"... In the passage of Genesis Rabbah cited at the outset of this article, the Canaanites, the Ishmaelites, and the Egyptians are portrayed as plaintiffs against the Jews in Alexander’s court. Whereas the Canaanites and the Ishmaelites have legal claims for the ownership of the land of Israel (not “territorial claims” in the precise sense of this expression), the Egyptians’ claim is financial: They argue that the Jews should give them back the silver and gold that the Israelites took with them when they left Egypt. The Jewish answer was that whatever was taken by the Israelites was a compensation for many years of slavery. A thorough investigation of this theme is out of place in the present context; as we shall see, however, it gives an additional dimension to the problem with which this article is concerned. The dominant Jewish argument is known from the Book of Jubilees: Prince Mastema, the evil angel, was bound so that he could not accuse the Israelites for requesting utensils and clothing from the Egyptians “so that they could plunder the Egyptians in return for the fact that they were made to work when they enslaved them by force” (Jub. 48:18). The Book of Jubilees envisages an accusation against the Jews by the national angel of the Egyptians, and thus presents its own apologetic position to such accusations (either real or putative). The same justification is found in the Wisdom of Solomon (10:17), in a fragment of the Exagoge of Ezekiel the tragedian (lines 162–166) and in Philo ..."