05. The Winds of Egypt.

The Winds of Egypt.

“The author,” we read further in v. Bohlen,^[40] “mistakes so materially with regard to the natural phenomena of the country, that he transfers there the scorching east wind of Palestine,” Genesis 41:6, and represents the ebb in the Red Sea as produced by this same wind. In his commentary^[41] on the passage above referred to, it is said, When there is a cool and refreshing east wind along the Arabian Gulf in Egypt, it is cut off from the Nile by the eastern mountain range, the Mokattam, and cannot even press in, much less then scorch the ears of corn.^[42] On the contrary, it is the south which is the hot wind in Egypt.^[43] A similar error is found in Exodus 16:13, where the locusts should be represented as coming with the south wind out of Nubia.

[40] S. LVI.

[41] S. 381.

[42] Abdollatiph, p. 16. Hasselquist, 254.

[43]Abdollatiph, p. 19.

We will first examine Genesis 41:6,^[44] where the seven thin ears, and “blasted with the east wind,” are mentioned.

[44] Compare verses 23, 27 of the same chap. The quotation from Abdollatiph, by which it is said to be proved, that there is no east wind in Egypt, is not conclusive. That author himself shows^[45] that he does not intend to be understood as speaking of all of Egypt, and particularly not of the part with which we are here concerned, the Delta: “For this reason without doubt the ancient Egyptians chose for the residence of their kings, Memphis and the places which like Memphis are most remote from the eastern mountains.”

[45] P. 5. De Sacy.

It is conceded, that there is seldom a wind directly from the east or west in Egypt.^[46] But there is oftentimes a southeast wind, which is precisely the one to produce the effects which are here ascribed to the east wind; and besides, it blows commonly at the time in which these things are understood to have taken place, before the corn harvest, which in Egypt is in March and April.^{[47] [46]} Rüppell in Ukert, S. 113.

[47] Nordmeier calend. Aeg. oecon. p. 29.From the unpublished journal of a traveller at present in Egypt, the following extract may be taken, in confirmation of whatHenstenberghas stated : “I thought that the south wind was intolerable, but it has veered round several points to the east this morning, and every change it makes in that direction renders its effects more and more oppressive.”

Ukert^[48] thus sums up the accounts of modern travellers with regard to the east wind: “In the spring the south wind oftentimes springs up towards the south-east, increasing to a whirlwind, etc. The heat then seems insupportable, although the thermometer does not always rise very high. The south wind is called Merisi, the south-east, Asiab or Chamsin. As long as the south-east wind continues, doors and windows are closed, but the fine dust penetrates everywhere; everything dries up; wooden vessels warp and crack. The thermometer rises suddenly from 16-20 degrees up to 30, 36, and even 38 degrees of Reaumur. This wind works destruction upon everything. The grass withers so that it entirely perishes, if this wind blows long.”

[48]S. 111.

Volney^[49] says: “The south and south-east wind produce no dew, since they come from the African and Arabian deserts. But the north and west winds bring the evaporations of the Mediterranean to Egypt. In March the south-east, the due south and the south-west winds prevail. Then they become sometimes westerly and sometimes northerly and easterly.”

[49] Voyage En Syrie et in Egypte, t. 1. pp. 54, 55. That this south-east wind^[50] is here designated by the word קָדִים which commonly signifies, east wind, is not surprising, since the Hebrews had terms only for the four principal winds, and besides, if a more accurate designation had been possible, it would still have been entirely unsuitable here in relating a dream. But we can even quote a traveller who does not scruple to designate the south-east as merely the east. Wansleb^[51] says: “From Easter to Pentecost is the most stormy part of the year; for the wind commonly blows, during this time, from the Red Sea, from the east.”

[50] Numerous books of travels might be referred to, in which easterly winds in Egypt are mentioned. But it is unnecessary. Russell, in his Ancient and Modern Egypt, says: “About the autumnal equinox they (the winds) veer round to the east, where they remain nearly six weeks, with only slight deviations.” Although this declaration may not be strictly correct, yet it is an additional testimony to the fact, that they have easterly winds in Egypt, which is all that is needed here; for it is universally acknowledged by Hebrew scholars, that any wind from the eastern quarter of the heavens would be designated by a Hebrew as east wind. The following extract from Prof. Robinson’s Biblical Researches is introduced, not only from its appropriateness in this connection, but as furnishing a similar style of reasoning to that employed byHenstenbergintreating of the plagues in Egypt, in chapter iii. of this volume : “The Lord, it is said, caused the sea to go (or flow out) by a strong east wind. The miracle, therefore, is represented as mediate ; not a direct suspension of, or interference with the laws of nature, but a miraculous adaptation of those laws to produce a required result. It was wrought by natural means supernaturally applied. For this reason we are here entitled to look only for the natural effects arising from the operation of such a cause. In the somewhat indefinite phraseology of the Hebrew, an east wind means any wind from the eastern quarter; and would include the northeast wind, which often prevails in this region.”—Vol. I. pp. 82, 3.

[51]In Paulus Reisen Th. III. p. 18. So much upon Genesis 41:6. We do not trouble ourselves with Exodus 14, since the assertion, that the east wind is not the appropriate one, depends upon the arbitrary supposition, that the passage of the Red Sea took place at the time of the ebb tide. There is therefore now remaining to us only Exodus 10:13.

V. Bohlen is not the first who has thought the mentioning of the east wind here a suspicious circumstance. Bochart^[52], as long ago as his time, supposed that קָדִים must in this place signify the south wind, since the east wind could bring locusts hither only out of Arabia, while the south wind would bring them from Ethiopia, which produces them in far greater numbers. Eichhorn^[53] says: “Since the locusts, from blind instinct, always move from south to north, without ever turning to the east or west, their swarms never come out of Arabia to Egypt, but always from Ethiopia.”

[52] Hieroz. 3. p. 287.

[53] De Aeg. anno mirabili, p. 26.

It is certain, without argument, that the author has here neither used קָדִים with the signification of south wind, nor inadvertently named the east, where the south should be; but that, on the contrary, with clear knowledge of the natural relations of Egypt, he meant to say, that the locusts came hither from the east, from the Arabian Gulf. This is clear from Exodus 10:19 : “And the Lord turned a mighty, strong west wind, which took away the locusts, and cast them into the Red Sea.” The west wind, which is expressly represented as the opposite of קָדִים, carries the locusts directly back to the region whence they came.

It cannot, therefore, be asserted that the author betrays himself, and incautiously transfers a condition which belongs to Palestine to Egypt. But it is yet asked, Can the locusts possibly come to Egypt from the east, from beyond the Arabian Gulf? The argument which Eichhorn urges against this, that the locusts always travel from south to north, is not tenable. Credner,^[54] who in his commentary on Joel decidedly substantiates the correctness of the statement in our passage, has shown that they come with every wind. It also can be no objection to this opinion, that the swarm coming from the east must pass the Arabian Gulf. For Credner^[55] has shown, that the flight of the locusts is successfully made, not merely over smaller channels, as the Straits of Gibraltar, the Red Sea,^[56] etc., but over larger bodies of water, as the Mediterranean Sea, in case they are favored by the wind. As soon as this fails them, changing to a storm, or when a calm succeeds, the whole numberless swarm is precipitated into the sea, just as it here occurred after the locusts had accomplished the work of the Lord upon the Egyptians.

[54] S. 286.

[55] S. 288.

[56] Niebuhr remarks that, the wind drives the swarms of the locusts over the Arabian Gulf in its broadest part. Beschr. S. 169.

If it is true, that the locusts come from the east not less than from the south, and that the sea is no hindrance to them, and if it is further settled that Arabia is one of the principal places, where the locusts are found, it is also certain that they come from there to Egypt not less than from Nubia. A single case of this kind, a plague of locusts of peculiar severity, which came from the east upon Egypt, is described by a Syrian writer, the continuator of Barhebraeus:^[57] “In the year 1774,^[58] (1463, A.D.) many locusts came from the east. They advanced even to Egypt, destroyed the crops,” etc.

[57] In dem neuen Repert. von Paulus, Th. I. S. 67.Mirkhond, in his account of the Saracenic wars, says that the Arabs were contemptuously called “locust-eaters” by the Greeks and Persians; a clear proof that locusts are abundant in the Arabian peninsula. The Egyptian agriculturists at the present day believe that the most destructive locusts come from Arabia, which is in some degree confirmed by Dr Bowring in his Report on Syia.

[58] This refers to the Grecian era, or era of the Seleucidae, which dates from the reign of Seleucus Nicator 311 B.C.