away to places so near, and so well frequented; and the city being in this manner levelled, and the Nile overflowing the old ruins, it may easily be accounted for how every thing has been 'buried or covered over, as if no such place had ' ever been.' Mr Maillet likewise, in his description of Egypt, (p. 275.) is of the same opinion, though more concise: De cette Memphis, autrefois si fameuse et si considerable, a peine res'tet-il assez de traces, pour pouvoir nous assu6 rer de sa veritable situation.'

CHAPTER V.

Of the Land of Goshen, of Arabia Petræa, and of the Encampments of the Israelites therein.

AFTER having thus adjusted the ancient situation of Memphis, let us return to the opposite shore, to the Arabian banks of the Nile, at Kairo and Mattarea, which, in the sacred geography, were a part of the land of Goshen or of RameFor Joseph, when he invited his father and brethren into Egypt, tells them, (Gen. xlv. 10.) that they should dwell in the land of Goshen, and be near him. Goshen then must, at that time, have been adjacent to the seat of the Egyptian

ses.

kings. Now, (to omit other arguments that might be drawn from the history and succession of the Egyptian dynasties), as dynasties), as a west wind, Exod. x. 19. took away the locusts and cast them into the Red Sea, this metropolis may be much better fixed at Memphis, whose situation exactly answers to this circumstance, than at Zoan or Mansourah, as it is now called, a city of the Tanitic Nomos, twenty leagues to the northward; and consequently, where the same wind could not have blown them into the Red Sea, but into the Mediterranean, or else into the land of the Philistines, which lies directly to the eastward of it. For the land of Zoan, (Psal. lxxviii. 12. 43.) where the fearful things are said to have been done, was probably another appellation only for the land of Egypt, or the land of Ham, by taking, as usual in poetical compositions, a part for the whole, or, in the instance before us, one of the most remarkable places of Egypt, such as Zoan might be in the time of David, or the composer of that Psalm, for the whole country.

And indeed, provided Zoan had been then, as it might have been afterwards, the metropolis or the seat of the Pharaohs, towards which, Jacob and his children were to direct their marches, how comes it, that at their first setting out, they took their journey from the vale of Hebron (Gen. xxxvii. 14. xlvi. 1.) to Beersheba? which would lie too much upon the left hand; and not towards Gaza, and the sea coast of the Philistines, which would have certainly been the nearest, and the

most

most direct road to Zoan? Whence comes it likewise, that when Jacob was carried out of Goshen, to be buried at Hebron, the procession came to the threshing floor of Atad*, which was beyond, i. e. to the westward † of the Jordan? Gen. 1. 10. For though indeed we cannot well account for this last geographical circumstance, yet it shews that the road, perhaps the same for the most part that Jacob took in going to Egypt, lay at a great distance from the sea coast of the Philistines, and consequently that they could not have set out from Zoan.

Nay, further, provided Jacob had directed his journey from Beersheba, which was his second station towards that part or city of Egypt, which was called Zoan, it will be difficult to account for the tradition that is recorded by the

LXXII

* If this Atad is the same that is laid down by St Jerom and Eusebius, at 111 M. from Jericho, and II from the Jordan, it must be situated xxx M. at least to the N. E. of Hebron; and consequently would be so much out of the way, in travelling thither from Egypt, Gen. xiv. 2. and xix. 22.

+ Beyond Jordan, is taken at large for the country that lies both to the west and to the east of Jordan, Deut. iii. 8. & 20. without being distinguished by beyond Jordan eastward, as in Josh. xiii. 8. or beyond Jordan westward, or towards the sea, as in Josh. xii. 7. And in this passage, it may perhaps be more circumstantiated, and signify the threshing-floor that lay near, or at the ford of the Jordan; we will suppose a little below, or to the southward of the plain, where Gilgal was afterwards. But without contracting the Dead Sea, and making the channel of the Jordan extend itself much further towards Beersheba than it does at present, or very probably ever did after the destruction of Sodom, nothing of this kind can be well supposed; as this ford would still lie a great way beyond Hebron, out of the direct course of their journey, from which they cannot well be presumed to have deviated.

LXXII* and Josephus †, that his son Joseph met him at Heroopolis, or Adjeroute, according to the present name. For this being a city of the Heliopolitan Nomos ‡, bordering upon the Red Sea, it would lie directly in the road from Beersheba to Memphis, but quite out of the road from Beersheeba to Zoan. The LXXII likewise instruct us, in the text above quoted, that Heroopolis was a city of the land of Rameses. The land of Rameses therefore, or Goshen, could be no other than the Heliopolitan Nomos, taking in that part of Arabia which lay bounded, near Heliopolis, by the Nile; and near Heroopolis, by the correspondent part of the Red Sea. For the Scriptures call Goshen, Gen. xlvii. 6. the best of the land and again, ver. 11. Joseph gave his father and his brethren a possession in the land of Egypt, in the best of the land, in the land of Rameses: i. e. Goshen was the best and the most fertile portion of that jurisdiction. This then could be no other than what lay within two or three leagues at the most from the Nile; because the rest of the Egyptian Arabia, which reaches beyond the influence of this river to the eastward, is a barren, inhospitable wilderness.

VOL. II.

M

Josephus

* Τον δε Ιεδάν απέτειλεν εμπροσθεν αυτε προς Ιωσηφ συναντήσαι αυτω καθ' Ηρωων πολιν, εις γιην Ράμεση. Gen. xlvi. 28.

† Μαθών δε Ιωσήπος παραγενομένον τον πατέρα,ὑπαντησομένος εξεισι nai xxd Hęwwÿ toλiv auta ovnbake. Joseph. Antiq. 1. ii. c. 7. Η ΗΛΙΟΥΠΟΛΙΤΗΣ ΝΟΜΟΣ, και μητροπολις ἥλιο β 2. λ Και εν μεθορίω Αραβίας και Αφροδιτοπολεως Βαβυλου EB d. a.

Ηρωων πολίς ξγ. እ.

Ηλιοπολις

Ëß છે.

Δι ̓ ἧς και Βαβυλώνος πολέως, Τρασανος ποταμος ρε.

Ptol. Geogr. 1. iv. c. 5.

*

Josephus gives us a further proof that the land of Goshen was thus situated, by placing the first settlement of the Hebrews at Heliopolis, or Ont, as the Scriptures call it; which may be a testimony likewise that Heliopolis could not have been then the seat of Pharaoh, because the Hebrews were not to be with, but only to be near him. The ruins of this city, where there is a fountain of excellent water, are known at present by the name of Matta-reah‡, lying about three miles to the eastward of the Nile, and five to the N. E. of Kairo. But, in proportion as the Hebrews increased, it may be presumed that they spread themselves further along the Arabian banks of the Nile, towards Bishbesh, the ancient Bubastis, and towards Kairo, the ancient Latopolis, or Babylon || The Israelites likewise are said, Exod. i. 11. to have built Pithom, the Patumus probably which Herodotus § places near Bubastis;

and,

Φαραω-συνεχωρησεν αυτω (Ιακωβ) ζην μετα των τεκνων εν ΗΛΙΟΥПоАЕI. Joseph. Antiq. 1. ii. c. 4.

+ On (the priest of), Gen. xli. 46. and 50. is rendered by the

LXXII, Ηλιοπολεως.

The Nubian geographer seems to call. the city, from the fountain, Ain (Semes) Shims, The Fountain of the Sun, placing it to the northward of Fostat, or old Kairo: Ád plagam Fostat 'septentrionalem urbs Ain Semes dicta,' p. 98. Quod etiam ⚫ Constantinus L'Empereur ad Tudelensem,' p. 244.confirmat, quia peregrinator ille locum, quem Israelitæ habitandum acceperint, vocet Dy fontem Solis.' Cellar. Geogr. Antiq. lib. iv. pag. 35. What the prophet Jeremiah, (xliii. 13.) calls (won) Bethshemesh, i. e. the house of the sun, the LXXII interpret Ηλιοπολις.

|| Vid. Jac. de Vitriaco, 1. iii. Hist. Orient. c. 7. Jos. Antiq. 1. ii. c. 5.

§ Ηκται δε κατυπερθε ολίγον βεβαιος πόλιος παρα Πατέμον του Agabiny Tov. Herod. Eut. § 158.