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Bible Dictionaries
Egypt
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
or The genealogies in Genesis 10 concern races, not mere descent of persons; hence, the plural forms, Madai, Kittim, etc. In the case of Egypt the peculiarity is, the form is dual, Mizraim, son of Ham (i.e. Egypt was colonized by descendants of Hain), meaning "the two Egypts," Upper and Lower, countries physically so different that they have been always recognized as separate. Hence, the Egyptian kings on the monuments appear with two crowns on their heads, and the hieroglyph for Egypt is a double clod of earth, representing the two countries, the long narrow valley and the broad delta. The Speaker's Commentary suggests the derivation Mes-ra-n, "children of Ra," the sun, which the Egyptians claimed to be. It extended from Migdol (near Pelusium, N. of Suez) to Syene (in the far S.) (Ezekiel 29:10; Ezekiel 30:6 margin). The name is related to an Arabic word, "red mud."
The hieroglyphic name for Egypt is Κem , "black," alluding to its black soil, combining also the idea of heat, "the hot dark country." The cognate Arabic word means "black mud." Ham is perhaps the same name, prophetically descriptive of "the land of Ham" (Psalms 105:23; Psalms 105:27). The history of states begins with Egypt, where a settled government and monarchy were established earlier than in any other country. A king and princes subordinate are mentioned in the record of Abram's first visit. The official title Pharaoh, Egyptian Peraa, means "the great house" (De Rouge). Egypt was the granary to which neighboring nations had recourse in times of scarcity. In all these points Scripture accords with the Egyptian monuments and secular history. The crown of Upper Egypt was white, that of Lower red; the two combined forming the pschent.
Pharaoh was Suten, "king," of Upper Egypt; Shebt, "bee" (compare Isaiah 7:18), of Lower Egypt; together the SUTEN-SHEBT. The initial sign of Suten was a bent reed, which gives point to 2 Kings 17:21; "thou trustest upon the staff of this bruised reed ... Egypt on which if a man lean it trill go into his hand and pierce it." Upper. Egypt always is placed before Lower, and its crown in the pschent above that of the latter. Egypt was early divided into nomes, each having its distinctive worship. The fertility of soil was extraordinary, due to the Nile's overflow and irrigation; not, as in Palestine, due to rain, which in the interior is rare (Genesis 13:10; Deuteronomy 11:10-11; Zechariah 14:18). The dryness of the climate accounts for the perfect preservation of the sculptures on stone monuments after thousands of years. Limestone is the formation as far as above Thebes, where sandstone begins.
The first cataract is the southern boundary of Egypt, and is caused by granite and primitive rocks rising through the sandstone in the river bed and obstructing the water. Rocky sandstrewn deserts mostly bound the Nilebordering fertile strip of land, somewhat lower, which generally in Upper Egypt is about 12 miles wide. Low mountains border the valley in Upper Egypt. In ancient times there was a fertile valley in Lower Egypt to the east of the delta, the border land watered by the canal of the Red Sea; namely, Goshen. The delta is a triangle at the Nile's mouth, formed by the Mediterranean and the Pelusiac and Canopic branches of the river. The land at the head of the gulf of Suez in centuries has become geologically raised, and that on the N. side of the isthmus depressed, so that the head of the gulf has receded southwards. So plentiful were the fish, vegetables, and fruits, that the Israelites did "eat freely," though but bondservants.
But now political oppression has combined with the drying up of the branches and canals from the Nile and of the artificial lakes (e.g. Moeris) and fishponds, in reversing Egypt's ancient prosperity. The reeds and waterplants, haunted by waterfowl and made an article of commerce, are destroyed and Goshen, once "the best of the land," is now among the worst by sand and drought. The hilly Canaan, in its continued dependence on heaven for rain, was the emblem of the world of grace upon which "the eyes of the Lord are always," as contrasted with Egypt, emblem of the world of nature, which has its supply from below and depends on human ingenuity. The Nile's overflow lasts only about 100 days, but is made available for agriculture throughout the year by tanks, canals, and forcing machines. The "watering with the foot" was by treadwheels working sets of pumps, and by artificial channels connected with reservoirs, and opened, turned, or closed by the feet.
The shadoof , or a pole with a weight at one end and a bucket at the other, the weight helping the laborer to raise the full bucket, is the present plan. Agriculture began when the inundating water had sunk into the soil, a month after the autumn equinox, and the harvest was soon after the spring equinox (Exodus 9:31-32). Herodotus, Diodorus, Strabo, and the monuments confirm Genesis 47:20; Genesis 47:26, as to Joseph's arrangement of the land, that the king and priests alone were possessors and the original proprietors became crown tenants subject to a rent or tribute of one-fifth. Joseph had taken up one-fifth in the seven plenteous years. Naturally then he fixed on one-fifth to be paid to the king, so that he might, by stores laid up, be prepared against any future famine.
The warriors too were possessors (Diodorus, 1:73, 74; and Egyptian monuments), but probably not until after Joseph's time, since they are not mentioned in Genesis, and at all events their tenure was distinct from the priests', for each warrior received (Herodotus, 2:168) 12 aruroe (each axura a square of 100 Egyptian cubits); i.e., there were no possessions vested in the soldier caste, but portions assigned to each soldier tenable at the sovereign's will. The priests alone were left in full possession of their lands. Lake Menzaleh, the most eastern of the existing lakes, has still large fisheries, which support the people on its islands and shore. Herodotus (ii. 77) and Plutarch are wrong in denying the growth of the vine in Egypt before Psammetichus, for the monuments show it was well known from the time of the pyramids. Wine was drunk by the rich people, and beer was drunk by the poor as less costly.
Wheat was the chief produce; barley and spelt (asin Exodus 9:32) ought to be translated instead of "rie," Triticum spelta, the common food of the ancient Egyptians, now called by the natives doora, the only grain, says Wilkinson, represented on the sculptures, but named on them often with other species) are also mentioned. The flax was "boiled," i.e. in blossom, at the time of the hail plague before the Exodus. This accurately marks the time just before Passover. In northern Egypt the barley ripens and flax blossoms in the middle of February or early in March, and both are gathered before April, when wheat harvest begins. Linen was especially used by the Egyptian priests, and for the evenness of the threads, without knot or break, was superior to any of modern manufacture. Papyrus is now no longer found in the Nile below Nubia. In ancient times, light boats were made of its stalks, and paper of its leaves.
It is a strong rush, three-cornered, the thickness of the finger, 10 or 15 ft. high, represented on the monuments. The "flags" are a species called tuff or sufi , Hebrew suph , smaller than that of which the ark was made (Exodus 2:3), "bulrushes," "flags" (Isaiah 18:2; Isaiah 19:7). The lotus was the favorite flower. Camels are not found on the monuments, yet they were among Abram's possessions by Pharaoh's gift. But it is certain Egypt was master of much of the Sinai Peninsula long before this, and must have had camels, "the ships of the desert," for keeping up communications. They were only used on the frontier, being regarded as unclean, and, hence, are not found on monuments in the interior. The hippopotamus, the behemoth of Job, was anciently found in the Nile and hunted. The generic term tannim , "dragon," (i.e. any aquatic reptile, here the crocodile) is made the symbol of the king of Egypt (Ezekiel 29:3-5.)
God made Amasis the hook which He put in the jaws of Pharaoh Hophra (Apries), who was dethroned and strangled, in spite of his proud boast that "even a god could not wrest from him his kingdom" (Herodotus, 2:169). Compare Isaiah 51:9-10. Rahab, "the insolent," is Egypt's poetical name (Psalms 87:4; Psalms 89:10; Isaiah 51:9). Psalms 74:13-14; Thou brokest the heads of the dragons in the waters, ... the heads of Leviathan, ... and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness"; alluding to Pharaoh and his host overthrown in the Red Sea and their bodies cast on shore and affording rich spoil to Israel in the wilderness. Compare "the people ... are bread for us" (Numbers 14:9). The marshes and ponds of Egypt make it the fit scene for the plague of frogs. Locusts come eating all before them, and are carried away by the wind as suddenly as they come.
The dust-sprung "lice" are a sort of tick, as large as a gram of sand, which when filled with blood expands to the size of a hazel nut (Exodus 8:17; Exodus 8:21, etc.). The "flies" were probably the dog-fly (Septuagint) whose bite causes severe inflammation, especially in the eyelids; compare Isaiah 7:18, "the fly that is in the uttermost parts of the rivers of Egypt" Oedmann makes it the beetle, kakerlaque, Blatta orientalis, which inflicts painful bites; peculiarly appropriate, as the beetle was the Egyptian symbol of creative power.
ORIGIN. - The Egyptians were of Nigritian origin; like modern Nigritians, the only orientals respectful of women. There was no harem system of seclusion, the wife was "lady of the house." Their kindness to Israel, even during the latter's bondservice, was probably the reason for their being admitted into the congregation in the third generation (Deuteronomy 23:3-8). An Arab or Semitic element of race and language is added to the Nigritian in forming the Egyptian people and their tongue. The language of the later dynasties appears in the demotic or enchorial writing, the connecting link between the ancient language and the present Coptic or Christian Egyptian. The great pyramid (the oldest architectural monument in existence according to Lepsius) is distinguished from all other Egyptian monuments in having no idolatrous symbols.
Piazzi Smith says, when complete, it was so adjusted and exactly fashioned in figure that it sets forth the value of the mathematical term pi, or demonstrates the true and practical squaring of a circle. The length of the front foot of the pyramid's casing stone, found by Mr. W. Dixon, or that line or edge from which the angular pi slope of the whole stone begins to rise, which therefore may be regarded as a radical length for the theory of the great pyramid, measures exactly 25 pyramid inches, i.e. the ten-millionth part of the length of the earth's semi-axis of rotation; 25 pyramid inches were the cubit of Noah, Moses, and Solomon "the cubit of the Lord their God." It is a monument of divinely-ordered number before the beginning of idolatry. (See WEIGHT AND MEASURE.)
RELIGION. - Nature worship is the basis of the Egyptian apostasy from the primitive revelation; it degenerated into the lowest fetishism, the worship of cats, dogs, beetles, etc., trees, rivers, and hills. There were three orders of gods; the eight great gods, 12 lesser, and those connected with Osiris. However, the immortality of the soul and future rewards and punishments at the judgment were taught. The Israelites fell into their idolatries in Egypt (Joshua 24:14; Ezekiel 20:7-8.) This explains their readiness to worship the golden calf, resembling the Egyptian ox-idol, Apis (Exodus 32).
THE TEN PLAGUES. -The plagues were all directed against the Egyptian goes, from whom Israel was thus being weaned, at the same time that Jehovah's majesty was vindicated before Egypt, and His people's deliverance extorted from their oppressors. Thus, the turning of the Nile into blood was a stroke upon Hapi, the Nile god. The plague of frogs attacked the female deity with a frog's head, Heka, worshipped in the district Sah, i.e. Benihassan, as wife of Chnum, god of cataracts or of the inundation; this was a very old form of nature worship in Egypt, the frog being made the symbol of regeneration; Seti, father of Rameses II, is represented on the monuments offering two vases of wine to an enshrined frog, with the legend "the sovereign lady of both worlds"; the species of frog called now dofda is the one meant by the Hebrew-Egyptian zeparda (Exodus 8:2), they are small, do not leap much, but croak constantly; the ibis rapidly consumes them at their usual appearance in September, saving the land from the "stench" which otherwise arises (Exodus 8:14).
The third plague of dust-sprung lice fell upon the earth, worshipped in the Egyptian pantheism as Seb, father of the gods (Exodus 8:16); the black fertile soil of the Nile basin was especially sacred, called Chemi, from which Egypt took its ancient name. The fourth plague, of flies (Exodus 8:21), was upon the air, deified as Shu, son of Ra the sun god, or as Isis, queen of heaven. The fifth was the murrain on cattle, aimed at their ox worship (Exodus 9:1-7). The sixth, the boils from ashes sprinkled toward the heaven, was a challenge to Neit, "the great mother queen of highest heaven," if she could stand before Jehovah, also a reference to the scattering of victims' ashes to the wind in honor of Sutech or Typhon; human sacrifices at Hellopolis, offered under the shepherd kings, had been abolished by Amosis I, but this remnant of the old rite remained; Jehovah now sternly reproves it 'by Moses' symbolic act.
The seventh, the hail, thunder, and lightning; man, beast, herb, and tree were smitten, so that Pharaoh for the first time recognizes Jehovah as God; "Jehovah is righteous, and I and my people are wicked" (Exodus 9:27). The eighth, the locusts eating every tree, attacked what the Egyptians so prized that Egypt was among other titles called "the land of the sycamore." The destruction at the Red Sea took place probably under Thothmes II., and it is remarkable that his widow imported many trees from Arabia Felix. The ninth, darkness, the S.W. wind from the desert darkening the arm: sphere with dense masses of fine sand, would fill with gloom the Egyptians, whose chief idol was Ra, the sun god.
The tenth, the smiting of the firstborn of man and beast, realized the threat, "against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment" (Exodus 12:12); for every town and nome had its sacred animal, frog, beetle, ram, cow, cat, etc., representing each a god; Remphan and Chiun were adopted from abroad. (See EXODUS.) Egyptian religions law depended on future rewards and punishments; the Mosaic law on the contrary mainly depended on temporal rewards and punishments, which only could have place in a system of miraculous and extraordinary divine interposition. The Mosaic law therefore cannot have been borrowed from the Egyptians. The effect of the divine plagues on the Egyptians is seen in the fact that a "mixed multitude," numbering many Egyptians who gave up their idols to follow Israel's God, accompanied Israel at the Exodus (Exodus 12:38), besides Semitics whose fathers had come in with the Hyksos.
POWER AND CONQUESTS OF KINGS. -The kings seem to have been absolute; but the priests exercised a controlling influence so great that the Pharaoh of Joseph's time durst not take their lands even for money. Tablets in the Sinaitic peninsula record the Egyptian conquest of Asiatic nomads there. The kings of the 18th dynasty reduced the countries from Syria to the Tigris under tribute, from 1500 to 1200 B.C. Hittites of the valley of the Orontes were their chief opponents.
RELATION TO ISRAEL. - Egyptian power abroad declined from 1200 to 990 B.C. the very interval in which David's and Solomon's wide empire fits in; then Shishak reigned and invaded Judah. The struggle with Assyria and Babylonia for the intermediate countries lasted until Pharaoh Necho's defeat at Carchemish ended Egypt's supremacy. Except Zerah and Shishak (of Assyrian or Babylonian extraction), the Egyptian kings were friendly to Israel in Palestine. Solomon married a Pharaoh's daughter; Tirhakah helped Hezekiah; So made a treaty with Hoshea; Pharaoh Necho was unwilling to war with Josiah; and Pharaoh Hophra (Apries) raised the Chaldaean siege of Jerusalem as Zedekiah's ally. In Africa they reduced the Rebu or Lubim. W. of Egypt; Ethiopia was ruled by a viceroy "prince of Kesh." The many papyri and inscriptions, religious, historical, and one a papyrus tale about two brothers, the earliest extant fiction (in the British Museum), show what a literary people the Egyptians were.
Geometry, mechanics, chemistry (judging from Moses' ability, acquired probably from them, to burn and grind to powder the golden calf), astronomy (whereby Moses was able to form a calendar, Acts 7:22), and architecture massive and durable, were among Egypt's sciences. Magic was practiced (Exodus 7:11-12; Exodus 7:22; Exodus 8:18-19; Exodus 9:11; 2 Timothy 3:8-9). Pottery was part of Israel's bondservice (Psalms 81:6; Psalms 68:13). The Israelites' eating, dancing, singing, and stripping themselves at the calf feast, were according to Egyptian usage (Exodus 32:5-25). Antiquity and dynasties. - The antiquity of the colonization of Egypt by Noah's descendants is shown by the record of the migration of the Philistines from Caphtor, which must have been before Abram's arrival in Palestine, for the Philistines were then there. (See PHILISTINES; CAPHTOR.)
The Caphtorim sprang from the Mizraim or Egyptians (Genesis 10:13-14; Jeremiah 47:4; Amos 9:7). The Egyptians considered themselves and the Negroes, the red and the black races, as of one stock, children of the god Horus; and the Shemites and Europeans, the yellow and the white, as of another stock, children of the goddess Pesht. No tradition of the flood, though found in almost every other country, is traceable among them, except their reply to Solon (Plato, Tim., 23) that there had been many floods. There are few records of any dynasty before the 18th, except those of the 4th and 12th; but the names of the Pharaohs of the first six dynasties have been found, with notices implying the complete organization of the kingdom (Rouge, Recherches). The Memphite line under the 4th dynasty raised the most famous pyramids. The shepherd kings came from the East as foreigners, and were obnoxious to native Egyptians.
Indeed so intense was Egyptian prejudice that foreigners, and especially Easterners, are described as devils; much in the same way as the Chinese regard all outside the Celestial empire. A Theban line of kings reigned in Upper Egypt while the shepherds were in Lower. Hence arose the opinion that a shepherd king, not a native Egyptian, was the foreigner Joseph's patron; Apophis is generally named. Pharaoh's invitation to Joseph's family to settle in Goshen (Genesis 46:34; Genesis 47:6), not among the Egyptians, may indicate a desire to strengthen himself against the Egyptian party. The absence of mention of the Israelites on the monuments would be accounted for by the troubled character of the times of the shepherd kings. But see below. The authorities for Egyptian history are
(1) the monuments;
(2) the papyri (the reading of hieroglyphics having been discovered by Young and Champollion from the trilingual inscription, hieroglyphics, enchorial or common Egyptian letters, and Greek, in honor of Ptolemy Epiphanes, on the Rosetta stone);
(3) the Egyptian priest Manetho's fragments in Josephus, containing the regal list beginning with gods and continued through 30 dynasties of mortals, from Menes to Nectanebo, 343 B.C., these fragments abound in discrepancies;
(4) accounts of Greek visitors to Egypt after the Old Testament period. The two most valuable papyri are the Turin papyrus published by Lepsius; and the list of kings in the temple of Abydos, discovered By Mariette, which represents Seti I with his son Rameses II worshipping his 76 ancestors, beginning with Menes. The interval between the 6th and 11th dynasties is uncertain, the monuments affording no contemporary notices. The kings of this period in Manetho's list were probably rulers of parts only of Egypt, contemporary with other Pharaohs. The Pharaohs of the 12th dynasty, and the early kings of the 13th, were lords of all Egypt, which the shepherd kings were not; the latter must therefore belong to a subsequent period. Sculpture and architecture were at their height in the 12th dynasty, and the main events of the time are recorded in many inscriptions.
From the fourth king of the 13th dynasty to the last of the 17th, the period of the Hyksos or shepherd kings, the monuments afford no data for the order of events. The complete list of the ancestors of Seti I gives no Pharaoh between Amenemha, the last king of the 12th dynasty, and Aahmes or Amosis, the first of the 18th, who expelled the Hyksos. From the 18th dynasty Egypt's monumental history and the succession of kings are somewhat complete, but the chronology uncertain. No general era is based on the ancient inscriptions.
Apephis or Apepi was the last of the Hyksos, Ta-aaken Rasekenen the last of the contemporary Egyptian line. Abram's visit (Genesis 12:10-20) was in a time of Egypt's prosperity; nor is Abram's fear lest Sarai should be taken, and he slain for her sake, indicative of a savage state such as would exist under the foreign Hyksos rather than the previous native Egyptian kings; for in the papyrus d'Orbiney in the British Museum, of the age of Rameses II of a native dynasty, the 19th, the story of the two brothers (the wife of the elder of whom acts toward the younger as Potiphar's wife toward Joseph) represents a similar act of violence (the Pharaoh of the time sending two armies to take a beautiful wife and murder her husband on the advice of the royal councilors), at the time of Egypt's highest civilization; and this attributed not to a tyrant, but to one beloved and deified at his decease.
So in an ancient papyrus at Berlin a foreigner's wife and children are taken by the king, as an ordinary occurrence. Moreover, in the Benihassan monuments, on the provincial governor's tomb is represented a nomadic chief's arrival with his retinue to pay homage to the prince. The pastoral nomads N.W. of Egypt, and the Shemites in Palestine, are called Amu; the chief, called Abshah in this papyrus (father of a multitude numerous as the sand, meaning much the same as Abraham), is the hak, i.e. sheikh, with a coat of many colors. Shasous is another name for wandering nomads; and Hyksos = prince of the Shasous. The story of Saneha (i.e. son of the sycamore) in one of the oldest papyri relates that he, an Amu, under the 12th dynasty, rose to high rank under Pharaoh, and after a long exile abroad was restored and made "counselor among the chosen ones," to develop the resources of Egypt (just as Joseph), taking precedence among the courtiers.
This proves there is nothing improbable in the account of Abram's kind reception and Joseph's elevation by the Pharaoh of a native dynasty, earlier than the foreign Hyksos, who were harsh and fierce, and more likely to repel than to welcome foreigners. Asses, regarded as unclean under the middle and later empire, were among Pharaoh's presents to Abram (Genesis 12:16). Horses are omitted, which accords with the earlier date, for they were unknown (judging from the monuments) to the 12th or any earlier dynasty, and were probably introduced from Arabia by the Hyksos. So that Abram's visit seems to have been under an early Pharaoh, perhaps Amenemha, the first king of the 12th dynasty; Joseph's visit two centuries later, toward the end of the 12th or the beginning of the 13th. Thenceforward, horses abounded in the Egyptian plains and were largely bought thence by Solomon (1 Kings 4:26; 1 Kings 10:25; 1 Kings 10:29) in defiance of the prohibition, Deuteronomy 17:16; compare 2 Kings 7:6.
SHEPHERD KINGS. - Salatis ("mighty", in Semitic) was first of the shepherd dynasty, which lasted about 250 years and comprised six kings, Apophis last. The long term, 500 years, assigned by Manetho to the shepherd kings, (and by Africanus 800,) is unsupported by the monuments, and is inconsistent with the fact that the Egyptians, at the return to native rulers under the 18th dynasty, after so complete an overthrow of their institutions for five or eight centuries (?), wrote their own language without a trace of foreign infusion, and worshipped the old gods with the old rites. The only era on Egyptian monuments distinct from the regnal year of the sovereign is on the tablet of a governor of Tanis under Rameses II, referring back to the Hyksos, namely, the 400th year from the era of Set the Golden under the Hyksos king, Set-a-Pehti, "Set the Mighty." Set was the chief god worshipped by the Hyksos from the first.
From Rameses II (1340 B.C.) 400 years would take us to 1740 or 1750 B.C. 250 years of the Hyksos dynasty would bring us to 1500 B.C. for their expulsion, and 250 before 1750 B.C. would be Abram's date. Thus the period assigned to the dynasties before Rameses by Lepsius is much reduced. Joseph was quite young at his introduction to Pharaoh, and lived 110 years; but if Apophis, the contemporary of Rasekenen, the predecessor of Aahmes I who took Avaris and drove out the Hyksos, were Joseph's Pharaoh, Joseph would have long outlived Apophis; how then after his patron's expulsion could he have continued prosperous? Moreover, Apophis was not master of all Egypt, as Joseph's Pharaoh was; Rasekenen retained the Thebaid, and after Apophis' defeat erected large buildings in Memphis and Thebes.
The papyrus Sallier I represents Apophis' reign as cruel and ending in an internecine He and his predecessors rejected the national worship for of Sutech = Set = the evil principle Typhon exclusively; his name Apepi means the great serpent, enemy of Ra and Osiris. Sutech answers to the Phoenician Baal, and is represented in inscriptions as the Hittites' chief god, and had human sacrifices at Heliopolis under the Hyksos, which Aahmes I suppressed.
JOSEPH'S PHARAOH. - There is nothing of Joseph's history which does not agree with the most prosperous period of the native dynasties; their inscriptions illustrate every fact recorded in Genesis concerning Joseph's Pharaoh. Shepherds were, according to Genesis, "an abomination to the Egyptians" in Joseph's time; this is decisive against his living under a shepherd king. The names of the first three of the 48 kings of the 13th dynasty in the papyrus at Turin resemble Joseph's Egyptian title given by Pharaoh as his grand vizier Zafnath Paanaeh the food of life," or "the living" (compare the apposite title of the type, John 6:35). Joseph may therefore have lived trader an early Pharaoh of the 13th dynasty, prior to the Hyksos, or else of the 12th; compare the story of Saneha under Osirtasin above. This 12th dynasty was especially connected with On or Heliopolis, where Osirtasin I, the second king of that dynasty, built the temple, and where his name and title stand on the famous obelisk, the oldest and finest in Egypt.
On was the sacerdotal city and university of northern Egypt; its chief priest, judging from the priests' titles, was probably a relative of Pharaoh. As absolute, Pharaoh could command the marriage of Joseph to the daughter of the priest of On, however reluctant the priesthood might be to admit a foreigner. Moreover, Joseph being naturalized would hardly be looked on as such, especially as being the king's prime minister. The "Ritual," 17th chapter, belongs to the 11th dynasty, and is the oldest statement of Egyptian views of the universe. It implies a previous pure monotheism, of which it retains the unity, eternity, self-existence of the unseen God; a powerful confirmation of the primitive Bible revelation to Adam handed down to Noah, and thence age by age becoming more and more corrupted by apostasies from the original truth; the more the old text of the "Ritual" is freed from subsequent glosses, the more it approaches to revealed truth.
A sound pure morality in essentials and the fundamentals of primeval religion underlies the forms of worship, in spite of the blending with superstitious. This partly accounts for Joseph's making such a marriage. Chnumhotep, a near relative and favorite of Osirtasin I, is described on the tombs of Benihassan as having precisely such qualities as Pharaoh honored in Joseph: "he injured no little child, oppressed no widow, detained for his own purpose no fisherman, took from work no shepherd or overseer's men; there was no beggar in his days, no one starved in his time; when years of famine occurred, he plowed all the lands producing abundant food; he treated the widow as a woman with a husband to protect her." The division of land permanently into 36 nomes (Diodorus, 1:54), the redistribution of property, and the tenure under the crown subject to a rent of the fifth of the increase, are measures which could only emanate from a native Pharaoh.
Long afterward, Rameses II himself, or else popular tradition, appropriated these works to him or to his father Seti I; also the name Sesostris was appropriated to him. Had it been the work of the Hyksos, it would have been undone on the restoration of the legitimate Pharaohs. Amenemha III, sixth king of the 12th dynasty, first established a complete system of dikes, cocks, and reservoirs, to regulate the Nile's inundation; he caused the lake Moeris to be made to receive the overflow and have it for irrigation in the dry season. Moeris (from the Egyptian mer a "lake") was near a place, Pianeh, "the house of life," corresponding to Joseph's title, Zafnath Paanah the food of life." Probably was the Pharaoh to whom Joseph owed his elevation, for Joseph was just such a minister as would carry out this Pharaoh's grand measures. The restoration of this lake would be the greatest boon to modern Egypt.
Amenemha III also formed the Labyrinth as a place of assembly for the representatives of the nomes on national matters of moment. The table of Abydos represents him as the last king of all Egypt in the old empire, and as such receiving worship from his descendant, Rameses. The Israelites remained undisturbed under the Hyksos, partly as offering no temptation to their cupidity, partly from the Hyksos' respect to the Israelites' ancestor Joseph's high character in his dealings with the Hyksos' ancestors when visiting Egypt in the famine. The Hyksos would have less motive for molesting the Israelites than for molesting native Egyptians. Restoration of the native dynasties; Pharaoh at the Exodus. Aahmes I (Amosis), founder of the 18th dynasty, married Neterfurt, an Ethiopian princess, named and portrayed on many monuments. With Ethiopian allies thus obtained, probably, he marched on Avaris in northern Egypt, Apophis' stronghold, and overthrew and expelled the Hyksos. Of him it could best be said "there arose up a new king" (Exodus 1:8), new to most Egyptians and especially those of northern Egypt.
He "knew not Joseph," and found Joseph's people Israel in Goshen, settled in the richest land, rather favored than molested by the preceding Hyksos kings, in numbers (Exodus 1:9) exceeding the native population, and so perhaps likely to join (Exodus 1:10) any future invaders such as the Arab Hyksos had been, and commanding the western approach to the center of the land. His policy then was to prevent their multiplication, and set them to build depositories of provisions and arms on the eastern frontier: Pithom (either = Pachtum en Zaru, "the fortress of foreigners," in the monuments of Thothmes III., or more probably "the sanctuary of Tum," connected with a fortress), and Rameses, from Ra "the sun god" and mesu "children," the Egyptians' peculiar name to distinguish themselves from foreigners (Mizraim is related), a name naturally given in a district associated with the sun god's worship.
Aahmes I named his son Rames, and being the restorer of the sun worship would be most likely to name one treasure city Raamses the city of Rameses II, Meiamon, named from himself, in the 19th dynasty, in the midst of a flourishing population, was vastly changed from the earlier Raamses built by Israel in the midst of their oppressed and groaning population. In an inscription of the 22nd year of Aahmes I Fenchu are described as transporting limestone blocks from the quarries of Rufu to Memphis and other cities; the name means "bearers of the shepherd's staff," an appropriate designation of the nomadic tribes of Semitic origin near Egypt, including the Israelites, who are designated by no proper name, though undoubtedly they were in Egypt in the 18th dynasty. Lepsuis fixes the accession of Aahmes I at 1706 B.C. Thethroes II was probably the Pharaoh who perished in the Red Sea, the year of the Exodus 1647 B.C. (1652 B.C., Smith's Bible Dictionary)
The interval between the temple building, 1010 B.C., (See CHRONOLOGY.) and the Exodus is calculated by advocates of the longer chronology to be 638 years. The 480 years interval between the Exodus and Solomon's temple is probably a copyist's error (1 Kings 6:1). However, the later date, 1525 B.C., for Aahmes I, and 1463 for the last year of Thothmes II, would support the shorter interval 480; and if two stouts found at the temple built by Thothroes III at Elephantine refer to the same time (?), one giving his name, the other stating that the 28th of the month Epiphi was the festival of the rising of Sothis, i.e. Sirius, the date would be 1445 B.C.; and as the temple was built in the last seven years of his 48 years' reign, the last year of Thothmes II would be 1485-1492, in accordance with 1 Kings 6:1. Probably nearly 100 years (including the 80 years from Moses' birth to his return from Midian) elapsed between the accession of Aahmes I and the Exodus.
On his death the dowager queen, an Ethiopian, Nefertari, was regent, Moses' second marriage to an Ethiopian subsequently may have been influenced by his former connection with Pharaoh's daughter, and by the court's connection with Ethiopia. Her son Amenophis (Amenhotep I) succeeded. He, with his admiral Ahmes, led an expedition into Ethiopia against an insurgent. Moses as the adopted child of the king's sister naturally accompanied his master, and proved himself as Stephen says (Acts 7:22), and Josephus in detail records, "mighty in words and in deeds." His connection with Ethiopia would thus be intimate. During the reign of Thothmes I, Moses was in Midian. Thothmes I, according to a rock inscription opposite the island of Tombos, subjugated the region between Upper Egypt and Nubia proper; and Ethiopia was henceforth governed by princes of the blood royal of Egypt, the first being named Memes, a name related to that given by Pharaoh's daughter to her adopted son, Moses.
A sepulchral inscription records a great victory of Thothmes I in Mesopotamia. The acquisition of Nubia ("the land of gold") furnished the means of acquiring chariots, for which after this date Egypt was famous. Aahmes (Amessis in Josephus), wife and sister of Thothmes I (an incestuous marriage unknown to the early Pharaohs), succeeded him as regent for 20 years. Then Thothroes II, son of Thothmes I, in the beginning of his short reign warred successfully against the Shasous or N.E. nomadic tribes. He was married to his sister Hatasou, who succeeded as queen regnant. At his death the confederate nations N. of Palestine revolted, and no attempt to recover them was made until the 22nd year of Thothemes III.
The sudden collapse after a brilliant beginning, his death succeeded by the reigning of a woman for so long after him instead of his son, the absence of the glorious records which marked his predecessors' reigns, and no effort being made to regain Egypt's former possessions, all accord with the view that the plagues which visited Egypt, the Exodus after the slaying of the firstborn, and the final catastrophe at the Red Sea, occurred in his reign. Of course no monument would commemorate the king's and the nation's disasters. Moses returning from Midian at the close of the reign of Thothmes II found him at Zoan (i.e. Tunis or Avaris), the city taken by Aahmes I in Lower Egypt (Psalms 78:12); the restlessness of the neighboring Shasous or Bedouins would require his presence there.
This Pharaoh was weak, capricious, and obstinate, and such a one as Hatasou (a superstitions devotee as the inscriptions prove, and there fore furious at the dishonors done through Moses' God to her favorite idols and priests, and above all at the crowning calamity, the death of her firstborn) would urge on to avenge all her wrongs on the escaped bondservants. On her beautiful monument at Thebes she is represented with masculine attire and beard, and boasting of the idol Ammon's favor and of her own gracious manners.
Each fit of terror which each fresh plague excited in the monarch soon gave way to renewed hardening of, his heart under her influence, until the door of repentance was forever shut against him; compare 2 Corinthians 7:10; Proverbs 29:1. Artapanus, a Jewish historian quoted by Alexander Polyhistor (Fragm. Hist. Greek, 3:223), Sylla's contemporary, wrote: "the Memphites say that Moses led the people across the bed of the sea at the ebb of the tide; but they of Heliopolis that the king was with a vast force pursuing the Jews, because they were carrying away the riches borrowed of the Egyptians. Then God's voice commanded Moses to smite the sea with his rod, so the sea parted asunder, and the host marched through on dry ground."
ISRAEL IN EGYPT. - The Egyptian monuments illustrate Israel's oppression in many points. Bricks were the common material of building, and for the king's edifices were stamped with his name. Chopped straw was used, as hair by plasterers, to make them more durable. Captives did the work in the royal brickfields; taskmasters with rods and the bastinado punished the idle. The entire stalk was left standing in cutting the wheat, so that stubble was easy to find in the fields. Though field labor is light, yet from the continued succession of crops and intense heat the cultivators' lot is a hard one. The storing of water in vessels of wood and stone (Exodus 7:19) is uniquely Egyptian. Reservoirs and cisterns were needless where the Nile and its canals made water so plentiful. But its turbid water at certain seasons needs purification for drinking; so it is kept in stone or wooden vessels until the sediment falls to the bottom.
The arts which Israel as a nomadic race knew not when they entered Egypt, such as writing, gem setting, working metals, carving, tanning, dyeing, linen weaving, building, they acquired before they left, and probably some Egyptians accompanied them (Exodus 12:38). Thothmes III remained against his will a subject, while his sister ruled for 17 years. On ascending the throne he effaced her titles on the monuments, and reckoned his own reign from his predecessor's death. In the 22nd year of his reign, according to the inscriptions in his temple dedicated to Ammon on his return, he marched to encounter the allied kings of all the districts between the Euphrates and the Mediterranean. He defeated them with great slaughter at Megiddo. The chiefs presented him as tribute gold, silver, bronze, lapis lazuli, precious coffers, gold- and silver-plated chariots, highly wrought Phoenician vases, a gold inlaid bronze harp, ivory, perfumes, wine; proofs of the high civilization of the then lords of Palestine.
The confederacy which gave unity and strength to its Canaanite and other inhabitants was thus, in God's special providence, broken by Thothmes III just 17 years before Israel's invasion, to prepare an easy conquest for them. He defeated their "892 chariots" (curiously answering to Jabin's 900, Judges 4); also the "Cheta" or Hittites, and the "Rutens" or Syrians of Mesopotamia, Assur, Babel, Nineveh, Shinar, and the Remenen or Armenians. He brought home numerous captives, who are represented in Ammon's temple at Abd el Kurna making bricks, as the Israelites had done. His wars ended in the 40th year of his reign, i.e. just at the close of Israel's 40 years in the desert, when about to enter Canaan. Thus, the terror of Midian and Moab at Israel's approach (Numbers 22:3-4) is partly accounted for, as they were still smarting under Thothmes' defeat.
Egypt retained only such strongholds as commanded the N. road by the coast rate Syria, and left the petty kings (broken-spirited and disunited, and, as Scripture represents, liable to panics before any new foe) to keep their almost impregnable forts. The Israelites in the desert of Tih, out of the way of the coast road, offered no inducement to the conqueror. Had they remained in the peninsula of Sinai, they would have been within his reach; for its western district was subject to Egypt from the time of Snefru, the last Pharaoh of the 3rd dynasty. The most ancient existing monument records that he defeated the Ann, the old inhabitants, and founded a colony at Wady Mughara. The copper mines there were worked under Churn (Cheops) of the 4th dynasty and other monarchs long after, though it seems they were not worked and the Sinai peninsula not occupied by Egyptians at the date of the Exodus.
To the mines of this district attention has of late afresh been drawn. It may seem strange that the Pharaohs, supreme in western Asia up to Saul's time, yet allowed Israel to invade and permanently occupy Palestine. But Egypt's policy was to be content with plunder, tribute of submissive chieftains, and prisoners; and not, like Assyria, to occupy conquered countries permanently. The warrior caste, the Calasirians and Hermotybians, preferred returning to their settled homes to cultivate the fields after the inundation each year. Besides, Israel attacked Egypt's enemies, the Hittites and Amorites; and the Israelite kingdom, while not so large as to excite the jealousy of Egypt, was large enough to prevent the reunion of the powers overthrown by Thothmes III. His successor, Amenhotep II, in making war transported his troops to Phoenicia by sea, as the representations on Aahmes' tomb at El-kab, of this period, show.
He conquered the Rutens (according to an inscription in Amada in Nubia), advanced as far as Nineveh, and hanged seven princes of the confederates at Tachis, a city in Syria, with head downward, on the prow of his ship. Amenhotep III also conducted expeditions to the Soudan, but mainly was occupied in erecting magnificent works. He was married to a remarkable woman, not of royal birth or Egyptian creed, Tel, daughter of Juan (akin to Judah) and Tuaa. In 1 Chronicles 4:17 Mered, son of Ezra two generations after Caleb founded a family by an Egyptian wife (See BITHIAH , daughter of Pharaoh, a name closely resembling Tei daughter of Juaa. Its settlement was at Eshtemoa in the hills of Judah S. of Hebron. Amenophis IV, Tei's son (whose features are distinctly Semitic), revolutionized, under her influence, Egypt's religion as to its grosser idolatries, such as the phallus worship of Khem, and introduced a more spiritual worship. His name Khun Aten (akin to Adon "THE LORD"), i.e. glory of the sunbeam, refers to the Semitic name for God.
Thus, Egypt remained supreme in Mesopotamia in the earlier part of the judges' period. Then, during internal struggles, the Egyptian yoke was thrown off, and then scope was left for the invasion of Israel by Chushan Rishathaim of Mesopotamia, about a century after Joshua. He being expelled on one side, by Othniel, (and the Rutens or Assyrians consequently losing the ascendancy, toward the end of the 18th dynasty,) and Egypt being prostrated on the other side, Moab, Ammon, Amalek, under king Eglon, and Midian or Edom, naturally grew into power. The Cheta or Hittites also gradually extended their power from Cilicia to the Euphrates, holding Syria's strongholds, and encroaching on the powers of Palestine during all the time of the 19th dynasty. Manetho's testimony. - Manetho's account recognizes the scriptural fact that:
(1) the Israelites whom he confounds with the Hyksos had been employed in forced labors, and that they
(2) went forth from the region about Avaris (related to the Hebrew, i.e. Goshen) "by permission"
(3) of the Theban king whose father (i.e. the first king of the 18th dynasty) had driven out the Hyksos from the rest of Egypt, and that
(4) they took with them their "furniture and cattle" and traversed the region between Egypt and Syria, and settled in Judaea, and that the king in resisting them felt
(5) "he was fighting against the gods," and
(6) was afraid for the safety of his young son.
Elsewhere he calls them "lepers," and confounds Moses with Joseph of Heliopolis (On) whom he makes leader of the Exodus (perhaps drawn from the fact that Israel and Moses carried with them Joseph's body, Exodus 13:19) under the name Ostirsiph (i.e. rich in food zaf), and notices the historical fact that it was with an Ethiopian army the Theban king ejected (the lepers and their allies) the shepherds. (See above.) The "leprosy" attributed to them is drawn from the leprous hand whereby Moses proved his divine mission (Exodus 4:6), also from its prevalence among the Hebrew (Leviticus 13; 14). In the two centuries' interval between the early judges and Deborah, the chief strongholds of Palestine were occupied by the Canaanites, Hittites, Jebusites, etc., during Egypt's 19th dynasty, and are so represented in the monuments describing the attacks on them by Seti I. and Rameses II.
The open country was held by the Amorites. against whose iron chariots Israel could not stand (Judges 1:19); so the district from the S. border northward is called in the monuments" the land of the Amorites." Compare Judges 5:6, "the highways were unoccupied ... the villages ceased ... war was in the gates (of the strongholds). Was there a shield or spear seen among 40,000 in Israel?" Thus the Egyptian armies in traversing Syria would encounter no Israelite in the field and would only encounter Israel's foes. Seti I, 150 years after the Exodus, overwhelmed the anti-Egyptian confederacy of tribes from Cilicia to Mesopotamia, headed by the Assyrians. Under Rameses II, the Assyrians are not even mentioned in his great campaign in his fifth year. The Hittites or Cheta, N. of Palestine (Judges 1:26), became the great power opposed to Egypt under Seti I. Sisera is a Chetan name; and his master Jabin ruled the whole country in Merneptah's reign.
Seti I overcame the Shasous, i.e. the warlike nomads who overran Palestine, Moah, Ammon, Amalek the Hittites, etc., his aim being to conquer Syria and to occupy Kadesh which was its chief city (Edessa, on the Orontes). Rameses Merammon (Sesostris) was associated in the kingdom with his father from infancy, and succeeded him as sole king, with a family of 27 princes, at his death. Rameses reigned 67 years (according to the monument at Tunis), but it is uncertain how long before his father's death his reign is counted. He venerated his father in his early inscriptions, afterward effaced "Seti" for his own name. He is made by some the "new king" (Exodus 1). But facts and dates contradict it; and the assumption is false that he reigned 67 years after his father. The fortresses of Zaru and Pa-Ramesses which he enlarged existed previously, and therefore afford no argument for his being the Pharaoh who set Israel to work at Pithem and Rameses (which moreover are not certainly identical with Zaru and Pa-Ramesses).
Rameses set certain Aperu (identified by some with "Hebrew," by others explained" workmen") to work on the frontier in the region where Israel's forefathers had been bondservants in hard service. Four Egyptian documents quoted by Cook (Speaker's Commentary) contain the following particulars bearing on e question. The report of one. Kawisar (a Chetan), a commissariat officer at Pa-Ramesson, states to Rameses II that he has distributed rations to the Aperu who drew stores for the great fortress (Bekken) and to the soldiers. Another report, that of a scribe, Keniamen, to the kazana or high officer of Rameses' household, implies by their being employed to draw stones S. of Memphis, that the Aperu, if Israelites, were prisoners of war under military surveillance, not (as the Israelites before the Exodus) residents working in their own district under Egyptian taskmasters.
Moreover, 2,083 Aperu resided under Rameses III, 800 worked in the Hamamat quarry under Rameses IV similarly. These could not have been stayers behind after Israel's Exodus, for the Egyptians would not then have tolerated them. Rameses, in his 21st year, made a treaty with Chetasar, king of the Cheta, on equal terms, and married his daughter. Palestine thus remained in quiet between the times of Eglon and Shamgar. Merneptah succeeded, and defeated confederate Libyans, Asiatics, and Tyrrhenians, Sicilians and Achaeans. Had Moses returned to Egypt at that time he would surely have mentioned some of these races in Genesis 10. In Merneptah's reign southern Palestine was for the first time occupied by the Philistines, and northern Palestine subdued by Jabin the Canaanite king and his captain Sisera, who was chief of the Syrian confederates, with 900 chariots answering to the 892 taken by Thethroes III on the same battlefield, Megiddo.
This was about 1320 B.C., which year all Egyptologers agree occurred in Merneptah's reign. Rameses III was the last Egyptian who gained great victories in Syria, transporting his forces there by sea, and conquering the Cheta. This overthrow of the Chetan confederacy, after Jabin's defeat by Deborah, secured peace to Palestine. When Egypt's monarchy became weaker some years later, Midian oppressed Israel (Judges 6). But Egypt retained a general ascendancy in Syria and Mesopotamia until the end of the Second dynasty, answering to the end of the period of the Judges.
Thus, God's providence secured Israel from being crushed by tire overwhelming rival empires; and meanwhile the nation's character' was being molded and its resources prepared for the high place width it assumed among the great, kingdoms under Saul, David, and Solomon. The general scheme and facts above (as also the table below) are drawn in part from Cook's interesting essay in the Speaker's Commentary, also from Professor Rawlinson's, Dr. Birch's, and Hengstenberg's works:
YEAR DYNASTIES CONTEMPORARY EVENTS RECORDED ON THE MONUMENTS SCRIPTURAL PARALLEL EVENTS
B.C. 2700 ... FIRST DYNASTY: THINITES (named from This, W. of the river, or Abydos). Begins with Menes.
B.C. 2470 ... SECOND; also THINITES (contemporaneous - In the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, a tablet records poraneous with the Fourth). a king of the 2nd dynasty whose existence is known to us by the Tablet of Abydos
B.C. 2650 ... THIRD; MEMPHITES The last of the 3rd dynasty, with whom real history begins, Snefru, conquers the Anu, plants a colony at Wady Mughara, and occupies the W. of the Sinai peninsula and explores its turquoise and copper mines.
B.C. 2500 ... FOURTH; MEMPHITES Erection of the pyramids of Jizeh by Suphis and Sensuphis, the Great one the oldest of the three. The names Suphis, or Shofo (or Cheops), and Nou-shofo (Chephren, Herodotus), were found in "the chambers of construction," but hieroglyphics are not in the Great Pyramid itself. Explained by Piazzi Smith that they were shepherd kings (compare Genesis 49:24) of an earlier dynasty than those of the 14th and 17th dynasties; from Jerusalem, holding the (pure faith of Melchizedek, and therefore hated Manetho and Herodotus) by the Egyptians. as foreigners and opponents of idolatry; forbidding any sculptures or painted emblems of the idols, in the pyramid, which was designed as the sacred standard of metrology of time, capacity, weight, line, square and cubic measure, heat, latitude, temperature, and indicated the mean density and true figure of the earth, standing in the political center of the earth. Shofo warred with the Arabs, according to the monuments.
FIFTH: ELEPHANTINES (contem-poraneous with the Fourth).
B.C. 2200 ... SIXTH; MEMPHITES (contemporaneous - In the Boulak Museum, Cairo, a monumental inscription raneous with the Ninth and exists, set up by Una, scribe and crown-bearer Eleventh). to King Teta, and "priest of the place of his pyramid," to Pepi, successor of Teta, of the 6th dynasty.
SEVENTH; MEMPHITES
EIGHTH; Memphites
NINTH; HERACLEOPOLITES (contemporaneous with the 6th and 11th dynasties)
TENTH; Heracleopolites
ELEVENTH; DIOSPOLITES (contemporaneous with the 6th and 9th dynasties)
About B.C. 2000 TWELFTH; DIOSPOLITES: Seven Dawn of poetry and philosophy; astronomy added Abram was graciously received. Pharaohs: Amenemha I, the five Epact days to the old 360. The capital Osirtasin I, Amenemha II, shifted from Memphis to Thebes. Foreigners Osirtasin II, Osirtasin III, from western Asia received and promoted by the Amenemha III, Amenemha IV; early Pharaohs. The latter execute great works and a queen, Ra-Sebek- of irrigation, to guard against famine. This Nefrou. 12th dynasty worshipped Amen (the occult god, hidden in nature), at Thebes. The Labyrinth, and the artificial Lake Moeris, their work.
THIRTEENTH: DIOSPOLITES (contemporary with the Shepherds). Pharaohs named Sebek-hotep.
About B.C. 1750 Fourteenth; XOITES, in Upper The early Pharaohs lords of all Egypt. Then the Joseph under an early Egypt (contemporaneous Hyksos, chief of the Shasous or" Nomads," seize Pharaoh, of the 13th dynasty, with the 15th and 16th N. Egypt; introduce worship of Sut, Sutech, or or under Amenemha III, dynasties in Lower Egypt). Baal-Salatis, the first Hyksos king; Apepi, the the sixth king of the 12th
FIFTEENTH; HYKSOS, or SHEP- last, overcome by Aahmes I; and Avaris, Tanis, dynasty. HERDS (contemporaneus with or Zoan, the Hyksos stronghold, taken, and the the 14th and 16th dynasties), Shepherds expelled. Rasetnub (the Saites of Sixteenth: SHEPHERDS (contemporaneous - Manetho) was leader of the Hyksos; his name temporaneous with the occurs on a tablet of Rameses II, 1300 B.C., who 14th and 15th dynasties). says Rasetnub's era was 400 years before, i.e. 1700 B.C.; also on a lion at Bagdad (Dr. Birch).
About B.C 1525; SEVENTEENTH; APEPI, or but Lepsius, APOPHIS, last of the Hyksos. B.C. 1706 Ta-aaken Rasckenen, last of the contemporary Egyptian Pharaohs.
B.C. 1525... or EIGHTEENTH: DIOSPOLITES: Expels the Shepherds. Great buildings by forced Aahmes I., the" new king" B.C. 1706 Aahmes I (Nefertari, a Nubian labor. Theban worship restored. Expedition who imposed bond-service queen, regent), Amenhotep I, into Ethiopia under Amenhotep I. Successful upon Israel, building Thothmes I (Aahmes regent), expeditions into Nubia and Mesopotamia under forts in their own land. Thothmes II, Thothmes III, Thothmes I. First part of reign of Thothmes II Moses was saved and adopted Amenhotep IV (Khun-Aten); prosperous. Ends in a blank, followed by a by an Egyptian princess. B.C. 1463; or three kings, Horemheb, ille- general revolt of the Syrian confederates. Hata- Flees into Midian. Re- B.C. 1485. gitimate. son queen regnant for 17 or 22 years. Thothmes turn of Moses. The Exodus.
Lepsius, B.C. III recovers the ascendancy in Syria in the Pharaoh and his army 1647 22nd year, and invades Mesopotamia, and reduces perish in the Red Sea. Nineveh. His wars end in the 40th year of his Israel was in the wilderness reign. Monuments of him exist in El Karnak, for forty years. Joshua in the sanctuary of Thebes. Amenhotep II invades the 40th year enters Syria by sea; overthrows the confederates N. of Canaan. Israel acquires Palestine. Amenhotep III, and his queen Tel, most of Canaan. a foreigner favor a purer worship. Raise the temple at Thebes, where the vocal Memnon and its fellow now stand. Amenhotep IV, Khun-Aten, completes the religious revolution. A period Chushan Rishathaim invades follows of internal struggles, during which Israel. Mesopotamia threw off Egypt's yoke.
NINETEENTH. Rameses I, Seti I, Wars with the Cheta, now the dominant race in The interval between Chushan Rameses II, Merneptah I, Syria. Seti I subdues the Shasous or nomads Rishathaim and Seti II, Am-Emmeses, Siptah, from Egypt to Syria, the Cheta, and Mesopota- Jabin. Palestine still in Tauser. mians. The great hypostyle hall of El Karnak the hands of the Amorites built. Bas-reliefs of his successes on the N. wall. and Canaanites. Toward The empire's highest civilization. Rameses II the end of this period, co-regent with his father many years. Defeats subject to the Philistines the Cheta; contracts a treaty with their king, on the south, and whose daughter he marries. Captives employed to the Cheta or Hittites in enlarging fortresses, etc. The Aperu employed on the north. Revolt at Pa-Ramesses and Zaru. Reigns, dating, from against Jabin. Over- B.C. 1320 ... his co-regency, 67 years in all. The temples he throw of the Chetan built in Egypt and Nubia outshone all others. Sisera, in Merneptab's reign.
TWENTIETH; Rameses III. Successes in Africa and Asia. The Cheta subdued. Events in Judges, after 12 more of the same name, Aperu employed in the king's domains; also in Deborah and Barak. with distinguishing surnames. the quarries. Rameses III records his successes on his great temple of Medeenet Haboo in western Thebes; among them a naval victory in the Mediterranean over the Tokkaree (Carians) and Shairetana (Cretans). Other Shairetana (Cherethim) se
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Fausset, Andrew R. Entry for 'Egypt'. Fausset's Bible Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/fbd/e/egypt.html. 1949.
