The defeat of Prosopis was decisive.  Marmaiu lost in slain between eight thousand and nine thousand of his troops, or, according to another estimate, between twelve thousand and thirteen thousand.  Above nine thousand were made prisoners.  The tents, camp-equipage, and cattle, fell into the hands of the enemy.  The expedition at once broke up and dispersed.  Marmaiu returned into his own land with a shattered remnant of his grand army, and devoted himself to peaceful pursuits, or at any rate abstained from any further collision with the Egyptians.  The mercenaries, whatever the races to which they in reality belonged, learned by experience the wisdom of leaving the Libyans to fight their own battles, and are not again found in alliance with them.  The Akaiusha and Luku appear in Egyptian history no more.  The Tursha and Sheklusha do not wholly disappear, but receive occasional mention among the races hostile to Egypt As for the Shartana or Shardana, they were struck with so much admiration of the Egyptian courage and conduct, that they shortly afterwards entered the Egyptian service, and came to hold a place among the most trusted of the Egyptian troops.

Despite his cowardice in absenting himself from the battle of Prosopis under the transparent device of a divine vision, Menephthah took to himself the whole credit of the victory, and gloried in it as much as if he had really had a hand in bringing about the result.  “The Lubu,” he says, “were meditating to do evil in Egypt; they were as grasshoppers; every road was blocked by their hosts.  Then I vowed to lead them captive.  Lo, I vanquished them; I slaughtered them, making a spoil of their country.  I made the land of Egypt traversable once more; I gave breath to those who were in the cities.”  Egyptian generals, like Roman poets, had to content themselves with complaining secretly, “Sic vos non vobis.”

So far as we can tell, no long period elapsed between the expedition of Marmaiu, son of Deid, and the second great trouble in which Menephthah was involved.  Moses must have returned to Egypt from his sojourn in Midian within a year or two of the death of Ramesses II., and cannot have allowed any very long time to elapse before he proffered the demand which he was divinely commissioned to make.  Still, as he was timid, and a somewhat unwilling messenger, he may have delayed both his return and his first address to Pharaoh as long as he dared (Ex. iv. 19); and if the invasion of Marmaiu had begun before he had summoned courage to address Pharaoh a second time, he would then naturally wait until the danger was past, and the king could again be approached without manifest impropriety.  In this case, the severe oppression of the Israelites, which followed the first application of Moses (Ex. v. 5-23) may have lasted longer than has generally been supposed; and it may not have been till Menephthah’s sixth or seventh year that the divine messenger became urgent, and began to press