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1. Exodus, Ch. XXV, v.3.​
2. Gesenius, Thesaurus, תכלת = caerulea sive violacea Purpura.
3. Cf. Erman, ibid.. II, p. 299. "… denn der allgemeine Charakter der aegyptischen Tracht ist dem, den wir gleichzeitig in Nordsyrien treffen, durchaus entgegengesetzt. Bei den Syrern … Kleider in denen dunkelblaue Lagen mit dunkelroten abwechseln, durchweg mit reicher Stickerei bedeckt etc."

   Cf. Genesis XXXVII, 3c "and he made him a coat of many colours." Judges V, 30, implies that coloured and embroidered garments were much in vogue among the Israelites of Deborah's age. The Kings of the Midianites, near kinsmen of the Hebrews, wore mantles of Argaman as royal insignia: Judges VIII, 26c, Saul's reaction against Kanaanitism left the fancy for colour altogether untouched at least, as far as concerned female dress "O daughters of Israel, weep for Saul, who clothed you in scarlet with beautiful dresses, who put on ornaments of gold upon your apparel" (II Samuel, I, 24).

   Cf. Proverbs XXXI, 21 22-. Isaiah III, 1825- makes no special allusion to colour and is too far removed from the age of the Exodus to be quoted in this connection. Cf. also Genesis XXVII, "And Rebekah took the goodly garments of her eldest son Esau which were with her in the house, and clothed therewith Jacob her youngest son." The reference here is not to colour alone, for Isaac being blind (ib.. 1) Jacob could not, of course, be detected through his not wearing Esau's rich coloured garments. The "goodly garments" were overlaid with artistic (probably coloured) knit-work, and perhaps also embroidered with gold (cf. Erman l.c.) which the blind patriarch might easily feel.↡

4. The famous inscription of Merenptah found by Professor Flinders Petrie in 1896 in the King's funeral temple at Thebes, containing, as the late Professor Driver says (Modern Research, etc., p. 38), the earliest mention of Israel known at present to occur on any monument, raises, as that distinguished Biblical scholar rightly remarks, "more questions than it solves." I may be permitted to observe that a Jewish tradition which, though recorded in the Aggadah, may represent a reminiscence from the earliest days, tells of an abortive partial exodus thirty years before the great universal Exodus. See: Sanhedrin 92b: Who were the dead that Ezekiel called back into life? Rab said they were the Ephraimites who had wrongly calculated the era of the redemption," etc. Cf., Rashi ad locum. Pirke d'Rabbi Eliezer: "R. Eliezer said all through the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt the Ephraimites lived in the greatest security and prosperity, until there arose Nun, a descendant of Ephraim, and said, God has revealed Himself unto me, bidding me take you out from Egypt. His tribesmen, buoyed up by their royal descent (seilicet, from Joseph, the viceroy of Egypt) and their great warlike abilities then rose up, and, taking their sons and daughters with them went out from Egypt. Hereupon the Egyptians arose and killed all their mighty men of valour." Mekhilta, Exodus XIII, i: Aliter "… this refers to the Ephraimite war … because they observed not God's covenant and refused to walk in His law and they trespassed the appointed end and the oath: (it was therefore to be feared) that the Israelites, seeing the bones of their brothers strewn in Philistia, might return back to Egypt."

   The inscription in Professor Lehmann-Haupt's translation reads as follows: "… The princes are prosträte, saying 'Salam'. Not one among the Barbarians raises his head. Laid waste is Lybia … Canaan is seized with every evil. Ashkelon is led captive. Gezer is taken. Jenoam is annihilated. The Israelite tribe its men are few, its seed exists no more. Palestine (Charu, land of the Charités) has become a widow for Egypt (i.e. helpless before her). All lands are united and at peace. Everyone who was a marauder is held in check by King Merenptah," etc.

   It has been argued from certain indications in the inscription that the abode of the tribe of Israel to which the text refers is to be sought in the Mountains of Ephraim. (See Lehmann-Haupt, Die Geschichte Judas und Israels im Rahmen der Weltgeschichte. I, Tiibingen (1911), p. 2930-). This affords a curious point of contact with the Aggadah insofar as the latter connects members of the Ephraimite stock with a pre-Exodian partial excursion from the land of oppression. Professor Lehmann-Haupt, it may be added, in an original discussion, tries to show that the Israelites are spoken of in the inscription as a people not yet fixedly settled in Palestine, (ib., p. 30 in fine). May not the pride of Ephraim have had something to do with reminiscences of that bold venture, with the fact that their ancestors had preceded all the other tribes in Palestine?

   Exodus 44 .5-: "And the King of Egypt said unto them, Wherefore do ye, Moses and Aaron, hinder the people from their work? Get you unto your own affairs." 5: "And Pharaoh said, Behold the people of the land now are many, and ye disturb them in the pursuit of their labours." Verse 5 implies, I feel, a rejoiner to Pharaoh's question in verse 4, suppressed in the text.

   A distinction is also apparently made between "now" and a past occasion. May not an allusion be contained here to a previous time when a Pharaoh had granted a favour similar to that prayed for by Moses an Aaron in verse 3. I do not wish to suggest that this has any relation with the problem raised by the inscription of Merenptah. With reference to the same subject, it may be remarked that the escape of a portion of the Hebrew race from Goshen might be favoured by the invasion of the Delta by the Lybians, which took place in the fifth year of Merenptah's reign.

5. Petrie, Flinders, History of Egypt, London (1895), p. 11211 ff.
6. Pollux, I, 6.