Thus the ploughmen sing at the plough: "'Tis a fine day, we are cool, and the oxen are drawing the plough; the sky is doing as we would; let us work for our master!" and of the reapers we read: "In answering chant they say: 'Tis a good day, come out to the country, the north wind blows, the sky is all we desire, let us work and take heart." The best known, however, of the songs, is that sung by the driver of the oxen who tread out the corn, which was first deciphered by Champollion-- "Thresh away, oxen, thresh away faster, The straw for yourselves, and the grain for your master!" Such were the Egyptians and such was Egypt where the childhood of Israel was passed.

It was a land of culture, it was a land of wealth and abundance, but it was also a land of popular superstition and idolatry, and the idolatry and culture were too closely associated in the minds of the Israelites to be torn apart.

In turning their backs on the Egyptian idols, it was necessary that they should turn them on Egyptian civilisation as well.

Hence it was that intercourse with Egypt was forbidden, and the King of Israel who began by marrying an Egyptian princess and importing horses from the valley of the Nile, ended by building shrines to the gods of the heathen.

Hence, too, it was that the distinctive beliefs and practices of Egypt are ignored or disallowed.
Even the doctrine of the resurrection is passed over in silence; the Pentateuch keeps the eyes of the Israelite fixed on the present life, where he will meet with his punishment or reward.