266 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 
Egyptian form Aram is used for Dy (Brugsch, Geog. Ins. 1. 68, 11. 28, 
31, 37, ii. 50), while conversely Arya or Bactria is transliterated in 
Egyptian a/ (Brugsch, Geog. Ins. iii. 66). 
From this it may be inferred that Rui = Lui, and this, with the 
consonantal sound given to the Vau (as in the case of |}, the Egyptian 
An, which in Ezekiel’, xxx. 17, is pointed |]8) would indicate that 
the name Rui was, as Brugsch supposed, the Egyptian equivalent of 
the Hebrew Levi. 
If this be so, then Rui or Levi may have been an Israelite by birth, 
although emphatically an Egyptian by professed faith ; and by confor- 
mity to the customs of the country, this primitive Beaconsfield rose to 
the highest pinnacle of power, like his predecessor and compatriot 
Joseph. In his monuments, unlike mi t other Egyptian personages, 
he does not, as far as I know, give us his m \ther’s name nor his ancestry ; 
but he enumerates the list of offices which he filled, which were indeed 
the chief posts in the land—religious, military, and civil—some of 
which he transmitted to his son Ru-ma. 
Rui must have occupied this position of influence during the trou- 
blous times for Israel which culminated in the Exodus, and must thus 
have been brought into forcible collision with his greater and more 
noble compatriot Moses, whose stern refusal of compliance with the 
requirements of Egyptian worship possibly may have opened the way 
for the political success of his more wily fellow-countryman. 
One can scarcely imagine that these two could have been contem- 
poraries, especially if they were really of the same nation, without 
being bitter foes: and perhaps, without straining conjecture too far, 
we may here find the key of a mystery which has long puzzled many 
acute minds. The Apostle Paul, quoting one of the Jewish historical 
traditions, speaks of Moses’ Egyptian antagonists as Jannes and Jam- 
bres (2 Tim. i. 8). The first of these is called in various records 
by words which are different modifications of the one well-known 
Egyptian name Ani,’ a name as old as the shepherd kings, one of 
instance WA for <=> In other languages not cognate the same interchange is 
familiar: thus the Pehlvi use 7 where the Zend has 7, and in general the physio- 
logical relations of these two letters are the closest possible. The reverse change 
of a Greek p into an Egyptian & is seen in the hieroglyphic rendering of the 
name of the wife of Ptolemy I1., Arsinée, which is written A/s-ar-na, while the 
similar name of the wife of Philopator I. is spelled -4/-si-nia. 
1 The alteration in pointing in this passage in Ezekiel is intended evidently to 
be suggestive of the vanity of the idolatry of Ov, just as a similar meaning in Ho- 
sea, iv. 15, is expressed by the use of yw MA for OND. 
See in this connexion also the interesting point, lost in our English version in 
Micah, i. 13, where the words w ‘3? and ty ~ | are used in close connexion as 
a kind of poetic word-play. 
2 The names of these two magicians are giyen in very varied forms by the older 
