1. There are a few scholars who deny that Israel was ever in Egypt, but the majority recognize the strength of the tradition, which is found in all the sources, and which was so confidently believed in the later Hebrew times. Besides, nothing would be more natural than that wandering clans of southern Palestine should look with eager eyes to the rich lands of Egypt, and should seek opportunity in time of some famine stress to make a settlement across the Egyptian frontier. It is highly probable, therefore, that some of those peoples that later formed the Hebrew nation were permitted thus to settle in north-eastern Egypt. It would then be natural enough that the Palestinian wars of Rameses II. and his treaty with the Hittites would cause him to be somewhat distrustful of a considerable band of Asiatics on his border. His gigantic building operations called for large levies of workmen; so he may well have enslaved the people whose independence was a source of danger. Naville's identification of Pithom as a city built in Goshen in the reign of Rameses ii. lends historical probability also to the story.
What are our grounds for believing that any Israelitic tribes were at one time settled in Egypt? I shall mention two principal reasons:-Firstly, the tradition is not confined to any one part or time, but represents a continuous, abiding Israelitish belief. It is mentioned by all the chief chroniclers of the Book of Exodus and by all the prophets from Amos down. Such a confident and uniform tradition deserves every attention, and should not be ignored unless we have excellent reasons for doing so. Secondly, it would be difficult to find a nation which is so self-reliant as the Jewish. If, then, the Jewish tradition introduces their history by referring to so great a humiliation as the subjugation of the nation by the Egyptians, the sojourn in the “house of bondage,” as it is often called, it would be very strange if the Jews merely invented this story. If they only desired to make a beginning to their history, they would certainly have adopted different means. How easy it would have been for the fictitious legend to spare Israel this black blot in their past! This is a strong proof that the sojourn of Israelitic tribes in Egypt is a historical fact.1 [Note: R. Kittel, The Scientific Study of the Old Testament, 169.]
2. May we further believe that Moses is historical? In general, modern Old Testament scholars are agreed to regard Moses as a historical personality; but there are some who oppose this view.
(1) Cheyne may be taken as a representative of those who deny the historical existence of Moses. His latest and clearest statement is as follows: “If we are to be really strict in our criticism, the historicity of Moses must be abandoned. The force of personality in the religious as well as in the political sphere I heartily admit, but the wielders of this great weapon are not always easily discovered except by romancers. Prof. Volz remarks that ‘we cannot help placing a person at the beginning of the moral religion of Israel, and as such we accept the Moses whom popular tradition offers to us.' There may not, he admits, be strong literary-critical grounds for the historicity of Moses, but to neutralize this fact he appeals to the analogy of Christianity. It is not, he says, the so-called ‘salvation-facts' of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ on which the Christian religion is really based, but His personality. Just so, it was not the Exodus on which the new Yahweh religion was really based, but the personality of Moses-a personality shaped and moulded by inner experiences. Of these experiences of Moses there are no strictly historical records, but who cannot sympathize with those narrators of Israel's religion who, wanting a founder, involuntarily thought of that great and almost superhuman hero whose lineaments were still present to the imagination?”1 [Note: T. K. Cheyne, The Two Religions of Israel, 71.]
(2) That Moses is a historical person, says Kittel, is proved by the description-assumed to be historical-of the state of affairs at the time of the Exodus. The tribes which were dwelling in Egypt were a disorganized crowd, a conglomeration of isolated families, each taking its own course, without any idea of patriotism or of unity. These were first inspired into the people by Moses, who in this way accomplished a deed of incalculable importance to the race. He instilled into them strength, courage, and enthusiasm, and inspired them to oppose the Egyptians. Whenever a whole nation begins to be formed from a group of tribes and clans, it is not the work of the tribes themselves, but that of an individual, who imparts his own enthusiasm to the crowd. Italy did not combine of its own accord, but Cavour created the united Italy; it was not the German tribes who effected the German Empire, but Bismarck inspired them to bring it about. If tradition said nothing of such a person as Moses, we would have to assume his existence; since the tradition is definite and positive on this point, we are compelled to accept it as historical.1 [Note: R. Kittel, The Scientific Study of the Old Testament, 170.]
We need not insist upon the symmetrical exactitude of the thrice forty years into which his career is distributed. We need not analyse, or rationalize, the details of the warning plagues. We may associate all the minuter prescriptions of the Law, which fill the “Books of Moses,” with the Exile or the Return rather than with the Wanderings in the Wilderness; but behind them all we discern the imperishable figure of the man who, as leader, prophet, lawgiver, led his people forth from the land of bondage to the confines of the Promised Land, who transformed a multitude of slaves into a commonwealth of freedmen, and who established them for ever in a law, a worship, and a faith, through which has been wrought out the redemption of mankind. “Thou leddest thy people like sheep by the hand of Moses and Aaron.”2 [Note: G. H. Rendall, Charterhouse Sermons, 24.]
In the Old Testament there are presented to us the varying fortunes of a Semitic people who found their way into Palestine, and were strong enough to settle in the country in defiance of the native population. Although the invaders were greatly in the minority as regards numbers, they were knit together by an esprit de corps which made them formidable. And this was the outcome of a strong religious belief which was common to all the branches of the tribe-the belief that every member of the tribe was under the protection of the same God, Jehovah. And when it is asked from what source they gained this united belief, the analogy of other religions suggests that it probably resulted from the influence of some strong personality. The existence and character of the Hebrew race require such a person as Moses to account for them.3 [Note: A. H. McNeile, in Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible (Single-volume), 633.]
Moses is, beyond all doubt, a historical character, and it is impossible to understand the rise of nation or worship apart from him. Had his name perished and his very existence been blotted out from the memory of his countrymen, we should have been obliged to postulate a personality such as his. The character of Hebrew revelation demands no less. The definite transition from some form of animism to the service of a personal God, who chooses the tribes of Israel, making them one with each other because they were one in loyalty to Him, and revealing to them His character in the way by which He led them, cannot have been effected save by a great religious genius. We have a parallel case in the Persian religion, which is so different from nature worship that we cannot, without quite undue scepticism, fail to acknowledge the influence exercised by the creative mind of Zoroaster, though our information about him is meagre in the extreme. A fortiori does this reasoning apply to Israel, which was dominated throughout the long course of its religious development by great teachers and reformers.1 [Note: W. E. Addis, Hebrew Religion, 61.]
Every one to-day at all acquainted with matters of historical religion knows that historical and ethical religions-such as the Israelitish religion undoubtedly was-always go back to a historical personality in their Founder. On the other hand, nature religions and astral religions never go back to a Founder, for they were not founded but grew.2 [Note: J. S. Banks, in The Expository Times, xviii. 452.]
(3) But while the denial that Moses was a real person is scarcely within the bounds of sober criticism, it does not follow that all the details related of him are literally true to history.
What is the value for history or biography of these sources? The answer is not so simple as it might at first sight appear. It is not enough to say that a book is historically valuable in proportion as it relates with accuracy a series of facts or events. Such an answer is misleading because it confuses history with chronicle. The value, for example, of Grote's History of Greece would be seriously diminished if not destroyed, if there were substituted for it an accurate table of all the events related in it in their correct order with dates. A bare record of past events is of little use for the present. What the reader of history needs above everything is to learn the meaning of the events-their effect on the life of nations, on the life of individuals, on the relations of one country or race with another. He wants to know the place which actions held with regard to development, social progress, religious advance; how they influenced the character of the actors; the motives which led the actors to do what they did-and so forth. Thus true history is written not for mere information but for instruction, that the readers may learn what to imitate and what to avoid, how to act under given circumstances and how not to act. For this purpose a list of events is useless. The writers select their material, and arrange and comment. They present history as it appeals to them in its character of a guide for the future. This is true of all history; and Israelite history is not an exception. The writers of the Book of Numbers selected such material as seemed to them important, and presented it in such a way as to afford instruction to their readers. As has been said already, the earliest of them probably had access to an older body of traditions. And these traditions were of very varying degrees of accuracy. But whether they were accurate or not, and whether the writers repeated them accurately or not, the lessons which they embodied could be utilized. Thus it is that great caution must be exercised in the attempt to decide how much of the narrative in the Book of Numbers actually took place in the lifetime of Moses. The tendency in all ages has been to allow full play to folklore, legend, and imagination, when dealing with a great hero of far-off days. The impression produced by past traditions leads to the laying on of fresh colouring which heightens the impression. And writers who compiled their narratives with a purpose that was primarily religious would be likely to select just those details which contributed the most striking touches to the great portrait. This is true both of the facts of Moses' life and of the legislation which was ascribed to him. The decisions on social and religious matters which he must have given during the years of his leadership appear to have been of so striking and elevated a character that his fame as a lawgiver was never forgotten; and it became customary, throughout the whole history of the nation, to assign to his initiative all law-moral, social, and religious. It is impossible, therefore, to decide with certainty whether any given command can be traceable to him. The writer knew of it as a regulation or custom in force when he wrote; but how much older it may be can only be conjectured from the nature of the command itself, or from a comparison of it with other parts of the legislation, or with the customs of other nations at a similar stage of development.1 [Note: A. H. McNeile, The Book of Numbers, xix.]
We cannot press details; but it is hypercritical to doubt that the outline of the narratives which have thus come down to us by two channels is historical. The narratives of J and E cannot be mere fictions: those wonderful pictures of life, and character, and ever-varying incident, though, as we know them, they may owe something of their charm to their painters' skill, cannot but embody substantial elements of fact.1 [Note: S. R. Driver, The Book of Exodus, xliv.]
Whether everything that we read happened exactly as it is written, or whether the representation is more or less due to the narrators, the narrative, as a whole, possesses profound religious value, and conveys, directly or indirectly, supremely important teaching. And if Exodus is in parts a parable rather than a history, we must remember that we have no right to limit the power of God, and to say that He cannot teach by parable as well as by history, by ideals as well as by actual facts. The symbolical, and also the ideal, character of some of the Old Testament narratives must not be forgotten. Whether, in a particular case, a narrative relates actual facts or not is a question for historical criticism to decide: whatever its decision may be, the religious value of the narrative remains the same. Israel really was God's people, really did receive the blessings and privileges which, under the older dispensation, this position implied, was really led from Egypt to Canaan by a leader who was taught of God not only how to do all this, but also how to conclude a covenant with them on His behalf, and to give them laws and some knowledge of Himself, and who moreover was the first of a succession of teachers, who, with increasing clearness and power, communicated to His people further Divine truths, and held up before it high ideals of moral and spiritual life: but, if as much as this is granted,-and it lies upon the very surface of the Old Testament,-does it materially signify whether, in the Pentateuch, it is Moses who is speaking or writing, or whether it is some later prophet or priest who describes the events of the Exodus and of the journey through the wilderness as they were told, some centuries afterwards, by tradition, and who besides this traces the way in which the hand of God was visible in them, brings out the spiritual lessons implicit in them, and puts into Moses' mouth thoughts and feelings and truths about God and His relation to His people, in more explicit and articulate words than perhaps he himself would have used? There are cases, especially in the earlier books of the Old Testament, in which we cannot get behind the narratives, in which, that is, we cannot say how far the narratives correspond exactly to what was said or done by the actors in them; in these cases, however, the narrative itself is that which has the religious value, and from which spiritual and moral teaching is to be deduced. The narratives are the work of God-inspired men: and in the actions which they describe, and in the thoughts and truths expressed in them, are “profitable,” sometimes by way of warning, more often by way of example and precept, and always according to the stage of spiritual illumination which each narrative represents, “for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness.” Naturally, every part of the Book is not equally “profitable” for these purposes; but the narratives, especially those in which Jehovah and Moses are exhibited in converse together, abound in great and noble thoughts, and are rich in spiritual and devotional suggestiveness.1 [Note: S. R. Driver, The Book of Exodus, lxx.]
