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[251]
Now when Rehoboam, and the multitude with him, were shut up in Jerusalem
by the means of the army of Shishak, and when they besought God to give
them victory and deliverance, they could not persuade God to be on their
side. But Shemaiah the prophet told them, that God threatened to forsake
them, as they had themselves forsaken his worship. When they heard this,
they were immediately in a consternation of mind; and seeing no way of
deliverance, they all earnestly set themselves to confess that God might
justly overlook them, since they had been guilty of impiety towards him,
and had let his laws lie in confusion. So when God saw them in that disposition,
and that they acknowledge their sins, he told the prophet that he would
not destroy them, but that he would, however, make them servants to the
Egyptians, that they may learn whether they will suffer less by serving
men or God. So when Shishak had taken the city without fighting, because
Rehoboam was afraid, and received him into it, yet did not Shishak stand
to the covenants he had made, but he spoiled the temple, and emptied the
treasures of God, and those of the king, and carried off innumerable ten
thousands of gold and silver, and left nothing at all behind him. He also
took away the bucklers of gold, and the shields, which Solomon the king
had made; nay, he did not leave the golden quivers which David had taken
from the king of Zobah, and had dedicated to God; and when he had thus
done, he returned to his own kingdom. Now Herodotus of Halicarnassus mentions
this expedition, having only mistaken the king's name; and [in saying that]
he made war upon many other nations also, and brought Syria of Palestine
into subjection, and took the men that were therein prisoners without fighting.
Now it is manifest that he intended to declare that our nation was subdued
by him; for he saith that he left behind him pillars in the land of those
that delivered themselves up to him without fighting, and engraved upon
them the secret parts of women. Now our king Rehoboam delivered up our
city without fighting. He says withal 1
that the Ethiopians learned to circumcise their privy parts from the Egyptians,
with this addition, that the Phoenicians and Syrians that live in Palestine
confess that they learned it of the Egyptians. Yet it is evident that no
other of the Syrians that live in Palestine, besides us alone, are circumcised.
But as to such matters, let every one speak what is agreeable to his own
opinion.
1 Herodotus, as here quoted by Josephus, and as this passage still stands in his present copies, B. II. ch. 14., affirms, that "the Phoenicians and Syrians in Palestine [which last are generally supposed to denote the Jews] owned their receiving circumcision from the Egyptians;" whereas it is abnudantly evident that the Jews received their circumcision from the patriarch Abraham, Genesis 17:9-14; John 7:22, 23, as I conclude the Egyptian priests themselves did also. It is not therefore very unlikely that Herodotus, because the Jews had lived long in Egypt, and came out of it circumcised, did thereupon think they had learned that circumcision in Egypt, and had it not broke. Manetho, the famous Egyptian chronologer and historian, who knew the history of his own country much better than Herodotus, complains frequently of his mistakes about their affairs, as does Josephus more than once in this chapter. Nor indeed does Herodotus seem at all acquainted with the affairs of the Jews; for as he never names them, so little or nothing of what he says about them, their country, or maritime cities, two of which he alone mentions, Cadytus and Jenysus, proves true; nor indeed do there appear to have ever been any such cities on their coast.
Flavius Josephus. The Works of Flavius Josephus. Translated by. William Whiston, A.M. Auburn and Buffalo. John E. Beardsley. 1895.
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