kings of Syria, may have been occasioned by the fame of their great wealth (Gen. xii. 5; xiii. 2, 5; xiv., etc.; compare xiv. 15, and xv. 2). 3. The ten tribes and the name Judea are confused notions from the later times of the divided empire. 4. Joseph and Moses are, as in the account of Chaeremon (see ii.), brought into a close chronological connection. 5. The statement, that the kings of Israel performed at the same time pontifical functions is not correct, and may be the result of a misconception of the theocratical institutions of Israel.1 6. The author reports nothing about the fate of the other nine sons of Israel and their descendants, and about their connection with the returning progeny of Joseph. - The other inaccuracies in Justinus' account are too obvious to require comment.

We abstain from giving an extract from the History of the Jews attributed to Hecataeus of Abdera, who was a contemporary of Alexander the Great (Joseph. c. Ap. i. 22), since even Origen declared that work spurious (C. Cels. i. 15).

All these accounts combined, however scanty and contradictory they are, have yet that incalculable importance, that they confirm and raise beyond the shadow of a doubt, the great and momentous events which form the chief interest of our book, and that they, on the other hand, just by their confusedness, show the lucidity and authenticity of the Biblical relation in a clearer and more advantageous light.

1 See note on xix. 6; compare, however, also note on ii. 16.

"AND I BORE YOU ON EAGLES' WINGS, AND BROUGHT YOU TO MYSELF."-XIX. 4.

SUMMARY.-The seventy individuals, who had immigrated into Egypt in the time of Jacob, increased, in the course of some centuries, to such a numerous people, that a later Pharaoh from another dynasty, ignorant or unmindful of the important services Joseph had rendered to the Egyptian monarchy, and fearful lest the Hebrews join his political-internal-enemies, and leave the land, to his great disadvantage, devised various despotic plans for their diminution: first he tried to exhaust their energies by severe and excessive labour; then he ordered the midwives to kill all male children; and, lastly, he charged all his subjects to watch that every new-born boy be thrown into the Nile.

1. The events related in the first chapter, from the death of Joseph (Gen. 1. 26) to the marriage of Amram and Jochebed, comprise a period of 264 years (see Introduction, § 2. 11), viz. from 1910 A.M. to 2174 A. M. (or 1850 B. c. to 1586 B. C.), (see Introduction, § 2. 111). As the history of the descendants of Jacob in Egypt is about to be related, the sons of that patriarch are again enumerated, a complete list of all the members of his family at the time of their immigration into Egypt having already been given in Genesis xlvi. 8-27. That genealogy is further repeated here, in order to indicate, in the most striking manner possible, the commencement of the new epoch in the history of the progeny of Abraham.-(1) Now these. Ebn Ezra connects the conjunction (1) with Genesis 1. 23, where the progeny of Joseph is alluded to; Salomon (“The Pentateuch Translated and Explained") with the promises contained in Gen. l. 24, 25. It indicates certainly the close con

sons are not counted, for as Ebn Ezra
remarks: "an individual with his wife, that
only is the man." The English version,
scrupulously faithful to the tonic accents
of the masoretic text, takes the words with
Jacob to the second part of the sentence,
thereby impairing the simplicity of the
sense. None of the ancient versions offers
a similar rendering.

2—4. Rashbam, in order to justify the
partial repetition from Gen. xlvi. 8-27,
thus explains the connection of these ver-
ses: "The descendants of Israel multiplied

EXODUS.

CHAP. I. 1. Now these are the names of the children of Israel, who came into Egypt with Jacob; 'every man came with his household. 2. Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, 3. Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin, 4. Dan, and Naphtali, Gad, and Asher. 5. And all the souls that came out of the loins of Jacob were seventy souls: and Joseph was in Egypt already. 6. And Joseph died, and

1 Engl. Vers.-Every man and his household came with Jacob.

of these (seventy souls), Joseph (and his sons) lived then in Egypt. Mendelssohn translates therefore aptly, though freely, siebzig Personen mit Joseph, der in Mizraim war. About the number seventy, see Raphall's elaborate note to Gen. xlvi. 26, and note C. of the Appendix, where the opinion of Ebn Ezra, that the seventieth person (for the text enumerates only sixty-nine) is Jacob himself, although it might, at the first glance, appear, that he cannot appropriately be included among those that came out of the loins of Jacob, is convincingly defended against the tradition, according to which the number of seventy souls is completed by Jochebed (the mother of Moses), who is asserted to have been born precisely at the time of their entering Egypt, but who, if this opinion

were correct, would, even according to traditionary chronology, have been 135 years old when she gave birth to Moses (see note to ii. 1). The Septuagint has seventy-five instead of seventy, as in Gen. xlvi. 27, where it arbitrarily adds five of the descendants of Ephraim and Manasseh enumerated in 1 Chron. vii. 14-19. Besides this, the Septuagint exhibits in this verse another deviation from the usual text, viz., it begins the verse with the words Ἰωσὴφ δὲ ἦν ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ and Joseph was in Egypt.

6. And Joseph died, etc. This verse clearly resumes the thread of the narration from the point to which it had been carried on in the preceding book (1. 26), and repeats, therefore, briefly, the event there stated: "So then Joseph died," etc. -And all that generation, comprising a rather protracted period of an indefinite number of years; for Levi survived Joseph by about twenty-five years, compare Gen. 1. 26, and Exod. vi. 16.

properly with force of במאד מאד .

force, i. e. most forcibly, in an extraordinary degree (ND being originally a substantive, strength, force, Deut. vi. 5, from the root to be strong, as in Arab.

signify ان and اید and ;اید instead of

strength, like TND. See Gesenius, The