Of course there is no statement to the effect that Pharaoh was killed with his army by the returning flood after the Israelites crossed the Red Sea (in Ps. cxxxvi. 15 he must be regarded as having been overwhelmed therein in the persons of his warriors, who suffered the fate which ought to have stricken also the king), so that little or no difficulty exists in this portion of the narrative.(77) On the other hand, a difficulty is got rid of if we suppose that the Exodus took place in the time of Rameses II. Dr. Mahler points out, that Meneptah was succeeded by his son and heir, User-kheperu-Ra’, who did not die, but reigned thirty-three years. The eldest sons of Rameses II., on the other hand, all died during their father’s lifetime, and it was the fourteenth of his numerous progeny who ultimately came to the throne. Dr. Mahler clinches the matter by making the plague of darkness to have been a solar eclipse. Whatever may be the defects of Dr. Mahler’s seductive theory, it must be admitted that it presents fewer difficulties than any other that has yet been put forward, and on that account deserves special attention. CHAPTER IX. THE NATIONS WITH WHOM THE ISRAELITES CAME INTO CONTACT. The Amorites—The Hittites—The Jebusites—The Girgashites—Moab. Amorites. The earliest mention of the Amorites in the Old Testament is the passage in Gen. x. 16, where the name occurs along with that of the Jebusites and the Girgashites, from which may be gathered that they were all three very powerful tribes, though their power is in all probability not to be measured by the order of their names, the most important of the three being the Amorites, whose name comes second. They were regarded by the ancient Jews as an iniquitous and wicked people (Gen. xv. 6; 2 Kings xxi. 11), though they may not, in reality, have been worse than other nations which were their contemporaries. That they were a powerful nation is implied by the statement in Gen. xlviii. 22, where Jacob speaks of the tract which he had taken out of the hand of the Amorite with his sword and his bow, as a feat of which a warrior might be proud.