Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VIII.djvu/597

 HEBREWS 583 gar, an Egyptian woman, sought a separate abode in Arabia. Of the two sons of Isaac, only Jacob (afterward Israel), the favorite of their mother Rebecca, imitated the peaceful and pious life of his fathers and propagated the Hebrew line in Palestine, while his brother ui (or Edom) settled in the mountainous land of Seir (Idumaea). Jacob had 12 sons, of whom he distinguished Joseph, the child of his favor- ite wife Rachel. This excited the envy of the >thers, who secretly sold their brother as a ive to Egypt, where he rose through his wis- lom to the dignity of prime minister to one of the Pharaohs. The latter allowed him to bring whole family of his father, numbering 70 lales, over from the land of Canaan, and to jttle them in the province of Goshen (E. of Pelusiac. branch of the Nile, it is supposed), rhere they could continue their pastoral life, imolested by the Egyptians, who held that lode of existence in great contempt, and where tiey would be un contaminated by Egyptian lolatry. Jacob closed his life, having adopted two sons of Joseph, Manasseh and Ephra- for his own. The book of Genesis, the record of that earliest period of Hebrew ry, closing with the death of Jacob and Foseph, also contains the last blessing of the former, a specimen of the most ancient Hebrew >etry. After the death of Joseph the He- jws were not only oppressed but degraded the condition of slaves, were overtasked employed in the public works, while the of their joining a foreign enemy finally led me of their tyrants to decree what may be lied their slow extermination, they having in the mean while increased to a prodigious num- ber. How long they remained in the " house of slaves " (for the Hebrews were not the only slaves in Egypt) cannot be determined, there being Scriptural testimony for 430, as well as for about 210 years; nor can the precise date of their arrival, which Bunsen endeavors to fix almost 1,000 years earlier than it is fixed by Scriptural chronology ; nor of their exodus, which, according to some of the most celebra- ted Egyptological critics, took place about 1300 B. C., while according to a distinct Bibli- cal passage (1 Kings vi. 1) it must have hap- med early in the 15th century. (See EXODUS.) lor is it easier or more important to find the ?igns during which these events took place. (See EGYPT, and EXODUS.) Some writers have ttempted to identify the Hebrews with the Hyksos, which is little less absurd than the fa- bles of Manetho mentioned by Josephus. The last named Jewish historian has also some tra- litional additions to the early life of Moses, con- cerning his exploits in Ethiopia. Born at the ime when the oppression of his people had been irried to its extreme, Moses, the younger son )f Amram, a descendant of Levi, the third son )f Jacob, was doomed to perish in the Nile with all new-born males of the Israelites, but TB.S saved by the love of his mother Jochebed and his sister Miriam, and the compassion of a daughter of the Pharaoh. Adopted as a son by the princess, who gave him his name, but nursed by his mother, he united the highest Egyptian education with the sentiments of a Hebrew. And " when Moses was grown he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens." Seeing an Egyptian man smiting one of his brethren, he killed him, fled to Mid- ian, married Zipporah, the daughter of Jethro, a wise priest or prince of that country, by whom he had two sons, and tended the flock of his father-in-law, leading it into the desert, as far as Mount Horeb, the N. E. eminence of Mount Sinai, in the S. part of the peninsula be- tween the two gulfs of the Red sea. It was not till the decline of his life that he returned to Egypt to become the "shepherd of his peo- ple." He appeared with his brother Aaron, his spokesman, assembled the elders of Israel, and announced to them their approaching deliver- ance and return to Canaan in the name of the Everlasting (Hebrew, Yehovah, Being) and Unchangeable (Ehyeh-asher-ehyeh, I-am-that- I-am), the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who " had seen their affliction." He now re- paired to the palace of the king, proved superior to his priests, gained the admiration of his min- isters and people (Exod. xi. 3), and finally com- pelled him to grant his demand by a series of disasters, the last of which was the sudden de- struction at midnight of all the first-born Egyp- tians (possibly then a privileged class). The Is- raelites had received their secret instructions, and immediately departed toward the desert. Moses led them across the northern extremity of the gulf of Akabah or Suez, the western prolongation of the Red sea (Heb. Yam Suf, reedy sea) ; and the king of Egypt, who, repent- ing of having let them go, pursued them with his cavalry and heavy war chariots, perished there with his army. The " song of Moses," which celebrates this event (Exod. xv.), is an admirable monument of ancient Hebrew poe- try, though surpassed in grandeur by that which closes the narrative of his life (Deut. xxxii.). After having repulsed an attack of the Amalekites, a roving and predatory Arabi- an tribe, Moses led the people to Mount Sinai, which from the delivery of the ten command- ments now received the name of the mountain of God. This divine decalogue not only con- tained the common fundamental points of every moral and legal code (" Honor thy father and mother," "Thou shalt not murder," &c.), but also included the sublime doctrine of monothe- ism, the great social institution of the sabbath, and the lofty moral precept, " Thou shalt not covet." These commandments, which formed the basis of a "covenant between God and Israel," together with the successively promul- gated statutes, precepts, &c. (according to the rabbis, altogether 365 positive and 248 negative obligations), constitute the Mosaic law (Torath Mosheh), which is contained principally in the second and third, and repeated in the fifth book of the Pentateuch, and for about 15 centuries