The herald and mail. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1873-188?, 1874-09-11
THE EXODUS.
An Interesting Discovery I'm Biblical
History.

| | -~~~-NN~
History.
Biblical students will be interested tC
learn the striking results of investiga-
tions made by Henry Brugsch-Bey on
the subject of the Exodus. This gen,
tlemen is vice president of the free
school at Cairo, and is one of the most
learned and careful Egyptologists. He
has spent long time in studying an
cient records and in examining the
country, in order to test the bible ac-
count. According to the record given
by Moses, the leader, having obtained
permission from the Pharoah to take
the children of Israel into the desert to
offer sacrifice to the Almighty, con-
Quoted them out of Raamses, and thence
by several short journeys 10 the sea.
The effort of Brugsch-Bey Las been to
find the city of Raamses, to trace the
| journey and to discover a point where
the passage could have been made with
out supposing an absolute miracle.
In the museum of Liege letter was
| found in which the writer reports that
he has obeyed an order to distribute
grain TO the "Hebrews employed upon
the stone for the great fortress of the
city of Raamses." Other documents
ses IL A poet has written an enthusi-
astic eulogy upon the city, and on the
reverse of this writing is an account rem
dered by the masons appointed to see
that the Eprions (Hebrews) make every
day, under the supervision of brutal
soldiery, the number of bricks required
of them. Raamses is now certainly re-
coenized in the gigantic ruins of the an
cient Tanis, called Zan by the Egyp-
tians, and Zoan by the Hebrews. This
explains, by the way, two verses in the
18th Psalm
Marvellous things did he in the sight
of their fathers, in the land of Egypt,
in the field of Zoan.
"He divided the sea, and caused them
to pass through; and he made the
waters stand as an heap"
The city of Raamses, then, was sit
uated upon the Tanitic branch of the
Nile, then very large stream, and was
the key to the passage between Egypt
and Asia. It was near the fortress of
Migdol, where the Israelites made
halt, and not far from another district,
of which the capital, Pithone, was one
of the treasure cities, Quilt by the
Hebrews, according to the book of Ex-
odus. These several districts, as also
Goshen, which the Pharoah of the time
gave to Jacob, were inhabited, not by
the Egyptians, but by the Khalons, a
mixed race, which ruled over the Phe-
nicians and the Bedouins of Arabia, and
which even now occupies the borders OF
Lake Menzaleh. The journey of the
Hebrews from Raamses to Migdol is
exactly that followed, according to a
papyrus In the British museum, by a |
man charged with the duty of pursuing |
and recovering two slaves who had es-
capped from the service of great lord |
of Egyptians.
These slaves also tried to reach the |
desert, fleeing from Raamses to Sue
Goth, thence to Khatom (the Ethan of /
the Scriptures), and to Migdol. If
Moses took this route and did enter at
once into the land of the Philistines, it
was because Raamses III. had with that
people treaty, the text of which, en-
craven upon monument, vet exists at
Thebes. By this treaty, Raamses and
the Prince of the Khetiens, the most
powerful of the rulers in the land of
Canaan, mutually bound themselves to
return all persons escaping from the
service of the other into their own ter
ritory. In consequence of his know
ledge of this treaty, Moses led the peo-
pie of Israel more to the north, and
crossed not the Red sea, but, at the
lower coasts of the Mediterranean, the
lake anciently called Sirbonis.
The high tide which overlook the
troops of Pharoah Meneptah, son of
Pharoah, Raamses IL, in whose reign
the exodus took place, is p common oc-
in these parts. Both Strabo
and Diodorus Siculus cite facts which
90 to show that in the regions called
q the gulfs," sudden swellings of the
water are observed, and at such time
King Artaxerxes, who wss leading an
expedition against Egypt, lost his
whole army by drowning. The ac-
count of the journey of the Hebrews
1nder Moses, is entirely consistent
With these facts and this theory They
the wilderness of Shuy, which
s situated between the Mediterranean
md the Gulf of Suez. The bitter
waters of Marah are the brackish wa
ers OF the Suez lakes. Elm, where
hey made halt, is to day called Elm
Gusa.
And it was only after they had crossed {
he isthTqus that they turned and came
o the tIilderness of Sinai. By COM
f the Bible with ancient docu-
nents . id geographical facts, Brugsch
3ey haks been enabled to offer reason '
BILE, 81 aple and positive explanation of
n even6 which Biblical commentators {
AVE foH more than eighteen centu- !
les badly comprehended and wrongly /
He does not reject the the
ry of Divine Intervention for the re-
lef of the children of Israel, but he {
oes show where and how certain ma {
ural phenomenon might have come to 6
heir relief, especially if Moses had
appeLed to know the curious freak of 6
ature at the point where he crossed.