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WH-1 Egyptology Original Source Document
From: John Brown’s Biblical Dictionary (entry on Egypt) Volume 1,
Philadelphia, 1798.
(page 403) Egypt: a country on the northeast of Africa, and southwest of
Canaan. It is situate between the 24th and 33rd degree of north latitude,
and between the 29th and 34th of east longitude from London. Its
greatest length, from north to south, is 600 miles; and its greatest
breadth, from east to west, 300.
It is bounded (page 404) by the Mediterranean sea on the north; by the
deserts of Libya on the west, by Abyssinia on the south, and by the Red
Sea on the east. It was anciently called Chemia, or the Land of Ham;
and the present Copts call it Chemi, perhaps because Ham resided
there. The Hebrews called it Mizraim; and the Arabs to this day call it
Mesr, from Mizraim the son of Ham, who peopled it. Its present name,
Egypt, was given it by the Greeks, and signifies either the land of the
Copts, a name which the ancient inhabitants of the land gave to
themselves, or the land of blackness, because the soil and water are of a
blackish color. The river Nile runs through it northward, and yearly
waters it, so that rain is scarce requisite; and indeed as seldom happens
in Upper Egypt. Egypt was anciently extremely fertile; but as the Nile
has sunk his channel lower, or rather, by yearly additions, raised the
surface of the earth a great deal higher, and now overflows to a less
height, and brings worse mud along with it; and as the enslaved
inhabitants are disheartened from their ancient care and industry, it is
now but moderately fertile, and in time may become barren enough.
Egypt was once very populous, and contained about 20,000 cities, (such
as) Syene, No, Memphis, Zoan, Sin, On, Phibeseth, Pithom, Rameses,
Migdol, Taphanes, Pathros, etc. The country was divided into three
large provinces; Upper Egypt, or Thebais, which, according to most
authors, is Pathros, wose capital was No; Middle Egypt, whose capital
was Noph, or Memphis; and Lower Egypt, whose ancoient capital seems
to have been Zoan; this included all between the branches of the Nile,
now called Delta, as well as the land of Gothen on the east and the
territory of Marcotis on the west; and by means of the mud of the Nile,
has gained considerable additions from the sea. Moreover, Egypt was
divided into about 36 nomes, or counties, which were generally named
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after the chief city in each. The Egyptians were a people exceedingly
given to divination and idolatry. Here chief idols were Osiris, and Isis,
or the sun and the moon: Jupiter Ammon, Serapis, Anubis,
Harpocrates, Ovus, and Canopus, etc.The pyed bull, in the worship of
which so much of their religion consisted, was the representative of
Osiris. They also worshipped sheep, goats, cats, and even leeks and
onions. A great number of their civil regulations, however, were
extremely reasonable; and they were reckoned by the most ancient
Greeks, as the most noted for their philosophy. They were no less
famous for building; the three pyramids of about 3000 years standing,
are to the south-west of grand Cairo. The largest is 499 feet high, and
693 at the bottom each side, which makes the whole area of its
foundation to be 480,249 square feet, or some more than 11 acres of
English measure: this building is gradually carried up to a point. What
use these pyramids served for, whether as repositories for their dead
monarchs, we know not. It is said, 360,000 or more persons were
employed in building the largest. The Labyrinth was a kind of structure
with one door, which contained 12 palaces, and 3000 chambers, half of
them underground. Here, it seems, was an assemblage of all their idols;
and here the magistrates of the whole nation held their grand
conventions. At Alexandria there still stands Pompey’s pillar, created
by Julius Caesar, to commemorate his victory of Pompey. It is of granite
marble, and is 70 feet high, and 25 in circumference. A variety of other
magnificent ruins we shall pass over without mention. According to
Manetho, the God’s reigned in Egypt 20,000 years, and thirty dynasties
(page 405) of men 5300 years before the time of Alexander the Great;
but some other historians make the whole time to amount to 36,525
years. This computation is most absurd, invented by the pride of
antiquity, or affectation of the marvelous. The reign of the Gods and
demigods, I take to be the 1656 years before the flood. The thirty
dynasties ought not to be taken as successive, but as reigning jointly,
two or three at a time, in the different provinces of Egypt, which may
bring the whole reckoning down to 2000 years.
Mizraim, or Menes, the son of Ham, with his posterity, peoples Egypt
after the flood, and he was the first king of it, and was succeeded by a
vast number of Pharaohs, some say to the number of 60. One of them,
A.M. 2084, took Abraham’s wife into his palace, intending to make her
his bride; but plagues, that marked the cause, obliged him to restore
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her. Two hundred years after, there happened seven crops on end
surprisingly plentiful, which were succeeded by seven years of famine,
in which the Egyptians had mostly perished, had they not been saved by
the wise management of Joseph. About this time the Hebrews came
down into Egypt. After they had been there above an hundred years, the
Egyptian king took every method to oppress them. In A.M. 2513, God
required the Egyptian king to allow the Hebrews to depart from his
land. He refusing, tenfold plagues of turning water into blood, of frogs,
of flies, of life, of murrain of cattle, of fiery boils on man and beast, of
thunder and hail, of locusts, of darkness, and of the death of the
firstborn, obliged him to it at last. They had scarce retired, when he
pursued them; and with his whole army was drowned in the Red Sea.
About this time the Egyptian historians place an invasion of their
country by swarms of Phoenician shepherds, but who these shepherds
were, but who these shepherds were we cannot positively determine.
About A.M. 2989, Solomon espoused an Egyptian princess, and
Pharaoh, her father, having taken Gezer from the Canaanites, gave it
for her dowry. Shishak, who might be her brother, or nephew, was a
mighty conqueror. After he had united Egypt into one kingdom, and
extended his empire to almost the straights of Gibralter, he marched a
huge army into Asia and conquered the western part of it. In his
absence his brother Danaus rebelled, and after his death the empire fell
into pieces, and even Egypt itself fell under the yoke of the Ethiopians.
After some ages they reovered their liberty, but it seems that the
kingdom was divided into three. Sabbaco, or So, he Ethiopian, reduced
them all, and seized on the whole country. After him reigned Sethon, the
priest of Vulcan, perhaps no more than the viceroy of Tirhakah. After
his death, Egypt being terribly ravaged by the Assyrians, had twelve
Lords set over the whole; but whether by the Assyrian conqueror we
cannot say. After about 15 years of civil war, Psamitichus subdued the
other eleven, and seized the whole kingdom. In this time the Greeks first
settled into Egypt; and 200,000 of his soldiers, affronted in a point of
honor, returned to Ethiopia. Under him and his son Pharaoh Necho, the
Egyptians thought to have erected their grandeur on theruins of
Assyria. The taking of Ashdod cost the father 29 years siege; and the
son, after reducing the kingdom of Judah, received a terrible defeat
near the Euphrates.
(page 406) About 30 years after, A.M. 3430, Egypt was in a miserable
condition, by means of the civil wars between Pharaoh Hophra and
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Amasis the rebel, who gained the throne, and by the ravages of the
Chaldeans. About 40 years the country was almost a wilderness, and
Amasis was tributary to the Chaldeans. Towards the fall of the
Chaldean empire, the Egyptians recovered their liberty, but were
quickly subdued by Cyrus, and their country terribly ravaged by
Cambyses his son, and some thousands of their idols transported to
Persia. This so enraged them that they again and again revolted from
the Persian yoke, but were still reduced to grievous servitude; and their
own civil broils tended much to accelerate their ruin. About A.M. 3672,
they submitted to Alexander the Great; from thence they were governed
by a race of Greek Kings, mostly of the name of Ptolemy, for about 320
years. About A.M. 3995, the Romans reduced Egypt into the form of a
province; and it continued under their yoke until A.D. 640. Under the
Greeks, a prodigious number of Jews settled in Egypt, and the Old
Testament was commonly read. Under the Romans the Egyptians had
the gospel very early planted among them, and the church considerably
flourished.