THE CUNEIFORM INSCRIPTIONS OP TEL EL-AMARNA. 13 



His mother, who seems to have been a woman of strong 

 character, able to govern not only her son, but even her less 

 pliable husband, came from the region of the Euphrates, and 

 brought with her Asiatic followers, Asiatic ideas, and an Asiatic 

 form of faith. The Court became Semitised. The favourites 

 and officials of the Pharaoh, his officers in the field, his cor- 

 respondents abroad, bore names which showed them to be of 

 Canaanite and even of Israelitish origin. If Joseph and his 

 brethren had found favour among the Hyksos princes of an 

 earlier day, their descendants were likely to find equal favour 

 at the Court of " the heretic king." 



We need not wonder, therefore, if Amenophis IV. found 

 himself compelled to quit Thebes. The old aristocracy might 

 have condoned his religious heresy, they could not condone 

 his supplanting them with foreign favourites. The rise of the 

 19th Dynasty marks the successful reaction of the native 

 Egyptian against the predominance of the Semite in the 

 closing days of the 18th Dynasty. It was not the founder of 

 the 18th Dynasty, but the founder of the 19th Dynasty that 

 was " the new king who knew not Joseph." Ever since the 

 progress of Egyptology had made it clear that Rameses II. was 

 the Pharaoh of the oppression, it was difficult to understand 

 how so long an interval of time as the whole period of the 

 18th Dynasty could lie between him and that " new king " 

 whose rise seems to have been followed almost immediately by 

 the servitude and oppression of the Hebrews. The tablets of 

 Tel el-Amarna now show that the difficulty does not exist. 

 Up to the death of Khu-en-Aten, the Semite had greater influ- 

 ence than the native in the land of Mizraim. 



The legend under which Manetho veiled the history of the 

 Exodus now also receives its explanation.* Amenophis, the 

 son of Rameses, we are told, desired to see the gods, like his 

 predecessor, Oros, and accordingly, by the advice of the wise 

 man Amenophis, the son of Paapis, he removed all the leprous 

 people in Egypt, 80,000 in number, to the quarries on the 

 east bank of the Nile. Among them was a priest of Helio- 

 polis, Osarsiph, in whose name the sacred first syllable of 

 Joseph has been replaced by the name of the Egyptian god 

 Osiris. After a time, Amenophis retired to Ethiopia, the 

 leprous people, who had meanwhile been transferred to the 

 deserted city of Avaris, having revolted with the assistance of 

 the descendants of the Hyksos, now settled in Jerusalem. 

 For 13 years, Egypt was wasted by them with fire and sword, 

 its temples plundered, and the images of the gods destroyed ; 



* Josephus, cont. Ap. i. 26-35, 



