palaces which had been begun in more prosperous days. Yet no event is related, either in the history of Egypt or of the world, to account for this sudden and irrecoverable decline of her resources and energies. She underwent no invasions or conquests, her institutions continued unchanged, and the succession of her princes moved onwards with great regularity for 1000 years after this period.

The Scripture narrative of the administration of Joseph, which so well accounts for the sudden greatness of Egypt under the princes of the eighteenth dynasty, tells also of a series of fearful calamities which befell that country at the exodus. These afford us equally satisfactory solution of the present difficulty, by supplying a probable reason for the national enervation into which Egypt sank immediately on the termination of that dynasty, and from which she never recovered.

mon.

The next event recorded in the inspired history, of which any illustration could reasonably be expected from the monuments of Egypt, is the invasion of Jerusalem by Pharaoh Shishak, in the reign of Rehoboam, the son of SoloThis Pharaoh is named Sesonchis in the lists of Manetho; he was the head of the twenty-second dynasty of kings which originated at Bubastis, a very ancient city of Lower Egypt. Long before the visit of the French and Italian commission to Egypt in 1828, Champollion had recognized the hieroglyphic name of this monarch, which reads— 'Pharaoh, governor of Lower Egypt, approved of the sun, the beloved of Amoun." Sheshonk. In the first court of the great palace of Karnac at Thebes, he found, on his visit to Egypt, a very extensive picture in

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relief, commencing with the usual frontispiece of a number of captives of different nations, held by the hair, and threatened by a gigantic figure of the Pharaoh by whose orders the picture had been executed, and who in this case was Shishak. In the following picture, the same king conducts to the feet of the Theban triad, the chiefs of more than thirty nations whom he had conquered: they are tied by the neck, and each of them has an embattled buckler by his side, on which is inscribed the name of the country he represents. It was from hence that the figure was copied which we here insert, and which is now so familiar to all who take an interest in the illustration of Scripture. The hieroglyphics read (the country IOTTEVANK ) which is quite a sufficiently near imitation of “the kingdom of the Jews," by a foreigner in a different character, to establish clearly its identity, which is also further proved to demonstration by the occurrence of the names

and some others, on shields in the same scene. Through these towns Shishak passed in his invasion of Judea.*

The inscription which explains this very important relief, is unfortunately too much mutilated to throw any additional light upon it. The annexed plate is a faithful repetition of the copy of Rosellini;* in features it differs considerably from that published by the French. It affords us, however, a confirmation of our conjecture as to the

* M. R. pl. 147.

INABOLIC REFRESENTATION OF THE CONQUEST OF JERUSALEM BY SALSHAK,

FROM THE PALACE AT KARNAK.

Religious Tract Society, 56, Paternoster Row, 1841

costume of the Jews; for the prisoners in all these scenes are represented in the habit of their country. The head-dress of this captive is purely Egyptian, but he wears the beard, in obedience to the prohibition contained in Lev. xix. 27. It was doubtless in consequence of some idolatrous association, that the practice of shaving the beard was prohibited. As, apart from the inspired history, this is the only known memorial of the invasion of Shishak, its importance, as an evidence in confirmation of its truth, has been by no means overrated.

The names of the Pharaohs, Necho

Hophra,

08OF

and

also occur on the monuments of Egypt;

but their remains are too scanty to throw any new or important light upon the late period in which their names are associated with the inspired narrative.

As the time-worn monuments of Egypt were once the favourite resort of modern infidelity, our inquiries respecting them has led rather to the defence of the word of God than to a full exhibition of its truths; and the further such researches are pursued, the more evident it will be that the boastings of sceptics are vain, and that Christianity rests on a basis which cannot be shaken. It behoves the reader, however, to remember, that it is not enough to acknowledge that the Bible is true; it demands the belief of all to whom