Armenia in Comments -- Author: Albert Barnes (Notes on the Bible) 1834
Searched terms: hyks
Exodus
tEx 1:8The expressions in this verse are special and emphatic. "A new king" is a phrase not found elsewhere. It is understood by most commentators to imply that he did not succeed his predecessor in the natural order of descent and inheritance. He "arose up over Egypt," occupying the land, as it would seem, on different terms from the king whose place he took, either by usurpation or conquest. The fact that he knew not Joseph implies a complete separation from the traditions of Lower Egypt. At present the generality of Egyptian scholars identify this Pharaoh with Rameses II, but all the conditions of the narrative are fulfilled in the person of Amosis I (or, Aahmes), the head of the 18th Dynasty. He was the descendant of the old Theban sovereigns, but his family was tributary to the Dynasty of the Shepherds, the Hyksos of Manetho, then ruling in the North of Egypt. Amosis married an Ethiopian princess, and in the third year of his reign captured Avaris, or Zoan, the capital of the Hyksos, and completed the expulsion of that race. Exodus 1:10
Exodus
tEx 12:38A mixed multitude - Probably remains of the old Semitic population, whether first brought into the district by the Hyksos or not is uncertain. As natural objects of suspicion and dislike to the Egyptians who had lately become masters of the country, they would be anxious to escape, the more especially after the calamities which preceded the Exodus.
Very much cattle - This is an important fact, both as showing that the oppression of the Israelites had not extended to confiscation of their property, and as bearing upon the question of their maintenance in the Wilderness. Exodus 12:40
Numbers
tNum 13:22The progenitor of the Anakim was Arba "the father of Anak" Jos 15:13, from whom the city of Hebron took its name of Kirjath-Arba. Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai were probably not individual warriors, but names of three tribes of the Anakim. Hence, we find them still in existence half a century later, when Caleb, who now brought tidings of them, became their eventual destroyer Jos 15:14.
Now Hebron ... - This parenthesis explains that these two cities had a common founder, and were built, or perhaps, at least in the case of Zoan (Tanis, see Exo 1:8, note; Exo 2:5, note) rebuilt, by the Hyksos, to which nations, once the conquerors of Egypt, the Anakim perhaps belonged. The Hyksos fortified and garrisoned Zoan as a defense of their Eastern frontier. Numbers 13:23
Isaiah
isa 19:0
This prophecy respecting Egypt extends only through this chapter. Its general scope and design is plain. It is intended to describe the calamities that would come upon Egypt, and the effect which they would have in turning the people to God. The scene is laid in Egypt; and the following things passed before the mind of the prophet in vision:
1. He sees Yahweh coming in a cloud to Egypt Isa 19:1.
2. The effect of this is to produce alarm among the idols of that nation Isa 19:2.
3. A state of intrnal commotion and discord is described as existing in Egypt; a state of calamity so great that they would seek relief from their idols and necro-mancers Isa 19:2-3.
4. The consequence of these dissensions and internal strifes would be, that they would be subdued by a foreign and cruel prince Isa 19:4.
5. To these political calamities there would be added "physical" sufferings Isa 19:5-10 - the Nile would be dried up, and all that grew on its banks would wither Isa 19:5-7; those who had been accustomed to fish in the Nile would be thrown out of employment Isa 19:8; and those that were engaged in the manufacture of linen would, as a consequence, be driven from employment Isa 19:9-10.
6. All counsel and wisdom would fail from the nation, and the kings and priests be regarded as fools Isa 19:11-16.
7. The land of Judah would become a terror to them Isa 19:17.
8. This would be followed by the conversion of many of the Egyptians to the true religion Isa 19:18-20; Yahweh would become their protector, and would repair the breaches that had been made, and remove the evils which they had experienced Isa 19:21-22, and a strong alliance would be formed between the Egyptians, the Assyrians, and the Jews, which should secure the divine blessing and favor Isa 19:23-25.
This is the outline of the prophecy. In regard to the "time" when it was delivered, we have no certain knowledge. Lowth supposes that it refers to times succeeding the destruction of the army of Sennacherib. After that event, he says, the affairs of Egypt were thrown into confusion; intestine broils succeeded; these were followed by a tyranny of twelve princes, who divided the country between them, until the distracted affairs settled down under the dominion of Psammetichus, who held the scepter for fifty-four years. Not long after this, the country was invaded and conquered by Nebuchadnezzar; and then by the Persians under Cambyses, the son of Cyrus. Alexander the Great subsequently invaded and took the country, and made Alexandria the capital of his empire. Many Jews were invited there by Alexander, and under the favor of the Ptolemies they flourished there; the true religion became prevalent in the land, and multitudes of the Egyptians, it is supposed, were converted to the Jewish faith.
Dr. Newton ("Diss. xii. on the Prophecies") supposes, that there was a "general" reference here to the conquest by Nebuchadnezzar, and a "particular" reference to the conquest under Cambyses the son of Cyrus. He supposes that the anarchy described in Isa 19:2, refers to the civil wars which arose between Apries and Amasis in the time of Nebuchadnezzars invasion, and the civil wars between Tachos, Nectanebus, and the Mendesians, a little before the country was subdued by Ochus. The cruel king mentioned in Isa 19:4, into whose hands they were delivered, he supposes was Nebuchadnezzar, or more probably Cambyses and Ochus, one of whom put the yoke on the neck of the Egyptians, and the other riveted it there. The Egyptians say that Cambyses, after he killed Apis, a god worshipped in Egypt, was stricken with madness; but his actions, says Prideaux, show that he was mad long before. Ochus was the most cruel of the kings of Persia. The final deliverance of the nation, and the conversion to the true God, and the alliance between Egypt, Assyria and Israel Isa 19:18-25, he supposes, refers to the deliverance that would be introduced by Alexander the Great, and the protection that would be shown to the Jews in Egypt under the Ptolemies.
Vitringa, Gesenius, Grotius, Rosenmuller, and others, suppose that the anarchy described in Isa 19:2, refers to the discord which arose in the time of the δωδεκαρχία dōdekarchia, or the reign of the twelve kings, until Psammetichus prevailed over the rest, and that he is intended by the 'cruel lord' and 'fierce king,' described in Isa 19:4. In other respects, their interpretation of the prophecy coincides, in the main, with that proposed by Dr. Newton.
A slight glance at some of the leading events in the history of Egypt, may enable us more clearly to determine the application of the different parts of the prophecy.
Egypt, a well-known country in Africa, is, for the most part, a great valley through which the Nile pours its waters from south to north, and is skirted on the east and west by ranges of mountains which approach or recede more or less from the river in different parts. Where the valley terminates toward the north, the Nile divides itself, about forty or fifty miles from the Mediterranean, into several parts, enclosing the territory called the Delta - so called because the various streams flowing from the one river diverge as they flow toward the sea, and thus form with the coast a triangle in the shape of the Greek letter Δ D. The southern limit of Egypt proper is Syene Eze 29:10; Eze 30:6, or Essuan, the border of Ethiopia. Here the Nile issues from the granite rocks of the cataracts and enters Egypt proper. This is N. lat. 24 degrees.
Egypt was anciently divided into forty-two "nomes" or districts, which were little provinces or counties. It was also divided into Upper and Lower Egypt. Upper Egypt was called Thebais, from Thebes the capital, and extended south to the frontier of Ethiopia. Lower Egypt contained principally the Delta and the parts on the Mediterranean. The capital was Cairo.
The most common division, however, was into three parts, Lower, Middle, and Upper Egypt. In Lower Egypt, lying on the Mediterranean, were the cities of Pithon, Raamses, Heliopolis, etc. In this division, also, was the land of Goshen. In Middle Egypt was Moph, or Memphis, Hanes, etc. In Upper Egypt was No-Ammon, or Thebes, and Syene, the southern limit of Egypt.
The ancient history of Egypt is obscure. It is agreed on all hands, however, that it was the early seat of civilization; and that this civilization was introduced from the south, and especially from Meroe. The country in the earliest times was possessed by several kings or states, which were at length united into one great kingdom. Not long after the death of Joseph, it came into the possession of the Hyksos or Shepherd kings, probably an Arabian nomadic tribe. After they were driven out, the whole country came again under one sovereign, and enjoyed great prosperity. The first king of the 19th dynasty, as it is called by Manetho, was the celebrated Sesostris, about 1500 years b.c. His successors were all called by the general name of Pharaoh, that is, kings. The first who is mentioned by his proper name is Shishak Kg1 14:25-26, supposed to be the Sesonchosis of Manetho, who reigned about 970 years b.c. Geseuius says, that in the time of the Jewish king Hezekiah, there reigned at the same time in Egypt three dynasties; an Ethiopic (probably over Upper Egypt), a Saitish, and a Tanitish dynasty - of which at last sprung the dodekarchy, and whose dominion ultimately lost itself in the single reign of Psammetichus. The Ethiopic continued forty years, and consisted of three kings - Sabaco, Sevechus, and Tarakos, or Tearko - of which the two last are mentioned in the Bible, Sevechus under the name of So, סוא sô' probably סוא seve' Sevechus - as the ally of Hosea, king of Israel Kg2 17:4, 722 b.c., and Tarakos the same as Tirhakah, about the time of the 16th year of the reign of Hezekiah (714 b.c.) Instead of this whole dynasty, Herodotus (ii. 137, 139), and Diodorus (i. 65), give us only one name, that of Sabaco. Contemporary with these were the four, or according to Eusebius, five, first kings of the dynasty of Saite, Stephinates, Nerepsus, Nichao I, who was slain by an Ethiopian king, and Psammetichus, who made an end of the dodekarchy, and reigned fifty-four years.
Of the Tanitish dynasty, Psammus and Zeth are mentioned (Introduction to Isa. 19) Different accounts are given of the state of things by Herodotus and by Dioaorus. The account by Diodorus, which is the most probable, is, that a state of anarchy prevailed in Egypt for two whole years; and that the troubles and commotions suggested to the older men of the country the expediency of assuming the reins of government, and restoring order to the state. With this view, twelve of the most influential men were chosen to preside with regal power. Each had a particular province allotted to him, in which his authority was permanent; and though independent of one another, they bound themselves with mutual oaths to concord and fidelity.
During fifteen years, their relations were maintained with entire harmony: but during that time Psammetichus whose province extended to the Mediterranean, had availed himself of his advantages, and had maintained extensive commercial contact with the Phenicians and Greeks, and had amassed considerable wealth. Of this his colleagues became jealous, and supposing that he meant to secure the government of the whole country, they resolved to deprive him of his province. They, therefore, prepared to attack him, and he was thrown upon the necessity of self defense. Apprised of their designs, he sent to Arabia, Caria, and Ionia, for aid, and having secured a large body of troops, he put himself at their head, and gave battle to his foes at Momemphis, and completely defeated them, drove them from the kingdom, and took possession of an undivided throne (Diod. i. 66). The account of Herodotus may be seen in his history (ii. 154). Psammetichus turned his attention to the internal administration of the country, and endeavored to ingratiate himself with the priesthood and the people by erecting splendid monuments, and beautifying the sacred edifices. There was a strong jealousy, however, excited by the fact that he was inbebted for his crown to foreign troops, and from the fact that foreigners were preferred to office over the native citizens (Diod. i. 67). A large part of his troops - to the number according to Diodorus, of 240,000 - abandoned his service at one time, and moved off in a body to Ethiopia, and entered the service of the monarch of that country. His reign appears to have been a military despotism, and though liberal in its policy toward foreign governments, yet the severity of his government at home, and the injustice which the Egyptians supposed he showed to them in relying on foreigners, and preferring them, justified the appellation in Isa 19:4, that he was a 'cruel lord.'
Egypt was afterward conquered by Cambyses, and became a province of the Persian empire about 525 b.c. Thus it continued until it was conquered by Alexander the Great, 350 b.c., after whose death it formed, together with Syria, Palestine, Lybia, etc., the kingdom of the Ptolemies. After the battle of Actium, 30 b.c. it became a Roman province. In 640 a.d., it was conquered by the Arabs, and since that time it has passed from the bands of the Caliphs into the hands of the Turks, and since 1517 a.d. it has been regarded as a province of the Turkish empire. This is an outline of the principal events of the Egyptian history. The events predicted in this chapter will be stated in their order in the comments on the particular verses. The two leading points which will guide our interpretation will be, that Psammetichus is intended in Isa 19:4, and that the effects of Alexander's conquest of Egypt are denoted from Isa 19:18 to the end of the chapter. Keeping these two points in view, the interpretation of the chapter will be easy. On the history of Egypt, and the commotions and revolutions there, the reader may consult Wilkinson's "Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians," vol. i., particularly pp. 143-180. Isaiah 19:1
Nahum
tNahum 3:8Art thou better - More populous or more powerful, "than the populous No?" rather than No-Ammon, so called from the idol Ammon, worshiped there. No-Ammon, (or, as it is deciphered in the Cuneiform Inscriptions, Nia), meaning probably "the portion of Ammon" , was the sacred name of the capital of Upper Egypt, which, under its common name, Thebes, was far-famed, even in the time of Homer, for its continually accruing wealth, its military power, its 20,000 chariots, its vast dimensions attested by its 100 gates .
Existing earlier, as the capital of Upper Egypt, its grandeur began in the 18th dynasty, alter the expulsion of the Hyksos, or Semitic conquerors of Egypt. Its Pharaohs were conquerors, during the 18th to 20th dynasties, 1706-1110 b.c. - about six centuries. It was then the center of a world empire. Under a disguised name , its rulers were celebrated in Geek story also, for their worldwide conquests. The Greek statements have in some main points been verified by the decipherment of the hieroglyphics. The monuments relate their victories in far Asia, and mention Nineveh itself among the people who paid tribute to them. They warred and conquered from the Soudan to Mesopotamia. A monument of Tothmosis I (1066 b.c.) still exists at Kerman, between the 20th and 19th degrees latitude, boasting, in language like that of the Assyrian conquerors; "All lands are subdued, and bring their tributes for the first time to the gracious god" . "The frontier of Egypt," they say , "extends Southward to the mountain of Apta (in Abyssinia) and Northward to the furthest dwellings of the Asiatics." The hyperbolic statements are too undefined for history , but widely-conquering monarchs could alone have used them. : "At all periods of history, the possession of the country which we call Soudan (the Black country) comprising Nubia, and which the ancients called by the collective name of Kous (Cush) or Aethiopia, has been an exhaustless source of wealth to Egypt. Whether by way of war or of commerce, barks laden with flocks, corn, hides, ivory, precious woods, stones and metals, and many other products of those regions, descended the Nile into Egypt, to fill the treasures of the temples and of the court of the Pharaohs: and of metals, especially gold, mines whereof were worked by captives and slaves, whose Egyptian name noub seems to have been the origin of the name Nubia, the first province S. of Egypt." "The conquered country of Soudan, called Kous in the hieroglyphic inscriptions, was governed by Egyptian princes of the royal family, who bore the name of 'prince royal of Kous.'"
But the prophet's appeal to Nineveh is the more striking, because No, in its situation, its commerce, the sources of its wealth, its relation to the country which lay between them, had been another and earlier Nineveh. Only, as No had formerly conquered and exacted tribute from all those nations, even to Nineveh itself, so now, under Sargon and Sennacherib, Nineveh had reversed all those successes, and displaced the Empire of Egypt by its own, and taken No itself. No had, under its Tothmoses, Amenophes, Sethos, the Ousertesens, sent its messengers Nah 2:13, the leviers of its tribute, had brought off from Asia that countless mass of human strength, the captives, who (as Israel, before its deliverance, accomplished its hard labors) completed those gigantic works, which, even after 2000 years of decay, are still the marvel of the civilized world. Tothmosis I, after subduing the Sasou, brought back countless captives from Naharina (Mesopotamia); Tothmosis III, in 19 years of conquests, (1603-1585 b.c.) "raised the Egyptian empire to the height of its greatness. Tothmosis repeatedly attacked the most powerful people of Asia, as the Routen (Assyrians?) with a number of subordinate kingdoms, such as Asshur, Babel, Nineveh, Singar; such as the Remenen or Armenians, the Zahi or Phoenicians, the Cheta or Hittites, and manymore. We learn, by the description of the objects of the booty, sent to Egypt by land and sea, counted by number and weight, many curious details as to the industry of the conquered peoples of central Asia, which do honor to the civilization of that time, and verify the tradition that the Egyptian kings set up stelae in conquered countries, in memory of their victories. Tothmosis III. set up his stele in Mesopotamia, 'for having enlarged the frontiers of Egypt.'" Amenophis too is related to have "taken the fortress of Nenii (Nineveh)." : "He returned from the country of the higher Routen, where he had beaten all his enemies to enlarge the frontiers of the land of Egypt" : "he took possession of the people of the South, and chastised the people of the North:" "at Abd-el-Kournah" he was represented as "having for his footstool the heads and backs of five peoples of the S. and four peoples of the North (Asiatics)." : "Among the names of the peoples, who submitted to Egypt, are the Nubians, the Asiatic shepherds, the inhabitants of Cyprus and Mesopotamia." : "The world in its length and its breadth" is promised by the sphinx to Tothmosis IV. He is represented as "subduer of the negroes."
Under Amenophis III, the Memnon of the Greeks , "the Egyptian empire extended Northward to Mesopotamia, Southward to the land of Karou." He enlarged and beautified No, which had from him the temple of Louksor, and his vocal statue , "all people bringing their tributes, their children, their horses, a mass of silver, of iron and ivory from countries, the roads whereto we know not." The king Horus is saluted as "the sun of the nine people; great is thy name to the country of Ethiopia" ; "the gracious god returns, having subdued the great of all people." Seti I (or Sethos) is exhibited , as reverenced by the Armenians, conquering the Sasou, the "Hittites, Naharina (Mesopotamia), the Routen (Assyrians?) the Pount, or Arabs in the South of Arabia, the Amari or Amorites, and Kedes, perhaps Edessa." Rameses II, or the great (identified with the Pharaoh of the Exodus ), conquered the Hittites in the North; in the South it is recorded , "the gracious god, who defeated the nine people, who massacred myriads in a moment, annihilated the people overthrown in their blood, yet was there no other with him."
The 20th Dynasty (1288-1110 b.c.) began again with conquests. : "Rameses III. triumphed over great confederations of Libyans and Syrians and the Isles of the Mediterranean. He is the only king who, as the monuments shew, carried on war at once by land and sea." Beside many names unknown to us, the Hittites, Amorites, Circesium, Aratus, Philistines, Phoenicia, Sasou, Pount, are again recognized. North, South East and West are declared to be tributary to him, and of the North it is said , "The people, who knew not Egypt, come to thee, bringing gold and silver, lapis-lazuli, all precious stones." He adorned Thebes with the great temple of Medinet-Abou and the Ramesseum . The brief notices of following Rameses' speak of internal prosperity and wealth: a fuller account of Rameses XII speaks of his "being in Mesopotamia to exact the annual tribute," how "the kings of all countries prostrated themselves before him, and the king of the country of Bouchten (it has been conjectured, Bagistan, or Ecbatana) presented to him tribute and his daughter." : "He is the last Pharaoh who goes to Mesopotamia, to collect the annual tributes of the petty kingdoms of that country."
On this side of the Euphrates, Egypt still retained some possessions to the time of Necho, for it is said, "the king of Babylon had taken from the river of Egypt unto the river Euphrates all that pertained to the king of Egypt" Kg2 24:7. Thebes continued to be embellished alike by "the high priests of Ammon," who displaced the ancient line , and kings of the Bubastite Dynasty, Sesonchis I or Sisak , Takelothis II , and Sesonchis III . The Ethiopian dynasty of Sabakos and Tearko or Tirhaka in another way illustrates the importance of No. The Ethiopian conquerors chose it as their royal city. There, in the time of Sabakos, Syria brought it tribute ; there Tirhaka set up the records of his victories ; and great must have been the conqueror, whom Strabo put on a line with Sesostris .
Its site marked it out for a great capital; and as such the Ethiopian conqueror seized it. The hills on either side retired, encircling the plain, through the center of which the Nile brought down its wealth, connecting it with the untold riches of the south. : "They formed a vast circus, where the ancient metropolis expaneled itself On the West, the Lybian chain presents abrupt declivities which command this side of the plain, and which bend away above Bab-el-molouk, to end near Kournah at the very bank of the river. On the East, heights, softer and nearer, descend in long declivities toward Louksor and Karnak, and their crests do not approach the Nile until after Medamout, an hour or more below Karnak." The breadth of the valley, being about 10 miles , the city (of which, Strabo says , "traces are now seen of its magnitude, 80 stadia in length") must have occupied the whole. : "The city embraced the great space, which is now commonly called the plain of Thebes and which is divided by the Nile into two halves, an Eastern and a Western, the first bounded by the edge of the Arabian wilderness, the latter by the hills of the dead of the steep Libyan chain."
The capital of Egypt, which was identified of old with Egypt itself , thus lay under the natural guardianship of the encircling hills which expanded to receive it, divided into two by the river which was a wall to both. The chains of hills, on either side were themselves fenced in on East and West by the great sand-deserts unapproachable by an army. The long valley of the Nile was the only access to an enemy. It occupied apparently the victorious army of Asshurbanipal "a month and ten days" to march from Memphis to Thebes. : "At Thebes itself there are still remains of walls and fortifications, strong, skillfully constructed, and in good preservation, as there are also in other Egyptian towns above and below it. The crescent-shaped ridge of hills approaches so close to the river at each end as to admit of troops defiling past, but not spreading out or maneuvering. At each of these ends is a small old fort of the purely Egyptian, i. e., the ante-Hellenic period. Both above and below there are several similar crescent sweeps in the same chain of hills, and at each angle a similar fort."
All successive monarchs, during more centuries than have passed since our Lord came, successively beautified it. Everything is gigantic, bearing witness to the enormous mass of human strength, which its victorious kings had gathered from all nations to toil for its and their glorification. Wonderful is it now in its decay, desolation, death; one great idol-temple of its gods and an apotheosis of its kings, as sons of its gods. : "What spires are to a modern city, what the towers of a cathedral are to the nave and choir, that the statues of the Pharaohs were to the streets and temples of Thebes. The ground is strewn with their fragments; the avenues of them towered high above plain and houses. Three of gigantic size still remain. One was the granite statue of Rameses himself, who sat on the rightside of the entrance to his palace. - The only part of the temple or palace, at all in proportion to him, must have been the gateway, which rose in pyramidal towers, now broken down and rolling in a wild ruin down to the plain."
It was that self-deifying, against which Ezekiel is commanded to prophesy; "Speak and say; thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself" Eze 29:3. : "Everywhere the same colossal proportions are preserved. Everywhere the king is conquering, ruling, worshiping, worshiped. The palace is the temple. The king is priest. He and his horses are ten times the size of the rest of the army. Alike in battle and in worship, he is of the same stature as the gods themselves. Most striking is the familiar gentleness, with which, one on each side, they take him by each hand, as one of their own order, and then, in the next compartment, introduce him to Ammon, and the lion-headed goddess. Every distinction, except of degree, between divinity and royalty is entirely leveled."
Gigantic dimensions picture to the eye the ideal greatness, which is the key to the architecture of No. : "Two other statues alone remain of an avenue of eighteen similar or nearly similar statues, some of whose remnants lie in the field behind them, which led to the palace of Amenophis III, every one of the statues being Amenophis himself, thus giving in multiplication what Rameses gained in solitary elevation." : "Their statues were all of one piece." Science still cannot explain, how a mass of nearly 890 tons of granite was excavated at Syene, transported and set up at Thebes, or how destroyed .
Nozrani, In Egypt and Syria, p. 278: "The temper of the tools, which cut adamantine stone as sharply and closely as an ordinary scoop cuts an ordinary cheese, is still a mystery." Everything is in proportion. The two sitting colossi, whose "breadth across the shoulders is eighteen feet, their height forty-seven feet, fifty-three above the plain, or, with the half-buried pedestal, sixty feet, were once connected by an avenue of sphinxes of eleven hundred feet with what is now 'Kom-el-Hettan,' or 'the mound of sand-stone,' which marks the site of another palace and temple of Amenophis III.; and, to judge from the little that remains, it must have held a conspicuous rank among the finest monuments of Thebes. All that now exists of the interior are the bases of its columns, some broken statues, and Syenite sphinxes of the king, with several lionheaded figures of black granite" .
The four villages, where are the chief remaining temples, Karnak, Luksor, Medinet-Abou, Kournah, form a great quadrilateral , each of whose sides is about one and a half mile, and the whole compass accordingly six miles. The avenue of six hundred sphinxes, which joined the temple of Luksor with Karnak must have been one and a half mile long : one of its obelisks is a remarkable ornament of Paris. Mostly massiveness is the characteristic, since strength and might were their ideal. Yet the massive columns still preserved, as in the temple of Rameses II , are even of piercing beauty . And for the temple of Karnak! Its enclosure, which was some two miles in circumference , bears the names of Monarchs removed from one another, according to the Chronology, by above two thousand years . : "A stupendous colonnade, of which one pillar only remains erect, once extended across its great court, connecting the W. gate of entrance with that at its extremity. The towers of the Eastern gate are mere heaps of stones, poured down into the court on one side and the great hall on the other; giant columns have been swept away like reeds before the mighty avalanche, and one hardly misses them. And in that hall, of 170 feet by 329 feet, 134 columns of colossal proportions supported its roof; twelve of them, 62 feet high and about 35 in circumference, and on each side a forest of 66 columns, 42 feet 5 in. in height. Beyond the center avenue are seen obelisks, gateways and masses of masonry; every portion of these gigantic ruins is covered with sculpture most admirably executed, and every column has been richly painted."
Stanley, Sinai and Palestine, p. xli.: "Imagine a long vista of courts and doorways and colonnades and halls; here and there an obelisk shooting up out of the ruins, and interrupting the opening view of the forest of columns. - This mass of ruins, some rolled down in avalanches of stone, others perfect and painted, as when they were first built, is approached on every side by avenues of gateways. East and West, North and South, these vast approaches are found. Some are shattered, but in every approach some remain; and in some can be traced, beside, the further avenues, still in parts remaining by hundreds together, avenues of ram-headed sphinxes. Every Egyptian temple has, or ought to have, one of those grand gateways, formed of two sloping towers, with the high perpendicular front between." Then, over and above, is "their multiplied concentration. - Close before almost every gateway in this vast array were the colossal figures, usually in granite, of the great Rameses, sometimes in white and red marble, of Amenophis and of Thothmes. Close by them, were pairs of towering obelisks, which can generally be traced by pedestals on either side. - You have only to set up again the fallen obelisks which lie at your feet; to conceive the columns, as they are still seen in parts, overspreading the whole; to reproduce all the statues, like those which still remain in their august niches, to gaze on the painted wails and pillars of the immense ball, which even now can never be seen without a thrill of awe, and you have ancient Thebes before you."
And most of these paintings were records of their past might. : "There remained on the massive buildings Egyptian letters, recording their former wealthiness; and one of the elder priests, bidden to interpret his native language, related that of old 700,000 of military age dwelt there; and with that army king Rhamses gained possession of Libya, Ethiopia, the Medes and Persians, the Bactrian and Scythian; and held in his empire the countries which the Syrians and Armenians and neighboring Cappadocians inhabit, the Bithynian also and Lycian to the sea. There were read tee the tributes imposed on the natives, the weight of silver amid gold; the number of arms and horses, and the gifts to the temples, ivory and frankincense, and what supplies of corn and utensils each nation should pay, not less magnificent than are now enjoined by Parthian violence or by Roman power."
That was situate among the rivers - Literally, "the dweller, she that dwelleth." Perhaps the prophet wished to express the security and ease, in which she dwelt "among the rivers." They encircled, folded round her, as it were, so that she was a little world in herself, secluded from all who would approach to hurt her. The prophet's word, "rivers" , is especially used of the branches or canals of the Nile, which is also called the "sea" . The Nile passed through No, and doubtless its canals encircled it. Egypt is said by a pagan to be "walled by the Nile as an everlasting wall," "Whose rampart was (rampart is) the sea." Wall and rampart are, properly, the outer and inner wall of a city, the wall and forewall, so to speak. For all walls and all defenses, her enfolding walls of sea would suffice. Strong she was in herself; strong also in her helpers. Nahum 3:9