HKB
This incident is illustrated in Plate 58 of Moore's "Hindu Pantheon."
There is another Hindoo legend, recorded in the Rig Veda, and quoted by Viscount Amberly, from whose work we take it,[56:4] to the effect that an Indian sage called Visvimati, having arrived at a river which he wished to cross, that holy man said to it: "Listen to the Bard who has come to you from afar with wagon and chariot. Sink down, become fordable, and reach not up to our chariot axles." The river answers: "I will bow down to thee like a woman with full breast (suckling her child), as a maid to a man, will I throw myself open to thee."
This is accordingly done, and the sage passes through.
We have also an Indian legend which relates that a courtesan named Bindumati, turned back the streams of the river Ganges.[56:5]
We see then, that the idea of seas and rivers being divided for the purpose of letting some chosen one of God pass through is an old one peculiar to other peoples beside the Hebrews, and the probability is that many nations had legends of this kind.
That Pharaoh and his host should have been drowned in the Red Sea, and the fact not mentioned by any historian, is simply impossible, especially when they have, as we have seen, noticed the fact of the Israelites being driven out of Egypt.[56:6] Dr. Inman, speaking of this, says:
"We seek in vain amongst the Egyptian hieroglyphs for scenes which recall such cruelties as those we read of in the Hebrew records; and in the writings which have hitherto been translated, we find nothing resembling the wholesale destructions described and applauded by the Jewish historians, as perpetrated by their own people."[57:1]
That Pharaoh should have pursued a tribe of diseased slaves, whom he had driven out of his country, is altogether improbable. In the words of Dr. Knappert, we may conclude, by saying that:
"This story, which was not written until more than five hundred years after the exodus itself, can lay no claim to be considered historical."[57:2]
FOOTNOTES:
[48:1] Exodus i. 14.
[48:2] Exodus ii. 24, 25.
[48:3] See chapter x.
[48:4] Exodus ii. 12.
[48:5] The Egyptian name for God was "Nuk-Pa-Nuk," or "I AM THAT I AM." (Bonwick: Egyptian Belief, p. 395.) This name was found on a temple in Egypt. (Higgins' Anacalypsis, vol. ii. p. 17.) "'I AM' was a Divine name understood by all the initiated among the Egyptians." "The 'I AM' of the Hebrews, and the 'I AM' of the Egyptians are identical." (Bunsen: Keys of St. Peter, p. 38.) The name "Jehovah," which was adopted by the Hebrews, was a name esteemed sacred among the Egyptians. They called it Y-HA-HO, or Y-AH-WEH. (See the Religion of Israel, pp. 42, 43; and Anacalypsis, vol. i. p. 329, and vol. ii. p. 17.) "None dare to enter the temple of Serapis, who did not bear on his breast or forehead the name of JAO, or J-HA-HO, a name almost equivalent in sound to that of the Hebrew Jehovah, and probably of identical import; and no name was uttered in Egypt with more reverence than this IAO." (Trans. from the Ger. of Schiller, in Monthly Repos., vol. xx.; and Voltaire: Commentary on Exodus; Higgins' Anac., vol. i. p. 329; vol. ii. p. 17.) "That this divine name was well-known to the Heathen there can be no doubt." (Parkhurst: Hebrew Lex. in Anac., i. 327.) So also with the name El Shaddai*. "The extremely common Egyptian expression *Nutar Nutra exactly corresponds in sense to the Hebrew El Shaddai, the very title by which God tells Moses he was known to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob." (Prof. Renouf: Relig. of Anc't Egypt, p. 99.)
[48:6] Exodus iii. 1, 14.
[49:1] Exodus iii. 15-18.