invent for a historical background, that natural face of Sinai, is no more possible, than it would be, to create the Sinai of reality out of nothing. Yet here, on the background of the history in Exodus, is exactly that unique face of Sinai; with far more of clear unmistakeable distinctness than there is, on the background of the Waverley Novels, the face of that Scotland so well known, and so dearly loved, by Sir Walter.

Again, the face of Egypt of the Pharaohs in the Mosaic age, especially its aspects of natural human life, has through discovery of ancient monuments, come to be known to us, such as it must have been at the time of the Exodus and for a thousand years before. But that ancient face of Egypt had been buried, out of the sight and memory of mankind, through all the period between this and the dawning of most ancient history of Rome and Greece. Diodorus the Sicilian, about the time of Christ writes about Egypt one whole Book (II.) of his Bibliotheca of universal history. Herodotus, "the father of history," devotes to Egypt the most elaborate Book (11.) of his Nine Muses; and he travelled in Egypt personally, and studied it with characteristic ardour of his child-like enlightened curiosity. These two no doubt knew all that could be ascertained about Egypt by the ancient Romans and Greeks. And yet, of that most ancient Egypt now in question, they manifestly had no distinct conception. There never has been anything like it in the very dreams of men. Of course a large part of all human life is the same in all ages, as all human faces of individuals have very much in common. But one face differs from another, and that ancient Egypt was different from all other countries of all time. Its face of human life is as unique and unparalleled as the Sinaitic face of natural scenery. And that ancient face of Egypt is exactly pictured on the background of this history.

Again, it is not only a single face that we have here, nor two single faces; but (Janus-like) a double face, of Egypt-Sinai, or SinaiEgypt. The probability, of course, is thus vastly augmented, of the pictures being truly derived from observation of the original. And the thing, the only thing, that makes the two, so unlike one another, to be one living face is the wonderful history of redemption, through which the two are vitally connected in this Book of Exodus. The force of the argument thus arising can be fully felt only through the details, which are given in the following parts of this chapter, and in the Commentary. But already we perceive, the significance of the

fact, that the theatre of the events was not imagined in dream, but observed by eyes capable of perceiving. Here we are not in dreamland, but on solid historic ground, in a clear historic light.

1. Egypt "the monuments.”

Egypt, the name so familiar to us from the ancient Greeks and Romans, was not known to the ancient Egyptians. Nile, the Greek and Roman name of their great River, was unknown to them. And the Greeks and Romans did not know the Bible name of Egypt, nor the title of Pharaoh, which outside of Egypt is found in the Bible alone in ancient literature. Until our own day, the knowledge which could be obtained of that most ancient land was only such as a botanist in last century could have of the geological history of the earth. Josephus and Philo Judæus had added a little of Hebrew colouring to the little of real knowledge of that primæval Egypt which was possessed by the Romans and the Greeks. And Christian scholars made bricks without straw.1 The learned world was a child, at the door of a vast museum of antiquities: the door was locked, and the key was lost. Not only the "monuments were mostly buried out of sight and memory. The language was not known. So was even the alphabet, popular and hieroglyphic, in which the inscription on the monuments was written.2

The wonderful romance of the recovery of the language, decipherment of the inscriptions, and interpretation of the monuments, has resulted in monumental history" of that Egypt, embodying a real knowledge more comprehensive than could be attained to by any one Pharaoh with all his magicians. So recently as seven years ago, one discovery included the bodies of between thirty and forty kings of that most ancient Egypt, along with various indications of the history of their times.

Now if the writers of the Bible had not a real knowledge of that Egypt, the imposture of their professed knowledge of it would by these discoveries be exposed. How, then, stands the fact? The knowledge of these antiquities is now a distinct science-Egyptology.

1 H. Wilkins, Aegyptiaca. We ought not to forget the Spicilegia Aegyptiaca of William Jamieson, blind Professor of Theology, in Glasgow at the beginning of last century.

2 Dr. Rawlinson's Books are in this relation of the greatest value: History of Egypt, Ancient Empires, etc.

And a confessedly first-class Egyptologist1 has borne witness that Egyptologists look upon the "Egyptian" portion of the Pentateuch (Gen. xxxix.-Ex. xv.) with the same confidence as if it had been a monument of that ancient Egypt known to have been executed by the Egyptians themselves at the time. In this he speaks not for himself only, but for Egyptologists as a class. The picture which the child had in its possession is exact.

The detailed illustrations of the Pentateuch to be found in that unburied Egypt might fill a volume.2 Those available for Exodus will find their places in the Commentary. Here we shall refer only to some of them, as contributory to a general view of the matter. As a sample, we will begin with the art of writing. Within our own memory it was part of the stock-in-trade of infidelity to maintain, that the Pentateuchal Scriptures cannot be Mosaic, because Moses could not write: the art of writing-it was maintained-was not in existence till long after his time. Christians had sore labour in meeting that stock objection. There was no extant heathen literature older than the Iliad, which originally was not published as a written book, but sung or chanted. How could it be proved, that writing was known and practised half a millennium before? The accomplished Moses Stuart3 within our lifetime tried to prove it by means of something said about “fatal tablets," entrusted to a messenger, in the Iphigenia at Aulis. But (1) This was among Greeks, at the time of Troy siege, several centuries after the exodus. (2) The "tablets" may have been, not writings, but pictured information, such as was in use among the Mexicans of modern time. (3) Euripides, who wrote the Iphigenia, lived a great many generations after the time (of Troy siege), and was not (in a play) tied to historical accuracy, while he might not have real knowledge of the matter; as an English dramatist now may not really know what was in a secret letter by Richard I. after a council of war at the beginning of the Crusade.

From the need of such precarious reasonings we now are completely delivered by ascertainments as to fact,-e.g. (1) Discoveries in the Euphrates valley, where there was an ancient empire presumably coeval with that of the Nile, show that writing was practised— the bricks bear witness"-there before Abraham was called from 1 Mr. Stuart Poole; so in his articles "Egypt" in the Contemporary Review. 2 There is a volume on the subject by the late learned Hengstenberg, Egypt and the Books of Moses. Clark, Edinburgh.

3 Introduction to the Old Testament.

"between the Rivers." So that Schliemann's recent discovery, in the ruins of a Troy more ancient than Homer's, that writing must have been practised by Asiatics in the region of Troy a thousand years before Homer's time, is, though it should be fully authenticated, for our purpose not really needed. (2) The great oriental scholar Ewald has pointed out, in all the Semitic tongues (excepting Ethiopic) a use of the words writing, pen, ink, which proves, that writing with pen and ink must have been practised by the Shemites before their original (Babel) mother-tongue became divided into the various known Semitic languages (one of which is Hebrew). But (3) an overwhelming independent proof is contributed by that Egypt where Moses was born and bred.

The information derived from the "monuments" is furnished by them largely in writing, on papyrus and cloth, and in inscriptions on those tombs, out of sight of day, which made Egypt to be known as "a land of graves” (Ex. xiv. 11). Thus, even from mummy coffins there have come many spoken as well as pictorial illustrations of the old Egyptian life. In that life a very conspicuous character is the scribe. With his paper and ink, prepared “in act to write," he is shown in the representation of stone city, and public works, and busy farm; in a ubiquity which makes the people appear to have almost a passion for writing about everything, like the Chinese of our time. A writer on their "domestic manners" (Wilkinson), makes the general statement, that among them every transaction worth remembering has to go down in writing. In their greater affairs, they are monumentally shown to have been in the habit of obtaining careful written reports of such things as the charge of provinces, and the fortunes of military expeditions. An extant poem by a native Egyptian is rapturous in description of that Janus region which is another name for Israel's "field of Zoan." An extant fragment of an epic poem-the Pentaur -describes a real war against the Hittites (Cheta) of North Syria or Palestine, before the time of Moses. There is in the British Museum a manuscript which was written centuries before he was born. There thus are found, from that high antiquity, even philosophical essays, and forms of prayer and religious instruction, put into coffins for the use of the departed in the unseen world. If Moses "instructed (Revised Version) in all the wisdom of the Egyptians," and "mighty in words" as well as "deeds," was not able to write-say- a straightforward simple narrative like Exodus, he must have been singularly neglectful of his opportunities as the alumnus of a royal princess,

C

within reach of the famous university of Sun-town (Heliopolis-On). He was not a good speaker, and is never seen to make speeches; but he had great gifts of composition (the Song in Ex. xv.). We see him several times (Ex. xvii., xxiv., xxxiv.) in the very act of writing the most important materials of prose history. But, though he should have been unable to write or spell his own name, there must have been thousands of his Israelites who could write as easily as any now alive. Thus completely are the tables turned upon those who invented history to bear witness against the Bible.

The silencing of the opposition is at the same time corroboration of the history impugned. And one very important evidence thus arising ought to be distinctly noted by us, because it does not call attention to itself. That is, the evidence of authenticity that is constituted by the absence of proved mistakes. The all but impossibility of avoiding mistakes is commonplace in the history of literary forgery. Chatterton, it is said, betrayed himself as an impostor, in his "Old English" poems, by employing the possessive pronoun its, which had not come into use at a period so late as that of our Authorized Version of the Bible (which has his where we would have its). A Frenchman, after years of residence in Britain, if he should endeavour to pass for an Englishman speaking about common English matters, would probably be detected before he had spoken many sentences. This author of Exodus writes about a great complicated historical movement, a work full of unstudied allusions and implications relatively to that ancient Egypt-Sinai under varied aspects. We now have means of thoroughly bringing him to book, by comparing his picture with the original. And it proves that he never makes a mistake, in even a passing allusion or a recondite implication. That, to those capable of judging, is very strong proof of authenticity,-—that is, of information derived from real acquaintance with the land as it then was :—whether by the author himself, or by men through whom the knowledge came to him.

1

On the other hand, we must not overestimate the importance of real or imagined coincidences. The conclusive identification of Pithom, as a real city, a stone city of that period, of which the civil name was Succoth, is really important as well as deeply interesting. So is the wonderful recovery by Mr. Petrie (1884) of a great city Tanis, the Zoan of Scripture (Nu. xiii. 22), a seat of Egyptian Empire, peculiarly associated with Rameses the Great, and really more im1 M. Naville, whose remarkable explorations began in 1883.