TheBible makes reference to variouspharaohs (Hebrew:פַּרְעֹה,Parʿō) ofEgypt. These include unnamed pharaohs in events described in theTorah, as well as several later named pharaohs, some of whom were historical or can be identified with historical pharaohs.
Joseph presenting his father and brethren to the Pharaoh (1896)
Genesis 12:10–20 states thatAbram moved to Egypt to escape a period of famine inCanaan. Abram worries that the unnamed Pharaoh will kill him and take away his wife and half-sisterSarai, so Abram tells her to say only that she is his sister. They are eventually summoned to meet Pharaoh, but God sends plagues because he wishes to marry her and she is already married. Discovering that Sarai is also Abram's wife, he releases her and orders Abram to take his belongings and return to Canaan.
David Rohl'sNew Chronology states this pharaoh would have beenNebkaure Khety.[1] This claim has been rejected by the vast majority of Egyptologists.[2]
Genesis 37–50 narrates thatJoseph, son of Jacob, was sold by his brothers into slavery in Egypt, appointed by another, unnamed Pharaoh asvizier of Egypt, and later permitted to bring his father, his brothers, and their families from Canaan to live in theLand of Goshen in the easternNile Delta around what is nowFaqous.
The author Gerald Aardsma proposed that Jacob and his family entered Egypt around 2880 BC by extending the 480 years mentioned in 1 Kings 6:1 to 1,480 years and then adding 430 years of sojourn to it, arguing that the figure of 480 years was a scribal corruption.[3] He used his own chronology, which places the3rd dynasty of Egypt in the 29th century BC, identifying the pharaoh asDjoser and Joseph as the Egyptian vizierImhotep.
AuthorAhmed Osman proposed that this pharaoh wasThutmose IV and identified Joseph withYuya.[4] Other scholars generally reject Osman's claims.[5]
David Rohl argued that this pharaoh wasAmenemhat III and identified Joseph as the Egyptian vizierAnkhu.[6] Rohl's claim has been rejected.[7]
In theBook of Exodus, theIsraelites, who are the descendants of Jacob's sons, are living in Goshen under a new Pharaoh, who oppresses them. He forces them to work long hours to buildPithom andPi-Ramesses, making mortar and baking bricks. He also issues a decree to kill their newborn males to reduce their numbers due to concerns about their growing population.Shiphrah and Puah try to prevent this, to no avail.
Moses, aLevite, is saved from this decree by his mother, who instructs his sisterMiriam to watch over him after he is placed in a reed basket in theNile. He is discovered and adopted byPharaoh's daughter. Miriam asks the princess if she would like an Israelite woman to help nurse the child, and returns with Moses' mother, who is then able to raise her child under royal protection. Later, Moses is returned to Pharaoh's daughter and raised as part of the royal household.Rabbinic literature identifies the Pharaoh of the Exodus as one of the four men who pretended to be gods.[8]
Numerous Pharaohs have been proposed as contemporary with the Exodus. The following list is comprehensive and ordered chronologically by when the pharaoh ruled rather than on the plausibility of the identification itself:
Khufu (26th century BC): Some connectHaman withHemiunu, thereby placing the Exodus during the reign of Khufu. They extend the biblical chronology to place the Exodus within his reign, during which bothJericho[9] andAi experienced destruction.
Pepi I (24th–23rd century BC):Emmanuel Anati has argued that the Exodus should be placed between the 24th and the 21st century BC and that Pepi I should be identified as the pharaoh of the Exodus.[10] This theory has not gained acceptance and has received strong criticism from Israeli archaeologistIsrael Finkelstein and American EgyptologistJames K. Hoffmeier.[11][12]
Merenre (23rd century BC): Gerald Aardsma proposed that the Exodus occurred in 2450 BC by extending the 480 years mentioned in 1 Kings 6:1 to 1,480 years, arguing that the figure of 480 years was a scribal corruption.[13] He used his own chronology, which places6th dynasty in the 25th century BC, and identified the pharaoh of the Exodus asMerenre Nemtyemsaf II. He connects the destruction of Jericho, which occurred in the 24th century BC, and that of Ai, also dated to the 24th century BC, with Joshua's Conquest.
Dedumose II (died c. 1690 BC): Though Rohl's hypothesis that Exodus occurred during theMiddle Kingdom follows theSamaritans' chronology, according to which the Israelites settled in Canaan in the 17th century BC,[14] Rohl shortened theThird Intermediate Period of Egypt by almost 300 years with his New Chronology. As a result, the synchronisms with the biblical narrative results in theSecond Intermediate Period would indicateDedumose II was Pharaoh during the Exodus.[15] Rohl's chronological revisions have been rejected by the vast majority of Egyptologists.[16]
Ahmose I (1550–1525 BC): SeveralChurch Fathers identified Ahmose I, who reconquered lower Egypt from theHyksos, rulers of Canaanite origin, as the pharaoh of the Exodus, based onHerodotus,Manetho,Josephus and other classical authors' identification of the Hyksos with the Hebrews.[17]
Hatshepsut (1507–1458 BC):Diodorus Siculus identified the Jews with the Hyksos and identified the pharaoh of the Exodus with Queen Hatshepsut.[18] However, the biblical story of the Exodus repeatedly refers to pharaoh as a man.[19]
Thutmose II (1493–1479 BC):Alfred Edersheim proposes inOld Testament Bible History that Thutmose II is best qualified to be the pharaoh of Exodus because he had a brief, prosperous reign that suddenly collapsed without a legitimate heir. His widow Hatshepsut then became first regent (forThutmose III, his son by his concubineIset), before becoming Pharaoh herself. Edersheim states that Thutmose II is the only pharaoh's mummy to display cysts, which he suggests as possible evidence of plagues that spread through the Egyptian and Hittite Empires at that time.[20]
Thutmose III (1479–1427 BC): His reign corresponds with theMasoretic Text of when the1 Kings account claims the Exodus occurred.[21][22] His oldest son, and presumptive heir, also died as a child for unknown reasons, in keeping with the Exodus account of the final plague.
Amenhotep II (1427–1401 BC): Amenhotep II claimed to have brought tens of thousands of slaves from the Levant to Egypt.[23] Associates for Biblical Research asserts that these slaves were taken to compensate for the loss of Jewish slaves as a result of the Exodus. Amenhotep II was not the firstborn son of his father,Thutmose III, consistent with the Exodus pharaoh surviving the death of the firstborn.[24][25]
Thutmose IV (1401–1391 BC): Wayne A. Mitchell and David F. Lappin argued in the book "Thutmose IV as the Exodus Pharaoh: Chronological and Astronomical Considerations" that Thutmose IV is the most likely candidate.[26][27]
Akhenaten (1353–1349 BC): In his bookMoses and Monotheism,Sigmund Freud argued that Moses had been anAtenist priest of Akhenaten who was forced to leave Egypt, along with his followers, following the pharaoh's death.Eusebius identified the pharaoh of the Exodus with a king called "Acencheres", who may be identified with Akenhaten.[28]
Ramesses I (1292–1290 BC): Ahmed Osman identified Ramesses I as the pharaoh of the Exodus in his controversial argument about the identity of the Egyptian official Yuya.[29]
Ramesses II (c. 1279–1213 BC): Ramesses II, or Ramesses the Great, is the most common figure for the Exodus pharaoh asRameses is mentioned in the Bible as a place name (seeGenesis 47:11,Exodus 1:11,Numbers 33:3, etc).[30] Although theBeisan steles of Ramesses II mentions two conquered peoples who came to "make obeisance to him" in his city of Pi-Ramesses, the text mentions neither the building of the city nor, as some have written, the Israelites orHapiru.[31] However, many confessional scholars today do not subscribe to a late date for the Exodus and therefore hold that he lived far too late to be the Exodus pharaoh.[32][33] Despite this, most scholars consider that the story of the Exodus is set in the 13th century BCE, and that the pharaoh referred to in the narrative is Ramesses II.[34][35][36][37] This is mainly because there is a significant lack of evidence for an Israelite presence in Canaan before that century,[37] because several place names in the Torah correspond to that period,[38] and because the mention of certain materials, such as iron—though not in the Exodus narrative itself but elsewhere in the Torah and in the Judges Period—align more accurately with that historical context.[39]
Bakenranef (c. 725–720 BC):Tacitus writes in hisHistories that Bakenranef (whom he refers to as "Bocchoris") had expelled the Jews from Egypt because they suffered from a horrible disease and because he was instructed to do so by an oracle of the godAmun.[47]Lysimachus of Alexandria, quoted byJosephus inAgainst Apion, also identifies the pharaoh of the Exodus with Bakenranef.[48]
Ramses (?–?):Manetho andChaeremon of Alexandria, both quoted by Josephus inAgainst Apion, state that the Jews were expelled from Egypt by a pharaoh named "Ramses", son of another pharaoh named "Amenophis". It is unclear which pharaoh this could be, since no pharaoh named Ramses had a predecessor named Amenophis.[48]
Some Arabian historians such asTabari have cited the legendaryAl-Walid ibn Mus'ab as being the pharoh during Moses' adulthood.[49]
In1 Kings 3:1, it is narrated that to seal an alliance, the pharaoh of Egypt gavea daughter in marriage toSolomon. The same ruler later captured the city ofGezer and gave it to Solomon as well (1 Kings 9:16). No name is given for the pharaoh, and some hypotheses have been proposed:
Horemheb (c. 1319–1292 BC):David Rohl's 1995A Test of Time identified Horemheb as the Pharaoh who destroyed Gezer and later gave it to Solomon, together with one of his daughters as a wife. When Horemheb took Gezer he was not yet the ruler, but was amilitary commander serving underTutankhamun. However, he became Pharaoh not long after, and Tutankhamun died too young to have left any marriageable daughters.[50] In any case, Rohl's claim has been rejected by the vast majority of Egyptologists.[51]
Siamun (c. 986–967 BC): is the most commonly proposed candidate for this role.[52][53][54]
Shoshenq I (c. 943–922 BC):Edward Lipiński dated the destruction of Gezer to the late 10th century rather than earlier, and suggested that its conqueror was Shoshenq I of the 22nd Dynasty.[57]
The transition in the biblical text from referring to pharaohs by the title "Pharaoh" (Hebrew: פַּרְעֹה) without their individual names, may follow the Egyptian convention of referring to pharaohs only by their titles. This was only broken by the middle of the 21st Dynasty by PharaohSiamun, becoming standard at the time ofShoshenq I, who is incidentally the first pharaoh to be mentioned by name in the biblical text. See the main page forPharaoh.
Shishak is generally identified withShoshenq I (943–922 BC), whose military campaign in the Levant is attested in his inscriptions.[58]
KingHoshea sent a letter to an Egyptian King So (Hebrew סוֹא מֶלֶךְ־מִצְרַיִם), mentioned in2 Kings 17:4. At this time (about 730 BC), Egypt had three dynasties ruling contemporaneously:22nd atTanis,23rd atLeontopolis, and24th atSais.
Goedicke and Albright argued that "So" refers not to the name of a pharaoh but to the city ofSais, at this time ruled byTefnakht.[63][64] Kitchen definitively rejected this view.[65]
This figure is universally identified asTaharqa (690–664 BC). The events in thebiblical account are believed to have taken place in 701 BC, whereas Taharqa came to the throne some ten years later. The title of king in the Biblical text refers to his future royal title, while at the time of this account he was likely only amilitary commander serving underShabaka.[67]
A Pharaoh Necho (Hebrew: פַּרְעֹה נְכֹה) is mentioned in several books of theBible (2 Kings, 2 Chronicles, and Jeremiah).[68]
Necho is universally identified asNecho II (610–595 BC).
The successor of Necho named Hephra (Hebrew: חׇפְרַע), mentioned inJeremiah 44:30.
Hephra is universally identified asApries (589–570 BC).
^Gerald E. Aardsma,A New Approach to the Chronology of Biblical History from Abraham to Samuel, 2nd ed. (Loda, IL: Aardsma Research and Publishing, 1993), 80–82.
^ The other three were Joash of Judah; Hiram and Nebuchadnezzar (Louis Ginzberg's The Legends of the Jews From Moses to Esther; Notes for Volumes Three and Four(p.423)
^Nigro, Lorenzo (2020). "The Italian-Palestinian Expedition to Tell es-Sultan, Ancient Jericho (1997–2015)". In Sparks, Rachel T.; Finlayson, Bill; Wagemakers, Bart; SJ, Josef Mario Briffa (eds.). Digging Up Jericho: Past, Present and Future. Archaeopress Publishing Ltd. ISBN 978-1789693522. p. 190.
^Lappin, David F.; Mitchell, Wayne A. (6 December 2024).Thutmose IV as the Exodus Pharaoh: Chronological and Astronomical Considerations. Wayne A. Mitchell.ISBN978-0979508523.
^Gabriel Oussani (July 1, 1912)."Solomon". The Catholic Encyclopedia.
^Lipinski, Edward (2006).On the Skirts of Canaan in the Iron Age(Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta). Leuven, Belgium: Peeters. pp. 96–97.ISBN978-90-429-1798-9.
^Lipinski, Edward (2006).On the Skirts of Canaan in the Iron Age(Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta). Leuven, Belgium: Peeters. pp. 96–97.ISBN978-90-429-1798-9.
^Troy Leiland Sagrillo. 2015. "Shoshenq I and biblical Šîšaq: A philological defense of their traditional equation." InSolomon and Shishak: Current perspectives from archaeology, epigraphy, history and chronology; proceedings of the third BICANE colloquium held at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge 26–27 March, 2011, edited by Peter J. James, Peter G. van der Veen, and Robert M. Porter. British Archaeological Reports (International Series) 2732. Oxford: Archaeopress. 61–81.
^Peter A Clayton:Chronicle of The Pharaohs, Thames & Hudson, (2006), pp. 182–183
^Theis, Christoffer (2020). "Contributions to the Vocabulary of the Old Testament: The Connection of the Name סוֹא with Greek Σηγωρ in 2 Kings 17, 4".Biblica.101 (1):107–113.doi:10.2143/BIB.101.1.3287517.
Geraty, Lawrence T. (2015)."Exodus Dates and Theories". In Levy, Thomas E.; Schneider, Thomas; Propp, William H. C. (eds.).Israel's Exodus in Transdisciplinary Perspective: Text, Archaeology, Culture, and Geoscience. Springer. pp. 55–64.ISBN978-3-319-04768-3.
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This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906)."Tirhakah".The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.