Genesis 43:32
eating .......... eat <03899 0398> [eat bread.]
disgusting <08441> [for that is an abomination.]
The Chaldee Paraphrast renders this clause, "Because the Hebrews eat the cattle which the Egyptians worship." But, as we learn from ver. 16, compared with this verse, that the provision for the entertainment of the Egyptians themselves was animal food, this reason cannot be just. The true reason seems to be that assigned by the LXX., [Bedlyma gar estin tois Aigyptiois pas poim‚n probaton:] "For every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians."
Genesis 46:34
servants <05650> [Thy servants.]
care <07462> [for every.]
From the fragments of Manetho, preserved in Josephus and Africanus, it appears that hordes of marauders, call {hycassos,} or shepherd kings, whose chief occupation, like the Bedouin Arabs of the present day, was to keep flocks, made a powerful irruption into Egypt, which they subdued, and ruled, by a succession of kings, with great tyranny for 259 years. Hence the persons, and even the very name of shepherds were execrated, and held in the greatest odium by the Egyptians.
