After the emigration of the children of Israel into Egypt, the allusions to these subjects which occur in the inspired narrative lead us to infer that their manners and customs were conformed, in a great degree, to those of their adopted country. At the death of Jacob, "Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father: and the physicians embalmed Israel. And forty days were fulfilled for him; for so are fulfilled the days of those which are embalmed: and the Egyptians mourned for him threescore and ten days," Gen. 1. 2, 3. The custom of embalming the dead has been conjectured, with much probability, to have originated in the very peculiar climate of Egypt. In a country which, three months every year, is under water, and at the same time exposed to a burning sun, it is evidently of the utmost importance that all decomposition, both of vegetable and animal substances, should be prevented. Probably this was the motive of the Egyptians for embalming both men and animals, a custom which was universal among them. The plague, which now makes its appearance in Egypt annually on the subsidence of the Nile, and often commits such ravages on that and the surrounding countries, was unknown in ancient times, and seems first to have been heard of after the conversion of Egypt to Christianity, and somewhere about the period when the zealous preaching of St. Anthony, and others of the fathers of the desert, had abolished the practice of embalming there as an idolatrous custom.

The account here given in Scripture of the time occupied by the process of embalming, corresponds, in a remarkable manner, with that which Herodotus (a Greek author, who visited Egypt about 450 years before the coming of Christ)

C

has told us regarding the most costly process of embalming used by the Egyptians. It consisted of two parts. The removal of the more perishable portions of the body, washing them and the body itself frequently with palm wine, oil of cedar, and other antiseptic preparations; then filling the cavities with pounded myrrh, cassia, and similar odoriferous drugs, was the commencement of the operation. Afterwards the body, thus prepared, was steeped in a strong infusion of natron, a natural salt which occurs abundantly in the deserts that surround Egypt. These processes occupied seventy days. From the inspired account of the embalming of Israel, it may be inferred that the first of them, which was properly the embalming, occupied forty days, and that during the rest of the time the body was steeped in the infusion of natron. The public mourning in Egypt for seventy days, which took place on the death of Israel, is also in accordance with the usages of that country, and highly illustrative of the esteem in which Jacob was held there for Joseph's sake. According to Diodorus, the Sicilian,† (a Greek author, who was in Egypt about forty years before our Saviour's coming,) on the death of a king, the Egyptians put on mourning apparel, and closed all their temples for seventy-two days, during which time the embalming of the body proceeded. It was therefore the mourning of a king which was ordered by Pharaoh for the father of Joseph.

The account of the funeral procession conveys to us also a correct idea of the manners of Egypt, to which Joseph and his brethren conformed themselves. The chariots and the horsemen, the lamentation at the threshing-floor of Atad, and the entire ceremony with which the remains of

*Euterpe, c. 85.

+ Historiarum, lib. i. c. 72.

Jacob were committed to the cave in the field of Machpelah, seem to have been foreign to the usages of the Canaanites; and therefore the place where it had occurred was named, "Abel mizraim," The mourning of the Egyptians, Gen. 1. 7-13.

When the patriarch Joseph had fulfilled the work which God had given him to do, and the days on earth which he had assigned to him, we find that he also was embalmed and put into a coffin, ver. 26, still conforming to the Egyptian usage, of which so many examples occur in all collections of the antiquities of that country. We reasonably conclude that other customs also, as well as funeral ceremonies, were copied by the Hebrews from the Egyptians. Probably it was from this highly civilized people, in the midst of whom "the children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty," Exod. i. 7, that they also learned the arts of settled life, during the long period that the land of Egypt was filled with them.

But "Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation," ver. 6. Having now considered the marvellous works whereby God brought Israel into Egypt, it remains for us to tell how that with a mighty hand and a stretched-out arm, and with signs and great wonders, he brought them forth again unto the lot of their inheritance. He had promised this deliverance to Israel when he went forth to go down into Egypt, Gen. xlvi. 4; he had renewed the promise to Joseph when he was about to die, Gen. 1. 24; and "hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?" Num. xxiii. 19. Another event in the history of Egypt shall again subserve the Divine purpose, in regard of his people Israel.

"Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph," Exod. i. 8. One of those changes of dynasty or reigning family which were so frequent in the history of Egypt had taken place, and the accounts which the Greek historians have put upon record, give us some idea of its character. Between the times of the visit of Abram to Egypt, and Joseph's being brought there a captive, the reigning monarch, a native Egyptian called Timaus, was driven from the throne by the invasion of a tribe from the north-east, who are termed shepherds, and who obtained entire possession of the country; the conqueror Salathis becoming the founder of a new race of kings. It was, according to the Jewish historian Josephus,* under the reign of the fourth of these kings that Joseph flourished in Egypt. The Egyptian priests, on whose sole authority the Greeks received their account, revile exceedingly these shepherd kings, as tyrants and barbarians, who retained possession of the country by force of arms, only for the purpose of plundering and destroying the public monuments, and oppressing the people. It is probable that this new dynasty meditated some change in the religion of Egypt, and therefore destroyed many of the existing temples; which will account for the extreme hatred in which their memories were held by the priesthood: for we know, on the authority of the word of God, that they were by no means the tyrants and barbarians which the priests describe them to be. They assumed the manners of the Egyptians, and governed according to their laws, and whatever alterations they may have designed in the worship to be conducted by the

Contra Apionem, lib. i. § 14, C. B.

priesthood, they certainly respected its temporal rights. See Gen. xlvii. 22. 26. The last of the race is also admitted by themselves to have amended the Egyptian calendar, or computation of time. Moreover, the name given to the Pharaoh under whom Joseph flourished, "Aphophis," is an opprobrious epithet, signifying "giant, serpent, accursed one;" and this circumstance in itself gives some ground to the conjecture that there may have been much of blindness and bigotry in the hatred of the Egyptian priesthood to the memory of these shepherd kings.

About seventy years after the death of Joseph, however, the native princes, who had always retained the possession of some portion of Upper Egypt, were enabled, not improbably through the intrigues of the priesthood, to regain the throne, and expel these intruders. The "king which knew not Joseph," would be of this new dynasty, or reigning family. The singular favour with which the Israelites had been regarded by their immediate predecessors would be in itself a sufficient ground of jealousy on the part of the conquerors; and the more so, because, though expelled from Egypt Proper, the shepherds still hung on its eastern borders, where they were building cities and fortifying camps. All these circumstances seem probable from the narrative of Holy Writ, And Pharaoh "said unto his people, Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we: come on, let us deal wisely with them; lest they multiply, and it come to pass, that, when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our enemies, and fight against us," Exod. i. 9, "Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses," Exod. i. 11. The

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