Lecture IV: Israel in Egypt (part 1)

by Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D.          

   The appearance of Joseph in Egypt is the first dis-      
tinct point of contact between sacred and secular his-      
tory, and it is, accordingly, not surprising that in later      
times this part of the story should have become the       
basis of innumerable fancies and traditions outside the       
limits of the Biblical narrative.  His arrival in Egypt,       
his acquisition of magical art, his beauty, his interpre-      
tation of dreams, his prediction of the famine, his favor      
with the king, are told briefly but accurately in the         
compilation of the historian Justin.  The feud of the       
modern Samaritans and Jews is carried up by them      
to the feud between Joseph and his brethren.  The         
history of Joseph and Asenath is to this day one of        
the canonical books of the Church of Armenia.  To the         
description of the loves of Joseph and Zuleika in the       
Koran, Mahomet appealed as one of the chief proofs of       
his inspiration.  Christian pilgrims of the Middle Ages     
took for granted that the three or seven pyramids      
which they saw from the Nile could be nothing else        
than Joseph's barns.  The well of Joseph and the canal      
of Joseph are still shown to unsuspecting travellers by      
unsuspecting guides, from a wild but not unnatural con-         
fusion of his career with that of his great Mussulman       
namesake, the Sultan Yussuf, or Joseph, Saladin I.  But      
the most solid links of connection between the story of      
Joseph and the state of the ancient world are those       
which are supplied by the simple story itself on the     
one hand, and our constantly increasing knowledge     
of the Egyptian monuments on the other hand.        
   I.  It has been said that Egypt must have presented       
to the nomadic tribes of Asia the same con-      
trast and the same attractions that Italy and      
the southern provinces of the Roman Empire pre-        
sented to the Gothic and Celtic tribes who descended      
upon them from beyond the Alps.  Such is, in fact,         
the impression left upon our minds when we are first      
introduced into the full view of Egypt, as we follow       
in the track of the caravan of Arabian merchants who         
carried off Joseph from the wells of Dothan.  We need     
only touch on the main incidents in the story to see      
that it is the chief seat of power and civilization then          
known in the world, and that it is the same as that       
of which the memorials have been so wonderfully pre-     
served to our own time.  What I have said of       
the retention of the outward appearance of the Pa-      
triarchs in the unchangeable customs of the Arabian       
tribes, is true, in another sense, of the retention of         
the outward appearance of the Pharaohs in the un-     
changeable monuments of Egypt.  The extraordinary       
clearness and dryness of the climate, the singular        
vicinity of the desert sands which have preserved      
what they have overwhelmed, the passionate desire      
of the old Egyptians to perpetuate every familiar and        
loved object as long as human power and skill could      
reach, have all contributed to this result.  The wars,      
the amusements, the meals, the employments, the      
portraits, nay even the very bodies, of those ancient     
fathers of the civilized world are still amongst us.  We        
can form a clearer image of the court of the Pha-       
raohs, in all external matters, than we can of the     
court of Augustus.  And, therefore, at each successive      
disclosure of the state of Egypt in the Sacred narra-     
tive, we find ourselves amongst old friends and familiar     
faces.  We know not whether we may not have      
touched a human hand that was pressed by the hand      
of Jacob or Joseph.  We are sure, as we gaze on the      
contemporary pictures of regal or social life, that we     
are seeing the very same customs and employments     
in which they partook.       
   We see Pharaoh surrounded by the great officers          
of his court, each at the head of his department, re-       
sponsible, as at the present day, for the conduct of     
every one beneath him; the prison, the bakery, the      
vintage, the wise men, the stewards, the priests, the     
high priest.  The Nile presents itself to us for the       
first time under its peculiar Hebrew name, which in-       
dicates its strange and unique significance amongst the        
rivers of the earth.  The papyrus, which then grew       
in its stream, is now extinct; but the green slip of       
land, achu, — "meadow," as it is translated, runs along      
its banks now, as then.  Out of its waters, swimming       
across its stream, come up the buffaloes or the sacred      
kine, as in Pharaoh's dream, the fit symbols of the       
leanness or the fertility of the future years.  The       
drought which withers up the herbage of the sur-       
rounding countries, brings famine on Egypt also.  The       
Nile (so we must of necessity interpret the vision of           
Pharaoh and its fulfilment), from the failure of the          
Abyssinian rains, fell short of its due level.  Twice       
only, in the eleventh and in the twelfth centuries of     
the Christian era, such a catastrophe is described by       
Arabian historians in terms which give us a full con-       
ception of the calamity from which Joseph delivered      
the country.  The first lasted, like that of Joseph, for      
seven years: of the other, the most fearful details are       
given by an eye-witness.  "Then the year presented       
itself as a monster whose wrath must annihilate all       
the resources of life and all the means of subsist-      
ence.  The famine began . . . large numbers emi-     
grated. . . .  The poor ate carrion, corpses, and       
dogs. . . .  They went further, devouring even little     
children.  The eating of human flesh became so com-       
mon as to excite no surprise. . . .  The people spoke       
and heard of it as of an indifferent thing. . . .  As       
for the number of the poor who perished from hun-       
ger and exhaustion, God alone knows what it was.       
. . . A traveller often passed through a large vil-       
lage without seeing a single living inhabitant. . . .        
In one village we saw the dwellers of each house       
extended dead, the husband, the wife, and the chil-       
dren. . . .  In another, where till late there had         
been four hundred weaving shops, we saw in like      
manner the weaver dead in his corn-pit, and all his       
dead family round him.  We were here reminded of        
the text of the Koran, 'One single cry was heard,      
and they all perished.'  The road between Egypt     
and Syria was like a vast field sown with human      
bodies, or rather like a plain which has just been      
swept by the scythe of the mower.  It had become      
as a banquet hall for the birds, wild beasts, and     
dogs, which gorged on their flesh."  These are but     
a few of the horrors which Abd-el-Latif details, and       
which may well explain to us how "the land of Egypt      
fainted by reason of famine," — how the cry came      
up year by year to Joseph: "Give us bread, for why      
should we die in thy presence?  Wherefore shall we      
die before thine eyes, both we and our land?  Buy      
us and our land for bread, and we and our land will     
be 'slaves' to Pharaoh; and give us seed that we      
may live and not die, and that the land be not     
desolate. . . .  Thou hast saved our lives; let us      
find grace in the sight of my lord, and we will be     
Pharaoh's 'slaves.' "  What were the per-      
manent results of the legislation ascribed to      
Joseph, and what its relation to the regulations     
ascribed to others in Gentile historians, are questions       
which belong to the still obscure region of Egyptian      
history.  But there is no difficulty in conceiving from      
what is to be seen in the past and the present state       
of Egypt the causes and the nature of Joseph's great-     
ness; how the Hebrew slave, through rapid transi-     
tions of Oriental life, became the ruler of the land; in       
language, dress, and appearance a member of the great     
Egyptian aristocracy, "binding their princes at his          
pleasure, and teaching their senators wisdom."  He     
is invested with the golden chain or necklace as with      
an order, exactly according to the investiture of the       
royal officers, as represented in the Theban sculptures.       
He is clothed in the white robe of sacred state, that        
appears in such marked contrast on the tawny figures     
of the ancient priests.  He bears the royal ring, such       
as are still found in the earliest sepulchres.  He rides          
in the royal chariot that is seen so often rolling its        
solemn way in the monumental processions.  Before       
him goes the cry of some Egyptian shout (Abrech!),      
evidently resembling those which now in the streets     
of Cairo clear the way for any great personage driv-        
ing through the crowded masses of man and beast.    
His Hebrew name of Joseph disappears in the sound-       
ing Egyptian title, whichever version of it we adopt,       
— Zapnath Paaneach, "Revealer of secrets," or Pson-     
thom Phanêch, "Saviour of the age."  He becomes            
the son-in-law of the High Priest of the Sun-God in      
the sacred city of On.  He and his wife Asenath, the          
servant of the goddess Neith (the Egyptian Athene     
or Minerva), may henceforth be conceived, as in th4        
many connubial monuments of the priestly order, each      
with their arms intertwined round the other's neck,      
each looking out from the other's embrace with the       
peculiar placid look which makes these old Egyptian       
tablets the earliest type of the solemn happiness and         
calm of a stately marriage.  The multiplication of his       
progeny is compared, not to the stars of the Chal-     
dæan heavens, or to the sand of the Syrian shore, but      
to the countless fish swarming in the great Egyptian    
river.  Not til death, and hardly even then, does      
he return to the customs of his fathers.  He is em-      
balmed with Egyptian skill, and laid in the usual     
Egyptian case or coffin.  He rests not in any Egyp-     
tian tomb, but yet not, even as his father, in the an-    
cestral cave of Machpelah.  An Israelite at heart but      
an Egyptian in outward form, "separate from his      
"brethren" by the singular Providence that had chosen     
him for a special purpose, he was to lie apart from     
the great Patriarchal family in the fairest spot in Pal-     
estine marked out specially for himself.  In the rich       
cornfield, hard by his father's well, centuries after-        
wards, "the bones of Joseph, which the children of       
Israel brought up out of Egypt, buried they in      
Shechem, in the parcel of ground which Jacob      
bought of the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem      
for a hundred pieces of silver."  The whole region      
round became by this consecration "the inheritance     
of the sons of Joseph."  And if the name of Joseph     
never reached the same commanding eminence as      
that of Abraham or Jacob, it was yet a frequent des-      
ignation of the whole people, and a constant desig-      
nation of the larger portion.       
   II.  Thus ended the career of the Hebrew viceroy     
of the Pharaohs.  And so "Israel abode in     
Egypt, and Jacob was a stranger in the land       
of Ham."  In this transplantation of the Chosen     
People, the vine was to strike its first roots.  From     
the same valley of the Nile, whence flowed the culture        
of Greece, was to flow also the religion of Palestine.     
That same land of ancient learning, which in the     
schools of Alexandria was, ages afterwards, the first      
settled home and shelter of the wandering Christian      
Church, was also the first settled home and shelter      
of the wandering Jewish nation.  Egypt was the       
meeting point, geographically and historically, of the       
three continents of the ancient world.  It could not     
but bear its part in the nurture of that people which       
was itself to influence and guide them all.          
   In considering the stay of Israel in Egypt, two com-      
plicated questions arise.  The first refers to the rela-       
tion of Israel to the dynasty of the Hyksos, or Shepherd     
Kings, of whom we read in Manetho.  Were they the      
same?  The second question, partly dependent on the      
first, refers to the length of the period of the Israelite     
settlement.  Was it two hundred and fifteen years     
(according to the Septuagint), or four hundred and       
thirty years (according to the Hebrew), or a thousand        
years according to the modern computations of Egyp-      
tian chronology?  We need not enter into any detailed      
answer.  Not only are the present materials too     
conflicting and scanty to justify any certain con-     
clusion, but there is, we may trust, a reasonable pros-       
pect that any conclusion now formed may be modi-     
fied or reversed by fresh discoveries in Egyptian      
investigations.  Two facts, however, emerge out of the       
obscurity, essential to the understanding of the future     
history.        
   1.  First, whatever may be the true version of the in-     
vasion of the Shepherd Kings, the migration      
of the Israelites into Egypt was undoubtedly     
that of a pastoral people, distinct in manners,     
customs, and origin from the nation with whom     
they sojourned.  "The shepherds," even when Herod-     
otus was told that the Pyramids were built by the        
shepherd Philition, who used to feed his flocks at     
their base, it was an echo of the long-protracted       
hatred which the Egyptians still cherished against the        
memory of the pastoral tribe of Palestine.  "Thy      
servants are shepherds, thy servants' trade hath been      
about cattle from our youth, even until now; both      
we and also our fathers; they have brought their       
flocks and herds, and all that they have."  They     
were a Bedouin tribe still, as truly as the Arab tribes      
who now tend their camels underneath the Pyramids.     
The only incidents of their history during this period      
belong to this pastoral state, — the incursion of the       
inhabitants of Gath to drive away the cattle of the      
Ephraimites, and the revenge of the Ephraimites.  The Land       
of Goshen was the frontier land, reckoned as in     
Arabia rather than in Egypt; on the confines of the      
green valley, yet on the verge of the yellow desert,     
they fed their flocks, they watched the royal herds.     
In one of the most ancient of all the tombs of Egypt,      
that called by the wild Arab tribe which once dwelt    
on it, Beni Hassan, — the children of Hassan, — is     
depicted a procession which used once to be called       
the presentation of Joseph's brethren.  This it cer-    
tainly is not.  There is no person in the picture cor-     
responding either to Joseph or Pharaoh.  Nor is there     
any exact likeness either in the number of the      
persons represented, or of the produce which they      
bring.  But, though not bearing any direct reference    
to this special event, it is yet an instructive illustration    
of the general relation of the Israelites to Egypt.    
The dresses, physiognomy, and beards of the procession      
point them out to be foreigners; whilst their atti-      
tude and appearance equally show that they are not       
captives.  The produce they bring is evidently from      
the desert, long herds of ostriches.  The character      
which pervades the whole — children carried in pan-      
niers on the backs of asses — exactly agrees with the     
Patriarchal nature of the first Israelite settlement.         
   2.  If this, and like indications, illustrate the earlier     
portion of the stay in Egypt, the ancient repre-       
sentations and modern customs, which seem     
to have retained through all the changes of govern-    
ment a peculiar character of their own, illustrate the     
second portion.  When the "new king arose that       
knew not Joseph," whether from change of dynasty     
or character, they sank lower still; they became, like      
so many ancient tribes in older times, the public serfs       
or slaves of the ruling race.  Like the Pelasgians in     
Attica, like the Gibeonites afterwards in their own      
Palestine, they were employed, if not in those gigantic      
works which still speak of the sacrifice and toil of the      
multitude by whom they were erected, yet in making      
bricks for treasure cities and fastnesses, as may be     
seen in the representations of the Theban tombs, where       
Asiatics at least, if not Jews, are shown working by       
hundreds at this very occupation.  Not only was there     
the well-known brick pyramid, probably long anterior     
to the Israelite migration, but all the outer enclosures    
of cities, temples, and tombs were high walls of crude     
brick.  And they were also drawn away from their     
free trade of shepherds to the hard labor of "service     
in the field," such as we still see along the banks of      
the Nile, where the peasants, naked under the burning     
sun, work throughout the day, like pieces of machinery,    
in drawing up the buckets of water from the level of      
the river for the irrigation of the fields above.  The      
cruel punishment which is described as aggravating      
their bondage, as when Moses saw the Egyptian strik-     
ing the Israelite, and as when the Israelite officers set       
over their countrymen were themselves beaten for      
their countrymen's shortcomings, is the exact likeness    
of the bastinado, which appears equally on the ancient      
monuments and in the modern villages of Egypt.  The      
complaint of the Israelites against their own officers is    
the same feeling which in popular songs is herd from     
modern Egyptian peasants, for the same reason, against      
the chiefs of their own village: "The chief of the vil-      
lage, the chief of the village, may the dogs tear him,     
tear him, tear him!"  It is said that in the gangs     
of boys and girls set to work along the Nile is to be     
heard the strophe and antistrophe of a melancholy cho-     
rus: "They starve us, they starve us," — "They beat     
us, they beat us;" to which both alike reply, "But     
there's some one above, there's some one above, who     
will punish them well, who will punish them well."        
This, with but very slight changes, must have been     
the cry which went up from the afflicted Israelites     
"by reason of their taskmasters."            
   III.  Whatever may have been the precise length of    
their sojourn or their bondage, it was at any      
rate long enough to have rendered Egypt      
thoroughly familiar to them.  They seem indeed to     
have left but slight traces of themselves on Egypt or    
its monuments.  Memphis, which would have been most    
likely to retain indications of their visit and of their      
Exodus, has been buried or swept away; and no di-     
rect mention of the Jews occurs in any Egyptian sculp-     
ture or picture, till the representation of the conquest    
of Judah by Shishak, many centuries later.  But on      
the Israelites, whether by way of contrast or illustra-     
tion, the Egyptian worship and manners left an im-      
pression almost as distinct and as durable as that which    
the Roman Empire, under analogous circumstances in    
long subsequent ages, implanted on the customs and     
feelings of the early Christian Church.       
   1.  Take the first scene with which they were most    
likely to come into contact.  We know not    
with certainty the chief city of the Egyptian empire     
at the time of the entrance or of the flight of the    
Israelites.  Memphis was probably the capital, at least      
of Lower Egypt, and the constant mention of the       
river implies that Pharaoh was then living on its    
banks.  Zoan, or Tanis, is the only town directly     
mentioned in connection with this early age.  Its sit-     
uation in the Delta would correspond with the neigh-     
borhood of Goshen; and as it was undoubtedly at one    
period of Egyptian history the seat of a royal dynasty,        
so it may have been at the time of the Exodus.         
There is, however, another city, not the residence of     
the court, but which is constantly brought before us     
in connection with the whole history of Israel, which     
still in part remains, and which, with the illustrations     
that it receives from the other Egyptian monuments,    
may well serve as a framework to our whole concep-    
tion of Egypt as it appeared to the Israelites.  On,    
Heliopolis, the city of the Sun, was the spot in which    
heathen tradition fixed the residence of Abraham;     
and, with more certainty, the education — according    
to one version the birth — of Moses.  It was undoubt-      
edly the dwelling-place of Joseph's bride.  It was near      
the land of Goshen.  It was close by the later colony     
of Leontopolis set up by the second settlement of         
Israel in Egypt, after the Babylonian captivity.  It     
contains the sacred fig-tree shown to pilgrims for many     
centuries as that under which the Holy Family rested       
when, for the last time, the ancient prophecy was        
fulfilled, "Out of Egypt have I called my Son."  It is     
thus connected with every stage of the Sacred history;      
but its special concern is with the period preceding     
he Exodus.  Even if it was not actually the school    
of Moses, it must have been constantly within his    
sight and that of his countrymen, as they passed to     
and fro between their pastures and the Nile.       
   It stands on the edge of the cultivated ground.     
The vast enclosure of its brick walls still remains,     
now almost powdered into dust; but, according to the     
tradition of the Setuagint, the very walls built by     
the Israelite bondmen.  Within this enclosure, in the    
space now occupied by tangled gardens, rose the great    
Temple of the Sun, which gave its name and object     
to the city.  How important in Egypt was that wor-     
ship, may be best understood by remembering that     
from it were derived the chief names by which Kings     
and priest were called — "Pha-raoh," "The Child of     
the Sun:"  "Potiphe-rah,"  "The Servant of the Sun."       
And what its aspect was in Heliopolis may be known      
partly from the detailed description which Strabo has      
left of its buildings, as still standing in his own time;         
and yet more from the fact that the one Egyptian    
temple which to this day retains its sculptures and     
internal arrangements almost unaltered, that of Ipsam-      
bul, is the temple of Ra, or the Sun.  In Heliopolis,     
as elsewhere, was the avenue of sphinxes leading to     
the huge gateway, whence flew, from gigantic flag-     
staffs, the red and blue streamers.  Before and behind     
the gateway stood, two by two, the collosal petrifac-     
tions of the sunbeam, the obelisks, of which one alone     
now remains to mourn the loss of all its brethren.         
Close by was the sacred spring of the Sun, a rare        
sight in Egypt, and therefore the more precious, and       
probably the original cause of the selection of this      
remote corner of Egypt for so famous a sanctuary.     
This too still remains, almost choked by the rank lux-    
uriance of the aquatic plants which have gathered     
over its waters.  Round the cloisters of the vast courts    
into which these gateways opened were spacious man-     
sions, forming the canonical residences, if one may so        
call them, of the priests and professors of On: for     
Heliopolis, we must remember, was the Oxford of an-     
cient Egypt, the seat of its learning in early times, as       
Alexandria was in later times; the university, or rather    
perhaps the college, gathered round the Temple of the      
Sun, as Christ Church round the old cathedral or     
shrine of S. Frideswide.  Thither Herodotus came to     
gather information for his travels; and thither, cen-      
turies later, the more careful and accurate Strabo.     
The city in his time was in a state of comparative     
desolation; it had never fully recovered the shock        
of the fanatical devastation of Cambyses.  A long     
vacancy, a vacation of centuries, had passed over it.      
Priests and philosophers, canons and professors, alike    
were gone, and only a few chaplains and vergers      
lingered in the sacred precincts, to carry on the ser-     
vice of the temple and to show strangers over the     
silent quadrangles and deserted cloisters.  Amongst    
these was pointed out to Strabo the house in which    
Plato had lived for thirteen years.  Perhaps he may     
have been also shown, or, had he been there a few      
generations earlier, would have been shown, the house     
which had received Moses when he studied there      
under the Egyptian named Osarsiph.  In the cen-    
tre of all stood the Temple itself.  Over the portal,      
we can hardly doubt, was the figure of the Sun-god;        
not in the sublime indistinctness of his natural ob,      
nor yet in the beautiful impersonation of the Grecian      
Apollo, but in the strange grotesque form of the Hawk-     
headed monster.  Enter; and the dark Temple opens      
and contracts successively into its outermost, its inner,    
and its innermost hall; the Osiride figures in their      
placid majesty support the first, the wild and savage     
exploits of kings and heroes fill the second; and in the     
furthest recesses of all, underneath the carved figure of     
the Sun-god, and beside the solid altar, sat in his       
gilded cage the sacred hawk, or lay crouched on his    
purple bed the sacred black calf, Mnevis, or Urmer;      
each the living, almost incarnate, representation of the      
deity of the Temple.  Thrice a day before the deified     
beast the incense was offered, and once a month the     
solemn sacrifice.  Each on his death was duly em-     
balmed and deposited in a splendid sarcophagus.  One     
such mummy calf is still to be seen at Cairo.  He      
was the great rival of the bull Apis at Memphis; and      
Hadrian, when in Egypt, had to determine a contro-        
versy respecting their precedence.  The sepulchres     
of the long succession of deified calves at Heliopolis    
corresponded to those of the deified bulls at Mem-      
phis.  It was after seeing such a strange and mon-       
strous climax to so much power and splendor and     
wisdom, that the Israelites were likely both to need    
and to feel the force of the warning voice: "Thou     
shalt not make any likeness of anything that is in       
the heaven above or in the earth beneath; . . . the      
likeness of any beast that is on the earth, the like-     
ness of any winged fowl that flieth in the air."         
The molten calf in the wilderness, the golden calves      
of Dan and Bethel, were reminiscences, not to be     
wiped out of the national memory for centuries, of       
the consecrated calf of Ra, the god Mnevis.         

from The History of the Jewish Church, Vol. I : Abraham to Samuel,
Lecture IV: Israel in Egypt
by Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D., Dean of Westminster
Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1879, pp. 83-98