DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12609#0054
38
CHRONOLOGY OF ANCIENT EGYPT.
and then returned to Egypt, drove out the enemy,
and recovered his throne.* Lysimachus, alluding to
the same event, says that the unclean multitude- were
led forth into the desert; that their leader Moyses
encouraged them to march forward; that they ar-
rived after extreme hardships in an habitable country,
where they burnt the temples and plundered the
natives; at length they settled in Judaea.f
As Diodorus's account of the migration of the Jews
from Egypt to Palestine is very similar to this, we
may safely conclude that all are narratives of the
Exodus disguised by Egyptian vanity, and therefore
that Eusebius's synchronism of this event is much
more to be trusted than that of Africanus, who,
perhaps on Manetho's authority, also seems to con-
found it with the expulsion of the Shepherds, as he
places it under Amosis the head of the dynasty. It
will afterwards be seen that Eusebius has other evi-
dence in his favour. |
There were in fact two distinct emigrations,—first
that of the Shepherds; subsequently that of the
Israelites. Both appear to be alluded to by the pro-
* Joseph, contr. App. lib. i. c. 26.
f See Cory's valuable collection of Ancient Fragments.
£ We have a similar instance of a falsified account of a real
event in the Egyptian version of the discomfiture of Sennacherib's
host. The Egyptian monarch, deserted by his army, is miracu-
lously preserved by a swarm of rats, which enter the Assyrian
camp at night and destroy their bowstrings. Herod, ii. 141.
CHRONOLOGY OF ANCIENT EGYPT.
and then returned to Egypt, drove out the enemy,
and recovered his throne.* Lysimachus, alluding to
the same event, says that the unclean multitude- were
led forth into the desert; that their leader Moyses
encouraged them to march forward; that they ar-
rived after extreme hardships in an habitable country,
where they burnt the temples and plundered the
natives; at length they settled in Judaea.f
As Diodorus's account of the migration of the Jews
from Egypt to Palestine is very similar to this, we
may safely conclude that all are narratives of the
Exodus disguised by Egyptian vanity, and therefore
that Eusebius's synchronism of this event is much
more to be trusted than that of Africanus, who,
perhaps on Manetho's authority, also seems to con-
found it with the expulsion of the Shepherds, as he
places it under Amosis the head of the dynasty. It
will afterwards be seen that Eusebius has other evi-
dence in his favour. |
There were in fact two distinct emigrations,—first
that of the Shepherds; subsequently that of the
Israelites. Both appear to be alluded to by the pro-
* Joseph, contr. App. lib. i. c. 26.
f See Cory's valuable collection of Ancient Fragments.
£ We have a similar instance of a falsified account of a real
event in the Egyptian version of the discomfiture of Sennacherib's
host. The Egyptian monarch, deserted by his army, is miracu-
lously preserved by a swarm of rats, which enter the Assyrian
camp at night and destroy their bowstrings. Herod, ii. 141.