The monuments of Egypt introduce to us the Pharaohs and their manner of life. A Pharaoh was king indeed, supreme in power, head of the kingdom, whether in judgment or in war, and chief among the priests. The king was also equal in certain respects to the deities, and as far as words and pictures go, he was himself deified. Here is a king and his god. The god is presenting to the king life, the sign of which he holds. Both persons grasp the other’s hand as do friends; the god is no bigger than the deified king, each being on a royal equality with the other. In other pictures we see goddesses embracing kings.
Such a leveling up of man to religious dignity could but result in unutterable pride. Deified kings – that is, deified in pictures – doing homage to themselves, as sometimes represented, must have been in their own eyes supreme indeed.
Who but the ancient Egyptians conceived such mighty figures of men, and used such mighty conceptions either in pictures or in sculpture of the greatness and majesty of man! As we gaze upon these delineations, the first and prevailing idea forced upon us is this: In Egypt, at least, the old promise of the enemy seems realized – “Ye shall be as gods.”
Let anyone who cares for such matters, stroll through the British Museum, and look first upon the monuments of Egypt; there he shall see the calm of a god upon the face of kings. Then let him turn to the Assyrian monuments; those conceptions handed down from a more ancient Babylon, matured and developed – there he shall see brute force and brute power as the ideal of human dignity and might – man has become in his ideal half-animal, half-man! A step down, indeed. Next let him turn to the works of ancient Greece, and read what is written there. The gods have become men and women! Here is a fall into the abyss! Thus did the human mind degenerate until the very conception of a divine being was lost. The gods had become men!
Yes, the old Egyptian kings were wonderful men. Unmoved and immovable were they, at least according to the record of their monuments. The conception of their greatness was magnificent. Did the king go to battle – he bore a placid countenance in the fiercest fight. Did he slay his conquered foes – his face wore the calm of a god. Even in hunting the wild beast and during the excitement of the chase he was portrayed like a deity, firm in his own unyielding peace.
The king was unmoved by the prayers and uplifted hands of his captives. What were their griefs to him, save an occasion for his glory to be portrayed upon the walls of temples? Strange revelations of vengeance are therein made. The scribe writes down the tale of right hands cut off from the captives, and files of these maimed and hapless wretches are to be seen, being led away for some horrid end. The practical ancient Egyptian never kept handless slaves for work we may be sure. The captives led into Egypt for slavery were able men, and they were ruthlessly handcuffed and roped together, not unlike the gangs of slaves which to this day are brought from Central Africa for the market! Their arms and hands were securely lashed up, and, as we see, men of different nations were yoked together, an effectual preventive to organized resistance, and the files were kept on the run.
Great Rameses’ pet lion, which he took to battle, must not be forgotten; it figures on the monuments in the camp of war, and bears this ghastly name: “Tearer to pieces of his enemies.” The lion is also represented as “devouring the prisoners.”
The picture below is one well known, and forms part of a huge wall-painting of the king in his youth, in his war chariot, glorious in battle. It will be observed that here the king is portrayed, not as when he was shown hand-in-hand with his god, but as greater than everyone else. He was an equal with his deities, he was as a god amongst men. The curious can examine the engraving, and by so doing form a good notion of the discipline and vigor of the Egyptian war chariots, and of the absolute overthrow of the enemy.
The victories and the triumphs of Rameses the Great on his return from war, and as he drove through his cities in his war chariot, with his captives bound together, adorn the walls of many temples, and show us his proud face unmoved by the misery of his prey.
The portrait of Rameses from youth to age is before us in the monuments. It is refined and haughty. It is that of a brave and educated man. Perhaps the portrait (taken from a sculpture) of Nefertari, his favorite wife, will interest our readers. She was evidently a beautiful and elegant woman. As we look upon the proud countenance we can but think of the early life of Moses in the royal house of Rameses; a king’s son there was royal indeed.
Rameses the Great is generally regarded as the Pharaoh of the oppression, the king who knew not Joseph. He reigned some seventy years. His sway extended over the whole of Egypt; his was the double crown – that which combined the upper and lower kingdoms. The Scriptures are not concerned with his greatness, save so far as it was used by him for the oppression of the Hebrew strangers, who had come down to Egypt and sojourned there for many generations.
Perhaps these strangers had grown to be too much like the Egyptians. In certain things we know they resembled them, and they had imbibed, to some considerable extent, the spirit of idolatry. But Pharaoh pursued a policy towards them which speedily taught them they were not of Egypt. Persecution is often allowed by God in order that the life and zeal of His people may be quickened. There was a victory gained by the king which was mightier than those recorded upon the temple walls. The record of it is given in the words of God. He enslaved a whole nation. Having vanquished all his enemies, this world-wide king looked upon the Hebrew people in their prosperity, settled in the midst of his own nation. He feared they might fall out from their friendship with Egypt and side with the foe. They were located not very far from the borders of Canaan, with the nations of which country the Egyptians were frequently at war; so, taking counsel with his people, Pharaoh proposed once for all to reduce the Hebrews to submission and to bonds.
“Let us deal wisely with them,” said he, “lest they multiply, and it come to pass that, when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our enemies and fight against us, and so get them up out of the land.” The history of Egypt as now brought to light, discovers to us that on various grounds Pharaoh was patriotically wise in this. The nations of Canaan had been but recently subdued by Egyptian arms, and the true Egyptian could but regard the Hebrew as more or less allied – at least by habit – with the races of Canaan. And Israel were settled on the frontier facing Canaan, and were numerous, and in the event of a fresh war with the old Canaanitish foes, they might open up the very heart of Egypt to the enemy, being settled within the line of border fortifications. He had grounds for his fears and for his policy, and he succeeded, and wrought a greater victory for Egypt in subduing and enslaving Israel, than he had accomplished in all his former conquests – for he made at one stroke a huge army of slaves, whose toilsome lives were spent in building strongholds oil the frontier, and in being goaded forward in the service of the honor and glory of his land. His slaves made Egypt magnificent; their misery built his temples. But, though Pharaoh knew it not, he did more – he made these Hebrew slaves sigh for liberty, and cry to their God for rest. Thus ever does the enemy defeat himself by his success.
The enormous number and immense proportions of the buildings of Rameses, are silent witnesses to the amount of labor lie had at his command, and to his energy and greatness after the battle era of his life was past. Huge ruined temples cut out of stone, vast numbers of mounds and sites of cities built with brick, proclaim the tens of thousands of slaves who toiled at his bidding.
There was a magnificent organizing power in those old days. As we stamp the penny with the name of the reigning sovereign, so did each Pharaoh stamp his bricks with his name. Entire bricks such as this, which bears upon it the cartouche or oval with the prenomen of Rameses II., are common in Egypt, while the remains of these bricks are to be found by the million.
The stronghold Pithom (Ex. 1:1111Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses. (Exodus 1:11)) has been sufficiently uncovered from its long burial in the sand to tell in our day, that Israel labored in Egypt as the Bible declares. The monuments and papyri show that in it we have “Pi-tom,” that is, “the town of the sun-god Tom.” God allows discovery to follow discovery in these times of incredulity about Bible history, till bricks and stones lift up their voices and declare that His Word is true. As man evolves scientific theories out of his brains and demonstrates to his own satisfaction that the Bible is unreliable, the arguments are met by the spade beneath his foot! For from the earth he digs up evidences of the truth of Moses’ words. But we have more than the testimony of the spade to witness to the city of Rameses. Of this city a scribe contemporary with Moses thus wrote, “So I arrived at the city of Ramses-Miamun.... Here is the seat of the court. It is pleasant to live in. Its fields are full of good things... its canals are rich in fish, its lakes swarm with birds, its meadows are green with vegetables, there is no end of the lentils; melons with a taste like honey grow in the irrigated fields.” He also describes the almond and the fig tree, the fish in the canals and ponds, and is eloquent over the contentment of the inhabitants. “The sweet song of women resounded to the tunes of Memphis. So they sat there with joyful hearts.” “This city Ramses is the very same which is named in Holy Scripture as one of the two places which Pharaoh had built for him – ‘arei-miskenoth,’ ‘treasure cities,’ as the translators understand it. It would be better, having regard to the actual Egyptian word ‘mesket, meskenet,’ ‘temple, holy place’... to translate it ‘temple cities.’” As to the hardships of the builders, the “Egyptian documents furnish details so precise and specific on this sort of work, that it is impossible not to recognize in them the most evident connection with the ‘hard bondage’ and ‘rigorous service’ of the Hebrews, on the occasion of building certain edifices at Pitom and Ramses.” “It may be considered absolutely certain,” says Mr. Renouf, “that no place in Egypt ever had the name Rameses till the appearance of the celebrated hero of the name.” “The name of Rameses is a very peculiar one... and I do not believe any instance of it will ever be found more ancient than that of Rameses I, the grandfather of the great conqueror.”
Pithom and Rameses were situated in Goshen, and faced the Canaanitish foe. Canals were formed, lacing over the eastern frontier of the country, so that the horsemen of Canaan could not rush that part of the land, and thus fortresses, walls, and canals held the exposed eastern border of Egypt secure.
Pharaoh Rameses the Great had a perfect passion for building after his wars had ceased. Temples, colossal statues, canals, or “brooks of defense” (Isa. 19:66And they shall turn the rivers far away; and the brooks of defence shall be emptied and dried up: the reeds and flags shall wither. (Isaiah 19:6)), cities, and fortresses, abounded through him. Even the ruins of his works baffle description, while they awe the beholder; yet, by a strange fate, the very body, the mummy of this king, is now on show in a museum in a glass case which is dusted by the attendant in charge.
Here is a copy from a photograph of what remains of the greatest of the Pharaohs. His hair is still visible about his brow, bearing upon it the yellow tint occasioned by the embalmer’s drugs. Rameses the Second was gray when he died, and his death occurred when he was nearly one hundred years of age. As we gaze upon this sketch of Pharaoh, we can almost imagine his once determined countenance.
His body used to lie in its magnificent palace-tomb, but was in later generations taken thence, together with those of his wife and his father, and other royal personages, and all were hidden from the spoilers’ hands in a mountain for greater security; yet from thence, only recently, it and the other royal bodies were stolen away. Their sacred winding cloths were unraveled, and the ancient charms about their bodies were removed, and now we may utilize the photograph of the great king’s mummy to present a picture of it before our readers’ eye!
It is not, however, without feeling, as we do so, what strange changes come over the cherished plans of men, for every effort was made to preserve these graves intact, and to allow these kings, “all of them (to) lie in their glory every one in his own house.” But of the oppressor of Israel, as his body lies in the museum of Gizeh, it may be said, “They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms?” (Isa. 14:1616They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms; (Isaiah 14:16)).