Ramses II. was the last of the conquering Pharaohs of native Egyptian
history. The Asiatic empire of Thothmes III. was in some measure restored
by the victories of his father and himself. The cities of Palestine
yielded him an unwilling obedience. Gaza, and the other towns in what was
afterwards the territory of the Philistines, were garrisoned by Egyptian
troops, and on the walls of the Ramesseum were depicted his conquest of
Shalem or Jerusalem, Merom, Beth-Anath, and other Canaanite states, in his
eighth year. Egyptian armies again marched northward into Syria along the
highroad that led past the Phœnician cities, and on the banks of the Nahr
el-Kelb, or Dog’s River, near Beyrût, the Pharaoh erected a tablet in
commemoration of his successes. On the eastern side of the Jordan also
Egyptian authority once more prevailed. In front of the northern pylon of
the temple of Luxor, Ramses erected six colossal figures of himself, and
on their recently-uncovered bases are inscribed the names of the various
nations he claimed to have subdued. Among them we find, for the first time
in the Egyptian records, the name of Moab, following immediately upon that
of Assar, the Asshurim of Genesis xxv. 3. That the insertion of the name
was not an idle boast we learn from a discovery lately made by Dr.
Schumacher. On the eastern side of the Jordan, but at no great distance
from the Lake of Tiberias, is a monolith called the “Stone of Job.” On
this the German explorer has found Egyptian sculptures and hieroglyphs.
Above the figure of the Pharaoh are the cartouches of Ramses II., and
opposite the king, on the left, a local deity is represented with a full
face and the crown of Osiris, over whom is written the name of Akna-zapn,
or “Yakin of the North.” The monument is an evidence of a permanent
occupation of the country by the Egyptians, as the name and figure of the
god indicate that it was erected, not by the Egyptians themselves, but by
the Egyptianised natives of the land.
Along the Syrian coast Seti I. had already carried his arms. His campaigns
were followed by those of his son. Arvad, the shores of the Gulf of
Antioch, and even Cilicia, are enumerated among the conquests of the
Pharaoh. He even claims to have defeated the armies of Assyria, of Matena
or Mitanni, the Aram-Naharaim of Scripture, and of Singar in Mesopotamia.
At Luxor, on the western walls of the newly excavated court, we hear of
his having been at Tunip (now Tennib), “in the land of Naharaim,” of his
capture of a fortress of the Kati in the same district, and of how “the
Pharaoh” had taken a city in “the land of Satuna.” Satuna was one of those
countries in the far north whose name is never mentioned elsewhere in the
Egyptian texts.
The Syrian conquests, however, could never have been long in the Pharaoh’s
possession. Between them and Palestine lay the southern outposts of the
Hittite race. In the troublous times which followed the death of
Khu-n-Aten, the Hittites had overrun “the land of the Amorites” to the
north of Canaan, and fixed their southern capital in the holy city of
Kadesh, on the Orontes. It was a stronghold against which the forces of
Ramses were hurled in vain. For twenty years did the struggle continue
between the Pharaoh of Egypt and “the great king of the Hittites,” and at
last, exhausted by the long conflict, in which neither party had gained
the advantage, the two enemies agreed upon peace. A treaty was signed on
the twenty-first of the month Tybi, in the twenty-first year of the reign
of Ramses (B.C. 1327), “in the city of Ramses,” to which the Hittite
ambassadors had come. Ramses, on the one side, and Khita-sir, the son of
Mul-sir, the Hittite prince, on the other, bound themselves in it to
eternal friendship and alliance. In case of war they were to send troops
to one another’s help, and they agreed to put to death any criminals who
might fly from the one country to the other. Political offenders, however,
who had taken refuge in the territory of one or other of the two
contracting parties, were not to be injured. It was of course the
Canaanitish subjects of the Pharaoh, who adjoined the Hittite kingdom,
that were principally affected by these stipulations. It was further
determined that on no pretext whatever should any change be made in the
boundaries of the two monarchies. The treaty was placed under the
protection of the deities of Egypt and the Hittites, and a Hittite copy of
it was engraved on a silver plate. The agreement was cemented by the
marriage of Ramses to a daughter of the Hittite king, who thereupon
assumed an Egyptian name.
Northern Syria was thus formally conceded to the powerful conquerors who
had descended from the mountains of Kappadokia, while Palestine remained
under Egyptian dominion. But it was not destined to do so long. Ramses was
succeeded by Meneptah, the fourteenth of his many sons, who had reigned
only four years when the very existence of his kingdom was threatened by a
formidable invasion from the west and north. “The peoples of the north”
swarmed out of their coasts and islands, and a great fleet descended upon
Egypt, in conjunction with the Libyans and Maxyes of northern Africa.
Aqaiush or Achæans, Shardana or Sardinians, Tursha or Tyrsenians appear
among them, as well as Leku from Asia Minor, and Zakkur, who a little
later are the colleagues and brethren of the Philistines. Part of the
Delta was overrun and devastated before the Pharaoh could make head
against his foes. But a decisive battle was at length fought at
Pa-Alu-sheps, not far from Heliopolis, which ended in the complete
overthrow of the invading hordes. Egypt was saved from the danger which
had threatened it, but it seems never to have recovered from the shock.
The power of the government was weakened in the valley of the Nile itself,
and one by one the foreign conquests passed out of its grasp. The sceptre
of Seti II., who followed Meneptah, seems to have dropped into the hands
of a usurper, Amon-messu by name: the history of the period is, however,
involved in obscurity, and all that is certain is that the empire of
Ramses II. was lost, and that Egypt itself fell into a state of decadence.
With Si-Ptah the nineteenth dynasty came to an inglorious end.
Its fall was the signal for internal confusion and civil war. A Syrian
foreigner, Arisu by name, possessed himself of the throne of the Pharaohs,
and Egypt for a while was compelled to submit to Canaanitish rule. Its
leading nobles were in banishment, its gods were deprived of their
customary offerings, and famine was added to the horrors of war. A
deliverer came in the person of Set-nekht, the founder of the twentieth
dynasty. He drove the stranger out the country, and restored it again to
peace and prosperity. Hardly had his task been completed when he died, and
was succeeded by his son, Ramses III. Under him a transient gleam of
victory and conquest visited once more the valley of the Nile.
It was well for Egypt that she possessed an energetic general and king.
The same hordes which had threatened her in the reign of Meneptah now
again attacked her with increased numbers and greater chances of success.
In the fifth year of Ramses III., the fair-skinned tribes of the western
desert poured into the Delta. The Maxyes, under their chieftains Mdidi,
Mâshakanu, and Mâraiu, and the Libyans, under Ur-mâr and Zut-mâr, met the
Pharaoh in battle at a place which ever afterwards bore a name
commemorative of their defeat. The victory of the Egyptians was, in fact,
decisive. As many as 12,535 slain were counted on the field of battle, and
captives and spoil innumerable fell into the hands of the victors.
But Ramses was allowed only a short breathing-space. Three years after the
Libyan invasion, and doubtless in connection with it, came a still more
formidable invasion on the part of the barbarians of the north. This time
they came partly by land, partly by sea. Vast hordes of them had marched
out of Asia Minor, overrunning the kingdoms of the Hittites, of Naharaim,
of Carchemish, and of Arvad, and carrying with them adventurers and
recruits from the countries through which they passed. First they pitched
their camp in “the land of the Amorites,” and then marched southward
towards the frontiers of Egypt. The place of the Aqaiush was taken by the
Daanau or Danaans, but the Zakkur again formed part of the invading host,
this time accompanied by Pulsata or Philistines, and Shakalsh or
Siculians. By the side of the land army moved a fleet of ships, and fleet
and army arrived together at the mouths of the Nile. The cities in the
extreme south of Palestine, once occupied by Egyptian garrisons, were
captured by the Philistines, and became henceforward their assured
possession.
But the main body of the invaders were not so fortunate. The Egyptian
forces were ready to receive them, and their ships had scarcely entered
the mouth of the Nile before they were attacked by the Egyptian fleet. The
battle ended in the complete annihilation of the attacking host. A picture
of it is sculptured on the walls of Medînet Habu at Thebes, the
temple-palace which Ramses built to commemorate his victories, and we can
there study the ships of the European barbarians and the features and
dress of the barbarians themselves. In the expressive words of the
Egyptian scribe, “they never reaped a harvest any more.”
Ramses, however, was even now not left at rest. Three years later the
Maxyes again assailed Egypt under Mashashal, the son of Kapur, but once
more unsuccessfully. Cattle, horses, asses, chariots and weapons of war in
large quantities fell into the hands of the Egyptians, as well as 2052
captives, while 2175 men were slain. From this time forward Egypt was
secure from attack on its western border.
Freed from the necessity of defending his own territories, Ramses now
carried the war into Asia. What in later days was the land of Judah was
overrun by his forces; Gaza and the districts round Hebron and Salem or
Jerusalem were occupied, and the name of the Dead Sea appears on the walls
of Medînet Habu for the first time in Egyptian history. The Egyptian army
even crossed to the eastern side of the Jordan and captured the Moabite
capital.
Another campaign led it along the Phœnician coast into northern Syria.
Hamath was taken, and Ramses seems to have penetrated as far as the slopes
of the Taurus. He even claims to have defeated the people of Mitanni or
Aram-Naharaim on the eastern bank of the Euphrates. The kings of the
Hittites and the Amorites, like the chiefs of the Zakkur and the
Philistines, were already prisoners in his hands.
But the northern campaigns of Ramses were intended to strike terror rather
than to re-establish the Asiatic empire of Egypt. No attempt was made to
hold the cities and districts which had been overrun. Though a temple was
erected to Amon on the frontiers of the later Judæa, even Gaza was given
up, and the fortress which had so long defended the road from Canaan into
Egypt was allowed to pass into Philistine hands. It was the same with the
campaign which the Pharaoh conducted at a later date against the “Shasu”
or Bedouin of Edom. For the first time an Egyptian army succeeded in
making its way into the fastnesses of Mount Seir, slaying the warriors of
Edom, and plundering their “tents.” The Edomite chief himself was made a
prisoner. The expedition had the effect of protecting the Egyptian mining
establishments in the Sinaitic peninsula as well as the maritime trade
with southern Arabia. Large quantities of malachite were brought year by
year from the Egyptian province of Mafka or Sinai, and the
merchant-vessels of Ramses coasted along the Red Sea, bringing back with
them the precious spices of Yemen and Hadhramaut.
Ramses III. died after a reign of more than thirty-two years, and the
military renown of Egypt expired with him. His exact date is still a
matter of doubt, but his accession must have fallen about B.C. 1200. The
date is important, not only because it closes the history of Egypt as a
conquering power, but also as it marks a great era of migration among the
northern populations of the Mediterranean, as well as the permanent
settlement of the Philistines in Palestine. It was, moreover, the period
to which the Israelitish invasion of Canaan must belong.
When Ramses III. overran the southern portion of Palestine, and built the
temple of the Theban god at the spot now known as Khurbet Kan’an, not far
from Hebron, the Israelites could not as yet have entered the Promised
Land. There is no reference to the Egyptians in the Pentateuch, and there
is no reference to the Israelites in the hieroglyphic texts of Medînet
Habu. Hebron, Migdal, Karmel of Judah, Ir-Shemesh and Hadashah, all alike
fell into the hands of the Egyptian invaders, but neither in the Egyptian
nor in the Hebrew records is there any allusion to a struggle between
Egypt and Israel. When Joshua entered Canaan all these cities belonged to
the Canaanites, and when Ramses III. attacked them this was also the case.
The Palestinian campaign of Ramses must have prepared the way for the
Israelitish conquest; it could not have followed after it.
Moreover, “the five lords of the Philistines” seem to have already been
settled in the extreme south when the Israelitish invasion took place
(Josh. xiii. 3). Yet it also seems clear from the Egyptian monuments that
the settlement was not fully completed until after the Asiatic campaigns
of the Pharaoh had occurred. The Philistines indeed formed part of the
great invading host which poured through Syria and assailed Egypt in the
early part of his reign, but Gaza was one of his conquests, and its
possession enabled him to march into Canaan. Before Gaza could become a
Philistine city it was needful that its Egyptian garrison should be
withdrawn. Professor Prášek believes that the Philistine occupation of
southern Canaan took place in the year B.C. 1209, since the Roman
historian Justin tells us that in this year a king of Ashkelon stormed the
city of Sidon, and that the Sidonians fled to a neighbouring part of the
coast, and there founded Tyre. However this may be, the Philistine
settlement in Canaan must be ascribed to the age of Ramses III., and it
was already with the Philistines that the Israelites came into conflict
under almost the earliest of their judges.
But the date of the Israelitish conquest of Canaan is closely bound up
with that of the Exodus out of Egypt. It is true that when we are told of
the forty years’ wandering in the desert, the word “forty” is used, as it
is elsewhere in the Old Testament, as well as upon the Moabite Stone, to
denote an indeterminate period of time. It was a period during which the
greater part of the generation that had left Egypt had time to die. Joshua
and Caleb indeed remained, and Othniel, the brother of Caleb, lived to
deliver Israel from the king of Aram-Naharaim, and to be the first of the
judges. But otherwise it was a new generation which was led to conquest by
Joshua.
If Ramses II. was the Pharaoh of the Oppression, the Pharaoh of the Exodus
must have been one of his immediate successors. Egyptologists have
hesitated between Meneptah, Seti II., and Si-Ptah. There is much to be
said in favour of each. None of them reigned long, and after the death of
Meneptah the sceptre fell into feeble hands, and the Egyptian monarchy
went rapidly to decay.
Native tradition, as reported by the historian Manetho, made Meneptah the
Pharaoh under whom the children of Israel escaped from their house of
bondage. Amenôphis or Meneptah, it was said, desired to see the gods. He
was accordingly instructed by the seer Amenôphis, the son of Pa-apis, to
clear the land of the leprous and impure. This he did, and 80,000 persons
were collected from all parts of Egypt, and were then separated from the
other inhabitants of the country and compelled to work in the quarries of
Tûra, on the eastern side of the Nile. Among them there happened to be
some priests, one of whom was Osarsiph, a priest of On, and the
sacrilegious act of laying hands on them was destined to be avenged by the
gods. The seer prophesied that the impure lepers would find allies, and
with their help would govern Egypt for thirteen years, when a saviour
should arise in the person of Amenôphis himself. Not daring to tell the
king of this prediction, he put it in writing and then took away his own
life. After a time the workers in the quarries were removed to Avaris, the
deserted fortress of the Hyksos, on the Asiatic frontier of the Egyptian
kingdom. Here they rose in rebellion under Osarsiph, who organised them
into a community, and gave them new laws, forbidding them to revere the
sacred animals, and ordering them to rebuild the walls of Avaris. He also
sent to the descendants of the Hyksos at Jerusalem, begging for their
assistance. A force of 200,000 men was accordingly despatched to Avaris,
and the invasion of Egypt decided on. Amenôphis retired into Ethiopia
without striking a blow, carrying with him his son Sethos, who was also
called Ramesses after his grandfather, as well as the sacred bull Apis,
and other holy animals. The images of the gods were concealed, lest they
should be profaned by the invaders. Amenôphis remained in Ethiopia for
thirteen years, while Osarsiph, who had taken the name of Moses, together
with his allies from Jerusalem, committed innumerable atrocities. At last,
however, Amenôphis and his son Sethos returned, each at the head of an
army; the enemy were defeated and overthrown, and finally pursued to the
borders of Syria.
The tradition is a curious mixture of fact and legend. Osarsiph is but an
Egyptianised form of Joseph, the first syllable of which has been
explained as representing the god of Israel (as in Ps. lxxxi. 5), and has
accordingly been identified with Osar or Osiris. The ancient Egyptian
habit of regarding the foreigner as impure has been interpreted to mean
that the followers of Osarsiph were lepers. The Exodus of the Israelites
has been confounded with the invasion of the northern barbarians in the
reign of Meneptah, as well as with the troublous period that saw the fall
of the nineteenth dynasty when the throne of Egypt was seized by the
Syrian Arisu. And, lastly, the hated Hyksos have been introduced into the
story; their fortress Avaris is made the rallying-place of the revolted
lepers, and it is through the help they send from Jerusalem that the rule
of Osarsiph or Moses is established in the valley of the Nile.
An interesting commentary on the legend has been furnished by a papyrus
lately acquired by M. Golénischeff, and dating from the age of Thothmes
III. On the last page is a sort of Messianic prophecy, the hero of which
has the name of Ameni, a shortened form of Amenôphis. “A king,” it says,
“will come from the south, Ameni the truth-declaring by name. He will be
the son of a woman of Nubia, and will be born in.... He will assume the
crown of Upper Egypt, and will lift up the red crown of Lower Egypt. He
will unite the double crown.... The people of the age of the son of man
(_sic_) will rejoice and establish his name for all eternity. They will be
far from evil, and the wicked will humble their mouths for fear of him.
The Asiatics (Âmu) will fall before his blows, and the Libyans before his
flame. The wicked will wait on his judgments, the rebels on his power. The
royal serpent on his brow will pacify the revolted. A wall shall be built,
even that of the prince, so that the Asiatics may no more enter into
Egypt.” In this Ameni we should probably see the Amenôphis of the
Manethonian story.
Against the identification of Meneptah with the Pharaoh of the Exodus it
has, however, been urged that he seems on the whole to have been a
successful prince. His kingdom passed safely through the shock of the
Libyan and northern invasions, and notices which have survived to us show
that, at all events in the earlier part of his reign, Gaza and the
neighbouring towns still acknowledged his authority. At Zaru, on the
Asiatic frontier of Egypt, a young scribe, Pa-ebpasa by name, was
stationed, whose duty it was to keep a record of all those who entered or
left the country by “the way of the Philistines.” Some of his notes, made
in the third year of Meneptah, are entered on the back of his school
copybook, which is now in the British Museum. One of them tells us that on
the fifteenth of Pakhons Baal— ... the son of Zippor of Gaza, passed
through with a letter to Baal-marom(?)-ga[b]u, the prince of Tyre; another
that Thoth, the son of Zakarumu, and the policeman Duthau, the son of
Shem-baal, as well as Sutekh-mes, the son of Epher-dagal, had come from
Gaza with a message to the king.
A curious despatch, dated in Meneptah’s eighth year, goes to show that at
that time the kinsfolk of the Israelites still had liberty to pass from
the desert into the land of Goshen and there find pasturage for their
flocks. One of his officials informs him that certain Shasu or Bedouin
from Edom had been allowed to pass the Khetam or fortress of Meneptah
Hotep-hima in the district of Succoth, and make their way to the lakes of
the city of Pithom, in the district of Succoth, “in order to feed
themselves and their herds on the possessions of Pharaoh, who is there a
beneficent sun for all peoples.” The document may be interpreted in two
ways. It may be taken as a proof that the Israelites had not yet fled from
Egypt, and that there was consequently as yet no restraint placed by the
Egyptians upon the entrance of the Asiatic nomads into their country, or
it may be regarded as implying that the land of Goshen was already
deserted, so that there was abundance of room for both shepherds and
flocks. On behalf of this view a passage may be quoted from the great
inscription of Meneptah at Karnak, in which we read that “the country
around Pa-Bailos (the modern Belbeis) was not cultivated, but left as
pasture for cattle because of the strangers. It was abandoned since the
time of the ancestors.” More probably, however, this means that the land
in question was not inhabited by Egyptian _fellahin_, but given over to
the Hebrew shepherds and the “mixed multitude” of their Bedouin kinsmen.
A more serious objection to making Meneptah the Pharaoh of the Exodus is
the fact that his son Seti II. was already acknowledged as heir to the
throne during his father’s lifetime. The “tale of the two brothers,” to
which we have already had to refer, was dedicated to him while he was
still crown-prince. Indeed, it would even appear that he was associated
with his father on the throne, since the cartouches of Meneptah and Seti
II. are found side by side in the rock-temple of Surarîyeh. It would seem,
therefore, that the first-born of the Pharaoh, who was destroyed on the
night of the Passover, could not have been a son of Meneptah—at all
events, if his heir and future successor were his first-born son. That
Meneptah should have been buried in one of the royal tombs of Bibân
el-Molûk at Thebes, and received divine honours after his death, is of
less consequence. As has often been remarked, no mention is made in the
narrative of the Exodus that the Pharaoh himself was drowned, and though
Meneptah’s tomb (No. 8) is unfinished, the cult that was paid to his
memory indicates that his mummy was deposited in it. It was plundered
centuries ago, and the numerous Greek inscriptions on its walls make it
clear that it was open to visitors in the Roman age.
Professor Maspero has suggested that the Pharaoh of the Bible was Seti II.
We know that Seti must have been a weak prince, and that his rule was
disputed. A usurper, Amon-messu by name, seized the crown either during
his lifetime or at his death, and governed at Thebes, while the authority
of the lawful line of princes was still acknowledged in the north. We also
know that he must have died suddenly, for his tomb at Thebes (No. 15),
though begun magnificently, was never finished. Its galleries and halls
were hewn out of the rock, but never adorned with sculptures and
paintings, and, except at the entrance, we have merely outline sketches,
which were never filled in. His cartouches, however, are found in another
tomb, not far off (No. 13), and after his death worship was paid to him
and his wife.
A despatch, written during his reign, relates to the escape of two
fugitives who had travelled along the very road which the Israelites
attempted to take. The scribe tells us that he set out in pursuit of them
from the royal city of Ramses on the evening of the 9th of Epiphi, and had
arrived at the Khetam or fortress of Succoth the following day. Two days
later he reached another Khetam, and there learned that the slaves were
already safe in the desert, having passed the lines of fortification to
the north of the Migdol of King Seti. The account is an interesting
illustration of the flight, on a far larger scale, that must have taken
place about the same time. The geography of the despatch is in close
harmony with that of the Book of Exodus, and bears witness to the
contemporaneousness of the latter with the events it professes to record.
It is a geography which ceased to be exact after the age of the nineteenth
dynasty.
It is thus possible that Seti II., instead of Meneptah, is the Pharaoh
whose host perished in the waves of the Red Sea. But there is yet another
claimant in Si-Ptah, with whom the nineteenth dynasty came to an end. Dr.
Kellogg has argued ably on behalf of him, and it is possible that the
views of this scholar are correct. Si-Ptah’s right to the throne was
derived from his wife, Ta-user, and he reigned at least six years. That he
followed Seti II. has long been admitted, on the authority of Manetho,
though doubts have been cast on it in consequence of a statement of
Champollion that he found the name of Seti written over that of Si-Ptah in
the tomb of the latter at Bibân el-Molûk (No. 14). All doubts, however,
are now set at rest by an inscription I copied at Wadi Halfa two years
ago, in which the writer, Hora, the son of Kam, declares that he had
formerly belonged to the palace of Seti II., and had engraved the
inscription in the third year of Si-Ptah. In another inscription in the
same place, dated also in Si-Ptah’s reign, the author states that he had
been an ambassador to the land of Khal or Syria. Intercourse with Asia was
therefore still maintained.
Si-Ptah’s tomb at Thebes was usurped by Setnekht, the founder of the
twentieth dynasty. It is even doubtful whether the king for whom it was
made was ever buried in it. In the second sepulchral hall the lid of his
sarcophagus was discovered, but of the sarcophagus itself there was no
trace. Perhaps it had been appropriated by Set-nekht. At any rate, those
who believe that the Pharaoh of the Exodus perished in the Red Sea will
find in Si-Ptah a better representative of him than in Meneptah or Seti.
And the period of anarchy which followed upon his death may be regarded as
the natural sequel of the disasters that befel Egypt before the children
of Israel were permitted to go.
However this may be, the question of the date of the Exodus is reduced to
narrow limits. The three successors of Ramses II. reigned altogether but a
short time. Manetho gives seven years only to Si-Ptah, five years to
Amon-messu, and we know from the monuments that Meneptah and Seti II. can
have reigned but a very few years. Thirty or forty years at most will have
covered the period that elapsed between the death of the great Ramses and
the downfall of his dynasty. Then came a few years of confusion and
anarchy, followed by the reign of Setnekht. If we place the accession of
Ramses III. in B.C. 1230, we cannot be far wrong.
When that happened, the Israelites were hidden out of the sight of the
great nations of the world among the solitudes of the desert. They were
pitching their tents on the frontiers of Mount Seir, in the near
neighbourhood of their kinsmen in Edom and Midian. There, at Sinai and
Kadesh-barnea, they were receiving a code of laws, and being fitted to
become a nation and the conquerors of Canaan. Were they included among the
Shasu of Mount Seir whose overthrow is commemorated by Ramses III.?
For an answer we must turn to the twenty-first chapter of the Book of
Numbers. There we read how it is said in the book of the wars of the Lord:
“Waheb in Suphah and the brooks of Arnon, and the stream of the brook that
goeth down to the dwelling of Ar, and lieth upon the border of Moab.” Of
the war against the Amorites on the banks of the Arnon we know something,
but the Old Testament has preserved no record of the other war, which had
its scene in Suphah. Where Suphah was we know from the opening of the Book
of Deuteronomy, which tells us that the words of Moses were addressed to
the people “in the plain over against Suph.” Suph, in fact, was the
district which gave its name to the _yâm Sûph_ or “Sea of Suph,” the Red
Sea of the authorised version, the modern Gulf of Akabah. Here were the
Edomite ports of Eloth and Ezion-geber, where Solomon built his fleet of
merchantmen (1 Kings ix. 26), and here too was the region which faced “the
plain” on the southern side of Moab.
The barren ranges of Mount Seir run down southward to Ezion-geber and
Eloth, at the head of the Gulf of Akabah. And it was just in the ranges of
Mount Seir that Ramses III. tells us he smote the Shasu and plundered
their tents. When he made this expedition, the Israelites were probably
still encamped on the borders of Edom. They had not as yet entered Canaan
when he marched through the later Judæa, and crossed the Jordan into Moab,
and his campaign against the Shasu of the desert did not take place many
years later. At Medînet Habu, the “chief of the Shasu” figures among his
prisoners by the side of the kings of the Hittites and the Amorites.
Was “the war of the Lord” in Suphah waged against the Pharaoh of Egypt?
Chronology is in favour of it, and if the enemies of the Israelites were
not the Egyptian army, it is hard to say who else they could have been. We
know from the Pentateuch that they were not the people of Edom; “meddle
not with them,” the Israelites were enjoined; the children of Esau were
their “brethren,” and God had “given Mount Seir unto Esau for a
possession.”
But whether or not Ramses III. and the tribes of Israel ever came into
actual conflict, it must have been during his reign that the first
Israelitish conquests in Canaan were made. The settlement of the twelve
tribes in Palestine was coeval with the final decay of the Egyptian
monarchy.