a country of Africa, called also in the Hebrew Scriptures the
land of Mizraim, and the land of Ham; by the Turks and Arabs, Masr and
Misr; and by the native Egyptians, Chemi, or the land of Ham. Mr. Faber
derives the name from Ai-Capht, or the land of the Caphtorim; from
which, also, the modern Egyptians derive their name of Cophts. Egypt was
first peopled after the deluge by Mizraim, or Mizr, the son of Ham, who
is supposed to be the same with Menes, recorded in Egyptian history as
the first king. Every thing relating to the subsequent history and
condition of this country, for many ages, is involved in fable. Nor have
we any clear information from Heathen writers, until the time of Cyrus,
and his son Cambyses, when the line of Egyptian princes ceased in
agreement with prophecies to that effect. Manetho, the Egyptian
historian, has given a list of thirty dynasties, which, if successive,
make a period of five thousand three hundred years to the time of
Alexander, or three thousand two hundred and eighty-two years more than
the real time, according to the Mosaic chronology. But this is a
manifest forgery, which has, nevertheless, been appealed to by infidel
writers, as authority against the veracity of the Mosaic history. The
truth is, that this pretended succession of princes, if all of them can
be supposed to have existed at all, constituted several distinct
dynasties, ruling in different cities at the same time: thus these were
the kingdoms of Thebes, Thin, Memphis, and Tanis. See WRITING.
2. In the time of Moses we find Egypt renowned for learning; for he was
instructed “in all its wisdom;” and it is one of the commendations of
Solomon, at a later period, that he excelled in knowledge “all the
wisdom of the children of the east country, and all the wisdom of
Egypt.” Astronomy, which probably, like that of the Chaldeans,
comprehended also judicial astrology, physics, agriculture,
jurisprudence, medicine, architecture, painting, and sculpture, were the
principal sciences and arts; to which were added, and that by their
wisest men, the study of divination, magic, and enchantments. They had
also their consulters with familiar spirits, and necromancers, those who
had, or pretended to have, intercourse with the infernal deities, and
the spirits of the dead, and delivered responses to inquirers. Of all
this knowledge, good and evil, and of a monstrous system of idolatry,
Egypt was the polluted fountain to the surrounding nations; but in that
country itself it appears to have degenerated into the most absurd and
debased forms. Among nations who are not blessed by divine revelation,
the luminaries of heaven are the first objects of worship. Diodorus
Siculus, mentioning the Egyptians, informs us, that “the first men,
looking up to the world above them, and, struck with admiration at the
nature of the universe, supposed the sun and moon to be the principal
and eternal gods.” This, which may be called the natural superstition of
mankind, we can trace in the annals of the west, as well as of the east;
among the inhabitants of the new world, as well as of the old. The sun
and moon, under the names of Isis and Osiris, were the chief objects of
adoration among the Egyptians. But the earliest times had a purer faith.
The following inscription, engraven in hieroglyphics in the temple of
Neith, the Egyptian Minerva, conveys the most sublime idea of the Deity
which unenlightened reason could form: “I am that which is, was, and
shall be: no mortal hath lifted up my veil: the offspring of my power is
the sun.” A similar inscription still remains at Capua, on the temple of
Isis: “Thou art one, and from thee all things proceed.” Plutarch also
informs us, that the inhabitants of Thebais worshipped only the immortal
and supreme God, whom they called Eneph. According to the Egyptian
cosmogony, all things sprung from _athor_, or night, by which they
denoted the darkness of chaos before the creation. Sanchoniathon
relates, that, “from the breath of gods and the void were mortals
created.” This theology differs little from that of Moses, who says,
“The earth was without form, and void; darkness was upon the face of the
deep; and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”
3. A superstitious reverence for certain animals, as propitious or
hurtful to the human race, was not peculiar to the Egyptians. The cow
has been venerated in India from the most remote antiquity. The serpent
has been the object of religious respect to one half of the nations of
the known world. The Romans had sacred animals, which they kept in their
temples, and distinguished with peculiar honours. We need not therefore
be surprised that a nation so superstitious as the Egyptians should
honour, with peculiar marks of respect, the ichneumon, the ibis, the
dog, the falcon, the wolf, and the crocodile. These they entertained at
great expense, and with much magnificence. Lands were set apart for
their maintenance; persons of the highest rank were employed in feeding
and attending them; rich carpets were spread in their apartments; and
the pomp at their funerals corresponded to the profusion and luxury
which attended them while alive. What chiefly tended to favour the
progress of animal worship in Egypt, was the language of hieroglyphics.
In the hieroglyphic inscriptions on their temples, and public edifices,
animals, and even vegetables, were the symbols of the gods whom they
worshipped. In the midst of innumerable superstitions, the theology of
Egypt contained the two great principles of religion, the existence of a
supreme Being, and the immortality of the soul. The first is proved by
the inscription on the temple of Minerva; the second, by the care with
which dead bodies were embalmed, and the prayer recited at the hour of
death, by an Egyptian, expressing his desire to be received to the
presence of the deities.
4. The opulence of Egypt was for ages increased by the large share it
had in the commerce with the east; by its own favourable position,
making it the connecting link of intercourse between the eastern and
western nations; and especially by its own remarkable fertility,
particularly in corn, so that it was, in times of scarcity, the granary
of the world. Its extraordinary fertility was owing to the periodical
inundation of the Nile; and sufficient proofs of the ancient accounts
which we have of its productiveness are afforded to this day. The Rev.
Mr. Jowett has given a striking example of the extraordinary fertility
of the soil of Egypt, which is alluded to in Genesis xli, 47: “The earth
brought forth by handfuls.” “I picked up at random,” says Mr. Jowett, “a
few stalks out of the thick corn fields. We counted the number of stalks
which sprouted from single grains of seed; carefully pulling to pieces
each root, in order to see that it was but one plant. The first had
seven stalks, the next three, the next nine, then eighteen, then
fourteen. Each stalk would have been an ear.”
5. The architecture of the early Egyptians, at least that of their
cities and dwellings, was rude and simple: they could indeed boast of
little in either external elegance or internal comfort, since Herodotus
informs us that men and beasts lived together. The materials of their
structure were bricks of clay, bound together with chopped straw, and
baked in the sun. Such were the bricks which the Israelites were
employed in making, and of which the cities of Pithom and Rameses were
built. Their composition was necessarily perishable, and explains why it
is that no remains of the ancient cities of Egypt are to be found. They
would indeed last longer in the dry climate of this country than in any
other; but even here they must gradually decay and crumble to dust, and
the cities so constructed become heaps. Of precisely the same materials
are the villages of Egypt built at this day. “Village after village,”
says Mr. Jowett, speaking of Tentyra, “built of unburnt brick, crumbling
into ruins, and giving place to new habitations, have raised the earth,
in some parts, nearly to the level of the summit of the temple. In every
part of Egypt, we find the towns built in this manner, upon the ruins,
or rather the rubbish, of the former habitations. The expression in
Jeremiah xxx, 18, literally applies to Egypt, in the meanest sense: ‘The
city shall be builded upon her own heap.’ And the expression in Job xv,
28, might be illustrated by many of these deserted hovels: ‘He dwelleth
in desolate cities, and in houses which no man inhabiteth, which are
ready to become heaps.’ Still more touching is the allusion, in Job iv,
19, where the perishing generations of men are fitly compared to
habitations of the frailest materials, built upon the heap of similar
dwelling-places, now reduced to rubbish: ‘How much less in them that
dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust!’”
6. The splendid temples of Egypt were not built, in all probability,
till after the time of Solomon; for the recent progress made in the
decyphering of hieroglyphics has disappointed the antiquaries as to the
antiquity of these stupendous fabrics. It is well observed by Dr.
Shuckford, that temples made no great figure in Homer’s time. If they
had, he would not have lost such an opportunity of exerting his genius
on so grand a subject, as Virgil has done in his description of the
temple built by Dido at Carthage. The first Heathen temples were
probably nothing more than mean buildings, which served merely as a
shelter from the weather: of which kind was, probably, the house of the
Philistine god Dagon. But when the fame of Solomon’s temple had reached
other countries, it excited them to imitate its splendour; and nation
vied with nation in the structures erected to their several deities. All
were, however, outdone, at least in massiveness and durability, by the
Egyptians; the architectural design of whose temples, as well as that of
the Grecian edifices, was borrowed from the stems and branches of the
grove temples.
7. It appears to be an unfounded notion, that the pyramids were built by
the Israelites: they were, probably, Mr. Faber thinks, the work of the
“Shepherds,” or Cushite invaders, who, at an early period, held
possession of Egypt for two hundred and sixty years, and reduced the
Egyptians to bondage, so that “a shepherd was an abomination to the
Egyptians” in Joseph’s time. The Israelites laboured in making bricks,
not in forming stones such as the pyramids are constructed with; and a
passage in Mr. Jowett’s “Researches,” before referred to, will throw
light upon this part of their history. Mr. Jowett saw at one place the
people making bricks, with straw cut into small pieces, and mingled with
the clay, to bind it. Hence it is, that when villages built of these
bricks fall into rubbish, which is often the case, the roads are full of
small particles of straws, extremely offensive to the eyes in a high
wind. They were, in fact, engaged exactly as the Israelites used to be,
making bricks with straw; and for a similar purpose, to build extensive
granaries for the bashaw; “treasure-cities for Pharaoh.” The same
intelligent missionary also observes: “The mollems transact business
between the bashaw and the peasants. He punishes them if the peasants
prove that they oppress; and yet he requires from them that the work of
those who are under them shall be fulfilled. They strikingly illustrate
the case of the officers placed by the Egyptian task-masters over the
children of Israel; and, like theirs, the mollems often find their case
is evil, Exodus v.”
8. It is not necessary to go over those parts of the Egyptian history
which occur in the Old Testament. The prophecies respecting this haughty
and idolatrous kingdom, uttered by Jeremiah and Ezekiel when it was in
the height of its splendour and prosperity, were fulfilled in the
terrible invasions of Nebuchadnezzar, Cambyses, and the Persian
monarchs. It comes, however, again into an interesting connection with
the Jewish history under Alexander the Great, who invaded it as a
Persian dependence. So great, indeed, was the hatred of the Egyptians
toward their oppressors, that they hailed the approach of the
Macedonians, and threw open their cities to receive them. Alexander,
merciless as he was to those who opposed his progress or authority, knew
how to requite those who were devoted to his interests; and the
Egyptians, for many centuries afterward, had reason to recollect with
gratitude his protection and foresight. It was he who discerned the
local advantages of the spot on which the city bearing his name
afterward stood, who projected the plan of the town, superintended its
erection, endowed it with many privileges, and peopled it with colonies
drawn from other places for the purpose, chiefly Greeks. But, together
with these, and the most favoured of all, were the Jews, who enjoyed the
free exercise of their religion, and the same civil rights and liberties
as the Macedonians themselves. Kindness shown to the people of Israel
has never, in the providence of God, brought evil on any country; and
there can be no doubt but that the encouragement given to this
enterprising and commercial people, assisted very much to promote the
interests of the new city, which soon became the capital of the kingdom,
the centre of commerce, of science, and the arts, and one of the most
flourishing and considerable cities in the world. Egypt, indeed, was
about to see better days; and, during the reigns of the Ptolemies,
enjoyed again, for nearly three hundred years, something of its former
renown for learning and power. It formed, during this period, and before
the rapid extension of the Roman empire toward the termination of these
years, one of the only two ancient kingdoms which had survived the
Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, and Macedonian empires: the other was the
Syrian, where the Seleucidæ, another family of one of the successors of
Alexander, reigned; who, having subdued Macedonia and Thrace, annexed
them to the kingdom of Syria, and there remained out of the four
kingdoms into which the empire of Alexander was divided these two only;
distinguished, in the prophetic writings of Daniel, by the titles of the
kings or kingdoms of the north and the south.
9. Under the reign of the three first Ptolemies, the state of the Jews
was exceedingly prosperous. They were in high favour, and continued to
enjoy all the advantages conferred upon them by Alexander. Judea was, in
fact, at this time, a privileged province of Egypt; the Jews being
governed by their own high priest, on paying a tribute to the kings of
Egypt. But in the reign of Ptolemy Epiphanes, the fifth of the race, it
was taken by Antiochus, king of Syria; which was the beginning of fresh
sufferings and persecutions; for although this Antiochus, who was the
one surnamed the Great, was a mild and generous prince, and behaved
favourably toward them, their troubles began at his death; his
successor, Seleucus, oppressing them with taxes; and the next was the
monster, Antiochus Epiphanes, whose impieties and cruelties are recorded
in the two books of Maccabees. But still, in Egypt, the Jews continued
in the enjoyment of their privileges, so late as the reign of the sixth
Ptolemy, called Philometor, who committed the charge of his affairs to
two Jews, Onias and Dositheus; the former of whom obtained permission to
build a temple at Heliopolis. The introduction of Christianity into
Egypt is mentioned under the article ALEXANDRIA.
10. The prophecies respecting Egypt in the Old Testament have had a
wonderful fulfilment. The knowledge of all its greatness and glory
deterred not the Jewish prophets from declaring, that Egypt would become
“a base kingdom, and never exalt itself any more among the nations.” And
the literal fulfilment of every prophecy affords as clear a
demonstration as can possibly be given, that each and all of them are
the dictates of inspiration. Egypt was the theme of many prophecies,
which were fulfilled in ancient times; and it bears to the present day,
as it has borne throughout many ages, every mark with which prophecy had
stamped its destiny: “They shall be a base kingdom. It shall be the
basest of kingdoms. Neither shall it exalt itself any more among the
nations: for I will diminish them, that they shall no more rule over the
nations. The pride of her power shall come down; and they shall be
desolate in the midst of the countries that are desolate; and her cities
shall be in the midst of the cities that are wasted. I will make the
land of Egypt desolate, and the country shall be desolate of that
whereof it was full. I will sell the land into the hand of the wicked. I
will make the land waste and all that is therein, by the hand of
strangers. I the Lord have spoken it. And there shall be no more a
prince of the land of Egypt,” Ezek. xxx, 5, 7, 12, 13. “The sceptre of
Egypt shall depart away,” Zech. x, 11.
11. Egypt became entirely subject to the Persians about three hundred
and fifty years previous to the Christian æra. It was afterward subdued
by the Macedonians, and was governed by the Ptolemies for the space of
two hundred and ninety-four years; until, about B. C. 30, it became a
province of the Roman empire. It continued long in subjection to the
Romans,--tributary first to Rome, and afterward to Constantinople. It
was transferred, A. D. 641, to the dominion of the Saracens. In 1250 the
Mamelukes deposed their rulers, and usurped the command of Egypt. A mode
of government, the most singular and surprising that ever existed on
earth, was established and maintained. Each successive ruler was raised
to supreme authority, from being a stranger and a slave. No son of the
former ruler, no native of Egypt, succeeded to the sovereignty; but a
chief was chosen from among a new race of imported slaves. When Egypt
became tributary to the Turks in 1517, the Mamelukes retained much of
their power; and every pasha was an oppressor and a stranger. During all
these ages, every attempt to emancipate the country, or to create a
prince of the land of Egypt, has proved abortive, and has often been
fatal to the aspirant. Though the facts relative to Egypt form too
prominent a feature in the history of the world to admit of
contradiction or doubt, yet the description of the fate of that country,
and of the form of its government, may be left, says Keith, to the
testimony of those whose authority no infidel will question, and whom no
man can accuse of adapting their descriptions to the predictions of the
event. Volney and Gibbon are our witnesses of the facts: “Such is the
state of Egypt. Deprived, twenty-three centuries ago, of her natural
proprietors, she has seen her fertile fields successively a prey to the
Persians, the Macedonians, the Romans, the Greeks, the Arabs, the
Georgians, and, at length, the race of Tartars distinguished by the name
of Ottoman Turks. The Mamelukes, purchased as slaves, and introduced as
soldiers, soon usurped the power and elected a leader. If their first
establishment was a singular event, their continuance is not less
extraordinary. They are replaced by slaves brought from their original
country. The system of oppression is methodical. Every thing the
traveller sees or hears reminds him he is in the country of slavery and
tyranny.” “A more unjust and absurd constitution cannot be devised than
that which condemns the natives of a country to perpetual servitude,
under the arbitrary dominion of strangers and slaves. Yet such has been
the state of Egypt above five hundred years. The most illustrious
sultans of the Baharite and Borgite dynasties were themselves promoted
from the Tartar and Circassian bands; and the four-and-twenty beys, or
military chiefs, have ever been succeeded, not by their sons, but by
their servants.” These are the words of Volney and of Gibbon; and what
did the ancient prophets foretel?--“I will lay the land waste, and all
that is therein, by the hands of _strangers_. I the Lord have spoken it.
And there shall be no more a prince of the land of Egypt. The sceptre of
Egypt shall depart away.” The prophecy adds: “They shall be a base
kingdom: it shall be the basest of kingdoms.” After the lapse of two
thousand and four hundred years from the date of this prophecy, a
scoffer at religion, but an eye witness of the facts, thus describes the
self-same spot: “In Egypt,” says Volney, “there is no middle class,
neither nobility, clergy, merchants, landholders. A universal air of
misery, manifest in all the traveller meets, points out to him the
rapacity of oppression, and the distrust attendant upon slavery. The
profound ignorance of the inhabitants equally prevents them from
perceiving the causes of their evils, or applying the necessary
remedies. Ignorance, diffused through every class, extends its effects
to every species of moral and physical knowledge. Nothing is talked of
but intestine troubles, the public misery, pecuniary extortions,
bastinadoes, and murders. Justice herself puts to death without
formality.” Other travellers describe the most execrable vices as
common, and represent the moral character of the people as corrupted to
the core. As a token of the desolation of the country, mud-walled
cottages are now the only habitations where the ruins of temples and
palaces abound. Egypt is surrounded by the dominions of the Turks and of
the Arabs; and the prophecy is literally true which marked it in the
midst of desolation: “They shall be desolate in the midst of the
countries that are desolate, and her cities shall be in the midst of the
cities that are wasted.” The systematic oppression, extortion, and
plunder, which have so long prevailed, and the price paid for his
authority and power by every Turkish pasha, have rendered the country
“desolate of that whereof it was full,” and still show both how it has
been “wasted by the hands of strangers,” and how it has been “sold into
the hand of the wicked.”
12. Egypt has, indeed, lately somewhat risen, under its present spirited
but despotic pasha, to a degree of importance and commerce. But this
pasha is still a _stranger_, and the dominion is foreign. Nor is there
any thing like a general advancement of the people to order,
intelligence and happiness. Yet this fact, instead of militating against
the truth of prophecy, may, possibly at no distant period, serve to
illustrate other predictions. “The Lord shall smite Egypt: he shall
smite and heal it; and they shall return to the Lord, and he shall be
entreated of them, and shall heal them. In that day shall Israel be the
third with Egypt and with Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of the
land,” &c, Isaiah xix, 22–25.
land of Mizraim, and the land of Ham; by the Turks and Arabs, Masr and
Misr; and by the native Egyptians, Chemi, or the land of Ham. Mr. Faber
derives the name from Ai-Capht, or the land of the Caphtorim; from
which, also, the modern Egyptians derive their name of Cophts. Egypt was
first peopled after the deluge by Mizraim, or Mizr, the son of Ham, who
is supposed to be the same with Menes, recorded in Egyptian history as
the first king. Every thing relating to the subsequent history and
condition of this country, for many ages, is involved in fable. Nor have
we any clear information from Heathen writers, until the time of Cyrus,
and his son Cambyses, when the line of Egyptian princes ceased in
agreement with prophecies to that effect. Manetho, the Egyptian
historian, has given a list of thirty dynasties, which, if successive,
make a period of five thousand three hundred years to the time of
Alexander, or three thousand two hundred and eighty-two years more than
the real time, according to the Mosaic chronology. But this is a
manifest forgery, which has, nevertheless, been appealed to by infidel
writers, as authority against the veracity of the Mosaic history. The
truth is, that this pretended succession of princes, if all of them can
be supposed to have existed at all, constituted several distinct
dynasties, ruling in different cities at the same time: thus these were
the kingdoms of Thebes, Thin, Memphis, and Tanis. See WRITING.
2. In the time of Moses we find Egypt renowned for learning; for he was
instructed “in all its wisdom;” and it is one of the commendations of
Solomon, at a later period, that he excelled in knowledge “all the
wisdom of the children of the east country, and all the wisdom of
Egypt.” Astronomy, which probably, like that of the Chaldeans,
comprehended also judicial astrology, physics, agriculture,
jurisprudence, medicine, architecture, painting, and sculpture, were the
principal sciences and arts; to which were added, and that by their
wisest men, the study of divination, magic, and enchantments. They had
also their consulters with familiar spirits, and necromancers, those who
had, or pretended to have, intercourse with the infernal deities, and
the spirits of the dead, and delivered responses to inquirers. Of all
this knowledge, good and evil, and of a monstrous system of idolatry,
Egypt was the polluted fountain to the surrounding nations; but in that
country itself it appears to have degenerated into the most absurd and
debased forms. Among nations who are not blessed by divine revelation,
the luminaries of heaven are the first objects of worship. Diodorus
Siculus, mentioning the Egyptians, informs us, that “the first men,
looking up to the world above them, and, struck with admiration at the
nature of the universe, supposed the sun and moon to be the principal
and eternal gods.” This, which may be called the natural superstition of
mankind, we can trace in the annals of the west, as well as of the east;
among the inhabitants of the new world, as well as of the old. The sun
and moon, under the names of Isis and Osiris, were the chief objects of
adoration among the Egyptians. But the earliest times had a purer faith.
The following inscription, engraven in hieroglyphics in the temple of
Neith, the Egyptian Minerva, conveys the most sublime idea of the Deity
which unenlightened reason could form: “I am that which is, was, and
shall be: no mortal hath lifted up my veil: the offspring of my power is
the sun.” A similar inscription still remains at Capua, on the temple of
Isis: “Thou art one, and from thee all things proceed.” Plutarch also
informs us, that the inhabitants of Thebais worshipped only the immortal
and supreme God, whom they called Eneph. According to the Egyptian
cosmogony, all things sprung from _athor_, or night, by which they
denoted the darkness of chaos before the creation. Sanchoniathon
relates, that, “from the breath of gods and the void were mortals
created.” This theology differs little from that of Moses, who says,
“The earth was without form, and void; darkness was upon the face of the
deep; and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”
3. A superstitious reverence for certain animals, as propitious or
hurtful to the human race, was not peculiar to the Egyptians. The cow
has been venerated in India from the most remote antiquity. The serpent
has been the object of religious respect to one half of the nations of
the known world. The Romans had sacred animals, which they kept in their
temples, and distinguished with peculiar honours. We need not therefore
be surprised that a nation so superstitious as the Egyptians should
honour, with peculiar marks of respect, the ichneumon, the ibis, the
dog, the falcon, the wolf, and the crocodile. These they entertained at
great expense, and with much magnificence. Lands were set apart for
their maintenance; persons of the highest rank were employed in feeding
and attending them; rich carpets were spread in their apartments; and
the pomp at their funerals corresponded to the profusion and luxury
which attended them while alive. What chiefly tended to favour the
progress of animal worship in Egypt, was the language of hieroglyphics.
In the hieroglyphic inscriptions on their temples, and public edifices,
animals, and even vegetables, were the symbols of the gods whom they
worshipped. In the midst of innumerable superstitions, the theology of
Egypt contained the two great principles of religion, the existence of a
supreme Being, and the immortality of the soul. The first is proved by
the inscription on the temple of Minerva; the second, by the care with
which dead bodies were embalmed, and the prayer recited at the hour of
death, by an Egyptian, expressing his desire to be received to the
presence of the deities.
4. The opulence of Egypt was for ages increased by the large share it
had in the commerce with the east; by its own favourable position,
making it the connecting link of intercourse between the eastern and
western nations; and especially by its own remarkable fertility,
particularly in corn, so that it was, in times of scarcity, the granary
of the world. Its extraordinary fertility was owing to the periodical
inundation of the Nile; and sufficient proofs of the ancient accounts
which we have of its productiveness are afforded to this day. The Rev.
Mr. Jowett has given a striking example of the extraordinary fertility
of the soil of Egypt, which is alluded to in Genesis xli, 47: “The earth
brought forth by handfuls.” “I picked up at random,” says Mr. Jowett, “a
few stalks out of the thick corn fields. We counted the number of stalks
which sprouted from single grains of seed; carefully pulling to pieces
each root, in order to see that it was but one plant. The first had
seven stalks, the next three, the next nine, then eighteen, then
fourteen. Each stalk would have been an ear.”
5. The architecture of the early Egyptians, at least that of their
cities and dwellings, was rude and simple: they could indeed boast of
little in either external elegance or internal comfort, since Herodotus
informs us that men and beasts lived together. The materials of their
structure were bricks of clay, bound together with chopped straw, and
baked in the sun. Such were the bricks which the Israelites were
employed in making, and of which the cities of Pithom and Rameses were
built. Their composition was necessarily perishable, and explains why it
is that no remains of the ancient cities of Egypt are to be found. They
would indeed last longer in the dry climate of this country than in any
other; but even here they must gradually decay and crumble to dust, and
the cities so constructed become heaps. Of precisely the same materials
are the villages of Egypt built at this day. “Village after village,”
says Mr. Jowett, speaking of Tentyra, “built of unburnt brick, crumbling
into ruins, and giving place to new habitations, have raised the earth,
in some parts, nearly to the level of the summit of the temple. In every
part of Egypt, we find the towns built in this manner, upon the ruins,
or rather the rubbish, of the former habitations. The expression in
Jeremiah xxx, 18, literally applies to Egypt, in the meanest sense: ‘The
city shall be builded upon her own heap.’ And the expression in Job xv,
28, might be illustrated by many of these deserted hovels: ‘He dwelleth
in desolate cities, and in houses which no man inhabiteth, which are
ready to become heaps.’ Still more touching is the allusion, in Job iv,
19, where the perishing generations of men are fitly compared to
habitations of the frailest materials, built upon the heap of similar
dwelling-places, now reduced to rubbish: ‘How much less in them that
dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust!’”
6. The splendid temples of Egypt were not built, in all probability,
till after the time of Solomon; for the recent progress made in the
decyphering of hieroglyphics has disappointed the antiquaries as to the
antiquity of these stupendous fabrics. It is well observed by Dr.
Shuckford, that temples made no great figure in Homer’s time. If they
had, he would not have lost such an opportunity of exerting his genius
on so grand a subject, as Virgil has done in his description of the
temple built by Dido at Carthage. The first Heathen temples were
probably nothing more than mean buildings, which served merely as a
shelter from the weather: of which kind was, probably, the house of the
Philistine god Dagon. But when the fame of Solomon’s temple had reached
other countries, it excited them to imitate its splendour; and nation
vied with nation in the structures erected to their several deities. All
were, however, outdone, at least in massiveness and durability, by the
Egyptians; the architectural design of whose temples, as well as that of
the Grecian edifices, was borrowed from the stems and branches of the
grove temples.
7. It appears to be an unfounded notion, that the pyramids were built by
the Israelites: they were, probably, Mr. Faber thinks, the work of the
“Shepherds,” or Cushite invaders, who, at an early period, held
possession of Egypt for two hundred and sixty years, and reduced the
Egyptians to bondage, so that “a shepherd was an abomination to the
Egyptians” in Joseph’s time. The Israelites laboured in making bricks,
not in forming stones such as the pyramids are constructed with; and a
passage in Mr. Jowett’s “Researches,” before referred to, will throw
light upon this part of their history. Mr. Jowett saw at one place the
people making bricks, with straw cut into small pieces, and mingled with
the clay, to bind it. Hence it is, that when villages built of these
bricks fall into rubbish, which is often the case, the roads are full of
small particles of straws, extremely offensive to the eyes in a high
wind. They were, in fact, engaged exactly as the Israelites used to be,
making bricks with straw; and for a similar purpose, to build extensive
granaries for the bashaw; “treasure-cities for Pharaoh.” The same
intelligent missionary also observes: “The mollems transact business
between the bashaw and the peasants. He punishes them if the peasants
prove that they oppress; and yet he requires from them that the work of
those who are under them shall be fulfilled. They strikingly illustrate
the case of the officers placed by the Egyptian task-masters over the
children of Israel; and, like theirs, the mollems often find their case
is evil, Exodus v.”
8. It is not necessary to go over those parts of the Egyptian history
which occur in the Old Testament. The prophecies respecting this haughty
and idolatrous kingdom, uttered by Jeremiah and Ezekiel when it was in
the height of its splendour and prosperity, were fulfilled in the
terrible invasions of Nebuchadnezzar, Cambyses, and the Persian
monarchs. It comes, however, again into an interesting connection with
the Jewish history under Alexander the Great, who invaded it as a
Persian dependence. So great, indeed, was the hatred of the Egyptians
toward their oppressors, that they hailed the approach of the
Macedonians, and threw open their cities to receive them. Alexander,
merciless as he was to those who opposed his progress or authority, knew
how to requite those who were devoted to his interests; and the
Egyptians, for many centuries afterward, had reason to recollect with
gratitude his protection and foresight. It was he who discerned the
local advantages of the spot on which the city bearing his name
afterward stood, who projected the plan of the town, superintended its
erection, endowed it with many privileges, and peopled it with colonies
drawn from other places for the purpose, chiefly Greeks. But, together
with these, and the most favoured of all, were the Jews, who enjoyed the
free exercise of their religion, and the same civil rights and liberties
as the Macedonians themselves. Kindness shown to the people of Israel
has never, in the providence of God, brought evil on any country; and
there can be no doubt but that the encouragement given to this
enterprising and commercial people, assisted very much to promote the
interests of the new city, which soon became the capital of the kingdom,
the centre of commerce, of science, and the arts, and one of the most
flourishing and considerable cities in the world. Egypt, indeed, was
about to see better days; and, during the reigns of the Ptolemies,
enjoyed again, for nearly three hundred years, something of its former
renown for learning and power. It formed, during this period, and before
the rapid extension of the Roman empire toward the termination of these
years, one of the only two ancient kingdoms which had survived the
Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, and Macedonian empires: the other was the
Syrian, where the Seleucidæ, another family of one of the successors of
Alexander, reigned; who, having subdued Macedonia and Thrace, annexed
them to the kingdom of Syria, and there remained out of the four
kingdoms into which the empire of Alexander was divided these two only;
distinguished, in the prophetic writings of Daniel, by the titles of the
kings or kingdoms of the north and the south.
9. Under the reign of the three first Ptolemies, the state of the Jews
was exceedingly prosperous. They were in high favour, and continued to
enjoy all the advantages conferred upon them by Alexander. Judea was, in
fact, at this time, a privileged province of Egypt; the Jews being
governed by their own high priest, on paying a tribute to the kings of
Egypt. But in the reign of Ptolemy Epiphanes, the fifth of the race, it
was taken by Antiochus, king of Syria; which was the beginning of fresh
sufferings and persecutions; for although this Antiochus, who was the
one surnamed the Great, was a mild and generous prince, and behaved
favourably toward them, their troubles began at his death; his
successor, Seleucus, oppressing them with taxes; and the next was the
monster, Antiochus Epiphanes, whose impieties and cruelties are recorded
in the two books of Maccabees. But still, in Egypt, the Jews continued
in the enjoyment of their privileges, so late as the reign of the sixth
Ptolemy, called Philometor, who committed the charge of his affairs to
two Jews, Onias and Dositheus; the former of whom obtained permission to
build a temple at Heliopolis. The introduction of Christianity into
Egypt is mentioned under the article ALEXANDRIA.
10. The prophecies respecting Egypt in the Old Testament have had a
wonderful fulfilment. The knowledge of all its greatness and glory
deterred not the Jewish prophets from declaring, that Egypt would become
“a base kingdom, and never exalt itself any more among the nations.” And
the literal fulfilment of every prophecy affords as clear a
demonstration as can possibly be given, that each and all of them are
the dictates of inspiration. Egypt was the theme of many prophecies,
which were fulfilled in ancient times; and it bears to the present day,
as it has borne throughout many ages, every mark with which prophecy had
stamped its destiny: “They shall be a base kingdom. It shall be the
basest of kingdoms. Neither shall it exalt itself any more among the
nations: for I will diminish them, that they shall no more rule over the
nations. The pride of her power shall come down; and they shall be
desolate in the midst of the countries that are desolate; and her cities
shall be in the midst of the cities that are wasted. I will make the
land of Egypt desolate, and the country shall be desolate of that
whereof it was full. I will sell the land into the hand of the wicked. I
will make the land waste and all that is therein, by the hand of
strangers. I the Lord have spoken it. And there shall be no more a
prince of the land of Egypt,” Ezek. xxx, 5, 7, 12, 13. “The sceptre of
Egypt shall depart away,” Zech. x, 11.
11. Egypt became entirely subject to the Persians about three hundred
and fifty years previous to the Christian æra. It was afterward subdued
by the Macedonians, and was governed by the Ptolemies for the space of
two hundred and ninety-four years; until, about B. C. 30, it became a
province of the Roman empire. It continued long in subjection to the
Romans,--tributary first to Rome, and afterward to Constantinople. It
was transferred, A. D. 641, to the dominion of the Saracens. In 1250 the
Mamelukes deposed their rulers, and usurped the command of Egypt. A mode
of government, the most singular and surprising that ever existed on
earth, was established and maintained. Each successive ruler was raised
to supreme authority, from being a stranger and a slave. No son of the
former ruler, no native of Egypt, succeeded to the sovereignty; but a
chief was chosen from among a new race of imported slaves. When Egypt
became tributary to the Turks in 1517, the Mamelukes retained much of
their power; and every pasha was an oppressor and a stranger. During all
these ages, every attempt to emancipate the country, or to create a
prince of the land of Egypt, has proved abortive, and has often been
fatal to the aspirant. Though the facts relative to Egypt form too
prominent a feature in the history of the world to admit of
contradiction or doubt, yet the description of the fate of that country,
and of the form of its government, may be left, says Keith, to the
testimony of those whose authority no infidel will question, and whom no
man can accuse of adapting their descriptions to the predictions of the
event. Volney and Gibbon are our witnesses of the facts: “Such is the
state of Egypt. Deprived, twenty-three centuries ago, of her natural
proprietors, she has seen her fertile fields successively a prey to the
Persians, the Macedonians, the Romans, the Greeks, the Arabs, the
Georgians, and, at length, the race of Tartars distinguished by the name
of Ottoman Turks. The Mamelukes, purchased as slaves, and introduced as
soldiers, soon usurped the power and elected a leader. If their first
establishment was a singular event, their continuance is not less
extraordinary. They are replaced by slaves brought from their original
country. The system of oppression is methodical. Every thing the
traveller sees or hears reminds him he is in the country of slavery and
tyranny.” “A more unjust and absurd constitution cannot be devised than
that which condemns the natives of a country to perpetual servitude,
under the arbitrary dominion of strangers and slaves. Yet such has been
the state of Egypt above five hundred years. The most illustrious
sultans of the Baharite and Borgite dynasties were themselves promoted
from the Tartar and Circassian bands; and the four-and-twenty beys, or
military chiefs, have ever been succeeded, not by their sons, but by
their servants.” These are the words of Volney and of Gibbon; and what
did the ancient prophets foretel?--“I will lay the land waste, and all
that is therein, by the hands of _strangers_. I the Lord have spoken it.
And there shall be no more a prince of the land of Egypt. The sceptre of
Egypt shall depart away.” The prophecy adds: “They shall be a base
kingdom: it shall be the basest of kingdoms.” After the lapse of two
thousand and four hundred years from the date of this prophecy, a
scoffer at religion, but an eye witness of the facts, thus describes the
self-same spot: “In Egypt,” says Volney, “there is no middle class,
neither nobility, clergy, merchants, landholders. A universal air of
misery, manifest in all the traveller meets, points out to him the
rapacity of oppression, and the distrust attendant upon slavery. The
profound ignorance of the inhabitants equally prevents them from
perceiving the causes of their evils, or applying the necessary
remedies. Ignorance, diffused through every class, extends its effects
to every species of moral and physical knowledge. Nothing is talked of
but intestine troubles, the public misery, pecuniary extortions,
bastinadoes, and murders. Justice herself puts to death without
formality.” Other travellers describe the most execrable vices as
common, and represent the moral character of the people as corrupted to
the core. As a token of the desolation of the country, mud-walled
cottages are now the only habitations where the ruins of temples and
palaces abound. Egypt is surrounded by the dominions of the Turks and of
the Arabs; and the prophecy is literally true which marked it in the
midst of desolation: “They shall be desolate in the midst of the
countries that are desolate, and her cities shall be in the midst of the
cities that are wasted.” The systematic oppression, extortion, and
plunder, which have so long prevailed, and the price paid for his
authority and power by every Turkish pasha, have rendered the country
“desolate of that whereof it was full,” and still show both how it has
been “wasted by the hands of strangers,” and how it has been “sold into
the hand of the wicked.”
12. Egypt has, indeed, lately somewhat risen, under its present spirited
but despotic pasha, to a degree of importance and commerce. But this
pasha is still a _stranger_, and the dominion is foreign. Nor is there
any thing like a general advancement of the people to order,
intelligence and happiness. Yet this fact, instead of militating against
the truth of prophecy, may, possibly at no distant period, serve to
illustrate other predictions. “The Lord shall smite Egypt: he shall
smite and heal it; and they shall return to the Lord, and he shall be
entreated of them, and shall heal them. In that day shall Israel be the
third with Egypt and with Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of the
land,” &c, Isaiah xix, 22–25.