Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1874-08-26
An Interesting Discovery,

learn the striking results of investigations
made by Henry Brugsch-Bey on the sub
ject of the Exodus. This gentleman is
vice-president of the free schools at Cairo.
and is one of the most learned and careful
of Egyptologists. He has spent a long
time in studying ancient records and in
examining the country in order to test the
Bible account. According to the record
given by Moses, that leader, having OBJ
timed permission from the Pharaoh to
take the children Of Israel into the desert
to offer sacrifice to the Almighty. conduct
ed them out of Raamses, and thence by
several short journeys to the sea. The
effort of Brugsch-Bey has been to find the
city of Raamses, to trace the journey, and
| to discover point where the passage could
have been made without supposing IN
absolute miracle.
In the museum of Liege a letter was
found in which the writer reports that he
has obeyed an order to distribute grain to
the g Hebrews employed upon the stone
! for the great fortress of the city ofRaamses.
Other documents show that the city was
built by Raamses ii. A poet has written
an enthusiastic eulogy upon the city, and
on the reverse of this writing is an account
rendered by the masons appointed to see
that the Eprion (Hebrews) make every day
under the supervision of brutal soldiery,
the number of bricks required of them.
Raamses is now certainly recognized in
the gigantic ruins of the ancient Tanis,
called Zan by the Egyptians and Zoan by
the Hebrews. This explains, by the way,
two verses in the seventy-eighth Psalm:
= Marvellous did he in the sight Of their fathers,
in the land of Egypt n the field of Zoan.
He divided the and caused them TO pass
through;
and he IN lIe the waters to stand as an heap"
The city of Raamses. then, was sitult-
ed upon the Tanitic branch of the Nile,
then very large stream. and was the key
to the passage between Egypt and Asia.
1t was near the fortress of Migdol, where
the Israeltes made Il halt and is not far
from another district of which the capital
Pithonc, was one of the .'treasure cities 5"
built by the Hebrews, according to the
book of Exodus. These several districts,
It's also Goshen. which the Pharaoh of the
time gave to Jacob, were inhabited, not by
Egyptians, but hy the Khalon. u mixed
race which ruled over the Phenicinns and
the Bedouins of Arabia. and which even
now occupies the borders of Lake Menza-
lah. The journey of the Hebrews from
Raamses to Migdol is exactly thai followed.
according to IA papyrus in the British
Museum, by a man charged with the duty
of pursuing and recovering two slaves
who had escaped from the service of a
great lord of the Egyptians These slaves
also triel to reach the desert, fleeing from
Rr,mses to Succoth, thence to Khatom
Che Ethan of the Scriptures, anl to Mig
dol If Moses took this route and did not
enter ut once into the land of the Philis-
tines il WAS because RlamseS III. had with
that people treaty, the text of which,
engr1lvcn upon monument, yet exists at
Thebes BY this treaty Rarmses and the
prince of the khetiens, the most powerful
OF the rulers in the land of Canaan, mu-
tuallv bound themselves to return all per-
sons escaping from the other into their
own territory In consequence of his
knowledge of this treaty Moses led the
people of Israel more to the north, and
crossed not the Red Sea, but, ut the lower
coasts of the Mediterranean, the lake an
cientlv called Sirbonis
The high tide which overlook the troops
of Pharaoh Mencptah, son of Pharaoh
RaamSeS H., in whose re On the exodus
took place, is a common occurrence in
these parts. Both Strabo and Dio,!orus
Siculus cite facts which go to show that in
the regions called the CULTS sudden
swellings of the water are observed, and
at such Il time King Artaxerxes, who was
leading IN expedition against Egypt, lost
his whole army by drowning. The account
of the journey of the Hebrews under
Moses is entirely consistent with these
facts and this theory. They followed the
wilderness of Shuv, which is situated be-
tween the Mediterranean and the Gulf of
Suez. The bitter waters of Mlr;Ih are the
brackish waters of the Suez lakes. Elm,
where they made II halt, is today called
FL in MuSa. And it WAS only after they
had crossed the isihmus that they turned
and came to the wilderness of Sinai. BY
n comparison of the Bible with ancient
documents and geographical facts, Brugsch
Bey has been enabled to offer reasonable
simple and positive explanation ola event
which biblical commentators have for
more than eighteen centuries badly COM
pretended and wrongly interpreted. He
does not reject the theory of Divine inter-
vention for the relief of the children of
Israel, but he does show where and how Il
certain natural phenomenon might have
come to their relief, especially if Moses
had happened to know the curious freak
of nature at the point where he crossed
Boston -4drerttser.