Migration and Colonialism in Late Second Millennium BCE Levant and Its Environs by Pitkänen Pekka;

Author:Pitkänen, Pekka;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2020-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

B. Israel in Egypt

The so-called patriarchal narratives of Genesis (Genesis 12–50) indicate how the ancestors of Israel migrated to Egypt.49 In the third generation from the patriarch Abraham, Joseph, due to a feud with his brothers, gets sold to Egypt where he, after a long spell in prison, becomes a high official in the Pharaoh’s court (Genesis 37, 39–41). Due to this and a famine that is affecting Canaan, he asks his family to migrate to Egypt (Genesis 42–50). In Egypt, the family has descendants whose number increases so much that the Egyptians start to be concerned about them. They demote the Israelites into a status of slaves, even trying to restrict their numbers by genocidal means of killing male children who are born (Exodus 1). One baby is hidden, however, and then sent down the Nile in a floating basket. By coincidence, it is picked up by the daughter of a Pharaoh who adopts the boy and raises him as her son. Moses, however, learns about his background and tries to defend the slaves. But, he kills an Egyptian foreman in the process and has to flee Egypt (Exodus 2). After many years in the land of Midian, Moses feels that a god Yahweh is calling him to go back to Egypt and lead the Israelites out from there (Exodus 3). The Exodus succeeds despite the recalcitrance of the Pharaoh because of ten plagues that fall on Egypt, with the death of the firstborn of Egypt the final miracle that breaks the Pharaoh’s resistance (Exodus 4–13). The people then exit Egypt through the Sea of Reeds into the desert of Sinai and congregate at Mount Sinai where they are given laws in preparation for their entry into the land of Canaan that they believe has been given to them by Yahweh (Exodus 14–Numbers 10:10).

This narrative is particularly famous in Judaism in relation to the associated festival of Passover, depictions of which are integrated in the narrative (Exodus 12). Its actual historical value has been discussed extensively.50 From the perspective of migration as discussed in this book, the key issue is that the narrative suggests that the Israelites who inhabited Canaan had an origin in Egypt. In fact, even before that, the patriarchs also had an origin in Mesopotamia (Genesis 11:27–12:5). One does not need to accept all of the details of the narrative to draw a parallel with the existence of Semites in Egypt in the second millennium BCE that is attested by both textual and archaeological evidence,51 and there had already been demonstrable contacts with southern Canaan in the predynastic period.52 In fact, one would be surprised if the two areas could be isolated from each other as they were adjoining, at least in the ebb and flow of centuries. The Hyksos period (ca. 1650–1540 BCE) was marked by Asiatic rulership in Egypt.53 It was Kamose (ca. 1550 BCE) who established native rule over Egypt and inaugurated the new Kingdom period that also then was marked by Egyptian expansion into Canaan, in addition to Nubia.

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