with the Egyptians. In Mesopotamia and elsewhere, as in
Phenicia, Semitic people had attained to a social organisation
as advanced as that of the Egyptians; Semites had conquered and
occupied Lower Egypt for centuries. So extensively had Semitic
influences penetrated Egypt that the Egyptian language, during
the period of the nineteenth dynasty, is said by Brugsch to be
as full of Semitisms as German is of Gallicisms; while Semitic
deities had supplanted the Egyptian gods at Heliopolis and
elsewhere. On the other hand, the Semites, as far as Phenicia,
were extensively influenced by Egypt.

It is generally admitted<31> that Moses, Phinehas (and perhaps
Aaron), are names of Egyptian origin, and there is excellent
authority for the statement that the name Abir, which the
Israelites gave to their golden calf, and which is also used to
signify the strong, the heavenly, and even God,<32> is simply
the Egyptian Apis. Brugsch points out that the god, Tum or Tom,
who was the special object of worship in the city of Pi-Tom,
with which the Israelites were only too familiar, was called
Ankh and the "great god," and had no image. Ankh means "He who
lives," "the living one," a name the resemblance of which to the
"I am that I am" of Exodus is unmistakable, whatever may be the
value of the fact. Every discussion of Israelitic ritual seeks
and finds the explanation of its details in the portable sacred
chests, the altars, the priestly dress, the breastplate, the
incense, and the sacrifices depicted on the monuments of Egypt.
But it must be remembered that these signs of the influence of
Egypt upon Israel are not necessarily evidence that such
influence was exerted before the Exodus. It may have come much
later, through the close connection of the Israel of David and