A. M. 2515. A. C. 1489; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 3765. A. C. 1646. NUM. xviii. TO THE END OF DEUT.

subdued the Scythians, as far as the river Tanais, which divides Europe from Asia: here he brought into subjection the other parts of Asia; and from hence he went into Thrace in Europe; but as he was marching along the deserts, he was in danger of losing his army through the want of provisions, and difficulty of passes; and therefore a erecting, as his custom was, his pillars there, he adventured to proceed no farther: though the occasion of his return may rather be imputed to the news which he received from the Egyptian high priest, of his brother's revolt and usurpation.

while his victorious brother, after nine years' absence, returning in triumph to Egypt, adorned the temples with rich spoils: and having disbanded his army, after he had rewarded them according to their merit, he began to apply his mind to such stupendous works as might immortalize his name, and everlastingly contribute to the public good.

He built a temple in every city in Egypt, and dedi. cated it to the peculiar god of the place. This was a work wherein he employed none but captives; and therefore he had it inscribed upon each temple, "None of the

For, encouraged with his long absence, and great dis-natives were put to labour here." He raised vast mounts tance, Armais had done every thing that was interdicted and hills of earth, to which he removed the cities that him; had assumed the diadem, violated the queen, made had before too low a situation, in order to secure both promiscuous use of the king's concubines, and by the man and beast from the danger of the Nile's inundations. advice of his false friends, was now meditating to main- All the way, from Memphis to the sea, he dug canals, tain his usurpation by force of arms: but hearing of his which from the Nile branched out, and not only made an brother's return, he feigns himself of another temper; easier conveyance from place to place, but greatly admeets him at Pelusium, a frontier town, before he could vanced the trade and prosperity of the kingdom. All have certain intelligence of what had passed; and there the towns that were upon the frontiers, and lay before received him with all the appearance of submission and exposed to any superior number of forces, he fortified joy, but with a real design, not only to take away his against the incursions of enemies, and made them of life, but quite extirpate his whole family. To this end difficult access. He defended the east side of Egypt he invited the king his brother, the queen, and her chil- against the irruptions of the Syrians and Arabians, with dren, to a banquet, which he had prepared for their a wall drawn from Pelusium, through the deserts, as far refreshment; but when they had all drank very plenti- as Heliopolis, which is at least 1500 furlongs. He fully, and were now gone to rest, he caused a great caused a ship of 280 cubits long, to be built all of cedar, quantity of dried reeds, which he had before prepared gilded over with gold without, and lined with silver with- '| for that purpose, to be laid round the king's pavilion, in; and to perpetuate the memory of his actions, he and set on fire, in hopes to destroy them all. Sesostris erected two obelisks of polished marble, 120 cubits high, perceiving the danger he was in, and expecting no assis-on which was inscribed an account of the extent of his tance from his guards, who were all overcome with wine, lifted up his hands, and implored the gods in behalf of bis wife and children, he rushed with them through the flames; and being thus unexpectedly preserved, he made oblations to several of the gods, but more especially to Vulcan, by whose protection he thought himself delivered. | The traitor Armais being thus defeated in his wicked | design, betook himself to arms, but was soon discomfited by Sesostris, and forced to flee into Greece, where he settled at Argos, and not long after was chosen king;

Valerius Flaccus insinuates, that he was repulsed with great slaughter, and put to flight in these parts.-Argonaut, b. 5.

a It was the custom of this great warrior, to set up pillars in every country he conquered, with an inscription to this effect, "Sesostris king of kings, and lord of lords, subdued this country by the power of his arms. If the nation had, without opposition, ignobly submitted to him, besides the inscription, he caused the privities of a woman to be carved, as a mark of their effeminacy and baseness; but if they had defended themselves bravely, the pillars bore the distinction of the contrary sex, in testimony of their courage. Besides these, he left statues of him

self behind him, two of which were to be seen in Herodotus' time, one on the road between Ephesus and Phocæa, and the other between Smyrna and Sardis. They were armed after the Ethiopian and Egyptian manner; held a javelin in one hand, and a bow in the other; and across the breast, had a line drawn from shoulder to shoulder, in which was this inscription:-"This region I obtained by these my soldiers."-Universal History, b. 1. c. 3.

empire, the value of his revenue, and the number of the nations which he had conquered. One thing, however is reported of him, which argues an horrid insolence, in so great a man, and tarnishes his character not a little, and that is, that at set times his custom was, to have the tributary kings, and such as held their dominions under his favour, to come into Egypt to pay their homage; and ¦¦ though he received them at first with all signs of honour and respect, yet on certain occasions, he would have his horses unharnessed, and some four or more of these kings yoked together, and made to draw his chariot: but, bating this opprobrious piece of arrogance, and whereof he was cured before he died, he was certainly in all respects, the greatest prince that ever sat upon the Egyptian throne; and (what some have accounted an augmentation of his greatness) after he had reigned three and thirty years, he lost his eyesight, and out of disgust, laid violent hands upon himself, thereby making his magnanimity in death, as they call it, equal to the glorious actions of his life.

After that the children of Israel had left the Egyp

c The manner in which he was cured is said to be this:-One day, as some of these tributary kings were drawing him along, he perceived one of them to look back upon one of the wheels, with a very great stedfastness; and thereupon inquiring what might be the subject of his thoughts, or the occasion of his deep attention. b Herodotus adds one circumstance more: that waking out of he received an answer to this effect:-"The going round of the sleep, and finding his danger, he consulted with his queen what wheel, O king, calls to my mind the vicissitudes of fortune: for to do in this extremity, who advised him to throw two of his as every part of the wheel is uppermost and lowermost by turns, hildren into the flames, that they might serve as a bridge for all so it is with men, who one day sit on a throne, and on the next he rest; which he accordingly did, and so they all escaped. But are reduced to the vilest degree of slavery." Which answer this is generally deemed a mistake in our historian, or a circum-struck the king with such compunction, that for ever after he gave stance crept in, on purpose to make the distress appear more off this inhuman practice.-Diodorus, b. 1; and Universal Hisaffecting.--Bedford's Scripture Chronology, b. 4. c. 5. tory, b. 1. c. 3.

A. M. 2515. A. C. 1489; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 3765. A. C. 1646. NUM. xviii. TO THE END OF deut.

A. M. 2515. A. C. 1489; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 3765. A. C. 1646. NUM. xviii. TO THE END OF DEUT. And as they had the largest share in the government, not permitted to mix or intermarry with the Hebrews; but it is not unreasonable to suppose farther, that in conse- as the Midianites, whose history we are now come to, were quence of their power, they soon expelled the Horite more particularly instrumental in seducing them to idoladukes, and at the same time might force Amalek, or his try, their punishment, for the present, was more severe. spurious offspring, to leave their dominions. For in the Midian, the fourth son of Abraham by his wife Ketunext generation, the posterity of Esau,who are styled abso-rah, is generally reputed to have given name to the lute dukes of Edom, were only eleven in number, and in all the country had no rivals. But as the approach of the children of Israel put them, and every nation else, in a great consternation, they thought it most conducive to their general safety, to unite under one common head; and thereupon having made choice of a king, they resolved to maintain their ground against any invasion. It was to this nameless king, or perhaps his successor, that Moses sent ambassadors, desiring a free passage through his country, which he absolutely denied, and to let him see that he was in earnest, immediately took the field; but as his design was to act upon the defensive only, and not distress a people that were his brethren, in matters wherein he could relieve them, without danger to himself, he supplied them, for their money, with whatever necessaries they wanted. And thus far the history of the Edomites, during this period, goes.

Moab, the son of Lot, by an incestuous commerce with the elder of his daughters, was the progenitor of this people, and gave name to their country; which was bounded on the east by the deserts of Arabia; on the west, by the mountains that lie east from the Dead Sea; on the north, by the country of the Ammonites, the descendants of Lot by his younger daughter; and on the south, by the brook or little river Zerid, which runs into the Dead Sea; so that, in the whole, it is about forty miles in length, and as much in breadth.

That the people had once the knowledgo of the true God, can hardly be doubted; but in time they loved not to retain that knowledge, but introduced the worship of false gods, with such monstrous and obscene ceremonies, as are not fit to be named. Their principal idols were Chemosh and Baal-peor; and to these they sacrificed, on mountains dedicated to that service, and in temples built in their cities, not only oxen and rams, but upon extraordinary occasions, human victims.

country, and to have been the progenitor of the Midianites, who, in the early ages of the world, were confounded with 2 the Ishmaelites, and soon after seem to be conjoined with the Moabites, as if they had been both one nation; when the true reason of this seeming commixture was, that according as they lived to the northern or southern parts of the country, of course they joined themselves either to the Moabites or Ishmaelites; and upon that account are oftentimes promiscuously mentioned in Scripture.

What the limits of their country were, it is not so easy a matter to perceive. Its boundary on the east is uncertain, but on the west, it was contiguous to the land of Edom; on the north to the country of Moab; and ou the south, to the Red Sea.

Its inhabitants were very numerous, and may be distinguished into two sorts, shepherds and merchants. The shepherds moved up and down in tents; they drove their cattle before them, even when they went to war; and seem to have had few or no fixed habitations, except some strongholds near the borders of their country. The merchants, in like manner, travelled from place to place in companies, or caravans, as it is the custom in those parts even to this day, and the only settlements they seem to have had were their marts, and stations, in places convenient for their trade.

By these two different employs, however, the whole nation flourished to a great degree. The merchants grew excessively rich; and the shepherds by exchanging with them, their cattle for gold, and jewels of all kinds, were enabled to make a much better appearance than other nations. But as their affluence in these things soon introduced luxury, they were a people remarkable for all kinds of vanity, riot, and excess. Though their learning could not be great, yet their merchants were obliged to know something of writing and arithmetic, in order to keep their accounts; and as they were traders, and situate on the Red Sea, it can hardly be supposed but that they applied themselves to ship-building, in order to explore not only their own coasts, but those of other countries likewise, that lay contiguous to them; and consequently could not be without some tolerable skill in geography and geometry.

The form of their government was regal, and the first inhabitants of their country were the Emims, a great and powerful people, of extraordinary strength and stature, very probably the descendants of Ham, and of the same gigantic race with the Anakims and Rephaims, though the Moabites called them by the name Emims, which, in Hebrew signifies terrible. And too terrible an enemy had they been for the Moabites, had not Chedorlaomer Their religion differed according to the part of the and his allies, by their frequent incursions, much weak-country which they inhabited. These who lived in the ened them, and made them an easy prey. The Moabites, however, when they had thus dispossessed them, kept not their new dominions long entire; for Sihon king of the Amorites, who bordered on them eastward, fought against the king of Moab, and took from him all his kingdom to the north of the river Arnon.

The successor to this king was Balak, who was then upon the throne, when the Israelites came and encamped in the neighbourhood of his country. His tampering with the infamous Balaam was the reason why his people were

'Deut. ii. 28, 29.

north of Midian, fell into all the abominations of the Moabites, and in their endeavour to corrupt the Israelites, quite exceeded them. But those that were placed more towards the south, if we may take Jethro, who is said to have ruled over a people near the Red Sea, for a pattern, retained just notions of God, and of the form of worship which he had prescribed to their forefathers; for they offered up praises, and thanksgivings, and sacrifices to him, though their religious rites and ceremonies are not specified.

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