Antiquities Book 2, Chapter 16
How The Sea Was Divided Asunder For The Hebrews, When They Were Pursued By The Egyptians, And So Gave Them An Opportunity Of Escaping From Them.
1. When Moses had said this, he led them to the sea, while the Egyptians
looked on; for they were within sight. Now these were so distressed by
the toil of their pursuit, that they thought proper to put off fighting
till the next day. But when Moses was come to the sea-shore, he took his
rod, and made supplication to God, and called upon him to be their
helper and assistant; and said "Thou art not ignorant, O Lord, that it
is beyond human strength and human contrivance to avoid the difficulties
we are now under; but it must be thy work altogether to procure
deliverance to this army, which has left Egypt at thy appointment. We
despair of any other assistance or contrivance, and have recourse only
to that hope we have in thee; and if there be any method that can
promise us an escape by thy providence, we look up to thee for it. And
let it come quickly, and manifest thy power to us; and do thou raise up
this people unto good courage and hope of deliverance, who are deeply
sunk into a disconsolate state of mind. We are in a helpless place, but
still it is a place that thou possessest; still the sea is thine, the
mountains also that enclose us are thine; so that these mountains will
open themselves if thou commandest them, and the sea also, if thou
commandest it, will become dry land. Nay, we might escape by a flight
through the air, if thou shouldst determine we should have that way of
salvation."
2. When Moses had thus addressed himself to God, he smote the sea with
his rod, which parted asunder at the stroke, and receiving those waters
into itself, left the ground dry, as a road and a place of flight for
the Hebrews. Now when Moses saw this appearance of God, and that the sea
went out of its own place, and left dry land, he went first of all into
it, and bid the Hebrews to follow him along that divine road, and to
rejoice at the danger their enemies that followed them were in; and gave
thanks to God for this so surprising a deliverance which appeared from
him.
3. Now, while these Hebrews made no stay, but went on earnestly, as led
by God's presence with them, the Egyptians supposed first that they were
distracted, and were going rashly upon manifest destruction. But when
they saw that they were going a great way without any harm, and that no
obstacle or difficulty fell in their journey, they made haste to pursue
them, hoping that the sea would be calm for them also. They put their
horse foremost, and went down themselves into the sea. Now the Hebrews,
while these were putting on their armor, and therein spending their
time, were beforehand with them, and escaped them, and got first over to
the land on the other side without any hurt. Whence the others were
encouraged, and more courageously pursued them, as hoping no harm would
come to them neither: but the Egyptians were not aware that they went
into a road made for the Hebrews, and not for others; that this road was
made for the deliverance of those in danger, but not for those that were
earnest to make use of it for the others' destruction. As soon,
therefore, as ever the whole Egyptian army was within it, the sea flowed
to its own place, and came down with a torrent raised by storms of wind,
30 and encompassed the Egyptians. Showers of rain also came down from
the sky, and dreadful thunders and lightning, with flashes of fire.
Thunderbolts also were darted upon them. Nor was there any thing which
used to be sent by God upon men, as indications of his wrath, which did
not happen at this time, for a dark and dismal night oppressed them. And
thus did all these men perish, so that there was not one man left to be
a messenger of this calamity to the rest of the Egyptians.
4. But the Hebrews were not able to contain themselves for joy at their
wonderful deliverance, and destruction of their enemies; now indeed
supposing themselves firmly delivered, when those that would have forced
them into slavery were destroyed, and when they found they had God so
evidently for their protector. And now these Hebrews having escaped the
danger they were in, after this manner, and besides that, seeing their
enemies punished in such a way as is never recorded of any other men
whomsoever, were all the night employed in singing of hymns, and in
mirth. 31 Moses also composed a song unto God, containing his praises,
and a thanksgiving for his kindness, in hexameter verse. 32
5. As for myself, I have delivered every part of this history as I found
it in the sacred books; nor let any one wonder at the strangeness of the
narration if a way were discovered to those men of old time, who were
free from the wickedness of the modern ages, whether it happened by the
will of God or whether it happened of its own accord;—while, for the
sake of those that accompanied Alexander, king of Macedonia, who yet
lived, comparatively but a little while ago, the Pamphylian Sea retired
and afforded them a passage 33 through itself, had no other way to go; I
mean, when it was the will of God to destroy the monarchy of the
Persians: and this is confessed to be true by all that have written
about the actions of Alexander. But as to these events, let every one
determine as he pleases.
6. On the next day Moses gathered together the weapons of the Egyptians,
which were brought to the camp of the Hebrews by the current of the sea,
and the force of the winds resisting it; and he conjectured that this
also happened by Divine Providence, that so they might not be destitute
of weapons. So when he had ordered the Hebrews to arm themselves with
them, he led them to Mount Sinai, in order to offer sacrifice to God,
and to render oblations for the salvation of the multitude, as he was
charged to do beforehand.
FOOTNOTES
1 (return) [ 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 (return) [ 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 (return) [ That is, bought it for Pharaoh at a very low price.]
4 (return) [ 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 (return) [ 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 (return) [ 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 (return) [ 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 (return) [ Of the precious balsam of Judea, and the turpentine, see
the note on Antiq. B. VIII. ch. 6. sect. 6.]
9 (return) [ 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 (return) [ 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 (return) [ 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
assure 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 (return) [ Josephus thought that the Egyptians hated or despised the
employment of a shepherd in the days of Joseph; whereas Bishop
Cumberland 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 (return) [ 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 (return) [ 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 (return) [ As to this encomium upon Joseph, as preparatory to Jacob's
adopting Ephraim and Manasses 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 (return) [ 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 (return) [ 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 (return) [ 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 (return) [ 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 (return) [ 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 (return) [ 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 (return) [ 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 God 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 (return) [ 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 (return) [ This superstitious fear of discovering the name with four
letters, which of late we have been used falsely to pronounce Jehovah,
but seems to have been originally pronounced Jahoh, or Jao, is never, I
think, heard of till this passage of Josephus; and this superstition, in
not pronouncing 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 superstitious 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 superstitious.]
25 (return) [ 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 (return) [ 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 (return) [ 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. God 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 (return) [ 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 (return) [ Take the main part of Reland's excellent note here, which
greatly illustrates 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 God 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
passed over the sea also. Besides, he gave me an account how he passed
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 passage 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
Cumberland 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 (return) [ 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 (return) [ What some have here objected against this passage 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 pass 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 passage
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 quantity
and time of the flux and reflux of the Red Sea better than the Egyptians
themselves in its neighborhood! Yet does Artapanus, 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 (return) [ 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 (return) [ Take here the original passages 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 passage 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 passage, by the sea-side, through
which his army. There is a mountain called Climax, adjoins to the Sea of
Pamphylia, leaving a narrow passage on the shore, which, in calm
weather, is bare, so as to be passable 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-shore. This road is
impassable at any other time than when the north wind blows; but if the
south wind prevail, there is no passing by the shore. 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 passage." Appian, when he compares
Cæsar 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 passed 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 assures 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.]
looked on; for they were within sight. Now these were so distressed by
the toil of their pursuit, that they thought proper to put off fighting
till the next day. But when Moses was come to the sea-shore, he took his
rod, and made supplication to God, and called upon him to be their
helper and assistant; and said "Thou art not ignorant, O Lord, that it
is beyond human strength and human contrivance to avoid the difficulties
we are now under; but it must be thy work altogether to procure
deliverance to this army, which has left Egypt at thy appointment. We
despair of any other assistance or contrivance, and have recourse only
to that hope we have in thee; and if there be any method that can
promise us an escape by thy providence, we look up to thee for it. And
let it come quickly, and manifest thy power to us; and do thou raise up
this people unto good courage and hope of deliverance, who are deeply
sunk into a disconsolate state of mind. We are in a helpless place, but
still it is a place that thou possessest; still the sea is thine, the
mountains also that enclose us are thine; so that these mountains will
open themselves if thou commandest them, and the sea also, if thou
commandest it, will become dry land. Nay, we might escape by a flight
through the air, if thou shouldst determine we should have that way of
salvation."
2. When Moses had thus addressed himself to God, he smote the sea with
his rod, which parted asunder at the stroke, and receiving those waters
into itself, left the ground dry, as a road and a place of flight for
the Hebrews. Now when Moses saw this appearance of God, and that the sea
went out of its own place, and left dry land, he went first of all into
it, and bid the Hebrews to follow him along that divine road, and to
rejoice at the danger their enemies that followed them were in; and gave
thanks to God for this so surprising a deliverance which appeared from
him.
3. Now, while these Hebrews made no stay, but went on earnestly, as led
by God's presence with them, the Egyptians supposed first that they were
distracted, and were going rashly upon manifest destruction. But when
they saw that they were going a great way without any harm, and that no
obstacle or difficulty fell in their journey, they made haste to pursue
them, hoping that the sea would be calm for them also. They put their
horse foremost, and went down themselves into the sea. Now the Hebrews,
while these were putting on their armor, and therein spending their
time, were beforehand with them, and escaped them, and got first over to
the land on the other side without any hurt. Whence the others were
encouraged, and more courageously pursued them, as hoping no harm would
come to them neither: but the Egyptians were not aware that they went
into a road made for the Hebrews, and not for others; that this road was
made for the deliverance of those in danger, but not for those that were
earnest to make use of it for the others' destruction. As soon,
therefore, as ever the whole Egyptian army was within it, the sea flowed
to its own place, and came down with a torrent raised by storms of wind,
30 and encompassed the Egyptians. Showers of rain also came down from
the sky, and dreadful thunders and lightning, with flashes of fire.
Thunderbolts also were darted upon them. Nor was there any thing which
used to be sent by God upon men, as indications of his wrath, which did
not happen at this time, for a dark and dismal night oppressed them. And
thus did all these men perish, so that there was not one man left to be
a messenger of this calamity to the rest of the Egyptians.
4. But the Hebrews were not able to contain themselves for joy at their
wonderful deliverance, and destruction of their enemies; now indeed
supposing themselves firmly delivered, when those that would have forced
them into slavery were destroyed, and when they found they had God so
evidently for their protector. And now these Hebrews having escaped the
danger they were in, after this manner, and besides that, seeing their
enemies punished in such a way as is never recorded of any other men
whomsoever, were all the night employed in singing of hymns, and in
mirth. 31 Moses also composed a song unto God, containing his praises,
and a thanksgiving for his kindness, in hexameter verse. 32
5. As for myself, I have delivered every part of this history as I found
it in the sacred books; nor let any one wonder at the strangeness of the
narration if a way were discovered to those men of old time, who were
free from the wickedness of the modern ages, whether it happened by the
will of God or whether it happened of its own accord;—while, for the
sake of those that accompanied Alexander, king of Macedonia, who yet
lived, comparatively but a little while ago, the Pamphylian Sea retired
and afforded them a passage 33 through itself, had no other way to go; I
mean, when it was the will of God to destroy the monarchy of the
Persians: and this is confessed to be true by all that have written
about the actions of Alexander. But as to these events, let every one
determine as he pleases.
6. On the next day Moses gathered together the weapons of the Egyptians,
which were brought to the camp of the Hebrews by the current of the sea,
and the force of the winds resisting it; and he conjectured that this
also happened by Divine Providence, that so they might not be destitute
of weapons. So when he had ordered the Hebrews to arm themselves with
them, he led them to Mount Sinai, in order to offer sacrifice to God,
and to render oblations for the salvation of the multitude, as he was
charged to do beforehand.
FOOTNOTES
1 (return) [ 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 (return) [ 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 (return) [ That is, bought it for Pharaoh at a very low price.]
4 (return) [ 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 (return) [ 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 (return) [ 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 (return) [ 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 (return) [ Of the precious balsam of Judea, and the turpentine, see
the note on Antiq. B. VIII. ch. 6. sect. 6.]
9 (return) [ 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 (return) [ 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 (return) [ 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
assure 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 (return) [ Josephus thought that the Egyptians hated or despised the
employment of a shepherd in the days of Joseph; whereas Bishop
Cumberland 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 (return) [ 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 (return) [ 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 (return) [ As to this encomium upon Joseph, as preparatory to Jacob's
adopting Ephraim and Manasses 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 (return) [ 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 (return) [ 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 (return) [ 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 (return) [ 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 (return) [ 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 (return) [ 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 (return) [ 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 God 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 (return) [ 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 (return) [ This superstitious fear of discovering the name with four
letters, which of late we have been used falsely to pronounce Jehovah,
but seems to have been originally pronounced Jahoh, or Jao, is never, I
think, heard of till this passage of Josephus; and this superstition, in
not pronouncing 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 superstitious 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 superstitious.]
25 (return) [ 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 (return) [ 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 (return) [ 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. God 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 (return) [ 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 (return) [ Take the main part of Reland's excellent note here, which
greatly illustrates 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 God 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
passed over the sea also. Besides, he gave me an account how he passed
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 passage 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
Cumberland 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 (return) [ 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 (return) [ What some have here objected against this passage 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 pass 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 passage
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 quantity
and time of the flux and reflux of the Red Sea better than the Egyptians
themselves in its neighborhood! Yet does Artapanus, 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 (return) [ 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 (return) [ Take here the original passages 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 passage 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 passage, by the sea-side, through
which his army. There is a mountain called Climax, adjoins to the Sea of
Pamphylia, leaving a narrow passage on the shore, which, in calm
weather, is bare, so as to be passable 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-shore. This road is
impassable at any other time than when the north wind blows; but if the
south wind prevail, there is no passing by the shore. 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 passage." Appian, when he compares
Cæsar 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 passed 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 assures 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.]