against the Ethiopians, and conquered them, when he married that
king's daughter; because, out of her affection for him, she delivered
the city up to him." See the Fragments of Irenaeus, ap. edit. Grab. p.
472. Nor perhaps did St. Stephen refer to any thing else when he said of
Moses, before he was sent by God to the Israelites, that he was not only
learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, but was also mighty in words
and in deeds, Acts 7:22.

[23] Pliny speaks of these birds called ibes; and says, "The Egyptians
invoked them against the serpents," Hist. Nat. B. X. ch. 28. Strabo
speaks of this island Meroe, and these rivers Astapus and Astaboras, B.
XVI. p. 771, 786; and B XVII. p. 82].

[24] This superstitious fear of discovering the name with four letters,
which of late we have been used falsely to pronounce Jehovah, but seems
to have been originally pronounced Jahoh, or Jao, is never, I think,
heard of till this passage of Josephus; and this superstition, in not
pronouncing that name, has continued among the Rabbinical Jews to this
day [though whether the Samaritans and Caraites observed it so early,
does not appear]. Josephus also durst not set down the very words of the
ten commandments, as we shall see hereafter, Antiq. B. III. ch. 5. sect.
4, which superstitious silence I think has yet not been continued
even by the Rabbins. It is, however, no doubt but both these cautious
concealments were taught Josephus by the Pharisees, a body of men at
once very wicked and very superstitious.

[25] Of this judicial hardening the hearts and blinding the eyes of
wicked men, or infatuating them, as a just punishment for their other
willful sins, to their own destruction, see the note on Antiq. B. VII.
ch. 9. sect. 6.

[26] As to this winter or spring hail near Egypt and Judea, see the
like on thunder and lightning there, in the note on Antiq. B. VI. ch. 5.
sect. 6.

[27] These large presents made to the Israelites, of vessels of and
vessels of gold, and raiment, were, as Josephus truly calls them, gifts
really given them; not lent them, as our English falsely renders them.
They were spoils required, not of them, Genesis 15:14; Exodus 3:22;
11:2; Psalm 105:37,] as the same version falsely renders the Hebrew word
Exodus 12:35, 36. God had ordered the Jews to demand these as their pay
and reward, during their long and bitter slavery in Egypt, as atonements
for the lives of the Egyptians, and as the condition of the Jews'