Antiquities of the Jews Part 53

[1] We may here observe, that in correspondence to Joseph's second dream, which implied that his mother, who was then alive, as well as his father, should come and bow down to him, Josephus represents her here as still alive after she was dead, for the decorum of the dream that foretold it, as the interpretation of the dream does also in all our copies, Genesis 37:10.

[2] The Septuagint have twenty pieces of gold; the Testament of Gad thirty; the Hebrew and Samaritan twenty of silver; and the vulgar Latin thirty. What was the true number and true sum cannot therefore now be known.

[3] That is, bought it for Pharaoh at a very low price.

[4] This Potiphar, or, as Josephus, Petephres, who was now a priest of On, or Heliopolis, is the same name in Josephus, and perhaps in Moses also, with him who is before called head cook or captain of the guard, and to whom Joseph was sold. See Genesis 37:36; 39:1, with 41:50. They are also affirmed to be one and the same person in the Testament of Joseph, sect. 18, for he is there said to have married the daughter of his master and mistress. Nor is this a notion peculiar to that Testament, but, as Dr. Bernard confesses, note on Antiq. B. II. ch.

4. sect. 1, common to Josephus, to the Septuagint interpreters, and to other learned Jews of old time.

[5] This entire ignorance of the Egyptians of these years of famine before they came, told us before, as well as here, ch. 5. sect. 7, by Josephus, seems to me almost incredible. It is in no other copy that I know of.

[6] The reason why Symeon might be selected out of the rest for Joseph's prisoner, is plain in the Testament of Symeon, viz. that he was one of the bitterest of all Joseph's brethren against him, sect. 2; which appears also in part by the Testament of Zabulon, sect. 3.

[7] The coherence seems to me to show that the negative particle is here wanting, which I have supplied in brackets, and I wonder none have hitherto suspected that it ought to be supplied.

[8] Of the precious balsam of Judea, and the turpentine, see the note on Antiq. B. VIII. ch. 6. sect. 6.

[9] This oration seems to me too large, and too unusual a digression, to have been composed by Judas on this occasion. It seems to me a speech or declamation composed formerly, in the person of Judas, and in the way of oratory, that lay by him, and which he thought fit to insert on this occasion. See two more such speeches or declamations, Antiq. B. VI. ch.

14. sect. 4

[10] In all this speech of Judas we may observe, that Josephus still supposed that death was the punishment of theft in Egypt, in the days of Joseph, though it never was so among the Jews, by the law of Moses.

[11] All the Greek copies of Josephus have the negative particle here, that Jacob himself was not reckoned one of the 70 souls that came into Egypt; but the old Latin copies want it, and directly a.s.sure us he was one of them. It is therefore hardly certain which of these was Josephus's true reading, since the number 70 is made up without him, if we reckon Leah for one; but if she be not reckoned, Jacob must himself be one, to complete the number.

[12] Josephus thought that the Egyptians hated or despised the employment of a shepherd in the days of Joseph; whereas Bishop c.u.mberland has shown that they rather hated such Poehnician or Canaanite shepherds that had long enslaved the Egyptians of old time. See his Sanchoniatho, p. 361, 362.

[13] Reland here puts the question, how Josephus could complain of its not raining in Egypt during this famine, while the ancients affirm that it never does naturally rain there. His answer is, that when the ancients deny that it rains in Egypt, they only mean the Upper Egypt above the Delta, which is called Egypt in the strictest sense; but that in the Delta [and by consequence in the Lower Egypt adjoining to it] it did of old, and still does, rain sometimes. See the note on Antiq. B.

III. ch. 1. sect. 6.

[14] Josephus supposes that Joseph now restored the Egyptians their lands again upon the payment of a fifth part as tribute. It seems to me rather that the land was now considered as Pharaoh's land, and this fifth part as its rent, to be paid to him, as he was their landlord, and they his tenants; and that the lands were not properly restored, and this fifth part reserved as tribute only, till the days of Sesostris.

See Essay on the Old Testament, Append. 148, 149.

[15] As to this encomium upon Joseph, as preparatory to Jacob's adopting Ephraim and Mana.s.ses into his own family, and to be admitted for two tribes, which Josephus here mentions, all our copies of Genesis omit it, ch. 48.; nor do we know whence he took it, or whether it be not his own embellishment only.

[16] As to the affliction of Abraham's posterity for 400 years, see Antiq. B. I. ch. 10. sect. 3; and as to what cities they built in Egypt, under Pharaoh Sesostris, and of Pharaoh Sesostris's drowning in the Red Sea, see Essay on the Old Testament, Append. p. 132-162.

[17] Of this building of the pyramids of Egypt by the Israelites, see Perizonius Orig. Aegyptiac, ch. 21. It is not impossible they might build one or more of the small ones; but the larger ones seem much later. Only, if they be all built of stone, this does not so well agree with the Israelites' labors, which are said to have been in brick, and not in stone, as Mr. Sandys observes in his Travels. p. 127, 128.

[18] Dr. Bernard informs us here, that instead of this single priest or prophet of the Egyptians, without a name in Josephus, the Targum of Jonathan names the two famous antagonists of Moses, Jannes and Jambres.

Nor is it at all unlikely that it might be one of these who foreboded so much misery to the Egyptians, and so much happiness to the Israelites, from the rearing of Moses.

[19] Josephus is clear that these midwives were Egyptians, and not Israelites, as in our other copies: which is very probable, it being not easily to be supposed that Pharaoh could trust the Israelite midwives to execute so barbarous a command against their own nation.

[Consult, therefore, and correct hence our ordinary copies, Exodus 1:15, 22.] And, indeed, Josephus seems to have had much completer copies of the Pentateuch, or other authentic records now lost, about the birth and actions of Moses, than either our Hebrew, Samaritan, or Greek Bibles afford us, which enabled him to be so large and particular about him.

[20] Of this grandfather of Sesostris, Ramestes the Great, who slew the Israelite infants, and of the inscription on his obelisk, containing, in my opinion, one of the oldest records of mankind, see Essay on the Old Test. Append. p. 139, 145, 147, 217-220.

[21] What Josephus here says of the beauty of Moses, that he was of a divine form, is very like what St. Stephen says of the same beauty; that Moses was beautiful in the sight of Acts 7:20.

[22] This history of Moses, as general of the Egyptians against the Ethiopians, is wholly omitted in our Bibles; but is thus by Irenaeus, from Josephus, and that soon after his own age:--"Josephus says, that when Moses was nourished in the palace, he was appointed general of the army against the Ethiopians, and conquered them, when he married that king's daughter; because, out of her affection for him, she delivered the city up to him." See the Fragments of Irenaeus, ap. edit. Grab. p.

472. Nor perhaps did St. Stephen refer to any thing else when he said of Moses, before he was sent by G.o.d to the Israelites, that he was not only learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, but was also mighty in words and in deeds, Acts 7:22.

[23] Pliny speaks of these birds called ibes; and says, "The Egyptians invoked them against the serpents," Hist. Nat. B. X. ch. 28. Strabo speaks of this island Meroe, and these rivers Astapus and Astaboras, B.

XVI. p. 771, 786; and B XVII. p. 82].

[24] This superst.i.tious fear of discovering the name with four letters, which of late we have been used falsely to p.r.o.nounce Jehovah, but seems to have been originally p.r.o.nounced Jahoh, or Jao, is never, I think, heard of till this pa.s.sage of Josephus; and this superst.i.tion, in not p.r.o.nouncing that name, has continued among the Rabbinical Jews to this day [though whether the Samaritans and Caraites observed it so early, does not appear]. Josephus also durst not set down the very words of the ten commandments, as we shall see hereafter, Antiq. B. III. ch. 5. sect.

4, which superst.i.tious silence I think has yet not been continued even by the Rabbins. It is, however, no doubt but both these cautious concealments were taught Josephus by the Pharisees, a body of men at once very wicked and very superst.i.tious.

[25] Of this judicial hardening the hearts and blinding the eyes of wicked men, or infatuating them, as a just punishment for their other willful sins, to their own destruction, see the note on Antiq. B. VII.

ch. 9. sect. 6.

[26] As to this winter or spring hail near Egypt and Judea, see the like on thunder and lightning there, in the note on Antiq. B. VI. ch. 5.

sect. 6.

[27] These large presents made to the Israelites, of vessels of and vessels of gold, and raiment, were, as Josephus truly calls them, gifts really given them; not lent them, as our English falsely renders them.

They were spoils required, not of them, Genesis 15:14; Exodus 3:22; 11:2; Psalm 105:37,] as the same version falsely renders the Hebrew word Exodus 12:35, 36. G.o.d had ordered the Jews to demand these as their pay and reward, during their long and bitter slavery in Egypt, as atonements for the lives of the Egyptians, and as the condition of the Jews'

departure, and of the Egyptians' deliverance from these terrible judgments, which, had they not now ceased, they had soon been all dead men, as they themselves confess, ch. 12. 33. Nor was there any sense in borrowing or lending, when the Israelites were finally departing out of the land for ever.

[28] Why our Masorete copy so groundlessly abridges this account in Exodus 12:40, as to ascribe 430 years to the sole peregrination of the Israelites in Egypt, when it is clear even by that Masorete chronology elsewhere, as well as from the express text itself, in the Samaritan, Septuagint, and Josephus, that they sojourned in Egypt but half that time,--and that by consequence, the other half of their peregrination was in the land of Canaan, before they came into Egypt,--is hard to say.

See Essay on the Old Testament, p. 62, 63.

[29] Take the main part of Reland's excellent note here, which greatly ill.u.s.trates Josephus, and the Scripture, in this history, as follows: "[A traveller, says Reland, whose name was] Eneman, when he returned out of Egypt, told me that he went the same way from Egypt to Mount Sinai, which he supposed the Israelites of old traveled; and that he found several mountainous tracts, that ran down towards the Red Sea. He thought the Israelites had proceeded as far as the desert of Etham, Exodus 13:20, when they were commanded by G.o.d to return back, Exodus 14:2, and to pitch their camp between Migdol and the sea; and that when they were not able to fly, unless by sea, they were shut in on each side by mountains. He also thought we might evidently learn hence, how it might be said that the Israelites were in Etham before they went over the sea, and yet might be said to have come into Etham after they had pa.s.sed over the sea also. Besides, he gave me an account how he pa.s.sed over a river in a boat near the city Suez, which he says must needs be the Heroopolia of the ancients, since that city could not be situate any where else in that neighborhood." As to the famous pa.s.sage produced here by Dr. Bernard, out of Herodotus, as the most ancient heathen testimony of the Israelites coming from the Red Sea into Palestine, Bishop c.u.mberland has shown that it belongs to the old Canaanite or Phoenician shepherds, and their retiring out of Egypt into Canaan or Phoenicia, long before the days of Moses. Sanchoniatho, p. 374, &c.

[30] Of these storms of wind, thunder, and lightning, at this drowning of Pharaoh's army, almost wanting in our copies of Exodus, but fully extant in that of David, Psalm 77:16-18, and in that of Josephus here, see Essay on the Old Test. Append. p. 15,1, 155.

[31] What some have here objected against this pa.s.sage of the Israelites over the Red Sea, in this one night, from the common maps, viz. that this sea being here about thirty miles broad, so great an army could not pa.s.s over it in so short a time, is a great mistake. Mons. Thevenot, an authentic eye-witness, informs us, that this sea, for about five days'

journey, is no where more than about eight or nine miles over-cross, and in one place but four or five miles, according to De Lisle's map, which is made from the best travelers themselves, and not copied from others.

What has been further objected against this pa.s.sage of the Israelites, and drowning of the Egyptians, being miraculous also, viz. that Moses might carry the Israelites over at a low tide without any miracle, while yet the Egyptians, not knowing the tide so well as he, might be drowned upon the return of the tide, is a strange story indeed! That Moses, who never had lived here, should know the quant.i.ty and time of the flux and reflux of the Red Sea better than the Egyptians themselves in its neighborhood! Yet does Artapa.n.u.s, an ancient heathen historian, inform us, that this was what the more ignorant Memphites, who lived at a great distance, pretended, though he confesses, that the more learned Heliopolitans, who lived much nearer, owned the destruction of the Egyptians, and the deliverance of the Israelites, to have been miraculous: and De Castro, a mathematician, who surveyed this sea with great exactness, informs us, that there is no great flux or reflux in this part of the Red Sea, to give a color to this hypothesis; nay, that at the elevation of the tide there is little above half the height of a man. See Essay on the Old Test. Append. p. 239, 240. So vain and groundless are these and the like evasions and subterfuges of our modern sceptics and unbelievers, and so certainly do thorough inquiries and authentic evidence disprove and confute such evasions and subterfuges upon all occasions.

[32] What that hexameter verse, in which Moses's triumphant song is here said to be written, distinctly means, our present ignorance of the old Hebrew metre or measure will not let us determine. Nor does it appear to me certain that even Josephus himself had a distinct notion of it, though he speaks of several sort of that metre or measure, both here and elsewhere. Antiq. B. IV. ch. 8. sect. 44; and B. VII. ch. 12. sect. 3.

[33] Take here the original pa.s.sages of the four old authors that still remain, as to this transit of Alexander the Great over the Pamphylian Sea: I mean, of Callisthenes, Strabu, Arrian, and Appian. As to Callisthenes, who himself accompanied Alexander in this expedition, Eustathius, in his Notes on the third Iliad of Homer, [as Dr. Bernard here informs us,] says, That "this Callisthenes wrote how the Pamphylian Sea did not only open a pa.s.sage for Alexander, but, by rising and did pay him homage as its king." Strabo's is this [Geog. B. XIV. p. 666]: "Now about Phaselis is that narrow pa.s.sage, by the sea-side, through which his army. There is a mountain called Climax, adjoins to the Sea of Pamphylia, leaving a narrow pa.s.sage on the sh.o.r.e, which, in calm weather, is bare, so as to be pa.s.sable by travelers, but when the sea overflows, it is covered to a great degree by the waves. Now then, the ascent by the mountains being round about and steep, in still weather they make use of the road along the coast. But Alexander fell into the winter season, and committing himself chiefly to fortune, he marched on before the waves retired; and so it happened that were a whole day in journeying over it, and were under water up to the navel." Arrian's account is this [B. I. p. 72, 73]: "Alexander removed from Phaselis, he sent some part his army over the mountains to Perga; which road the Thracians showed him. A difficult way it was, but short. He himself conducted those that were with him by the sea-sh.o.r.e. This road is impa.s.sable at any other time than when the north wind blows; but if the south wind prevail, there is no pa.s.sing by the sh.o.r.e. Now at this time, after strong south winds, a north wind blew, and that not without the Divine Providence, [as both he and they that were with him supposed,]

and afforded him an easy and quick pa.s.sage." Appian, when he compares Caesar and Alexander together, [De Bel. Civil. B. II. p. 522,] says, "That they both depended on their boldness and fortune, as much as on their skill in war. As an instance of which, Alexander journeyed over a country without water, in the heat of summer, to the oracle of [Jupiter]

Hammon, and quickly pa.s.sed over the Bay of Pamphylia, when, by Divine Providence, the sea was cut off--thus Providence restraining the sea on his account, as it had sent him rain when he traveled [over the desert]." N. B.--Since, in the days of Josephus, as he a.s.sures us, all the more numerous original historians of Alexander gave the account he has here set down, as to the providential going back of the waters of the Pamphylian Sea, when he was going with his army to destroy the Persian monarchy, which the fore-named authors now remaining fully confirm, it is without all just foundation that Josephus is here blamed by some late writers for quoting those ancient authors upon the present occasion; nor can the reflections of Plutarch, or any other author later than Josephus, be in the least here alleged to contradict him. Josephus went by all the evidence he then had, and that evidence of the most authentic sort also. So that whatever the moderns may think of the thing itself, there is hence not the least color for finding fault with Josephus: he would rather have been much to blame had he omitted these quotations.

BOOK 3 FOOTNOTES

[1] Dr. Bernard takes notice here, that this place Mar, where the waters were bitter, is called by the Syrians and Arabians Mariri, and by the Syrians sometimes Morath, all derived from the Hebrew Mar. He also takes notice, that it is called The Bitter Fountain by Pliny himself; which waters remain there to this day, and are still bitter, as Thevenot a.s.sures us and that there are also abundance of palm-trees. See his Travels, Part I. ch. 26. p. 166.

[2]The additions here to Moses's account of the sweetening of the waters at Marah, seem derived from some ancient profane author, and he such an author also as looks less authentic than are usually followed by Josephus. Philo has not a syllable of these additions, nor any other ancienter writer that we know of. Had Josephus written these his Antiquities for the use of Jews, he would hardly have given them these very improbable circ.u.mstances; but writing to Gentiles, that they might not complain of his omission of any accounts of such miracles derived from Gentiles, he did not think proper to conceal what he had met with there about this matter. Which procedure is perfectly agreeable to the character and usage of Josephus upon many occasions. This note is, I confess, barely conjectural; and since Josephus never tells us when his own copy, taken out of the temple, had such additions, or when any ancient notes supplied them; or indeed when they are derived from Jewish, and when from Gentile antiquity,--we can go no further than bare conjectures in such cases; only the notions of Jews were generally so different from those of Gentiles, that we may sometimes make no improbable conjectures to which sort such additions belong. See also somewhat like these additions in Josephus's account of Elisha's making sweet the bitter and barren spring near Jericho, War, B. IV. ch. 8.

sect. 3.

[3] It seems to me, from what Moses, Exodus 16:18, St. Paul, 2 Corinthians 8:15, and Josephus here say, compared together, that the quant.i.ty of manna that fell daily, and did not putrefy, was just so much as came to an omer apiece, through the whole host of Israel, and no more.