6. Nor is the circumstantial evidence, that this period of 106 years syn- CHAP. v. chronizes with the scriptural period of the Israelitish bondage, less decisive than the chronological. According to Herodotus, the tyranny exercised over the native Mizraim consisted mainly in forcing them to labour as builders: according to Moses, the tyranny exercised over the Israelites was of the very same description. According to Herodotus, the diet of the toiling Egyptians consisted of radishes, and onions, and garlic: according to Moses, the diet of the toiling Israelites consisted of cucumbers, and melons, and leeks, and onions, and garlic. According to Herodotus and Manetho, the oppressive tyranny, under which the Egyptians groaned during the misrule of the Shepherds, did not come upon them unexpectedly; but had been expressly foretold by an oracle according to Moses, the oppressive tyranny, under which the Israelites groaned during the same period, could not have come upon them unexpectedly; for it had been expressly foretold to their ancestor Abraham by an immediate communication from God". Now, if we put all these different matters together, we cannot reasonably doubt, that the 106 years, mentioned by Herodotus, are the 106 years, mentioned by Eusebius as the duration of the pastoral tyranny; that this period of 106 years is the period of that second pastoral tyranny, which, as we learn from Manetho, was exercised by the Shepherd-kings when they returned into Egypt by the invitation of Osarsiph; and that the period of the second pastoral tyranny, which is thus identified with the 106 years of Herodotus and Eusebius, must also be identified with the period of Israelitish bondage. Hence, then we gather a very important fact, which decidedly proves, agreeably to a prior conclusion, that the new king who knew not Joseph pyramids were reared in the space of 78 years and 4 months: and Herodotus mentions, p. 380, Numb. xi. 5. BOOK VI. was the head of a foreign dynasty, not a native Egyptian sovereign. Though Scripture mentions only the oppression of the Israelites, it is abundantly clear from profane history that the Mizraim were equally oppressed: for, had the former been the sole victims, the Egyptians in the time of Herodotus could not have held the tyrants in such detestation as to refuse even to pronounce their names; neither can any reason be assigned for the origin of a story, told alike by that writer and by Manetho, which exhibits the Egyptians themselves as having once smarted under a most intolerable domination. But, if both the Israelites and the Egyptians were oppressed, and that too in the self-same manner; their oppressor, agreeably to the testimony of Manetho, must have been a foreigner: and that foreigner was clearly the new king; who was naturally, as such, unacquainted with Joseph. This conclusion, which wholly exculpates the Mizraim from tyrannizing over the Israelites as they have long most erroneously been thought to have done, will serve as a key to certain passages of Scripture, which without it are of less easy explication. One of the precepts of Moses is, Thou shalt not abhor an Egyptian: and the alleged reason is, Because thou wast a stranger in his land'. Now this must appear not a little extraordinary to any one, who understands the history of the Israelitish bondage as it has commonly been understood. The chosen people might indeed be forbidden to abhor an Egyptian, on the broad principle of the forgiveness of injuries: but it seems very strange, that the prohibition should be made to rest on such a basis as the present; that they should be charged not to hate an Egyptian, because they had suffered from him a most iniquitous oppression. The matter however becomes perfectly intelligible, when the real state of the case is known. So far from having been ill treated by the friendly Mizraim, the Israelites from first to last had experienced nothing but kindness from them: for, instead of being the oppressors of God's people, they had themselves groaned under the very same intolerable yoke. Accordingly we find another precept of the law specially built upon this which we have just seen elucidated: and it may be observed, that, with onAP. v. out such elucidation, the additional precept involves a singularly glaring contradiction. An Ammonite and a Moabite was never to enter into the congregation of the Lord; even the lapse of ten generations could not render them admissible. Do we inquire the reason of this rigorous exclusion? it was professedly the evil treatment which the Israelites had received at their hands. But the children of an Egyptian might freely enter into the Lord's congregation, so early as the third descent: and why? Because Israel was a stranger in his land, where yet oppression was accumulated upon oppression'. Here it is plain, that, according to the usual mode of understanding the history of God's people in Egypt, the identical reason, which is alleged for the eternal exclusion of an Ammonite or a Moabite, is adduced for the admission of an Egyptian in the third generation: the former were to be abominated and for ever shut out, because they maltreated the Israelites; the latter was to be cherished and received as a brother after a short prescribed interval, still because he also had maltreated the chosen race. But, let the history be rightly explained, and every contradiction vanishes. Under an imperfect dispensation, which required an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, the injuries of Moab and Ammon were never to be forgotten: but again, on the other hand, the fostering friendship of the ever kind and hospitable Mizraim was eternally to be remembered and requited. In my own judgment, such little incidental particulars as these afford some of the strongest attestations to the perfect veracity of Moses. 7. It will not have escaped the reader, that, in pursuing this topic, we have been curiously, perhaps unexpectedly, led to ascertain both the age and the builders of the pyramids. We find, that the architects of them were the Shepherd-kings of the second pastoral dynasty, and that the drudges whom they employed in the work were the Israelites and the native Mizraim. With this agrees the remarkable testimony of Herodotus. We learn from him, that the Egyptians distinguished the pyramids by the name of the shepherd Philitis; who, 'Deut. xxiii. 3—6, 7—8. BOOK VI. at the time of their construction, fed his cattle in their vicinity. Nothing, that has been said concerning the religious use of the pyramids, need make us reject the declaration, that the vaults beneath them were designed for the sepulchres of their founders; since we have seen, how decidedly funereal was the worship of the ancients: I may therefore be allowed to consider a not unimportant assertion of Diodorus, relative to the burial of the princely architects. He mentions, that their bodies were not deposited in the vaults constructed for them, but that they were interred by the care of their friends in some obscure place. The reason, which he assigns for the circumstance, is indeed their dread of being exhumed and treated with indignity by their exasperated subjects: but I am much inclined to suspect, that we have here a disguised allusion to the awful catastrophe of the last Shepherd-sovereign. We read, that, after the tremendous reflux of the sea which overwhelmed Pharaoh and his host beneath its waves, the Israelites beheld their enemies thrown up dead on the shore. Thus ignominiously was one at least of the regal architects of the pyramids deprived of his anticipated funereal honours; a disgrace of no small magnitude, when we recollect the high importance attached by the ancients to a wellordered and decorous sepulture+. V. Our next inquiry must be, who were those Shepherd-kings that acted so conspicuous a part in Egypt, and whence they came. 1. It appears from Manetho, that the native Mizraim called them HucSos or royal Shepherds: this name therefore we may reasonably conclude to have been a translation of the title, by which the foreigners distinguished themselves in their own dialect. We further learn from Manetho, that they invaded Egypt from the east, so that they must have come out of Asia; and he adds, that some believed them to have been Arabs". This opinion however was by no means universal: for Africanus says, that they were Phoenices or Phenicians. It appears also, as we may collect from Tacitus, that they were supposed to be Ethiopians: for, as they were expelled synchronically with the Israelites, and as the Israelites from the cir 'Herod. Hist. lib. ii. c. 128. 2 Diod. Bibl. lib. i. p. 58. Joseph. cont. Apion. lib. i. § 14. cumstance of their often being confounded with them were imagined by CHAP. V. some to be of Ethiopic origin; the plain inference is, that that origin was ascribed to the Shepherds'. If then they were Ethiopians, since we are assured by Manetho that they came out of the east and not from the south, they must have emigrated from the Asiatic and not from the African Ethiopia. In addition to these particulars, we are told by Herodotus, that the Egyptians called the pyramids by the name of the shepherd Philitis; who, during the time of their construction, fed his cattle in those regions. Now, since we know that the Shepherds were once sovereigns of Egypt and that they were the architects of the pyramids, the shepherd Philitis, if we esteem him a single person, must have been one of their number: and, since he communicated his name to the pyramids, he must, still on the supposition of his being an individual, have been either the king or at least one of the most eminent of the Shepherd-warriors. But it seems more probable, that Philitis was no single person: whence we may infer, that the Shepherds, who built the pyramids, who on that account naturally communicated their distinctive appellation to them, and who by the Mizraim were called HucSos, were designated also among themselves by another title the sound of which Herodotus expressed by the word Philitis. Thus we gather, that the Shepherd-kings were Arabs or Phenicians or Ethiopians or Philitim, who invaded Egypt from the east or out of Asia: so that, if our information be accurate, the Phenicians and the Philitim, though sometimes styled Arabs, will be of the same race as the oriental Ethiopians; in other words, they will be Cushim or Scuths from some part of that vast country, which the Hindoos style Cusha-dwip within, and which in its largest sense extends from the shore of the Mediterranean and the mouths of the Nile to Serhind on the very borders of India'. We shall presently see, that our information is perfectly accurate. 2. In defiance of ancient history, the Phenicians have in general most pertinaciously been declared to be Canaanites: whence the prediction of servitude, which belongs only to the latter, has been erroneously extended to the former also. The Phenicians however were assuredly Cushim or Tacit. Hist. lib. v. c. 2. * Herod. Hist. lib. ii. c. 128. 3 Asiat. 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