1

without any Regard to the Particulars of their Actions or Families, of the Rife of one Family, or Fall of another: Pul feems to have been the Father of Sardanapalus (b): Tiglath-Pilefer was Arbaces, who, in Confederacy with Belefis, overthrew the Empire of Pul, in the Days of his Son Sardanapalus (i); and Tiglath-Pilefer was not King of fuch large Dominions as Pul and Sardanapalus commanded; but the Sacred Writers take no Notice of these Revolutions. Pul had his Refidence at Nineveh in Affyria, and Tiglath-Pilefer made that City his Royal Seat (k); and for this Reason they are both called in Scripture, Kings of Allyria; and upon the fame Account, the Succeffors of Tiglath-Pilefer have the fame Title, until the Empire was removed to Babylon. Salmanezer, the Son of Tiglath-Pilefer, is called King of Affyria (); and fo is Sargon, or Sennacherib (m): Efarbaddon, tho' he was King of Babylon, as well as of Affyria (n), is called in Scripture King of Affyria, for in that Country was his Seat of Refidence (0); but after Nabopolaffer deftroyed Nineveh, and removed the Empire to Babylon, the Kings of it are called in Scripture Kings of Babylon, and not Kings of Affyria, tho' Affyria was Part of their Dominions, as Babylon and the adjacent Country had been of many of the Affyrian Kings. There were great Turns and Revolutions in the Kingdoms of these Countries, from the Death of Sardanapalus, to the Eftablishment of Nebuchadnezzar's Empire; but the Sacred Hiftory does not purfue a Narration of thefe Matters; but as the Writers of it called the Kings of the ancient Asfyrian Empire Kings of Elam when they refided

(b) See Ufher's Chronol. (i) Prideaux Connect. ub. fup. (k) Ibid. Vol. I. B. I. (1) 2 Kings xviii. 3. (m) Ifaiah xx. 1. (n) See Prideaux Connect. Vol. I. B. I. Not. in p. 42. (0) Ezra iv. 2.

C 3

there,

Kings to have reigned fucceffively, when many of them were cotemporaries, and reigned over different parts of the Country, in the fame Age; and undoubtedly Diodorus Siculus was impofed upon by fome Accounts of this fort, and there were not really fo many Succeffions, as he imagined, between Mizraim and Sefoftris. But then there is a Particular fuggefted by him, which muft fully convince us, that his Computation cannot be fo reduced as to place Sefoftris about the Times of Mofes. He obferves, that after the Times of Menes, 1400 years paffed before the Egyptians performed any confiderable Actions worth recording (e). The number 1400 is indeed thought to be a Miftake. Rhodomanus corrects it in the Margin, and writes 1040. We will take this number: From the Death of Mizraim 1040 Years will carry us down very near to the Times of Sefac: for 50 years after it Sefac came against Jerufalem: And thus according to this Account they had no famous Warrior until about the Times of Sefac, and therefore Sejoftris did not live carlier. I might confirm this Account from another very remarkable Particular in Diodorus Siculus. He tells us of a most excellent King of Egypt, begat by the River Nile in the fhape of a Bull (f): I may venture to reject the Fable of the River and the Bull, and fuppofe this Perfon to be the Son of Phruron or Nilus; his Father's Name being Nilus might occafion the Mythologists to fay, that he was begot by the River: Now Dicaarchus informs us, that this Nilus reigned about 436 Years before the first Olympiad, i. e. about A. M. 2792 (g), and about this time Sir John Marsham places him (b): According to Diodorus, Sefoftris was 20 Succeffions after this Nilus, and Sir John Marsham makes

(e) Diodor. p. 29. B. 4. p. 210.

(f) Diodor. p. 33. (b) Vid. ibid.

(g) Vid. Vol. I.

his Sefac to be nineteen; fo that in all probability they were one and the fame Perfon. And thus a ftrict view of the Egyptian Antiquities will from feveral concurrent Hints oblige us to think Sefoftris to be not earlier than the times of, and confequently to be, the Sefac mentioned in the Scripture. I might add to all this, that the facred Writers, who frequently mention the Egyptians from Abraham's time down to the times of this Sefac, do give us great Reafon to think that the Egyptians had no fuch famous Conqueror as Sefoftris before Sefac, by giving as great a Proof as we can expect of a Negative, that they made no Conquefts in Afia before his Days. In Abraham's time, in Jacob's, in Jofeph's we have no Appearance of any thing but Peace between Egypt and its Afiatic Neighbours. Egypt was conquered by the Paftors who came out of Afia a little before the Birth of Mofes, when the new King arofe who knew not Jofeph. Whatever Power and Strength thefe new Kings might be grown to at the Exit of the Ifraelites, must be fuppofed to be greatly broken by the Overthrow of Pharaoh and his Hoft in the Red-Sea. The Egyptians had no part in the Wars of the Canaanites with Joshua, nor in thofe of the Philistines, Midianites, Moabites, Ammonites and Amalekites against Ifrael in the times of the Judges, or of Saul, or of King David: Solomon reigned over all the Kings from the River, [i. e. from the Euphrates] unto the Land of the Philiftines, and to the Border of Egypt (i); fo that no Egyptian Conqueror came this way until after his Death. In the fifth Year of Rehoboam Shishak King of Egypt came up against Jerufalem with twelve bundred Chariots and threefcore thousand Horfemen, and he took the fenced Cities, which pertained to Judah, and came to Jerufalem (k), and the Ifraelites

(i) 2 Chron. ix. 26. (k) 2 Chron. xii. 2, 3.

were

were obliged to become his Servants; and Sefac conquered not only them, but the neighbouring Nations; for the Jews in ferving him felt only the Service of the Kingdoms of the Countries (1) round about them; that is, all the neighbouring Nations underwent the fame. This therefore was the first Egyptian Conqueror who came into Afia, and we muft either think this Sefac and Sefoftris to have been the fame Perfon, or, which was perhaps the Opinion of Jofephus (m), fay, that Sefoftris was no Conqueror; but that Herodotus and the other Hiftorians thro' miflake afcribed (n) to him what they found recorded of Sefac. Jofephus reprefents Herodotus to have made two mistakes about this Egyptian Conqueror, one in mifnaming him, calling him Sefoftris when his real Name was Sefac; the other, in thinking him a greater (0) Conqueror than he really was: And this Miftake many of the Heathen Hiftorians have indeed made in the Accounts they give of him. For, 2. Neither Sefeftris nor Sefac did ever conquer fo many Nations, as the Hiftorians reprefent, nor were they ever Masters of any of the Countries that were a part of the Affyrian Empire. Diodorus Siculus indeed fuppofes, that Sefoftris conquered all Afia, not only all the Nations, which Alexander afterwards fubdued, but even many Kingdoms that he never attempted; that, he paffed the Ganges, and conquered all India; that he fubjugated the Scythians, and extended his Conquests: into Europe (p; and Strabo agrees to Diodorus's

(1) 2 Chron. xii. ver. 8. (1) Σίσακου ότι ο πλανηθείς Σεσώς ρει προσάπτει. Id. ibid.

(m) Antiq. Jud. 1. 8. c. 10. ΗρόδοτΘ τας πράξεις αυτό (ο) Μέμνη) ἢ ταύτης σρατείας καὶ ὁ ̓Αλικαρνασας Ηρόδοτο, δε μόνον τὸ το βασιλέως πλανηθείς όνομα, ἢ ὅτι ἄλλοις τε πολλοῖς ἐπῆλθε ἔθνεσι, καὶ ἢ Παλαισίνων Συείαν ἐδελώσατο. Id. ibid.

(P) Diodor. Sic. 1. 1. p. 35.

Account

Account of him: What Authorities thefe great Writers found for their Opinion I cannot lay, but I find the learned Annotator upon Tacitus did not believe any fuch Accounts to be well grounded. In his Note upon Germanicus's Relation of the Egyptian Conquefts he fays, De hac tantâ Po tentia Egyptiorum nibil legi, nec facilè credam (q); · and indeed there is nothing to be read, that can feem well fupported, nothing that is confiftent with the allowed Hiftory of other Nations, to reprefent the Egyptians to have ever obtained fuch extenfive Conquefts. Herodotus confines the Expedition of Sefoftris to the Nations upon the Afiatic Coafts of the Red-Sea, and after his return from fubduing them, to the Western Parts of the Continent of Afia: He reprefents him to have fubdued Palestine and Phenicia, and the Kingdoms up to Europe; thence to have paffed over to the Thracians; and from them to the Scythians, and to have come to the River Phafis: Here he fuppofes him to have ftopped his Progrefs, and to have returned back from hence to Egypt (r). Herodotus appears to have examined the Expedition of Sefoftris with far more Exactnefs than Strabo or Diodorus: He enquired after the Monuments or Pillars which Sefoftris fet up in the Nations he fubdued (s), but it no way appears from his Accounts that this mighty Conqueror attacked any one Nation, that was really a part of the Affyrian Empire; but rather the courfe of his Enterprizes led him quite away from the Affyrian Dominions. Sefoftris did great Things, but they have been greatly magnified. The ancient Writers were very apt to record a Perfon to have travelled over the whole World, if he had been in a few. different Nations. Abraham travelled from Chal-.

(9) Lipfii Comment. ad Tacit. Annal. 1. 2. n. 137. (r) Herodot. Lib. 2. c. 102, 103. (s) Id. ibid.

dea