The Exodus Saga – 3

The names of the patriarchs in Genesis are almost uniformly of a type that most probably derives from the Middle Bronze Age, the Hyksos era. This is true of Isaac, Ishmael, Israel, Joseph and especially Jacob. Names of this type are relatively rare after the Middle Bronze, yet they appear in a high concentration in Israelite ancestral lore. Our inference should be that the ancestral lore has its roots in—that is, the names of the patriarchs derive from—the Middle Bronze Age, the period of the Hyksos. All the indications are that Israelite lore has in fact picked up on a stream of tradition the headwaters of which stem from that time.

Now, what implications does this have for the event of the Exodus? The Bible places this event overtly under Merneptah (c. 1237–1227 BCE), and the oppression under Ramesses II (c. 1304–1238). And there are convincing details: Texts of Ramesses II even refer to construction by captive ‘Apiru,[1]  an Egyptian term for a type of Semite sometimes encountered in small numbers on military campaigns. This term is probably related to the later Israelite word, “Hebrew” (‘ivri), used in the Bible to describe Israelite ethnicity to foreigners, and used frequently in the Book of Exodus. But the Egyptian term, “‘Apiru,” lost its currency by the tenth century. Though the Israelite ethnicon “Hebrew” survived, the juxtaposition of the two similar words may reflect the origins of the Egyptian term in the second millennium BCE.

The brickmaking, too, described as part of the oppression, reflects close knowledge of conditions in Egypt. A 15th-century tomb painting depicts Canaanite and Nubian captives making bricks at Thebes. One text even complains about a dearth of straw for brickmaking—a situation encountered by Israel in Egypt.[2]  In Canaan, by contrast, straw was not typically an ingredient of mudbrick. Almost every detail in the tradition mirrors conditions under the XIXth Dynasty.[3]  Especially, the idea of a sudden rise in forced labor around the time of Ramesses II is entirely consonant with historical reality. [4]

To reoccupy Avaris/Per-Ramses, Ramesses II constructed a dominating palace, lavish temples and ambitious waterworks. He decorated his new capital with statuary and other monuments on a grand scale, almost without end. And, of course, he imported to the new capital the infrastructure to support both the ongoing construction and the government of Egypt.

At the same time, a significant proportion of the population of the Delta, drafted into public construction, was Semitic. Asiatic captives were typically employed in temple construction and other state projects under the XVIIIth Dynasty. But typically, this was in the south. [5]  It was the Delta, and especially the eastern Delta, that was an Asiatic cultural preserve. [6] Its potential for labor was first tapped by Ramesses II. Ramesses II built huge public works on a truly massive scale all over Egypt, stamping his name across the landscape from the Delta to Abu Simbel. He made extensive use of forced labor, and no doubt of Semitic slaves, in these enterprises. [7]

However long the Israelites stayed in Egypt, then, the biblical presentation identifies Exodus with the end of the Late Bronze Age. Ramesses II is the pharaoh of the oppression, in the 13th century BCE The city, (Per-) Ramses, was constructed in the 13th century: Pithom was also occupied at about this time, though its location remains a matter of some controversy.[8]  The scale of the Israelite enslavement, too, best matches the time of Ramesses II, when a strong and martial Egypt flourished, and monumental construction in the grand style reached its apogee based in part on exactions in Asia. In fact, if Ramesses II’s 400-year stele has inspired the biblical tradition of a 400-year sojourn in Egypt, a conviction that Ramesses II was the pharaoh of the oppression has actually shaped the development of Israel’s traditions: The Semites subjected to forced labor in the Delta identified themselves with the traditions of their Hyksos predecessors, against the Egyptian pharaoh; thus Israel came to identify itself with the Hyksos. The nature of the biblical tradition assumes a very reasonable cast if one assumes that behind it is an experience of forced labor in the late XVIIIth or early XIXth Dynasty.

Further, the list of peoples Israel allegedly encountered when en route from Egypt to Canaan speaks strongly for an exodus in the same era: Midian, Amalek, Edom, Moab and Ammon (Numbers 13, 14, 20–24). Moab first appears as a nation, organized as such, in the time of Ramesses II. The Edomites first appear as such under Merneptah, the son of Ramesses II, probably in southern Transjordan. Midian and Amalek occupied territory in the southern reaches of Canaan or in the Hejaz in Iron I, just after Merneptah’s time, but are unknown either before or after. [9]

Notes:

[1]  See R. A. Caminos, Late-Egyptian Miscellanies (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1954), p. 491; J. Bottéro, Le problème des Habiru, Cahiers de la Société Asiatique 12 (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1954), p. 187f The texts (Papyrus Leiden 348, vs. 6:6; 349, r. 15) concern grain rations for the soldiers and ‘Apiru transporting stone for “the great pylon” of a building of Ramesses II in Memphis. The term ‘Apiru first appears in texts of the Middle Kingdom and continues in use into the XXth Dynasty.
[2]  See Caminos, Late-Egyptian Miscellanies, p. 188. The laborers in the biblical account are deprived of their straw allotment and compelled to gather straw locally in order to meet their quotas (Exodus 5:5–19). That is, the nature of Israel’s conscription is lavishly illustrated by Egyptian documents and art: corvée among Semites, brickmaking with straw, even brickmaking quotas are amply documented. See esp. C. F. Nims, “Bricks without Straw,” Biblical Archaeologist 13 (1950), pp. 22–28. For the scale of such enterprises, note the XIXth Dynasty scroll assigning “stablemasters”—presumably offficers like the Israelite overseers in Exodus 5—quotas amounting in all to 80,000 bricks. See on this and further, Kenneth H. Kitchen, “From the Brickfields of Egypt,” Tyndale Bulletin 27 (1976), pp. 136–147; A. Spenser, Brick Architecture in Ancient Egypt (Warminster, UK: Aris and Phillips, 1979).
[3]  To the Israelite request, for example, for permission to desist from work and celebrate a festival for YHWH, “the god of the Hebrews” (Exodus 3:18, 5:3, 8:23), scholars compare the respite accorded to corvée laborers on days of special sacrifices. See Kitchen, Ancient Orient and Old Testament (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity, 1975), pp. 156–157;
[4]  See Kitchen, The Bible in Its World (Exeter, UK: Paternoster, 1977), pp. 76–77. The kings of the XIXth Dynasty generally restricted their major public works to the southern Delta; even their northern residence in Memphis was south of the Delta. The last king of the dynasty, Horemheb (1347–c. 1318 on the high chronology), was the first to undertake a project at Avaris. Seti I (c. 1316–1304 BCE) installed a palace at Avaris/Per-Ramses. But his son, Ramesses II, transferred the capital to this site.
 [5] Amenhotep III, in a stele to Amun later defaced by Akhenaten, speaks of settlements of Canaanites (Hurru) surrounding his temple to Amun west of Thebes, see Breasted, ARE 2.884. This is the stone, restored by Seti I, on the back of which Merneptah inscribed the Israel Stele.
[6]  In Memphis alone there was a merchant “camp of the Tyrians” and temples to the Canaanite god Baal and to Baal and Ashtarte. Canaanite goddesses, Anat and Qudshu, entered the Egyptian pantheon during the XVIIIth Dynasty, and the cult of the god Reshep flourished in the Delta. One father even accuses a son who has reached the Delta of adopting Asiatic practices. See generally Donald B. Redford, Akhenaten, the Heretic King (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1984), pp. 27–29; R. Stadelmann, Syrisch-pallistinensische Gottheiten in Agypten (Leiden: Brill, 1967), cited there.
[7]  On Semitic slaves, see G. Posener, “Une list de noms propres étrangers” Syria 18 (1937), pp. 183–197; see also W. Helck, Der Einfluss der Militär-führer in der 18. ägyptischen Dynastie (Hildesheim, Germ.: Olms, 1964), p. 21.
[8]  See Manfred Bietak, Avaris and Piramesse, on the location of Ramses at Tell ed-Dab‘a, and John van Seters, The Hyksos: A New Investigation (New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press, 1966), pp 127–151; see esp. Manfred Bietak, Tell ed-Dab‘a II. Der Fundort im Rahmen einer archäologisch-geographischen Untersuchung über das ägyptische Ostdelta (Vienna: Oesterreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1975), pp. 179–221. The identification of Tanis (San) with Avaris/Ramses, long held to be most probable, is precluded by the absence from that site of any Asiatic material culture antedating the 11th century. Interestingly, the onomasticon of Amenope, at the end of the Ramesside era, still reflects the knowledge that Tanis and Per-Ramses were distinct sites, see Alan H. Gardiner, Ancient Egyptian Onomastica II (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1947), #410 and #417.
On the location of Pithom, for Merneptah’s building activity there, see Papyrus Anastasi 6.51–61, translated in Breasted, ARE 3.638. In Wilson, “Egyptian Historical Texts,” ANET, p. 259, a border official reports the passage of “pastoralists of Edom (‘dwm)” from the fort of Merneptah—in the region of Tjeku (T_kw)—to the pools of “Per-’Atum of Merneptah” (or Pithom). This indication of settlement—and use of the pools by Edomite elements for grazing—in New Kingdom times precludes an identification of Merneptah’s Per-’Atum with Tell el-Maskhuta: Maskhuta was unoccupied from the time of the Middle Kingdom until the Saite period. See John S. Holladay, Cities of the Delta, Part III/Tell el-Maskhutah, American Research Center in Egypt Reports 6 (Malibu, CA: Undena, 1982), pp. 6, 19; Redford, “Exodus I, 11, ” Vetus Testamentum (VT) 13 (1963), pp. 401–418. Contrast W. Helck, “Tjeku und die Ramses Stadt,” VT 15 (1965), pp. 35–48, for an effort to locate Pithom at Tell el-Maskhuta and to identify it with Tjeku—an effort that must be judged abortive in light both of the archaeological evidence and of the clear indications from Papyrus Anastasi 6 that Tjeku was a region.
The other principal candidate in the Wadi Tumilat, Tell er-Retaba, halfway (eight and a half miles) between Maskhuta and the Delta, remains a possibility. A Roman milestone found at Maskhuta seems to indicate that Tell er-Retaba is that site (Alan H. Gardiner, “The Delta Residence of the Ramessides,” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 5 [1918], pp. 127–138, 179–200, 242–271, esp. p. 269; recently, William H. Stiebing, Jr., Out of the Desert? Archaeology and the Exodus/Conquest Narratives [Buffalo, NY: Prometheus, 1989], p. 58). Holladay’s survey did not detect occupation at Tell er-Retaba before the XXth Dynasty either, but there were signs of settlement shortly thereafter, and the possibility of a small New Kingdom establishment therefore remains (see Holladay, Tell el-Maskhutah 6 and in conversation). However, this may have no direct bearing on the location of the more ancient site.
In any event, Pithom was located in the region of Tjeku, on the eastern border of Egypt, where nomads might enter from Asia. Tjeku was probably biblical Succoth—Egyptian t_ corresponding to Hebrew s—identified in late texts as Israel’s first stopping place after its departure from the city, Ramses (Exodus 13:20; Numbers 33:5–6); the Hebrew term may well reflect a familiarity with the Egyptian terminology—indicating in what area the Israelites encamped (other references to waystations include areas such as the wilderness of Sin, the Reed Sea and the like), rather than giving a name to a particular encampment.
Probably identifying Ramses as Tanis, the author of one Pentateuchal source (probably E) felt called upon to explain the route of the Exodus from Egypt: “When pharaoh sent the people forth, God did not lead them by the way of the land of the Philistines [i.e., the coastal route]. God diverted the people onto the way of the wilderness of the Reed Sea … ” (Exodus 13:17–18). This can only mean that instead of taking the direct route eastward from Tanis, between Lake Menzaleh and Lake Ballah, by Qantara and past the fortress of Sile, the Israelites were deflected southward, to the region of the Wadi Tumilat, between Lake Ballah and Lake Timsah to the south.
The Wadi Tumilat is also the area most probably to be identified as the biblical Goshen, where the Israelites take up residence. It was “the best of the land of Egypt” (Genesis 45:10, 47:6, 11) where one could eat “the fat of the land”—agricultural produce, including cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic (Numbers 11:5)—and sustain extensive herds (as Genesis 45:10, 46:34, 47:3–4; Exodus 12:38), both of caprovines and of draft animals. Indeed, even the pharaoh’s flocks were pastured there (Genesis 47:6). Conditions in the Wadi Tumilat area, which is not so marshy as the lower Delta, evince all these traits. The traditional identification of Goshen with the Wadi Tumilat, in fact, certainly dates to the time when the name of Pithom (Tell el-Maskhuta) was added to the text of Exodus 1:11, which is to say, at least to the sixth century BCE See John S. Holladay, “‘And they built for Pharaoh Store-cities, Pithom and Ramses (Exodus 1:11c).’ An Archaeological Whodunnit,” Canadian Mediterranean Institute Bulletin (Summer 1987).
The introduction of Pithom into Exodus 1:11 is explicable if refugees from Judah, who settled there in the Saite era, encountered the Semitic Middle Bronze pottery on the site from the Hyksos era or, as Holladay suggests, learned of earlier Semitic occupation from local informants. Yet the identification of the site as one built earlier by Israelites presupposes Israel’s earlier residence in the Wadi Tumilat. In other words, the tradition that Israel inhabited Goshen is older than the introduction of Pithom into the Exodus account; this is why Pithom, of an the towns in which Judahites later settled, is singled out as a city of the oppression.
On the location of Goshen in the Wadi Tumilat, see esp. M. Har-El, The Sinai Journeys (San Diego, CA: Ridgefield, 1983), pp. 301–307. An alternate route for the Exodus, possibly along the coast in the line from Herakleopolis to Pelusium, or farther south in the region of Daphnae, is not to be excluded—either at some earlier stage of Israelite tradition or in terms of the historical Exodus. See generally, Yohanan Aharoni, The Land of the Bible. A Historical Geography, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1979), pp. 195–200.
The term “Goshen” (like the term “Tjeku”) probably designates not just the Wadi Tumilat but a region stretching from the Wadi Tumilat toward the Pelusiac branch of the Nile (van Seters, Hyksos, p. 148). Goshen was “in the land of Ramses” (Genesis 47:11 [J]), which is to say, in the hinterland of the capital. Moreover, the assumption of the Genesis and Exodus narratives is that Israel dwelled in the vicinity of the city Ramses. Not only does the Exodus begin from Ramses (Numbers 33:3, 5; Exodus 12:37), but Moses and Aaron repeatedly address both the pharaoh and the Israelites, and no narrator suggests that this mediation involved significant travel. Similarly, the daughter of the pharaoh is said to have found the infant Moses in the reeds of the Nile’s bank in the presence of Moses’ sister, who recommended his mother as a nursemaid (Exodus 2:3–9)—J’s text, thus, situates the household at Ramses. Possibly, the earliest traditions placing Israel in Goshen presupposed that the city Ramses was at Tell ed-Dab‘a on the Pelusiac branch of the Nile, rather than at Tanis to the north. Yet this must remain unsure: The tradition has adjusted to the transfer of the capital, making the assumption that the capital at Tanis was adjacent to Goshen. Thus, the possibility exists that the Israelite authors located Goshen between the Pelusiac and the Tanitic arms of the Nile (and, thus, the flight by way of Succoth to the south of Goshen). Indeed, Egyptians today identify the Ibn-Ezra synagogue (that of the Cairo Genizah) as the place where the pharaoh’s daughter found Moses on the Nile. As the capital city migrates, so does the residence of the ancient Israelites.
[9]  Generally, see R. G. Boling, The Early Biblical Community in Transjordan, Social World of Biblical Antiquity Series (Sheffield, UK: Almond, 1988). On Moab, see Wilson, “Egyptian Historical Texts,” ANET, p. 243; on Edom, see above for Papyrus Anastasi 6.51–61 under Merneptah. The land of (the Shasu, i.e., pastoralists of Seir (se3-‘3-i-r3), later known to Israel as Edomite territory, is mentioned in Ramesses II’s Amara West hypostyle geographical list, and Ramesses III or Ramesses IV speaks of Seir as being controlled by Shasu pastoralists, whom he plundered and captured (Papyrus Harris 1.76:9), without identifying them as Edomite. A XXIst Dynasty literary text (Papyrus Pushkin 127, 5:5) may suggest that a route to Mesopotamia ran through Seir (s3-‘3-i-r3), but the geography envisioned is not obvious (across northern Arabia?). The same is true of a reference to destruction of pastoralists in the hills of s-s-‘-r-i (Seir?) on the east side of an obelisk of Ramesses II found at Tanis (P. Montet and G. Goyon, Kémi 5 [1935–1937], pl. 3). El Amarna letters (EA) 288:25–27, from Abdi-Hepa, governor of Jerusalem under Amenhotep III and Akhenaten, can be rendered, loosely, “I am at war—as far as the lands of Se-e-ri, as far as the town of Gath-Karmel—all the governors are at peace, and I am at war.” This text is alsothe lands of Se-e-ri, as far as the town of Gath-Karmel—all the governors are at peace, and I am at war.” This text is also ambiguous, especially as to the identity of Gath-Karmel; however, whether this is identical with Judahite Carmel, with Gath-Karmel of EA 289:18–19 (to the north) or some other locus (as Philistine Gath), the passage can be construed to depict Seir as Abdi-Hepa’s southernmost (or easternmost) horizon.
For El Amarna letters, see now The Amarna Letters ed. William L. Moran (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1992). For editions of these texts concerning Edom, see M. Weippert, Edom. Studien und Materialen zur Geschichte der Edomiter auf Grundschriftlicher und archdologischen Quellen, Ph.D. dissertation (Tübingen, 1971), pp. 31–48. Ammon is not named in any record until Iron II, but was probably organized, as biblical accounts indicate (esp. Judges 10:6–12:6).