Lecture IV: Israel in Egypt (part 2)

by Arthur Penrhyn Stanly, D.D.           

   2.  There was yet another form of idolatry, never        
out of sight in Egypt, and brought out with immense     
force in the whole Mosaic description.  What     
were the dynasties that ruled at that time over       
the valley of the Nile, one or many, we need not       
 determine.  But the name of "Pharaoh" clearly ex-     
presses that the same virtue of regal consecration ran      
through them all; and the name of "Rameses," as      
applied to one of the treasure cities built by the         
Israelites, implies, with very great probability, that      
this name had already become famous amongst the      
Egyptian kings.  The statue, found near the ruins      
of what is almost certainly the site of Rameses, points       
without to the second of that name.  What then       
were the Pharaohs collectively in the eyes of the na-     
tion? and what was Rameses in particular? and what       
above all, was Rameses II?  We often hear it said        
that Egypt was governed by a theocracy; that is, as       
the word is meant when so applied, by a priestly       
caste.  This is not the answer given by her own au-       
thentic monuments.  Who is the colossal figure that sits,       
repeated gain and again, at the entrance of every       
temple?  Who is it that rides in his chariot, leading      
diminutive nations captive behind him?  To whom is      
it, that, in the frontispiece of every gateway, the gods       
give the falchion of destruction, with the command       
to "Slay, and slay, and slay"?  Whose sculptured im-    
age, in the interior of the Temple, is it that we see      
brought into the most familiar relations with the highest      
powers, equal in form and majesty, suckled by the     
greatest goddess, fondled by the greatest god, sitting       
beside them, arm entwined with arm, in the recesses     
of the most holy place?  It is no priest, or prophet, 
or magician, or saint, but the King only — the Pha-     
raoh, the Child of the Sun, the Beloved of Ammon.      
And, if there is one king who towers above       
all the rest in all the long succession, it is he whose       
name first dimly appears to us in the history of      
the Exodus, the great Rameses, the Sesostris of         
of the classical writers.  As of all objects of idolatry     
in the natural world of those early times, the stars        
and sun were the most overwhelming in their fas-      
cination, so in all the world of man, there was noth-      
ing to be compared to those mighty kings, least       
of all to the mighty conqueror who has left his traces      
throughout all the haunts of ancient civilization       
in Asia, and from end to end of his own country.     
With a certainty beyond that with which Alexander      
was acknowledged as the greatest sovereign of the      
Grecian, or Cæsar of the Roman world, must Rameses      
II have been hailed or feared as the hero of the pri-      
meval age before Greece and Rome were born.  His      
very form and face are before us, with a vividness      
which belongs only to these colossal representations,       
that refuse to be forgotten.  We see his profound yet       
scornful repose, expressed both in countenance and      
attitude.  We see the long profile, majestic and beau-     
tiful beyond any of his successors or predecessors.      
We even see the peculiar curl of his nostrils, and the     
fall of his under lip.  Such was the Pharaoh who           
must have looked down on the Israelite sojourners      
during some one period or generation of their stay      
in Egypt, probably during the time of their oppres-      
sion.          
   And such, not in detail but in its general outline,      
is the image presented to us by the Pharaoh       
of Scripture.  There is no other king of the Patri-      
archal times represented as nearly on the same level.       
Nimrod the mighty hunter has been indeed invested,     
by Oriental tradition — perhaps he appears in Assy-      
rian sculptures — with something of the same sanctity      
and majesty.  But he does not so appear in any part      
of the Sacred narrative.  Pharaoh is the only poten-       
tate whom Abraham and Jacob alike approach with       
awful reverence.  From Joseph and from Moses alike,      
whether as friend or foe, he commands the submissive      
respect of a subject who can of himself do nothing      
against the royal will.  "What God is about to do        
"He showeth unto Pharaoh."  "I am of uncircumcised        
lips, and how shall Pharaoh hearken unto me?"        
The supreme oath, by which safety of person and       
property is secured, is "By the life of Pharaoh."          
King-like and priest-like, he stands by the side of the       
sacred river, and sees in visions the good and evil       
fortunes of Egypt coming up from its stream.  At       
sunrise he goes out to look upon its beneficent wa-           
ters, as if it were all his own.  At a word he sum-       
mons princes, and priests, and magicians, and wise      
men, and interpreters around him.  at a word he      
plants a stranger over his people.  "See, I have set        
thee over all the land of Egypt. . . .  I am Pharaoh,       
and without thee shall no man lift up his hand or      
his foot in all the land of Egypt."  And when the      
last great struggle comes on between his power and      
that of a Greater than himself, it is the struggle rather      
of a god against the Lord, than of a man against a       
man.  He has hardened his heart like the Indian Ke-      
hama, rather than like a mortal prince of modern      
days.  If there were any prouder state or loftier dream      
in the primeval monarchies of Central Asia, it is re-      
markable that the Eastern traditions of the Exodus       
merge them in the person of the Egyptian sovereign;        
and in the Mahometan version of the Exodus, Nimrod     
and Pharaoh, the builder of the tower of Babel and        
the builder of the Pyramids, are blended together in       
one and the same gigantic, self-sufficing, God-defying      
king.  He stands with one foot on each of the two         
great Pyramids, and darts his spear into the sky in      
the hope of killing the Divine Adversary, who from      
the unseen heavens laughs him to scorn.  If we take       
the Pharaoh of Scripture from first to last, still the       
awful impression remains the same.  "Say unto Pha-     
raoh," was the language even of one of the latest        
Prophets, how much more of these earlier times, —         
"say unto Pharaoh, Whom art thou like in thy great-      
ness?"  Those who had lain prostrate under such a       
monarchy would feel doubly the contrast of the free-           
dom into which they were called.  The Exodus was         
a deliverance, not only from idolatry of false divinities,    
but from the idolatry of human strength and tyranny.       
In the long democracy of Israel, and the hesitation      
with which that democracy, "where every man did      
what was right in his own eyes," was exchanged     
even for the monarchy which was to produce a David      
and a Solomon, we see the protest against the awful      
form of government which had once bowed them      
down.        
   The evils of this ambiguous and degrade state fast      
developed themselves.  The old freedom, the old en-     
ergy, above all, the old religion, of the Patriarchal age            
faded away.  Not in the Pentateuch, but in the later      
books, the participation of Israel in the idolatry of      
Egypt is expressly stated.  "Your fathers served other        
gods. . . in Egypt."  "They forsook not the idols         
in Egypt."  The Sabbath, if it had existed in some     
shape amongst their fathers, as seems likely, was for-      
gotten; the rite of circumcision, by which the cove-      
nant with God had been made, fell into disuse; its         
loss became a reproach in the eyes even of their       
Egyptian masters, to whom, as to the rest of the an-      
cient Eastern world, it was a necessary sign of all       
cleanliness and of all civilization.  Like slaves, too,       
like all those wandering populations which hang at     
the gates of nations or classes more wealthy and more      
stable than themselves, they learned to cling with a         
kind of sensual affection to the land of their bondage,           
to the green meadows of the Nile valley, to "the      
flesh-pots, and melons, and cucumbers, and onions,"       
which it gave them in profusion; to the land "where        
they sowed their seed and watered it with their         
foot, as a garden of herbs."  We shall have to bear       
this in mind during their whole subsequent history,     
in order to appreciate both the necessity and the ef-      
fect of the vicissitudes which were dispensed to them.     
The bare Desert and the bald hills of Palestine formed       
a wholesome and perpetual contrast to the magnifi-        
cence and the fertility of Egypt.  They formed, as it      
were, a natural Monasticism, a natural Puritanism, —        
in which the luxuries, and the superstitions, and the      
barbarism of their servile state were set aside by      
sterner and higher influences.  But they were always       
taught, with pathetic earnestness, never to forget, nay          
even, in a certain sense, to feel for and with, the     
condition of slavery which had been their original      
portion.  "Remember that thou was a 'slave' in the       
land of Egypt."  On this recollection, as on an im-     
movable thought never to be erased from their minds,      
are made to repose even the great institutions of the    
Sabbath and the Jubilee.                   
   3.  There were two other traces of their dependent        
position in Egypt, which may be noticed as        
having left indelible marks both on their records and      
those of the nation which cast them out.  One is        
the disease of leprosy, — which for the first time      
appears after the stay in Egypt, — is it too much       
to suppose? — generated by the habits incident to       
their depressed state and crowded population.  In the      
Israelite annals it appears only in individual though        
most significant instances, — the hand of Moses, the     
face of Miriam.  But the severe provisions of the Le-      
vitical law imply its wider spread; and in the Egyp-      
tian traditions the remembrance, as was natural, took       
a stronger and more general color of aversion and     
disgust, and represented the whole people as a nation     
of lepers, cast out on that account.               
   4.  The other relic of repugnance between the two     
races, though slight in itself, is both more      
deeply seated in their original diversity of       
customs, and more lasting in its results.  There is one      
animal which, even more than the camel, is from first      
to last identified with the history of Israel.  With      
he-asses and she-asses Abraham returned from Egypt;      
with the ass Abraham went up with Isaac to the          
sacrifice; on asses Joseph's brethren came thither;      
on an ass Moses set his wife and his sons on his      
return from Arabia to Egypt; an old man seated on      
an ass was the likeness of him which, according to      
gentile traditions, his countrymen delighted to honor.       
On white asses or mules, through the whole period      
of the early history till their first contact with       
foreign nations in the reign of Solomon, their princes        
rode in state; the prophecy, fulfilled in the close of      
their history, was that "their King should come      
riding on an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass."  It       
was the long-continued mark of their ancient, pas-      
toral, simple condition.  The rival horse came into        
Palestine slowly and unlawfully, and was always spoken        
of as the sign of the pride and power of Egypt; in       
the funeral procession of Jacob the chariots and horses      
of Egypt are specially contrasted with the asses of      
the sons of Israel; they who in later times put their      
trust in Egypt founded that trust in her chariots and          
horses.  But we know not only the Israelite, but the         
Egyptian feeling also.  Whilst on the Theban monu-       
ments the war-horse is always at hand, the ass, in    
their minds, was regarded as the exclusive, the con-        
temned symbol of the nomadic race who had left       
them.  On asses they were described as flying from     
Egypt; asses, it was believed, had guided them      
through the desert; in the Holy of Holies (to such      
a pitch of exaggeration was the story carried) the         
mysterious object of Jewish worship was held to be     
an ass's head; and so deeply and so generally was     
this persuasion communicated to the heathen world,             
that when a new Jewish sect, as it was thought, arose       
under the name of "Christian," the favorite theme of      
reproach and of caricature was that they worshipped     
in like manner an ass, the son of an ass, even on the       
Cross itself.  So long and far were the effects visible      
of this primitive diversity between the civilized king-     
dom of the Pharaohs and the pastoral tribe of the land      
of Goshen.  So innocent was the occasion of this long-        
standing calumny, — a calumny not of generations or     
centuries, but of milleniums' growth before it was      
dispelled; perhaps the most remarkable of all the        
many like slanders and fables invented, in the course     
of ecclesiastical history, by the bitterness of national    
or theological hatred.         
   5.  Such are some of the points, greater or smaller,      
of lasting antagonism which their original relations      
left between Egypt and Israel.  But there are         
also points of contact.  It would be against       
the analogy of the whole history, to suppose that this        
long period was wasted in its effect on the mind of      
the Chosen People; that the same Divine Providence       
which in later times drew new truths out of the Chal-     
dæan captivity for the Jewish Church, out of the       
Grecian philosophy and the Roman law for the       
Christian Church, should have made no use of the     
greatness of Egypt in this first and most important       
stage of the education of Israel.             
   We need not go to heathen records for the assur-     
ance that Moses was learned in all the wisdom of      
"the Egyptians."  Whatever that wisdom was, we can     
not doubt it was turned to its own good purpose in      
the laws through him revealed to the people of God.          
The very minuteness of the law implies a stage of     
existence different to that in which the Patriarchs     
had lived, but like to that in which we know that       
the Egyptians lived.  The forms of some of the most      
solemn sacrifices — as, for example, the scapegoat —       
are almost identical.  The white linen dresses of the       
priests, the Urim and the Thummim on the high-priest's     
breast-late, are, to all appearances, derived from the      
same source as the analogous emblems amongst the     
Egyptians.  The sacred ark, as portrayed on the       
monuments, can hardly fail to have some relation to     
that which was borne by the Levites at the head of      
the host, and which was finally enshrined in the Tem-      
ple.  The Temple, at least in some of its most re-         
markable features, — its courts, its successive chambers,      
and its adytum, or Holy of Holies, — is more like those      
of Egypt than any other of the ancient world with     
which we are acquainted.  In these and in many       
other instances we may fairly trace a true affiliation       
of such outward customs and forms, as in like manner,      
at a later period, the Christian Church took from the        
Pagan ritual of the empire in which it had sojourned       
for its four hundred years.  It is but an expansion      
of the one fact which has always arrested the atten-     
tion of the commentators, and which in its widest sense      
is a salutary warning against despising the greatness       
and the wisdom of the heathen.          
       "This world of thine, by him usurp'd too long,     
        Now opens all her stores to heal thy servants' wrong."           
Rachel carried off her father's teraphim from Meso-      
potamia; the wives and daughters of Israel carried off     
from Egypt the sacred gems and vestments, which         
afterwards served to adorn the priestly services of the    
Tabernacle.  "When ye go, ye shall not go empty    
But every woman shall borrow of her neighbour . . .          
jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment, and         
ye shall put them upon your sons and upon your       
daughters. . . .  And the Lord gave the people      
favour in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they      
lent unto them such things as they required, and     
they spoiled the Egyptians."        
   Yet the contrast was always greater than the like-     
ness.  When we survey the vast array of an-      
cient ideas represented to us in the Egyptian        
temples and sepulchres, the thought forced upon us is          
rather of the fewness than of the frequency of illus-       
trations which they furnish.  Of this absence of in-      
fluence perhaps the most remarkable instance lies in      
the fact that whilst the Egyptian sculptures abound     
with representations of the future state, and of the      
judgment after death, the Jewish Scriptures, at least     
in the Pentateuch, abstain almost entirely from any      
direct or distinct mention of either.  A wider connec-     
tion, indeed, might be maintained if we could trust     
the later descriptions of Egyptian theology and philos-      
ophy.  It was strongly believed in the Greek schools     
of Alexandria, that behind the multitude of forms,      
human divine, bestial, grotesque, which filled the      
Egyptian shrines, there was yet in the minds of the       
sacred and the learned few a deep-seated belief in     
One Supreme Intelligence, and thus the distinguishing     
mark of the Mosaic Revelation would have been, not      
so much that it disclosed and insisted on this funda-      
mental truth, but that what had been hitherto confined      
to a priestly caste was for the first time made the com-       
mon property of a whole people.  Such may possibly     
have been the case.  But it is not the natural impres-     
sion left by the monuments.  The crowd of gods and     
goddesses, above all, the overwhelming deification of     
the Pharaohs, of which I have before spoken, seems      
almost impossible to reconcile with any strong Mono-      
theistic belief in Egypt, however far withdrawn into      
the recesses of schools or priesthoods.  One ever-re-     
curring symbol, however, of such a belief appears in       
color and sculpture on the Egyptian monuments, as in      
the Hebrew records it appears also both in word and       
act.  Everywhere, but especially under the portal of      
every Temple, are stretched out the wide-spread wings,      
— blue, as if with the cloudless blue of the overarch-    
ing heavens, — covering the sanctuary, as if with the      
shelter of some invisible protector.  This may be the     
accidental recurrence of the symbol simply and naturally    
expressive of a beneficent overruling Power.  But it   
is the nearest authentic approach which the Egyptian     
monuments furnish to such an idea.  It is the image      
to which, in one sublime passage, at least, the Divine         
presence is directly compared, "as it were a paved work      
of a sapphire stone, as it were the body of heaven in     
his clearness."  It is an exact likeness of the wings     
which formed the covering of the ark in the Taber-     
nacle and the Temple, — of the feeling which has been     
made immortal in the words, "Under the shadow of       
Thy wings shall be my refuge."           

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. 98-109