Lesley.] 4:io [May, 



on this supposition it would become necessarj'' to consider Hephzibah as 

 an Israelitish woman married at tlie court of Jerusalem. 



Maaassah is spelled in Hebrew Avith four letters, DJ^JO, MNSE. But 

 whether this be the mode in which it was spelled by the scribes of Heze- 

 kiah's court when his son was born, in 705 B. C, is as uncertain as 

 whether the Masoretic pronunciation of the name in the third century after 

 Christ approaches at all the sound of the name as uttered by King Heze- 

 Mah's courtiers. All we can go by is the Greek form J/avr/^rff^c, iuto 

 which it was cast by the LXX at Alexandria or Heliopolis in the third or 

 fourth century before Christ. 



Jewish colonies were established in Egypt in the old age of the prophet 

 Jeremiah, about 550 B. C. The traditional pronunciation of Manasseh's 

 name was then only a century or so old ; two centuries more could not 

 have essentially altered it. If the Hebrew spelling, mnse, were capable of 

 a Shemitic explanation, which it is not, we might suppose the Manasses of 

 the LXX to be a modification of it under Egyptian literary influence. But 

 it is quite as allowable to suppose that the .4l in MN[A]SE, or the A and S 

 in MISr[AS]SE, preserved by the Jewish scribes at Alexandria, were lost by 

 the scribes at Tiberias or Babylon.* 



The etymology of Manasseh, son of Joseph "who makes forget " from 

 Nasha to forget, is absurd. It is given in Gen. 41 : 51 thus : "And Joseph 



Ruling alone he married his sister (who had been his brother's wife also), and 

 murdered her son in her arms on their wedding day. Afterwards he divorced 

 her and married another Cleopatra, her daughter by his brother. His cruelties 

 drove the Alexandrians into all other countries, whither they carried the arts, 

 learning and religion of Egypt. He afterwards murdered his own son; was 

 banished; restored ; reigned long ; was a great patron of letters, and called by 

 some the Philologist. 



Ptolemy VIII, Soter II, was immediately expelled by his mother and became 

 king of Cyprus. Afterwards restored, but not acknowledged in the Thebaid, he 

 reduced the great city of Thebes after a siege of three years to its present ruined 

 condition. He was called Lathyrus, "a vetch," from a wart on his nose. 



Alexander Ptolemy I, murdered his mother and was assassinated. 



Alexander Ptolemy II was also assassinated. 



Alexander Ptolemy III was banished, and died at Tyre, leaving his kingdom 

 to the Romans. 



Ptolemy XII, Auletes, the flute player, received the names: Philopator, Phila- 

 delphus, Neodionpsus (Osiris, the new Bacchus). He murdered 100 Alexandrine 

 nobles, fled to Rome, lay concealed at Ephesus, and was restored to power by 

 Gabinius, murdered his daughter Berenice, and died leaving orders that his 

 eldest son and eldest daughter should marry and reign together, Pompey being 

 their guardian. His queen was the last celebrated Cleopatra. 



* Supposing the (Egyptian MN-ASSA) name to be presented for writing to a 

 Jew scribe, he would have spelled it MNSA=MaNaS-A, and considered the 

 duplication of the S unusual and unnecessary. 



The fact that Manasseh (son of Joseph) is spelt in Hebrew (Gen. 41 : 51) MNSE 

 like Manasseh (the tribal name, Josh. 13 : 29; 17 : 8) is of no moment, because 

 wherever the name was found, its spellings would be made to agree. That it 

 suffered changes in the course of centuries is rendered probable by the form 

 MNSI in Deut.4: 43, " And Golan of Bashan of the Manassites," "'lVJo'? W'2'2 "in 

 Bashan to Minash-i." 



