(29) Take the main part of Reland's excellent note here, which greatly illustrates Josephus, and the Scripture, in this history, as follows: "[A traveller, says Reland, whose name was] Eneman, when he returned out of Egypt, told me that he went the same way from Egypt to Mount Sinai, which he supposed the Israelites of old traveled; and that he found several mountainous tracts, that ran down towards the Red Sea.He thought the Israelites had proceeded as far as the desert of Etham, Exodus 13:20, when they were commanded by God to return back, Exodus 14:2, and to pitch their camp between Migdol and the sea; and that when they were not able to fly, unless by sea, they were shut in on each side by mountains.He also thought we might evidently learn hence, how it might be said that the Israelites were in Etham before they went over the sea, and yet might be said to have come into Etham after they had passed over the sea also.Besides, he gave me an account how he passed over a river in a boat near the city Suez, which he says must needs be the Heroopolia of the ancients, since that city could not be situate any where else in that neighborhood."As to the famous passage produced here by Dr.Bernard, out of Herodotus, as the most ancient heathen testimony of the Israelites coming from the Red Sea into Palestine, Bishop Cumberland has shown that it belongs to the old Canaanite or Phoenician shepherds, and their retiring out of Egypt into Canaan or Phoenicia, long before the days of Moses.Sanchoniatho, p.
374, &c.
(30) Of these storms of wind, thunder, and lightning, at this drowning of Pharaoh's army, almost wanting in our copies of Exodus, but fully extant in that of David, Psalm 77:16-18, and in that of Josephus here, see Essay on the Old Test.Append.p.
15,1, 155.
(31) What some have here objected against this passage of the Israelites over the Red Sea, in this one night, from the common maps, viz.that this sea being here about thirty miles broad, so great an army conld not pass over it in so short a time, is a great mistake.Mons.Thevenot, an authentic eye-witness, informs us, that this sea, for about five days' journey, is no where more than about eight or nine miles over-cross, and in one place but four or five miles, according to De Lisle's map, which is made from the best travelers themselves, and not copied from others.
What has been further objected against this passage of the Israelites, and drowning of the Egyptians, being miraculous also, viz.that Moses might carry the Israelites over at a low tide without any miracle, while yet the Egyptians, not knowing the tide so well as he, might be drowned upon the return of the tide, is a strange story indeed ! That Moses, who never had lived here, should know the quantity and time of the flux and reflux of the Red Sea better than the Egyptians themselves in its neighborhood!
Yet does Artapanus, an ancient heathen historian, inform us, that this was what the more ignorant Memphites, who lived at a great distance, pretended, though he confesses, that the more learned Heliopolitans, who lived much nearer, owned the destruction of the Egyptians, and the deliverance of the Israelites, to have been miraculous: and De Castro, a mathematician, who surveyed this sea with great exactness, informs us, that there is no great flux or reflux in this part of the Red Sea, to give a color to this hypothesis; nay, that at the elevation of the tide there is little above half the height of a man.See Essay on the Old Test.
Append.p.239, 240.So vain and groundless are these and the like evasions and subterfuges of our modern sceptics and unbelievers, and so certainly do thorough inquiries and authentic evidence disprove and confute such evasions and subterfuges upon all occasions.
(32) What that hexameter verse, in which Moses's triumphant song is here said to be written, distinctly means, our present ignorance of the old Hebrew metre or measure will not let us determine.Nor does it appear to me certain that even Josephus himself had a distinct notion of it, though he speaks of several sort of that metre or measure, both here and elsewhere.Antiq.B.
IV.ch.8.sect.44; and B.VII.ch.12.sect.3.
(33) Take here the original passages of the four old authors that still remain, as to this transit of Alexander the Great over the Pamphylian Sea: I mean, of Callisthenes, Strabu, Arrian, and Appian.As to Callisthenes, who himself accompanied Alexander in this expedition, Eustathius, in his Notes on the third Iliad of Homer, (as Dr.Bernard here informs us,) says, That "this Callisthenes wrote how the Pamphylian Sea did not only open a passage for Alexander, but, by rising and did pay him homage as its king." Strabo's is this (Geog.B.XIV.p.666): "Now about Phaselis is that narrow passage, by the sea-side, through which his army.There is a mountain called Climax, adjoins to the Sea of Pamphylia, leaving a narrow passage on the shore, which, in calm weather, is bare, so as to be passable by travelers, but when the sea overflows, it is covered to a great degree by the waves.Now then, the ascent by the mountains being round about and steep, in still weather they make use of the road along the coast.But Alexander fell into the winter season, and committing himself chiefly to fortune, he marched on before the waves retired; and so it happened that were a whole day in journeying over it, and were under water up to the navel." Arrian's account is this (B.I.p.72, 73): Alexander removed from Phaselis, he sent some part his army over the mountains to Perga; which road the Thracians showed him.A difficult way it was, but short.he himself conducted those that were with him by the sea-shore.This road is impassable at any other time than when the north wind blows; but if the south wind prevail, there is no passing by the shore.Now at this time, after strong south winds, a north wind blew, and that not without the Divine Providence, (as both he and they that were with him supposed,) and afforded him an easy and quick passage." Appian, when he compares Caesar and Alexander together, (De Bel.Civil.B.II.p.522,) says, "That they both depended on their boldness and fortune, as much as on their skill in war.As an instance of which, Alexander journeyed over a country without water, in the heat of summer, to the oracle of [Jupiter] Hammon, and quickly passed over the Bay of Pamphylia, when, by Divine Providence, the sea was cut off - thus Providence restraining the sea on his account, as it had sent him rain when he traveled [over the desert]."N.B.- Since, in the days of Josephus, as he assures us, all the more numerous original historians of Alexander gave the account he has here set down, as to the providential going back of the waters of the Pamphylian Sea, when he was going with his army to destroy the Persian monarchy, which the fore-named authors now remaining fully confirm, it is without all just foundation that Josephus is here blamed by some late writers for quoting those ancient authors upon the present occasion; nor can the reflections of Plutarch, or any other author later than Josephus, be in the least here alleged to contradict him.Josephus went by all the evidence he then had, and that evidence of the most authentic sort also.So that whatever the moderns may think of the thing itself, there is hence not the least color for finding fault with Josephus: he would rather have been much to blame had he omitted these quotations.
