The Pulpit Commentary — Genesis — Section 64

Captidty, an,! who had never visited the land of the l'haraohR, bnt who Wl\B yet BO well acquainted with the country, ita mannerB and customs, its laws and religion, that in at least twenty-five different instances mentioned by Bohlen his information was correct, had committed the unpardonable error of making the Egyptians in the time> of Moses build with brick, like tho Babylonians instead of stone ,7 use " nssee nnd camels'' in the days of Abraham, like the Arabians; "bring the produce of Arabia in Ishmaelite caravans from Palestine to Egypt" in the era of Jacob; nnd in the time of Joseph cultivate the vine, "which was not adopted in Egypt till the reign of Psammetichus;" and had proved himself "so grossly ignorant of the climate of the conntry, that he transferred to it without a scruple the parching east wind of Palestine, and subsequently employed its agency to bring about the ebbing of the sea;" of the social and religious habits of the community, that he represented Joseph "ne slaying animals to supply his entertainments-in glaring opposition to the sacred character they are known to have enjoyed ; " and of the language of the people,." that man;r Aramea.n words were cited at random as Egyptian." So far, however, have these formidable charges been from being substantiated on closer investigation, that in every single instance they have received a triumphant refutation, proving that not the sucred writer, but the confident critic, is in the wrong. As it were, a dead and buried Egypt of which neither Psammetichus nor Herodotus was aware has risen up to delfrer witness on this momentous theme. Uncovering her sepulchres and laying bare her sculptures, the Egypt of the times of Abraham and Joseph and Moses has added her testimony to what was already known of the Egypt of a later date in attestation of the authenticity of Pentateuchal history. In the department of Ex- position in the various books, the light reflected upon the Mosaic writings by tho decipherment cf Egyptian hieroglyphics and the study of the monumental representa- tions has been carefully collected, with the general result "that in the entire Mosaic description of ancient Egypt there is not a single feature which is out of harmony with what we know of the Egypt of this remote period from other sources," nay, more, that "almost every point in it is confirmed either by the classical writers, by the monuments, or by both" (1,ide Rawlinson's 'Historical Illustrations of the Old Testament,' pp. 39-52). And now the fourth objection to the historic credibility, and therefore by implication to the Mosaic authorship, of the Pentateuch is the geographical and other mistakes which have been allowed to slip into the narrative, but wl,ich, if that narrative had been composed by a ce>ntemporaneous author, would as certainly have been excluded. In the catalogue of blunders, which has been drawn up in support of the thesis that they never could have been committed by Moses, there are chronological and arithmetical as well ae geographical inaccuracies- inaccuracies relating to the very times, circumstances, and events in w]iich Moses lived, as well as belonging to a long antecedent period ; and inasmuch as those mi8- takes will bear the heaviest against the Mosaic authorship which occur in connection with the age or epoch of the reputed author, the illustrations to he now given will be taken from the hi.story of the Exodus, in which Moses himself was a prominent actor. Bicek quotes as a chronological inaccuracy Numb. i. 1 and ix. l, but this _assumes what will be difficult to establish-that in all minute details the Pentateuch WSII intended to adhere to strict chronological arrangement. A more hopeful instance ( Vater, Hartmann) refers to the age of the Levites in entering on se_rvice, which in Numb. iv. 3 is mentioned as thirty, and in Numb. viii. 24 is fixed at twenty-five; but even this may be disposed of by remembering that the latter passage speaks of the e.ge for entering on the dutiee of the tabernacle generally, which wne to be from twenty-five to fifty, while the former refers to the transportation of the ark and  'l'tm AUTFionsmP OF THE PENTATEUr;rt, vii