/t^9 

 Lesley.J "i'^-j [May, 



ting man with his hand to his mouth) meaning velle, placere, s'il vous 

 plait, s'il est permit, (Brugsch, Diet. p. 903), i. e. "by your favour " "by 

 your gracious permission, " "may it please your gracious majesty," &c., 

 corresponds exactly to the Hebrew ;/N (?n) grace, fcmor and njn to 

 'protect, defend, encamp, surrounded, dwell, reside. 



There is therefore no obstacle in the way of comparing the HUD, which 

 Zachariah prophesied that the High priest Joshua should wear as Lord of the 

 new Temple, directly with the HeT, the white crown of Upper Egypt, 

 if not with the psJient of the whole Kingdom.* 



But this is not the most interesting point in my discussion of the passage 

 in Zecharias, although it bears upon its general Egyptological character. 

 The main point is the use of the word ZemacJi, "branch, " and its reference 

 to a late high priest bearing the ancient name Joshua. 



The Hebrew tradition, adopted by the Christian Church, saw in the 

 term Zemach, Branch, as used by Jer. 23 : 5, 33 : 15 and Zech. 3 : 8 and 

 Thes. 6 : 12, the Messiah, as offspring of David and of God ; while its use 

 by Isaiah 4 : 2 is more doubtful, as Genesius explains. 



1. I wish to call attention, first, to the poetic alliteration of the sentence 

 in Zechariah : Zemach sliemo, "Branch," (is) his name. How far this 

 alliteration availed in causing the selection of the word, I cannot tell ; but 

 this kind of elegant punning is, as all readers of the hebrew scriptures 

 know, one of their commonest features, and is often a great help in 

 exegesis. It gave rise to a good deal of the historical etymology of proper 

 names. 



In light of this well known fact it cannot be uninteresting to notice 

 that the term branch, or offspring, or child (applied by the men of the 

 synagogue to the expected Messiah, who should rebuild the temple, and 

 set up his throne) corresponds exactly to the Egyptian etymology of the 

 name of the original Messiah, Moses, Child. 



The hebrew traditional etymology of the name Moses (Ex. 2 : 10) was 

 evidently constructed on the story of his infancy ; " for I have drawn him 

 out of the water" (ci m'n h'mim m'shithu). And the Egyptian colony 

 of Jews to whom we owe the old greek translation, spelled the name 

 MS'E in a complex manner, //wuff^?, apparently for the purpose of justi- 

 fying that etymology, and introducing into it the idea of water. 



But in so doing they had to neglect the real point of the etymology in 

 Exodus 2 : 10, where the participle "being drawn out" is the only word 

 which carries the etymology. 



The Egyptian Jews could find nothing in Coptic meaning "being 

 drawn out ' ' to suit them, and had to use the Coptic words for ' ' water ' ' 

 and "tosa/oe." Hence Josephus (Ant. 2. 9. 6 ; cont. Apion 1. 31) and 

 Philo (2. 83) considered the name Moses to mean "saved," not "drawn 

 out of ' ' the water. 



* Other Hebrew relatives can be found in in. h^d, a shout and T\T\. to shout 

 with joy; in IT], hen, lo, behold (a shout); and nJH (fern.) they, i, q. behold them 

 there! 



