Goshen, Zoan and Pithom, the sites around which the early history of Israel gathered, have thus been brought to light. The disputes which have raged about them are at last ended. Here and there a persistent sceptic, who has been reared in the traditions of the past, may still express doubts concerning the discoveries of recent years, but for the Egyptologist and the archæologist the question has been finally settled. We can visit “the field of Zoan” and explore the mounds of Pithom with no misgivings as to their identity. When the train carries us from Ismailîyeh to Cairo, we may feel assured that we are passing through the district in which Jacob and his family were settled, and where the kinsfolk of Moses had their homes. The Egypt of the patriarchs and the Exodus was an Egypt narrow in compass and easily traversed in these days of steam; it represented the western part of the Delta, more especially the strip of cultivable land which stretches along the banks of the Freshwater Canal from Zagazig to Ismailîyeh: that is all. The eastern and northern Delta, Upper Egypt—even the district in which Cairo now stands—lay outside it. The history which attaches itself to them is not the history of the early Israelites.
CHAPTER III. THE EXODUS AND THE HEBREW SETTLEMENT IN CANAAN.
Ramses II. was the last of the conquering Pharaohs of native Egyptian history. The Asiatic empire of Thothmes III. was in some measure restored by the victories of his father and himself. The cities of Palestine yielded him an unwilling obedience. Gaza, and the other towns in what was afterwards the territory of the Philistines, were garrisoned by Egyptian troops, and on the walls of the Ramesseum were depicted his conquest of Shalem or Jerusalem, Merom, Beth-Anath, and other Canaanite states, in his eighth year. Egyptian armies again marched northward into Syria along the highroad that led past the Phœnician cities, and on the banks of the Nahr el-Kelb, or Dog’s River, near Beyrût, the Pharaoh erected a tablet in commemoration of his successes. On the eastern side of the Jordan also Egyptian authority once more prevailed. In front of the northern pylon of the temple of Luxor, Ramses erected six colossal figures of himself, and on their recently-uncovered bases are inscribed the names of the various nations he claimed to have subdued. Among them we find, for the first time in the Egyptian records, the name of Moab, following immediately upon that of Assar, the Asshurim of Genesis xxv. 3. That the insertion of the name was not an idle boast we learn from a discovery lately made by Dr. Schumacher. On the eastern side of the Jordan, but at no great distance from the Lake of Tiberias, is a monolith called the “Stone of Job.” On this the German explorer has found Egyptian sculptures and hieroglyphs. Above the figure of the Pharaoh are the cartouches of Ramses II., and opposite the king, on the left, a local deity is represented with a full face and the crown of Osiris, over whom is written the name of Akna-zapn, or “Yakin of the North.” The monument is an evidence of a permanent occupation of the country by the Egyptians, as the name and figure of the god indicate that it was erected, not by the Egyptians themselves, but by the Egyptianised natives of the land.