SOJOURN – AND THE MOTHER OF
MOSES
CONTRADICTORY accounts in the Old Testament make it difficult to arrive at
the precise date when the Patriarch Joseph and the Israelites arrived in
Egypt. As we saw earlier, we are offered a choice of three periods for the
Sojourn – 430 years, 400 years and four generations. In Stranger in the
Valley of the Kings I argued that the figure of 430 years was wrongly arrived
at by the biblical editor in the following way: firstly, he added up the four
generations named in the Old Testament account of the Descent into Egypt
as if each new generation were born on the very day that his father died,
having lived for more than a century:
Then he deducted the years (fifty-seven) that Levi lived before the Descent
– according to the Talmud he lived eighty years after the Descent and died
at the age of 137 – plus the forty years Moses is said to have lived after the
Exodus. This left him with his total of 430 years. This method of computation
is obviously unsound, and I have since been pleased to find that many
biblical scholars agree with my view that the figure of 430 years for the
Sojourn is not to be taken literally – a variety of explanations are put
forward – while it is, surprisingly, the majority of Egyptologists who appear
to look upon it as a sacred figure not to be challenged.
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One eminent biblical scholar who has commented on the length of the
sojourn is the late Umberto Cassuto, formerly Professor of Biblical Studies at
the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who wrote: ‘… the numbers given in the
Torah are mostly round or symbolic figures, and their purpose is to teach us
something by their harmonious character … these numbers are based on the
sexagesimal system, which occupied in the ancient East a place similar to
that of the decimal system in our days.
‘The chronological unit in this system was a period of sixty years, which the
Babylonians called a šūš. One šūš consisted of sixty years and two šūš of a
hundred and twenty years – a phrase that is used by Jews to this day. In
order to convey that a given thing continued for a very long time, or
comprised a large number of units, a round figure signifying a big amount
according to the sexagesimal system was employed, for example, 600,
6000, 600,000 or 300, 3000 or 300,000 or 120, 360, 1200, 3600 and so
forth. I further demonstrated there that, if it was desired to indicate a still
larger amount, these figures were supplemented by seven or a multiple of
seven. The number 127, for instance (Genesis, 23:1), was based on this
system.’1 Elsewhere Professor Cassuto makes the point that the figure forty,
found frequently in the Bible, is similarly used as a kind of shorthand for a
period of time and is not to be taken literally.
He then goes on to try to harmonize the two Israelite traditions – that the
Sojourn lasted 430 years (six times sixty, plus seventy) and four
generations. He cites as his four generations Levi, Kohath, Amram and
Aaron, who is said to have been the brother of Moses, and adds together the
years they are given in the Old Testament. This approach is permissible, he
argues, because
a) Each generation endured the burden of exile throughout the times of its
exile, and its distress was not diminished by the fact that it was shared by
another generation during a certain portion of that period; hence in
computing the total length of exile suffered, one is justified to some extent
in reckoning the ordeal of each generation in its entirety,
b) A similar and parallel system was used in the chronological calculations of
the Mesopotamians. In the Sumerian King List, dynasties that were partly
coeval, one reigning in one city and the other elsewhere, are recorded
consecutively, and are reckoned as if they ruled successively. Consequently,
if we add up the years that these dynasties reigned, we shall arrive at a total
that is actually the sum of the periods of their kingship, although it will
exceed the time that elapsed from the commencement of the first dynasty to
the end of the last.
Professor Cassuto then proceeds to make the following calculation:
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Here he points out that ‘upon deducting from [this total] (in order to allow
for the time that Levi and Kohath dwelt in the land of Canaan before they
emigrated to Egypt) one unit of time, to wit, sixty years, we obtain exactly a
period of 430 years, which is the number recorded in Exodus, 12:40.’ The
430 years are thus the total years of the four generations and are not to be
taken as representing the period of time that elapsed between the Israelites’
arrival in Egypt and their departure.
Only two Hebrew generations, Amram and Moses, were actually born in
Egypt – Kohath arrived with his father, Levi (Genesis, 46:11) – and, in
working backwards from the reign of Ramses I, the Pharaoh of the Exodus,
to try to establish the time of the Descent, calculation depends upon the age
young Hebrew boys married at the time and had their first child. It seems
reasonable to suggest that the period in which the Descent took place should
be sought within the range of some fifty to eighty years earlier than the
Exodus.
It may be helpful at this point to show how this chronology accords with that
arrived at, through a different approach, in Stranger in the Valley of the
Kings, which sought to establish that Joseph the Patriarch was the same
person as Yuya – vizier, Master of the Horse and Deputy of the King in the
Chariotry to both Tuthmosis IV and Amenhotep III – whose mummy, despite
the fact that he did not appear to be of royal blood, was found in the Valley
of the Kings in the early years of this century.
There I argued that Joseph/Yuya arrived in Egypt as a slave during the reign
of Amenhotep II and, after his spell of service in the household of Potiphar,
captain of Pharaoh’s guard, followed by his imprisonment on a false charge
of adultery, was eventually released and appointed vizier by Tuthmosis IV,
who was a dreamer like Joseph himself. Once in office he brought the tribe
of Israel down from Canaan to join him in Egypt where they settled at
Goshen in the Eastern Delta.
According to the Book of Genesis, the total number of Israelites who settled
in Egypt was seventy. Yet we are provided with only sixty-nine names –
sixty-six who made the Descent, plus Joseph and his two sons, Manasseh
(Egyptian, Anen) and Ephraim (Egyptian, Aye). It is a reasonable deduction
that the seventieth member of the tribe of Israel was also already in Egypt. I
believe that she was a daughter of Joseph, Tiye. Why would her name be
omitted? It may be because it is common in the Bible not to mention the
names of women unless they are particularly important to the story that is
being told. Alternatively, in the lingering bitterness surrounding the Exodus,
her name may have been suppressed centuries later by the biblical editor in
order to conceal this historical link between the royal house of Egypt and the
tribe of Israel which would show that Moses, their greatest leader, was of
mixed Egyptian-Israelite origins.
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The positions held by Joseph and his wife, who was the king’s ‘ornament’
(khrt nsw), a post which might be said to combine the duties of a modern
butler and lady-in-waiting, meant that both had to live in the royal
residence. It was thus that the young prince, Amenhotep, grew up with, and
fell in love with, Tiye. Then, after his father’s early death when the young
prince was about twelve, he married his sister, Sitamun, who was most
probably an infant, in order to inherit the throne, but soon afterwards also
married Tiye and made her, rather than Sitamun, his Great Royal Wife
(queen). The evidence that Tiye was about eight at the time of the wedding
indicates that Tuthmosis IV must have appointed Joseph to his various
positions, including vizier, early in his short eight-year reign.
Tiye, we know, was the mother of Akhenaten – but she must also have been
the mother of Moses if he and Akhenaten were the same person.
While the second chapter of the Book of Exodus describes the daughter of
Pharaoh as being the royal mother of Moses, the Koran claims that the
mother was the queen, Pharaoh’s wife. It is strange that, as both holy books
must have had the same origin, whether God’s inspiration or a literary
source, they should not agree in this important matter, particularly when
Egyptian custom would not have allowed an unmarried princess to adopt a
child. How then has the variation arisen?
There are two sources for the misunderstanding. In the first place, the scribe
who wrote down the Book of Exodus was faced with two traditions – that the
mother of Moses was an Israelite and that she was b-t Phar’a, literally ‘the
house of Pharaoh’. Unaware, as she had already been omitted from the
Joseph story in the Book of Genesis, that Joseph had a daughter named
Tiye, who became Pharaoh’s wife, he resolved this initial difficulty by
creating two mothers, one Hebrew, who gave birth to Moses, and one royal,
who adopted him and brought him up as her son. That he chose to identify
this adoptive mother as a princess rather than a queen has a philological
explanation.
The word for ‘daughter’ and the word for ‘house’ were written identically bt in early Hebrew and open to misconstruction by anyone not familiar with
Egyptian usage. To an Egyptian the word ‘house’ was also used – and,
indeed, still is – to signify a wife: to a Hebrew it meant either ‘house’ in the
sense of a building or ‘household’. Later, both Hebrew and the language of
Ancient Egypt, which had no written vowels, began to use some consonants
like y to indicate long vowels. Thus, for example, we find a slightly different
spelling of b-t Phar’a in the Book of Genesis account of events when Jacob,
the father of Joseph, died. Joseph, who wanted permission to take him back
to Canaan for burial, did not speak to the king directly but to
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b-y-t Phar’a, the Hebrew word signifying ‘the house of Pharaoh’: ‘And when the days of his
mourning were past, Joseph spake unto the house of Pharaoh, saying, If now I have found grace
in your eyes, speak, I pray you, in the ears of Pharaoh …’ (Genesis, 50:4). ‘Pharaoh’ itself means
literally ‘the great house’. Thus b-y-t Phar’a signifies the ‘house of the great house’, which in the
Egyptian sense would mean the queen, whom in this case I regard as Joseph’s own daughter,
Tiye, whose intercession he sought in the matter of his father’s burial.
There is an example of similar usage earlier in the Book of Genesis when the
brothers who had earlier sold Joseph into slavery made their second trip to
Egypt at a time of famine. On this occasion Joseph revealed his true identity
and was so moved that he ‘wept aloud: and the Egyptians and the house of
Pharaoh heard’ (Genesis, 45:2). This has been construed as meaning that
Joseph’s weeping was so loud that it was audible in the royal palace, but I
interpret it as meaning that the queen, his daughter, heard the news of his
brothers’ arrival.
In this second example the word used is again b-y-t Phar’a. However, in the
Book of Exodus, where we have the story of Pharaoh’s daughter going down
to bathe, finding the Hebrew child in the rushes and later adopting him,
the y is absent and we have simply b-t Phar’a. My suspicion was that during
the ninth century BC, the early stages of written Hebrew when the Old
Testament was given permanent form, all three words had been written in
this way, referring in each instance to the ‘house of Pharaoh’, the reigning
queen, and the y in the two Genesis references had been added later, as
written Hebrew developed, because the scribe did not understand the special
Egyptian usage of the word ‘house’. This, while not easy to establish, proved
to be the case.
The Hebrew Masoretic text we have now goes back only to around the tenth
century AD and could not throw any light on the matter. Nor could sections
of the Old Testament found in the caves of Qumran, near the Dead Sea,
some of which belong to the second century BC. Confirmation was
eventually provided by the Moabite Stone. This black basalt inscribed stone
was left by Mesha, King of Moab, at Dhiban (biblical Dibon, to the east of the
Dead Sea) to commemorate his revolt against Israel and his subsequent
rebuilding of many important towns (II Kings, 3:4–5). The stone was found
by the Revd F. Klein, a German missionary working with the Church
Missionary Society, on 19 August 1868 and is now in the Louvre in Paris. The
inscription refers to the triumph of ‘Mesha, ben Chemosh, King of Moab’,
whose father reigned over Moab for thirty years. He tells how he (Mesha)
threw off the yoke of Israel and honoured his god, Chemosh.2
According to the American archaeologist James B. Pritchard, a professor at
the University of Pennsylvania: ‘The date of the Mesha Stone is fixed roughly
by the reference to Mesha, King of Moab, in II Kings, 3:4, after 849 BC.
However, since the contents of the stela point to a date toward the end of
the king’s reign, it seems probable that it should be placed between 840 and
820, perhaps about 830 BC in round numbers.’3 The text reads: ‘I [am]
Mesha, son of Chemosh … King of Moab … I said to all the people: “Let each
of you make a cistern for himself in his house.”’
The inscription, written in the Semitic language used for writing at the time
by the Jews of Israel, confirms that the word for ‘house’ was then written
simply b-t, without the insertion of ‘y’ and was the same as the word for
daughter. This is also true of the way it was written in the Phoenician
language.4
When ‘house’ and ‘daughter’ were written identically there was no cause to
differentiate between them. The situation changed when development of the
Hebrew language made it possible to alter the spelling slightly to give two
different words. The scribes then found themselves in a dilemma, based on
their ignorance of the fact the ‘house’ had the Egyptian meaning ‘wife’. It
now becomes clear what happened. If the word simply meant ‘house’ or
‘household’, it made sense that Joseph approached the house of Pharaoh on
the subject of his father’s funeral and that his weeping could be heard in the
king’s house, but it made no sense at all to suggest that the whole of the
king’s household had come ‘down to wash herself at the river’ (Exodus, 2:5)
or had become the mother to the child. The scribe therefore decided in the
Exodus reference to retain the alternative meaning of ‘daughter’ whereas it,
too, should have been changed to ‘house’, signifying the wife of Pharaoh, his
queen.
There is a similar case of semantic confusion, cited by Professor Cassuto,
with the source again the Book of Exodus: ‘And Moses took his wife and
sons, and set them upon an ass, and he returned to the land of Egypt …’
(Exodus, 4:20). Professor Cassuto remarks: ‘The plural – sons – is
somewhat difficult, for till now only one son (Gershom) had been mentioned
(Exodus, 2:22), and below, in Exodus, 4:25, we find “her son”, in the
singular, as though Moses and Zipporah had just one son. Possibly the
ancient spelling here was b n h, which could be read as either singular or
plural, and the singular was actually intended; when, however, the scribes
introduced the present spelling they wrote ba na w [his sons] (the
Septuagint [the Greek version of the Old Testament], too, has the plural)
because they thought the two sons spoken of (later) in Exodus, 18:3–4 were
already born.’5
The royal mother of Moses was therefore the Queen of Egypt. But which
queen? As we saw earlier (Chapter Two), Manetho, the third century BC
historian, identified the reign of Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye – while son
of Habu was still alive, some time before the king’s Year 34 – as the right
time for the religious rebellion that led to the persecution of Akhenaten’s
followers, and Redford has made the point that it is not built simply on
popular tales and traditions of Manetho’s time, but on old traditions, passed
on orally at first, then set down in writing, that he found in his temple
library.
If we compare in greater detail the Koran account (Sura XX:38–40 and Sura
XXVIII:7–15) with the biblical account (Exodus, 2:1–12) of Moses’ birth and
eventual flight after the slaying incident, we find the stories are
fundamentally the same, yet also contain some interesting differences:
The significant differences in these accounts are:
• The Koran story does not give us the names of Moses’ parents;
• While the biblical story tells us that the rush basket was left by the river,
the Koran refers to ‘the water’, which could be a lake joined to the river;
• While Pharaoh’s daughter (or wife, as we saw before) is said by the Bible
to have been the child’s rescuer, it was ‘Pharaoh’s people’ according to the
Koran;
• The biblical version says that Moses’ sister watches events while the child
is in its basket, hidden in the reeds outside Pharaoh’s palace, but this is not
the case in the Koran; there it is only after the child was in the possession of
‘Pharaoh’s people’ that his sister is asked by the mother, who must have
been in the vicinity at the time, to follow after him, which she does secretly,
indicating that this incident must have taken place in the palace itself;
• Pharaoh’s wife, who, according to the Koran, had nothing to do with the
child until he had fallen into the hands of ‘Pharaoh’s people’, then intervened
to prevent them – probably the guards – from killing him;
• Once the child was in the custody of ‘Pharaoh’s people’, we are told in the
Koran that the child’s mother became worried about what might happen to
him. Why would she be worried unless she was in a position to know what
was going on inside the palace?
• The mother, according to the Koran, was about to reveal her hidden fears
for the safety of the child. This is the strongest indication so far that the
child’s mother and Pharaoh’s wife were one and the same person. After her
intervention to prevent him from being killed, he was taken away from her.
She then became so worried that she was about to reveal that she was the
mother of the baby, but instead she sent the sister to find out what was
happening inside the palace;
• Rather than killing the child, Moses’ sister, according to the Koran,
succeeded in persuading ‘Pharaoh’s people’ to place him in the care of a
family that would look after him. Here there is another crucial point. Where
the Bible indicates that the child was later returned to Pharaoh’s daughter to
be brought up by her, the Koran makes it clear that this event was the
actual return of Moses to his real mother;
• The Koran story states that Moses went out of the palace and ‘entered the
city’, thus implying that the palace was not far from the city, and use of the
word ‘unnoticed’ here can only mean that he was neither dressed in princely
attire at the time, nor was he attended by guards;
• While the biblical account of the slaying incident describes the two men
who were fighting as an Egyptian and a Hebrew, the Koran version of the
story makes them a follower of Moses’ religion and an enemy, implying that
at this stage, even before his flight to Sinai, Moses had a different religion
that had followers as well as enemies.