bashaw and the peasants. He punishes them if the peasants prove that they oppress; and yet he requires from them that the work of those who are under them shall be fulfilled. They strikingly illustrate the case of the officers placed by the Egyptian taskmasters over the children of Israel; and, like theirs, the mollems often find their case is evil, Exodus 5.”
8. It is not necessary to go over those parts of the Egyptian history which occur in the Old Testament. The prophecies respecting this haughty and idolatrous kingdom, uttered by Jeremiah and Ezekiel when it was in the height of its splendour and prosperity, were fulfilled in the terrible invasions of Nebuchadnezzar, Cambyses, and the Persian monarchs. It comes, however, again into an interesting connection with the Jewish history under Alexander the Great, who invaded it as a Persian dependence. So great, indeed, was the hatred of the Egyptians toward their oppressors, that they hailed the approach of the Macedonians, and threw open their cities to receive them. Alexander, merciless as he was to those who opposed his progress or authority, knew how to requite those who were devoted to his interests; and the Egyptians, for many centuries afterward, had reason to recollect with gratitude his protection and foresight. It was he who discerned the local advantages of the spot on which the city bearing his name afterward stood, who projected the plan of the town, superintended its erection, endowed it with many privileges, and peopled it with colonies drawn from other places for the purpose, chiefly Greeks. But, together with these, and the most favoured of all, were the Jews, who enjoyed the free exercise of their religion, and the same civil rights and liberties as the Macedonians themselves. Kindness shown to the people of Israel has never, in the providence of God, brought evil on any country; and there can be no doubt but that the encouragement given to this enterprising and commercial people, assisted very much to promote the interests of the new city, which soon became the capital of the kingdom, the centre of commerce, of science, and the arts, and one of the most flourishing and considerable cities in the world. Egypt, indeed, was about to see better days; and, during the reigns of the Ptolemies, enjoyed again, for nearly three hundred years, something of its former renown for learning and power. It formed, during this period, and before the rapid extension of the Roman empire toward the termination of these years, one of the only two ancient kingdoms which had survived the Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, and Macedonian empires: the other was the Syrian, where the Seleucidae, another family of one of the successors of Alexander, reigned; who, having subdued Macedonia and Thrace, annexed them to the kingdom of Syria, and there remained out of the four kingdoms into which the empire of Alexander was divided these two only; distinguished, in the prophetic writings of Daniel, by the titles of the kings or kingdoms of the north and the south.
9. Under the reign of the three first Ptolemies, the state of the Jews was exceedingly prosperous. They were in high favour, and continued to enjoy all the advantages conferred upon them by Alexander. Judea was, in fact, at this time, a privileged province of Egypt; the Jews being governed by their own high priest, on paying a tribute to the kings of Egypt. But in the reign of Ptolemy Epiphanes, the fifth of the race, it was taken by Antiochus, king of Syria; which was the beginning of fresh sufferings and persecutions; for although this Antiochus, who was the one surnamed the Great, was a mild and generous prince, and behaved favourably toward them, their troubles began at his death; his successor, Seleueus, oppressing them with taxes; and the next was the monster, Antiochus Epiphanes, whose impieties and cruelties are recorded in the two books of Maccabees. But still, in Egypt, the Jews continued in the enjoyment of their privileges, so late as the reign of the sixth Ptolemy, called Philometor, who committed the charge of his affairs to two Jews, Onias and Dositheus; the former of whom obtained permission to build a temple at Heliopolis. The introduction of Christianity into Egypt is mentioned under the article See ALEXANDRIA.
10. The prophecies respecting Egypt in the Old Testament have had a wonderful fulfilment. The knowledge of all its greatness and glory deterred not the Jewish prophets from declaring, that Egypt would become “a base kingdom, and never exalt itself any more among the nations.” And the literal fulfilment of every prophecy affords as clear a demonstration as can possibly be given, that each and all of them are the dictates of inspiration. Egypt was the theme of many prophecies, which were fulfilled in ancient times; and it bears to the present day, as it has borne throughout many ages, every mark with which prophecy had stamped its destiny: “They shall be a base kingdom. It shall be the basest of kingdoms. Neither shall it exalt itself any more among the nations: for I will diminish them, that they shall no more rule over the nations. The pride of her power shall come down; and they shall be desolate in the midst of the countries that are desolate; and her cities shall be in the midst of the cities that are wasted. I will make the land of Egypt desolate, and the country shall be desolate of that whereof it was full. I will sell the land into the hand of the wicked. I will make the land waste and all that is therein, by the hand of strangers. I the Lord have spoken it. And there shall be no more a prince of the land of Egypt,” Eze_30:5; Eze_30:7; Eze_30:12-13. “The sceptre of Egypt shall depart away,” Zec_10:11.
11. Egypt became entirely subject to the Persians about three hundred and fifty years previous to the Christian aera. It was afterward subdued by the Macedonians, and was governed by the Ptolemies for the space of two hundred and ninety-four years; until, about B.C. 30, it became a province of the Roman empire. It continued long in subjection to the Romans,— tributary first to Rome, and afterward to Constantinople. It was transferred, A.D. 641, to the dominion of the Saracens. In 1250 the Mamelukes deposed their rulers, and usurped the command of Egypt. A mode of government, the most singular and surprising that ever existed on earth, was established and maintained. Each successive ruler was raised to supreme authority, from being a stranger and a slave. No son of the former ruler, no native of Egypt, succeeded to the sovereignty; but a chief was chosen from among a new race of imported slaves. When Egypt became tributary to the Turks in 1517, the Mamelukes retained much of their power; and every pasha was an oppressor and a stranger. During all these ages, every attempt to emancipate the country, or to create a prince of the land of Egypt, has proved abortive, and has often been fatal to the aspirant. Though the facts relative to Egypt form too prominent a feature in the history of the world to admit of contradiction or doubt, yet the description of the fate of that country, and of the form of its government, may be left, says Keith, to the testimony of those whose authority no infidel will question, and whom no man can accuse of adapting their descriptions to the predictions of the event. Volney and Gibbon are our witnesses of the facts: “Such is the state of Egypt. Deprived, twenty-three centuries ago, of her natural proprietors, she has seen her fertile fields successively a prey to the Persians, the Macedonians, the Romans, the Greeks, the Arabs, the Georgians, and, at length, the race of Tartars distinguished by the name of Ottoman Turks. The Mamelukes, purchased as slaves, and introduced as soldiers, soon usurped the power and elected a leader. If their first establishment was a singular event, their continuance is not less extraordinary. They are replaced by slaves brought from their original country. The system of oppression is methodical. Every thing the traveller sees or hears reminds him he is in the country of slavery and tyranny.” “A more unjust and absurd constitution cannot be devised than that which condemns the natives of a country to perpetual servitude, under the arbitrary dominion of strangers and slaves. Yet such has been the state of Egypt above five hundred years. The most illustrious sultans of the Baharite and Borgite dynasties were themselves promoted from the Tartar and Circassian bands; and the four-and-twenty beys, or military chiefs, have ever been succeeded, not by their sons, but by their servants.” These are the words of Volney and of Gibbon; and what did the ancient prophets foretel?— “I will lay the land waste, and all that is therein, by the hands of strangers. I the Lord have spoken it. And there shall be no more a prince of the land of Egypt. The sceptre of Egypt shall depart away.” The prophecy adds: “They shall be a base kingdom: it shall be the basest of kingdoms.” After the lapse of two thousand and four hundred years from the date of this prophecy, a scoffer at religion, but an eye witness of the facts, thus describes the self-same spot: “In Egypt,” says Volney, “there is no middle class, neither nobility, clergy, merchants, landholders. A
universal air of misery, manifest in all the traveller meets, points out to him the rapacity of oppression, and the distrust attendant upon slavery. The profound ignorance of the inhabitants equally prevents them from perceiving the causes of their evils, or applying the necessary remedies. Ignorance, diffused through every class, extends its effects to every species of moral and physical knowledge. Nothing is talked of but intestine troubles, the public misery, pecuniary extortions, bastinadoes, and murders. Justice herself puts to death without formality.” Other travellers describe the most execrable vices as common, and represent the moral character of the people as corrupted to the core. As a token of the desolation of the country, mud-walled cottages are now the only habitations where the ruins of temples and palaces abound. Egypt is surrounded by the dominions of the Turks and of the Arabs; and the prophecy is literally true which marked it in the midst of desolation: “They shall be desolate in the midst of the countries that are desolate, and her cities shall be in the midst of the cities that are wasted.” The systematic oppression, extortion, and plunder, which have so long prevailed, and the price paid for his authority and power by every Turkish pasha, have rendered the country “desolate of that whereof it was full,” and still show both how it has been “wasted by the hands of strangers,” and how it has been “sold into the hand of the wicked.”
12. Egypt has, indeed, lately somewhat risen, under its present spirited but despotic pasha, to a degree of importance and commerce. But this pasha is still a stranger, and the dominion is foreign. Nor is there any thing like a general advancement of the people to order, intelligence and happiness.
Yet this fact, instead of militating against the truth of prophecy, may, possibly at no distant period, serve to illustrate other predictions. “The Lord shall smite Egypt: he shall smite and heal it: and they shall return to the Lord, and he shall be entreated of them, and shall heal them. In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of the land,” &c, Isa_19:22-25.
Biblical and Theological Dictionary by Richard Watson
PRINTER 1849.

In spite of the ancient culture and civilization for which Egypt is famous, the feature highlighted in the Bible is that Egypt was a place of bondage out of which God redeemed his people (Exo_6:6-7; Exo_15:1-12; Exo_20:2; Deu_6:12; Jos_24:17). Throughout their history, the people of Israel celebrated their deliverance from Egypt, reminding themselves that God’s grace and power alone had saved them (Lev_23:43; Deu_16:1-3; 1Sa_10:17-18; Neh_9:16-17; Psa_106:7-12; Dan_9:15; Amo_2:10; Mic_7:15; Act_7:17-19; Act_7:36; see PASSOVER).
Egypt continued to be involved in the history of God’s people, and is mentioned often throughout the period of the Old Testament period. Even the New Testament opens with a reference to Egypt, for Mary and Joseph spent a time there with the baby Jesus (Mat_2:13-15).
The land and the people

Less than one twentieth of ancient Egypt was usable land, and almost the whole of Egypt’s population lived in that area. Most of the remaining land was desert. Rain fell only rarely, and the country was dependent almost entirely on the Nile River for its water supply.
Egypt was divided into two main parts, Upper and Lower. Upper Egypt, to the south, was desert except for the Nile Valley, where soil left behind after the annual flooding of the Nile made the land usable for a few kilometres either side of the river. Lower Egypt, to the north, consisted mainly of the flat and often swampy Delta that stretched from Cairo (Memphis) to the Mediterranean Sea, 180 kilometres away (see NILE).
A stream called the Brook (or River) of Egypt, which formed part of the south-western boundary of the land promised to Israel, was not the Nile River but the Wadi El-Arish. It flowed out of the Sinai Peninsular into the Mediterranean Sea. This was a very practical boundary from Israel’s point of view. It excluded the useless desert land of the Wilderness of Shur to the west, but included the usable farming and grazing land to the east (Num_34:1-5; Jos_15:4; Jos_15:47; 1Ki_8:65; Isa_27:12).
The people of Egypt appear to have been a mixture of Hamites and Semites. The descendants of Ham developed their own culture throughout lands of northern Africa, and were called Mizraim by the Hebrews (Gen_10:6; Psa_78:51; Psa_105:23; Psa_105:27). From very early times, other peoples mingled with the Hamites, among them the Semites (descendants of Shem). The Semitic influence was the chief cause of the advanced civilization that was already established in Egypt at the time Israel became prominent in the Bible story.
For most of this period the capital of Egypt was Memphis, on virtually the same site as present-day Cairo (Jer_44:1; Hos_9:6; see MEMPHIS). Nearby was the city of sun worship, which the Egyptians called On and the Greeks called Heliopolis (Gen_41:45; Jer_43:13; cf. Isa_19:18).
Pharaoh was the title given to all Egyptian kings, and was used either by itself or attached to the king’s personal name (Exo_5:1; 2Ki_23:29; see PHARAOH). The people considered the king to be a god and did not question his laws.
Egyptians worshipped many gods, most of them gods of nature and therefore concerned with the Nile, on which the life of Egypt depended (Exo_12:12). Pharaoh was considered to be a god-king who embodied one of these gods. At his death he passed from the world of the humans to the world of the gods, which explains why the Pharaohs built for themselves elaborate tombs such as the pyramids.

Bible history up till the exodus
After about a thousand years of development and progress under successive Egyptian dynasties, the native Egyptian rulers gradually lost their power to aggressive chiefs among recent Semitic immigrants. These foreign chiefs (in Egyptian called Hyksos) eventually took over the country (about 1720 BC).
The Hyksos continued the traditional Egyptian style of government, with the leader becoming the Pharaoh. Egyptian officials handled the day-to-day administration as previously. However, during the century and a half of the Hyksos dynasties, a number of Semites (such as Joseph) were appointed to high positions in the Egyptian government. At the same time official procedures and traditions remained thoroughly Egyptian (Gen_41:14; Gen_41:40-45; Gen_43:32; Gen_46:34; Gen_47:22; Gen_47:26; Gen_50:2-3; Gen_50:26).
Egyptian princes overthrew the Hyksos and established a new dynasty about 1570 BC. This was a turning point in Egyptian history, and the next five hundred years was the period of Egypt’s greatest power and magnificence. For most of this time the capital was at Thebes in Upper Egypt. This was a magnificent city, a fact reflected in the Hebrew word no, by which the Israelites called the city (Jer_46:25; Eze_30:16; Nah_3:8; see THEBES).
Meanwhile the descendants of Jacob, who had migrated to Egypt during the time of the Hyksos, had multiplied greatly. The Egyptian rulers, fearing and despising these Semite migrants, introduced laws against them and eventually made them slaves. This provided the Pharaohs with a cheap work force for their extensive building programs. One of the cities that the Hebrew slaves built was Rameses (or Ra’amses) in the Nile Delta. (It was probably the former Hyksos capital, Avaris, rebuilt.) The building program included a palace, storehouses and defence installations (Exo_1:8-11; see RAMESES).
The Pharaohs lived in luxury and their large harems usually included many foreign women. It was therefore not unusual for non-Egyptian children to grow up in the palace (Exo_2:10). Pharaoh also had magicians and wise men, who were among his chief advisers (Exo_7:11; Exo_8:19). (For Moses’ conflict with Pharaoh see PHARAOH; PLAGUE.)
Bible history during the Israelite monarchy
Apart from the events that led up to and included the exodus (1280 BC), Egypt had little to do with Israel during the five hundred years of Egypt’s greatest power. This time of Egyptian greatness came to an end about 1085 BC, and the story of the nation from then on is one of decline. The capital from 1085 to 660 BC was Rameses, renamed Zoan (Isa_19:11; Isa_19:13; Isa_30:4).
About 970 BC Solomon, king of Israel, married the daughter of the Pharaoh of Egypt as part of a treaty designed to strengthen the security and commercial life of both kingdoms (1Ki_3:1; 1Ki_4:21; 1Ki_10:28-29). But when that Pharaoh died, the new Pharaoh, fearful of Israel’s increasing power, encouraged rebellions within Israel. He also supported guerilla attacks around its borders, and on one occasion he himself attacked and plundered Jerusalem (1Ki_11:14-22; 1Ki_11:40; 1Ki_14:25-27).
During the time of Israel’s divided kingdom, both sections were at times tempted to rely on Egypt for help against Assyria. They were always disappointed (2Ki_17:4-6; 2Ki_18:21; 2Ki_18:24; Isa_30:1-3; Isa_31:1). Also during this time Assyria destroyed the former Egyptian capital, Thebes (Nah_3:8-10).
When Babylon conquered the Assyrian capital Nineveh in 612 BC, Pharaoh Necho of Egypt went to help what was left of Assyria to withstand Babylon. Josiah, king of Judah, opposed Necho, fearing that this Egyptian-Assyrian alliance was a threat to his independence. Judah was defeated and Josiah killed. Necho now considered himself controller of Judah and placed a heavy tax on it (2Ki_23:28-35). But in 605 BC Babylon conquered Egypt in the Battle of Carchemish, and so became the new master of Judah (2Ki_24:7; Jer_46:2).
After serving Babylon for a time, the Judean king rebelled, bringing a punishing invasion from Babylon. Babylon then appointed a new Judean king, Zedekiah, but after a while he too sought Egyptian aid in rebelling against Babylon, a policy that Jeremiah and Ezekiel strongly opposed (2Ki_24:18-20; Jer_2:16-18; Jer_2:36-37; Jer_21:1-10; Jer_37:6-10; Eze_17:12-16; Eze_29:6-9). This brought a further attack by Babylon, resulting in the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BC and the deportation of most of the Judeans to Babylon (2Ki_25:1-21).
Gedaliah, a Judean official, was appointed by the Babylonians as governor of those who remained in Judah. He encouraged the people to submit to Babylon and not to look for support against Babylon from Egypt. But the pro-Egyptian group murdered Gedaliah. The remaining Judeans, fearing a revenge attack by Babylon, fled for their lives to Egypt (2Ki_25:22-26; Jer_40:13-16; Jeremiah 41; Jeremiah 42; Jer_43:1-7).
Summary of later history
In another battle, in 568 BC, Babylon defeated Egypt again, this time not on foreign soil but in Egypt itself (Jer_46:13-24; Eze_29:17-20; Eze_30:20-26). Babylon then forced Egypt to join it in resisting the rising power of Persia, but the attempt was unsuccessful. Persia conquered Babylon in 539 BC, and conquered Egypt in 525 BC. Egypt rebelled against Persia whenever the opportunity arose, till in 341 BC the last native ruler of Egypt was removed (cf. Eze_32:1-16).
With Alexander the Great’s conquest in 332 BC, Egypt came under the rule of the Greeks. In New Testament times it was ruled by the Romans (Act_21:38). In the third century AD it became a nominally Christian country, but in 641 AD it was conquered by the Moslems and has remained under Moslem control ever since.
Bridgeway Bible Dictionary by Don Fleming
PRINTER 1990.

ē?jipt:
I. The Country
1. The Basis of the Land
2. The Nile Valley
3. Earliest Human Remains
4. Climate
5. Conditions of Life
6. The Nile
7. The Fauna
8. The Flora
9. The Prehistoric Races
II. The History
1. 1st and 2nd Ages: Prehistoric
2. 3d Age: 1st and 2nd Dynasties
3. 4th Age: 3rd through 6th Dynasties
4. 5th Age: 7th through 14th Dynasties
5. 6th Age: 15th through 24th Dynasties
6. 7th Age: 25th Dynasty to Roman Times
7. 8th Age: Arabic
8. Early Foreign Connections
III. The Old Testament Connections
1. Semitic Connections
2. Abramic Times
3. Circumcision
4. Joseph
5. Descent into Egypt
6. The Oppression
7. The Historic Position
8. The Plagues
9. Date of the Exodus
10. Route of the Exodus
11. Numbers of the Exodus
12. Israel in Canaan
13. Hadad
14. Pharaoh's Daughter
15. Shishak
16. Zerakh
17. The Ethiopians
18. Tahpanhes
19. Hophra
20. The Jews at Syene
21. The New Jerusalem of Oniah
22. The Egyptian Jew
23. Cities and Places Alphabetically
IV. The Civilization
1. Language
2. Writing
3. Literature
4. Four Views of Future Life
5. Four Groups of Gods
6. Foreign Gods
7. Laws
8. Character
Literature

Egypt (מצרים, micrayim; ἡ Αἴγυπτος, hē Aı́guptos): Usually supposed to represent the dual of Misrayim, referring to ?the two lands,? as the Egyptians called their country. This dualism, however, has been denied by some.

I. The Country
1. The Basis of the Land
Though Egypt is one of the earliest countries in recorded history, and as regards its continuous civilization, yet it is a late country in its geological history and in its occupation by a settled population. The whole land up to Silsileh is a thick mass of Eocene limestone, with later marls over that in the lower districts. It has been elevated on the East, up to the mountains of igneous rocks many thousand feet high toward the Red Sea. It has been depressed on the West, down to the Fayum and the oases below sea-level. This strain resulted in a deep fault from North to South for some hundreds of miles up from the Mediterranean. This fault left its eastern side about 200 ft. above its western, and into it the drainage of the plateau poured, widening it out so as to form the Nile valley, as the permanent drain of Northeast Africa. The access of water to the rift seems to have caused the basalt outflows, which are seen as black columnar basalt South of the Fayum, and brown massive basalt at Khankah, North of Cairo.
2. The Nile Valley
The gouging out of the Nile valley by rainfall must have continued when the land was 300 ft. higher than at present, as is shown by the immense fails of strata into collapsed caverns which were far below the present Nile level. Then, after the excavations of the valley, it has been submerged to 500 ft. lower than at present, as is shown by the rolled gravel beds and deposits on the tops of the water-worn cliffs, and the filling up of the tributary valleys - as at Thebes - by deep deposits, through which the subsequent stream beds have been scoured out. The land still had the Nile source 30 ft. higher than it is now within the human period, as seen by the worked flints in high gravel beds above the Nile plain. The distribution of land and water was very different from that at present when the land was only 100 ft. lower than now. Such a change would make the valley an estuary up to South of the Fayum, would submerge much of the western desert, and would unite the Gulf of Suez and the Mediterranean. Such differences would entirely alter the conditions of animal life by sea and land. And as the human period began when the water was considerably higher, the conditions of climate and of life must have greatly changed in the earlier ages of man's occupation.
3. Earliest Human Remains
The earliest human remains belonging to the present condition of the country are large paleolithic flints found in the side valleys at the present level of the Nile. As these are perfectly fresh, and not rolled or altered, they show that paleolithic man lived in Egypt under the present conditions. The close of this paleolithic age of hunters, and the beginning of a settled population of cultivators, cannot have been before the drying up of the climate, which by depriving the Nile of tributary streams enfeebled it so that its mud was deposited and formed a basis for agriculture. From the known rate of deposit, and depth of mud soil, this change took place about 10,000 years ago. As the recorded history of the country extends 7,500 years, and we know of two prehistoric ages before that, it is pretty well fixed that the disappearance of paleolithic man, and the beginning of the continuous civilization must have been about 9,000 to 10,000 years ago. For the continuation of this subject see the section on ?History? below.
4. Climate
The climate of Egypt is unique in the world. So far as solar heat determines it, the condition is tropical; for, though just North of the tropic which lies at the boundary of Egypt and Nubia, the cloudless condition fully compensates for higher latitude. So far as temperature of the air is concerned, the climate is temperate, the mean heat of the winter months being 52 degrees and of the summer about 80 degrees, much the same as Italy. This is due to the steady prevalence of north winds, which maintain fit conditions for active, strenuous work. The rainlessness and dry air give the same facility of living that is found in deserts, where shelter is only needed for temperature and not for wet; while the inundation provides abundant moisture for the richest crops.
5. Conditions of Life
The primitive condition - only recently changed - of the crops being all raised during five cool months from November to April, and the inundation covering the land during all the hot weather, left the population free from labor during the enervating season, and only required their energies when work was possible under favorable conditions. At the same time it gave a great opportunity for monumental work, as any amount of labor could be drawn upon without the smallest reduction in the produce of the country. The great structures which covered the land gave training and organization to the people, without being any drain upon the welfare of the country. The inundation covering the plain also provided the easiest transport for great masses from the quarries at the time when labor was abundant. Thus the climatic conditions were all in favor of a great civilization, and aided its production of monuments. The whole mass of the country being of limestone, and much of it of the finest quality, provided material for construction at every point. In the south, sandstone and granite were also at hand upon the great waterway.
6. The Nile
The Nile is the great factor which makes life possible in Northeast Africa, and without it Egypt would only be a desolate corner of the Sahara. The union of two essentially different streams takes place at Kharrum. The White or light Nile comes from the great plains of the Sudan, while the Blue or dark Nile descends from the mountains of Abyssinia. The Sudan Nile from Gondokoro is filtered by the lakes and the sudd vegetation, so that it carries little mud; the Abyssinian Nile, by its rapid course, brings down all the soil which is deposited in Egypt, and which forms the basis for cultivation. The Sudan Nile rises only 6 ft. from April to November; while the Abyssinian Nile rises 26 ft. from April to August. The latter makes the rise of the inundation, while the Sudan Nile maintains the level into the winter. In Egypt itself the unchecked Nile at Aswan rises 25 ft. from the end of May to the beginning of September; while at Cairo, where modified by the irrigation system, it rises 16 ft. from May to the end of September. It was usually drained off the land by the beginning of November, and cultivation was begun. The whole cultivable land of Egypt is but the dried-up bed of the great river, which fills its ancient limits during a third of the year. The time taken by a flush of water to come down the Nile is about 15 days from 400 miles above Khartum to Aswan, and about 6 days from Aswan to Cairo, or 80 to 90 miles a day, which shows a flow of 3 to 3 1/2 miles an hour when in flood.
7. The Fauna
The fauna has undergone great changes during the human period. At the close of the prehistoric age there are represented the giraffe, elephant, wild ox, lion, leopard, stag, long-necked gazelle and great dogs, none of which are found in the historic period. During historic times various kinds of antelopes have been exterminated, the hippopotamus was driven out of the Delta during Roman times, and the crocodile was cleared out of Upper Egypt and Nubia in the last century. Cranes and other birds shown on early sculptures are now unknown in the country. The animals still surviving are the wolf, jackal, hyena, dogs, ichneumon, jerboa, rats, mice, lizards (up to 4 ft. long) and snakes, besides a great variety of birds, admirably figured by Whymper, Birds of Egypt. Of tamed animals, the ox, sheep, goat and donkey are ancient; the cat and horse were brought in about 2000 bc, the camel was not commonly known till 200 ad, and the buffalo was brought to Egypt and Italy in the Middle Ages.
8. The Flora
The cultivated plants of Egypt were numerous. In ancient times we find the maize (durrah), wheat, barley and lentil; the vine, currant, date palm, dum palm, fig, olive and pomegranate; the onion, garlic, cucumber, melon and radish; the sont acacia, sycamore and tamarisk; the flax, henna and clover; and for ornament, the lotus, convolvulus and many others. The extension of commerce brought in by the Greek period, the bean, pea, sesame, lupin, helbeh, colocasia and sugar-cane; also the peach, walnut, castor-oil and pear. In the Roman and Arabic ages came in the chick pea, oats, rice, cotton, orange and lemon. In recent times have come the cactus, aloe, tomato, Indian corn, lebbek acacia and beetroot. Many European flowering and ornamental plants were also used in Egypt by the Greeks, and brought in later by the Arabs.
9. The Prehistoric Races
The original race in Egypt seems to have been of the steatopygous type now only found in South Africa. Figures of this race are known in the caves of France, in Malta, and later in Somaliland. As this race was still known in Egypt at the beginning of the neolithic civilization, and is there represented only by female figures in the graves, it seems that it was being exterminated by the newcomers and only the women were kept as slaves.
The neolithic race of Egypt was apparently of the Libyan stock. There seems to have been a single type of the Amorites in Syria, the prehistoric Egyptians and the Libyans; this race had a high, well-filled head, long nose slightly aquiline, and short beard; the profile was upright and not prognathous, the hair was wavy brown. It was a better type than the present south Europeans, of a very capable and intelligent appearance. From the objects found, and the religious legends, it seems that this race was subdued by an eastern, and probably Arabian race, in the prehistoric age.

II. The History
The founders of the dynastic history were very different, having a profile with nose and forehead in one straight line, and rather thick, but well-formed lips. Historically the indications point to their coming from about Somali land by water, and crossing into Egypt by the Koptos road from the Red Sea. The 2nd Dynasty gave place to some new blood, probably of Sudany origin. In the 6th and 7th Dynasties foreigners poured in apparently from the North, perhaps from Crete, judging by their foreign products. The 15th and 16th Dynasties were Hyksos, or Semitic ?princes of the desert? from the East. The 17th and 18th Dynasties were Berber in origin. The 19th Dynasty was largely Semitic from Syria. The 22nd Dynasty was headed by an eastern adventurer Sheshenq, or Shusinak, ?the man of Susa.? The 25th Dynasty was Ethiopian. The 26th Dynasty was Libyan. The Greeks then poured into the Delta and the Fayum, and Hellenized Egypt. The Roman made but little change in the population; but during his rule the Arab began to enter the eastern side, and by 641 ad the Arab conquest swept the land, and brought in a large part - perhaps the majority - of the ancestors of the present inhabitants. After 3 centuries the Tunisians - the old Libyans - conquered Egypt again. The later administrations by Syrians, Circassians, Turks and others probably made no change in the general population. The economic changes of the past century have brought in Greeks, Italians and other foreigners to the large towns; but all these only amount to an eightieth of the population. The Coptics are the descendants of the very mixed Egyptians of Roman age, kept separate from the Arab invaders by their Christianity. They are mainly in Upper Egypt, where some villages are entirely Coptic, and are distinguished by their superior cleanliness, regularity, and the freedom of the women from unwholesome seclusion. The Coptics, though only a fifteenth of the population, have always had a large share of official posts, owing to their intelligence and ability being above that of the Muslim.
1. 1st and 2nd Ages: Prehistoric
In dealing with the history, we here follow the dating which was believed and followed by the Egyptians themselves. All the monumental remains agree with this, so far as they can check it; and the various arbitrary reductions that have been made on some periods are solely due to some critics preferring their internal sense to all the external facts. For the details involved in the chronology, see Historical Studies, II (British School of Archaeology in Egypt). The general outline of the periods is given here, and the detailed view of the connection with Old Testament history is treated in later sections.
1st Age
The prehistoric age begins probably about 8000 bc, as soon as there was a sufficient amount of Nile deposit to attract a settled population. The desert river valley of Egypt was probably one of the latest haunts of steatopygous Paleolithic man of the Bushman type. So soon as there was an opening for a pastoral or agricultural people, he was forced away by settlers from Libya. These settlers were clad in goatskins, and made a small amount of pottery by hand; they knew also of small quantities of copper, but mainly used flint, of which they gradually developed the finest working known in any age. They rapidly advanced in civilization. Their pottery of red polished ware was decorated with white clay patterns, exactly like the pottery still made in the mountains of Algeria. The forms of it were very varied and exquisitely regular, although made without the wheel. Their hardstone vases are finer than any of those of the historic ages. They adopted spinning, weaving and woodwork.
2nd Age
Upon these people came in others probably from the East, who brought in the use of the Arab face-veil, the belief in amulets, and the Persian lapis lazuli. Most of the previous forms of pottery disappear, and nearly all the productions are greatly altered. Copper became common, while gold, silver and lead were also known. Heliopolis was probably a center of rule.
2. 3rd Age: 1st and 2nd Dynasties
About 5900 bc a new people came in with the elements of the art of writing, and a strong political ability of organization. Before 5800 bc they had established kings at Abydos in Upper Egypt, and for 3 centuries they gradually increased their power. On the carved slates which they have left, the standards of the allied tribes are represented; the earliest in style shows the standard of Koptos, the next has a standard as far North as Hermopolis, and the latest bears the standard of Letopolis, and shows the conquest of the Fayum, or perhaps one of the coast lakes. This last is of the first king of the 1st Dynasty, Mena.
The conquest of all Egypt is marked by the beginning of the series of numbered dynasties beginning with Mena, at about 5550 bc. The civilization rapidly advanced. The art was at its best under the third king, Zer, and thence steadily declined. Writing was still ideographic under Mena, but became more syllabic and phonetic toward the end of the dynasty. The work in hardstone was at its height in the vases of the early part of the 1st Dynasty, when an immense variety of beautiful stones appear. It greatly fell off on reaching the 2nd Dynasty. The tombs were all of timber, built in large pits in the ground.
3. 4th Age: 3rd Through 6th Dynasties
The 2nd Dynasty fell about 5000 bc, and a new power rapidly raised the art from an almost barbarous state to its highest triumphs by about 4750 bc, when the pyramid building was started. Khufu, the builder of the Great Pyramid in the 4th Dynasty, was one of the greatest rulers of Egypt. He organized the administration on lines which lasted for ages. He reformed the religious system, abolishing the endowments, and substituting models for the sacrifice of animals. He trained the largest body of skilled labor that ever appeared, for the building of his pyramid, the greatest and most accurate structure that the world has ever seen. The statuary of this age is more lifelike than that of any later age. The later reigns show steady decay in the character of work, with less dignity and more superficiality in the article
4. 5th Age: 7th Through 14th Dynasties
By about 4050 bc, the decline of Egypt allowed of fresh people pressing in from the North, probably connected with Crete. There are few traces of these invaders; a curious class of barbaric buttons used as seals are their commonest remains. Probably the so-called ?Hyksos sphinxes? and statues are of these people, and belong to the time of their attaining power in Egypt. By 3600 bc, the art developed into the great ages of the 11th to the 12th Dynasties which lasted about 2 centuries. The work is more scholastic and less natural than before; but it is very beautiful and of splendid accuracy. The exquisite jewelry of Dahshur is of this age. After some centuries of decay this civilization passed away.
5. 6th Age: 15th Through 24th Dynasties
The Semitic tribes had long been filtering into Egypt, and Babylonian Semites even ruled the land until the great migration of the Hyksos took place about 2700 bc. These tribes were ruled by kings entitled ?princes of the desert,? like the Semitic Absha, or Abishai, shown in the tomb of Beni-hasan, as coming to settle in Egypt. By 1700 bc the Berbers who had adopted the Egyptian civilization pressed down from the South, and ejected the Hyksos rule. This opened the most flourishing period of Egyptian history, the 18th Dynasty, 1587-1328 bc. The profusion of painted tombs at Thebes, which were copied and popularized by Gardner Wilkinson, has made the life of this period very familiar to us. The immense temples of Karnak and of Luqsor, and the finest of the Tombs of the Kings have impressed us with the royal magnificence of this age. The names of Thothmes I and III, of the great queen Hatshepsut, of the magnificent Amenhotep III, and of the monotheist reformer Akchenaton are among those best known in the history. Their foreign connections we shall notice later.
The 19th and 20th Dynasties were a period of continual degradation from the 18th. Even in the best work of the 6th Age there is hardly ever the real solidity and perfection which is seen in that of the 4th or 5th Ages. But under the Ramessides cheap effects and showy imitations were the regular system. The great Rameses II was a great advertiser, but inferior in power to half a dozen kings of the previous dynasty. In the 20th Dynasty one of the royal daughters married the high priest of Amen at Thebes; and on the unexpected death of the young Rameses V, the throne reverted to his uncle Rameses VI, whose daughter then became the heiress, and her descendants, the high priests of Amen, became the rightful rulers. This priestly rule at Thebes; beginning in 1102 bc, was balanced by a purely secular rule of the north at Tanis (Zoan). These lasted until the rise of Sheshenq I (Shishak) in 952 bc, the founder of the 22nd Dynasty. His successors gradually decayed till the fall of the 23rd Dynasty in 721 bc. The Ethiopian 26th Dynasty then held Egypt as a province of Ethiopia, down to 664 bc.
6. 7th Age: 25th Dynasty to Roman Times
It is hard to say when the next age began - perhaps with the Ethiopians; but it rose to importance with the 26th Dynasty under Psamtek (Psammitichos I), 664-610 bc, and continued under the well-known names of Necoh, Hophra and Amasis until overthrown by the Persians in 525 bc. From 405 to 342 the Egyptians were independent; then the Persians again crushed them, and in 332 they fell into the hands of the Macedonians by the conquest of Alexander.
The Macedonian Age of the Ptolemies was one of the richest and most brilliant at its start, but soon faded under bad rulers till it fell hopelessly to pieces and succumbed to the Roman subjection in 30 bc. From that time Egypt was ground by taxation, and steadily impoverished. By 300 ad it was too poor to keep even a copper currency in circulation, and barter became general. Public monuments entirely ceased to be erected, and Decius in 250 ad is the last ruler whose name was written in the old hieroglyphs, which were thenceforward totally forgotten. After three more centuries of increasing degradation and misery, the Arab invasion burst upon the land, and a few thousand men rode through it and cleared out the remaining effete garrisons of the empire in 641 ad.
7. 8th Age: Arabic
The Arab invasion found the country exhausted and helpless; repeated waves of tribes poured in, and for a generation or two there was no chance of a settlement. Gradually the majority of the inhabitants were pressed into Islam, and by about 800 ad a strong government was established from Bagdad, and Egypt rapidly advanced. In place of being the most impoverished country it became the richest land of the Mediterranean. The great period of medieval Egypt was under the guidance of the Mesopotamian civilization, 800-969 ad. The Tunisian dominion of the Fatimites, 969-1171, was less successful. Occasionally strong rulers arose, such as Salah-ed-Dı̂n (Saladin), but the age of the Mamalukes, 1250-1577, was one of steady decline. Under the Turkish dominion, 1517, Egypt was split up into many half-independent counties, whose rulers began by yielding tribute, but relapsed into ignoring the Caliphate and living in continual internal feuds. In 1771 Aly Bey, a slave, succeeded in conquering Syria. The French and British quarrel left Muhamed Aly to rise supreme, and to guide Egypt for over 40 years. Again Egypt conquered Syria, 1831-39, but was compelled by Europe to retreat. The opening of the Suez Canal (1869) necessarily led to the subjection of Egypt to European direction.
8. Early Foreign Connections
The foreign connections of Egypt have been brought to light only during the last 20 years. In place of supposing that Egypt was isolated until the Greek conquest, we now see that it was in the closest commercial relation with the rest of the world throughout its history. We have already noted the influences which entered by conquest. During the periods of high civilization in Egypt, foreign connections came into notice by exploration and by trade. The lazuli of Persia was imported in the prehistoric age, as well as the emery of Smyrna. In the 1st Dynasty, Egypt conquered and held Sinai for the sake of the turquoise mines. In the 3rd Dynasty, large fleets of ships were built, some as much as 160 ft. long; and the presence of much pottery imported from Crete and the north, even before this, points to a Mediterranean trade. In the 5th Dynasty, King Unas had relations with Syria. From the 12th Dynasty comes the detailed account of the life of an Egyptian in Palestine (Sanehat); and Cretan pottery of this age is found traded into Egypt.

III. The Old Testament Connections
1. Semitic Connections
The Hyksos invasion unified the rule of Syria and Egypt, and Syrian pottery is often found in Egypt of this age. The return of the wave, when Egypt drove out the Hyksos, and conquered Syria out to the Euphrates, was the greatest expansion of Egypt. Tahutmes I set up his statue on the Euphrates, and all Syria was in his hands. Tahutmes III repeatedly raided Syria, bringing back plunder and captives year by year throughout most of his reign. The number of Syrian artists and of Syrian women brought into Egypt largely changed the style of art and the standard of beauty. Amenhotep III held all Syria in peace, and recorded his triumphs at the Euphrates on the walls of the temple of Soleb far up in Nubia. His monotheist son, Amenhotep IV, took the name of Akhenaton, ?the glory of the sun's disc,? and established the worship of the radiant sun as the Aton, or Adon of Syria. The cuneiform letters from Tell el-Amarna place all this age before us in detail. There are some from the kings of the Amorites and Hittites, from Naharain and even Babylonia, to the great suzerain Amenhotep III. There is also the long series describing the gradual loss of Syria under Akhenaton, as written by the governors and chiefs, of the various towns. The main letters are summarized in the Students' History of Egypt, II, and full abstracts of all the letters are in Syria and Egypt, arranged in historical order.
Pal was reconquered by Seti I and his son Rameses II, but they only held about a third of the extent which formerly belonged to Amenhotep III. Merenptah, son of Rameses, also raided Southern Palestine. After that; it was left alone till the raid of Sheshenq in 933 bc. The only considerable assertion of Egyptian power was in Necoh's two raids up to the Euphrates, in 609 and 605 bc. But Egypt generally held the desert and a few minor points along the south border of Palestine. The Ptolemies seldom possessed more than that, their aspirations in Syria not lasting as permanent conquests. They were more successful in holding Cyprus.
2. Abramic Times
We now come to the specific connections of Egypt with the Old Testament. The movement of the family of Abram from Ur in the south of Mesopotamia up to Haran in the north (Gen_11:31) and thence down Syria into Egypt (Gen_12:5, Gen_12:10) was like that of the earlier Semitic ?princes of the desert,? when they entered Egypt as the Hyksos kings about 2600 bc. Their earlier dominion was the 15th Dynasty of Egypt, and that was followed by another movement, the 16th Dynasty, about 2250 bc, which was the date of the migration of Terah from Ur. Thus the Abramic family took part in the second Hyksos movement. The cause of these tribal movements has been partly explained by Mr. Huntington's researches on the recurrence of dry periods in Asia (Royal Geogr. Soc., May 26, 1910: The Pulse of Asia). Such lack of rain forces the desert peoples on to the cultivated lands, and then later famines are recorded. The dry age which pushed the Arab tribes on to the Mediterranean in 640 ad was succeeded by famines in Egypt during 6 centuries So as soon as Abram moved into Syria a famine pushed him on to Egypt (Gen_12:10). To this succeeded other famines in Canaan (Gen_26:1), and later in both Canaan and Egypt (Gen_41:56; Gen_43:1; Gen_47:13). The migration of Abram was Thus conditioned by the general dry period, which forced the second Hyksos movement of which it was a part. The culture of the Hyksos was entirely nomadic, and agrees in all that we can trace with the patriarchal culture pictured in Gen.
3. Circumcision
Circumcision was a very ancient mutilation in Egypt, and is still kept up there by both Muslim and Christian. It was first adopted by Abram for Ishmael, the son of the Egyptian Hagar (Gen_16:3; Gen_17:23), before Isaac was promised. Hagar married Ishmael to an Egyptian (Gen_21:21), so that the Ishmaelites, or Hagarenes, of Gilead and Moab were three-quarters Egyptian.
At Gerar, in the south of Palestine, Egyptian was the prevailing race and language, as the general of Abimelech was Phichol, the Egyptian name Pa-khal, ?the Syrian,? showing that the Gerarites were not Syrians.
4. Joseph
The history of Joseph rising to importance as a capable slave is perfectly natural in Egypt at that time, and equally so in later periods down to our own days. That this occurred during the Hyksos period is shown by the title given to Joseph - Abrekh, ('abhrēkh) (Gen_41:43) which is Abarakhu, the high Babylonian title. The names Zaphnath-paaneah, Asenath, and Potipherah have been variously equated in Egyptian, Naville seeing forms of the 18th Dynasty in them, but Spiegelberg, with more probability, seeing types of names of the 22nd Dynasty or later. The names are most likely an expansion of the original document; but there is not a single feature or incident in the relations of Joseph to the Egyptians which is at all improbable from the history and civilization that we know. See JOSEPH (1).
5. Descent into Egypt
The descent into Egypt and sojourn there are what might be expected of any Semitic tribe at this time. The allocation in Goshen (Gen_47:27) was the most suitable, as that was on the eastern border of the Delta, at the mouth of the Wady Tumilat, and was a district isolated from the general Egyptian population. The whole of Goshen is not more than 100 square miles, being bounded by the deserts, and by the large Egyptian city of Budastis on the West. The accounts of the embalming for 40 days and mourning for 70 days (Gen_50:3), and putting in a coffin (Gen_50:26) are exact. The 70 days' mourning existed both in the 1st Dynasty and in the 20th.
6. The Oppression
The oppression in Egypt began with a new king that knew not Joseph. This can hardly be other than the rise of the Berber conquerors who took the Delta from the Hyksos at the beginning of the 18th Dynasty, 1582 bc, and expelled the Hyksos into Syria. It could not be later than this, as the period of oppression in Egypt is stated at 4 centuries (Gen_15:13; Act_7:6), and the Exodus cannot be later than about 1220 bc, which leaves 360 years for the oppression. Also this length of oppression bars any much earlier date for the Exodus. The 360 years of oppression from 430 of the total sojourn in Egypt, leaves 70 years of freedom there. As Joseph died at 110 (Gen_50:26), this implies that he was over 40 when his family came into Egypt, which would be quite consistent with the history.
7. The Historic Position
The store cities Pithom and Raamses are the sites Tell el-Maskhuta and Tell Rotāb in the Wady Tumilat, both built by Rameses II as frontier defenses. It is evident then that the serving with rigor was under that king, probably in the earlier part of his long reign of 67 years (1300-1234 bc), when he was actively campaigning in Palestine. This is shown in the narrative, for Moses was not yet born when the rigor began (Ex 1; Exo_2:2), and he grew up, slew an Egyptian, and then lived long in Midian before the king of Egypt died (Exo_2:23), perhaps 40 or 50 years after the rigorous servitude began, for he is represented as being 80 at the time of the Exodus (Deu_34:7). These numbers are probably not precise, but as a whole they agree well enough with Egyptian history. After the king died, Moses returned to Egypt, and began moving to get his kin away to the eastern deserts, with which he had been well acquainted in his exile from Egypt. A harsher servitude ensues, which might be expected from the more vigorous reign of Merenptah, after the slackness of the old age of Rameses. The campaign of Merenptah against Israel and other people in Palestine would not make him any less severe in his treatment of Semites in Egypt.
8. The Plagues
The plagues are in the order of usual seasonal troubles in Egypt, from the red unwholesome Nile in June, through the frogs, insects, hail and rain, locusts, and sandstorms in March. The death of the firstborn was in April at the Passover.
9. Date of the Exodus
The date of the Exodus is indicated as being about 1200 bc, by the 4 centuries of oppression, and by the names of the land and the city of Rameses (Gen_47:4; compare Exo_1:11). The historical limit is that the Egyptians were incessantly raiding Palestine down to 1194 bc, and then abandoned it till the invasion of Shishak. As there is no trace of these Egyptian invasions during all the ups and downs of the age of the Judges, it seems impossible to suppose the Israelites entered Canaan till after 1194 bc. The setting back of the Exodus much earlier has arisen from taking three simultaneous histories of the Judges as consecutive, as we shall notice farther on. The facts stated above, and the length of all three lines of the priestly genealogies, agree completely with the Egyptian history in putting the Exodus at about 1220 bc, and the entry into Canaan about 1180 bc.
10. Route of the Exodus
The route of the Exodus was first a concentration at Raamses or Tell Rotāb, in the Wady Tumliat, followed by a march to Succoth, a general name for the region of Bedawy booths; from there to Etham in the edge of the wilderness, about the modern Nefisheh. Thence they turned and encamped before Pi-hahiroth, the Egyptian Pa-qaheret, a Serapeum. Thus turning South to the West of the Red Sea (which then extended up to Tell el-Maskhuta), they had a Migdol tower behind them and Baal-zephon opposite to them. They were Thus ?entangled in the land.? Then the strong east wind bared the shallows, and made it possible to cross the gulf and reach the opposite shore. They then went ?Three days in the wilderness,? the three days' route without water to Marah, the bitter spring of Hawara, and immediately beyond reached Elim, which accords entirely with the Wady Gharandel. Thence they encamped by the Red Sea. All of this account exactly agrees with the traditional route down the West of the Sinaitic peninsula; it will not agree with any other route, and there is no reason to look for any different location of the march. See EXODUS, I.
11. Numbers of the Exodus
The numbers of the Israelites have long been a difficulty. On the one hand are the census lists (Nu 1; 2 and 26), with their summaries of 600,000 men besides children and a mixed multitude (Exo_12:37, Exo_12:38; Exo_38:26; Num_1:46; Num_11:21). On the other hand there are the exact statements of there being 22,273 firstborn, that is, fathers of families (Num_3:43), and that 40,000 armed men entered Canaan with Joshua (Jos_4:13), also the 35,000 who fought at Ai (Jos_8:3, Jos_8:12), and the 32,000 who fought against Midian (Jdg_7:3). Besides these, there are the general considerations that only 5,000 to 10,000 people could live in Goshen, that the Amalekites with whom the Israelites were equally matched (Exo_17:11) could not have exceeded about 5,000 in Sinai, that Moses judged all disputes, and that two midwives attended all the Israelite births, which would be 140 a day on a population of 600,000. Evidently, the statements of numbers are contradictory, and the external evidence is all in accord with lesser numbers. Proposals to reduce arbitrarily the larger numbers have been frequent; but there is one likely line of misunderstanding that may have originated the increase. In the census lists of the tribes, most of the hundreds in the numbers are 400 or 500, others are near those, and there are none whatever on 000, 100, 800 or 900. Evidently, the hundreds are independent of the thousands. Now in writing the statements, such as ?Reuben, 46,500,? the original list would be 46 'eleph, 5 hundred people, and 'eleph means either ?thousands? or else ?groups? or ?families.? Hence, a census of 46 tents, 500 people, would be ambiguous, and a later compiler might well take it as 46,500. In this way the whole census of 598 tents, 5,550 people, would be misread as 603,550 people. The checks on this are, that the number per tent should be reasonable in all cases, that the hundreds should not fluctuate more than the tents between the first and last census, and that the total should correspond to the known populations of Goshen and of Sinai; these requirements all agree with this reading of the lists. The ulterior details beyond the Egyptian period are dealt with in Egypt and Israel, 45, 55. See EXODUS, IV.
12. Israel in Canaan
Two points need notice here as incidentally bearing on the Egyptian connections: (1) The Israelites in Palestine before the Exodus, indicated by Merenptah triumphing over them there before 1230 bc, and the raids during the Egyptian residence (1Ch_7:21); (2) The triple history of the Judges, west, north, and east, each totaling to 120 years, in accord with the length of the four priestly genealogies (1Ch_6:4-8, 1Ch_6:22-28, 1Ch_6:33-35, 1Ch_6:39-43, 1Ch_6:44-47), and showing that the dates are about 1220 bc the Exodus, 1180 bc the entry to Canaan, 1150 bc the beginning of Judges, 1030 bc Saul (Egypt and Israel, 52-58).
13. Hadad
The connections with the monarchy soon begin. David and Joab attacked Edom (2Sa_8:14), and Hadad, the young king, was carried off by his servants to Egypt for safety. The Pharaoh who received and supported him must have been Siamen, the king of Zoan, which city was then an independent capital apart from the priest kings of Thebes (1Ki_11:15-22). Hadad was married to the Egyptian queen's sister when he grew up, probably in the reign of Pasebkhanu II.
14. Pharaoh's Daughter
The Pharaoh whose daughter was married to Solomon must have been the same Pasebkhanu; he reigned from 987-952 bc, and the marriage was about 970 in the middle of the reign. Another daughter of Pasebkhanu was Karamat, who was the wife of Shishak. Thus Solomon and Shishak married two sisters, and their aunt was queen of Edom. This throws light on the politics of the kingdoms. Probably Solomon had some child by Pharaoh's daughter, and the Egyptians would expect that to be the heir. Shishak's invasion, on the death of Solomon, was perhaps based upon the right of a nephew to the throne of Judah.
15. Shishak
The invasion of Shishak (Egyptian, Sheshenq) took place probably at the end of his reign. His troops were Lubim (Libyans), Sukkim (men of Succoth, the east border) and Kushim (Ethiopians). The account of the war is on the side of the great fore-court at Karnak, which shows long lists of places in Judah, agreeing with the subjugation recorded in 1Ki_14:25, 1Ki_14:26, and 2Ch_12:2-4.
16. Zerakh
Zerakh, or Usarkon, was the next king of Egypt, the son of Karamat, Solomon's sister-in-law. He invaded Judah unsuccessfully in 903 bc (2Ch_14:9) with an army of Libyans and Sudanis (2Ch_16:8). A statue of the Nile, dedicated by him, and naming his descent from Karamat and Pasebkhanu, is in the British Museum.
17. The Ethiopians
After a couple of centuries the Ethiopian kings intervened. Shabaka was appointed viceroy of Egypt by his father Piankhy, and is described by the Assyrians as Sibe, commander-in-chief of Muzri, and by the Hebrews as Sua or So, king of Egypt (2Ki_17:4). Tirhakah next appears as a viceroy, and Hezekiah was warned against trusting to him (2Ki_19:9). These two kings touch on Jewish history during their vice-royalties, before their full reigns began. Necoh next touches on Judah in his raid to Carchemish in 609 bc, when he slew Josiah for opposing him (2Ki_23:29, 2Ki_23:30; 2Ch_35:20-24).
18. Tahpanhes
After the taking of Jerusalem, for fear of vengeance for the insurrection of Ishmael (2Ki_25:25, 2Ki_25:26; Jer 40; 41; 42), the remnant of the Jews fled to the frontier fortress of Egypt, Tahpanhes, Tehaphnehes, Greek Daphnae, modern Defenneh, about 10 miles West of the present Suez Canal (Jer_43:7-13). The brick pavement in front of the entrance to the fortress there, in which Jeremiah hid the stones, has been uncovered and the fortress completely planned. It was occupied by Greeks, who there brought Greek words and things into contact with the traveling Jews for a couple of generations before the fall of Jerusalem.
19. Hophra
The prophecy that Hophra would be delivered to them that sought his life (Jer_44:30) was fulfilled, as he was kept captive by his successor, Amasis, for 3 years, and after a brief attempt at liberty, he was strangled.
20. The Jews at Syene
The account of the Jews settled in Egypt (Jer 44) is singularly illustrated by the Aramaic Jewish papyri found at Syene (Aswan). These show the use of Aramaic and of oaths by Yahu, as stated of 5 cities in Egypt (Isa_19:18). The colony at Syene was well-to-do, though not rich; they were householders who possessed all their property by regular title-deeds, who executed marriage settlements, and were fully used to litigation, having in deeds of sale a clause that no other deed could be valid. The temple of Yahu filled the space between two roads, and faced upon 3 houses, implying a building about 60 or 70 ft. wide. It was built of hewn stone, with stone columns, 7 gates, and a cedar roof. It was destroyed in 410, after lasting from before Cambyses in 525 bc, and a petition for rebuilding it was granted in 407.
21. The New Jerusalem of Oniah
The most flourishing period of the Jews in Egypt was when Oniah IV, the son of the rightful high priest Oniah, was driven from Jerusalem by the abolition of Jewish worship and ordinances under Antiochus. In 170 bc he fled to Egypt, and there established a new Jerusalem with a temple and sacrifices as being the only way to maintain the Jewish worship. Oniah IV was a valiant man, general to queen Cleopatra I; and he offered to form the Jewish community into a frontier guard on the East of Egypt, hating the Syrians to the uttermost, if the Jews might form their own community. They so dominated the eastern Delta that troops of Caesar could not pass from Syria to Alexandria without their assent. The new Jerusalem was 20 miles North of Cairo, a site now known as Tell el-Yehudiyeh. The great mound of the temple still remains there, with the Passover ovens beneath it, and part of the massive stone fortifications on the front of it. This remained a stronghold of free Judaism until after Titus took Jerusalem; and it was only when the Zealots tried to make it a center of insurrection, that at last it was closed and fell into decay. Josephus is the original authority for this history (see Egypt and Israel, 97-110).
22. The Egyptian Jew
The Jew in Egypt followed a very different development from the Babylonian Jew, and this Egyptian type largely influenced Christianity. In the colony at Syene a woman named ?Trust Yahweh? had no objection to swearing by the Egyptian goddess Seti when making an Egyptian contract; and in Jer_44:15-19, the Jews boasted of their heathen worship in Egypt. Oniah had no scruple in establishing a temple and sacrifices apart from Jerusalem, without any of the particularism of the Maccabean zealots. Philo at Alexandria labored all his life for the union of Jewish thought with Greek philosophy. The Hermetic books show how, from 500 to 200 bc, religious thought was developing under eclectic influence of Egyptian Jewish, Persian, Indian and Greek beliefs, and producing the tenets about the second God, the Eternal Son, who was the Logos, and the types of Conversion, as the Divine Ray, the New Birth, and the Baptism. Later the Wisdom literature of Alexandria, 200-100 bc, provided the basis of thought and simile on which the Pauline Epistles were built. The great wrench in the history of the church came when it escaped from the Babylonian-Jewish formalism of the Captivity, which ruled at Jerusalem, and grew into the wider range of ideas of the Alexandrian Jews. These ideas had been preserved in Egypt from the days of the monarchy, and had developed a great body of religious thought and phraseology from their eclectic connections. The relations of Christianity with Egypt are outside our scope, but some of them will be found in Egypt and Israel, 124-41.
23. Cities and Places Alphabetically
The Egyptian cities, places and peoples named in the Old Testament may briefly be noted. AVEN (Eze_30:17) or ON (Gen_41:45) is the 'An of Egyptian, the Greek Heliopolis, now Matarieh, 7 miles North of Cairo. It was the seat of prehistoric government, the royal emblems were kept there as the sacred relics of the temple, and its high priest was ?the great seer,? one of the greatest of the religious officials. The schools of Heliopolis were celebrated, and it seems to have always been a center of learning. The site is now marked by the great enclosure of the temple, and one obelisk of Senusert (12th Dynasty). It was here that the Egyptian kings had at their installation to come and bathe in the lake in which the sun bathes daily, the 'Ainesh-Shems, or ?Lake of the Sun? of the Arabs, connected with the fresh spring here which Christian tradition attributes to the visit of the Virgin and Child. The great sycamore tree here is the successor of that under which the Virgin is said to have rested.
BAAL-ZEPHON was a shrine on the eastern site of the head of the Red Sea, a few miles South of Ismailiyeh; no trace is now known of it (Exo_14:2).
CUSHIM or Ethiopians were a part of the Egyptian army of Shishak and of Usarkon (2Ch_12:3; 2Ch_16:8). The army was in 4 brigades, that of Ptah of Memphis, central Egypt; that of Amen of Thebes, Southern Egypt and Ethiopia; that of Set of the eastern frontier (Sukkim); and that of Ra, Heliopolis and the Delta.
GOSHEN was a fertile district at the west end of the Wady Tumilat, 40 to 50 miles Northeast of Cairo. It was bounded by the deserts on the North and Southeast, and by the Egyptian city of Bubastis on the West. Its area was not over 100 square miles; it formerly supported 4,000 Bedouin and now about 12,000 cultivators.
LUBIM, the Libyans who formed part of the Egyptian army as light-armed archers, from very early times.
MIGDOL is the name of any tower, familiar also as Magdala. It was applied to some watchtower on the West of the Red Sea, probably on the high land above the Serapeum.
No is Thebes, in Assyrian Nia, from the Egyptian Nu, ?the city.? This was the capital of the 12th Dynasty, and of the 17th-21st Dynasties. Owing to the buildings being of sandstone, which is not of much use for reworking, they have largely remained since the desolation of the city under Ptolemy X. The principal divisions of the site are: (1) Karnak, with the temple of the 12th Dynasty, built over by all the successive kings of the 18th Dynasty, and enlarged by Seti I and Rameses II, and by Shishak, Tirhakah, and the Ptolemies. The whole temple of Amon and its subsidiary temples form the largest mass of ruins that is known. (2) Luqsor, the temple to commemorate the divine birth of Amenhotep III (1440 bc), added to by Rameses II. (3) The funerary temples, bordering the western shore, of the kings of the 18th to 20th Dynasties. These have mostly been destroyed, by the unscrupulous quarrying done by each king on the work of his predecessors; the only temple in fair condition is that of Rameses III, which is left because no later king required its material for building. (4) The great cemetery, ranging from the splendid rock halls of the Tombs of the Kings, covered with paintings, down to the humblest graves. For any detailed account see either Baedeker's or Murray's Guides, or Weigall's Guide to Antiquities.
NOPH, the Egyptian Men-nofer, Greek Memphis, now Mitraheny, 12 miles South of Cairo. This was the capital from the foundation at the beginning of the dynasties. Thebes and Alexandria shared its importance, but it was the seat of government down to the Arab invasion. In Roman times it was as large as London North of the Thames. The outlying parts are now all buried by the rise of the soil, but more than a mile length of ruins yet remains, which are now being regularly worked over by the British School. The heart of the city is the great metropolitan temple of Ptah, nearly all of which is now under 10 feet of soil, and under water most of the year. This is being excavated in sections, as it is all private property. At the north end of the ruins is the palace mound, on which has been cleared the palace of Apries (Hophra). Other temples have been located, as well as the foreign quarter containing early Greek pottery and the temple of Proteus named by Herodotus (see Memphis, I, II, III).
PATHROS is the usual name for Upper Egypt in the prophets. It is the Egyptian Pa-ta-res, ?the south land.?
PI-BESETH is the Egyptian Pa-Bast, Greek Bubastis, at the eastern side of the Delta, the city of the cat-headed goddess Bast. The ruins are still large, and the temple site has been excavated, producing sculptures from the 4th Dynasty onward.
PITHOM is the Egyptian Pa-Tum, the city of the Sun-god Tum or Atmu, who was worshipped on the East of the Delta. The site has remains of the fortress of Rameses II, built by the Israelites, and is now known as Tell el-Maskhuta, 11 miles West of Ismailia.
RAAMSES is the other city built by the Israelites, now Tell Rotāb, 20 miles West of Ismailia. A wailed camp existed here from early times, and the temple of Rameses was built on the top of the older ruins. A large part of the temple front is now at Philadelphia, excavated by the British School.
SIN is the Greek Pelusium, Assyrian Siinu, Arabic Tineh, now some desolate mounds at the extreme East coast of Egypt.
SUCCOTH was the district of ?booths,? the eastern part of the Wady Tumilat. It was written in Egyptian Thuku and abbreviated to Thu in which form it appears as a Roman name. The people of Succoth were Sukkim, named in the army of Shishak (2Ch_12:3).
SYENE, Hebrew Sewēnēh, modern Aswan, the southern border town of Egypt at the Cataract. The greater part of the old town was on the island of Elephantine. There the Jewish papyri were found, and that was probably the Jewish settlement with the temple of Yahu. The town on the eastern bank - the present Aswan - was of less importance.
TAHPANHES, TEHAPHNEHES, Greek Daphnae, Arabic Tell Defeneh. This was the first station on the Syrian road which touched the Nile canals, about 10 miles West of Kantara on the Suez Canal. It seems to have been founded by Psammetichus about 664 bc, to hold his Greek mercenaries. The fort, built by him, abounded in Greek pottery, and was finally desolated about 566 bc, as described by Herodotus. The fort and camp have been excavated; and the pavement described by Jeremiah (Jer_43:1-13), as opposite to the entrance, has been identified.
ZOAN, Greek Tanis, Arabic San, is about 26 miles from the Suez Canal, and slightly more from the coast. The ruins of the temple are surrounded by the wall of Pasebkhanu, 80 ft. thick of brickwork, and a ring of town ruins rises high around it. The temple was built in the 6th Dynasty, adorned with many statues in the 12th and 13th Dynasties, and under Rameses II had many large granite obelisks and statues, especially one colossus of the king in red granite about 90 ft. high. It is probable that the Pharaoh lived here at the time of the Exodus.

IV. The Civilization
1. Language
We now turn to some outline of the civilization of the Egyptians. The language had primitive relations with the Semitic and the Libyan. Perhaps one common stock has separated into three languages - Semitic, Egyptian, and Libyan. But though some basal words and grammar are in common, all the bulk of the words of daily life were entirely different in the three, and no one could be said to be derived from the other. Egyptian so far as we can see, is a separate language without any connection as close as that between the Indo-European group. From its proximity to Syria, Semitic loan words were often introduced, and became common in the 18th Dynasty and fashionable in the 19th. The language continually altered, and decayed in the later periods until Coptic is as different from it as Italian is from Latin.
2. Writing
The writing was at first ideographic, using a symbol for each word. Gradually, signs were used phonetically; but the symbol, or some emblem of the idea of the word, continued to be added to it, now called a determinative. From syllabic signs purely alphabetic signs were produced by clipping and decay, so that by 1000 to 500 bc the writing was almost alphabetic. After that it became modified by the influence of the short Greek alphabet, until by 200 ad it was expressed in Greek letters with a few extra signs. The actual signs used were elaborate pictures of the objects in the early times, and even down to the later periods very detailed signs were carved for monumental purposes. But as early as the 1st Dynasty a very much simplified current hand had been started, and during the pyramid period this became hardly recognizable from the original forms. Later on this current hand, or hieratic, is a study by itself and was written much more fully than the hieroglyphs on monuments, as its forms were so corrupt that an ample spelling was needed to identify the word. By about 800 bc begins a much shortened set of signs, still more remote from their origins, known as demotic, which continued as the popular writing till Roman times. On public decrees the hieroglyphic and demotic are both given, showing that a knowledge of one was useless for reading the other, and that they were separate studies.
3. Literature
The literature begins during the pyramid period, before 4000 bc, with biographies and collections of maxims for conduct; these show well-regulated society, and would benefit any modern community in which they were followed. In the 12th Dynasty tales appear, occupied with magic and foreign travel and wonders. A long poem in praise of the king shows very regular versification and system, of the type of Ps 136, the refrain differing in each stanza and being probably repeated in chorus, while the independent lines were sung by the leader. In the 18th Dynasty, tales of character begin to develop and show much skill, long annals were recorded, and in the 19th Dynasty there is an elaborate battle poem describing the valor of Rameses II. At about 700 bc there is a considerable tale which describes the quarrels of the rival chiefs, and the great fight regulated like a tournament by which the differences were settled. Such are the principal literary works apart from business documents.
4. Four Views of Future Life
The religion of Egypt is an enormous subject, and that by which Egypt is perhaps most known. Here we can only give an outline of the growth and subdivisions of it. There never was any one religion in Egypt during historic times. There were at least four religions, all incompatible, and all believed in at once in varying degrees. The different religions can best be seen apart by their incongruity regarding the future life.
(1) The dead wandered about the cemetery seeking food, and were partly fed by the goddess in the sycamore tree. They therefore needed to have plates of food and jars of water in the tomb, and provided perpetually by their descendants in front of the doorway to the grave. The deceased is represented as looking out over this doorway in one case. Here came in the great principle of substitution. For the food, substitute its image which cannot decay, and the carved table of offerings results. For the farmstead of animals, substitute its carved image on the walls and the animal sculptures result. For the life of the family, substitute their carved figures doing all that was wanted, sacrificing and serving, and the family sculptures result. For the house, substitute a model upon the grave, and the pottery soul-houses appear with their furniture and provisions. For the servants, put their figures doing household work, and their service is eternal. For the master himself, put the most lifelike image that can be made, and his soul will occupy that as a restful home fitted for it. This principle is still believed in. Funeral offerings of food are still put even in Muslim graves, and a woman will visit a grave, and, removing a tile, will talk through a hole to her dead husband.
(2) The dead went to the kingdom of Osiris, to which only the good were admitted, while the evil were rejected, and consumed either by monsters or by fire. This heavenly kingdom was a complete duplicate of the earthly life. They planted and reaped, sported and played. And as the Egyptian felicity consisted in making others work for them, so each man was provided with a retinue of serfs to cultivate the land for him. These ushabti figures in later times usually number 400, and often 1 in 10 of them is clad as an overseer. A special chapter of the Book of the Dead is to be recited to animate them, and this, more or less abbreviated, is often inscribed upon the figures.
(3) The dead joined the company of the immortal gods, who float on the heavenly ocean in the boat of the sun. With them they have to face the terrors of the hours of the night when the sun goes through the underworld. Long charms and directions are needed for safety in this passage, and these form a large part of the funerary tests, especially on the Tombs of the Kings in the 18th-21st Dynasties. To reach the boat of the sun a boat must be provided in the tomb, with its sailors and sails and oars. Such are frequent from the 6th-13th Dynasties.
(4) The dead were carried off by the Hathor cow, or a bull, to wait for a bodily resurrection. In order to preserve the body for some life after the present age, each part must be protected by an appropriate amulet; hence, dozens of different amulets were placed on the body, especially from about 600-400 bc.
Now it will be seen that each of these beliefs contradicts the other three, and they represent, therefore, different religious origins.
5. Four Groups of Gods
The mythology is similarly diverse, and was unified by uniting analogous gods. Hence, when we see the compounds such as Ptah-Sokar-Osiris, or Amen-Ra or Osiris-Khentamenti, it is clear that each god of the compound belongs to a different religion, like Pallas-Athene or Zeus-Labrandeus, in Greek compounds. So far as we can at present see, the gods linked with each of the beliefs about the soul are as follows:
(1) The Soul in the Tombs and Cemetery
With this belief belong the animal gods, which form the earliest stratum of the religion; also Sokar the god of ?Silence,? and Mert Sokar, the ?Lover of Silence,? as the gods of the dead. With this was allied a belief in the soul sometimes going to the west, and hence, Khent-amenti, a jackal-headed god, ?he who is in the west,? became the god of the dead.
(2) The Soul in the Heavenly Kingdom
Osiris is the lord of this kingdom, Isis his sister-wife, Horus their son, Nebhat (Nephthys) the sister of Isis, and Set her husband. Set also was regarded as coequal with Horus. This whole mythology results probably from the fusion of tribes who were originally monotheistic, and who each worshipped one of these deities. It is certain that the later parts of this mythology are tribal history, regarded as the victories and defeats of the gods whom the tribes worshipped.
(3) The Soul in the Sun-Boat
Ra was the Sun-god, and in other forms worshipped as Khepera and Atmu. The other cosmic gods of the same group are Nut, the heaven, and her husband Geb, the earth; Shu, space, and his sister Tefnut. Anher the Sky-god belongs to Upper Egypt.
(4) The Mummy with Amulets, Preserved for a Future Life
Probably to this group belong the gods of principles, Hathor the female principle; Min the male principle; Ptah the architect and creator of the universe; his spouse Maat, abstract truth and justice.
6. Foreign Gods
Foreign gods frequently appear also in Egypt, mostly from Syria. Two importations were of great effect. Aton the radiant energy of the sun, the Adon or ?lord,? Adonai, Adonis, was introduced as a sole deity by Akhenaton 1380 bc, and all other gods were proscribed. This was a strictly rational and scientific religion, attributing all life and power to the action of the sun's rays; but it only lasted 20 years in Egypt, and then vanished. The other important worship was that of Zeus Sarapis. The Zeus statue is said to have been imported from Sinope by Ptolemy I, but the Sarapis was the god of Memphis, Osarhapi, the Osiris form of the Hapi bull. The Egyptian worshipped his old gods; the Greek was satisfied with Zeus; and both nations united in adoring Zeus Sarapis. The temples and ritual are too wide a subject to touch in our present space; but the essential principle was that of providing a banquet for the god, and feasting in his temple, not that of an expiatory sacrifice or burnt offering, which is Semitic.
7. Laws
The laws are but little known until the late Greek accounts. Marriage was usual with a sister, but this may have been with a half-sister, as among the Greeks and early Hebrews. Polygamy was unusual, but was legal, as many as six wives being represented in one instance. Kings of course had unlimited harēms. Divorce was unusual, but was probably easy. In Coptic times a marriage contract provides for divorce by either party, upon paying six times the marriage gift. Property was strictly guarded.
8. Character
The national character was easygoing, kindly, never delighting in torture like the Assyrians and Romans, but liable to be too slack and careless. Firmness, decision and fortitude were held up as the leading virtues. The structure of society, the arts and the industries are outside of the scope of this article.
(For differing views on chronology and sites, see articles EXODUS; WANDERINGS; PITHOM; RAAMSES, etc., and on individual kings, etc., articles under their names, and EGYPTIAN KINGS.)

Literature
Works in English, that are the most accessible, are stated in preference to foreign works, the references to which will be seen in the books stated below.
The Country
Baedeker's Egypt; on the flora, Petrie, Hawara, Biahmu, and Arsioe.
The History
Prehistoric: Petrie, Diospolis Parva, etc.; de Morgan, Reeherches; Maspero, The Dawn of Civilization, The Struggle of the Nations, The Passing of the Empires; Petrie, Student's History of Egypt; Breasted, A History of Egypt, etc. On the 1st-2nd Dynasties, Petrie, Royal Tombs. On the 3rd-6th Dynasties, Petrie, The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh; Murray, Saqqara Mastabas I. On the 7th-14th Dynasties, Petrie, Gizeh and Rifeh; de Morgan, Dahchour, I, II. On the 15th-24th Dynasties, Weigall, Guide to Antiquities; Baedeker on Thebes; Petrie, Six Temples at Thebes. On the 25th Dynasty to Roman times, Petrie, Temple of Apries; Mahaffy, The Empires of the Ptolemies; Milne, History of Egypt under Roman Rule. On the early foreign connections, Petrie, Methods and Aims in Archaeology.
On the Semitic Connections
Petrie, Syria and Egypt from the Tell el-Amarna Tablets.
On the Old Testament Connections
Petrie, Egypt and Israel.
On the Language
Murray, Elementary Grammar.
On the Writing and Literature
Erman, Life in Ancient Egypt; Petrie, Egyptian Tales, I, II.
On the Religion
Wiedemann, Religion of the Ancient Egyptians.
On the Customs
Wilkinson, Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians.
On the Arts
Petrie, The Arts and Crafts of Ancient Egypt.

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.

E?gypt, the land of Ham, a son of Noah, from whom was derived the ancient native appellation of the country, Chemi. From Mizraim, the second son of Ham, comes the ordinary Biblical name, Mizraim, a word which properly denotes Lower Egypt, as being that part of the country with which the Israelites were nearest and best, if not (in the earlier periods of their history) solely, acquainted. This designation, however, is sometimes used for Egypt indiscriminately, and was by the later Arabs extended to the entire country.
Egypt is the land of the Nile, the country through which that river flows from the Island of Phil?, situated just above the Cataracts of Syene, in lat. 24? 1′ 36″, to Damietta, in 31? 35′ N., where its principal stream pours itself into the Mediterranean Sea. On the east it is bounded by Palestine, Idumaea, Arabia Petraea, and the Arabian Gulf. On the west, the moving sands of the wide Libyan Desert obliterate the traces of all political or physical limits. Inhabited Egypt, however, is restricted to the valley of the Nile, which, having a breadth of from two to three miles, is enclosed on both sides by a range of hills: the chain on the eastern side disappears at Mocattam; that on the west extends to the sea. In lat. 30? 15′, the Nile divides into two principal streams, which, in conjunction with a third that springs somewhat higher up, forms the Delta, so called from its resemblance to the Greek letter Δ. These mountains are interesting, if for no other reason than that they served as the bed whence the materials were obtained out of which were constructed the wonderful buildings for which Egypt is justly distinguished. The superficial extent of Egypt has been estimated at about 11,000 square miles. The soil, which is productive, consists almost exclusively of mud brought down and deposited by the river, whose waters are indispensable every year for the purposes of agriculture to such an extent that the limits of their flow are the limits of vegetation. The Delta owes its very existence to the deposits of the Nile, and but for the waters of this stream, carried over its surface by natural or artificial means, would soon be a desert; it was therefore with propriety, as indeed was the entire country, termed 'the gift of the Nile.' The agency of the stream is the more necessary because rain very seldom falls in Lower Egypt. The land, placed as it is on the confines of Africa and Asia, yet so adjacent and accessible to Europe, in itself a garden and a store-house, may well have held an important position in the ancient world, and can hardly fail, unless political influences are very adverse, to rise to a commanding attitude in modern times. As to the number of its inhabitants, nothing very definite is known. Its fertility would doubtless give birth to, and support, a teeming population. In very remote times as many as 8,000,000 souls are said to have lived on its soil. In the days of Diodorus Siculus they were estimated at 3,000,000. Volney made the number 2,300,000. The present government estimate is 3,200,000, which seems to be somewhat beyond the fact.
Egypt naturally divides itself into two great sections at the apex of the Delta, the country lying south of that point being designated Upper Egypt, that north of it Lower Egypt. Under the Ptolemies, and probably at a very early period, the whole country was divided into thirty-six cantons or provinces, which division was maintained till the invasion of the Saracens. It is now composed of 24 departments, which, according to the French system of geographical arrangement, are subdivided into arrondissements and cantons.
The Nile is never mentioned by name in our translation of the Old Testament; it is always called the river of Egypt, although the word Nile occurs in the original (Isa_27:12; Jos_15:4; 2Ki_24:7).
Till within a few years the sources of the Nile and the termination of the Niger were hid in alike mysterious obscurity. The latter has been discovered, but the former, notwithstanding many strenuous efforts and some pretence, remain to reward the enterprise of some more fortunate traveler. The various branches of the Nile have their rise in the highlands north of the equator. The three principal branches of the Nile are?1, the Bahr el Abiad, or White River, to the west, which is now known to be the largest and longest; 2, the Bahr el Azrek, or Blue River, in the center; 3, the Tacazz?, or Abara, which is the eastern branch. The Nile, from its confluence with the Tacazze (17? 45′ north lat.) down to its entrance into the Mediterranean (1200 geographical miles), receives no permanent streams: but in the rainy season it receives wadys, or torrents, from the mountains. The annual overflow of the river, on which the ancients wrote so obscurely, is known to arise from the periodical rains which fall within the tropics. The rich alluvial deposits which the Nile spreads over Nubia and Egypt are mainly derived through the Blue River; the White River, or longest stream, bringing nothing of the kind. Owing to the yearly deposit of alluvial matter, both the bed of the Nile and the land of Egypt are being gradually raised. The river proceeds in its current uniformly and quietly at the rate of two and a half or three miles an hour, always deep enough for navigation. Its water is usually blue, but it becomes of a deep brick-red during the period of its overflow. It is salubrious when drunk, meriting the encomiums which it has so abundantly received. On the river the land is wholly dependent. If the Nile does not rise a sufficient height, sterility and dearth, if not famine, ensue. An elevation of sixteen cubits is essential to secure the prosperity of the country. Such, however, is the regularity of nature, and such the faithfulness of God, that for thousands of years, with but few and partial exceptions, these inundations have in essential particulars been the same. The waters of the stream are conveyed over the surface of the country by canals when natural channels fail. During the overflow the land is naturally inundated, and has the appearance of a sea dotted with islands. Wherever the waters reach, abundance springs forth. The cultivator has scarcely more to do than to scatter the seed. No wonder that a river whose waters are so grateful, salubrious, and beneficial, should in days of ignorance have been regarded as an object of worship, and that it is still revered and beloved.
Well may Egypt have been visited as a granary by the needy in ancient times (Gen_12:10; Exo_16:3). Besides corn, the country produced onions, garlic, beans, pumpkins, cucumbers, melons, flax, cotton, and wine. The acacia, sycamore, palm, and fig-tree adorned the land; but there was a want of timber. The Nile produced the useful papyrus, and abounded in fish. On its banks lurked the crocodile and hippopotamus. The Egyptian oxen were celebrated in the ancient world. Horses abounded (1Ki_10:28); hence the use of war-chariots in fight (Isa_31:1; Diod. Sic. i. 45), and the celebrity of Egyptian charioteers (Jer_46:4; Eze_17:15). The land was not destitute of mineral treasures. Gold mines were wrought in Upper Egypt.
The climate is very regular and exceedingly hot; the atmosphere clear and shining; a shade is not easily found. Though rain falls even in the winter months very rarely, it is not altogether wanting, as was once believed. Thunder and lightning are still more infrequent, and are so completely divested of their terrific qualities that the Egyptians never associate with them the idea of destructive force. Showers of hail descending from the hills of Syria are sometimes known to reach the confines of Egypt: the formation of ice is very uncommon. Dew is produced in great abundance. The wind blows from the north from May to September, when it veers round to the east, assumes a southerly direction, and fluctuates till the close of April. The southerly vernal winds, traversing the arid sands of Africa, are most changeable as well as most unhealthy: they form the simoom or samiel, and have proved fatal to caravans and even to armies. Mosquitoes, locusts, frogs, together with the plague, the small pox, and leprosy, are the great evils of the country.

Fig. 170?Egyptian Facial Features
1. Egypto-Ethiopian (the Tirhakah of Scripture);
2, 4. Ethiopian;
3. Egyptian
The most recent inquiries have shown that the extreme limit at Philae was only of a political nature; for the natives of the country below it were of the same race as those who lived above that spot?a tribe which passed down into the fertile valley of the Nile from its original in the south. These Ethiopians and the Egyptians were not negroes, but a branch of the great Caucasian family. Their color?at least the color of the higher castes?was brown; their frame slender, but of great strength. The women were very fruitful.
The mode of life of the Egyptians was influenced by their locality: those who dwelt on high lands on the east, as well as those who dwelt on the marshy flat country in the Delta, were shepherds, as their land did not admit cultivation. The people who lived along the Nile became fishermen and sailors. The cultivated part of the natives who lived on the plains and over the surface of the country diligently and most successfully practiced all the arts of life, and have left ever-during memorials of their proficiency and skill.
On this natural diversity of pursuits, as well as on a diversity of blood, was founded the institution of castes, which Egypt had in common with India, and which pervaded the entire life of the nation. These, according to Herodotus, were seven in number: the priestly caste was the most honored and influential: it had in every large city a temple dedicated to the deity of the place, together with a high-priest, who stood next to the king and restricted his power. The priesthood possessed the finest portions of the country: they were the judges, physicians, astrologers, architects?in a word, they united in themselves all the highest culture and most distinguished offices of the land, while with them alone lay tradition, literature, and the sacred writings. This class exerted the most decided and extensive influence on the culture not only of their own country, but of the world; for during the brightest periods of Grecian history the love of knowledge carried into Egypt men who have done much to form the character of after-ages, such as Solon, Pythagoras, Archytas, Thales, Herodotus, Plato, and others (comp. Gen_41:8; Exo_7:11; Exo_7:22; Exo_8:7).
The peculiarities of the ancient Egyptians of the lower castes seem to have survived best, and to be represented, at least in some particulars, by the Fellahs of the present day. These Fellahs discharge all the duties of tilling the country and gathering its rich abundance: their attachment to it is very strong, and their love to the Nile almost a passion. They are a quiet, contented, submissive race, always living, through an unjust government, on the edge of starvation, yet always happy, with no thought for the morrow, no care for, no interest in, political change.
The only other tribe we have room to notice is that of the Copts, equally with the preceding, indigenous. They are Christians by hereditary transmission, and have suffered centuries of cruel persecutions and humiliations, though now they seem to be rising in importance, and promise to fill an important page in the future history of Egypt. In character they are amiable, pacific, and intelligent, having of course the faults and vices of dissimulation, falsehood, and meanness, which slavery never fails to engender. In office they are the scribes, the arithmeticians, the measurers, the clerks?in a word, the learned men of the country. The Copts have been under-estimated at 150,000 souls, divided into twelve Episcopal districts, the bishops of which unite to elect a patriarch.
'The wisdom of Egypt' was a phrase which at an early period, passed into a proverb, so high was the opinion entertained by antiquity of the knowledge and skill of the ancient Egyptians (1Ki_4:30; Herod, ii. 160; Josephus, Antiq. viii. 2, 5; Act_7:22). It was long thought that the hieroglyphic inscriptions on the monumental remains of Egypt contained treasures of wisdom no less boundless than hidden; and, indeed, hieroglyphics were, in the opinion of some, invented by the priests of the land, if not expressly to conceal their knowledge from the profane vulgar, yet as a safe receptacle and convenient storehouse for their mysterious but invaluable doctrines. Great, consequently, was the expectation of the public when it was announced that a key had been discovered which opened the portal to these long-concealed treasures. Men of profound learning, great acuteness of mind, and distinguished reputation, have engaged and persevered in the inquiry; but, after all, the conclusions and positions which have been drawn and set forth are only in a few cases (comparatively) definite and unimpeachable.
The difficulties that oppose the formation of a satisfactory Egyptian chronology are great and numerous. The most distinguished writers differ egregiously in their statements.
Various efforts, however, have been made to remove difficulties, reconcile contradictions, and harmonize dissonances; but the success has been far from distinguished.

Fig. 171?Interior of Pictured Tomb
What, however, we know to be definite, and believe to be accurate in its disclosures, and what we judge to be far more important in an historical relation, is to be found in the paintings and sculptures with which the Egyptians left the walls of their tombs and temples decorated in forms and colors which have not yet faded from the sight. It is true that these instances of real picture-writing may do little for fixing the epoch of the accession of a king or the termination of a dynasty. Yet in this they are not entirely mute. Among the innumerable mural sculptures in the temple at Karnack, Champollion discovered one in which a king, Sheshonk (Shishak), is presenting captives of various nations to his God as trophies of victory. One of these, distinguished by a long beard and Jewish physiognomy, bears the hieroglyphic title Youdah Malek, king of Judah. But for any practical purpose, the determination of a date, or the identification of an event, is of small comparative moment; and far too much importance has been attached to mere chronological details. To learn when an Egyptian or Chinese king ascended the throne, or departed this life, may gratify the antiquary, or even reward much learned toil, but the world at large has an interest in history in the main, if not exclusively, so far as it discloses what men thought, felt, did; what they hoped, feared, and achieved in the days of old; thereby affording to posterity warnings, encouragement, light, and impulse. Now for these highly important purposes the most abundant materials are presented in Egypt, and may be found described in the works of Champollion, Wilkinson, and others. Let any one visit the Egyptian gallery in the British Museum, and he will be surprised and delighted to find Egypt almost resuscitated. The tombs have given up their dead. Buried treasures, over whose silence centuries had rolled before our era began, crowd on the sight and gratify the mind. And paintings, too, strike the eye, which may not indeed conform very exactly to the laws of perspective, but which lay open, and set before the spectator, the Egyptian, as he was in the days of his glory and pride. Indeed, from the paintings and sculptures which have been discovered and described, we are enabled to follow this most singular and deeply interesting people through all the classes of society, through all the operations of science and husbandry, into the transactions of public life, the details of house-keeping, the achievements of war, the amusements of hunting, fishing, feasting, and the solemn rites of a most august and imposing religious ceremonial.
Amid the various profane authors who have written more or less in detail on Egypt, the Bible remains our best and fullest authority for the early history of the country. This history, it is true, is not presented in a chronological series of events, nor supplied respecting any period with nice exactitude and minute details. The disclosures made by inscriptions on public buildings, of kings, wars, and conquests, may, when verified as to age, and placed in their probable order by the aid of learning and criticism, reveal more as to the dynasties and individual sovereigns; but on such information, even when free from doubt, and most accurate, little real value can be set; while the Bible supplies, either by express statement or obvious implication, facts and principles which constitute genuine history, and go far to give the past all the value which it can possess for the men of these times. And what makes these disclosures the more valuable is not only that they wear the character of genuine and uncorrupted history?free from the false, deep and unnatural colorings of mythology; but that they relate to the earliest forms of civilized life, and to ages over which profane historians have left the thickest darkness. Narrations and implications, such as the Bible affords in regard to the early history of Egypt, want no corroboration; they wear in their naturalness, simplicity, and correspondence with what would be expected in the ages to which they refer, evidence that they represent actual realities, which none can resist who have studied either human nature or human society. Still it may not be supererogatory to remark that the little which learning and industry have succeeded in extracting from the monumental inscriptions, and the very great deal which funereal and religious paintings have of late made known; and indeed all, from whatever source gathered, that we known of the country and its institutions and usages, are in entire harmony with what the Scriptures directly or indirectly teach respecting Egypt. And it is certainly a very great point to have ascertained beyond doubt that the Egypt of the Bible is Egypt indeed, not a fiction, nor an imposture, nor a blunder?as writers of the Voltaire school would persuade the world?but a reality, so far as it goes, a picture copied from actual life.
We learn from the Old Testament that while the Jews, the earliest nation that has handed down to us the history of its rise and civilization, were yet a tribe of wandering shepherds, under Abraham, depending solely upon the unbought gifts of nature, who, when they had exhausted one district, instead of cultivating it, drove off their flocks in search of a new pasture-ground, after the manner of the American Indians; the Egyptians were acquainted with agriculture and all those arts of civilization and government which indicate a social existence, extending backwards for at least several ages. This is confirmed in a striking manner by architectural remains that have survived the ravages of above thirty centuries; for while the Israelites, under the immediate successors of Joshua, were still warring with the Canaanites for the possession of the land of promise, or yet earlier, while they were yet slaves in Egypt, that most interesting land was distinguished for palaces, temples, porticos, obelisks, statues, and canals, which declare that they had been preceded by a long period of civilization, and which still remain the admiration of the world. The pyramids of Lower Egypt, requiring for their erection the least quantity of architectural knowledge, no elegance of design, no taste in detail, might possibly have been the work of men driven by task-masters to their daily labor; but that the palaces, tombs, and temples of Upper Egypt, which present to us the earliest known instances of architecture, sculpture, and painting; the colossal statues of Amenoph and Rameses, requiring considerable anatomical knowledge for the original design, and a mechanical skill in the execution, exceeding perhaps even that of the Greeks themselves; the vast works for irrigation; and the correct division of the calendar, implying great knowledge of mathematics?that these should have been the works of a people suffering under political disadvantages, and not far advanced in all the arts and refinements of social life, would contradict all that observation or history has made known. Some considerable degree therefore of political freedom, as well as a high cultivation, must at an early period have been enjoyed by the Egyptians.
In Genesis 10 we find the colonization of Egypt traced up to the immediate children of Noah, for it is there stated that Mizraim was the second son of Ham, who was himself the second son of Noah. Immediately after these genealogical statements the sacred narrative (Genesis 12) informs us that the patriarch Abraham, pressed by famine, went down (about B.C. 1920) into Egypt, where it appears he found a monarch, a court, princes and servants, and where he found also those supplies of food which the well-known fertility of the country had led him to seek there; for it is expressly stated that the favor which his wife had won in the reigning Pharaoh's eyes procured him sheep and oxen, as well as he-asses, and men-servants, and maid-servants, and she asses and camels. In Gen_21:9, mention is made in the case of Ishmael, the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whose mother took him a wife out of the land of Egypt, of a mixed race between the Egyptians and the Chaldeans, a race which in after times became a great nation. In Genesis 39 begins the interesting story of Joseph's being carried down to Egypt, with all its important consequences for the great-grandchildren of Abraham. The productiveness of the country is the allurement, famine the impulse. Attendant circumstances show that Egypt was then famous also for its commercial pursuits; and the entire narrative gives the idea of a complex system of society (about B.C. 1720), and a well-constituted yet arbitrary form of government. As in eastern courts at later periods of history, elevation to high offices was marked and sudden. The slave Joseph is taken from prison and from impending death, and raised to the dignity of prime vizier, and is entrusted with making provision for an approaching dearth of food, which he had himself foretold, during which he effects in favor of the ruling sovereign one of the greatest revolutions of property which history has recorded. The high consideration in which the priestly caste was held is apparent. Joseph himself marries a daughter of the priest of On. Out of respect towards, as well as by the direct influence of, Joseph, the Hebrews were well treated. The Scriptural record, however, distinctly states (Gen_46:34) that before the descent of Israel and his sons 'every shepherd' was 'an abomination unto the Egyptians.' The Hebrews, whose 'trade had been about cattle,' must have been odious in the eyes of the Egyptians, yet are they expressly permitted to dwell 'in the best of the land' (Gen_47:6), which is identified with the land of Goshen, the place which the Israelites had prayed might be assigned to them, and which they obviously desired on account of the adaptation of its soil to their way of life as herdsmen. Having settled his father and family satisfactorily in the land, Joseph proceeded to supply the urgent wants of a hungry nation, and at the same time converted the tenure of all property from freehold into tenancy-at-will, with a rent-charge of one-fifth of the produce, leaving their lands, however, in the hands of the priests; and thus he gave another evidence of the greatness of their power.
The richness of Goshen was favorable, and the Israelites 'grew and multiplied exceedingly,' so that the land was filled with them. But Joseph was now dead; time had passed on, and there rose up a new king (probably one of a new dynasty) which knew (Exo_1:8) not Joseph, having no personal knowledge, and it may be no definite information of his services: who, becoming jealous of the increase of the Hebrews, set about persecuting them with the avowed intention of diminishing their numbers and crippling their power. Severe task-masters are therefore set over them; heavy tasks are imposed; the Hebrews are compelled to build 'treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses.' It is found, however, that they only increase the more. In consequence, their burdens are doubled and their lives made bitter with hard bondage (Exo_1:14), 'in mortar and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field.' Their first-born males, moreover, are doomed to destruction the moment they come into being. The deepest heart-burnings ensue; hatred arises between the oppressor and the oppressed; the Israelites seek revenge in private and by stealth (Exo_2:12). At last a higher power interferes, and the afflicted race is permitted to leave Egypt. At this time Egypt appears to have been a well-peopled and well-cultivated country, with numerous cities, under a despotic monarch, surrounded by officers of his court and a life-guard. There was a ceremonial at audience, a distinction of ranks, a state-prison, and a prime minister. Great buildings were carried on. There was set apart from the rest of the people an order of priests who probably filled offices in the civil government; the priest of Midian and the priest of On seem to have ruled over the cities so named. There was in the general class of priests an order?wise men, sorcerers, and magicians?who had charge of a certain secret knowledge: there were physicians or embalmers of the dead; the royal army contained chosen captains and horsemen and chariots. The attention which the people at large paid to agriculture, and the fixed notions of property which they in consequence had, made them hold the shepherd or nomad tribes in abhorrence, as freebooters only less dangerous than hunting tribes.
The ill feelings which the peculiar circumstances connected with the exode from Egypt had occasioned served to keep the Israelites and the Egyptians strangers, if not enemies, one to another during the lapse of centuries, till the days of David and Solomon, when (1 Kings 3, 7, 9, 11) friendly relations again spring up between the two countries. Solomon marries the daughter of a Pharaoh, who burns the city of Gezer, and who in consequence must have been master of Lower Egypt. 'And Solomon had horses brought out of Egypt, and linen yarn:' six hundred shekels of silver was the price of a chariot, and one hundred and fifty the price of a horse. Jeroboam, however, who 'had lifted up his hand against the king,' and become subsequently monarch of the revolted ten tribes, found refuge and protection in Egypt, which was then (about B.C. 975) governed by Shishak. From 2 Chronicles 12 it appears that in the fifth year of Solomon's successor, Rehoboam, this same Shishak 'came against Jerusalem' with a very large army, consisting of chariots, horse and foot soldiers, besides auxiliary foreigners; and having captured the fortified cities which lay on his march, he entered and plundered the metropolis. The language which is employed in Joel (Joe_3:19) shows that, in the ninth century before Christ, Egypt had, in conjunction with Edom, displayed both its power and its cruelty towards the kingdom of Judah. The rise and oppressiveness of the Assyrian power soon, however, inclined the Egyptians and the Israelites, from a sense of common danger, to cultivate friendly relations with one another. In 2 Kings 17 we find that in the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah (B.C. 730) Hoshea king of Israel desisted from paying his usual tribute to the king of Assyria, and courted the alliance of So, king of Egypt, who must have been a very powerful monarch to have been thought able to give assistance in opposition to Assyria. Against this mere human resource the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 31) warmly protested, declaring its utter inefficiency, and striving to lead his countrymen to the practice of that righteousness and piety by neglecting which they had been forsaken of God. Upon this act of king Hoshea, however, the Assyrians overran Samaria and carried (2Ki_17:6) Israel away into Assyria. In the reign of Hezekiah (B.C. 726) it appears (2Ki_18:21) that the kingdom of Judah still 'trusted upon the staff of this bruised reed, even Egypt, on which if a man lean, it will go into his hand and pierce it: so is Pharaoh king of Egypt unto all that trust on him.' In the last year of the reign of Josiah (B.C. 609) Egypt seems to have attempted to increase its influence in Palestine, when Pharaoh Nechoh (2Ki_23:29) 'went up against the king of Assyria to the river Euphrates,' and Josiah going against him was slain in battle. His successor, Jehoahaz, was dethroned after a brief reign of three months, and imprisoned at Kiblah by the Egyptian monarch, who imposed on the country a heavy tribute. Pharaoh-Nechoh then made his elder brother Eliakim king, having changed his name to Jehoiakim. Jehoahaz afterwards died in Egypt. But the Egyptian influence over Judah soon ended; for in the fourth year of Jehoiakim (B.C. 604) Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon marched against (Jeremiah 46; 2 Kings 21) Judah and its allies, defeated Pharaoh-Nechoh, and retook from the Egyptians Arabia Patara and all that belonged to them between the Euphrates and the Nile. Zedekiah, the next king of Judah, rebelling against Nebuchadnezzar, made an alliance with Pharaoh-Hophra (Jeremiah 44): and when Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem, on the march of the Egyptian army, the Chaldees raised the siege (Jer_37:5) and withdrew the army. But this was the last time that the Egyptian power was able to serve the Jews. The Assyrian party in the state, indeed, was in the minority, though assisted by the influence of Jeremiah and Ezekiel (Ezekiel 29; Jeremiah 25); yet it predominated: the Jews were carried captive to Babylon, and in less than a century afterwards Egypt was made a province of the same empire.
After the time of the exile the Egyptian Ptolemies were for a long while (from B.C. 301 to about 180) masters of Palestine, and during this period Egypt became as of old a place of refuge to the Jews, to whom many favors and privileges were conceded. This shelter seems not to have been for ages withdrawn (Mat_2:13). Yet it cannot be said that the Jews were held in esteem by the Egyptians. Indeed it was from an Egyptian, Manetho (B.C. 300), that the most defamatory misrepresentations of Jewish history were given to the world; and, in the days of Augustus, Chaeremon took special pains to make the Jewish people appear despicable.
In the reign of Ptolemy Philometor, Onias, whose father, the third high-priest of that name, had been murdered, fled into Egypt, and rose into high favor with the king and Cleopatra his queen. The high-priesthood of the temple of Jerusalem, which belonged of right to his family, having passed from it to the family of the Maccabees, by the nomination of Jonathan to this office (B.C. 153), Onias used his influence with the court to procure the establishment of a temple and ritual in Egypt which should detach the Jews who lived there from their connection with the temple at Jerusalem. The king complied with the request. To reconcile the Egyptian Jews to a second temple Onias alleged Isa_19:18-19. He chose for the purpose a ruined temple of Bubastis, at Leontopolis, in the Heliopolitan nome, one hundred and fifty stadia from Memphis, which place he converted into a sort of miniature Jerusalem, erecting an altar in imitation of that in the temple, and constituting himself high-priest. The king granted a tract of land around the temple for the maintenance of the worship, and it remained in existence till destroyed by Vespasian. The district in which this temple stood appears to have been, after Alexandria, the chief seat of the Jews in Egypt.
The most brilliant periods of Egyptian art were the reigns of the second and third Rameses. Most of the obelisks and colossal statues were wrought before or during the reign of Rameses II, the Sesostris of the Greek writers. Under this enterprising monarch, the ancient Theban empire attained its highest pinnacle of prosperity and power. Rameses III undertook distant military expeditions, roused the energies of the country, encouraged art, and erected the splendid temple of Medinet Abu. At a later age the scepter of Egypt was swayed by powerful monarchs, who built on a grand scale; but the seat of the government was then in the Delta, and there remain only a few obelisks.
The valley of the Nile is all along at intervals strewed with wrecks of ancient monumental grandeur; at Thebes, however, they are found on both sides of the river in greatest profusion. Next to the pyramids, the most wonderful relic of Egyptian art is the great hall of the temple of Karnack, on the east bank of the Nile. Its superficial area is 314 feet by 164. The massive stone roof is supported by 134 columns ranged in sixteen rows, most of which are 9 feet in diameter, and nearly 43 feet high: those of the central avenue are not less than 11 feet 6 inches in diameter, and 72 feet high; the diameter of their capitals at their widest spread is 22 feet. The walls, columns, architraves, ceilings, every surface exposed to the eye, is overspread with intaglio sculptures?gods, heroes, and hieroglyphics, painted in once vivid colors. But the hall of columns was but a part of this wonderful fabric. Immense pylons, half-buried quadrangles and halls, granite obelisks, and tremendous piles of fallen masonry, once formed a range of buildings upwards of 1200 feet in length. An avenue of colossal sphinxes led from the temple to Luxor, forming a vista which extended nearly a mile and a half, and was admirably adapted for the pageantry of religious processions. All these buildings formed parts of one magnificent whole; all were constructed of gigantic blocks, and most were covered with sculpture. 'Such was the imperial palace of the Pharaohs when Europe was yet in primeval barbarism, ages before Romulus took his omen on the Palatine hill,' Now the ruins are strewn in chaotic confusion over a sandy plain, broken into shapeless mounds.
Among the most remarkable works of the Egyptians must be ranked the vast sepulchers excavated in the seclusion of the Theban mountains to receive their dead monarchs. 'It was,' says Wathen, 'about an hour before sunset one evening that I set out to visit this Necropolis, intending to pass the night in one of the royal sepulchers. On approaching the gorge, the first thing that struck me was the quantity of bones, fragments of mummies, rolls of mummy cloth, and other relics of rifled (Egyptian) tombs that strewed the ground. Princes, priests, and warriors, after reposing thousands of years, are now dragged forth by poor peasants, and their bones lie scattered before the doors of their sepulchers. Candles were lighted: I passed the threshold, and looked round with silent wonder on the scene within. A large corridor or gallery ran back hundreds of feet into the heart of the mountain, divided by lateral projections into lengthening vistas of apartments. The walls were elegantly adorned with columns of blue hieroglyphics on a white ground, 3000 years old, yet retaining almost the freshness of yesterday. In a large chamber at the end of the gallery was a massive sarcophagus. Here once lay the royal mummy, but it had long been open, and was empty. There are eight or nine of these large painted tombs in a group, besides others of less interest. They vary in length from 100 to upwards of 400 feet. In most, you find on entering a long descending corridor or gallery, running off in a straight line into the heart of the mountain. At its farther end the corridor expands into one or more large apartments, whose roofs are supported by massive piers of the living rock. The walls and piers throughout are generally decorated with paintings still wonderfully retaining their freshness: the subjects are chiefly processions, religious rites, and allegoric and enigmatical devices.' The object seems to have been to enshrine the corpse deep within the earth in a mass of masonry, far from the stir of the living world. For these royal sepulchers of Thebes they first selected the loneliest ravine; for each tomb they carried a gallery deep into the hill, and then placed the corpse in the remotest part. But the tombs of the kings form only a part of this great city of the dead. The sides of the hills overlooking the plain and the ravines intersecting them, contain innumerable sepulchral excavations. One valley was appropriated to the queens, and in a remote corner the apes had a cemetery. The priests seized the best spots.

Fig. 172?Pyramid of Cheops
The purpose for which the pyramids were erected was once as little known as were most other things connected with Egypt. It now appears satisfactorily ascertained that they were designed to be mausoleums; and what an idea does it give us of the grandeur of conception, the splendor in every respect of the monarchs to whom they owe their origin, that they should have devised and executed tombs so stupendous! 'On leaving the village of Giza, on the river bank opposite old Cairo (Memphis), the pyramids rise before you glittering white against the blue sky; but the flatness of the plain and the purity of the atmosphere effectually deceive the eye as to their distance and consequently their size: you almost appear at their base while several miles really intervene. As you advance gradually they unfold their gigantic dimensions; but you must have been some time on the spot, your eye must have repeatedly traveled along the great pyramid's 740 feet of base, and up its steep towering angles, before you can fully understand its immensity, and the actual amount of labor involved in its erection' (Wathen). According to Pliny 366,000 men were employed for 20 years in erecting the great pyramid, and Herodotus reports from an inscription which it bore, that the expense of providing the workmen with onions and other roots amounted to 1600 talents. Whole mosques have probably been built out of spoils from it alone. Yet the integrity of its form remains substantially unimpaired, and from a distance scarcely a trace of violence or decay can be seen. The existing masonry has been estimated at above six millions of tons, which was raised over an area of thirteen English acres and a half; and, supposing the cost of the structure to have been one shilling a cubic foot, including carriage, materials, and workmanship, the erection required an outlay of nearly five millions sterling. The original perpendicular height was 480 feet, exceeding that of St. Peter's by 43 feet, and that of St. Paul's by 110.
The relation in which the religion of Egypt stands to that of Moses is one of very considerable interest and importance, and one which has not yet received the kind and degree of attention which it merits. Michaelis, and others of the same school, have given valuable aid, but they wrote with, compared with what is now known, insufficient knowledge, if not with somewhat too much of a foregone conclusion. Other learned men, influenced by their philosophical notions, or prejudiced against the Hebrew religion, have made Moses a mere copyist of institutions and retailer of ideas which he found in Egypt. As a basis for such a view it was necessarily assumed that a purer system of religion was found in Egypt in the days of Moses than existed in any other part of the world. In particular, the Egyptian mysteries were set forth as the depositories of high and valuable religious doctrines. Scripture and history (the Acts of the Apostles; Josephus, Philo) were adduced to show that Moses had been instructed in this priceless lore, and initiated into these mysteries; whence he was declared to have drawn his system of Monotheism. These views, however, rest on no solid foundation whatever, if, indeed, they may not be to some extent considered as the illusory and almost posthumous offspring of the old and exploded notion which ascribed boundless knowledge to the ancient Egyptians. Nor can they for a moment be held in these days after the light thrown on early Egypt by the monumental disclosures. The brief notion given above of the general characteristics of the earliest religion of the country, shows how utterly baseless such a theory is. In truth, the inhabitants of Palestine, so far back as we have been able to learn anything of them, seem to have possessed far better and purer religious opinions than those of the valley of the Nile, and in all probability did something to improve and elevate the religious system of the latter.
The Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
by John Kitto.

Heb_11:26 (c) A type of the world with its riches and opportunities.

Rev_11:8 (a) Because Jerusalem was given up to business pursuits, idolatry and pleasure, it is compared to Egypt.
Wilson's Dictionary of Bible Types
press 1957.

Egypt
(or, more strictly, AEgypt, since the word is but anglicized from the Gr. and Lat. Αἴγυπτος, AEgyptus), a region important from the earliest times, and more closely identified with Bible incidents than any other, except the Holy Land itself. For a vindication of the harmony between Scripture history and the latest results of Egyptological research (Brugsch, Aus dem Orient, Berl. 1864), see Volck in the Dorpater Zeitschrift, 1867, 2, art. 2. I. Names. — The common name of Egypt in the Hebrews Bible is Mizraim, מַצְרִיַם, Mitsra'yim (or, more fully; "the land of Mizraim"). In form Mizraim is a dual, and accordingly it is generally joined with a plural verb. When, therefore, in Gen_10:6, Mizraim is mentioned as a son of Ham, some conclude that nothing more is meant than that Egypt was colonized by descendants of Ham. SEE MIZRAIM. The dual number doubtless indicates the natural division of the country into an upper and a lower region, the plain of the Delta and the narrow valley above, as it has been commonly divided at all times. The singular Mazor, מָצוֹר, Matsor', also occurs (2Ki_19:24; Isa_37:25; perhaps as a proper name in Isa_19:6; Mic_7:12; A.V. always as an appellative, "besieged city," etc.), and some suppose that it indicates Lower Egypt, the dual only properly meaning the whole country; but there is no sure ground for this assertion. SEE MAZOR. The mention of Mizraim and Pathros together (Isa_11:11; Jer_44:1; Jer_44:15), even if we adopt the explanation which supposes Mizraim to be in these places by a late usage put for Mazor, by no means proves that, since Pathros is a part of Egypt, Mizraim, or rather Mazor, is here a part also. The mention of a part of a country by the same term as the whole is very usual in Hebrew phraseology. This designation, at all events, is sometimes used for Egypt indiscriminately, and was by the later Arabs extended to the entire country. Josephus (Ant. 1:6, 2) says that all those who inhabit the country call it Mestre (Μέστρη), and the Egyptians Mestraeans (Μέστραιοι). The natives of Modern Egypt invariably designate it by the name Misr, evidently cognate with its ancient Hebrews appellation (Hackett's lllustra. of Scripture, page 120).
Egypt is also called in the Bible אֶרֶוֹ חָם, "the land of Ham" (Psa_105:23; Psa_105:27; compare Psa_78:51), referring to the son of Noah. SEE HAM. Occasionally (Psa_87:4; Psa_89:10; Isa_51:9) it is poetically styled Rahab, רִהִב, i.e., "the proud" or "insolent." SEE RAHAB. The common ancient Egyptian name of the country is written in hieroglyphics. SEE KEM
which was probably pronounced Chem; the demotic form is KEMI (Brugsch, Geographische Inschriften, 1:73, Number 362); and the Coptic forms are Chame or Chemi (Memphitic), Keme or Keme (Sahidic), and Knemi (Bashmuric). This name signifies, alike in the ancient language and in Coptic, "black," and may be supposed to have been given to the land on account of the blackness of its alluvial soil (comp. Plutarch, De Isaiah et Osir. c. 33). It would seem, however, to be rather a representative of the original Hebrews name Ham (i.e. Cham), which likewise in the Shemitic languages denotes sun-burnt, as a characteristic of African tribes. The other hieroglyphic names of Egypt appear to be of a poetical character.
The Greek and European name (ηΑ῾ἴγυπτος, Egyptus), Egypt, is of uncertain origin and signification (Champollion, L'Egypte, 1:77). It appears, however, to have some etymological connection with the modern name Copt, and is perhaps nothing more than "land of the Copts" (the prefix αἰ — being perhaps for αϊvἇγαῖα or γῆ). In Homer the Nile is sometimes (Odys. 4:351, 355; 14:257, 258) called Egypt (Αἴγυπτος).
II. Extent and Population. — Egypt occupies the northeastern angle of Africa, between N. lat. 31° 37' and 24° 1', and E. long. 27° 13' and 34° 12'. On the E. it is bounded by Palestine, Idumaea, Arabia Petraea, and the Arabian Gulf. On the W., the moving sands of the wide Libyan desert obliterate the traces of all political or physical limits. Inhabited Egypt, however, is restricted to the valley of the Nile, which, having a breadth of from two to three miles, is enclosed on both sides by a range of hills: the chain on the 'eastern side disappears at Mokattam, that on the west extends to the sea. Its limits appear to have always been very nearly the same. In Eze_29:10; Eze_30:6, according to the obviously correct rendering, SEE MIGDOL, the whole country is spoken of as extending from Migdol to Syene, which indicates the same limits to the east and the south as at present. Egypt seems, however, to have always been held, except by the modern geographers, to include no more than the tract irrigated by the Nile lying within the limits we have specified. The deserts were at all times wholly different from the valley, and their tribes more or less independent of the rulers of Egypt. Syene, now Aswan, is also assigned by Greek and Arabian writers as the southern limit of Egypt. Here the Nile issues from the granite rocks of the cataracts, and enters Egypt proper. The length of the country, therefore, in a direct line, is 456 geographical miles. The breadth of the valley between Aswan and the Delta is very unequal; in some places the inundations of the river extend to the foot of the mountains; in other parts there remains a strip of a mile or two in breadth, which the water never covers, and which is therefore always dry and barren. Originally the name Egypt designated only this valley and the Delta; but at a later period it came to include also the region between this and the Red Sea from Berenice to Suez, a strong and mountainous tract, with only a few spots fit for tillage, but better adapted to pasturage. It included also, at this time, the adjacent desert on the west, as far as to the oases, those fertile and inhabited islands in the ocean of sand. The name Delta, also, was extended so as to cover the districts between Pelusium and the border of Palestine, and Arabia Petraea; and on the west it included the adjacent tract as far as to the great deserts of Libya and Barca, a region of sand of three days' journey east and west, and as many north and south.
Egypt, in the extensive sense, contains 115,200 square geographical miles, yet it has only a superficies of about 9582 square geographical miles of soil, which the Nile either does or can water and fertilize. This computation includes the river and lakes as well as sandy tracts which can be inundated, and the whole space either cultivated or fit for cultivation is no more than about 5626 square miles. Anciently 2735 square miles more may have been cultivated, and now it would be possible at once to reclaim about 1295 square miles. These computations are those of Colonel Jacotin and M. Esteve, given in the Memoir of the former in the great French work (Description de l'Egypte, 2d edition 18, part 2, page 101 sq.). They must be very nearly true of the actual state of the country at the present time. Mr. Lane calculated the extent of the cultivated land in A.D. 1375-6 to be 5500 square geographical miles, from a list of the cultivated lands of towns and villages appended to De Sacy's Abd-Ahatif. He thinks this list may be underrated. M. Mengin made the cultivated land much less in 1821, but since then much waste territory has been reclaimed (Mrs. Poole, Englishwoman in Egypt, 1:85). The chief differences in the character of the surface in the times before the Christian era were that the long valley through which flowed the canal between the Nile and the Red Sea was then cultivated, and that the Gulf of Suez perhaps extended further north than at present.
As to the number of its inhabitants, nothing very definite is known. Its fertility would doubtless give birth to and support a teeming population. In very remote times as many as 8,000,000 souls are said to have lived on its soil. In the days of Diodorus Siculus they were estimated at 3,000,000. Volney made the number 2,300,000. A late government estimate is 3,200,000, which seems to have been somewhat below the fact (Bowring's Report on Egypt and Candia, page 4). According to the census taken in 1882, the inhabitants number 6,817,265 in Egypt proper. The Copts are estimated at 300,000, the Bedouins being the most in number. Seven eighths of the entire population are native Mohammedans. In Alexandria, at the close of the last century, scarcely 40,000 inhabitants were counted, whereas at present that city contains 300,000, about half of whom are Arabs and half Europeans. The nationality of the latter has been ascertained to be as follows (the figures represent thousands): Greeks, 25; Italians, 18; French, 16; Anglo-Maltese, 13; Syrians and natives of the Levant, 12; Germans and Swiss, 10; various, 6. Cairo, the capital, contains upwards of 400,000 inhabitants; within its walls are 140 schools, more than 400 mosques, 1166 cafes, 65 public baths, and 11 bazaars. The other towns of importance, from their population, are, in Lower Egypt, Damietta, 45,000; Rosetta, 20,000; and in Upper Egypt, Syout, on the left bank of the Nile, numbering 20,000 souls.
III. Geographical Divisions. — Under the Pharaohs Egypt was divided into Upper and Lower, "the two regions" TA-TI? called respectively "the Southern Region" TA-RES, and "the Northern Region" TAMEHIT. There were different crowns for the two regions, that of Upper Egypt being white, and that of Lower Egypt red, the two together composing the pshent. The sovereign had a special title as ruler of each region: of Upper Egypt he was SUTEN, "king," and of Lower Egypt SHEBT, "bee," the two combined forming the common title SUTEN-SHEBT. The initial sign of the former name is a bent reed, which illustrates what seems to have been a proverbial expression in Palestine as to the danger of trusting to the Pharaohs and Egypt (1Ki_18:21; Isa_36:6; Eze_29:6): the latter name may throw light upon the comparison of the king of Egypt to a fly, and the king of Assyria to a bee (Isa_7:18). It must be remarked that Upper Egypt is always mentioned before Lower Egypt, and that the crown of the former in the pshent rises above that of the latter. In subsequent times the same division continued. Manetho speaks of it (ap. Josephus, c. Apion. 1:14), and under the Ptolemies it still prevailed. In the time of the Greeks and Romans, Upper Egypt was divided into the Heptanomis and the Thebais, making altogether three provinces, but the division of the whole country into two was even then the most usual. The Thebais extended from the first cataract at Philae to Hermopolis, the Heptanomis from Hermopolis to the point where the Delta begins to form itself. About A.D. 400 Egypt was divided into four provinces, Augustamnica Prima and Secunda, and AEgyptus Prima and Secunda. The Heptanomis was called Arcadia, from the emperor Arcadius, and Upper Egypt was divided into Upper and Lower Thebais.
From a remote period Egypt was subdivided into nomes (HESPU, sing. HESP), each one of which had its special objects of worship. The monuments show that this division was as old as the earlier part of the twelfth dynasty, which began cir. B.C. 1900. They are said to have been first 36 in number (Diod. Sic. 1:54; Strabo, 17:1). Ptolemy enumerates 44, and Pliny 46; afterwards they were further increased. There is no distinct reference to them in the Bible. In the Sept. version, indeed, מִמְלָכָה (Isa_19:2) is rendered by νόμος, but we have no warrant for translating it otherwise than "kingdom." It is probable that at that time there were two, if not three kingdoms in the country. Two provinces or districts of Egypt are mentioned in the Bible, Pathros (q.v.) and Caphtor (q.v.); the former appears to have been part of Upper Egypt; the latter was evidently so, and must be represented by the Coptite nome, although no doubt of greater extent. The division into nomes was more or less maintained till the invasion of the Saracens. Egypt is now composed of 24 departments, which, according to the French system of geographical arrangement, are subdivided into arrondissements and cantons (Bowring's Report).
IV. Surface, Climate, etc. — The general appearance of the country cannot have greatly changed since the days of Moses. The Delta was always a vast level plain, although of old more perfectly watered than now by the branches of the Nile and numerous canals, while the narrow valley of Upper Egypt must have suffered still less alteration. Anciently, however, the rushes must have been abundant; whereas now they have almost disappeared except in the lakes. The whole country is remarkable for its extreme fertility, which especially strikes the beholder when the rich green of the fields is contrasted with the utterly bare yellow mountains or the sand-strewn rocky desert on either side. Thus the plain of Jordan, before the cities were destroyed, was, we read, "well watered everywhere" ... . "[even] like a garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt" (Gen_13:10). The aspect of Egypt is remarkably uniform. The Delta is a richly cultivated plain, varied only by the mounds of ancient cities and occasional groves of palms. Other trees are seldom met with. The valley in Upper Egypt is also richly cultivated. It is, however, very narrow, and shut in by low hills, rarely higher than 300 feet, which have the appearance of cliffs from the river, and are not often steep. They, in fact, form the border of the desert on either side, and the valley seems to have been, as it were, cut out of a table-land of rock. The valley is rarely more than twelve miles across. The bright green of the fields, the reddish-brown or dull green color of the great river, the tints of the bare yellow rocks, and the deep blue of the sky, always form a pleasant view, and often one of great beauty. The soil consists of the mud of the river, resting upon desert sands; hence this country owes its existence, fertility, and beauty to the Nile, whose annual overflow is indispensable for the purposes of agriculture. The country around Syene and the cataracts is highly picturesque; the other parts of Egypt, and especially the Delta, are exceedingly uniform and monotonous. The prospect, however, is extremely different, according to the season of the year. From the middle of the spring season, when the harvest is over, one sees nothing but a gray and dusty soil, so full of cracks and chasms that he can hardly pass along. At the time of the autumnal equinox, the whole country presents nothing but an immeasurable surface of reddish or yellowish water, out of which rise date-trees, villages, and narrow dams, which serve as a means of communication. After the waters have retreated, which usually remain only a short time at this height, you see, till the end of autumn, only a black and slimy mud. But in winter nature puts on all her splendor. In this season, the freshness and power of the new vegetation, the variety and abundance of vegetable productions, exceed everything that is known in the most celebrated parts of the European continent; and Egypt is then, from one end of the country to the other, nothing but a beautiful garden, a verdant meadow, a field sown with flowers, or a waving ocean of grain in the ear.
The climate is very equable, and, to those who can bear great heat, also healthy; indeed, in the opinion of some, the climate of Egypt is one of the finest in the world. There are, however, unwholesome tracts of salt marsh which are to be avoided. Rain seldom falls except on the coast of the Mediterranean. At Thebes a storm will occur, perhaps, not oftener than once in four years. Cultivation nowhere depends upon rain or showers. This absence of rain is mentioned in Deu_11:10-11) as rendering artificial irrigation necessary, unlike the case of Palestine, and in Zec_14:18 as peculiar to the country. The atmosphere is clear and shining; a shade is not easily found. Though rain falls even in the winter months very rarely, it is not altogether wanting, as was once believed. Thunder and lightning are still more infrequent, and are so completely divested of their terrific qualities that the Egyptians never associate with them the idea of destructive force. Showers of hail descending from the hills of Syria are sometimes known to reach the confines of Egypt. The formation of ice is very uncommon. Dew is produced in great abundance. The wind blows from the north from May to September, when it veers round to the east, assumes a southerly direction, and fluctuates till the close of April. The southerly vernal winds, traversing the arid sands of Africa, are most changeable as well as most unhealthy. They form the simoom or samiel, and have proved fatal to caravans and even to armies (View of Ancient and Modern Egypt, Edin. Cab. Library).
Egypt has been visited at all ages by severe pestilences, but it cannot be determined that any of those of ancient times were of the character of the modern plague. The plague with which the Egyptians are threatened in Zechariah (l.c.) is described by a word, מִגֵּפָה, which is not specially applicable to a pestilence of their country (see Zec_14:12). SEE BOTCH.
Cutaneous disorders, which have always been very prevalent in Egypt, are distinctly mentioned as peculiar to the country (Deu_7:15; Deu_28:27; Deu_28:35; Deu_28:60, and perhaps Exo_15:20, though here the reference may be to the plague of boils), and as punishments to the Israelites in case of disobedience, whereas if they obeyed they were to be preserved from them. The Egyptian calumny that made the Israelites a body of lepers and unclean (Joseph. c. Apion.) is thus refuted, and the traditional tale as to the Exodus given by Manetho shown to be altogether wrong in its main facts, which depend upon the truth of this assertion. Famines are frequent, and one in the Middle Ages, in the time of the Fatimite caliphate El-Mustansir- billah, seems to have been even more severe than that of Joseph. Mosquitoes, locusts, frogs, together with the small-pox and leprosy, are the great evils of the country. Ophthalmia is also very prevalent. SEE DISEASE.
V. The Nile. — Egypt is the land of the Nile, the country through which that river flows from the island of Philas, situated just above the Cataracts of Syene, in lat. 24° 1' 36", to Damietta, in 31° 35' N., where its principal stream pours itself into the Mediterranean Sea. In lat. 30° 15' the Nile divides into two principal streams, which, in conjunction with a third that springs somewhat higher up, forms the Delta, so called from its resemblance to the Greek letter Δ. At Khartum, 160 miles north of Sennar, the Nile forks into two rivers, called Bahr el-Abiad and Bahr el-Azrak, or the white and blue river, the former flowing from the west, the latter from the east. The blue river is the smaller of these, but it possesses the same fertilizing qualities as the Nile, and is of the same color. The sources of this river were discovered by Bruce; those of the white river were, until quite recently, undiscovered. They are now known to flow from lakes situated among the mountains south of the equator (Beke, Sources of the Nile, Lond. 1860). Most ancient writers mention seven mouths of the Nile, beginning from the east: 1, Pelusiac or Bubastic; 2, Saitic or Tanitic; 3, Mendesian; 4, Bucolic or Phatmetic (now of Damietta); 5, Sebennytic; 6, Bolbitine (now of Rosetta); 7, Canopic or Heracleotic.
The Nile is called in the Bible Shichor', שַׁיחוֹר, or "the black (river)”; also eor' , יְאוֹר, יאֹר, "the river." As to the phrases נִהִר מַצְרִיַם, "the river of Egypt," and נִחִל מַצְרִיַם, "the brook of Egypt," it seems unlikely that the Nile should be so specified; and נחל or נהר here more probably denotes a mountain stream, usually dry, on the borders of Egypt and Palestine, near the modern El-Arish (Num_34:5; Jos_13:3, etc.). SEE EGYPT, RIVER OF. Some have thought that נחל is the origin of the word Nile; others have been anxious to find it in the Sanscrit Nila, which means dark blue. The Indus is called Nil-ab, or "the blue river;" the Sutlej also is known as "the blue river." It is to be observed that the Low Nile was painted blue by the ancient Egyptians. The river is turbid and reddish throughout the year, and turns green about the time when the signs of rising commence, but not long after becomes red and very turbid. The Coptic word is iom, "sea," which corresponds to the Arab name for it, bahr, properly sea; thus Nah_3:3, " Populous No (Thebes), whose rampart was the sea." In Egyptian the Nile bore the sacred appellation HAPI, or HAPI-MU, "the abyss," or "the abyss of waters." As Egypt was divided into two regions, we find two Niles, HAPI-RES, "the Southern Nile," and HAPI-MEHIT, "the Northern Nile," the former name being given to the river in Upper Egypt and in Nubia. The common appellation is ATUR, or AUR, "the river," which may be compared with the Hebrews Yeor.
The inundation, HAPI-UR, "great Nile," or "high Nile," fertilizes and sustains the country, and makes the river its chief blessing, a very low inundation or failure of rising being the cause of famine. The Nile was on this account anciently worshipped, and the plague in which its waters were turned into blood, while injurious to the river itself and its fish (Exo_7:21; Psa_105:29), was a reproof to the superstition of the Egyptians. The rise begins in Egypt about the summer solstice, and the inundation commences about two months later. The greatest height is attained about or somewhat after the autumnal equinox. The inundation lasts about three months. During this time, and especially when near the highest, the river rapidly pours along its red turbid waters, and spreads through openings in its banks over the whole valley and plain. The prophet Amos, speaking of the ruin of Israel, metaphorically says that "the land ... shall be drowned, as [by] the flood [river] of Egypt" (Amo_8:8; Amo_9:5). Owing to the yearly deposit of alluvial matter, both the bed of the Nile and the land of Egypt are gradually raised. The river proceeds in its current uniformly and quietly at the rate of two and a half or three miles an hour, always deep enough for navigation. Its water is usually blue, but it becomes of a deep brick-red during the period of its overflow. It is salubrious for drinking, meriting the encomiums which it has so abundantly received. On the river the land is wholly dependent. If the Nile does not rise a sufficient height, sterility and dearth, if not famine, ensue. An elevation of sixteen cubits is essential to secure the prosperity of the country. Such, however, is the regularity of nature, and such the faithfulness of God, that for thousands of years, with but few and partial exceptions, these inundations have in essential particulars been the same. The waters of the stream are conveyed over the surface of the country by canals when natural channels fail. During the overflow the land is literally inundated, and has the appearance of a sea dotted with islands. Wherever the waters reach abundance springs forth. The cultivator has scarcely more to do than to scatter the seed. No wonder that a river whose waters are so grateful, salubrious, and beneficial should in days of ignorance have been regarded as an object of worship, and that it is still revered and beloved. SEE NILE.
VI. Geology. — The fertile plain of the Delta and the valley of Upper Egypt are bounded by rocky deserts covered or strewn with sand. On either side of the plain they are low, but they overlook the valley, above which they rise so steeply as from the river to present the aspect of cliffs. The formation is limestone as far as a little above Thebes, where sandstone begins. The First Cataract, the southern limit of Egypt, is caused by granite and other primitive rocks, which rise through the sandstone and obstruct the river's bed. In Upper Egypt the mountains near the Nile rarely exceed 300 feet in height, but far in the eastern desert they often attain a much greater elevation. The highest is Jebel Gharib, which rises about 6000 feet above the sea. Limestone, sandstone, and granite were obtained from quarries near the river; basalt, breccia, and porphyry from others in the eastern desert between the Thebais and the Red Sea. A geological change has, it is thought, in the course of centuries raised the country near the head of the Gulf of Suez, and depressed that on the northern side of the isthmus. The Delta is of a triangular form, its eastern and western limits being nearly marked by the courses of the ancient Pelusiac and Canopic branches of the Nile: Upper Egypt is a narrow winding valley, varying in breadth; but seldom more than twelve miles across, and generally broadest on the western side. Anciently there was a fertile valley on the course of the Canal of the Red Sea, the Land of Goshen (q.v.), now called Wady Tumeilat: this is covered with the sands of the desert. To the south, on the opposite side, is the oasis now called the Feyum, the old Arsinoite Nome, connected with the valley by a neck of cultivated land.
VII. Agriculture, etc. — The ancient prosperity of Egypt is attested by the Bible, as well as by the numerous monuments of the country. As early as the age of the Great Pyramid it must have been densely populated and well able to support its inhabitants, for it cannot be supposed that there was then much external traffic. In such a climate the wants of man are few, and nature is liberal in necessary food. Even the Israelites in their hard bondage did "eat freely" the fish, and the vegetables, and fruits of the country, and ever afterwards they longed to return to the idle plenty of a land where even now starvation is unknown. The contrast of the present state of Egypt with its former prosperity is more to be ascribed to political than to physical causes. It is true that the branches of the Nile have failed, the canals and the artificial lakes and ponds for fish are dried up; that the reeds and other water-plants which were of value in commerce, and a shelter for wild-fowl, have in most parts perished; that the Land of Goshen, once, at least for pasture, "the best of the land" (Gen_47:6; Gen_47:11), is now sand- strewn and unwatered, so as scarcely to be distinguished from the desert around, and that the predictions of the prophets have thus received a literal fulfillment (see especially Isa_19:5-10), yet this has not been by any irresistible aggression of nature, but because Egypt, smitten and accursed, has lost all strength and energy. The population is not large enough for the cultivation of the land now fit for culture, and long oppression has taken from it the power and the will to advance. Egypt is naturally an agricultural country. As far back as the days of Abraham, we find that when the produce failed in Palestine, Egypt was the natural resource. In the time of Joseph it was evidently the granary — at least during famines — of the nations around (Gen_12:10; compare Exo_16:3; Josephus, Ant. 15:9, 2). The inundation, as taking the place of rain, has always rendered the system of agriculture peculiar; and the artificial irrigation during the time of low Nile is necessarily on the same principle. We read of the Land of Promise that it is "not as the land of Egypt, from whence ye came out, where thou sowedst thy seed, and wateredst [it] with thy foot, as a garden of herbs: but the land whither thou goest in to possess it, [is] a land of hills and valleys, [and] drinketh water of the rain of heaven" (Deu_11:10-11). Watering with the foot may refer to, some mode of irrigation by a machine, but we are inclined to thinly that it is an idiomatic expression implying a laborious work. The monuments do not afford a representation of the supposed machine. That now called the shaduf, which is a pole having a weight at one end and a bucket at the other, so hung that the laborer is aided by the weight in raising the full bucket, is depicted, and seems to have been the common means of artificial irrigation (q.v.). There are detailed pictures of breaking up the earth, or ploughing, sowing, harvest, threshing, and storing the wheat in granaries. SEE AGRICULTURE.
The threshing was simply treading out by oxen or cows, unmuzzled (compare Deu_25:4). The processes of agriculture began as soon as the water of the inundation had sunk into the soil, about a month after the autumnal equinox (Exo_9:31-32) Vines were extensively cultivated, and there were several different kinds of wine, one of which, the Mareotic, was famous among the Romans. Of other fruit-trees, the date-palm was the most common and valuable. The gardens resembled the fields, being watered in the same manner by irrigation. SEE GARDEN; SEE VINEYARD. On the tenure of land much light is thrown by the history of Joseph. Before the famine each city and large village — for עַיר must be held to have a wider signification than our city" — had its field (Gen_41:48); but Joseph gained for Pharaoh all the land, except that of the priests, in exchange for food, and required for the right thus obtained a fifth of the produce, which became a law (Gen_47:20-26). The evidence of the monuments, though not very explicit, seems to show that this law was ever afterwards in force under the Pharaohs. There does not seem to have been any hereditary aristocracy, except perhaps at an earlier time, and it is not impossible that these lands may have been held during tenure of office or for life. The temples had lands which of course were inalienable. Diodorus Siculus states that all the lands belonged to the crown except those of the priests and the soldiers (1:73). It is probable that the latter, when not employed on active service, received no pay, but were supported by the crown lands, and occupied them for the time as their own. SEE LAND.
The great lakes in the north of Egypt were anciently of high importance, especially for their fisheries and the growth of the papyrus. Lake Menzeleh, the most eastern of the existing lakes, has still large fisheries, which support the people who live on its islands and shore, the rude successors of the independent Egyptians of the Bucolia. Lake Moeris, anciently so celebrated, was an artificial lake between Beni-Suweif and Medinet el- Feyum. It was of use to irrigate the neighboring country, and its fisheries yielded a great revenue. SEE ANGLING. It is now entirely dried up. The canals are now far less numerous than of old, and many of them are choked and comparatively useless. The Bahr Yusuf, or "river of Joseph" — not the patriarch, but the famous sultan Yusuf Salah-ed-deen, who repaired it is a long series of canals, near the desert on the west side of the river, extending northward from Farshut for about 350 miles to a little below Memphis. This was probably a work of very ancient times. There can be no doubt of the high antiquity of the canal of the Red Sea, upon which the Land of Goshen mainly depended for its fertility. It does not follow, however, that it originally connected the Nile and the Red Sea.
VIII. Botany. — The cultivable land of Egypt consists almost wholly of fields, in which are very few trees. There are no forests and few groves, except of date-palms, and in Lower Egypt a few of orange and lemon trees. There are also sycamores, mulberry trees, and acacias, either planted on the sides of roads or standing singly in the fields. The Theban palm grows in the Thebais, generally in clumps. All these, except, perhaps, the mulberry-tree, were anciently common in the country. The two kinds of palm are represented on the monuments, and sycamore and acacia-wood are the materials of various objects made by the ancient inhabitants. The chief fruits are the date, grape, fig, sycamore-fig, pomegranate, banana, many kinds of melons, and the olive; and there are many others less common or important. These were also of old produced in the country. Anciently gardens seem to have received great attention, to have been elaborately planned, and well filled with trees and shrubs. Now horticulture is neglected, although the modern inhabitants are as fond of flowers as were their predecessors. The vegetables are of many kinds and excellent, and form the chief food of the common people. Anciently cattle seem to have been more numerous, and their meat, therefore, more usually eaten, but never as much so as in colder climates. The Israelites in the desert, though they looked back to the time when they "sat by the flesh-pots" (Exo_16:3), seem as much to have regretted the vegetables and fruits, as the flesh and fish of Egypt. "Who shall give us flesh to eat? We remember the fish which we did eat in Egypt freely, the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic" (Num_11:4-5). The chief vegetables now are beans, peas, lentils, of which an excellent thick pottage is made (Gen_25:34), leeks, onions, garlic, radishes, carrots, cabbages, gourds, cucumbers, the tomato, and the eggfruit. There are many besides these. The most important field-produce in ancient times was wheat; after it must be placed barley, millet, flax, and, among the vegetables, lentils, peas, and beans. At the present day the same is the case; but maize, rice, oats, clover, the sugar-cane, roses, the tobacco-plant, hemp, and cotton, must be added, some of which are not indigenous. In the account of the plague of hail four kinds of field-produce are mentioned — flax, barley, wheat, and כֻּסֶּמֶת (Exo_9:31-32), which is variously rendered in the A.V. "rye" (l.c.), "spelt" (Isa_28:25), and "fitches" (Isa_28:27). It is doubted whether the last be a cereal or a leguminous product: we incline to the former opinion. SEE RYE.
It is clear from the evidence of the monuments and of ancient writers that, of old, reeds were far more common in Egypt than now. The byblus or papyrus is almost or quite unknown. Anciently it was a common and most important plant: boats were made of its stalks, and of their thin leaves the famous paper was manufactured. It appears to be mentioned under two names in the Bible, neither of which, however, can be proved to be a peculiar designation for it.
(1.) The mother of Moses made תֵּבִת גֹּמֶא, "an ark" or "skiff" "of papyrus," in which to put her child (Exo_2:3), and Isaiah tells of messengers sent apparently from farthest Ethiopia in כְּלֵי9גֹמֶא, "vessels of papyrus" (Isa_18:2), in both which cases גמאmust mean papyrus, although it would seem in other places to signify "reeds" generically.
(2.) Isaiah prophesies, "The papyrus-reeds (עָרוֹת) in the river (יְאוֹר), on the edge of the river, and everything growing [lit. sown] in the river shall be dried up, driven away [by the wind], and [shall] not be" (Isa_19:7). Gesenius renders עָרָה a naked or bare place, here grassy places on the banks of the Nile. Apart from the fact that little grass grows on the banks of the Nile, in Egypt, and that little only during the cooler part of the year, instead of those sloping meadows that must have been in the European scholar's mind, this word must mean some product of the river which with the other water plants should be dried up, and blown away, and utterly disappear. Like the fisheries and the flax mentioned with it, it ought to hold an important place in the commerce of ancient Egypt. In can therefore scarcely be reasonably held to intend anything but the papyrus. SEE PAPER REED.
The marine and fluvial product סוּ, from which the Red Sea was called יִםאּסוּ, will be noticed under RED SEA. The lotus was anciently the favorite flower, and at feasts it took the place of the rose among the Greek and Arabs: it is now very rare.
IX. Zoology. — Anciently Egypt was far more a pastoral country than at present. The neat cattle are still excellent, but lean kine are more common among them than they seem to have been in the days of Joseph's Pharaoh (Gen_41:19). Sheep and goats have always been numerous. Anciently swine were kept, but not in great numbers; now there are none, or scarcely any, except a few in the houses of Copts and Franks. The Egyptian oxen were celebrated in the ancient world (Aristot. Hist. Anim. 8:28). — Horses abounded (1Ki_10:28); hence the use of war- chariots in fight (Isa_31:1; Diod. Sic. 1:45), and the celebrity of Egyptian charioteers (Jer_46:4; Eze_17:15). Under the Pharaohs the horses of the country were in repute among the neighboring nations who purchased them as well as chariots out of Egypt. Thus it is commanded respecting a king of Israel: "He shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses: forasmuch as the Lord hath said unto you, Ye shall henceforth return no more that way" (Deu_17:16), which shows that the trade in horses was with Egypt, and would necessitate a close alliance. "Solomon had horses brought out of Egypt; and linen yarn: the king's merchants received the linen yarn at a price. And a chariot came up and went out of Egypt for six hundred [shekels] of silver, and a horse for a hundred and fifty; and so for all the kings of the Hittites and for the kings of Syria did they bring [them] out by their hand" (1Ki_10:28-29). The number of horses kept by this king for chariots and cavalry was large (1Ki_4:26; 1Ki_10:26; 2Ch_1:14; 2Ch_9:25). Some of these horses came as yearly tribute from his vassals (1Ki_10:25). In later times the prophets reproved the people for trusting in the help of Egypt, and relying on the aid of her horses and chariots and horsemen, that is, probably, men in chariots, as we shall show in speaking of the Egyptian armies. The kings of the Hittites, mentioned in the passage quoted above, and in the account of the close of the siege of Samaria by Benhadad, where we read, "The Lord had made the host of the Syrians to hear a noise of chariots, and a noise of horses, [even] the noise of a great host: and they said one to another, Lo, the king of Israel hath hired against us the kings of the Hittites and the kings of the Egyptians to come upon us" (2Ki_7:6)-these kings ruled the Hittites of the valley of the Orontes, who were called by the Egyptians SHETA or KHETA. The Pharaohs of the 18th, 19th, and 20th dynasties waged fierce wars with these Hittites, who were then ruled by a great king and many chiefs, and whose principal arm was a force of chariots, resembling those of the Egyptian army. —Asses were anciently numerous: the breed at the present time is excellent. — Buffaloes are common, and not wild. — Dogs were formerly more prized than now; for, being held by most of the Moslems to be extremely unclean, they are only used to watch the houses in the villages. — Cats are as numerous, but less favored. — The camel has nowhere been found mentioned in the inscriptions of Egypt, or represented on the monuments. In the Bible Abraham is spoken of as having camels when in Egypt, apparently as a gift from Pharaoh (Gen_12:16), and before the Exodus the camels of Pharaoh or his subjects were to be smitten by the murrain (Exo_9:3; compare Exo_9:6). Both these Pharaohs may have been shepherds. The Ishmaelites or Midianites who took Joseph into Egypt carried their merchandise on camels (Gen_37:25; Gen_37:28; Gen_37:36), and the land traffic of the Arabs must always have been by caravans of camels; but it is probable that camels were not kept in Egypt, but only on the frontier. On the black obelisk from Nimrud, now in the British Museum, which is of Shalmanubar, king of Assyria, contemporary with Jehu and Hazael, camels are represented among objects sent as tribute by Egypt. They are of the two-humped sort, which, though perhaps then common in Assyria, has never, so far as is known, been kept in Egypt. — The deserts have always abounded in wild animals, especially of the canine and antelope kinds. The wolf, fox, jackal, hyena, wild cat, weasel, ichneumon, jerboa, and hare are also met with. — Anciently the hippopotamus was found in the Egyptian Nile, and hunted. This is a fact of importance for those who suppose it to be the behemoth (q.v.) of the book of Job, especially as that book shows evidence of a knowledge of Egypt. Now this animal is rarely seen even in Lower Nubia. — The elephant may have been, in the remotest historical period, an inhabitant of Egypt, and, as a land animal, have been driven further south than his brother pachyderm, for the name of the island of Elephantine, just below the First Cataract, in hieroglyphics, AB. "Elephant- land," seems to show that he was anciently found there. — Bats abound in the temples and tombs, filling the dark and desecrated chambers and passages with the unearthly whirr of their wings. Such desolation is represented by Isaiah when he says that a man shall cast his idols "to the moles and to the bats" (Isa_2:20). See each animal in its place.
The birds of Egypt are not remarkable for beauty of plumage: in so open a country this is natural. The Rapaces are numerous, but the most common are scavengers, as vultures and the kite. Eagles and falcons also are plentiful. Quails migrate to Egypt in great numbers. The Grallitores and Anseres abound on the islands and sandbanks of the river, and in the sides of the mountains which approach or touch the stream.
Among the reptiles, the crocodile (q.v.) must be especially mentioned. In the Bible it is usually called תִּנַּין, תִּנַּים, "dragon," a generic word of almost as wide a signification as "reptile," and is used as a symbol of the king of Egypt. Thus, in Ezekiel, "Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh, king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, My river [is] mine own, and I have made [it] for myself. But I will put hooks in thy jaws, and I will cause the fish of thy rivers to stick unto thy scales, and I will bring thee up out of the midst of thy rivers, and all the fish of thy rivers shall stick unto thy scales. And I will leave thee [thrown] into the wilderness, thee and all the fish of thy rivers ... I have given thee for meat to the beasts of the field and to the fowls of the heaven" (Eze_29:3-5). Here there seems to be a retrospect of the Exodus (which is thus described in Isa_51:9-10; Isa_51:15), and with a more close resemblance in Psa_74:13-14, "Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength: thou brakest the heads of the dragons (תִנַּינַים) in the waters. Thou brakest the heads of leviathan (לַוְיָתָן) in pieces, [and] gavest him [to be] meat to the dwellers in the wilderness" (צַיַּים, i.e., to the wild beasts; comp. Isa_13:21). The last passage is important as indicating that whereas תניןis the Hebrew generic name of reptiles, and therefore used for the greatest of them, the crocodile, לויתןis the special name of that animal. The description of leviathan in Job (Job_41:1-34) fully bears out this opinion, and it is doubtful if any passage can be adduced in which a wider signification of the latter word is required. In Job_26:12 also there is an apparent allusion to the Exodus in words similar to those in Isa_51:9-10; Isa_51:15?), but without mention of the dragon. In this case the division of the sea and the smiting of Rahab, רָהִב, the proud or insolent, are mentioned in connection with the wonders of creation (Isa_51:7-11; Isa_51:13): so, too, in Isaiah (Isa_51:13; Isa_51:15). The crossing of the Red Sea could be thus spoken of as a signal exercise of the divine power. — Frogs are very numerous in Egypt, and their loud and constant croaking in the autumn in "the streams," נְהָרֹת, "the rivers," יְאֹרַים, and "the ponds" or "marshes," אֲגִמַּים (Exo_8:1, A.V. 5), makes it not difficult to picture the Plague of Frogs. — Serpents and snakes are also common, including the deadly cerastes and the cobra di capello; but the more venomous have their home in the desert (comp. Deu_8:15).
The Nile and lakes have an abundance of fishes; and although the fisheries of Egypt have very greatly fallen away, their produce is still a common article of food.
Among the insects the locusts must be mentioned, which sometimes come upon the cultivated land in a cloud, and, as in the plague, eat every herb, and fruit, and leaf where they alight; but they never, as then, overspread the whole land (Exo_10:3-6; Exo_10:12-19). They disappear as suddenly as they come, and are carried away by the wind (Exo_10:19). As to the lice and flies, they are now plagues of Egypt, but it is not certain that the words כַּנָּם and עָרֹב designate them (Exo_8:16-31). The dangerous scorpion is frequently met with. Beetles of various kinds are found, including the sacred scarabaeus. Bees and silkworms are kept, but the honey is not very good, and the silk is inferior to that of Syria.
X. Ancient Inhabitants. — The old inhabitants of Egypt appear from their monuments and the testimony of ancient writers to have occupied in race a place between the Nigritians and the Caucasians. The constant immigrations of Arab settlers have greatly diminished the Nigritian characteristics in the generality of the modern Egyptians. The most recent inquiries have shown that the extreme limit at Philae was only of a political nature, for the natives of the country below it were of the same race as those who lived above that spot — a tribe which passed down into the fertile valley of the Nile from its original abode in the south. These Ethiopians and the Egyptians were not negroes, but a branch of the great Caucasian family. Their frame was slender, but of great strength. Their faces appear to have been oval in shape, and narrower in the men than in the women. The forehead was well-shaped, but small and retiring; the eyes were almond-shaped and mostly black; the hair was long, crisp, and generally black; the skin of the men was dark brown, chiefly from exposure; that of the women was olive-colored or even lighter. The women were very fruitful (Strabo, 15, page 695; Heeren, Ideen, 11:2, 10). The ancient dress was far more scanty than the modern, and in this matter, as in manners and character, the influence of the Arab race is also very apparent. The ancient Egyptians in character were very religious and contemplative, but given to base superstition, patriotic, respectful to women, hospitable, generally frugal, but at times luxurious, very sensual, lying, thieving, treacherous, and cringing, and intensely prejudiced, through pride of race, against strangers, although kind to them. This is very much the character of the modern inhabitants, except that Mohammedanism has taken away the respect for women. The ancient Egyptians are indeed the only early Eastern nation that we know to have resembled the modern Westerns in this particular; but we find the same virtue markedly to characterize the Nigritians of our day. That the Egyptians in general treated the Israelites with kindness while they were in their country, even during the oppression, seems almost certain from the privilege of admission into the congregation in the third generation, granted to them in the Law, with the Edomites, while the Ammonites and Moabites were absolutely excluded, the reference in three out of the four cases being to the stay in Egypt, and the entrance into Palestine (Deu_23:3-8). This supposition is important in its bearing on the history of the oppression.
XI. Language. — The ancient Egyptian language, from the earliest period at which it is known to us, is an agglutinate monosyllabic form of speech. It is expressed by the signs which we call hieroglyphics. The character of the language is compound: it consists of elements resembling those of the Nigritian languages and the Chinese language on the one hand, and those of the Shemitic languages on the other. All those who have studied the African languages make a distinct family of several of those languages, spoken in the north-east quarter of the continent, in which family they include the ancient Egyptian; while every Shemitic scholar easily recognizes in Egyptian, Shemitic pronouns and other elements, and a predominantly Shemitic grammar. As in person, character, and religion, so in language we find two distinct elements, mixed but not fused, and here the Nigritian element seems unquestionably the earlier, Bunsen asserts that this language is "ante-historical Shemitism:" we think it enough to say that no Shemitic scholar has accepted his theory. For a full discussion of the question, see Poole, The Genesis of the Earth and of Man, chapter 6. As early as the age of the 26th dynasty, a vulgar dialect was expressed in the demotic or enchorial writing. This dialect forms the link connecting the old language with the Coptic or Christian Egyptian, the latest phase. The Coptic does not very greatly differ from the monumental language, distinguished in the time of the demotic as the sacred dialect, except in the presence of many Greek words. SEE COPTIC LANGUAGE.
The language of the ancient Egyptians was entirely unknown until the discoveries made by Dr. Young from the celebrated Rosetta stone, now preserved in the British Museum. This stone is a slab of black marble, which was found by the French in August 1799, among the ruins of Fort St. Julien, on the western bank, and near the mouth of the Rosetta branch of the Nile. It contains a decree in three different kinds of writing, referring to the coronation of Ptolemy V (Epiphanes), and is supposed to have been sculptured B.C. cir. 195. As part of the inscription is in Greek, it was easily deciphered, and was found to state that the decree was ordered to be written in sacred, enchorial, and Greek characters. Thence, by carefully comparing the three inscriptions, a key was obtained to the interpretation of the mysterious hieroglyphics. The language which they express closely resembles that which was afterwards called Coptic when the people had become Christians. It is monosyllabic in its roots, and abounds in vowels. There were at least two dialects of it, spoken respectively in Upper and Lower Egypt. SEE ROSETTA STONE.
"The wisdom of Egypt" was a phrase which, at an early period, passed into a proverb, so high was the opinion entertained by antiquity of the knowledge and skill of the ancient Egyptians (1Ki_4:30; Herod. 2:160; Josephus, Ant. 8:25; Act_7:22). Nor, as the sequel of this article will show, were there wanting substantial reasons for the current estimate. If, however, antiquity did not on this point exceed the bounds of moderation, very certain is it that men of later ages are chargeable with the utmost extravagance in the terms which they employed when speaking on the subject. It was long thought that the hieroglyphical inscriptions on the monumental remains of Egypt contained treasures of wisdom no less boundless than hidden; and, indeed, hieroglyphics were, in the opinion of some, invented by the priests of the land, if not expressly to conceal their knowledge from the profane vulgar, yet as a safe receptacle and convenient storehouse for their mysterious but invaluable doctrines. Great, consequently, was the expectation of the public when it was announced that a key had been discovered which opened the portal to these long- concealed treasures. The result has not been altogether correspondent, especially with regard to the presumed secrets of ancient lore. Men of profound learning, great acuteness of mind, and distinguished reputation have engaged and persevered in the inquiry: it is impossible to study without advantage the writings of such persons as Zoega, Akerblad, Young, Champollion, Spohn, Seyffarth, Kosegarten, Ruhle; and equally ungrateful would it be to affirm that no progress has been made in the undertaking; but, after all, the novel conclusions and positions which have been drawn and set forth are only in a few cases (comparatively) definite and unimpeachable (Heeren, Ideen. 2:2,4; Quatremere, Recherches sur la langue et la litterature de l'Egypte). SEE HIEROGLYPHICS. The results in point of history and archaeology, as detailed by Lepsius, Brugsch, and other late Egyptologists, are far more important than in a purely scientific view. See below.
XII. Religion. — The basis of the religion was Nigritian fetichism, the lowest kind of nature-worship, differing in different parts of the country, and hence obviously indigenous. Upon this were engrafted, first, cosmic worship, mixed up with traces of primeval revelation, as in Babylonia; and then a system of personifications of moral and intellectual abstractions. The incongruous character of the religion necessitates this supposition, and the ease with which it admitted extraneous additions in the historical period confirms it. There were, according to Herodotus, three orders of gods — the eight great gods, who were the most ancient, the twelve lesser, and the Osirian group. They were represented in human forms, sometimes having the heads of animals sacred to them, or bearing on their heads cosmic or other objects of worship. The fetichism included, besides the worship of animals, that of trees, rivers, and hills. Each of these creatures or objects was appropriated to a divinity. There was no prominent hero-worship, although deceased kings and other individuals often received divine honors — in one case, that of Osirtasen II, of the 12th dynasty, the old Sesostris, of a very special character. The great doctrines of the immortality of the soul, man's responsibility, and future rewards and punishments, were taught. Among the rites, circumcision is the most remarkable: it is as old as the time of the 4th dynasty.
Wilkinson gives us the following classification of the Egyptian deities (Materia Hieroglyphica, page 58, modified by himself in Rawlinson's Herod. 2:241 sq.):
I. FIRST ORDER.
1. Amen, or Amun-ra, "the king of all the gods."
2. Maut, or Mut (Sanchon. mot), the material principle, sometimes as Buto (=Latona).
3. Noum, Nu, Nef, or Kneph=Mercury.
4. Site=Juno.
5. Pthah, or Ptah, the creative power [a function assigned by others to Kneph]=Vulcan.
6. Neith, self-born and of masculine character=Minerva.
7. Khem, the generative principle (phallus).
8. Pasht=Diana.
II. SECOND ORDER.
1. Re, Ra, or Phrah, the Sun, father of many deities, often combined with those of the others.
2. Seb, the Earth=Saturn, father of the inferior gods.
3. Netpe, wife of Seb, the Sky, mother of gods=Rhea.
4 Khous, son of Amun and Maut, the Moon=Hercules.
5. Anouke [Fire]=Vesta.
6. Atmu [? or Mat], Darkness, or Twilight.
7 Mui, or Shu, son of Re, Light [=Phoebus].
8. Taphne (Daphne), or Tafnet, a lion-headed goddess.
9. Thoth, the Intellect=Hermes and the Moon.
10. Sanak-re, or Sebak.
11. Eilithyia=Lucina.
12. Mandu, or Munt=Mars.
III. THIRD ORDER.
1. Osiris'
2. Isis, son and daughter of Seb and Netpe.
3. Aroeris, the elder Horus, son of Netpe.
4. Seth, or Typhon, the destructive principle [Death].
5. Nepthys (Nebtei), "lady of the house"=Vesta.
6. Horus the younger, god of Victory=Apollo.
7. Harpocrates, son of Osiris and Isis, emblem of Youth.
8. Anubis, son of Osiris.
IV. MISCELANEOUS.
1. Thmei, or Ma (θέμις), goddess of Truth and Justice, headless.
2. Athor (eit-Hor)=Venus, another daughter of Ra.
3. Nophr-Atmu, perhaps a variation of Atmu above.
4. Hor-Hat, a winged globe, as ἀγαθοδαίμων.
5. Hakte (Hecate), a lion-headed goddess.
6. Selk, a scorpion-headed goddess.
7. Tore, a god connected with Ptah.
8. Amunta, perhaps a female Amun.
9. The, "the heavens."
10. Hapi, or the god of the Nile.
11. Ranno, an asp-headed goddess, as ἀγαθοδαίμων.
12. Hermes Trismegistus, a form of Thoth.
13. Asclepius, Moth, or Imoph, "son of Ptah."
14. Soph, the goddess of Speech.
Together with about 50 more, some of them local divinities, and personifications of cities, besides deified animals, etc
Num, Au, or Kneph, was one of the most important of the gods, corresponding to the "soul" of the universe, to whom was ascribed the creation of gods, men, and the natural world. He is represented as a man with the head of ram and curved horns. The chief god of Thebes was Amen, or Amen-Ra, or Amen-Ra Khem, also worshipped in the great oasis, and sometimes portrayed under the form of Kneph. He was the Jupiter Ammon of the classics. The goddess Mut, or "the mother," is the companion of Amen, and is represented as a female wearing the crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt, and the vulture headdress of a queen. Khem was the god by whom the productiveness of nature was symbolized. His name reminds us of the patriarch Ham. The Greeks identified him with Pan, and called Chemmis, a city in the Thebais, where he was worshipped, Panopolis. He is accompanied by a tree or a flower on the sculptures, which may have been, as supposed by Mr. Poole, the asherak or sacred grove spoken of in the Bible. Ptah was the god of Memphis, and worshipped there under the form of a pigmy or child; but, as his temples have been destroyed, little is known of his worship. The goddess Neit or Neith is often associated with Ptah. She was the patron deity of Sais, in the Delta; and the Greeks say that Cecrops, leading a colony from thence to Athens, introduced her worship into Greece, where she was called Athene. This name may be derived from the Egyptian, if we suppose the latter to have been sometimes called Thenei, with the article prefixed like the name of Thebes. She is represented as a female with the crown of Lower Egypt on her head. Ra, or the sun, was worshipped at Heliopolis. His common figure is that of a man with a hawk's head, on which is placed the solar disk and the royal asp. Thoth was the god of science and letters, and was worshipped at Hermopolis Magna. His usual form is that of a man with the head of an ibis surmounted by a crescent. Bast was called Bubastis by the Greeks, who identified her with Artemis. She is represented as a lion or catheaded female, with the globe of the sun on her head. There is a similar goddess called Pasht. Athor was the daughter of Ra, and corresponded to the Aphrodite of the Greeks; the town of Tentyra or Denderah was under her protection. Shu represented solar or physical light, and Ma-t or Thma (Themis) moral light, truth, or justice. Sebak was a son of Ra. He has a crocodile's head.
Osiris is the most remarkable personage in the Egyptian Pantheon. His form is that of a mummied figure holding the crook and flail, and wearing the crown of Upper Egypt, generally with an ostrich feather on each side. He was regarded as the personification of moral good. He is related to have been on earth instructing mankind in useful arts; to have been slain by his adversary Typhon (Set or Seth), by whom he was cut in pieces; to have been bewailed by his wife and sister His; to have been embalmed; to have risen again, and to have become the judge of the dead, among whom the righteous were called by his name, and received his form- a wonderful fore-feeling of the Gospel narrative, and most likely symbolizing the strife between good and evil. Isis was the sister and spouse of Osiris, worshipped at Abydus and the island of Philae. Horus was their son. Apep, Apophis of the Greeks, an enormous serpent, was the only representative of moral evil. The worship of animals is said to have been introduced by the second king of the second dynasty, when the bull Apis, at Memphis, and Mnevis, at Heliopolis, and the Mendesian goat, were called gods. The cat was sacred to Pasht, the ibis to Thoth, the crocodile to Sebak, the scarabaeus to Ptah and a solar god Atum. In their worship of the gods, sacrifices of animals, fruit, and vegetables were used, as well as libations of wine and incense. No decided instance of a human sacrifice has been found. After death a man was brought before Osiris: his heart weighed against the feather of truth. He was questioned by forty-two assessors as to whether he had committed forty-two sins about which they inquired. If guiltless, he took the form of Osiris, apparently after long series of transformations and many ordeals, and entered into bliss, dwelling among the gods in perpetual day on the banks of the celestial Nile. If guilty he was often changed into the form of some base animal, and consigned to a fiery place of punishment and perpetual night. From this abstract it may be seen that the Egyptian religion is to be referred to various sources. There is a trace of some primeval revelation in it; also a strong Sabaean element. (See a full discussion of the subject, with figures of the leading deities, in Kitto's Pictorial Bible, note on Deu_4:16). A more favorable view of the ancient Egyptian theology is taken by Wilkinson in his Ancient Egyptians (see his summary in the abridged ed. 2:327 sq.); and it is probably true, as was the case with the polytheism of the Greeks and Romans likewise, that the more learned and philosophical classes were able to spiritualize to some extent a religion which could have been to the populace nothing but a gross idolatry.
The Israelites in Egypt appear, during the oppression, to have adopted to some extent the Egyptian idolatry (Jos_24:14; Eze_20:7-8). The golden calf, or rather steer, עֵגֶל, was probably taken from the bull Apis, certainly from one of the sacred bulls. Remphan and Chiun were foreign divinities adopted into the Egyptian Pantheon, and called in the hieroglyphics RENPU (probably pronounced Remphu) and KEN. It can hardly be doubted that they were worshipped by the shepherds; but there is no satisfactory evidence that there was any' separate foreign system of idolatry. SEE REMPHAN. Ashtoreth was worshipped at Memphis, as is shown by a tablet of Amenoph II, B.C. cir. 1415, at the quarries of Tura, opposite that city (Vyse's Pyramids, in, "Tourah tablet 2"), in which she is represented as an Egyptian goddess. The temple of "the Foreign Venus," in "the Tyrian camp" in Memphis (Herod. 2:112), must have been sacred to her. Doubtless this worship was introduced by the Phoenician shepherds.
As there are prominent traces of primeval revelation in the ancient Egyptian religion, we cannot be surprised at finding certain resemblances to the Mosaic law, apart from the probability that whatever was unobjectionable in common belief and usages would be retained. The points in which the Egyptian religion shows strong traces of truth are, however, doctrines of the very kind that the Law does not expressly teach. The Egyptian religion, in its reference to man, was a system of responsibility mainly depending on future rewards and punishments. The Law, in its reference to man, was a system of responsibility mainly depending on temporal rewards and punishments
CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.

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