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258 The Testimony, June 2004 point of difference in this type is the fact that Samson betrayed his vows. The Lord Jesus kept his allegiance to God, even to the end. Like the Lord, Samson was tortured, humiliated and taunted by his enemies. The spiritual quality of Samson shines brightest, not when he is at the zenith of his power, but when he is at his lowest, for he saw past the anguish to the mercy of the Most High God. Just as his shame is written for all to see, so is his faith, in his naming in the roll of honour in Hebrews 11. We do not remember David for his sin, but for his faith. Let us accord the same honour to Samson. Pat Wilson Nottingham Goshen The land where Israel became a nation* Deborah Hurn G OSHEN, OR THE land of Rameses, was the district in which the descendants of Jacob settled upon their migration to Egypt (Gen. 45:10; 47:11). From the description of Jacob and Joseph’s reunion it is clear that Goshen lay between Egypt and southern Canaan along the nomads’ route, the Way of Shur. As Jacob approached Egypt from Beersheva (46:5), Joseph went out to him from the palace, and they met each other in Goshen (v. 29). Goshen also lay at the end of the Way of the Wilderness of the Red Sea, from Sinai and Arabia (Ex. 13:18). The region is sometimes described as though it was separate from Egypt proper, as, for example, with the last seven plagues, which did not affect the habitations or possessions of the Hebrews. The land of Goshen must, however, have bordered on the Egyptian royal precincts of that era (Gen. 45:10). Regular contact between the Israelites and the Egyptians is recorded from the time of Joseph, indicating a convenient proximity. During the oppression, Moses’ mother placed the baby’s ark in the river at the place where Pharaoh’s daughter came to bathe, and returned home (a short distance) leaving Miriam to keep watch (Ex. 2:4,5). When Moses decided to visit his brethren and witness their toil, he came on successive days (vv. 11,13). During the time of the plagues, Moses went back and forth between the Hebrew district and Pharaoh’s palace at short notice. When the last great plague had obtained their release, the Israelites had Egyptian neighbours (other than the mixed multitude) from whom they ‘borrowed’ valuable items (12:35). Crops, flocks and herds While in Egypt, the Israelites lived in houses with lintels and doorposts (Ex 12:22,23), indicating that they were now permanent residents and not nomads. They also practised agriculture in addition to their flock- and herd-rearing heritage (Num. 11:5; Deut. 11:10). Sheep may be adequately grazed on wilderness pastures, but cattle are kept close to agricultural settlements as there is generally not enough pasture in semiarid regions. The primary use of cattle was the cultivation of the land: ploughing, sowing and transportation. They were indispensable to ancient agricultural societies and were much in evidence throughout the Nile delta, as they are today. Generally, each farm or household would have had an ox or two to work the crops, and Pharaoh owned large herds (Gen. 47:6). As crops, sheep and cattle require quite different conditions, land suitable for all these uses could only be found at the interface of the fertile region and the wilderness. To the Egyptians every shepherd was an “abomination”, as Joseph warned his brethren (46:34). The Egyptians owned flocks (47:17; Ex. 9:3), so it was evidently not sheep they abhorred, but rather the work of the shepherd. This was a form of cultural elitism, and has varied according to the material development of societies in all eras. Whereas the nomadic Semites considered that possession of, and dependence upon, * Quotations from the RSV unless stated otherwise. 259 The Testimony, June 2004 flocks was honourable, the Egyptians (Hamites) saw such a lifestyle as foreign and less civilised than farming, preferring to leave the work of raising sheep to slaves or their poorer citizens.1 Israel’s Egyptian neighbours in Goshen may have been of this sort, and, as the lower class in Egyptian society, had the most to gain by joining Israel in the flight from Egypt as the “mixed multitude” (12:38). Moses, raised with Egyptian values, may have had to adjust his outlook on shepherding when he kept the flocks of Jethro, a Semitic Kenite. Among the modern Bedouin, whose main occupation has always been stock rearing, the task of shepherding is now regarded as very lowly, and women and children usually attend the flocks. This may be related to the fact that Bedouin now drive pick-up trucks, mount solar hot-water tanks by their tents and watch pay-TV. Values also changed for the ancient Hebrews as their society settled and developed. By the time of the Israelite kingdom, David’s role as the family’s shepherd showed that he was the least among his brothers (1 Sam. 17:28; 1 Chron. 17:7). Security concerns Goshen was also, perhaps surprisingly, described as “the best of the land” (Gen. 45:18; 47:6,11), implying a reliable source of water and fertile soil. It might be asked why the best of the land was not already filled with Egyptians, and was both Pharaoh’s and Joseph’s choice for settlement by nomadic people (47:5,6). From a geographical point of view it is helpful to remember that deserts surround Egypt on all sides. The borders were difficult to penetrate except for one natural, convenient opening, which formed the gateway to the countries to the east. The Egyptians avoided settling in proximity to Canaan for fear of war, and preferred to live in relative safety ‘behind’ their royal palace, army base, store cities 2 and administration centre. In this early period, these were all situated along the ancient Pelusiac branch of the Nile, which formed the eastern border of the delta. No one wanted to be caught by an invading army beyond the centre of population and defensible borders. Moreover, the great majority of Egyptians were farmers, as the economy was completely based upon agriculture. There is no other country in the world quite like Egypt, in that its whole existence is dependent on one physical feature—the river. Without the Nile the nation of Egypt could not exist. The summer monsoon rains in the mountains of Ethiopia and the southern Sudan cause the annual inundation, though the ancient Egyptians never understood the reason. Most of the land in the Nile valley and the delta remained under water for some ten weeks between August and November, and each year a fresh deposit of sediment rich in organic matter was left behind.3 The years when there was a satisfactory inundation of the Nile were ‘good years’, while a poor inundation, or none at all, meant famine or ‘bad years’. Hence, for reasons of subsistence and security, the people generally clung to the heart of the delta, where there were “rivers . . . canals . . . ponds, and . . . pools of water” (Ex. 7:19). Except for border fortresses that were built along the routes, we may assume that the frontier region of Goshen was not intensively inhabited prior to the Israelite immigration. The Egyptians were very security conscious, for they had much to protect. The perennial fertility of the Nile gave them the wealth and the free time necessary to develop their culture to a very high level. Other nations admired and coveted their power and self-sufficiency. Thus Joseph was acting very true to the type of Egyptian officials when he accused his brothers of being spies (Gen. 42:9,14), and the men rightly trembled with fear over the unpredictable nature of his apparent paranoia. Much later, when the nation of Israel had multiplied and spread throughout the land of Goshen, the great fear of the Egyptian populace was that the Hebrews might join with Egypt’s enemies and fight against them. Consequently they were “in dread of the people of Israel” (Ex. 1:8-12). The ordinary Egyptians truly suffered from the devastating plagues and, when Pharaoh finally relented, they sent the Israelites “out of the land in haste; for they said, ‘We are all dead men’” (12:33). The unthinkable had finally happened, and mighty Egypt was ruined (10:7). After the Hyksos invaded the delta,4 the Egyptian capital was transferred to Thebes in Upper Egypt (in the south) for fear of further conquests 1. 2. 3. 4. The Sinai Journeys, Har-El, M., 1983, p. 306. The enslaved Israelites built two store cities for Pharaoh, Raamses and Pithom (Ex. 1:11). In the Shadow of the Pyramids: Egypt During the Old Kingdom, Malek, J., 1986, pp. 14-15. This is on the basis of the revised chronology put forward by Immanuel Velikovsky in Ages in Chaos. 260 The Testimony, June 2004 The function of the ancient stream has been replaced by the Ismailia Canal Bolbitine Bucolic that lies between one and Canobic five kilometres to the north Mendesian of the stream bed (see picPelusian ture opposite). With this Tanite ‘sweet water’ the region to the west of Ismailia is now irrigated, and supports agricultural villages, unlike Ismailia the other city districts of Zoan? Zagazig L. Timsah the Suez Canal, which are Canal Wadi Tumilat deserts. Lake Timsah, howBitter ever, has been a salt-water Lakes Succoth lake since 1862, when water from the Mediterranean Sea filled the Canal, then constructed as far as Ismailia. In ancient times the valley served as a major transit route into Egypt from the Map of the Nile Delta region, showing the Wadi Tumilat where the land of Goshen was situated. eastern deserts, providing fresh water and pasture a by strangers, and the royal “field of Zoan” (Ps. full seventy kilometres before the delta was 78:12,43, AV) lay desolate for many years.5 reached. It also served as the main eastern gateway to Egypt for nomads wishing to obtain protection from the kings of Egypt in order to keep A river valley themselves and their stock alive.7 Lush agriculIn the view of most major scholars, the land of ture and abundant fresh water must have been a Goshen is centred in the Wadi Tumilat (meaning welcome sight to desert-weary tribes fleeing ‘water’), a narrow fertile valley lying fifty-six drought conditions. The Bedouin of Sinai still kilometres (thirty-five miles) to the north of the use Wadi Tumilat whenever they come and go latitude of Cairo. It stretches from the edge of from the delta region.8 the Nile Delta, near the town of Zagazig, to the That the most ancient Egyptian capital lay at eastern frontier of Egypt as far as the Suez Isththe end of the nomads’ route to Egypt through a mus, a distance of about sixty-five kilometres fertile valley is found in a ‘lost’ Biblical reference (forty miles). Wadi Tumilat, about three kilometo Zoan. The Jordan Valley of Abraham’s time is tres (two miles) wide and with a cultivable area described as “well watered every where, before about one-hundredth the size of the delta,6 conthe LORD [Yahweh] destroyed Sodom and Gotains the only lateral stream of the Nile. That is, morrah, even as the garden of the LORD [Yahweh], it separates out from the other generally northlike the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar” flowing branches of the Nile Delta, and flows (Gen. 13:10, AV). Zoar was the name of a city east towards the Suez depression. associated with Sodom, but the structure of the At the far end of Wadi Tumilat, in the line sentence here indicates that an Egyptian city is of the Suez Canal, lies Lake Timsah (meaning ‘crocodile’), with the large, modern city of Ismailia on its northwestern shore. A contempo5. Biblical Archaeology, Wright, G. E., 1962, pp. 58-59, rary road and railway run parallel to the wadi, cited by Har-El, op. cit., p. 305. traversing the length of ‘Goshen’. Paved and 6. Har-El, op. cit., p. 208. constructed between 1848 and 1863 by Abbas I 7. As detailed in Papyrus Anastasi V, Ancient Near Eastand Sa’id Pasha, they reach from the Zagazig ern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, Pritchard, J. B., region on the Pelusiac branch of the Nile east1954, p. 259, cited by Har-El, op. cit., p. 307. ward to Ismailia, continuing thence southward 8. Van Seters, J., Correspondence, Biblical Archaeology to Suez. Review, Jan./Feb. 1982, p. 12. Mouths of the river Sebennyt 261 The Testimony, June 2004 The Ismailia Canal near Tel Maskhuta, the Succoth of Exodus 12:37. intended. Thus ‘Zoar’ should probably read ‘Zoan’, the Hebrew letters resh and nun (in final form) being easily confused. To illustrate the legendary original fertility of the Jordan Valley, Moses compares it with the approach through his native Goshen (Wadi Tumilat) to the lush “field of Zoan” (Ps. 78:12) in Egypt (cf. Num. 13:22). “The best of the land” Further support for the location of Goshen in the Wadi Tumilat lies in its description as “the best of the land” (Gen. 45:18; 47:6,11). The quality of the alluvial soils eroded from the Nile at high tide and deposited on the banks of the wadi sustained its fertility. The valley has comfortable climatic conditions relative to the zones in the south of the delta, and very few swamps due to its narrowness and slope towards the depression of the eastern lakes. Hence the Israelites were able to cultivate not only irrigated plants— cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic (Num. 11:5)—but cereal crops, from which came the straw for brick-making. Besides all this, they had an abundance of ‘free’ fish available to them (v. 5), freshwater Nile species that had migrated to Lake Timsah, and possibly also ocean varieties found in the Bitter Lakes extension of the Suez Gulf.9 Despite their enslavement, the people of Israel thrived throughout the Egyptian period, “and grew, and multiplied exceedingly” (Gen. 47:27, AV; cf. Ex. 1:7). Another advantage to the Israelites was the proximity of Goshen to the eastern lakes, where there was fresh pasture throughout the year for both sheep and cattle. Only in this district were conditions suitable (that is, dry enough) for sheep farming. The tribes of Israel were possibly strung along the length of the valley, with Levi and Judah close to the delta and the royal residence, and Reuben, Gad and Manasseh further east where they maintained large flocks and herds (Num. 32:1; Deut. 3:12,19). Fertile soil and reliable water, as well as perfect conditions nearby for their livestock and ready access to all the news from the eastern countries, meant, in short, that the people of Israel had it all . . . except their freedom. 9. “Badgers’ [dugong, NIV] skins” (AV) and the scarlet dye of the murex mollusc are both ocean products used in the construction of the tabernacle (Ex. 25:5).