We Were Slaves to the Hyksos in Egypt

This article is based upon presentations at the annual meetings of the Society of Biblical Literature and the American Schools of Oriental Research: Joseph J. Weinstein, “Tell El-Dabʿa, the Exodus, and Israelite Prehistory” (paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, San Francisco, CA, 1997); “The Hyksos Origins of Israelite Religion and Culture” (paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, Orlando, FL, 1998); “The ‘Expulsion of the Hyksos’, the End of the Middle Bronze, and the Israelite ‘Conquest’” (paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research, Cambridge, MA, 1999); “Tjaru and the Battle at the Reed Sea” (paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research, Atlanta, GA, 2010).

See, e.g., Israel Finkelstein and Neil Silberman, The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel (New York: Free Press, 2001), 1.

The dates used in this article follow Kenneth Kitchen’s corrected “high” version of the low chronology; they are for orientation purposes only and should not be considered definitive. See, Kenneth Kitchen, “The Basics of Egyptian Chronology in Relation to the Bronze Age,” in High, Middle, or Low? Acts of an International Colloquium on Absolute Chronology Held at the University of Gothenburg 20th-22nd August 1987, ed. Paul Åström (Göthenburg: Aström, 1987), 37–55.

This idea, which is more than a century old, was championed in a number of publications by the noted American archaeologist and Bible scholar, William Foxwell Albright, See, e.g., “Archaeology and the Date of the Hebrew Conquest of Palestine,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 58 (1935): 10–18. For a recent defense of this identification, see James K. Hoffmeier, “What Is the Biblical Date for the Exodus? A Response to Bryant Wood,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 50.2 (2007): 225–247.

This suggestion was inspired by the stele in which Merneptah mentions Israel. See Samuel Mercer, “Merneptah’s Israel and the Exodus,” Anglican Theological Review 5 (1922/3): 96–107.

For the former suggestion, see Israel Knohl, “Exodus: The History Behind the Story,” TheTorah (2018); for the latter see, Gary Rendsburg, “The Pharaoh of the Exodus: Ramesses III,” TheTorah (2016).

For recent surveys of the history and political structures of this period, see Alexander Ilin-Tomich. “Second Intermediate Period” in UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, ed. by Willeke Wendrich, Jacoo Dieleman and Elizabeth Frood (Los Angeles: University of California, 2016); and Lutz Popko, “Late Second Intermediate Period to Early New Kingdom” also in UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology. References to earlier studies can be found in the bibliographic notes at the end of each article.

See the documents collected and translated in Donald B. Redford, “Textual Sources for the Hyksos Period,” in The Hyksos: New Historical and Archaeological Perspectives, ed. Eliezer D. Oren (Philadelphia: The University Museum, 1997), 1–44, and the much more limited collections in John Wilson, “Egyptian Myths, Epics, and Legends; Egyptian Historical Texts; Egyptian Hymns and Prayers; Egyptian Oracles and Prophecies; Egyptian Secular Songs and Poems; an Egyptian Letter,” in Ancient near Eastern Texts Related to the Old Testament (ANET) (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969), 230-234, 553-555; and in William Hallo and K. Lawson Younger, Jr. (eds.), The Context of Scripture (CoS), (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 1997-2000), passim.

Egyptian kings generally had five official names: 1) Horus name, 2) Two Ladies name, 3) Golden Horus name, 4) Sedge and Bee name, 5) Birth name. The last two were the ones most commonly used and placed in cartouches, and these are the names I put above. In most historical writing, the king is known by his birth name.

Papyrus Sallier I: recto i 1 - iii 3; verso ii-iii. British Museum no. 10185. Translations in Redford, “Textual Sources for the Hyksos Period,” 16 no. 73; Wilson in ANET, 231–232.

See discussion in, Garry J. Shaw, “The Death of King Seqenenre Tao,” Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 45 (2009): 159–176.

Translations by Wilson in ANET, 232–233, 554–555; Redford, “Textual Sources for the Hyksos Period,” 13–14 nos. 68–69.

The tomb epitaph of Ahmose si (son of) Abina; translations by Hoffmeier in CoS 2.5–7; Wilson in ANET, 232-234; and Redford, “Textual Sources for the Hyksos Period,” 15 no. 70. 2.

Stephen Harvey, “The Monuments of Ahmose at Abydos,” Egyptian Archaeology: The Bulletin of the Egypt Exploration Society 4, no. 3-5 (1994): 3–5.

The West Semitic character of the Delta’s population was first noted by John Van Seters and later substantiated by Manfred Bietak’s excavations at Tell el-Dabʿa. See, John Van Seters, The Hyksos: A New Investigation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967), and the following note.

The location of both the Hyksos capital of Avaris and the Ramesside-era capital of Pi-Ramesses near the modern towns of Tell el-Dabʿa, Ezbet Helmi, Qantir, and Khatana was first suggested by Mahmoud Hamza, and later confirmed through excavations by Labib Habachi. See Mahmoud Hamza, “Excavations of the Department of Antiquities at Qantîr (Faqûs Distrinct),” Annales du service des antiquités de l'Égypte XXX (1930), 31–68; Labib Habachi, “Khataʿna-Qantîr: Importance,” Annales du service des antiquités de l'Égypte LII (1954): 443–559. The site of Avaris has been under excavation since 1963 by a team from the Österreichischen Archäologischen Institutes led originally by Manfred Bietak and Josef Dorner, and now by Irene Forstner-Müller. See Manfred Bietak, “Avaris and Piramesse,” Proceedings of the British Academy 65 (1979), 225–296; idem, “Canaanites in the Eastern Nile Delta,” in Egypt, Israel, and Sinai: Archaeological and Historical Relationships in the Biblical Period, ed. Anson F. Rainey (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1987), 41–56; idem, “Egypt and Canaan During the Middle Bronze Age,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 281 (1991): 27–72; idem, Avaris: The Capital of the Hyksos (London: The British Museum, 1996); idem, “Avaris, Capital of the Hyksos Kingdon: New Results of Excavations,” in The Hyksos: New Historical and Archaeological Perspectives, ed. by Eliezer D. Oren (Philadelphia: The University Museum, 1997), 87–140; idem, “From Where Came the Hyksos and Where Did They Go?,” in The Second Intermediate Period (Thirteenth – Seventeenth Dynasties): Current Research, Future Prospects, ed. Marcel Marée (Leuven: Peeters, 2010), 139–181; Manfred Bietak, Nicola Math, and Vera Müller. “Report on the Excavations of a Hyksos Palace at Tell El-Dabʿa/Avaris (23^rd August - 15^th November 2011),” Ägypten und Levant XXII/XXIII (2012/2013): 17–53.

For more on what we know about biblical place names in Egypt, especially the Delta, see, David A. Falk, “What We Know about Egyptian Place Names Mentioned in Exodus,” TheTorah (2018).

Phyllis Saretta, Asiatics in Middle Kingdom Egypt: Perceptions and Reality, Bloomsbury Egyptology (New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2016), 25-61.

Bietak, Avaris: The Capital of the Hyksos, 63-83; idem, “Avaris, Capital of the Hyksos Kingdon: New Results of Excavations,” 115–117; Bietak, Math, and Müller, “Report on the Excavations of a Hyksos Palace at Tell El-Dabʿa/Avaris,” 18–52.

Tell Heboua I was excavated by Mohamed Abd el-Maksoud on behalf of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, beginning in the 1980’s. See Mohamed Abd el-Maksoud, Tell Heboua (1981-1991): Enquête Archéologique Sur La Deuxième Période Intermédiaire Et Le Nouvel Empire À L'extrémité Orientale Du Delta, Éditions Recherche Sur Les Civilisations (Paris: Minstère des Affairs Étrangères, 1998).

Tell el-Yahoudiya was excavated by Naville and Griffiths in the late 1800’s, and excavations recently reopened by the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities. See Olga Tufnell, “Graves at Tell El-Yehudiyeh: Reviewed after a Lifetime,” in Archaeology in the Levant: Essays for Kathleen Kenyon, ed. R. Moorey and P. Parr (Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 1978); Aiman Ashmawy Ali, “Preliminary Report on the SCA Excavation at Tell El-Yahudiya Season 2010-2011,” Ägypten und Levant 26 (2016).

For the archaeological data from Tell el-Maskhuta and the Wadi Tumilat, see John S. Holladay, Jr., “The Eastern Nile Delta During the Hyksos and Pre-Hyksos Periods: Toward a Systemic/Socioeconomic Understanding,” in The Hyksos: New Historical and Archaeological Perspectives, ed. Eliezer D. Oren (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum, 1997), 188; Carol Ann Redmount, “On an Egyptian/Asiatic Frontier: An Archaeological History of the Wadi Tumilat,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago (Ann Arbor, Michigan: University Microfilms, 1989).

Rzepka, Slawomir, Jozef Hudec, Łukasz Jarmużek, Veronika Dubcová, Lucia Hulková, Anna Wodzińska, and Alena Šefčáková. “From Hyksos Tombs to Late Period Tower Houses: Tell El-Retaba — Seasons 2015-2016,” Ägypten und Levant 27 (2017): 19–85.

Janine Bourriau, “The Relative Chronology of the Second Intermediate Period: Problems in Linking Regional Archaeological Sequences,” in The Second Intermediate Period (Thirteenth-Seventeenth Dynasties): Current Research, Future Prospects (Leuven: Uitgeverij Peeters and Departement Oosterse Studies, 2010), 11–38.

Translation from Wilson, “Egyptian Myths, Epics, and Legends,” 231. C.f. Redord, “Textual Sources for the HyksosPeriod,” no. 73 p. 17.

Waddell, Manetho, 79–80, frag. 42. Unfortunately, Manetho’s account is compromised at precisely this point by apparent confusion between the siege of Avaris and the siege of Megiddo by Thutmose III, approximately 75 years later. (Redford, “Textual Sources for the Hyksos Period,” 22–25.)

Bietak, “From Where Came the Hyksos and Where Did They Go?” 164–171.

Redford, Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times, 214–237.

Redford, “Textual Sources for the Hyksos Period”, 17 no. 71. For more on the papyrus, see Gay Robins and Charles Shute, The Rhind Mathematical Papyrus (London: British Museum Publications, 1987).

Egyptians divided the civil year of 365 days into three seasons (akhet, peret, and shemu) each consisting of four months, known as the “first month of akhet,” “second month of akhet,” etc. Each month consisted of precisely 30 days. Five additional days were added just before New Years Day on I akhet 1, named respectively after the deities Osiris, Horus, Seth, Isis, and Nephthys. The Egyptian civil year thus consisted of exactly 365 days. Since the solar year is approximately 365 ¼ days long, the Egyptian calendar precessed slowly backwards. Around 1535 B.C.E., the start of the New Year on day 1 of the first month of Akhet would have fallen in late August (Redford, Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times, p. 420 n. 131).

The precise date of this storm and its relationship to the storm reported on the Rhind Papyrus graffito is unclear, as the stele lacks a date superscription. The stele was found in pieces, in the third pylon of the Karnak Temple.

Ritner in Foster, Karen Polinger, and Robert K Ritner, “Texts, Storms, and the Thera Eruption,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 55.1 (1996): 1–14.

Thomas Schneider. “A Theophany of Seth-Baal in the Tempest Stele,” Ägypten und Levant XX (2010): 405–410.

Manfred Bietak, “Ein Altägyptscher Weingarten in Einem Tempelbezirk (Tell El-Dabʿa 1979-1984),” Anzeiger der Philosophisch-historischen Klasse der österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien 121 (1985): 312–349.

Hans Goedicke, “The Canaanite Illness,” Studien zur Altägyptischen Kultur 11 (1984): 91–105.

This incantation is absent from earlier Egyptian medical papyri, including those copied earlier during the Second Intermediate Period; and its language is later than that of the other prescriptions.

Redford, Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times, 420; Barbara J. Sivertsen, The Parting of the Sea: How Volcanoes, Earthquakes, and Plagues Shaped the Story of Exodus (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009).

Tuleremia: Siro Igino Trevisanato, “Did an Epidemic of Tularemia in Ancient Egypt Affect the Course of World History?” Medical Hypotheses 63.5 (2004): 905–910. Anthrax: Greta Hort, “The Plagues of Egypt,” Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wisenschaft 69 (1957): 84–103.

For the causal relationships see Greta Hort, “The Plagues of Egypt,” Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wisenschaft 69 (1957): 84–103; 70 (1958): 48–59.

The identity of Rameses with Avaris was first recognized by Gardiner (Sir Alan Gardiner. "The Defeat of the Hyksos by Kamōse: The Carnarvon Tablet, No. 1," Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 3 (1916): 95–110 [99-101]) and has been fully substantiated by Bietak’s excavations on the site (see, e.g., Bietak, Avaris and Piramesse, pp. 273–283, and frequently since).

Sir Alan Gardiner. "The Delta Residence of the Ramessides." Journal of Egyptian Archaeology V (1918): 127-38, 179-200, 242-71.

The references to Philistia (Ex. 13:17, 15:14), for example, are anachronistic according to every seriously proposed date for the exodus. The Philistines did not settle on the southwestern coast of Canaan until the reign of Ramesses III, around 1184–1153 B.C.E. For a brief overview, see, Shirly Ben-Dor Evian, “The Philistines: Ancient Records, Archaeological Remains, and Biblical Traditions,” TheTorah (2015).

All extant quotes from Manetho were gathered and published in, William Gillian Waddell, ed. Manetho, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1940). For a contemporary, critical translation of Josephus’ Contra Apionem into English, see, John M. G. Barclay, ed., Against Apion, Flavius Josephus: Translation and Commentary 10 (Leiden: Brill, 2007).

In fact, David Ben-Gad HaCohen “The Israelites Are Not the Hyksos!” (TheTorah 2016) suggests that the presumed connection between the Hyksos and the Israelites is sufficiently ancient, that the biblical text is aware of it and responding to it.

For attempts to use the Osarseph legend as a basis for reconstructing older exodus traditions, see Thomas Römer, “Tracking some ‘Censored’ Moses Traditions Inside and Outside the Hebrew Bible,” Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel 1 (2012): 64–76 [69–70]; Israel Knohl, “Exodus: The History Behind the Story,” TheTorah (2018).

Jan Assman, The Mind of Egypt; History and Meaning in the Time of the Pharaohs, trans. Andrew Jenkins (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), 272.

Benjamin Plummer Pratten, “Tatian,” in Tatian, Theophilus, and the Clementine Recognitions, ed. Benjamin Plummer Pratten, Marcus Dods, and Thomas Smith, Ante-Nicene Christian Library: Translations of the Writings of the Fathers Down to A.D. 325, vol. III (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1885), 80.

Especially Donald Redford (Donald B. Redford, “An Egyptological Perspective on the Exodus Narrative,” in Egypt, Israel, Sinai: Archaeological and Historical Relationships in the Biblical Period, ed. Anson F. Rainey (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1987), 137–161 [150–151], ibid, Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times, 408-429).

This contradiction led to rejection of the exodus-Hyksos correspondence relatively early in the development of modern Biblical historiography. See, e.g., the objections of Rowley to this correspondence, See Harold H. Rowley, From Joseph to Joshua (London: Oxford University Press, for the British Academy, 1950), 130 [n. 2].

See the discussion 0f the term Ḥqꜣ-ḫꜣswt in Kim S. B. Ryholt, The Political Situation in Egypt During the Second Intermediate Period, C. 1800-1550 Bce (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 1997), 123–125.

The references to the King of Egypt by the circumlocution “Pharaoh” (literally “The Palace”) are probably anachronistic. Its use as a designation for the King of Egypt does not become common, at least in Egyptian writing, until the reign of Amenhotep IV (Akhenaten), around 1427–1400 B.C.E. However, it was employed much earlier as a designation for the royal palace, and we know nothing about whatever pidgin-Egyptian may have been spoken by the West Semites of the Delta. For more on this term, see, Shirly Ben-Dor Evian, “The Title ‘Pharaoh,’” TheTorah (2016).

Ryholt, The Political Situation in Egypt During the Second Intermediate Period, 123–125, and the lists of attestations of 14^th and 15^th dynasty rulers on pp. 359–388.

The colophon of the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus reports that it was copied in the 33^rd year of the (Hyksos) ruler ʿAʒ-woser-reʿ Apophis by a scribe named ʿAḥmose.

See the discussions of Hyksos royal scarabs in Daphna Ben-Tor, “Sequence and Chronology of Second Intermediate Period Royal-Name Scarabs, Based on Excavated Series from Egypt and the Levant.” In The Second Intermediate Period (Thirteenth-Seventeenth Dynasties): Current Research, Future Prospects, edited by Marcel Marée. Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta, vol. 192, 91-108. Leuven: Peeters, 2010; and in Ryholt, The Political Situation in Egypt During the Second Intermediate Period.

See the translations of dedicatory inscriptions in Redford, “Textual Sources for the Hyksos Period.”

Control of the Nile valley as far south as Cusae implies control of both Memphis and Itj-Tawy as well. Furthermore, Hyksos control of Memphis was reported by Manetho (Josephus, Contra Apionem, I.14(77)), and the Theban Egyptian reconquest of this city can be inferred from the name of the ship “He-who-appears-in-Memphis” on which Ahmose si Abina served (epitaph of Ahmose si Abina, line 9).

First Kamose Stele, lines 5-6. On the extent of Hyksos territorial control, see Ryholt, The Political Situation in Egypt During the Second Intermediate Period, pp. 130-137, 171-174.

Bietak, “From Where Came the Hyksos and Where did They Go?”, pp. 139-163; Anna-Latifa Mourad, “Rise of the Hyksos: Egypt and the Levant from the Middle Kingdom to the Early Second Intermediate Period.” Macquarie University, 2014.

Evidence for social stratification at Avaris comes from servant burials (Manfred Bietak, “Servant Burials in the Middle Bronze Age Culture of the Eastern Nile Delta.” Eretz-Israel 20 (1989): 30-43.)

See also Exod 2:11, 5:4–5, and 6:7–8.

Adapted from Redford, “Textual Sources for the Hyksos Period,” 13, n. 68.

Adapted from “Textual Sources for the Hyksos Period,” 17, n. 74

As translated by Redford, “Textual Sources for the Hyksos Period,” 19, no 77.

Manfred Bietak, Nicola Math, and Vera Müller, “Report on the Excavations of a Hyksos Palace at Tell El-Dabʿa/Avaris,” 17-53.

Manfred Bietak, Avaris: The Capital of the Hyksos, 63–66.

On these temples, see Bietak, Avaris: The Capital of the Hyksos, 36–48.

For surveys of the archaeological evidence concerning the initial appearance of Israelites in Canaan and its dating, see e.g., Amihai Mazar, Archaeology of the Land of the Bible 10,000-583 B.C.E., The Anchor Bible Reference Library (New York: Doubleday, 1990), 328–354; Nadav Na’aman and Israel Finkelstein, eds., From Nomadism to Monarchy (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1992); Avraham Faust, Israel’s Ethnogenesis: Settlement, Interaction, Expansion, and Resistance, Approaches to Anthropological Archaeology (London: Equinox, 2006); William G. Dever, Beyond the Texts: An Archaeological Portrait of Ancient Israel and Judah (Atlanta: SBL, 2017), 119–257.

William G. Dever, Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From? (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003), 23–74.

See some recent discussion, see Israel Knohl, “YHWH: The Original Arabic Meaning of the Name,” TheTorah (2019); David Ben-Gad HaCohen, “An Israeli Tour Guide with a Ph.D. in Bible: Ten Questions with Dr. Dudu Cohen,” TheTorah (2014).

That Manetho’s “shepherds” represented original Egyptian shasu was already recognized by Carl Niebuhr, “Egypt,” in The World's History, ed. Hans F. Helmolt (London: W. Heinemann, 1903), 3.587–721, [627–628].

For more on this term, see Albert D. Friedberg, “Who Were the Hebrews?” TheTorah (2017); Yitzhaq Feder, “Don't Call Me Hebrew! The Mysterious Origins of the First Anti-Semitic Slur,” TheTorah (2015).

I leave my interpretation of the wilderness and conquest accounts for future presentation, along with my ideas as to the mechanisms by which the exodus account was transmitted. I discussed some of these issues in some of my conference presentations, especially: Joseph J. Weinstein, “The ‘Expulsion of the Hyksos’, the End of the Middle Bronze, and the Israelite ‘Conquest’.” Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research, Cambridge, MA, 1999.; Joseph J. Weinstein, “Hyksos and Israelites: The Problem of Transmission,” Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, Toronto, Ontario, 2002; Joseph J. Weinstein, “Iron Age Israelites Reading Middle Bronze Inscriptions,” in Annual Meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research. San Francisco, CA, 2011.