11.3 MOSES IN THE HISTORY OF EGYPT

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the reign of Kamose may refer to Pharaoh’s command to kill all the Hebrew baby boys, it states: “My army is after you, the women of Avaris will not conceive, their hearts will not open within their bodies . . . Avaris in the two rivers. I shall leave that place a desolation . . . I captured a messenger, of the ruler of Avaris, who was headed to Cush with a letter (asking for help) saying . . . "Have you not seen what Egypt has done to me . . . attacking me on my own soil although I have not attacked him, just like everything he has done to you. Come quickly he is in our hands. I will detain him until you arrive. Then we shall divide the towns of this Egypt, and our two lands will be happy in joy . . . But I captured the letter on it’s way and did not let it arrive.”

 the actions of Kamose definitely appear to match with the actions of the Biblical pharaoh who started the persecution of the Hebrews.       The Bible then indicates from this point onward that the children of Israel were afflicted by future pharaohs with slavery until God would deliver them by the sending them Moses. And history records this to be so. The next pharaoh after Kamose was Ahmose. An inscription from one of his military commanders states the following: “There was fighting on the water at Avaris, I captured ten and carried away a hand . . . Avaris was then attacked and despoiled. I personally carried off spoil of my own, one man and three women whom my majesty gave to me as slaves." ANET 233      The slavery and the brutal practice of soldiers under Ahmose’s command cutting off one of the hands of the Israelite’s in order to bring them before pharaoh in exchange for gold as a reward shows the hatred and severe persecution which he inflicted on the people dwelling in Avaris.

Exodus 1:22-2:10, Pharaoh gave the command that every son who was born of the Hebrews should be cast into the river. So fearing the child's life, the mother of Moses hid him in a basket in the reeds along the bank of the Nile. While Pharaoh’s daughter was walking along the riverside she found him and raised him as her son.

Although the Bible never records her name, the Jewish historian Josephus writing in the first century does. He states:

"Pharaoh’s daughter, Thermthis, was walking along the river bank. Seeing a basket floating by, she called to her swimmers to retrieve it for her. When her servants came back with the basket, she was overjoyed to see the beautiful little infant inside . . . Thermuthis gave him the name Moses, which in Egyptian means “saved from the water" . . . Having no children of her own, she adopted him as her own son."

"Moses was eighty years old and Aaron eight three years old when they spoke to Pharaoh."

Adding 80 years to the date of the Exodus in 1486 B.C. equals 1565 B.C.; the approximate year in which Moses was born.

Again, there are four possible rulers of Egypt who ruled around this time frame. They were Senakhtenre Ahmose, Seqenenre Tao, Kamose, and Ahmose.

To get our first clue, we will start with the Bible’s statement in Exodus 1:8 which says that a king had come to power who knew not Joseph and began to oppress Israel. Joseph as you recall was second only to Pharaoh during his days and was put in charge of building grain storage and supply cities in order to make it through the seven years of famine. This practice evidently continued even after Joseph's day. One of the supply cities mentioned in Exodus 1:11 is Raamses.

There is a city in early Egyptian records named Avaris, which later was annexed and became part of Ramesses II royal city of Pi-Ramesses. A branch of the Nile river passed through Avaris and it had a port for the loading and unloading of supplies for use among the other cities along the Nile.

The interesting thing about Avaris was that it was a major city of the “shepherd kings” whom some refer to as “Hyskos” while others refer to them as “Asiatics.” You see Joseph brought his father Jacob and his brothers, who were shepherds, into the land of Egypt and they were given the land of Goshen in which to raise their flocks. Pharaoh also made them the chief herdsman over all his livestock.

They basically were allowed to live independently in Goshen as subject to Joseph, who was second only to Pharaoh. After Joseph died this arrangement continued. Israel had their own rulers in the land of Goshen subject only to Pharaoh. And the capital of their kings appeared to be the supply city of Avaris, which later became part of Raamses. Exodus 1:10 which says this Pharaoh was worried about Israel joining with Egypt’s enemies to fight against them.       An inscription from the reign of pharaoh Kamose matches this statement exactly. It states:        “The mighty king of Thebes, “Kamose”  . . . His majesty went to his palace and sat down among the council of the Nobles . . . He said to them, Where is my strength? One prince is in Avaris while the other is in Ethiopia. I sit associated with an Asiatic (Hebrew) and a black leader. Each one or them has their own slice of Egypt. (The Israelites to the north, while the Ethiopians controlled the most Southern part of Egypt.) I cannot keep from coming across them as far as Memphis, the waters of Egypt, they have Hermopolis. No Egyptian can settle in the land without coming into contact with the Asiatics.”        Then the nobles of the council spoke.  "Behold it is Asiatic water as far as Cusae, and they have not spoken ill against us. Whereas we are at ease in our part of Egypt. Elephantine is strong and the middle of the land is with us as far as Cusae. The sleekest of our fields are plowed for us, and our cattle are pastured in the Delta. He has not stolen any of our cattle. He holds his land, that of the water basin, and we hold Egypt. If he would ever come and act against us then we will act against him.”       Their words offended the Pharaoh and he said: "As for this plan of yours  . . . He who divides the land with me will not respect me.” . . . “I shall sail north and fight against the Asiatics and be successful . . . says Kamose the protector of Egypt. I went north because I was strong enough to attack the Asiatics. . . . “My soldiers were as lions are, with their spoil, having slaves, cattle, . . . dividing all their property."  The Hebrew word for Moses is “Mosheh,” taken from the Hebrew word “Mashaw” (maw-shaw) meaning to draw out. In Egyptian it probably is the combination of the words “Ma-Sah.” “Ma” meaning “water” and “sah” which means “to draw near to” or “to succeed in acquiring to reach land from the water.”       Another possibility are the Egyptian words ‘Mes-sah.’ “Mes” meaning “born, son, child, or baby” and “sah” meaning "drawn from the water to land." name of pharaohs’ daughter was "Thermuthis" and there was a princesses of Egypt who had a very similar name who lived during the 1565 B.C. time frame. Her name was “Ahmose-Tumerisy.”She was probably the daughter of pharaoh Seqenenre Tao and the sister of pharaoh Ahmose I. She held the title of "king’s daughter" and "king’s sister. historian Eusebius also seems to indicate this. He calls pharaohs’ daughter “Merris,” a shortened form of the name “Tu-MERIS-y.” Moses had become a man, the Bible in Numbers 12:1 says that he had married an Ethiopian wife, whom he probably married while in Egypt.Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married; for he had married an Ethiopian woman." When Moses reached his manhood, there was a great battle fought between the forces of Egypt and Ethiopia in which the Ethiopians were victorious. And they set out to conquer all of Egypt. Their armies invaded the land of Egypt as far as Memphis and the Sea. The diviners and oracles, that the Egyptians consulted, urged them to make Moses the commander of Pharaoh’s army. And so they did so.       Moses, in his first battle, made a surprise attack on the Ethiopians and they were defeated. They then began to flee Egypt while Moses followed them all the way back to their own country in order to engage them in battle.        In the end they retreated to Saba, the Capital of Ethiopia. . . . When Moses had punished the Ethiopians, he gave thanks to God and celebrated his marriage to Tharbis, the king of Ethiopia’s daughter, who had fallen in love with Moses.“  Exodus pharaoh may be comes from an inscription from Queen Hatshepsut. She mentions that she was rebuilding a temple in Avaris, from where we mentioned earlier the shepherd kings ruled.       The inscription states: “The boundary of those who are herdsman dwelling in the midst of the Nile Delta, in the city of Avaris, foreigners, the shepherd people are in the midst of them. Therefore, overthrowing our fathers rule, their posterity did not acknowledge Re. They were blind to my father’s divine commands.”        Just like the Bible says of the Hebrews, the inscription mentions Avaris (Raamses) as being inhabited by foreign shepherds who were also herdsmen over pharaoh’s cattle. Thutmose III, who coreigned along with Hatshepsut, may also indicate that the Israelites had left Egypt before his time.        In a hymn he wrote speaking of the power of his god, Amon-Re, he states: ”It plunders numerous foreign peoples and consumes those dwelling in the swamp. Its flame cuts off the heads of the herdsmen and defeated his children, returning the scepter from the herdsmen’s mighty ones.”       So it appears that either at his time, or just before, there was no Israelite remaining in the marsh areas of the Nile Delta. Hatshepsut and Thutmose III both state in their inscriptions that they lived at a time when the Hebrews were no longer in Egypt, this would exclude them from being the pharaoh who died in the parting of the Red sea incident. Although they would have been alive growing up in the house of the two previous pharaohs to witness the plagues on Egypt and the Exodus first hand.        Therefore, that leaves either Thutmose I or Thutmose II as possible candidates.       Unlike Hatshepsut and Thutmose III who said no Asiatic remained in Egypt, Thutmose I indicates  the Hebrews were still in the land during his life. He states: “He who smites the Nubians and overthrows the Asiatics    From the marshes of Kebeh (near Heliopolis) to Elephantine. The sand dwellers bore their tribute like that made from the south (Ethiopia) and that of the North (Asiatics/Hebrews).”          Thutmose I also had a son by the name of Amenmose who was his eldest son and designated heir to his throne. Yet he predeceased his father, possibly in the firstborn plague. He also had another daughter named Nefrubity who also seems to have died very young. This and the fact that the mummy, of what was once identified as Thutmose I, is no longer considered to be his, gives a high probability that he is the Exodus pharaoh. For if his mummy is missing, this could possibly account for his death in the Red sea, while the mummies of all the other pharaohs who lived during the Exodus time frame have been found.