THE SHEPHERD KINGS OF EGYPT. 275 



shores of the Dead Sea.^'' Meanwhile Ammon, born in the latter 

 country, had entered Egypt, perhaps as a soldier of fortune under 

 Jehaleleel, whose contemporary he was. To him Jehaleleel seems to 

 have entrusted the government of the Libyan region to the west of 

 the Delta, and there his son Coz, who married Ziphah, the daughter 

 of Jehaleleel, ruled. The offspring of this marriage was a son and 

 daughter, the former the famous Anub or Anubis, the latter Zobebah, 

 who is, I think, Bubastis. At the death of Jehaleleel or Salatis, his 

 eldest son Ziph or Kufu or Cheops became monarch of all Egypt, 

 and built the great pyramid. I hardly think that Anub was his 

 successor in the sense of ruling the same wide dominion. A new 

 line now appears, that of the Jerahmeelites, who, leaving Southern 

 Palestine, had taken up their abode about Memphis, which w-as 

 probably named after Jamin, the son of Ram, and grandson of 

 Jerahmeel. The region of Ramlieh, opposite Memphis, commemorates 

 Jerahmeel, and from his^ son was derived the later name Eameses. 

 Jerahmeel must have been a contemporary of Shobal, as his wife 

 was the mother of Onam, also called a son of Shobal. Jediael, the 

 son of Jamin, whose name survives in Jendeli, in the Ramlieh 

 region, and who is the Tlas or Thoules or Theoclymeus of Egyptian 

 monarchy, as well as the Memj)hite Daedalus and the Lydian 

 Tantalus, was, I think, a husband of Zobebah, and the father of 

 Jabez or Apis.^*'*" He was killed apparently before the birth of his 



87 Contemporary with Abraham and Jehaleleel we find Melchizedek, king of Salem. He 

 must, I think, have belonged to the Ashchurite family, which, more than any other (as in the 

 case of the Abimelechs), seems to have possessed a knowledge of the true God. The names 

 Sydyk, Soutech, &c., are so closely identilied with the Sliepherd line, and especially with 

 Sheth or Achashtari, that it is quite possible this priestly monarch may have been a child of 

 the fourth son of Naarah. Agreeable to this are the statements of Cedrenus and Michael 

 Glykas, which make him a son of Sidos, the son of .aigyptus, the latter name denoting his 

 Egj'ptian origin. In Epiphanius he is made the son of Heraclas and Astaroth, the name of his 

 mother being a link to bind him yet more closely to the line of Achashtari. Remains of the 

 Sheta have been found near Jerusalem, and the plain of Moab lays claim to the sepulchre of 

 Achashtari himself in Neby Sheet. If we are to credit the connection of Zereth with Jlelcartus, 

 Melicerta, &c., it shows that the prefix of the royal designation Meiek was not an uncommon 

 thing among the Ashehurites. The first-born, Achuzam, and his line give us Abimelech ; 

 Zereth is Melek-Zereth or Melcartus ; and Sydyk is Melek-Sydyk or Melchizedek. The Moloch 

 of Ammon, so intimately allied with this line, may have been derived from such a use of the 

 word. It may also aftbrd us a harmony of the names Amalekites and Shasu applied to part of 

 the Shepherd stock. The country of the Amalekites, therefore, which was smitten by Chedor- 

 laomer, may easOy, from its position near Enmishpat or Kadesh, have been the land of the 

 Achuzamites, who would otherwise have escaped the invasion of the Elamite king. 



87* While there is much evidence for the connection of a Jediael with Zobebah and Jabez,. 

 it is utterly impossible to reconcile the chronology that places Jerahmeel in the time of Shobal 

 with tliat which makes his great-grandson the son-in-law of Coz. I am therefore disposed to. 

 leave the parentage of Jabez an open question for the present, until the whole subject of tha: 

 Jerahmeelites is discussed. 



