The dearth. — As the Nile at this early period was not assisted and regulated in its overflow by dams and canals, famines were much more common in Egypt than when subsequently the kings had done so much to provide against this danger. As, too, this dearth was “in all lands,” in Arabia, Palestine, Ethiopia, &c., there was evidently a long period of excessive drought. Still Egypt is always liable to famine, and Bar Hebræus (Chronicon, p. 260) gives terrible details of the sufferings of Egypt in the year of the Hej’ra 462, when so great was the loss of life, that whereas in the city of Tanis (Zoan) 300,000 men paid poll-tax in the previous year, there remained in it less than a hundred souls at the end of the dearth.
One argument adduced by Canon Cook, Excursus on the Bearings of Egyptian History on the Pentateuch, p. 451, for placing the descent of the Israelites into Egypt in the reign of Amenemha III., is that it was this monarch who “first established a complete system of dykes, canals, locks, and reservoirs, by which the inundations of the Nile were henceforth regulated.” The artificial lake of Moeris was also made by his orders, and other works of extraordinary vastness. Now not only would such works be suggested by a dearth of unusually long continuance, but the measures taken by Joseph during the seven years of famine would place the whole resources of the country at the Pharaoh’s disposal.