REASONS WHY ROD NOT MENTIONED 411 



iv, 19, " she opened a bottle of milk," both demand an extrusion 

 effected by one and only one method, whereas "jars of fish " 

 may have been filled by any piscatorial method, 



D. There is no evidence that the Israelites brought from 

 Egypt a single particle of Egyptian civilisation. Nomads they 

 were when they entered, and nomads they were when they 

 left Egypt. Their kidtur was taken over from the Canaanites, 

 and their later civilisation, despite periods of subjection to 

 Egypt, owed far less to that country than to Babylonia. 



Even if we grant that no actual evidence of Egyptian 

 culture exists, the probabilities incline the other way. Their 

 abiding place was in no sterile or out-of-the-way corner of that 

 country, but in Goshen, where we read " they gat them posses- 

 sions therein," and was in close proximity to the great high 

 road, which bore the commerce between Egypt and Asia, and 

 vice versa. They were certainly familiar with the manufacture 

 of bricks, and presumably the building of houses, etc. 



E. The verse, " The fishers shall also lament and they 

 that cast angle in the brooks shall mourn," which may betray 

 knowledge of the Rod, is apparently much later than Isaiah, 

 and may, perhaps, be assigned to the second century B.C., and 

 refer to the campaign of Antiochus Epiphanes in Egypt. 



Even if we allow that this date accounts for all omission 

 of Angling during the millennium between the Exodus and this 

 campaign, why is there no actual or implied reference in subse- 

 quent literature, especially in the voluminous Talmud ? 



But the Jewish lack of sport is evidenced not only in their 

 methods of fishing, but, what is more remarkable, in those of 

 their hunting, or rather non-hunting. While Assyrian, Egyp- 

 tian, and Persian Monarchs were famous for their hunting 

 exploits, no single Jewish king, except Herod, is handed down 

 to us delighting in or even taking part in the chase. 1 



We find no Hebrew counterpart to Tiglath-pileser, with his 

 historical bag of " 4 wild bulls mighty and terrible, 10 elephants 

 and 120 Hons " on foot, and 130 speared from his chariot, or 



^ Herod seems, from notices in Josephus, to have been quite a sportsman, 

 for he kept a regular stud {Ant., XVI. lo, s. 3), and hunted bears, stags, wild 

 asses, etc., with a record bag of forty head in one day [ibid., XV. 7, s. 7 ; and 

 B. J., I. 21, s. 13). 



2 E 



