15
THE KING’S BUSINESS
Pithom at Tel El Maskouta, the identi fication of Zoan as “Raamses, and of Ramses himself as the builder of botn, and therefore the author of the oppres sion, are most important facts and wit nesses. The site of the former city re stores to the world the great cellars or granaries for military stores, and the courses of brick laid by the Hebrews, some with straw, some with stubble, and some with clay alone. On the large stela, or inscribed stone, discovered by Petrie in the ruins of a temple of Merenptah, occurs the very name of Israel, and the objection that Israel never was in Egypt, founded on the supposed silence of the monuments, vanishes after so many of its kindred, and the silence is retrib- utively imposed on the critics. This tem ple was long regarded as a structure of Amenophis III, for the exposed face of the stela bore an inscription of his. Rut Merenptah seems to have built it, in part, of material taken from the building of his predecessor, and to have cut tne new found inscription into the reverse side of Amenophis’ tablet, which, till lately, has been hidden from, the eye of the explorer. It consists of a boast ful song of triumph to the glory of that Pharaoh whose host was overwhelmed in the Red Sea. Its translation is difficult. Sayce renders it, “Vanquished is the land of the Libyans; the land of the Hittites is tranquilized; captured is the land of (probably Khurbet Kana’na south of Hebron) with all violence, car ried away is the land of Ashkelon; over powered is the land of Gezer; the In- nu’em (to iffie north of the land of Pale stine) is brought to nought; the Israel ites (I-s-r-a-el-u) are minished (?) so that they have no seed; the land of Kahru is become as the widows of Egypt, all lands are at peace.” He adds, Mm- ished has the determinative of badness attached to it, but is met with here for the first time; the word translated seed is found elsewhere in the sense of ott- spring.’ ” Dr. Spiegelberg translates the Israelitic clause, “Israel has been torn out without (any more) offshoot. Mr. Griffeth, “The people of Israel is spoiled. Prof. Hommel, “Israel is fekt, (with the determinative of evil things, translation uncertain as the word does not occur else where) no fruit is in it.” Another trans lation gives it, “Israel is a eunuch.” The thing is a poem, and the language figura tive. It seems, therefore, all admit: 1 That the reference is to Israel, the char- acters transliterating it as near as the
authorship of the chapter’ is thus en dorsed. All this is in .the documents, be side the time marks of the Exodus found in those political agitations which paved the way for the campaigns of Seti and Ramses, later; and their collision with the Hittites and other Asiatic powers, on the soil of Palestine, whereby that country was left in a divided and ex hausted condition so to fall a more ready prey to Israel. These and other discov eries render the political situation of the period now generally accepted as that of the exodus very clear. Says Prof. Mc Curdy, “We may state confidently under what conditions the migration and set tlement in Canaan must have occurred. Marital influences induced Amenophis to adopt and introduce into Egypt Canaan- itish, or Semitic, worship. The rise of the sun-disk (the symbol of his religion) of Baal on the land of Osiris and Isis cast a dark shadow on his relations to his subjects, and reviving their ancient animosity to everything Semitic, stirred up the wars in which his successors, Seti I, and Ramses II, carried their cam paigning far into the North and East and won the triumphs that inspired many a boastful song and story now deciphered from their remains. Semitic Israel, not exempt, now felt that deliberate and per sistent oppression, in which they tasted the bitterness of toil, occasioned by the construction of the war-lilke fortifica tions and supply stations on which they were employed. Semetics retaliation fol- lowed in an invasion of Libyans, against which Merenptah, the Pharoah of the Exodus, struggled to maintain Ms throne; and all culminated in the escape of the enslaved people from his border land of A fine illustration of the bearing of such facts on the chronology of the Pen tateuch is the statement of the eminent Egyptologist Sayce, “At no other period in Egyptian history do we find the same coincidences in tlie geography of the roads which lead from Egypt to Palestine and that which is described in the Pen tateuch. Thus a despatch to the Pharaoh Seti II describes the flight of two run away slaves past the “fortresses or Etham of Succoth, to the Shur or wall of fortification to the north of Migdoi and so to the desert. And Seti II was the grandson of Ramses II the builder of Pithom and consequently the Pharaoh of the oppression. After the age of the Exodus, Etham and Suecoth, Migdoi and the “wall,” are no more heard of in the Egyptian records. The discovery of
Made with FlippingBook - Online magazine maker