Flight of the
Canaanites
and Philistines.
Dominion
of Cushan-
Eishathaim.
terminated, and Joshua, having succeeded Moses, led the
people across the Jordan. A portion of the inhabitants appear
to have fled from Philistia to Africa, and they are said to have
erected a monument commemorative of their flight from Joshua,
son of Nun, the robber.1 On the same occasion another
section of the ancient inhabitants took a north-easterly direction,
and proceeded into Armenia under a leader named
Canaanidas, whose descendants, as well as those of his followers,
were afterwards known by the name of Gunthanians.2
The flight of a portion of the earliest inhabitants of Palestine,
seems to have been facilitated by the intercourse which continued
to exist between distant countries after the Dispersion.
This intercourse is evident, in the case of the Canaanites and
Philistines, from a passage in one of the prophets, by which we
learn that the Palestines (Philistines), were brought out of
Caphtor or Cappadocia (the western or third Armenia), and
the Syrians from Kir,3 which is also in Armenia.
The Israelites, however, had not been long on the western
side of the J ordan, and were not as yet in full possession of the
promised land ; when shortly after the death of Joshua, about
1516 b .c ., they submitted to the arms of Cushan-Rishathaim,
whose appellation of wicked Cushite most likely owed its origin
to his descent from Nimrud, and to his being, at the same
time, their determined enemy ; and it appears that the Hebrews
continued under his yoke, and in a state of servitude, for about
eight years.4 This prince ruled Mesopotamia, which was then
a separate government from that of Assyria.
At the period in question, a protracted contest for the
dominion appears to have been maintained with alternate success
between this kingdom and that of Armenia. Heykab,
shortly after the commencement of his reign over the latter
kingdom, is said to have raised the national glory to a greater
height than it had attained previously. He subdued Amindas,
1 Procopius, de Vand., lib. I I .
! Hist, of A rmenia, by J . Avdall, Esq., vol. I., p. 27.
8 Amos, chap. IX ., v. 7.
1 Jackson’s Chronol. Antiq., vol. I., pp. 137, 138, compared with Judges,
ch. I I I . , v. 8.
king, of Assyria, and compelled him to do homage; but wars between
Belochus or Belock, the successor of the latter, recovered the and Assyrians,
lost ground, having during a hotly-contested campaign defeated
and killed Heykab.
Reverting to the western extremity of the Old World, it
will be seen that Egypt, now a united kingdom under the
eighteenth dynasty, or the Diospolitan kings, was rapidly
advancing in power and in civilization. This was more particularly
the case at the period of the Exodus, and even for
some time previously. Amenophis, the ninth sovereign of the
line in question, is supposed to have erected the celebrated
Memnonia at Thebes, and the fourth in succession was Rameses Rameses ii.
the Second,1 or the Great, who appears to have been the b .c . 1376 to
Sesostris of the Greeks, and probably the second monarch so B-c- 1328 >
called.
This sovereign has been known under so many different
names, that considerable difficulty is felt in establishing his
identity, and some have doubted his existence. Newton, and
after him Marsham,8 conceived that this individual represented
the Sesac, or Shishak of the Hebrew scripture, whilst a
contrary opinion is maintained by Hales, Russel, Gatterer, and
others. “ Such a controversy,” observes the learned Jahn, “ is •
not easily decided ;”3 but if the 247 years given by Manetho
to the sovereigns between Tethmosis or Thummosis, who
expelled the shepherds, and Rameses4 or Sesostris, be deducted
from the time of that expulsion in 1623 B.C., the commencement
of the reign of the great Egyptian monarch would have
taken place about 1376 b .c . and its termination in 1328 b .c . 6
Herodotus,6 in a more general way than the Egyptian priests, Period of his
says that there were 330 kings after Menes; eighteen being reign>
Ethiopians (apparently the shepherds), and that the rest were
Egyptians; all being men, with the exception of one, a woman,
1 From Manetho, Anc. Fragments, by I. P . Cory, Esq., pp. 117, 119.
8 Chronol., X IV ., p. 353. London, 1672.
3 Jahn’s Hebrew Commonwealth, vol. I., p. 133.
4 Anc. Fragments, by I. P . Cory, Esq., pp. 173, 174.
5 Manetho states in his second book, that Sesostris reigned 48 years. Ibid.
Cory, p. 110.
8 Herod., lib. I I ., cap. xcix., c.