Chapter 10.
HOW MOSES MADE WAR WITH THE ETHIOPIANS,FJAJ 2.64
1. MOSES, therefore, when he was born, and brought up in the foregoing
manner, and came to the age of maturity, made his virtue manifest to the
Egyptians; and showed that he was born for the bringing them down, and
raising the Israelites
And the occasion he laid hold of was this: - The
Ethiopians, who are next neighbors to the Egyptians, made an inroad into
their country, which they seized upon, and carried off the effects of the
Egyptians, who, in their rage, fought against them, and revenged the affronts
they had received from them; but being overcome in battle, some of them
were slain, and the rest ran away in a shameful manner, and by that means
saved themselves; whereupon the Ethiopians followed after them in the pursuit,
and thinking that it would be a mark of cowardice if they did not subdue
all Egypt, they went on to subdue the rest with greater vehemence; and
when they had tasted the sweets of the country, they never left off the
prosecution of the war: and as the nearest parts had not courage enough
at first to fight with them, they proceeded as far as Memphis, and the
sea itself, while not one of the cities was able to oppose them
The Egyptians,
under this sad oppression, betook themselves to their oracles and prophecies;
and when God had given them this counsel, to make use of Moses the Hebrew,
and take his assistance, the king commanded his daughter to produce him,
that he might be the general (22)
This history of Moses, as general of the Egyptians against the Ethiopians,
is wholly omitted in our Bibles; but is thus by Irenaeus, from Josephus,
and that soon after his own age: � "Josephus says, that when Moses
was nourished in the palace, he was appointed general of the army against
the Ethiopians, and conquered them, when he married that king's daughter;
because, out of her affection for him, she delivered the city up to him."
See the Fragments of Irenaeus. ap. edit. Grab. p. 472. Nor perhaps did
St. Stephen refer to any thing else when he said of Moses, before he was
sent by God to the Israelites, that he was not only learned in all the
wisdom of the Egyptians, but was also mighty in words and in deeds, Acts
7:22.
of their army
Upon which, when she had made him swear he would do him
no harm, she delivered him to the king, and supposed his assistance would
be of great advantage to them
She withal reproached the priest, who, when
they had before admonished the Egyptians to kill him, was not ashamed now
to own their want of his help.FJAJ 2.65
2. So Moses, at the persuasion both of Thermuthis and the king himself,
cheerfully undertook the business: and the sacred scribes of both nations
were glad; those of the Egyptians, that they should at once overcome their
enemies by his valor, and that by the same piece of management Moses would
be slain; but those of the Hebrews, that they should escape from the Egyptians,
because Moses was to be their general
But Moses prevented the enemies,
and took and led his army before those enemies were apprized of his attacking
them; for he did not march by the river, but by land, where he gave a wonderful
demonstration of his sagacity; for when the ground was difficult to be
passed over, because of the multitude of serpents, (which it produces in
vast numbers, and, indeed, is singular in some of those productions, which
other countries do not breed, and yet such as are worse than others in
power and mischief, and an unusual fierceness of sight, some of which ascend
out of the ground unseen, and also fly in the air, and so come upon men
at unawares, and do them a mischief,) Moses invented a wonderful stratagem
to preserve the army safe, and without hurt; for he made baskets, like
unto arks, of sedge, and filled them with ibes, (23)
Pliny speaks of these birds called ibes; and says, "The Egyptians
invoked them against the serpents," Hist. Nat. B. X. ch. 28. Strabo
speaks of this island Meroe, and these rivers Astapus and Astaboras, B.
XVI. p. 771, 786; and B XVII. p. 82].
and carried them along with them; which animal is the greatest enemy to
serpents imaginable, for they fly from them when they come near them; and
as they fly they are caught and devoured by them, as if it were done by
the harts; but the ibes are tame creatures, and only enemies to the serpentine
kind: but about these ibes I say no more at present, since the Greeks themselves
are not unacquainted with this sort of bird
As soon, therefore, as Moses
was come to the land which was the breeder of these serpents, he let loose
the ibes, and by their means repelled the serpentine kind, and used them
for his assistants before the army came upon that ground
When he had therefore
proceeded thus on his journey, he came upon the Ethiopians before they
expected him; and, joining battle with them, he beat them, and deprived
them of the hopes they had of success against the Egyptians, and went on
in overthrowing their cities, and indeed made a great slaughter of these
Ethiopians
Now when the Egyptian army had once tasted of this prosperous
success, by the means of Moses, they did not slacken their diligence, insomuch
that the Ethiopians were in danger of being reduced to slavery, and all
sorts of destruction; and at length they retired to Saba, which was a royal
city of Ethiopia, which Cambyses afterwards named Mero, after the name
of his own sister
The place was to be besieged with very great difficulty,
since it was both encompassed by the Nile quite round, and the other rivers,
Astapus and Astaboras, made it a very difficult thing for such as attempted
to pass over them; for the city was situate in a retired place, and was
inhabited after the manner of an island, being encompassed with a strong
wall, and having the rivers to guard them from their enemies, and having
great ramparts between the wall and the rivers, insomuch, that when the
waters come with the greatest violence, it can never be drowned; which
ramparts make it next to impossible for even such as are gotten over the
rivers to take the city
However, while Moses was uneasy at the army's
lying idle, (for the enemies durst not come to a battle,) this accident
happened: - Tharbis was the daughter of the king of the Ethiopians: she
happened to see Moses as he led the army near the walls, and fought with
great courage; and admiring the subtility of his undertakings, and believing
him to be the author of the Egyptians' success, when they had before despaired
of recovering their liberty, and to be the occasion of the great danger
the Ethiopians were in, when they had before boasted of their great achievements,
she fell deeply in love with him; and upon the prevalency of that passion,
sent to him the most faithful of all her servants to discourse with him
about their marriage
He thereupon accepted the offer, on condition she
would procure the delivering up of the city; and gave her the assurance
of an oath to take her to his wife; and that when he had once taken possession
of the city, he would not break his oath to her
No sooner was the agreement
made, but it took effect immediately; and when Moses had cut off the Ethiopians,
he gave thanks to God, and consummated his marriage, and led the Egyptians
back to their own land.FJAJ 2.66