The Egypt of the Hebrews and Herodotos

by A. H. Sayce

Champollion, indeed, the first discoverer of the list and of its importance, believed that he had found in it the name of the Jewish capital. The twenty-ninth cartouche reads Yaud-hamelek, which he explained as signifying “the kingdom of Judah,” while Rosellini made it “the king of Judah.” But both interpretations are impossible. Melek, it is true, means “king” in Hebrew, but “king of Judah” would have to be melek-Yaudah; “kingdom of Judah,” malkûth-Yaudah. In the Semitic languages the genitive must follow the noun that governs it.

Yaud-hamelek is the Hebrew Ye(h)ud ham-melech “Jehud of the king.” Jehud was a town of Dan (Josh. xix. 45), which Blau has identified with the modern El-Yehudîyeh, near Jaffa, and the title attached to it in the Egyptian list implies that it was an appanage of the crown. The faces of the prisoners who surmount the cartouches are worthy of attention. The Egyptian artists were skilled delineators of the human features, and an examination of their sculptures and paintings has shown that they represented the characteristics of their models with wonderful truth and accuracy. For ethnological purposes their portraits of foreign races are of considerable [pg 110] importance. Now the prisoners of Shishak have the features, not of the Jew, but of the Amorite. The prisoners who served as models to the Egyptian sculptors at Karnak must therefore have been of Amorite descent. It is a proof that the Amorite population in southern Palestine was still strong in the days of Rehoboam and Shishak. The Jews would have been predominant only in Jerusalem and the larger cities and fortresses of the kingdom. Elsewhere the older race survived with all its characteristic features; the Israelitish conquest had never rooted it out. Hence it is that it still lives and flourishes in its ancient home. The traveller in the country districts of Judah looks in vain for traces of the Jewish race, but he may still see there the Amorite just as he is depicted on the monuments of Egypt. The Jews, in fact, were but the conquering and dominant caste, and with the extinction of their nationality came also in Judah the extinction of their racial type. The few who remained were one by one absorbed into the older population of the country.

Shishak died soon after his Jewish campaigns. None of his successors seem to have possessed his military capacity and energy. One of them, however, Osorkon ii., appears to have made an expedition against Palestine. Among the monuments disinterred at Bubastis by Dr. Naville for the Egyptian [pg 111] Exploration Fund are the inscribed blocks of stone which formed the walls of the second hall of the temple. This hall was restored by Osorkon, who called it the “Festival Hall” of Amon, which was dedicated on the day of Khoiak, in the twenty-second year of the king's reign. On one of the blocks the Pharaoh declares that “all countries, the Upper and Lower Retennu, are hidden under his feet.” The Upper Retennu denoted Palestine, the Lower Retennu Northern Syria, and though the boast was doubtless a vainglorious one, it must have had some foundation in truth.

In the Second Book of Chronicles (xiv. 9-15) we are told that when Asa was on the Jewish throne, “there came out against them Zerah the Ethiopian with an host of a thousand thousand and three hundred chariots.” The similarity between the names Zerah and Osorkon has long been noticed, and the reign of Osorkon ii. would coincide with that of Asa. Dr. Naville, therefore, is probably right in believing that some connection exists between the campaign of Zerah and the boast of Osorkon. It is true that the Chronicler calls Zerah an Ethiopian, and describes his army as an Ethiopian host; but this seems due to the fact that the next kings of Egypt who interfered in the affairs of Palestine, So and Tirhakah, were of Ethiopian descent. In the time [pg 112] of Asa, at any rate, when the twenty-second dynasty was ruling over Egypt, no Ethiopian army could have entered Judah without the permission of the Egyptian monarch. However, Dr. Naville draws attention to the fact that Osorkon seems to have had some special tie with Ethiopia. His great festival at Bubastis was attended by natives of Ethiopia, the Anti came with their gifts from “the land of the negroes,” and are depicted like the priests on the walls of the hall.

But troublous times were in store for Egypt. The twenty-second dynasty came to an end, and a period followed of confusion, civil war, and foreign invasion. The kings of Ethiopia sailed down the Nile and swept the country from Assuan to the sea. Petty princes reigned as independent sovereigns in the various cities of Egypt, and waged war one against the other. Pi-ankhi the Ethiopian was content with their momentary submission; he then retired to his ancestral capital at Napata, midway between Dongola and Khartûm, carrying with him the spoils of the Nile. Another Ethiopian, Shabaka or Sabako, the son of Kashet, made a more permanent settlement in Egypt. He put to death the nominal Pharaoh, Bak-n-ran-f or Bokkhoris, and founded the twenty-fifth dynasty. Order was again restored, the petty princes suppressed, and Egypt [pg 113] as well as Ethiopia obeyed a single head. The roads were cleared of brigands, the temples and walls of the cities were rebuilt, and trade could again pass freely up and down the Nile.

An Egyptian civilisation and an Egyptian religion had been established in Ethiopia since the days of the eighteenth dynasty. For some centuries, even after they had become independent of Egypt, the ruling classes boasted of the purity of their Egyptian descent. But before the age of Sabako the Egyptian element had been absorbed by the native population. We have learned from a monument of the Assyrian king, Esar-haddon, lately found at Sinjerli, in northern Syria, that Sabako and his successors had all the physical characteristics of the negro. But no sign of this is allowed to appear on the Egyptian monuments. With the contempt for the black race which still distinguishes them, the Egyptians refused to acknowledge that their Pharaohs could be of negro blood. In the sculptures and paintings of the Nile, accordingly, the kings of the Ethiopian dynasty are represented with all the features of the Egyptian race.

In spite, however, of all attempts to conceal the fact, we now know that they were negroes in reality. But they brought with them a vigour and a strength of will that had long been wanting among the rulers [pg 114] of Egypt. And it was not long before their Asiatic neighbours found that a new and energetic power had arisen on the banks of the Nile. Assyria was now extending its empire throughout Western Asia, and claiming to control the politics of Syria and Palestine. The Syrian princes looked to Egypt for help. In b.c. 720, Assyria and Egypt met face to face for the first time. Sib'e, the Tartan, or commander-in-chief, of the Egyptian armies, with Hanno of Gaza and other Syrian allies, blocked the way of the Assyrian invaders at Raphia, on the border of Palestine. The victory was won by the Assyrian Sargon. Hanno was captured, and Sib'e fled to the Delta. But Sargon turned northward again, and did not follow up his success. He was content with receiving the tribute of Pharaoh (Pir'u) “king of Egypt,” of Samsi, the queen of Arabia, and of Ithamar the Sabæan.

In Sib'e we must see the So or Seve of the Old Testament (2 Kings xvii. 4). He is there called “king of Egypt,” but he was rather one of the subordinate princes of the Delta, who acted as the commander-in-chief of “Pharaoh.” Pharaoh, it would seem, was still Bak-n-ran-f.

A few years later Sabako was established on the throne. He reigned at least twelve years, and was succeeded by his brother-in-law, Tirhakah, the Tarqû [pg 115] of the Assyrian texts. Under him, Egypt once more played a part in Jewish history.

It was trust in “Pharaoh, king of Egypt,” that made Hezekiah revolt from Assyria after Sargon's death. The result was the invasion of his kingdom by Sennacherib in b.c. 701. Tirhakah moved forward to help his ally. But his march diverted the attention of the Assyrian monarch only for a while. The armies of Sennacherib and Tirhakah met at Eltekeh, and Tirhakah the Pharaoh of Egypt was forced to retire. Both claim a victory in their inscriptions. Sennacherib tells us how “the kings of Egypt and the bowmen, chariots, and horses of the king of northern Arabia, had collected their innumerable forces and gone to the aid” of Hezekiah and his Philistine allies, and how in sight of Eltekeh, “in reliance on Assur,” he had “fought with them and utterly overthrown them.” “The charioteers and the sons of the king of Egypt, together with the charioteers of the king of northern Arabia,” he had “taken captive in the battle.” Tirhakah, on the other hand, on a statue now in the Gizeh Museum, declares that he was the conqueror of the Bedouin, the Hittites, the Arvadites, the Assyrians, and the people of Aram-Naharaim. The battle, in fact, was a Kadmeian victory. Tirhakah was so far defeated that he was forced to retreat to his own dominions, while [pg 116] Sennacherib's victory was not decisive enough to allow him to pursue it. He contented himself with marching back into Judah, burning and plundering its towns and villages, and carrying their inhabitants into captivity. Then came the catastrophe which destroyed the larger part of his army and obliged him to return ignominiously to his own capital. The spoils and captives of Judah were the only fruits of his campaign. His rebellious vassal went unpunished, and the strong fortress of Jerusalem was saved from the Assyrian. Though Sennacherib made many military expeditions during the remaining twenty years of his reign, he never came again to the south of Palestine.