Pharaoh of the Exodus and the Conquest of Canaan

Jorma Jormakka

In the Book of Joshua Israelites fight against a coalition of Canaanite cities and Egypt is nowhere. This argument has been used against both the Early Dating and the Late Dating of the Exodus.

            The Early Dating from 1. Kings 6:1 places the Exodus to 1448 BC (or 1446 BC).

1. Kings 6:1, where it is said that Salomon started building the temple to the Lord on his fourth year, which was 480 years after the Exodus. Josephus in Against Apion informs that Solomon started building the temple in 968 BC, which yields the year 1448 BC. Some researchers prefer the date 966 BC for the starting of the temple. (These are biblical dates and do not imply that there was any Solomon’s temple in reality.) Thutmose III made several military expeditions to Canaan and for 250 years after the first Battle of Megiddo in 1274 BC Egypt was ruling the Levant. The Book of Joshua clearly does not describe the political reality of Canaan in the time between 1274 BC and 1024 BC.

            The Late Dating means dating the Exodus to the time of Ramesses II. The grip Egypt had on Canaan was even stronger at that time. Thus, the Book of Joshua does not describe that later time any better.

            However, the traditional dating of the Exodus is neither the Early Dating to 1448 BC, nor the Late Dating on the end of the 13th century. The traditional dating is c. 1550 BC, the time when the Hyksos were expelled from Egypt. For instance Josephus supported this explanation.

            There is a problem in 1. King 6:1 and therefore it cannot be directly used as the Early Dating. This text says that Salomon started building the temple in his 4th year of reign, but in 2. Chr. 3:2 is said that Salomon started building the temple on his 14th year, not on his 4th year. We see that 1. King 6:1 has for some reason suppressed 10 from 14. The difference between the traditional date of the Exodus (c. 1550 BC) and the date obtained from 1. Kings 6:1 (1448 BC) differ by about 100 years. It seems that this is a same kind of obfuscation that is made with the reign year of Salomon and the actual time that is intended is 580 years.

            It must be so because adding the years that are mentioned in Joshua, Judges and Chronicles give the result that the building of the temple was started at least 536 years after the Exodus. Let us do this addition directly from these biblical figures.

            After the Exodus there followed a 40 year time in wilderness and then was the rule of Joshua. Joshua died at the age of 110 (Joshua 24:29). In (5. Moses 31) Moses is 120 years old and appoints Joshua as his successor. Moses died at the age of 180 years (5. Moses 34:7). Assuming that Joshua was about 20 years in 5. Moses 31, it follows that Joshua was about 80 when Moses died and thus he led Israelites for 30 years. Together the time in wilderness and Joshua’s time give 70 years.

            Let us first sum the years of the Judges. Israelites under the king Cushan-Rishathaim for 8 years (Judg. 3:8), in Othniel’s time 40 years of peace (Judg. 3:11), under Eglon of Moab 18 years (Judg. 3:14), 80 years peace in Gehud’s time (Judg. 3:30), under Jab of Canaan 20 years (Judg. 4:3), 40 years peace in Deborah’s time (Judg. 5:31), under Midian for 7 years (Judg. 6:1), 40 years peace in Gideon’s time (Judg. 8:28), Abimelek ruled for 3 years (Judg. 9:22), but we can add one year before he was conquered, Tola was judge ofr 23 years (Judg. 10:2) and Jair for 22 years (Judg. 10:3), under Philisteans for 19 years (Judg. 10:8), Jefta was judge for 6 years (Judg. 12:7), Ibsan for 7 years (12:9), Elon for 10 years (Judg. 12:11), Ablamon for 8 years (Judg. 12:14) and Simson for 20 years (Judg. 16:31). After these events there was the war against Benjamites. It must have taken at least a year. Together these sum to 373 years.

            After the judges ruled Saul, David and Salomon. Start of building of the temple was the 14th year of Solomon (2. Chr.3:2) and David ruled for 40 years (1. Chr. 29:27). These give 54 years.

            We are still missing the reign of Saul, but let us sum the other components: 70+373+54=497 years.

            We do not precisely know how long Saul ruled, but he was young when chosen a king (1. Sam. 9:2). I suggest this means that Saul was crowned before he was 40 years.  Saul’s son Iisboset was 40 when Saul died (2. Sam. 2:10), meaning that Iisboset was born before Saul become a king. It would be typical for Israelites to marry at the age of 30. The time between children is about 1.5 years assuming Saul had one wife, thus Saul may have had 6 children before being crowned. Jonathan was the oldest son. He and two other sons (Abinadab and Malkisian) died with Saul (1. Sam. 31:6). Let us assume Iisboset was the 4th son and there were also some daughters. It is reasonable to assume that Iisboset was the 6th child and born a short time before Saul was crowned. If so, Saul ruled a bit less than 40 years, say 39. Adding 39 to 497 give 536 years. If the reign 39 years for Saul seems too long (1 Sam 13:1 says it was only two years, but this does not match with other content), let us notice that Samuel’s time (as a leader of some type) is not included. Adding it we will get to somewhere around 39 years.

            Clearly, we cannot get 480 years (as in 1. Kings 6:1) from these figures and therefore the logical explanation for 1. Kings 6:1 is that the intended figure is 580 years, not 480 years, corresponding to a similar change in the year when Solomon started building the temple. There are many of places for the missing 580-536=44 years in Judges: not all events are given times. Thus, the biblical date for the Exodus is 1548 BC. Those, who maintain that the Exodus must have been in the time of Ramses II, are in conflict with the Bible. There is the historical reality, which will not be considered here, and the implied time that can be derived from the Bible. The implied time shows that the writers of the Bible wanted to have Exodus as the expulsion of Hyksos. That Hyksos were not the historical ancestors of Israelites has no importance here. The writers of the Bible claim that they were, in order to set Jews into the center of their explanation of the world history.

            There is a contradiction in the time Israelites stayed in Egypt. Israelites lived in Egypt for 430 years according to Exodus 12:40. Genesis 15:13 tells that Israelites will be suppresses in a foreign land for 400 years. These could be combined, but the real conflict is that Kothan, the grandfather of Moses, was born before Jacob moved to Egypt (Genesis 46:11) and lived 133 years (Exodus 6:18) while Moses’ father Amram lived 137 years (Exodus 6:20) and Moses was 80 years old at the time of Exodus (Exodus 7:7). Summing these times (rounding the 9 month pregnancy for one year) gives the maximum time Israelites could have been in Egypt as 133+1+137+1+80=352 years. This, however, is only a problem if we assume that the biblical account is history and not a prophetic calculation, i.e., that it actually would have been true that Isaac lived 180 years and so on. A prophetic calculation has quite different goals, thus the upper bound of 352 years is not valid. The conflict is only between 430 and 400. Jacob moved to Egypt either in 1948 BC or in 1978 BC depending on whether Israelites were in Egypt 400 or 430 years.

            Joseph was 30 when he was employed by the Pharaoh and there followed 7 good years and 7 bad years. Jacob moved to Egypt in one of these bad years, let us say soon after the 3th bad year. Thus, Joseph met the Pharaoh either in 1958 BC or 1988 BC. If the year is 1958 BC, the Pharaoh was Sensuret I, while in the latter case it was Amenemhat I.

            During Amenemhat I’s time there was the High Steward with the name Sobeknakht around 1975 BC.. In the Bible the Pharaoh gave Joseph the name Zaphnath-Paaneah, which does resemble Sobeknakht and the time 1975 BC is just 13 years after the time Joseph may have met Amenemhat I, i.e., just the time when Joseph had robbed everything from the Egyptians during the bad years. Sobeknakht may give a reasonably good match to Joseph, while no suitable vizier or other high officer in Sensuret I’s time fits to Joseph. (Just to mention: in the time of Senusret II (1878-1839 BC) there was one Sobekemhat. He was overseer of foreign countries, especially to the Levant.)

            But there is another argument we have to consider. The biblical figures are a part of a prophetic calculation. There is exactly 1000 years from 968 BC to 33 AD and 33 AD is the traditional date of the crucifixion of Jesus. (Whether it is the correct date is not of importance here, it is the date that people of Josephus time thought correct.) One thousand years before 968 BC should be the beginning of another period.

            God made a promise to Jacob and called Jacob Israel some time between the birth of Benjamin and the death of Isaac. Benjamin was born before Joseph was taken to Egypt, i.e. at least 10 years and at most 23 years before Jacob moved to Egypt. Isaac died in the age of 180. Jacob was at that time 120 years old. That is, Isaac died 10 years before Jacob moved to Egypt. God’s promise to Jacob was in the interval 23-10 years before Jacob moved to Egypt. If Jacob moved in 1948 BC, then the promise was between 1971 BC and 1958 BC, while if Jacob moved in 1978 BC, the promise was between 2001 BC and 1988 BC. Only the first one can be an important event in the year 1968 BC. Therefore, despite Sobeknakht the better choice is that Israelites were in Egypt for 400 years and Jacob moved to Egypt in 1948 BC.

            Jacob’s father, Isaac, was 60 when Jacob was born, thus Isaac was born 2138 BC. Abraham was 100 when Isaac was born, thus Abraham was born 2238 BC. Abraham was called when he was 75, thus in the year 2163 BC. This time fits well to Ur III, the claimed birth place of Abraham.

            Using this traditional date of the Exodus (1548 BC), there are no great conflicts with the conquest of Canaan. The time of Joshua would have been 30 years between 1508 BC and 1478 BC. This is before the conquests of Thutmose III (1479-1425 BC) and mostly fall on the reigns of Thutmose I (1506-1493 BC) and Thutmose II (1493-1479 BC). Thutmose I made a Syrian expedition in 1505 BC, but it did not have a lasting effect and Joshua’s operations were in another area. Thutmose II also made a raid to Syria and additionally he fought Shasu Bedouin in Sinai. These raids did not change the Canaanite political landscape. After Thutmose II reigned Hatshepsut (1479-1458 BC), who did not make expeditions to Canaan. Thutmose III (1458-1425 BC) should appear in the Book of Judges, but he does not. We have to notice that there seems to be 44 years missing from the years summed from Judges. They may well be in Judges 1, which is different in style from the rest of the book and e.g. it mentions the tribe of Judah. Judah is missing from Deborah’s song, which is the oldest part of the book. Most of Judges happens in the North of Israel or South of Syria (Aram Naharaim, Hazor, notice Naharina was the Egyptian name for Mitanni, Hurris). These areas were not strongly under Egyptian influence even after Thutmose III (though Megiddo was an Egyptian vassal). In the later part of Judges the country is under Philistines. As Philistines may well be one of the Sea People, the scenario in Judges agrees at least to some extent with history. The battle of Deborah may be dated by calculating the years from Deborah to the war against Benjamites, which gives 207 years and adding this to the beginning of the reign of Saul in 1061 BC. Deborah’s battle should have occurred 1268 BC. That is soon after the Battle of Kadesh between Egypt and Hittite (1274 BC), meaning that neither Egypt nor the Hittite Empire were strong at that time. Assyrians were only raising as their first important king was Adadnirari I (1295-1264 BC) and Salmanasar I (1263-1234 BC) was not yet in power. However, Hittite and rising Assyria had already weakened Mitanni, thus it is possible that in this particular time Hazor would have fought Habiru (Hebrews) without any interference from the main powers. It does look like archeology supports the view that Hazor was burned and destroyed at this time.

            However, concerning Judea, the argument is valid: Judea would not have ruled areas in the South because the area was an Egyptian province. It seems possible that the role of Judea has been added to Judges and the whole Exodus and Conquest story much later. If so, we may ask whether Hebrews at all came from Egypt. In Judges they are active in the North. It is not at all clear if Jerusalem was at that time an Israelite city of Benjamites and Jebusites, or a Jebusite city. Futhermore, one many ask who the Benjamites were and if they originally were an Israeli tribe.

            The story that Israelites were in Egypt must naturally be based on something. Hyksos were in Egypt and they were expelled c. 1550 BC. They moved to Canaan. For some years they stayed in a fortified city but were forced to move on. The Tribe of Judah may have Hyksos roots.  

            There is a very interesting piece of information in Maciej Popko’s book Huryci (1992). In Deborah’s song it is told that God came from the mountains of Seir, from Sinai, but Popko associates Seir with Hurrians. The Bible tells that Esau conquered the original inhabitants of Seir, who according to Popko were Hurrians. That would move the mountains of Seir to Southern Anatolia, to the area of Harran, i.e., to Mitanni. If so, Hebrews most probably came from the North, as Jewish DNA also suggests, and as came Amorites and other Semitic people.

            This issue should be investigated further, but let us return to prophetic calculations. It appears that the biblical stories are not a collection of tales, nor are they a reliable account of history. They are an explanation to history, like the Book of Daniel. The main theme is the seven thousand year cycle. The main actor in this explanation is Israel. The goal is to show all history as a story of the Promised People. There was one thousand years from 969 BC to 33 AD. There was another thousand years from 1968 BC to 968 BC. Before these times there was the thousand years from 2968 BC to 1968 BC associated with the Deluge and the covenant that Noah made (according to this theory) in 2968 BC. Yet an earlier thousand years was from Enoch to Noah (3968-2968 BC) where Enoch, apparently sacrificed, was the covenant. The first covenant would then be Enos (4968 BC), when people first started calling the name of God. Adam was created around 5500 BC. Naturally, these times cannot be calculated from the Masoteric Bible that most Christians use. They are from Septuaginta. The years of patriarchs in the Dead Sea Scrolls are, by the way, the years in Septuaginta, thus people like Josephus Flavius would have used those years, as the Church Fathers did.

            In the Jewish system there were 2000 years before the law (4968-2968 BC), which naturally had to end to the Deluge. Some major period had to end to the Deluge and what else could in this system? After 2000 years before the law comes 2000 years of law. Noah received a simple law in 2968 BC and in 1968 BC Jacob received more laws, like circumcision. The third 2000 years is the messianic time. As Saul was a king, he also was a messiah, but he violated God’s command (he did not exterminate all animals of Amalekites, only all people and most animals) and that is not enough. David was also crowned, but also a sinner, thus Salomon was the one who could start the messianic era in 968 BC. Jesus came in the middle of this 2000 years and the messianic time was to last to 1033 AD, and Satan was to be bound during this time, but he would be released at some point. The last thousand years (1033-2033 AD) was to be war of the good and the bad and then there would be the New World where the promises of the Bible are fulfilled. But as it went as it went, Masorites had to change the times of the patriarchs and shift the creation of the world to 3761 BC. This, of course, is not the original Anno Mundi. The Book of Jubilees tells that the Sumerian city Ur (the birthplace of Abraham) was founded 1688 Anno Mundi. As Ur was founded around 3800 BC, it gives Anno Mundi as 3800+1688=5488 BC, which fits well with Septuaginta. Clearly, if Anno Mundi had been 3761 BC, Ur had been founded 2073 BC, which any ancient people knew could not possibly be correct. In this system of 7000 years Anno Mundi is not the actual beginning of the world (like the Nabta Playa in Nubia is dated to 7,500 BC), before our cycle there were other cycles and after our cycle there are other cycles. But the cycle starting around 5500 BC is this our cycle of restarted agriculture after the original start failed. 

Life-lengths over 120 years in the Bible (like e.g. Isaac 180, father and grandfather of Moses over 130) are to be understood as calculation means because in Genesis 6:3 God sets the maximal life-length to 120 after the Deluge. (The very long lifetimes before the Deluge derive from a conversion made to Sumerian king lists and they are also calculation means: the raw converted figures were modified to fit into the 7000 year world explanation.) This means that you are expected to do a certain calculation which gives a certain world explanation. Logically this world explanation must be the 7000 year schema and the goal is to calculate the coming of the Messiah and the world rule of the Promised People. Some other calculations, like the upper bound of 352 years as the upper bound for Israelites to stay in Egypt, lead to conflicts, but they are to be ignored. We have to find the calculation that is intended. That is the calculation giving the 7000 year scheme. None of this is history, but it is also not fiction. There was a people who escaped (were expelled) Egypt, the Hyksos. There was a people, who were taken as slaves to Egypt: since Thutmose III Pharaos did take Canaanites as slaves to Egypt. Hebrews wanted to claim this history as theirs, probably because they wanted to claim the land as theirs. (Some biblical researchers claim that there would be no logic of Israelites saying that they were slaves in Egypt unless they were once slaves there, but this is not so: if Canaanites were slaves in Egypt, there is reason to claim being them and owning the land.) The events themselves may well have a historical basis, but they did not necessarily happen to Hebrews. This feature in the Bible, that it includes a prophetic calculation, makes its interpretation so interesting. Yet, it is not history in the normal sense. Israelites most probably did not exist before the late 13th century BC. But you may still get correct pointers to some events, like the battle of Deborah. Messianic calculations from the Bible have always contradictions since the time of the Messiah was many times changed. Notice that the messiah in Daniel 9:26 is most certainly Onias III who was killed 175 BC. If this is the middle of the messianic 2000 years, then the dates must be moved 207 years back. The covenant with Jacob in 1958 BC moves 207 years back to 2165 BC, which is the time when Abraham was 73. This is very close to the call of Abraham when he was 75. Probably there was an earlier calculation of this type. The two year difference disappears in Jewish calculation of any part of a year as a full year.