Egypt /ˈiʤɪpt/
 埃及


 Egypt
      n 1: a republic in northeastern Africa known as the United Arab
           Republic until 1971; site of an ancient civilization
           that flourished from 2600 to 30 BC [syn: {Arab Republic
           of Egypt, United Arab Republic]
      2: an ancient empire west of Israel; centered on the Nile River
         and ruled by a Pharaoh; figured in many events described
         in the Old Testament [syn: Egyptian Empire]


 Egypt
    the land of the Nile and the pyramids, the oldest kingdom of
    which we have any record, holds a place of great significance in
    Scripture.

      The Egyptians belonged to the white race, and their original
    home is still a matter of dispute. Many scholars believe that it
    was in Southern Arabia, and recent excavations have shown that
    the valley of the Nile was originally inhabited by a low-class
    population, perhaps belonging to the Nigritian stock, before the
    Egyptians of history entered it. The ancient Egyptian language,
    of which the latest form is Coptic, is distantly connected with
    the Semitic family of speech.

      Egypt consists geographically of two halves, the northern
    being the Delta, and the southern Upper Egypt, between Cairo and
    the First Cataract. In the Old Testament, Northern or Lower
    Egypt is called Mazor, "the fortified land" (Isa. 19:6; 37: 25,
    where the A.V. mistranslates "defence" and "besieged places");
    while Southern or Upper Egypt is Pathros, the Egyptian
    Pa-to-Res, or "the land of the south" (Isa. 11:11). But the
    whole country is generally mentioned under the dual name of
    Mizraim, "the two Mazors."

      The civilization of Egypt goes back to a very remote
    antiquity. The two kingdoms of the north and south were united
    by Menes, the founder of the first historical dynasty of kings.
    The first six dynasties constitute what is known as the Old
    Empire, which had its capital at Memphis, south of Cairo, called
    in the Old Testament Moph (Hos. 9:6) and Noph. The native name
    was Mennofer, "the good place."

      The Pyramids were tombs of the monarchs of the Old Empire,
    those of Gizeh being erected in the time of the Fourth Dynasty.
    After the fall of the Old Empire came a period of decline and
    obscurity. This was followed by the Middle Empire, the most
    powerful dynasty of which was the Twelfth. The Fayyum was
    rescued for agriculture by the kings of the Twelfth Dynasty; and
    two obelisks were erected in front of the temple of the sun-god
    at On or Heliopolis (near Cairo), one of which is still
    standing. The capital of the Middle Empire was Thebes, in Upper
    Egypt.

      The Middle Empire was overthrown by the invasion of the
    Hyksos, or shepherd princes from Asia, who ruled over Egypt,
    more especially in the north, for several centuries, and of whom
    there were three dynasties of kings. They had their capital at
    Zoan or Tanis (now San), in the north-eastern part of the Delta.
    It was in the time of the Hyksos that Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph
    entered Egypt. The Hyksos were finally expelled about B.C. 1600,
    by the hereditary princes of Thebes, who founded the Eighteenth
    Dynasty, and carried the war into Asia. Canaan and Syria were
    subdued, as well as Cyprus, and the boundaries of the Egyptian
    Empire were fixed at the Euphrates. The Soudan, which had been
    conquered by the kings of the Twelfth Dynasty, was again annexed
    to Egypt, and the eldest son of the Pharaoh took the title of
    "Prince of Cush."

      One of the later kings of the dynasty, Amenophis IV., or
    Khu-n-Aten, endeavoured to supplant the ancient state religion
    of Egypt by a new faith derived from Asia, which was a sort of
    pantheistic monotheism, the one supreme god being adored under
    the image of the solar disk. The attempt led to religious and
    civil war, and the Pharaoh retreated from Thebes to Central
    Egypt, where he built a new capital, on the site of the present
    Tell-el-Amarna. The cuneiform tablets that have been found there
    represent his foreign correspondence (about B.C. 1400). He
    surrounded himself with officials and courtiers of Asiatic, and
    more especially Canaanitish, extraction; but the native party
    succeeded eventually in overthrowing the government, the capital
    of Khu-n-Aten was destroyed, and the foreigners were driven out
    of the country, those that remained being reduced to serfdom.

      The national triumph was marked by the rise of the Nineteenth
    Dynasty, in the founder of which, Rameses I., we must see the
    "new king, who knew not Joseph." His grandson, Rameses II.,
    reigned sixty-seven years (B.C. 1348-1281), and was an
    indefatigable builder. As Pithom, excavated by Dr. Naville in
    1883, was one of the cities he built, he must have been the
    Pharaoh of the Oppression. The Pharaoh of the Exodus may have
    been one of his immediate successors, whose reigns were short.
    Under them Egypt lost its empire in Asia, and was itself
    attacked by barbarians from Libya and the north.

      The Nineteenth Dynasty soon afterwards came to an end; Egypt
    was distracted by civil war; and for a short time a Canaanite,
    Arisu, ruled over it.

      Then came the Twentieth Dynasty, the second Pharaoh of which,
    Rameses III., restored the power of his country. In one of his
    campaigns he overran the southern part of Palestine, where the
    Israelites had not yet settled. They must at the time have been
    still in the wilderness. But it was during the reign of Rameses
    III. that Egypt finally lost Gaza and the adjoining cities,
    which were seized by the Pulista, or Philistines.

      After Rameses III., Egypt fell into decay. Solomon married the
    daughter of one of the last kings of the Twenty-first Dynasty,
    which was overthrown by Shishak I., the general of the Libyan
    mercenaries, who founded the Twenty-second Dynasty (1 Kings
    11:40; 14:25, 26). A list of the places he captured in Palestine
    is engraved on the outside of the south wall of the temple of
    Karnak.

      In the time of Hezekiah, Egypt was conquered by Ethiopians
    from the Soudan, who constituted the Twenty-fifth Dynasty. The
    third of them was Tirhakah (2 Kings 19:9). In B.C. 674 it was
    conquered by the Assyrians, who divided it into twenty
    satrapies, and Tirhakah was driven back to his ancestral
    dominions. Fourteen years later it successfully revolted under
    Psammetichus I. of Sais, the founder of the Twenty-sixth
    Dynasty. Among his successors were Necho (2 Kings 23:29) and
    Hophra, or Apries (Jer. 37:5, 7, 11). The dynasty came to an end
    in B.C. 525, when the country was subjugated by Cambyses. Soon
    afterwards it was organized into a Persian satrapy.

      The title of Pharaoh, given to the Egyptian kings, is the
    Egyptian Per-aa, or "Great House," which may be compared to that
    of "Sublime Porte." It is found in very early Egyptian texts.

      The Egyptian religion was a strange mixture of pantheism and
    animal worship, the gods being adored in the form of animals.
    While the educated classes resolved their manifold deities into
    manifestations of one omnipresent and omnipotent divine power,
    the lower classes regarded the animals as incarnations of the
    gods.

      Under the Old Empire, Ptah, the Creator, the god of Memphis,
    was at the head of the Pantheon; afterwards Amon, the god of
    Thebes, took his place. Amon, like most of the other gods, was
    identified with Ra, the sun-god of Heliopolis.

      The Egyptians believed in a resurrection and future life, as
    well as in a state of rewards and punishments dependent on our
    conduct in this world. The judge of the dead was Osiris, who had
    been slain by Set, the representative of evil, and afterwards
    restored to life. His death was avenged by his son Horus, whom
    the Egyptians invoked as their "Redeemer." Osiris and Horus,
    along with Isis, formed a trinity, who were regarded as
    representing the sun-god under different forms.

      Even in the time of Abraham, Egypt was a flourishing and
    settled monarchy. Its oldest capital, within the historic
    period, was Memphis, the ruins of which may still be seen near
    the Pyramids and the Sphinx. When the Old Empire of Menes came
    to an end, the seat of empire was shifted to Thebes, some 300
    miles farther up the Nile. A short time after that, the Delta
    was conquered by the Hyksos, or shepherd kings, who fixed their
    capital at Zoan, the Greek Tanis, now San, on the Tanic arm of
    the Nile. All this occurred before the time of the new king
    "which knew not Joseph" (Ex. 1:8). In later times Egypt was
    conquered by the Persians (B.C. 525), and by the Greeks under
    Alexander the Great (B.C. 332), after whom the Ptolemies ruled
    the country for three centuries. Subsequently it was for a time
    a province of the Roman Empire; and at last, in A.D. 1517, it
    fell into the hands of the Turks, of whose empire it still forms
    nominally a part. Abraham and Sarah went to Egypt in the time of
    the shepherd kings. The exile of Joseph and the migration of
    Jacob to "the land of Goshen" occurred about 200 years later. On
    the death of Solomon, Shishak, king of Egypt, invaded Palestine
    (1 Kings 14:25). He left a list of the cities he conquered.

      A number of remarkable clay tablets, discovered at
    Tell-el-Amarna in Upper Egypt, are the most important historical
    records ever found in connection with the Bible. They most fully
    confirm the historical statements of the Book of Joshua, and
    prove the antiquity of civilization in Syria and Palestine. As
    the clay in different parts of Palestine differs, it has been
    found possible by the clay alone to decide where the tablets
    come from when the name of the writer is lost. The inscriptions
    are cuneiform, and in the Aramaic language, resembling Assyrian.
    The writers are Phoenicians, Amorites, and Philistines, but in
    no instance Hittites, though Hittites are mentioned. The tablets
    consist of official dispatches and letters, dating from B.C.
    1480, addressed to the two Pharaohs, Amenophis III. and IV., the
    last of this dynasty, from the kings and governors of Phoenicia
    and Palestine. There occur the names of three kings killed by
    Joshua, Adoni-zedec, king of Jerusalem, Japhia, king of Lachish
    (Josh. 10:3), and Jabin, king of Hazor (11:1); also the Hebrews
    (Abiri) are said to have come from the desert.

      The principal prophecies of Scripture regarding Egypt are
    these, Isa. 19; Jer. 43: 8-13; 44:30; 46; Ezek. 29-32; and it
    might be easily shown that they have all been remarkably
    fulfilled. For example, the singular disappearance of Noph
    (i.e., Memphis) is a fulfilment of Jer. 46:19, Ezek. 30:13.



 Egypt, that troubles or oppresses; anguish