" Papyriferi septemflua flumiua Nili."
The monuments of the early dynasties represent the Nile as a stream bordered by Hags and papyrus-reeds, the covert of innumerable wild fowl, and bearing on its waters the flowers of the various-colored lotus. At the present time there are scarcely any reeds or water-plants to be seen in Egypt — the papyrus having become ex- tinct, and the lotus being now unknown — as the prophet distinctly foretold they should be "no more." When it is recollected that the water-plants of Egypt in Isaiah's time and much later were so abundant as to be a great source of revenue to the country, the exact fulfilment of his predictions is a valuable evidence of the truth in reference to " the sure word of prophecy." We have seen likewise how Isaiah foretold the failure of the fish- eries; and although this was doubtless a natural result of the wasting of the river, its cause could not have been anticipated by human wisdom. " The Nile," says Diod- orus Siculus (lib. i), "abounds with incredible numbers of all sorts of fish," which once formed a main source of "revenue" (Isa. xxiii, 3), as well as sustenance to the inhabitants of the countrj'. The Israelites in the desert looked back with regret to the fish they had left behind them. " We remember the fish which we did eat in Egypt freely, but now our soul is dried away, and there is nothing at all beside this manna before our eyes" (Numb, xi, 4, 5). The fisheries of Egypt have long ceased to be of the productive nature they once were, in accordance with the prophetic announcement that "the fishers should mourn and all the anglers should lament" for their lost trade.
There is one more prophecy in Isaiah respecting the Nile, the fulfilment of which is still in the future: "When Jehovah shall set his hand again the second time to re- cover the remnant of his people which shall be left from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from the islands of the sea, he will utterly destroy the tongue (or baij, Josh. XV, 2, 5) of the Egyptian sea; and with his mighty wind shall he shake his hand over the river, and shall smite it in the seven streams, and make men go over dryshod" (Isa. xi, 11-15). Notwithstanding that K. Kimchi and others have understood this of the Eu- phrates, it is clear from the context, as well as from a Comparison of the parallel passages (Isa. xix, 5; xxiii.
3), that none other than the river Nile can be intended. As by " the tongue of the Egyptian sea" must be meant the bay of the Mediterranean Sea into which the Nile, and not the Euphrates, empties itself, so a prophecy specifying a river with " seven streams" must necessar- ily point to that famous river, which in ancient and modern times alike has been recognised as the "seven- mouthed Nile." Now, as for a long period past, there arc no navigable and unobstructed branches but the two that Herodotus distinguishes as in origin works of man. Tliis change was prophesied by Isaiah : " And the \vaters shall fail from the sea, and the river shall be Avasted and dried up" (xix, 5).
The prophets not only tell us of the future of the Nile ; they speak of it as it was in their days. Ezckiel likens Pharaoh to a crocodile, fearing no one in the midst of Ids river, yet dragged forth with the fish of his rivers, and left to perish in the wilderness (xxix, 1-5 ; comp. xxxii, 1-G). Nahum thus speaks of the Nile, when he warns Nineveh by the ruin of Thebes : " Art thou better than No-Amon, that was situate among the rivers, [that had] the waters round about it, whose rampart [was] the sea, [and] her wall [was] from the sea?" (iii, 8). Here the river is spoken of as the rampart, and perhaps as the support of the capital, and the situation, most re- markable in P^gypt, of the cit}' on the two banks is in- dicated. See No-Ajimon. But still more striking than this description is the use which we have already no- ticed of the inundation, as a figure of the Egyptian ar- mies, and also of the coming of utter destruction prob- ably by an invading force.
In the New Testament there is no mention of the Nile. Tradition says that when our Lord was brought into Egypt his mother came to Heliopolis. See On. If so, he may have dwelt in his childhood by the side of the ancient river which witnessed so many events of sacred history, perhaps the coming of Abraham, certainly the rule of Joseph, and the long oppression and deliver- ance of Israel their posterity.
See in addition to the works named above, Oedmann, Saml. i, 113 sq. ; Lenz, T)e Nilo (in the Comment pM- lol. ed. Euperti et Schlichthorst, Brem. l^Oi); Hart- mann, Geor/r. von Africa, i, 75 sq. ; Ukert, Geocjr. von Africa, i, 97 sq. ; Le Pere, id. xviii, i, p. 555 sq. ; Beke, Sources of the Nile (Lond. 18G0); Werne, Source of the White Nile (ibid. 1849); Baker, ^aswi of the Nile (ibid. 18C6); McCulloch, Gazetteer, s. v.; Smith's Diet, of Class. Geoff, s. v. ; Appleton's Neiu Amer. Ci/clopcedia, and the recent works there cited.