§. 2.

A dispute against the tale of Josephus.

THIS tale (whereof Moses hath not a word) hath Josephus fashioned, and therein also utterly mistaken himself, in naming a city of Arabia for a city of Ethiopia; as he names Ethiopia itself to have been the country of Moses's wife, when indeed it was Arabia. For Saba is not in Ethiopia, but in Arabia, as both Strabo and all other geographers, ancient and modern, teach us, saying, that the Sabeans are Arabians, and not Ethiopians; except Josephus can persuade us that the queen of Saba, which came from the south to hear the wisdom of Solomon, were a negro, or black-moor. And though Damianus a Goes speaks of certain letters to the king of Portugal from Prester John of the Abissines; wherein that Ethiopian king would persuade the Portugals that he was descended of the queen of Saba and of Solomon; yet it doth no where appear in the scriptures that Solomon had any son by that great princess: which had it been true, it is likely that when Sishac king of Egypt invaded Roboam, and sacked Jerusalem, his brother, (the son of Saba and Solomon,) who joined upon Egypt, would both have impeached that enterprise, as also given aid and succour to Roboam against Jeroboam, who drew from him ten of the twelve tribes to his own obedience. Neither is it any thing against our opinion of Moses's wife, to have been an Arabian, that the scriptures teach us, that Moses married the daughter of Jethro, priest of Midian, or Madian: which standing on the north coast of the Red sea, over-against the body of Egypt, and near Esion Gaber, where Solomon provided his fleet for India, in the region of Edom, may well be reckoned as a part of Arabia, as the Red sea is called Sinus Arabicus. For Edumæa joineth to the tribe of Juda by the north, to Arabia Petræa by the east, to the Mediterranean by the west, and to the Red sea by the south-east. And if we mark the way which Moses took when he left Egypt, and conducted Israel thence, it will appear that he was no stranger in Arabia; in the border whereof, and in Arabia itself, he had

formerly lived forty years; where it seemeth, that besides his careful bringing up in Egypt, he was instructed by Jethro in the Egyptians' learning. For Josephus confesseth, and St. Stephen confirmeth, that he was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. But on the other side this text makes much against Josephus, where it is written in Exodus ii. 15. Therefore Moses fled from Pharaoh, and dwelt in the land of Madian, or Midian, and not in Ethiopia. And in the 3d chapter it is as plain as words can express, in what region Madian was, where it is written, When Moses kept the sheep of Jethro his father-in-law, priest of Madian, and drove the flock to the desert, and came to the mountain of God in Horeb. Now that mount Horeb is not in Ethiopia, every infant knoweth. And if we may believe Moses himself, then was not the wife of Moses purchased in that manner which Josephus reporteth, (which was for betraying her country and friends,) neither had she the name of Tharbis, but of Sippora, or Zippora; neither was she a negro, but a Madianitish. And as God worketh the greatest things by the simplest means, so it pleased him from a shepherd to call Moses, and after him David, and by them to deliver his people first and last. For d Moses sitting by a well, (as disconsolate and a stranger,) defended the daughters of Reguel from the other shepherds, and drew them water to water their sheep: upon which occasion (by God ordained) he was entertained by Jethro, whose daughter he married; and not for any betraying of towns or countries.

From hence also came Jethro to Moses at Rephidim, not far from Idumæa, and finding the insupportable government of such a multitude, he advised him to distribute this weighty charge, and to make governors and judges of every tribe and family. And if Jethro had been an Ethiopian, it had been a far progress for him to have passed through all Egypt with the wife and children of Moses, and to have found Moses in the border of Idumæa; the Egyptians hating Moses, and all that favoured him. But the passing

of Moses through Arabia Petræa, (which joineth to Madian,) proveth that Moses was well acquainted in those parts: in which the second time he wandered forty years, and did by these late travels of his seek to instruct the children of Israel in the knowledge of one true God, before he brought them to the land of plenty and rest. For he found them nourished up with the milk of idolatry, and obstinate in the religion of the heathen; and finding that those stiff plants could not be bowed or declined, either by persuasion or by miracle, he wore them out in the deserts, as God directed, and grafted their branches anew, that from those he might receive fruit, agreeable to his own desire and God's commandments.

Lastly, This opinion of Josephus is condemned by Augustinus Chrisamensis, where also he reprehendeth Apollinaris, who avowed that Moses had married both Tharbis and Sephora; his own words have this beginning, e Mentitur etiam Apollinaris duas uxores habuisse Mosen, &c. "Apollinaris also lieth in affirming that Moses had two "wives :" and who doth not perceive these things feigned by them? For it is manifest, that the wife of Moses was Zephora, daughter to the priest or president of Madian; and that Madian cannot be taken for Ethiopia beyond Egypt, being the same that joineth to Arabia: so far Chrisa

mensis.

§. 3.

Chush ill expounded for Ethiopia, Ezek. xxix. 10. NOW as Chush is by the Septuagint converted Ethiopia, and the wife of Moses therefore called Æthiopissa; so in the conquest of Nabuchodonosor is Ethiopia written for Arabia: for by the words of Ezekiel it is manifest that Nabuchodonosor was never in Ethiopia. f Behold, saith Ezekiel, (speaking of the person of this great Assyrian,) I come upon thee, and upon thy rivers, and I will make the land of Egypt utterly waste and desolate, from the tower of Seveneh even to the borders of the black-moors; which last f Ezek. xxix. 10.

e Sixt. Senens. Bibl.

words should have been thus converted: from the tower of Seveneh to the borders of the Chusites, or Arabians; between which two is situated all Egypt. For to say, from the borders of Seveneh to the Ethiopians, hath no sense at all. Seveneh itself being the border of Egypt, confronting and joining to Ethiopia, or the land of the black-moors. So as if Nabuchodonosor's conquest had been but between Seveneh and the border of Ethiopia, it were as much to say, and did express no other victory than the conquest of all that land and country lying between Middlesex and Buckingham, where both the countries join together, or all the north parts of England between Berwick and Scotland: for this hath the same sense with the former, if any man sought to express by these two bounds the conquest of England, Berwick being the north border of England, as Seveneh or Syene is the south bound of Egypt, seated in Thebaida, which toucheth Ethiopia. But by the words of Ezekiel it appeareth that Nabuchodonosor never entered into any part of Ethiopia, although the Septuagint, the Vulgar, the Geneva, and all other, in effect, have written Ethiopia for Chush.

§. 4.

Another place of Ezekiel, chap. xxx. ver. 9. in like manner mistaken.

AND as the former, so is this place of Ezekiel mistaken, by being in this sort converted: In die illa egredientur nuncii a facie mea in trieribus ad conterendam Æthiopia confidentiam; which place is thus turned into English by the Genevians; In that day shall there messengers go forth from me in ships to make the careless moors afraid. Now the Latin for ships hath the Greek word trieres for triremes, which are galleys of three banks, and not ships. But that in this place the translation should have been, as in the former, amended by using the word Chush, or Arabia for Ethiopia, or the black-moors, every man may see which meanly understandeth the geography of the world, knowing, that to pass out of Egypt into Ethiopia there need no galleys nor ships, no more than to pass out of Northampton

into Leicestershire; Ethiopia being the conterminate region with Egypt, and not divided so much as by a river. Therefore in this place of Ezekiel it was meant, that from Egypt Nabuchodonosor should send galleys along the coast of the Red sea, by which an army might be transported into Arabia the Happy and the Stony, (sparing the long wearisome march over all Egypt and the deserts of Pharan,) which army might thereby surprise them unawares in their security and confidence: for when Nabuchodonosor was at Seveneh, within a mile of Ethiopia, he needed neither galley nor ship to pass into it; being all one large and firm land with Egypt, and no otherwise parted from it than one inland shire is parted from another; and if he had a fancy to have rowed up the river but for pleasure, he could not have done it; for the fall of Nilus, (tumbling over high and steep mountains,) called Catadupa Nili, were at hand.

Lastly, As I have already observed, the sons of every father seated themselves as near together as possibly they could; Gomer and his sons in Asia the Less; Javan and his sons in Greece and the islands adjoining; Shem in Persia and eastward. So the sons and grandchildren of Chush from the river of Gehon, their father's first seat, inhabited upon the same, or upon some other contiguous unto it, as Nimrod and Havilah on the one side, and Saba, Sheba, and Sabtecha, with the rest, did on the other side. And, to conclude in a word, the Hebrews had never any acquaintance or fellowship, any war, treaty of peace, or other intelligence with the Ethiopian black-moors, as is already remembered in the chapter of paradise.

A place of Isaiah xviii. 1. in like manner corrupted by taking Chush for Ethiopia.

AND as in these places before remembered, so in divers others is the word Ethiopia put for Arabia or Chush, which puts the story (where it is so understood) quite out of square; one kingdom thereby being taken for another. For what sense hath this part of scripture, Isaiah xviii. Væ terræ cymbalorum alarum quæ est trans flumina Ethiopiæ; or