Читать книгу Buried Cities and Bible Countries онлайн

63 страница из 89

That Joseph served a Hyksos king has long been accepted by the majority of Egyptologists as a very probable hypothesis, both chronologically and from the internal evidence of the Biblical narrative. The Arab writers represent the Hyksos as Amalekites of Midian. Mr Naville agrees with those who think they came from Mesopotamia, and already possessed a high degree of civilisation and culture.

Bubastis seems to have been a favourite place of residence with the Shepherd Kings; and thus Joseph would be but a short distance from his brethren in the land of Goshen, where they looked after the king’s herds of cattle.

Saft-el-Henneh or Goshen.—In more than one season Mr Naville carried on operations to discover the locality of Goshen, which had always been matter of conjecture and controversy. He has come to the conclusion that Goshen was a city a little to the east of the modern Zagazig, and situated in a district of the same name. The land of Goshen may be described as a district roughly triangular in shape, with its apex to the south; having Zagazig at its north-west angle, Tel-el-Kebir north-east, and Belbeis at the lower extremity. The town of Goshen appears to have been at Saft-el-Henneh, nearly half-way between the eastern and western points of the triangle. Here we find the name Tel Fakûs, the Phakusa of the Greeks, and apparently the same as Kesem, Gesem, or Goshen. Saft-el-Henneh itself is a large village, standing in the midst of a country peculiarly fruitful, corresponding thus to “the best of the land,” which was given to the Israelites.