tion of some of the early dynasties far beyond what the truth of history warrants.

A series of Pharaohs, discovered by Mariette-Bey on a tomb at Saqqarah, near Memphis, implies that in the order of succession the sixth dynasty is immediately followed by the twelfth dynasty. In the sepulchral grottoes of Beni Hassan, on the banks of the Nile, there are still to be seen some inscriptions belonging to the early kings of the last-named dynasty. Special mention is there made of the "Panegyry, or Festival of the First Year," which Poole refers to the commencement of the tropical cycle, that is, a perfectly exact cycle of the sun, moon, and vague year, which happened in the reign of Amenemes, one of the early kings of the twelfth dynasty, and which the science of astronomy has enabled the Astronomer Royal of England to fix at the date of B.C. 2005.*

ERA OF ABRAHAM.

According to the Hebrew chronology, Abraham's visit to Egypt took place not many years before that date, circa B.C. 2010. According to the testimony of Josephus, when Abraham went down into Egypt he found the Egyptians quarreling concerning their sacred rites. By his skill in disputation the patriarch confuted the arguments on all sides, and by his influence succeeded in composing their differences. Moreover he is said to have taught the Egyptians arithmetic and the science of astronomy, for before the time of Abraham, Josephus says, "they were unacquainted with that sort of learning." The Jewish historian does not give his authority for such a statement, but when it is remembered that the temple records of Egypt were still in existence at the time when Josephus wrote, and that his work was specially addressed to the Greek and Egyptian philosophers of Alexandria as an apology for his own nation, we may accept his statement as true history. Moreover, this remarkable incident in the life of Abraham is confirmed, according to Eusebius, by two heathen historians, Berosus and Eupolemus, both of whom lived between three and four centuries prior to the time of Josephus.

Osburn adduces some evidence in proof of Abraham's visit to Egypt having occurred during the reign of Pharaoh Acthoes, the father of Amenemes, the first king of the famous twelfth dynasty, and asserts with confidence that while "of Acthoes and his times, and of those of all his predecessors, there exists no single record of king or subject having a date, yet tablets and papyri inscribed with dates of the years of the reign of Amenemes, the son and immediate successor of Acthoes, are not uncommon. The same

practice continued with all the successors of Amenemes to the end of the monarchy." §

*Poole's Hora Egyptica, part i, § 11.

Josephus, "Antiquities," lib. i, c. viii, §§ 1, 2.

Eusebius, Præparat. Evangel., § 9.

Osburn's "Monumental History of Egypt," vol. i, chap. vi.

We have thus some authentic evidence for concluding that these three coinciding events, namely, the visit of Abraham to Egypt in the reign of Acthoes, the knowledge of arithmetic acquired by the Egyptians as proved by the introduction of dates on the monuments of that period, and the establishment of the earliest cycle, known as "the Tropical Cycle:" all these events must have taken place within a few years of the date B.C. 2000. And since this synchronises with the biblical date for the time of Abraham's visit, it is satisfactory to know that the Egyptian monuments afford still more conclusive proof of the correctness of the Hebrew chronology for the succeeding fifteen centuries.

ERA OF ISRAEL'S SOJOURN.

Before, however, proceeding to show from the monuments the confirmation of the biblical story of the Exodus, it may be well to notice what we gather from Scripture respecting the interval of four hundred and thirty years mentioned in Exod. xii, 40, between the time of Abraham and the exode of the children of Israel from the land of Egypt. We have already found some evidence for computing the date of the exode at B.C. 1580, and the time of Abraham at B. C. 2010. And the date of a very important event in the history of Egypt, namely, the overthrow of the Shepherd dynasty, is fixed by Brugsch, in his interpretation of Manetho, to the year B.C. 1706, the starting-point of what he considers to be reliable chronology, whereas all previous chronology must be regarded as more or less conjectural. The following table, founded on Scripture testimony, will show a very important synchronism in the combined histories of Israel and Egypt. In the first chapter of Exodus it is recorded that "Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation;" and it is added in the verse following, "Now there arose up a new king which knew not Joseph," evidently implying a marked change in the treatment of Joseph's people at the hands of the Egyptians from that which they had formerly received. This can only be explained by the great change which must have ensued on the transfer of power from the rule of the foreign Hycsos, or Shepherd kings, to that of the native dynasty of the Pharaohs. In Exod. vi, 16 the death of Levi, the brother of Joseph, and the last surviving member of that generation, as we may fairly assume, is recorded at the age of one hundred and thirty-seven, and the year before the rise of the new king, which took place, according to the testimony of Manetho, B.C. 1706; the death of Levi having taken place in the preceding year, as our table, gathered out of Scripture, clearly shows:

Thus the exodus took place "at the end of four hundred and thirty years"-even to the very day-after God had called Abraham to go from his fathers' country into the land of Canaan. But, inasmuch as much controversy has arisen respecting the duration of the sojourn in Egypt-Bunsen extending it, as we have already seen, to 1,434 years; while his collaborateur Lepsius limits it to 90 years-it may be well to examine carefully the text which treats on this important point. The Authorized Version of Exod. xii, 40, reads as follows: "Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was 430 years." It will be seen by this that Scripture does not necessarily imply that the Israelites were either in Egypt or in servitude during the whole of that period; for it plainly teaches that though their sojourning lasted 430 years, it was only a portion of that time that they dwelt in Egypt, and a still more limited portion in which they were enslaved. Such appears to be the teaching of Hebrews xi, 9, where it is said, "By faith Abraham sojourned in the land of promise as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise." This is confirmed by the reading both of the Samaritan Pentateuch and the LXX., all of which in the various MSS., as Kennicott* observes, are uniform on this matter, and read the text as follows: "Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, and of their fathers, when they sojourned in the land of Canaan, and in the land of Egypt, was 430 years." And so St. Paul, in Gal. iii, 16, 17, declares that "the promises to Abraham and his seed were confirmed by the law (given on Mount Sinai) which was 430 years after" they had been first made.

That the Jews of all ages so understood the text may be thus shown. Demetrius, who flourished in the third century B.C., reckoned 215 years from the call of Abraham to the going down into Egypt; 135 years from that to the birth of Moses; and 80 years more to the exode; which sums up-215+135+80=430. Josephus, four centuries after Demetrius, expressly says, that "the children of Israel left Egypt in the month Xanthicus, on

*Kennicott, "Dissert.," ii, pp. 164, 165.

+ Demetrius, apud. Euseb. Præp. Evang., ix, § 21.

the 15th day of the month, 430 years after our forefather Abraham came into Canaan, but only 215 years after Jacob removed into Egypt."* Both the Jerusalem and the Babylonian Talmuds speak of the sojourning of the Israelites as including that "in Egypt and in all other lands" besides. Aben Ezra, a learned Jew, and Joseph Goriondes, of the tenth century, interpret the passage in the following way: "The sojourning of the children. of Israel in Egypt and in other lands was 430 years. Notwithstanding they abode in Egypt only 210 years, according to what their father Jacob told them, to descend' or go down to Egypt, which in Hebrew signifies 210. Furthermore, the computation of 430 years is from the year that Isaac was born, which was the holy seed unto Abraham."‡

The testimony of the early Christian writers is to the same effect. Eusebius § distinctly says that it is "by the unanimous consent of all interpreters" that the text should be so understood. Augustine, in his Forty-seventh Question on Exodus, as well as in his "City of God," || taught that the 430 years included the sojourn in Canaan as well as in Egypt. And Sulpicius Severus says: "From the entrance of Abraham into Canaan until the exode there were 430 years." These interpreters of the text of Scripture appear to have well understood the force of an argument, which some in the present day have strangely overlooked, that if the 430 years are to be counted only from the time of Jacob's descent into Egypt until the exode, the mother of Moses must have given birth to her son 262 years after her father's death, according to the biblical computation, which is a physical impossibility. Hence Clinton wisely observes: "Some writers have very unreasonably doubted this portion of the Hebrew chronology, as if it were uncertain how this period of 430 years was to be understood. Those who cast a doubt upon this point refuse to Moses, an inspired writer-in the account of his mother and father and grandfather-that authority which would be given to the testimony of a profane author on the same occasion." **

ERA OF JOSEPH.

We have already seen that the time of Abraham's visit to Egypt synchronized probably with the reign of Pharaoh Acthoes, shortly before the commencement of the twelfth dynasty, which in round numbers may be dated circa B.C. 2000. Consequently the time of Joseph being sold as a slave into Egypt would fall circa B.C. 1800, when a Shepherd dynasty was seated on the throne

* Josephus, "Antiquities," ii, xv, § 2.

T. Hierosol. Megillah, fol. 71, 4; T. Babyl. Meg., fol. 9, 1.

"Historie of the Latter Tymes of the Jewes' Common Weal." By Joseph Ben Gorion. Translated by Peter Morwing, pp. 2, 3. Oxford, A.D. 1567.

Euseb., Chron. Can. Lib. Prior, § 19.

August., De Civit. Dei, lib. xvi, § 24.

Sulpic. Sev., Hist. Eceles., lib. xxvi, § 4.

** Clinton, Fasti Hellenici, vol. i, p. 299, Appendix.

of the Pharaohs. This is seen in the fact that Brugsch-Bey, in his "History of Egypt under the Pharaohs," considers that any thing like correct Egyptian chronology can only he said to commence with the rise of the celebrated eighteenth dynasty, which he dates approximately at B.C. 1700, as in his earlier work on Egypt he dates it more exactly at B.C. 1706; and inasmuch as he is perhaps the first of Egyptologers who has given his attention to this particular branch of the subject, and as it harmonizes perfectly with the Hebrew chronology deducible from Scripture, we may accept the learned writer's conclusions on this point as most right and just.

That Joseph's captivity and subsequent viceroyalty over the land of Egypt occurred during the reign of the Hycsos or Shepherd kings is apparent from various incidents recorded in Scripture. We learn there that no sooner had the Jewish captive interpreted the dream of the king of Egypt than "the thing appeared good in Pharaoh's eyes, and he said unto his servants, Can we find such a one as this is, a man in whom the spirit of God is? And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, Forasmuch as God hath showed thee all this, see, I have set thee over all the land of Egypt." Gen. xli, 37-41.

In order to understand this remarkable fact of a heathen king recognizing at once the God of Israel, we must consider who this king really was. As far as we can gather from the traditions of ancient times, it unquestionably was one of the Hycsos or Shepherd kings; and though recent discoveries have made it doubtful whether the current tradition was strictly correct, we have monumental proof of its general accuracy. Syncellus, a Byzantine historian of the eighth century, writes that "All are agreed that Joseph governed Egypt under Apophis, and commenced in the seventeenth year of his reign." Apophis is represented in Manetho's lists to have reigned sixty-one years; and the monuments show that Apophis was contemporary with the immediate predecessor of the head of the eighteenth dynasty, "the new king which knew not Joseph." Our comparison of the synchronisms in the histories of Israel and Egypt show that the rise of this new king and the death of Joseph synchronized with each other. Now, Scripture shows that Joseph began to govern Egypt at the age of thirty, and died at one hundred and ten, leaving eighty years for his government of the country, supposing him to have been in office the whole of that period. But if his government commenced, according to the tradition, "in the seventeenth" year of Apophis' reign, the duration of which was sixty-one years, this would only leave forty-four years out of eighty for Joseph's rule under Apophis. Moreover, the discovery of the Zoan Tablet with a recognized era throws some additional light on this complicated portion of Egyptian history.

A few years ago Mariette-Bey found in the ruins of the great temple at Avaris or Tanis (the Zoan of Scripture) a stele of the reign of Ramessu the Great, showing that it was put up "in the