1881.] 4dD [Lesley. 



Other and more modern writers follow a someAvliat different track by 

 translating Moses, "the Preserver." For while the writer of Exodus 

 prefers the etymology in its passive form and explains that Pharaoh's 

 daughter called him Moses because she had drawn him out of the water, 

 — the writer of the later chapters of Isaiah (63 : 11) shows that a very 

 different traditional etymology existed in his time, (or in his own mind 

 perhaps), and one wholly incompatible with the other. " Then his people 

 bethought them of the old days of Moses, (or, then Moses' people bethought 

 them of the old days). Where is he now who once led them (or drew 

 them) out of the sea, with the shepherd of his flock?" &c. 



It is unprofitable to follow further these traditional attempts to explain 

 the name Moses ; or rather the hebrew word M's'h, which bears the same 

 relation to the greek form Moses, or Mouses, that the egyptian name of 

 the first pharaoh M'na does to its greek form Menes. 



We have the same liberty to go to the egyptian dictionary as Josephus 

 or Isaiah or the unknown author of Exodus had ; and when we go there 

 we find the words Mas and Massis not only meaning child and so used in 

 prose and poetry, but employed as a proper name, either alone or in com- 

 position. There was an entire dynasty of Kings each of which bore the 

 name Ra-Mes, and Ra-Messis, "child of the sun." And those who accept 

 the account of Moses place the date of his birth precisely in the reign of the 

 most distinguished of these sovereigns, Ramses II, the greek Sesostris, 

 about 1400 B. C. But the egyptian records tell us that Mass, child, was 

 not an uncommon name, worn by common people and by some in high 

 ofiicial position. Pharaoh's daughter could not give a more appropriate 

 name to the boy whom she had adopted as her child. 



2. It can hardly be a coincidence that both the lawgiver and father ot 

 the nation to whom the Hebrews looked bacic with awe and gratitude, and 

 the great deliverer and king of the nation to whom they look forward 

 with hope and almost divine worship, should have borne such similar 

 names as Moses and Messiah. In Hebrew the diflerence between MSH' 

 and MSH' by which J/(?ses and the Messiah (or the verb to anoint) are 

 designated, is merely the difference between a soft and a rough breathing. 

 On the other hand, if Moses meant child, and the Messiah was called 

 Branch, offspring, the community of ideas becomes complete. 



3. The passage in Zechariah has another attraction for the egyptologist. 

 The prophet may and probably did suppose that Joshua, the high priest ot 

 his day, was the Messiah, so long expected, and may have called him 

 Zemach, the Branch or Offspring (of David) in that hope ; but it was as 

 high priest that he glorified him, saying Zemach s'emo, Branch is his name. 

 Now this hebrew word S'm* is curiously enough the word for the high 

 priest of Memphis in the hieroglyphics. (Brugsch. p. 1221.) 



It is written simply SM, e. g. Bern Ptah, chief priest of the god Ptah ; 

 nenek setem em ariuf, I, the chief priest among his own people ; &c. 



* Masoretic. It may have been sem. 



