NOTICES IN EXODUS.
137
/
in
Egypt between the close of the eighteenth dynasty and commencement of the twentieth.
the
Before proceeding, however, with this inquiry, it seems natural to ask, Is there no tradition with respect to the time of the Exodus in Egyptian history, as we found that there was with respect to the time of Joseph ; and if there is any such tradition, what is it ? The Egyptian tradition was delivered at great length by Manetho, whose account is preserved to us in Josephus.* it
was also reported more briefly by Chseremon.f It placed the Exodus in the reign of an " Amenophis," who was the son of a " Rameses," and the father of a " Sethos." Each of these two facts belong to one " Amenophis " only out of the four or five in Manetho's lists, and we have thus a double certainty that he intended the monarch of the nineteenth dynasty, who was the son and successor of Rameses II ., " commonly called Rameses the Great," and was himself succeeded on the throne by his son, Seti-Menephthah, or Seti There is no other II., about B. c. 1300, or a little earlier. Egyptian tradition, excepting one reported by George the Syncellus,* which is wholly incompatible with the universally allowed synchronism of Joseph with Apepi, and quite unworthy of consideration ; viz., that the Exodus took place 'under Amasis (Aahmes), the first king of the eighteenth dynasty, who was probably contemporary with the later years of Joseph himself. Manetho's tradition then, harmonizing, as it does, with the chronological considerations above adduced, which would place the Exodus tmcards the end of the nineteenth dynasty, seems to deserve our accedtance, and indeed has been accepted by the great bulk of modern Egyptologists, as by Allowing Brugsch, Birch, Lenormant, Chabas, and others. it, we are able to fix definitely on the three Pharaohs especially concerned in the severe oppression of the Israelites, and thus to give a vividness and realism to our conception of the period of history treated of in Exod. i.-xiv. which add greatly to the interest of the narrative. * Joseph., " Contra Apion," i. 26. 32. t Ibid., " p. 62, B. } Chronographia, " " See Brugsch, Egypt History of Egypt," vol. ii. p. 125; Birch, from the Earliest Times," p. 133; Lenormant, "Manuel d'Histoire Ancienne de 1'Orient," vol. ii., p. 292, edition of 1882; Chabas, "Recherches pour servir a 1'histoire de la Xixme Dynastie," p. 157.