15 (return) [ As to this encomium upon Joseph, as preparatory to Jacob's
adopting Ephraim and Manasses into his own family, and to be admitted
for two tribes, which Josephus here mentions, all our copies of Genesis
omit it, ch. 48.; nor do we know whence he took it, or whether it be not
his own embellishment only.]
16 (return) [ As to the affliction of Abraham's posterity for 400 years,
see Antiq. B. I. ch. 10. sect. 3; and as to what cities they built in
Egypt, under Pharaoh Sesostris, and of Pharaoh Sesostris's drowning in
the Red Sea, see Essay on the Old Testament, Append. p. 132-162.]
17 (return) [ Of this building of the pyramids of Egypt by the
Israelites, see Perizonius Orig. Aegyptiac, ch. 21. It is not impossible
they might build one or more of the small ones; but the larger ones seem
much later. Only, if they be all built of stone, this does not so well
agree with the Israelites' labors, which are said to have been in brick,
and not in stone, as Mr. Sandys observes in his Travels. p. 127, 128.]
18 (return) [ Dr. Bernard informs us here, that instead of this single
priest or prophet of the Egyptians, without a name in Josephus, the
Targum of Jonathan names the two famous antagonists of Moses, Jannes and
Jambres. Nor is it at all unlikely that it might be one of these who
foreboded so much misery to the Egyptians, and so much happiness to the
Israelites, from the rearing of Moses.]
19 (return) [ Josephus is clear that these midwives were Egyptians, and
not Israelites, as in our other copies: which is very probable, it being
not easily to be supposed that Pharaoh could trust the Israelite
midwives to execute so barbarous a command against their own nation.
(Consult, therefore, and correct hence our ordinary copies, Exodus 1:15,
22.) And, indeed, Josephus seems to have had much completer copies of
the Pentateuch, or other authentic records now lost, about the birth and
actions of Moses, than either our Hebrew, Samaritan, or Greek Bibles
afford us, which enabled him to be so large and particular about him.]
20 (return) [ Of this grandfather of Sesostris, Ramestes the Great, who
slew the Israelite infants, and of the inscription on his obelisk,
containing, in my opinion, one of the oldest records of mankind, see
Essay on the Old Test. Append. p. 139, 145, 147, 217-220.]
21 (return) [ What Josephus here says of the beauty of Moses, that he
was of a divine form, is very like what St. Stephen says of the same
beauty; that Moses was beautiful in the sight of Acts 7:20.]
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