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226 The hieroglyphic text is partly damaged at mis point, mak- ing it unclear what happened next; but the inference is that as Merenptah awoke, he found the divine sword physically in his hand. Reassured by the god's words and the divine sword, Merenptah led his troops to battle; it resulted in a complete victory for the Egyptians. In the other instance wherein Ptah appears, it was in a dream by a princess (Taimhotep) who was the wife of the High Priest. She bore three daughters but no male heir, wherefor she "prayed to the majesty of this august god, great of wonders and able to give a son to one who has none." One night, as the High Priest was asleep, Ptah "came to him in a revelation" and said to the High Priest that in exchange for carrying out certain construction works, "I shall make you in return for it a male child." On this the high priest awoke and kissed the ground of this august god. He commissioned the prophets, the chiefs of mysteries, the priests, and the sculptors of the House of Gold, to carry out at once the beneficent work. The construction work was carried out in accordance with the wishes of Ptah; and after that, the princess states in the inscription, she became pregnant and did bear a male child. Though not in its details but in its essential theme, the Egyptian tale (from Ptolmeic times) bears a resemblance to the much earlier biblical record of the appearance of the Lord, accompanied by two other divine beings, to Abraham and predicting that his aging and childless wife Sarah will bear a male heir. Among other instances of royal oracle dreams found in Egyptian records, the most famous is that by the prince who later ascended the throne to be crowned as Thothmes IV. His dream is well-known because he describes it on a stela that he had erected between the paws of the great Sphinx in Giza—where it still stands for all to see. As recorded on the stela (Fig. 77), the prince "used to occupy himself with sport on the desert highland of Mem- DIVINE ENCOUNTERS