Exodus 8:22

-Such swarms may advance along particular lines, and so spare a given district. The promise here given may stand in some connexion with this fact" (Di.).

sever as Exodus 9:4; Exodus 11:7 (EVV. put a difference): both J.

the land of Goshen to which, according to J, the Israelites were confined (Exodus 9:26; Genesis 45:10; Genesis 46:28 b, Genesis 46:34; Genesis 46:34; Genesis 47:1; Genesis 47:4; Genesis 47:6; Genesis 47:27; Genesis 50:8: all J); E pictures them as living side by side with the Egyptians (Exodus 3:22; Exodus 11:2). The site of Goshen has been fixed by recent discoveries. Ancient hieroglyphic lists of the -nomes" of Egypt mention Kesemas the 20th nome of Lower Egypt, and state that its religious capital was P-sapṭ, i.e. the modern - Ṣafṭel-Ḥenna," a village about 40 miles NE. of Cairo, the ancient name of which M. Naville ascertained in 1885, from inscriptions found on the spot, to be Kes. -Goshen" (LXX. Γεσεμ) must thus have been the fertile district around Ṣafṭ, where the Wâdy Ṭumîlât opens out at its W. end towards Bubastis, -within the triangle lying between the villages of Ṣafṭ, Belbeis, and Tel el-Kebir" (Naville), embracing an area of 60 80 sq. miles (Petrie, Sinai, p. 208), about 40 50 miles NE. of Cairo. The Wâdy Ṭumîlât is a narrow strip of cultivated soil stretching out, like an arm from the Delta (see the map), across the desert, about 50 miles NE. of Cairo, to Lake Timsâḥ: in pre-historic times, a branch of the Nile ran down it 1 [123], discharging its waters into a northern extension of the Gulf of Suez" (see p. 126); within the historic period canals have been at different times constructed along it, connecting the Nile with the Red Sea (p. 4 n.); on each side of this strip of soil the country is desert, but the Wâdy itself is irrigated by a fresh water canal, and fertile: and the part of the Delta adjoining it on the W. (where -Goshen" will have been) affords excellent arable land and pasture (cf. Dawson, Egypt and Syria, p. 55 f.). See further Goshen in DB. or EB.

[123] Borings revealed at the depth of 22ft. below the surface the shells of fresh-water mussels of species still living in the Nile (ZDPV.Exo 1885, p. 227).

On Kes, the ancient townof -Goshen," see Duncan, Exploration of Egypt and the OT. (1908), pp. 106 f., 113 ff.: few remains of it are now visible. The cemetery of Kes was excavated in 1905 6 by Petrie, and found by him to contain numerous tombs of the 18th and 19th dynasties; but the tombs, as the objects found in them shewed, were entirely those of Egyptians. If, therefore, as J represents (see esp. Genesis 46:34), the Israelites lived apartfrom the Egyptians, we must suppose that the Egyptians in Goshen lived only in the town, while the Israelites were in the country.

to the end … that, &c. Cf. Exodus 8:10, with the references.