The Christian Examiner and Church of Ireland Magazine (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: brother.in-law, and with him the dynasty coded. Sheshonc, the new king, was of a different family, connected with Solomon by no alliance; and, it is not improbable, viewing him with a hostile eye, as being allied with the family that he had dethroned. I remark also, that this prince, being a usurper, is not styled by the sacred historian "Pharaoh." He is called simply Shishak, king of Egypt, as he de facto was. Coincidences of this nature may be of service in confirming our faith in the historical books of Scripture; but I really cannot see of what importance it is, that M. Champollion read Sheshonc's name on the colonnade at Karnac, or that Mr. Salt " read the word Tiraka" on the portico at Medinat-Ahou. By the bye, Mr. Home, or his printer, has made a curious blunder in his account of Mr. Salt's reasoning. For " Greek characters," we should read " Hieroglyphics." It will perhaps be expected that I should take some notice of Zerah the Ethiopian, who is recorded (2 Chron. xiv. 9, ) to have invaded Judea after the tenth year of Asa (B. C. 945, or, according to the LXX., 948). The Egyptian chronology places Osorthon, the successor of Sheshonc, at B. C. 96I, and makes his reign till B. C. 946. His successor is not named, and there is a hiatus in the dynasty for twenty-five years, according to Africanus. Now we may make two plausible conjectures respecting this interval, both perfectly conformable, as well to the fact recorded in Scripture, as to the profane history. We may suppose Zerah to be the successor of Osorthon, and that this entire dynasty was Ethiopian, Herodotus speaks of no less than eighteen Ethiopians having reigned in Egypt. Or, secondly, we may suppose that Osorthon, or his successor, was conquered by Zerah, and driven into a corner of his dominions, so as to allow ...