PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 11 



Yale of Siddim, and their rescue by Abraham, with his three 

 hundred armed servants, prove him to have been a king, at 

 least such as kings went in those days, and perhaps he was not 

 inferior to his confederates Mamre, Eshcoll, and Amer. Years 

 after, and when in the interval Sodom and Gomorrah had sunk 

 beneath the Dead Sea, Abraham solicited of Ephron, ancestor of 

 Caleb, the purchase of a piece of land for the sepulchre of his 

 wife, Sarah. The Empire was then very old, and the monarch 

 on the throne was a Hycsos. The most important invasion of 

 the Hittites into Egypt was that of Jahdai, the son of Gazez 

 (I. Chronicles ii, 46, 47), and which proved of great importance to 

 the future history of the country. The petty sovereigns submitted 

 to his rule with the exception of one, who was a woman, Zobebah, 

 the daughter of the Ammonite Coz, and sister of Anub (I. Chronicles 

 iv, 8) ; Jahdai sought her in marriage, she refused to accept 

 him unless the child born of her should inherit the throne, to this 

 Jahdai agreed, and disinherited the six sons born to him by his other 

 wives. Jahdai died before the child was born. The brief Kenite 

 record states, " That she called his name Jabez, saying because I 

 bare him with sorrow " (I. Chronicles iv., 9). Jabez becomes 

 Aahpeti in the Egyptain language, which cannot more accurately 

 express the word recorded by the Kenite scribe. In Manetho's 

 sixth dynasty he is called Pheops, he must also be the Sesostris of 

 Manetho's twelfth dynasty. His true place is among the Hycsos 

 kings. The unanimous testimony of ancient writers is, that Israel 

 entered Egypt in the seventeenth year of this Pharaoh, and that he 

 had been eight years on the throne when Joseph interpreted to him 

 his dream. The most important event in the life of Aahpati was 

 his adoption of the faith of Joseph, as, yet uncorrupted by the 

 superstitions of his age, he perceived that Joseph's God could give 

 wisdom far surpassing that of the priests of Amun, Ra, &c. The 

 Kenite record says : " Jabez was more honourable than his brethren, 

 and he called upon the God of Israel, saying, Oh that Thou 

 wouldest bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that thou 

 wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me ! And 



