THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
xi. 5), and something of the industrial accomplishment of the Egyptians must have been acquired . That the Israelites showed a greater receptivity and productivity in respect to culture than their near relatives, the Edomites and Moabites, is due in part to their sojourn in Egypt. The pre-Mosaic period was a preparation also for the theocratic and national cult of later times. The preaching of Moses must have had a basis in the knowledge of contemporary Hebrews; and the sources unitedly attribute to the patriarchs acquaintance with the God of the covenant, though he was called by other names. This God of the patriarchs was invisible, exalted, not bound to any one land, though he revealed himself in definite localities which were therefore holy, and was the possessor of heaven and earth (Gen. xiv. 19), dwelling in heaven and ruling the earth. The recollection clung that Abraham had been called from a relationship where idolatry was the rule (Josh. xxiv. 2, 14). The uniqueness of God was not theoretically developed, but was rather a practical monotheism which permitted to the Hebrews worship of him alone. The stone worship and totemism some find in Genesis is discovered only through wilful exegesis and eisegesis. Even in the naive anthropomorphisms of Gen. xi., xviii.-xix. there are evidences of an exalted conception of God. These religious ideas were not derived from Egypt, for they differ entirely from Egyptian conceptions, though that the Hebrews derived some things from the Egyptians is clear from Josh. xxiv. 14; Ezek. xx. 7 sqq., but that the calf worship had such an origin is improbable (see Calf, The Golden).
In the region granted them by the Egyptians, the Hebrew shepherds lived in relative independence and grew strong. Into this situation was injected the circumstance simply
3. The So-
E . expressed in Ex. i. 8 as the rise of a king who knew not Joseph. This is doubtless to be connected with the expulsion of the Hyksos from Egypt and the antiforeign sentiments of the new dynasty. The half-nomads in the northeast were subjected to the corvee and put to building fortresses and storehouses; and since this did not suffice to reduce their strength, the slaughter of the male children was ordered. Thus what had been a welcome asylum became a place of slavery under the hardships of which the Hebrews groaned. Liberation from this situation is attributed by a unanimous tradition to Moses. The period of the oppression is with growing assurance asserted to be that of Rameses II., whose name is connected with so many building-enterprises and monuments. In that case his son and successor, Meneptah, was the Pharaoh of the Exodus (see Egypt, I., 4, § 3). Apparently against this is an inscription of Meneptah telling of an expedition in which he has destroyed Syria and Israel (the latter for the only time found mentioned on Egyptian monuments). If the reference is to Israel, then Israel must already have been living in Canaan, and the Exodus must have taken place earlier. This agrees better with Hebrew tradition, which (I Kings vi. 1) reckoned 480 years between the Exodus and the building of Solomon's temple, which would place the Exodus
c. 1440 b.c, therefore in the time of Amenophis II.; and this agrees again with the statement of Manetho, who records the expulsion of the lepers under a king of this name. One circumstance, indeed, tells against this earlier date, viz., the frequent occurrence in the Pentateuch of the name Rameses (Gen. xlvii. 11; Ex. i. 11, xii. 37; Num. xiii. 3, 5). Further, against the late dating of the Exodus is the fact that the tribal name Asher appears in an inscription of Seti, father of Rameses (c. 1350 b.c), according to which that tribe must have had its residence in the neighborhood of Lebanon. The supposition that this tribe departed alone from Egypt is improbable.* According to Gen. xv. 13, 16, the sojourn in Egypt was to last 400 years or four generations. The Hebrew of Ex. xii. 40-41 gives 430 years, but the Septuagint reads " which they sojourned in Egypt and the land of Canaan." The indication of the narrative of P is that 215 years were assigned to the Egyptian sojourn and 215 to the period between the settlement and David, which was the understanding of Josephus and of the synagogue. Along with this goes the fact that in the genealogies of Moses and Achan between Korah and Levi are mentioned only two steps, between Judah and Achan only three (Ex. vi. 20; Num. xxvi. 59, xvi. 1; Josh. vii. 1). But since in Gen. xv. even the Septuagint has the higher number, its reading in Ex. xii. 40 appears to be an emendation. With the longer period would agree the censuses of Num. L, xxvi., which involve a population of about 2,000,000 souls, and Num. xi. 21. On the other hand, it is difficult to reconcile these high numbers with the long sojourn in the peninsula of Sinai [or to find room for so many people in the region. Therefore these numbers are now rejected, and scholars reduce the number of Israelites in the Exodus to a few thousands].
The Exodus under Moses was regarded by the Israelites as the birth of the nation (for the route of the Exodus see Red Sea; Wandering in the Wilderness) . The his-
4. The Exodus and the
Giving' of ^or^c^y °f the narrative of the Exodus the Law. would suffer no harm if it were assumed that only the noblest part of the people, to which the Joseph tribes belonged, took part in the event, while the other tribes were already in the peninsula; but for this supposition there is no sure ground. To Moses, under direction of God, were due both the Exodus and the covenant between Yahweh and Israel; but they were essentially divine acts, and God became known by his name Yahweh (see Jehovah; and Yahweh). The result was the cult and the conceptions of life which
* The text takes no account of the explanation by recent critics of the Seti and Meneptah inscriptions. This is to the effect that the Hebrew tribes whose descent was traced to concubines of Jacob were those who, already settled in Canaan in prehistoric times, were absorbed at a comparatively late period, to which fact is due the less honorable account of their origin. The tribes mentioned in the inscriptions were in that case not among the refugees in Egypt or the Hebrews of the Exodus, but had maintained their residence in Canaan, where they were assailed by Seti and Meneptah. This is supported by the legend of the substitution of the name Israel for Jacob, which is the eponymous method of accounting for a transfer of name from a portion to the whole people. G. W G.