DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14564#0086
7o
CITIES OF EGYPT.
the narrative of the journey of the Spies, follows the
mention of Hebron, and the mighty Anakim who ruled
there : 'Now Hebron was built seven years before Zoan
in Egypt' (Numb. xiii. 22). What a glimpse of all we
have lost is here, like the epitaph of the forgotten nations
in Balaam's prophecy. Once it was well known when
both these ancient cities were built, and now we can but
grope in the darkness. Perhaps it was written in one of
the lost books, the Book of Jasher or the Book of the
Wars of the Lord, lost as hopelessly as most of the con-
tents of the Alexandrian library, yet current in a literary
age, when there was a city of books (Kirjath Sepher) in
Canaan, and when the Hittite king who reigned in Syria
before the Exodus, took his ' writer of books ' to battle
with him.
Leaving speculation, we must look to the scanty
records, few, but precious in information, which the
genius of Mariette first read in the ruins of Zoan. The
city was already standing in the remote days of the Sixth
Dynasty, the last powerful line of Memphis, and flourish-
ing under the prosperous Theban Twelfth Dynasty, in
the time of Abraham, if not much earlier. The position,
excellent, as we have seen, for the protection of the
CITIES OF EGYPT.
the narrative of the journey of the Spies, follows the
mention of Hebron, and the mighty Anakim who ruled
there : 'Now Hebron was built seven years before Zoan
in Egypt' (Numb. xiii. 22). What a glimpse of all we
have lost is here, like the epitaph of the forgotten nations
in Balaam's prophecy. Once it was well known when
both these ancient cities were built, and now we can but
grope in the darkness. Perhaps it was written in one of
the lost books, the Book of Jasher or the Book of the
Wars of the Lord, lost as hopelessly as most of the con-
tents of the Alexandrian library, yet current in a literary
age, when there was a city of books (Kirjath Sepher) in
Canaan, and when the Hittite king who reigned in Syria
before the Exodus, took his ' writer of books ' to battle
with him.
Leaving speculation, we must look to the scanty
records, few, but precious in information, which the
genius of Mariette first read in the ruins of Zoan. The
city was already standing in the remote days of the Sixth
Dynasty, the last powerful line of Memphis, and flourish-
ing under the prosperous Theban Twelfth Dynasty, in
the time of Abraham, if not much earlier. The position,
excellent, as we have seen, for the protection of the