When we read or hear the story of Joseph and its outcomes in the Bible, we see it at two levels:
1. A tale of family dysfunction where
one son – favoured by the father – is envied and hated by his 10 half-brothers who plot his ‘removal’.
After 22 years, the father, Jacob, learns that Joseph is
still alive and the entire family – now far more than 70 married sons (plus
their uncounted wives) and grandchildren (Gen. 46:7-27) – move during the great famine to stay in Egypt
where Joseph is now the Pharaoh’s right hand and Viceroy.
A family reunification that thrill’s Jacob and which ends
with a reconciliation of all the brothers.
2. A story where, again, the invisible
hand of God the Eternal works through events and human actions to achieve His
goals and plan: to bringing to Egypt the
entire clan of Jacob, who will remain there for generations, suffer slavery
under a new Pharaoh, endure government murder of all newborn males>
Ultimate, they attain salvation under
Moses after 10 horrendous plagues punish the Egyptians, and the Egyptian army
and pharaoh die at the Sea of Reeds: these being obvious Divine miracles.
While both of these are true and
important, we today are oblivious to a third element which would have been
instantly understood by anyone living in the ancient world of the Near
East. The ever present background of
competing ‘super-powers’, and the ongoing ‘cold’ and often ‘hot’ wars of great
Empires.
The Bible near its start tells off this.
Nimrod, the great grandson of Noah
established the first mighty kingdom of 4 cities, including Babel, north of the
Euphrates (Gen. 10:10).
And during Abraham’s time, Gen. ch 14 records the rebellion of many small kingdoms and city states of Canaan against their northern overlord, Chedorlaomer king of Elam (Gen. 14: 4), who attacks them all with the support of three other kings, his loyal vassals kingdoms of the north.
They defeat and overrun all of Canaan
defeating in various battles twelve (12) kingdoms and city states (Gen. 14: 5 –
10) and pillage and looted all the defeated rebellious lands.
Among the rebels was the city states of Sodom and Gomorrah and when pillaged, the forces of Chedorlaomer also took Abraham’s nephew, Lot as a captive slave.
On hearing this, Abraham, determined to save his nephew, gets his neighbours and sworn allies: the brothers Mamre, Aner, and Eshcol (Ge. 14:13, 24), kinsmen of the defeated and enslaved Amorites of Hazazon-tamar, to muster a force to attack the victorious northern army.
Abraham, leading a force which included 318 of his own
servants, attacks at night and routes the northern troops and returns all the
valuables and people taken as slaves -- including Lot. (Gen. 14:14-24)
We also get other glimpses of this common overlord – vassal relationship in the Bible, and the ongoing competition between southern mighty Egypt and the northern Empire of the day.
· 2 Kings 18:9-11 recounts the tragic outcome when the northern Kingdom of Israel rebelled against its Assyrian overlord and was crushed and all exiled (722 BCE).
·
King
Hezekiah also thereafter rebelled by refusing to pay the normal tribute to the
Assyrian overlord and switching to the Egyptian side. But a devastating
Assyrian attack and siege of Jerusalem only ended when Hezekiah admitted his
error and paid a huge tribute as recorded in 2 Kings 18: 7 and verses 13-21.
·
King
Josiah died in 609 BCE[i]
from a battle wound when he led a Judean army to intercept an Egyptian force on
its way to attack the northern kingdom of Assyria -- to which Judea was a bound
vassal.
It is briefly recorded in 2 Kings: 23:29 and in greater detail in the 2 Chronicles 35:20-24 text below:
Josiah
actions and the failed battle at Megiddo were to fulfil his vassal obligations.
Put
simply, the land of Canaan as the
mid-point of the Fertile Crescent and with its many small tribes: Edom, Amalek,
Moab, Midian, Girgashites, Hivites, Jebusites, Perizzites,
Cananites and even Hittites[ii] with their small kingdoms and even
city-states, were no match for the superpowers.
The
lands north of the Euphrates were always the breeding ground of great nations
and empires: most notably the Hittites, Assyrians, Babylonians and Persian
Empires.
And to the south was the eternal superpower, the land of the Nile – Egypt.
Egypt
thanks to its Nile river and its regular flooding made the country the bread
basket of the ancient world. A point highlighted in the story of Joseph and
which made Egypt a target of conquest by other super-powers: the great empires
of the north, the lands beyond the Euphrates: the Hittites, the Assyrians, the
Babylonians and the Persians; and thereafter European Alexander the Great and
his Greek heirs and, ultimately, Rome: when Cleopatra and her Roman consort,
Anthony, were defeated and Egypt annexed to Octavian’s new world empire.
Egypt,
of course, was not just a passive major target but also a powerful and active
super power trying to conquer all lands to its north (south and west): to
expand its own empire.
Most notably, Ramses II, in his efforts to gain control of Canaan and modern Lebanon and even beyond, led a massive army which met the Hittite Empire forces of Muwatalli II and his 19 vassals at Kadesh (in Syria) in 1274.
Over 5000 chariots were involved and the Egyptian pictorial and verbal version – proclaiming the battle as a great victory thanks to Ramses II’s bravery – was etched into the walls of seven (7) of Ramses II’s temples[iii].
Their frescos and stone etched version has survived for over 3000 years, but it was not true: just political propaganda by a new, losing Pharaoh.
The battle was in fact a costly victory by the Hittites as is made clear by the peace treaty the two sides signed 15 years later: the world’s oldest surviving peace treaty.
It
was produced originally in silver and has survived in Hittite clay tablet form and
as etched in temple walls in Egypt.[iv]
So,
as illustrated by the Bible account of Lot’s capture, the fall of the Northern
Kingdom, King Hezekiah’s failed revolt
and King Josiah’s death, Canaan with its originally numerous small,
independent entities was always subject
to vassal status in the face of a great Empire
and
this did not change even under the larger kingdoms of the Kingdom of Israel and
Judea.
Paying
annual tribute in crops, foods, goods, animals and silver and gold was the
historic lot of this mid-point of the Fertile Crescent. And the obligation to
supply auxiliary troops whenever called upon by the overlord king.
The competing interests between great empires was always a concern, and small tribes, city states or even the Kingdom of Israel and of Judea, spent many decades and centuries as subject vassals of either Egypt or a northern superpower.
Life and politics in the Near East was always complex and filled with tension and threat of major super-power war: aside from the period of a rare, royal arranged marriage[v].
It
is this political background re the story of Joseph and its outcome,
which will be addressed below.
Joseph and the new pharaoh
Abraham and his descendants self-identified as "Evrim" ﬦעִבְרִי meaning from north of the Euphrates river – i.e. Mesopotamians,[vi] and proudly so.
Even during their many years in Egypt they never adopted
Egyptian names, skimpy dress, and preserved their Hebrew (Mesopotamian)
language.[vii]
As such, they were always visible 'aliens' and ones who were
linked to Egypt's eternal enemy, the empires out of the Mesopotamian north.
It is this that explains much in the story of Joseph, the new Pharaoh
and the Exodus.
The new pharaoh
The Bible stresses that at some point after Joseph’s death a new
pharaoh arose who did not know of Joseph.
Exod. 1:8
This, in fact, was literally true.
As explained in my blog “From Joseph to Moses to Joshua: Part 1 The Exodus” a Semitic group referred
to as the Hyksos came from the north (Mesopotamia or Canaan) and conquered the
Nile Delta and Middle Egypt c. 1650 and ruled it until they were expelled by
the native pharaoh, Ahmose(s) I over 100 to 180 years later.
They too were animal herders and established their capital,
Avaris, in the Delta, and would have been a supportive host to Jacob and his
clan of shepherds when they came to settle in Goshen, the far eastern section
of the Delta.
Also the words of the new
Pharaoh are important: the Israelites are very numerous and could be a fifth
column in case of a (frequent) war with the north, i.e. Hyksos,
Canaanites or any of the superpowers of Mesopotamia: such as the Hittites and
Assyrians, and they would exit Egypt if given the chance to go 'home'.
These are very rational concerns and in part repeated with the
internment of Canadian Japanese during WW2.
What the new Pharaoh did not understand was the lesson of
Joseph: Jews become loyal to the country that treats them well.
They do not automatically pose a 5th column hazard.
But dual loyalties have
always been an issue.
And such fear of the north played out in the post-Joseph story.
Joseph accuses his
brothers of spying
When Joseph’s 10 older brother come to buy grain due to famine
in Canaan, they, like all others, had to
see Joseph who personally overlooked the royal granaries and any sale of grain
(Gen41:46-49, 56-57).
On recognizing them, Joseph instantly devises a plan to test
them and see how they treat Benjamin, his only full brother.
Joseph immediately accuses them of being enemy spies (Gen. 42: 14)
and ordered that Benjamin be brought to him as proof they are not lying (Gen.42:
15-17).
Now Joseph’s words as Viceroy were law, but certainly his sudden
accusation that the 10 brothers were spies – when so many other foreigners had
come to buy grain (Gen. 41:57) without such a challenge – would have been seen
as odd and even bizarre by his officials and others present.
Their dress and hair, etc. showed they were not native Egyptians
from the hostile south, but they could easily be spies from the Mesopotamian
north.
In the paranoid world of the ancient Near East, were invasions
or fear of invasions were constant and from all directions, such fear of enemy
spies was realistic.
The Bible itself offers testimony.
Moses sends 12 spies soon after the Exodus to determine where and
how to invade Canaan, to determine what challenges the Israelites would face in
their Conquest (Num. chapter 13).
Joshua sent two spies to Jericho as well.
Joshua ch. 2
This Jericho scenario is probably what underlies the Bible’s
account of the two strangers who came to Sodom, were met near evening by
(outsider) Lot who would not let them sleep in the open street and took them to
his home. When news of this spread – similar
to the case of Jericho – the citizenry angrily approached Lot’s home and
demanded he hand over the two strangers for ‘interrogation’. (Gen. 19:1 – 11).
Rampant paranoia and fear of enemy spies was everywhere, at all
times – and often justified.
Burial of Jacob vs Joseph
Just before Jacob died, he had all his sons take an oath they
would return his body to Canaan for burial in the same family crypt/cave as
Abraham, Sarah, Isaac Rebecca and Leah (Gen. 49:29-33).
To do so, his body had to be mummified (as major internal body
decay begins by day 2 or 3[viii]) and the journey to
Hebron would have taken far, far more time for the official, large Egyptian
cortege (Gen. 50:7).[ix]
Joseph also needed the Pharaoh’s permission to accompany the
body and leave Egypt.
To get that permission, Joseph craftily arranged for others of
the royal court to raise the matter with Pharaoh first – and Joseph promised he
would return to (Hyksos) Egypt and his essential duties (Gen. 50:5-6).
But when Joseph himself died at age 110, 54 years later,[x] a similar funeral
procession to Canaan was no longer viable, and Joseph’s body was mummified and
placed in a casket in Egypt: where it stayed in limbo for over 80 years – until
the Exodus. Then his body left with Moses and the entire Israelite people.
(Gen. 50:25-26; Exod. 13:19 and Joshua 24:32).
Changing international politics
Now letting Viceroy Joseph to go to Canaan to bury Jacob would never
have been allowed by the pharaoh if Canaan were a hostile enemy.
And even with the Canaanites being friendly and sympathetic to
the funeral cortege (Gen. 50:11), it was still somewhat of a gamble.
To avoid the warlike Philistines[xi], they took the long way
around and entered Canaan by crossing the Jordan from the east (Cf. Gen. 50:
10).
Put simply, Joseph and the accompanying Egyptian officials could
have been captured, tortured for Egyptian military secrets, or even just held
for ransom.
So it was a calculated gamble.
But
when Joseph was close to death 54 years later, he recognized that the international
situation had drastically changed, and therefore asked to be put in a
coffin and stored in Egypt until such
future time that it would be safe for his brothers or their descendants to
return to Canaan.
Jacob and family settle in Goshen
There
are many Bible details that confirm it was during the foreign rule of the Hyksos
that Joseph rose to be viceroy and when Jacob and his family came to Egypt. (See my blog, “From Joseph to Moses to
Joshua, Part 1 – the Exodus”.)
Jacob
and family with their large flocks of sheep, goats, cattle, etc.
settle in the Nile Delta area called
Goshen (Gen. 46:29, 34; 47:1,4,6) by the
city of Ramses (Gen. 47:11).
Goshen
is at the very eastern tip of the Delta and only a small section of the vast
grasslands of the eastern delta of the great Nile River.
The Hyksos, northern invaders from the eastern Mediterranean
coast or from Mesopotamia, also were shepherds (see Gen. 47: 6) [xii] who similarly ate the meat of sheep, goats and
cattle– something abhorred by the native Egyptians who worshipped animals as
gods (Gen. 46:34).
And the Hyksos capital of Avaris, a city large enough to hold 25,000 inhabitants,[xiii] was built on the
eastern Nile Delta: some 90 km[xiv] due N-E of the original,
3rd millennium BCE Egyptian capital of Memphis (when the pyramids of Giza were
built) and an additional 500+ km south to Thebes[xv], the native Egyptian capital
for long thereafter.
As
Joseph wanted his father and family to be close to him and his home in the
royal capital (Gen. 45:10), Avaris is the only capital close to Goshen and its major
city of Ramses. All other Egyptian capitals are not in the Delta. Thebes is
very far away and even Memphis would be a treck even by boat.[xvi] Also, Avaris is very close to Ramses, the key
city in Goshen where Jacob and his sons lived.
Moses and his pharaohs
While not directly an
issue of international politics, the story of newborn Moses, his royal youth, flight
and ultimate return 80 years later to lead the Exodus, is important even here.
With the defeat of the
Hyksos by Ahmose(s) I, the official capital of all Egypt was again Thebes,[xvii] a
capital some 650 km south of Avaris[xviii].
This raises a number
of concerns re the Bible story of Moses and the Exodus.
As stated in
the Bible, Moses' biological parents and older sister were Hebrews living in
Goshen near the Nile river, and the Egyptian pharaoh’s daughter who found him
floating in the Nile and adopted him also had a royal palace near the Nile in
the same vicinity though somewhat down river. (Exod. 2:2-10).
Young Moses
grew up in this nearby royal palace and was able to walk around the forced
labour imposed on the Israelites in Goshen -- where he killed an Egyptian
taskmaster who was beating an Israelite almost to death (Exod. 2:11- 12).
From there --
to escape Pharaoh's punishment -- he fled eastward and north into the Sinai
desert and the territory of Midian (Exod. 2: 14-15).
Similarly,
when Moses returns at age 80 and along with Aaron would regularly go to Pharaoh
and confronted him during the 10 plagues, the pharaoh’s palace must have been
near Goshen. (Exod. Ch 5 -12).
Travelling all the way south to Thebes on land or by river would have
been too time consuming!
Way too far for
Moses to easily or quickly travel back and forth as a youth or at age 80.
So
how is this geographic, distance conundrum to be resolved?
The answer is
that while Thebes remained the official capital, it was not the only royal
residence.
Atmose(s) I build
himself a royal palace and residence on top of the rubble of Avaris.[xix]
Why? Probably to assert his authority and dominion.
And on security grounds: to prevent a
Hyksos army’s return or a revolt by any Hyksos civilians remaining, a large
Egyptian military force would have been essential, stationed near Avaris from
day one of the expulsion of the Hyksos.
Likewise,
a large force and royal direction would have been needed to ensure the
Israelites of Goshen did not revolt when their enslavement began and while it continued
on for decades.
Records show
that later Pharaoh Seti I used this Avaris site palace as his summer residence.[xx]
As well, the
major port city of Memphis (somewhat to the south) had another royal residence.
Tutmose(s) III --
the Pharaoh of the Exodus -- had a palace there were one of his 5 wives, Merytre-Hatshepsut,[xxi] lived and raised their son and his
successor, Amenhotep II.
Also noteworthy
is once Amenhotep II was a young man, he was assigned by his father, Tutmose(s)
III, to supervise the wood shipments to Memphis, was appointed the High Priest
for Lower Egypt, and also put in charge of the Delta army of Egypt.[xxii]
Put simply, young
royals did not live idle lives but took on important official duties.
So too, may
have the young Moses.
Consequently,
there is no difficulty with Thebes being the far off capital and the Bible’s
account re: Moses as a youngster or his confrontations with the pharaoh 80
years after his birth.
The palace and
royal centre at Avaris was within easy travel from Goshen and the Israelites’
homes. Even Memphis, just south of Giza/Cairo, was viable.
CONCLUSION
The 3rd
and long ignored element to the story of Joseph is the role of International
Politics, foreign invasion and native Egyptian reassertion of control over
Middle Egypt and the Nile Delta.
This
political background underlies so much of the story from Joseph to the Exodus:
Joseph’s accusation of the 10 brothers as spies, the settlement of Jacob and
his family in Goshen, Jacob’s immediate burial and Joseph’s long delayed
burial, and most importantly, the ‘new’ pharaoh who did not know of Joseph.
When
Atmose(s) I regained native Egyptian control over the Delta, he feared the
Israelites as a potential 5th column if war broke out with their
ancestral northern kin, and so to weaken the Israelites he imposed slavery on
them, and thereafter came the (brief) attempt to kill off male newborns and
thereby force long term assimilation of the surviving females.
Moses’
own childhood, growing up as a royal prince in plain view of the work of
enslaved Israelites -- and their abuse, his need to flee, and, finally, his
return to Goshen and confrontations with the then pharaoh leading to the Exodus,
are all tied into what was going on in
the real world of international politics of Egypt.
The
Hyksos 15th dynasty era and their defeat and replacement by the 18th
dynasty under Atmose(s) I are all essential background.
[ii]
Deut. 7:1 and Deut. 20:17
[iv]
See https://www.thecollector.com/battle-of-kadesh/ and https://joyofmuseums.com/museums/middle-east-museums/turkey-museums/istanbul-museums/istanbul-archaeology-museums/egyptian-hittite-peace
[v] Arranged royal marriages were used at times
to bind together countries as allies, and to end wars and hostilities between
competitors.
And
at one point, the widow queen of Egypt sent a letter that has survived,
offering to marry any son of the Hittite king to merge the two competing
empires. Unfortunately, that son, Zannanza, died mysteriously on the way to Egypt, and his death and
possible murder contributed to the hostilities that erupted into open warfare
culminating in the battle of Kadesh in 1274 BCE mentioned above.
[vi] See my blog, “From Joseph to Moses to Joshua: Part 2 Apiru, Evrim and Israelites”
[vii] https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/parashat-shemot-language-dress-names-as-a-prescription-for-nationhood/
[ix]
See journey details and duration at my blog “From Joseph to
Moses to Joshua: Part I the Exodus).
[x] http://bibleq.net/answer/4117/
[xi] Cf. Gen. 13:17.
[xiii]
https://www.academia.edu/23483678/Settlement_Patterns_at_Avaris_A_Study_on_two_Cases_in_M_Bietak_E_Czerny_I_Forstner_M%C3%BCller_eds_Cities_and_Urbanism_in_Ancient_Egypt_Vienna_22nd_26th_November_2006
[xiv] https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1RAEH_enCA867CA867&sxsrf=APwXEddF9OoPwb3kh_R5TDyJoBZPvpe3hg:1683037088244&q=distance+from+Cairo+Egypt+to+Pi+ramesses&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiAl6fe6db-AhVGJEQIHWobBo4Q7xYoAHoECAgQAQ&biw=1536&bih=750&dpr=1.25
[xv] https://www.ducksters.com/history/ancient_egypt/cities_of_ancient_egypt.phpb
and https://www.hellotickets.com/egypt/cairo/cairo-to-luxor/sc-186-2811
[xviii]
From Cairo/Memphis to Thebes
is 508 km and Avaris was another 140km N-E of Cairo/Memphis. See https://www.roaddistance.in/distance-between-cairo-to-thebes-egypt/ and https://vias.univie.ac.at/projekte/aktuell/tell-el-daba/
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