BOOK I.

Page 4.—_Emancipation of servants._] The Mosaic law did not prohibit domestic slavery, which, being universal in the ancient world, it would have been impossible to banish from among any single people;—it only endeavoured to mitigate those evils which slavery must bring with it, especially among a people little softened by civilisation. In particular, its regulations were directed to prevent the mischiefs which resulted in other countries from the hostility against their master, which is engendered in the minds of slaves, who see no prospect of any termination to their miseries but that of their lives. Foreign slaves might be purchased and retained during their whole lifetime in slavery; (Lev. xxv. 45, 46.) but if a native Israelite had been reduced to servitude by poverty, Josephus (Ant. iii. 12. xvi. 1.) adds, by crime, he was to be set free at the end of seven years, or in the year of Jubilee, if this occurred before his seven years of service had expired. (Exod. xxi. 2-6. Lev. xxv. 39. Deut. xv. 12-18.) It would, however, frequently happen that a servant would have formed an attachment to his master’s house, which would make him unwilling to leave it, especially as the children, who might have been born to him by a female slave in the family, continued the property of his master. (Exod. xxi. 4.) In this case he was allowed to bind himself to his service for ever: the compact, to prevent false claims on the master’s part, taking place in the presence of witnesses, with the ceremonies described in the text. Josephus (Ant. iv. 8. 28.) appears to suppose, that even then he was released in the fiftieth year. The time immediately preceding the Passover is said to have been usually chosen for the manumission of those who were to receive their freedom. (Reland, Ant. Sacr. Heb. 452. Michaelis, Mos. Law, § 122-127.)

Page 6.—_Thavech._] היך (τὸ μεσὸν, Luke v. 19.) is a Hebrew word denoting _the midst_, and applied to the court which formed the centre of the buildings of the house. See Shaw’s Travels, p. 208.

Page 6.—_Presents for the host._] “It is counted uncivil to visit in this country without a gift in the hand. All great men expect it, as a kind of tribute due to their character and authority, and look upon themselves as affronted, and indeed defrauded, when this compliment is omitted. Even in familiar visits amongst inferior people you shall seldom have them come, without bringing a flower, or an orange, or some other such token of their respect to the person visited: the Turks in this respect keeping up the ancient oriental custom hinted at, (1 Sam. ix. 7.) ‘If we go, what shall we bring the man of God? there is not a present to bring to the man of God—what have we?’ which words are questionless to be understood as relating to a token of respect, and not a price of divination,”—Maundrell’s Travels, p. 26.

Page 7.—Respecting the construction of the better kind of houses in the east, the variegated marble pavements, the fountain with its cypress or palm-trees, the awning stretched over it, &c. see Harmer’s Observations on Scripture, i. 195. Ed. 1776. Russell’s Aleppo, i. 29. Shaw’s Travels, 207.

Page 8.—_Nard._] The costly liquid perfume, called _nardus_ by the ancients, was obtained from the flowers of the Indian plant _Valeriana Jatamensi_. (Roxburgh, As. Res. iv. No. 33.) From the resemblance of the grains, with which the lower part of the stem is covered, to an ear of corn, it obtained the name of νάρδου στάχυς, _spikenard_. (Mark xiv. 3. John xii. 3.) When pure, a small quantity of it, such as could be enclosed in a vase of onyx, was esteemed of great value.—Hor. Od. iv. 12.

Sed pressum Calibus ducere Liberum, Si gestis, juvenum nobilium cliens, Nardo vina merebere, Nardi parvus onyx eliciet cadum; caet.

Page 8.—_Fish of the Nile._] Athen. vii. 312. φέρει δὲ ὁ Νεῖλος γένη πολλὰ ἰχθύων καὶ πάντα ἤδιστα.—Diod. i. 36. The fish of Egypt are regretted, along with its vegetables, by the murmuring Israelites. (Numb. xi. 5.) In the hot weather the languid appetite relishes scarcely any food but this.—Harmer, ii. 327.

Page 8.—_Posture at table._] “Cœnantes ita decumbebant, ut capite leviter erecto, dorsoque pulvinis suffulto, lævo cubito inniterentur. Singulos lectos terni solebant occupare; primus pedes dorso secundi, secundus tertii dorso proximos habebat. Primus dicebatur summus, qui ad hujus pedes tertius imus erat, qui medius inter illos accumbebat dignissimus habebatur.”—Quistorpius de Terra Sancta; Fascic. Opusc. ix. 542.

Page 8.—_Blessing the bread._] The prayers of the Jews before their meals beginning with the words ברוך אהה יהוה the word _to bless_, (εὐλογεῖν) came to be used, as we find it F.pn +1 in the New Testament, for giving of thanks before a meal, and was applied to the food itself, though properly referring to God. (Kuinöel on Luke ix. 16.) What is here said respecting the ceremonies with which the meal was accompanied must be understood to rest on Rabbinical authority, or the practice of the later Jews. See Calmet Dict. _Prayer_; Diss. sur le Manger des Hébreux, i. p. 350. Buxtorf. Synagoga Judaica, 7.

Page 10.—“_Happy the people_,” &c.] These words will not be found in our version of Psalm lxxxix. 15., but “Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound.” The author has followed the version of Dathe and others. “O beatum populum, qui novit clangorem tubæ.” “Israelitis dies solemnes et festivi clangore tubæ annunciabantur, Lev. xxiii. 24. qui deinde ad eos peragendos in loco sacro conveniebant. Laudat igitur poeta felicitatem populi ex eo, quod hæc sacra ex præscripto Deo peragere possit.” Dathe. The modern Jews repeat this verse, when the trumpet is blown in the synagogue at the Feast of Trumpets.—Jenning’s Jewish Ant. ii. 253.

Page 11.—_History of the Jews in Egypt._] According to the account of Aristeas, to whom we owe the fable of the origin of the Greek version of the Old Testament, the Jews had settled in Egypt as early as the time of Psammetichus, 670 B. C. This, however, is not confirmed by ֖more credible authors. Herodotus mentions only Ionian and Carian mercenaries, (ii. 152.) as having served Psammetichus; Diodorus (i. 66.) does indeed add Arabians, under whom Jews may have been included; but there is nothing in the sacred volume to countenance the supposition. After the capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, Gedaliah, whom the Babylonians had left in command over the remnant of the people, was murdered by Ishmael, a prince of the house of Judah, who had taken refuge with the king of Ammon. The people, fearing the vengeance of Nebuchadnezzar, determined to take refuge in Egypt. Jeremiah, who endeavoured to dissuade them from it, was compelled to accompany them in their flight, and probably died in Egypt. (Jer. xli. xlii. xliii.) The fugitives took up their abode in the country adjacent to Pelusium, (Jer. xliv.) at Memphis and Thebes. It was predicted by Jeremiah that they should be cut off, but we know not in what manner the prophecy was fulfilled: probably from this time to that of Alexander the Great, a considerable number of Jews remained in the principal cities of Egypt. Alexander, when he founded the city which bore his name, brought a great number of Jews to settle there, (Jos. Bell. Jud. ii. 18. 7. cont. Apion. ii. 4.) allowed them to be called Macedonians, and gave them a quarter of the city, adjoining the palace, for their peculiar residence, that they might observe their national customs without molestation. Ptolemy Lagi, the founder of the kingdom of Egypt, endeavoured to possess himself of Palestine, but was driven out by Antigonus, and in his retreat carried with him a great number of Jewish families; (B. C. 312) some of whom he placed in his garrisons, others he sent to Cyrene, (Jos. Apion. ii. 4.) but the greater part he settled at Alexandria, continuing to them the privileges which had been granted to them by Alexander. After the battle of Ipsus, (301) Judæa remained in the hands of Ptolemy, and many more of the Jews were attracted to the new capital of Egypt. (Jos. Ant. xii. 1.) Their number must have been very great, if we could rely on the account given by Josephus, that 120,000 of them were ransomed from slavery by Ptolemy Philadelphus, (B. C. 277, Ant. xii. 2. 1.) when he caused the Jewish law to be translated into Greek. The succeeding princes of this family treated the Jews with great kindness, desirous probably of attaching their countrymen in Palestine, and thus securing their possession of that region, so eagerly contested between them and the kings of Syria.[133] In the reign of Ptolemy Philometor, Onias, whose father, the third high-priest of that name, had been murdered, fled into Egypt, and rose into high favour with the king and Cleopatra, his queen. The high-priesthood of the temple of Jerusalem, which belonged of right to his family, having passed from it to the family of the Maccabees, by the nomination of Jonathan to this office, (B. C. 153) Onias used his influence with the court to procure the establishment of a temple and ritual in Egypt, which should entirely detach the Jews who lived there from their connection with the temple at Jerusalem. The king readily complied with the request, hoping thus to assimilate the Jews more completely with his subjects, and to retain at home the gifts and tributes which they sent to the temple at Jerusalem. It was a bold innovation on the Jewish law, which had prescribed that sacrifices should be offered at one place only, for which purpose Jerusalem had long been appropriated. But on the other hand it might be urged that this law was given only in the contemplation of the Israelites living altogether in their own land, and that the case of a large number of Jews dwelling in a foreign country, not having been in the view of the lawgiver, was to be provided for when it arose. To reconcile the Egyptian Jews to a second temple, Onias is said to have alleged a passage in Isaiah, (xix. 18, 19.) of which we shall have occasion to speak hereafter. The place which he chose for the purpose was a ruined temple of Bubastis, at Leontopolis, in the Heliopolitan nome, one hundred and eighty stadia from Memphis; and the king having granted it to him, he repaired it, built a city resembling Jerusalem in miniature, (Jos. Bel. Jud. i. 1.) and erected an altar in imitation of that in the temple, constituted himself high-priest, and appointed priests and Levites from among the Jewish settlers. The king granted a tract of land around the temple for the maintenance of the worship, and it remained in existence till destroyed by Vespasian. (Jos. Ant. xiii. 3. xx. 9. Bell. Jud. vii. 11.) The chief seat of the Jews in Egypt, after Alexandria, appears to have been the district in which this temple stood, and which was called, from the founder, Ὀνίου Χώρα. (Jos. Ant. xiv. 8.) Onias was also a great warrior, and jointly with another Jew, Dositheus, was intrusted by Ptolemy with the management of all his civil and military affairs. When, after the death of Philometor, a dispute arose between Cleopatra and Ptolemy Physcon about the succession, Onias raised an army of Jews, and came to her assistance. During the reign of this voluptuous and cruel prince, (145-117 B. C.) the Jews in Egypt probably suffered in common with the other inhabitants of Alexandria, who were more than once in open rebellion against him; but nothing particular is related respecting them, if we except the circumstance mentioned in the preceding note, which the Latin translation of Josephus contra Apionem refers to the reign of Ptolemy Physcon. His queen Cleopatra associated with herself in the kingdom her eldest son, Ptolemy Lathyrus, and they were jointly sovereigns of Egypt at the time when the pilgrimage of Helon is supposed to take place. Cleopatra, jealous of Lathyrus, whom she had been compelled to take as her partner in the regal power, instead of his younger brother Alexander, (Jos. Ant. xiii. 10. 4.) gave her whole confidence to Hilkias and Ananias, sons of that Onias, by whom the temple of Leontopolis was built, gave them the command of the army, and was guided in every thing by their advice. The attachment of the Jews appears to have been the great support of Cleopatra’s power, almost all the other persons whom she employed going over to the side of Ptolemy. Thus favoured by the ruling powers, the Jews seem to have increased in population and wealth, so as to form no inconsiderable proportion of the inhabitants of Alexandria. Τῆς τῶν Αλεξανδρέων πόλεως ἁφώριστο μέγα μέρος τῷ ἔθνει τουτῷ. Strabo ap. Jos. Ant. xiv. 7. 2. Philo, Leg. ad Caium, says they were μυριάδες πόλλαι. Besides the enjoyment of their own religion, they had their own Ethnarch, who administered justice among them, according to their own law; so that, according to Strabo, they formed a sort of independent community in the bosom of the state. (Jos. Ant. xix. 5. 2.) It seemed desirable to present the reader with this connected view of the origin and state of the Jews in Egypt, as it is disclosed only gradually, and by allusion, in the work itself.

Footnote 133:

A tale, not very credible, is related by the author of what is called the Third Book of the Maccabees, of Ptolemy Philopater’s attempting to compel the Jews in Egypt to forsake their religion. Josephus takes no notice of it in his Antiquities; it is found in the Latin translation of the Treatise against Apion. It may have had its foundation in some persecution raised against them by that king. See Prideaux’s Connection, under the year 216 B. C.

Page 14.—_Irhaheres, Leontopolis._] Isaiah xix. 18. This is the passage which Onias is said to have alleged, in order to induce the Jews to acquiesce in the erection of the temple at Leontopolis. The words which stand in our common Hebrew Bibles are these, עִיר ההרס יאמר לאחת rendered in our translation “One shall be called, the City of Destruction.” Those who impute a misapplication of the passage to Onias, suppose that he read it ציר החרס, which, according to the meaning which the word bears, (Job ix. 7.) would signify _City of the Sun_, i. e. Heliopolis; and some modern interpreters consider this as the more probable reading. See Vitringa in loc. It is supported by Symmachus, who renders it πόλις ἡλίου· and Jerome “_Civitas Solis_ vocabitur una.” The rendering of the Seventy is different from either, πόλις Ασεδὲκ κληθήσεται ἡ μία πόλις, as if they had read הצדק, whence Prideaux (Conn.