born 1525 B.C.,* precisely the time when Hatshepset was a princess, the favourite daughter of the Pharaoh, Thothmes I. The policy of repression initiated by Aahmes I, the founder of the new Dynasty, had been continued by Amenhotep I, but it would seem that it was Thothmes I who was the author of the inhuman command, every son that is born ye shall cast into the river (Exod. i, 22). And possibly Hatshepset would have followed the same cruel policy had not her womanly instincts been roused at the sight of the infant's pathetic situation. It should be noted that the Bible does not describe her as "Queen." She did not begin to reign till 1514 B.C., and, as we have seen, Moses was born in 1525 B.C. Had she been spoken of as " Queen," the discrepancy would have been manifest. But she is referred to merely as the daughter of Pharaoh. Nevertheless, as the favourite daughter, and latterly the co-regent of her father Thothmes I, this remarkable princess, even at an early age, wielded very considerable authority, and it was therefore appropriate that she should be able to defy the Royal order, and in the face of the law carry out her own scheme of saving Moses alive.†

While these facts fit in admirably with the events of the XVIIIth Dynasty, it is hard to reconcile them with the state of matters under the XIXth Dynasty, as is so often attempted. The main argument used in support of the theory that the Oppres-sion took place under Rameses II of the XIXth Dynasty is the statement that the Hebrews built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithom and Raamses (Exod. i, 11). The reasoning is fallacious and inconclusive. Apart from the fact that the true reading (as Lagarde has pointed out)‡ is probably " Pithom of Raamses," an explanatory addition made later to identify the site (as in Gen. xlvii, 11), there is this to be remembered, that modern excavation has revealed that Pithom was a site which had been occupied since at least the VIth Dynasty. Any "building" must merely have been re-building on a foundation. already hoary with age. Peet, indeed, has clearly stated that the verse proves nothing, for the names mentioned are those of a date long subsequent to the actual

* Obtained from these dates: To 965 B.C. (founding of Temple) add 480 (1 Kings vi, 1) 1445 B.C. as date of the Exodus; but Moses was then eighty 1525.

=

(Exod. vii, 7), so that his birth-year was 1445 + 80

It is significant also that Josephus gives this princess the name of Thermuthis, which may well be a corruption for Tahutimes, or Thothmes, the family name of the XVIIIth Dynasty.

On this see Jack, The Date of the Exodus (1925), p. 23.

104 THE REV. G. A. FRANK KNIGHT, M.A., D.D., F.R.S.E

time of the original building.* Similarly Hall sa name Rameses, as that of a store-city, may have bee by a scribe writing long after the Mosaic period."† then, can be laid on these titles, seeing that there evidence to prove that Rameses II could not hav Pharaoh of the Oppression.

The death of Hatshepset was followed by the long an reign of Thothmes III (1515-1461 B.C.). He aveng on his predecessor by chiselling out her name from all which he could erase. Then he embarked on that vast plundering of Palestine and Syria which has earned fame of being one of the world's greatest military Though Thothmes I was the one who gave the or extermination of the male Hebrews, it was Thothm was par excellence the "Pharaoh of the Oppression connection a very interesting point emerges.

At the close of the thirty-first year of his reign, Th on returning from one of his Palestinian campaigns embassy of Nubians coming to him with lavish t Early in his reign he had subdued Nubia, as many recently explored testify. But in the thirty-first Ethiopians had again broken loose and had been re The question is--by whom? If Thothmes III bega in 1515 B.C., his thirty-first year would coincide wit But we have already seen that the Bible chronology giv as the date of Moses' birth. Consequently Moses wo years of age at precisely this same date, 1485 B.C. are told that Moses was brought up as the adopted son o daughter, and as that princess was in all likelihood the art of war was certainly one of the accomplishmen be taught. Stephen declared that Moses was learne wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words a (Acts vii, 22), clearly referring to events in his career flight to Midian. What were these exploits? If Josephus we find reference to an invasion of Lowe the Ethiopians. The country was in terror when Mo

*Peet, op. cit., p. 108.

† H. R. Hall, Ancient History of the Near East, p. 403.

The Pharaoh of Exod. i, 8-ii, 10, is Thothmes I; the Pharaoh o ii, 23, is Thothmes III. This distinction is often overlooked. § Antiq., ii. 10, 1.

the rescue. As head of the Egyptian troops he marched southwards until he reached Saba or Meroe, the capital of Nubia, and began the siege. Tharbis, the daughter of the Nubian king, offered to deliver up the city if Moses would promise to marry her. The bargain was accepted. Meroe was captured, and Moses wedded the Ethiopian princess.

Now, putting aside the later legendary accretions to this story, may there not remain some substratum of fact? We have (1) the statement of Stephen as to Moses' exploits while still attached to Pharaoh's Court; (2) the fact that later Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married (Num. xii, 1); and (3) the remarkable way in which the respective dates tally, the year 1485 B.C., as shown, by two entirely independent lines of calculation, being alike that of the thirty-first year of Thothmes III's reign, wherein a successful expedition against Nubia (but not by the Pharaoh himself) is recorded, and also that wherein Moses attained his fortieth year. Surely it would be a most natural thing when Moses was then grown up, and forty years old, and was flushed with the renown of a great victory, that he made the rash and premature attempt to figure as the deliverer of his enslaved compatriots. Thothmes III resented this proposed reversal of his settled policy of repression, and Moses had to flee to Midian, where he remained in seclusion. for other forty years till Thothmes III was dead.

A large number of inscriptions in the Nile valley represent the slavery into which Thothmes III reduced his captives. They are an exact reproduction in stone and wall-painting of what we read in Exodus of the cruelty of the taskmasters. The labourers who thus toil have Semitic countenances, and doubtless represent the hapless Hebrews and their fellow-captives from Canaan. But at last it came to pass in the course of these many days, that the king of Egypt died (Exod. ii, 23). The expression is remarkable, and draws our attention to the fact that the greatest of Egyptian conquerors was the greatest oppressor of the Israelites, and also the longest lived of Egypt's kings. He had been co-regent with Hatshepset for twenty-one years, and sole monarch for fifty-three years; in all he had sat on the throne for seventy-four years. He was the embodiment of absolute power, tyrannical might, and brute force. He was the most despotic sovereign Egypt ever had, and to him belongs most appropriately the title of the "Pharaoh of the Oppression!"

(v) The Pharaoh of the Exodus.

The Pharaoh of the Exodus was Amenhotep II, who succeeded his father on the throne, and reigned from 1461-1436 B.C. His innate cruelty was revealed in the inhuman way in which he treated his Palestinian captives, as he returned from Canaan after an expedition in the beginning of his reign. He continued his father's ruthlessly oppressive measures, and ever more bitter grew the lot of the enslaved Hebrews. It was not, however, till the fifteenth or sixteenth year of his rule that Moses and Aaron appeared at his Court. This was when Moses was eighty years of age (Exod. vii, 7), in 1445 B.C., according to the Biblical chronology, which is wonderfully supported by other facts.

It has often been pointed out that each of the Ten Plagues was directed against some particular form of Egyptian superstition. and idolatrous worship. It is not possible within the limits of this paper to elaborate this point. But two striking facts may be mentioned. The Fifth Plague-that of the murrain of beasts -smote Amenhotep II in a very special and tender spot. No monarch showed such a fanatical attachment to sacred oxen and cow deities as he. In 1906 Naville discovered at Deir-el-Bahari the famous statue of a gigantic Hathor cow, with Amenhotep II kneeling naked under the cow's belly, imbibing the divine milk, and thereby becoming adopted as her son.* Tremendous, therefore, must have been the blow inflicted on the king when these sacred cows, typified in the statue adored by Amenhotep II himself, fell victims to the ravages of the Fifth Plague.

The other fact has reference to the Tenth Plague the slaying of the firstborn. The mention of the death of the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on the throne (Exod. xii, 29) leads us to enquire if Egyptian records afford any confirmation of this extraordinary and tremendous tragedy. The evidence is not altogether wanting. Thothmes IV, the son and successor of Amenhotep II, records on an immense granite slab that one day, hunting gazelle in the desert, he was tired, and lay down to sleep under the shadow of the Sphinx. The god spoke to him in his sleep, promised him the kingdom, and ordered him to clear away the sand from his (the god's) feet. It is evident from Thothmes IV's narrative that he had no expectation of being king. He was the son of

* See Maspero, New Light on Ancient Egypt, p. 272 f.

Amenhotep II, but not by a woman of royal rank. His elder brother, the offspring of a union with a royal princess, was the legal and destined heir to the throne. Why did that legitimate crown prince not succeed? Simply because, as the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on the throne he perished in the Tenth Plague. It is a most interesting side-link, identifying Amenhotep II as the Pharaoh of the Exodus.

As the mummy of Amenhotep II was discovered in 1898 in the Tombs of the Kings at Thebes, it is clear that he was not drowned along with his troops in the Red Sea. But the Bible is careful to avoid stating that Pharaoh himself met that fate. Moses sang of "Pharaoh's chariots," "his host," "his chosen captains," as being sunk in the Red Sea, but never of Pharaoh himself (Exod. xv, 4).

There is still another link in the chain of evidence connecting Amenhotep II with the Exodus, in that Manetho* associates the expulsion of the “lepers " (by which phrase we must understand the Hebrews) with a King Amenhotep who had at his Court an adviser bearing the same name. This can be none other than the celebrated Amenhotep, son of Hap, one of the most distinguished ornaments of the middle of the XVIIIth Dynasty. He must have been in his prime during the reign of Amenhotep II, for he was an old man in the time of Amenhotep III. It is noteworthy also that Chaeremont associates a certain King Amenhotep with the Exodus, and Theophilus of Antioch (A.D. 180) echoed the ancient tradition that Thothmes III was the great oppressor of the Hebrews.

The date of the Exodus-1445 B.C.-is checked in Scripture by four different methods of calculation: (1) It is said to have taken place when Moses was eighty years of age (Exod. vii, 7); and as we have seen that Moses was born in 1525 B.C., it follows that eighty years later we are brought to 1445 B.C. (2) It is said to have occurred 430 years after the Descent into Egypt (Exod. xii, 40, 41). As this Descent of Jacob and his family took place in 1875 B.C., we find that by subtracting 430 years from that date, we are again brought to 1445 B.C. (3) St. Paul stated (Gal. iii, 17) that the Law was given to Israel 430 years after the covenanted Promise at the time of the Descent (Gen. xlvi, 3), so again we