2. Communication between Egypt and Palestine.

This document from the early patriarchal age reveals a close relationship between Egypt and Palestine. There was frequent communication between Kedem and Egypt; messengers went to and fro. The Egyptian language was understood at the court of the Amorite chieftain. These conditions throw light on the narratives of the descent of Abraham and Jacob to Egypt. Sinuhe's description of his life necessarily reminds one of the description of Palestine so often met with in the Pentateuch, Joshua, and the prophets, "a land flowing with milk and honey." (See, for example, Exod. 3 : 8, 17.)

(For an addition to this chapter, see Appendix.)

CHAPTER XII

MOSES AND THE EXODUS

THE LEGEND of Sargon of AGADE; ITS RESEMBLANCE TO THE STORY OF MOSES. THE PILLAR OF MERNEPTAH; THE ONLY APPEARANCE OF THE NAME "ISRAEL" OUTSIDE OF THE BIBLE.

1. The Legend of Sargon of Agade.

The following legend' contains a story of the exposure of an infant on a river, strikingly like that told of Moses.

1. Sargon, the mighty king, king of Agade am I,

2. My mother was lowly; my father I did not know;2

3. The brother of my father dwelt in the mountain.

4. My city is Azupiranu, which is situated on the bank of the Euphrates.

5. My lowly mother conceived me, in secret she brought me forth.

6. She placed me in a basket of reeds, she closed my entrance with bitumen,

7. She cast me upon the river, which did not overflow me.

8. The river carried me, it brought me to Akki, the irrigator.

9. Akki, the irrigator, in the goodness of his heart lifted me out,

10. Akki, the irrigator, as his own son. . . . . .brought me up;

11. Akki, the irrigator, as his gardener appointed me.

12. When I was a gardener the goddess Ishtar loved me,

13. And for four years I ruled the kingdom.

14. The black-headed3 peoples I ruled, I governed;

15. Mighty mountains with axes of bronze I destroyed (?).

16. I ascended the upper mountains;

17. I burst through the lower mountains.

18. The country of the sea I besieged three times;

19. Dilmun I captured (?).

20. Unto the great Dur-ilu I went up, I......

21.

I altered...

22. Whatsoever king shall be exalted after me,

23.

24. Let him rule, let him govern the black-headed peoples;

25. Mighty mountains with axes of bronze let him destroy;

26. Let him ascend the upper mountains,

27. Let him break through the lower mountains;

28. The country of the sea let him besiege three times;

29. Dilmun let him capture;

30. To great Dur-ilu let him go up.

1 From Cuneiform Texts, &c., in the British Museum, XIII, 42; cf. also King, Chronicles of Early Babylonian Kings, II, 87, ff.

2 Another tablet reads "a father I had not."

A name for the Semitic peoples of Babylonia.

4 An island in the Persian Gulf.

The rest is too broken for connected translation.

It is thought by some scholars of the critical school that the parallelism between the secret birth, the exposure, the rescue and adoption of Sargon, and the account of the secret birth, exposure, rescue, and adoption of Moses in Exod. 2:1-10 is too close to be accidental. Conservative scholars, on the other hand, hold that, if the legend of Sargon is historical, it merely affords an example of a striking coincidence of events in two independent lives.

2. The Pillar of Merneptah.

In the fifth year of King Merneptah, who ruled from 1225-1215 B. C., and who is thought to be the Pharaoh of the exodus, he inscribed on a pillar an account of his wars and victories. The inscription concludes with the following poetic strophe:1

The kings are overthrown, saying: "salaam!"

Not one holds up his head among the nine bows.2
Wasted is Tehenu,3

Kheta is pacified,

Plundered is the Canaan with every evil,

Carried off is Askelon,

Seized upon is Gezer,

Yenoam is made as a thing not existing.

Israel is desolated, his seed is not;

Palestine has become a widow for Egypt.
All lands are united, they are pacified;

Every one that is turbulent is bound by King Merneptah, who gives life like
Rā every day.

This inscription contains the only mention of Israel in a document of this age outside the Bible. It is, for that reason, of great importance. It should be noted that Israel is mentioned along with peoples and places in Palestine and Phoenicia. The Israel here referred to was not, accordingly, in Egypt. Israel, on the other hand, may not have been more than a nomadic people. The Egyptians used a certain "determinative" in connection with the names of settled peoples. That sign is here used with Tehenu, Kheta, Askelon, Gezer, and Yenoam, but not with Israel.

As Merneptah has been supposed by many to be the Pharaoh in whose reign the exodus occurred, the mention of Israel here has

1 Taken from Breasted's Ancient Records, Egypt, III, p. 264, ff.

That is, the foreign nations.

That is, Lybia, which lay to the west of the Egyptian Delta.

That is, the Hittites.

"The Canaan" refers to the land of Canaan, probably here Phoenicia.

Yenoam was a town situated at the extreme north of Galilee, just at the end of the valley between the two ranges of the Lebanon mountains.

somewhat puzzled scholars, and different explanations of the fact have arisen. At least one scholar holds that the exodus occurred in Merneptah's third year, and that he afterward attacked the Hebrews. Others have supposed that not all the Hebrews had been in Egypt, but only the Joseph tribes. Still others have thought that the Leah tribes had made their exodus during the eighteenth dynasty, and that it was these with whom Merneptah fought, while the Rachel tribes made their exodus under the nineteenth dynasty. Opinions vary according to the critical views of different writers. All scholars would welcome more information on these problems.

CHAPTER XIII

THE CODE OF HAMMURAPI AND THE PENTATEUCH

THE TEXT OF the Code; RESEMBLANCE TO And Contrast WITH THE MOSAIC CODE. THE MOSAIC CODE NOT BORROWED FROM THE BABYLONIAN; Different UNDERLYING CONCEPTIONS.

1. The Text of the Code; Comparison with the Mosaic Code. The following code of laws was inscribed by order of Hammurapi, of the first dynasty of Babylon (2104-2061 B. C.), on a block of black diorite nearly eight feet in height and set up in Esagila, the temple of Marduk, in Babylon, so that the people might have the laws in the mother-tongue. As this last statement implies, the laws are written in Semitic Babylonian; before the time of Hammurapi the laws had been written in Sumerian. At some later time an Elamite conqueror, who was overrunning Babylonia, took this pillar away to Susa as a trophy. In course of time the pillar was broken into three parts, which were found by the French expedition under de Morgan in December, 1901, and January, 1902, while excavating at Susa. As the code is the oldest known code of laws in the world, being a thousand years older than Moses, and as it affords some interesting peculiarities as well as some striking parallels to the laws in Exodus 21-23 and in Deuteronomy, a translation of it, with some comparison of Exodus and Deuteronomy, is here given:

Against Witches

§ 1. If a man brings an accusation against a man, that he has laid a deathspell upon him, and has not proved it, the accuser shall be put to death.1

§ 2. If a man accuses another of practising sorcery upon him, but has not proved it, he against whom the charge of sorcery is made shall go to the sacred river; into the sacred river he shall plunge, and if the sacred river overpowers him, his accuser shall take possession of his house. If the sacred river shows that man to be innocent, and he is unharmed, he who charged him with sorcery shall be killed. He who plunged into the sacred river shall take the house of his

accuser.

1 Translated from the cuneiform text in Harper's Code of Hammurabi, and Ungnad's Keilschrifttexte der Gesetze Hammurabis.