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Easton's Bible Dictionary
The official title borne by the Egyptian kings down to
the time when that country was conquered by the Greeks. (See EGYPT .) The name
is a compound, as some think, of the words Ra, the "sun" or "sun-god," and the
article phe, "the," prefixed; hence phera, "the sun," or "the sun-god." But others,
perhaps more correctly, think the name derived from Perao, "the great house" =
his majesty = in Turkish, "the Sublime Porte."
(1) The Pharaoh who was on the throne when Abram went down into Egypt ( Genesis
12:10 - 20 ) was probably one of the Hyksos, or "shepherd kings." The Egyptians
called the nomad tribes of Syria Shasu, "plunderers," their king or chief Hyk,
and hence the name of those invaders who conquered the native kings and established
a strong government, with Zoan or Tanis as their capital. They were of Semitic
origin, and of kindred blood accordingly with Abram. They were probably driven
forward by the pressure of the Hittites. The name they bear on the monuments is
"Mentiu."
(2) The Pharaoh of Joseph's days ( Genesis 41 ) was probably Apopi, or Apopis,
the last of the Hyksos kings. To the old native Egyptians, who were an African
race, shepherds were "an abomination;" but to the Hyksos kings these Asiatic shepherds
who now appeared with Jacob at their head were congenial, and being akin to their
own race, had a warm welcome ( Genesis 47:5 , 47:6 ). Some argue that Joseph came
to Egypt in the reign of Thothmes III., long after the expulsion of the Hyksos,
and that his influence is to be seen in the rise and progress of the religious
revolution in the direction of monotheism which characterized the middle of the
Eighteenth Dynasty. The wife of Amenophis III., of that dynasty, was a Semite.
Is this singular fact to be explained from the presence of some of Joseph's kindred
at the Egyptian court? Pharaoh said to Joseph, "Thy father and thy brethren are
come unto thee: the land of Egypt is before thee; in the best of the land make
thy father and brethren to dwell" ( Genesis 47:5 , 47:6 ).
(3) The "new king who knew not Joseph" ( Exodus 1:8 - 22 ) has been generally
supposed to have been Aahmes I., or Amosis, as he is called by Josephus. Recent
discoveries, however, have led to the conclusion that Seti was the "new king."
For about seventy years the Hebrews in Egypt were under the powerful protection
of Joseph. After his death their condition was probably very slowly and gradually
changed. The invaders, the Hyksos, who for some five centuries had been masters
of Egypt, were driven out, and the old dynasty restored. The Israelites now began
to be looked down upon. They began to be afflicted and tyrannized over. In process
of time a change appears to have taken place in the government of Egypt. A new
dynasty, the Nineteenth, as it is called, came into power under Seti I., who was
its founder. He associated with him in his government his son, Rameses II., when
he was yet young, probably ten or twelve years of age.
Note, Professor Maspero, keeper of the museum of Bulak, near Cairo, had his attention
in 1870 directed to the fact that scarabs, i.e., stone and metal imitations of
the beetle (symbols of immortality), originally worn as amulets by royal personages,
which were evidently genuine relics of the time of the ancient Pharaohs, were
being sold at Thebes and different places along the Nile. This led him to suspect
that some hitherto undiscovered burial-place of the Pharaohs had been opened,
and that these and other relics, now secretly sold, were a part of the treasure
found there. For a long time he failed, with all his ingenuity, to find the source
of these rare treasures. At length one of those in the secret volunteered to give
information regarding this burial-place. The result was that a party was conducted
in 1881 to Dier el-Bahari, near Thebes, when the wonderful discovery was made
of thirty-six mummies of kings, queens, princes, and high priests hidden away
in a cavern prepared for them, where they had lain undisturbed for thirty centuries.
"The temple of Deir el-Bahari stands in the middle of a natural amphitheatre of
cliffs, which is only one of a number of smaller amphitheatres into which the
limestone mountains of the tombs are broken up. In the wall of rock separating
this basin from the one next to it some ancient Egyptian engineers had constructed
the hiding-place, whose secret had been kept for nearly three thousand years."
The exploring party being guided to the place, found behind a great rock a shaft
6 feet square and about 40 feet deep, sunk into the limestone. At the bottom of
this a passage led westward for 25 feet, and then turned sharply northward into
the very heart of the mountain, where in a chamber 23 feet by 13, and 6 feet in
height, they came upon the wonderful treasures of antiquity. The mummies were
all carefully secured and brought down to Bulak, where they were deposited in
the royal museum, which has now been removed to Ghizeh.
Among the most notable of the ancient kings of Egypt thus discovered were Thothmes
III., Seti I., and Rameses II. Thothmes III. was the most distinguished monarch
of the brilliant Eighteenth Dynasty. When this mummy was unwound "once more, after
an interval of thirty-six centuries, human eyes gazed on the features of the man
who had conquered Syria and Cyprus and Ethiopia, and had raised Egypt to the highest
pinnacle of her power. The spectacle, however, was of brief duration. The remains
proved to be in so fragile a state that there was only time to take a hasty photograph,
and then the features crumbled to pieces and vanished like an apparition, and
so passed away from human view for ever." "It seems strange that though the body
of this man," who overran Palestine with his armies two hundred years before the
birth of Moses, "mouldered to dust, the flowers with which it had been wreathed
were so wonderfully preserved that even their colour could be distinguished" (Manning's
Land of the Pharaohs).
Seti I. (his throne name Merenptah), the father of Rameses II., was a great and
successful warrior, also a great builder. The mummy of this Pharaoh, when unrolled,
brought to view "the most beautiful mummy head ever seen within the walls of the
museum. The sculptors of Thebes and Abydos did not flatter this Pharaoh when they
gave him that delicate, sweet, and smiling profile which is the admiration of
travellers. After a lapse of thirty-two centuries, the mummy retains the same
expression which characterized the features of the living man. Most remarkable
of all, when compared with the mummy of Rameses II., is the striking resemblance
between the father and the son. Seti I. is, as it were, the idealized type of
Rameses II. He must have died at an advanced age. The head is shaven, the eyebrows
are white, the condition of the body points to considerably more than threescore
years of life, thus confirming the opinions of the learned, who have attributed
a long reign to this king."
Rameses II., the son of Seti I., is probably the Pharaoh of the Oppression. During
his forty years' residence at the court of Egypt, Moses must have known this ruler
well. During his sojourn in Midian, however, Rameses died, after a reign of sixty-seven
years, and his body embalmed and laid in the royal sepulchre in the Valley of
the Tombs of Kings beside that of his father. Like the other mummies found hidden
in the cave of Deir el-Bahari, it had been for some reason removed from its original
tomb, and probably carried from place to place till finally deposited in the cave
where it was so recently discovered.
In 1886, the mummy of this king, the "great Rameses," the "Sesostris" of the Greeks,
was unwound, and showed the body of what must have been a robust old man. The
features revealed to view are thus described by Maspero: "The head is long and
small in proportion to the body. The top of the skull is quite bare. On the temple
there are a few sparse hairs, but at the poll the hair is quite thick, forming
smooth, straight locks about two inches in length. White at the time of death,
they have been dyed a light yellow by the spices used in embalmment. The forehead
is low and narrow; the brow-ridge prominent; the eye-brows are thick and white;
the eyes are small and close together; the nose is long, thin, arched like the
noses of the Bourbons; the temples are sunk; the cheek-bones very prominent; the
ears round, standing far out from the head, and pierced, like those of a woman,
for the wearing of earrings; the jaw-bone is massive and strong; the chin very
prominent; the mouth small, but thick-lipped; the teeth worn and very brittle,
but white and well preserved. The moustache and beard are thin. They seem to have
been kept shaven during life, but were probably allowed to grow during the king's
last illness, or they may have grown after death. The hairs are white, like those
of the head and eyebrows, but are harsh and bristly, and a tenth of an inch in
length. The skin is of an earthy-brown, streaked with black. Finally, it may be
said, the face of the mummy gives a fair idea of the face of the living king.
The expression is unintellectual, perhaps slightly animal; but even under the
somewhat grotesque disguise of mummification there is plainly to be seen an air
of sovereign majesty, of resolve, and of pride."
Both on his father's and his mother's side it has been pretty clearly shown that
Rameses had Chaldean or Mesopotamian blood in his veins to such a degree that
he might be called an Assyrian. This fact is thought to throw light on Isaiah
52:4 .
The Pharaoh of the Exodus was probably Menephtah I., the fourteenth and eldest
surviving son of Rameses II. He resided at Zoan, where he had the various interviews
with Moses and Aaron recorded in the book of Exodus. His mummy was not among those
found at Deir el-Bahari. It is still a question, however, whether Seti II. or
his father Menephtah was the Pharaoh of the Exodus. Some think the balance of
evidence to be in favour of the former, whose reign it is known began peacefully,
but came to a sudden and disastrous end. The "Harris papyrus," found at Medinet-Abou
in Upper Egypt in 1856, a state document written by Rameses III., the second king
of the Twentieth Dynasty, gives at length an account of a great exodus from Egypt,
followed by wide-spread confusion and anarchy. This, there is great reason to
believe, was the Hebrew exodus, with which the Nineteenth Dynasty of the Pharaohs
came to an end. This period of anarchy was brought to a close by Setnekht, the
founder of the Twentieth Dynasty.
"In the spring of 1896, Professor Flinders Petrie discovered, among the ruins
of the temple of Menephtah at Thebes, a large granite stela, on which is engraved
a hymn of victory commemorating the defeat of Libyan invaders who had overrun
the Delta. At the end other victories of Menephtah are glanced at, and it is said
that 'the Israelites (I-s-y-r-a-e-l-u) are minished (?) so that they have no seed.'
Menephtah was son and successor of Rameses II., the builder of Pithom, and Egyptian
scholars have long seen in him the Pharaoh of the Exodus. The Exodus is also placed
in his reign by the Egyptian legend of the event preserved by the historian Manetho.
In the inscription the name of the Israelites has no determinative of 'country'
or 'district' attached to it, as is the case with all the other names (Canaan,
Ashkelon, Gezer, Khar or Southern Palestine, etc.) mentioned along with it, and
it would therefore appear that at the time the hymn was composed, the Israelites
had already been lost to the sight of the Egyptians in the desert. At all events
they must have had as yet no fixed home or district of their own. We may therefore
see in the reference to them the Pharaoh's version of the Exodus, the disasters
which befell the Egyptians being naturally passed over in silence, and only the
destruction of the 'men children' of the Israelites being recorded. The statement
of the Egyptian poet is a remarkable parallel to Exodus 1:10 - 22 ."
(4) The Pharaoh of 1 Kings 11:18-22 .
(5) So, king of Egypt ( 2 Kings 17:4 ).
(6) The Pharaoh of 1 Chronicles 4:18 .
(7) Pharaoh, whose daughter Solomon married ( 1 Kings 3:1 ; 7:8 ).
(8) Pharaoh, in whom Hezekiah put his trust in his war against Sennacherib ( 2
Kings 18:21 ).
(9) The Pharaoh by whom Josiah was defeated and slain at Megiddo ( 2 Chronicles
35:20 - 24 ; 2 Kings 23:29 , 30 ). (See NECHO .)
(10) Pharaoh-hophra, who in vain sought to relieve Jerusalem when it was besieged
by Nebuchadnezzar (q.v.), 2 Kings 25:1 - 4 ; Compare Jeremiah 37:5 - 8 ; Ezekiel
17:11 - 13 . (See ZEDEKIAH)
Hitchcock's Dictionary of Bible Names
that disperses; that spoils
Smith's Bible Dictionary
The common title of the native kings of Egypt in the
Bible, corresponding to P-ra or Ph-ra "the sun," of the hieroglyphics. Brugsch,
Ebers and other modern Egyptologists define it to mean the great house," which
would correspond to our "the Sublime Porte." As several kings are mentioned only
by the title "Pharaoh" in the Bible, it is important to endeavor to discriminate
them:
The Pharaoh of Abraham . ( Genesis 12:15 ) --
At the time at which the patriarch went into Egypt, it is generally held that
the country, or at least lower Egypt, was ruled by the Shepherd kings, of whom
the first and moat powerful line was the fifteenth dynasty, the undoubted territories
of which would be first entered by one coming from the east. The date at which
Abraham visited Egypt was about B.C. 2081, which would accord with the time of
Salatis the head of the fifteenth dynasty, according to our reckoning.
The Pharoah of Joseph . ( Genesis 41:1 ) ... --
One of the Shepherd kings perhaps Apophis, who belonged to the fifteenth dynasty.
He appears to have reigned from Josephs appointment (or perhaps somewhat earlier)
until Jacobs death, a period of at least twenty-six years, from about B.C. 1876
to 1850 and to have been the fifth or sixth king of the fifteenth dynasty.
The Pharoah of the oppression . ( Exodus 1:8 ) --
The first Persecutor of the Israelites may be distinguished as the Pharaoh of
the oppression, from the second, the Pharoah of the exodus especially as he commenced
and probably long carried on the persecution. The general view is that he was
an Egyptian. One class of Egyptologists think that Amosis (Ahmes), the first sovereign
of the eighteenth dynasty, is the Pharaoh of the oppression; but Brugsch and others
identify him with Rameses II. (the Sesostris of the Greeks), of the nineteenth
dynasty. (B.C. 1340.)
The Pharoah of the exodus . ( Exodus 5:1 ) --
Either Thothmes III., as Wilkinson, or Menephthah son of Rameses II., whom Brugsch
thinks was probably the Pharaoh of the exodus, who with his army pursued the Israelites
and were overwhelmed in the Red Sea. "The events which form the lamentable close
of his rule over Egypt are Passed over by the monuments (very naturally) with
perfect silence. The dumb tumults covers the misfortune: which was suffered, for
the record of these events was inseparably connected with the humiliating confession
of a divine visitation, to which a patriotic writer at the court of Pharaoh would
hardly have brought his mind." The table on page 186 gives some of the latest
opinions.
Pharaoh, father-in-law of Mered . --
In the genealogies of the tribe of Judah, mention is made of the daughter of a
Pharaoh married to an Israelite--" Bithiah the daughter of Pharaoh. which Mered
took." ( 1 Chronicles 4:18 )
Pharaoh, brother-in-law of Hadad the Edomite . --
This king gave Haadad. as his wife, the sister of his own wife, Tahpenes. ( 1
Kings 11:18 - 20 )
Pharaoh, father-in-law of Solomon . --
The mention that the queen was brought into the city of David while Solomons house
and the temple and the city wall were building shows that the marriage took place
not later than the eleventh year of the king, when the temple was finished, having
been commenced in the Pharaoh led an expedition into Palestine. ( 1 Kings 9:16
)
Pharaoh, the opponent of Sennacherib . --
This Pharaoh, ( Isaiah 36:6 ) can only be the Sethos whom Herodotus mentions as
the opponent of Sennacherib and who may reasonably be supposed to be the Zet of
Manetho.
Pharoah-necho . --
The first mention in the Bible of a proper name with the title Pharaoh is the
case of Pharaoh-necho, who is also called Necho simply. This king was of the Saite
twenty-sixth dynasty, of which Manetho makes him either the fifth or the sixth
ruler. Herodotus calls him Nekos, and assigns to him a reign of sixteen years,
which is confirmed by the monuments. He seems to have been an enterprising king,
as he is related to have attempted to complete the canal connecting the Red Sea
with the Nile, and to have sent an expedition of Phoenicians to circumnavigate
Africa, which was successfully accomplished. At the commencement of his reign
B.C. 610, he made war against the king of Assyria, and, being encountered on his
way by Josiah, defeated and slew the king of Judah at Megiddo. ( 2 Kings 23:29
, 23:30 ; 2 Chronicles 35:20 - 24 ) Necho seems to have soon returned to Egypt.
Perhaps he was on his way thither when he deposed Jehoahaz. The army was probably
posted at Carchemish, and was there defeated by Nebuchadnezzar in the fourth year
of Necho, B.C. 607, that king not being, as it seems, then at its head. ( Jeremiah
46:1 , 46:2 , 46:6 , 46:10 ) This battle led to the loss of all the Asiatic dominions
of Egypt. ( 2 Kings 24:7 )
Pharaoh-hophra . --
The next king of Egypt mentioned in the Bible is Pharaoh-hophra, the second successor
of Necho, from whom he was separated by the six-years reign of Psammetichus II.
He came to the throne about B.C. 589, and ruled nineteen years. Herodotus who
calls him Apries, makes him son of Psammetichus II., whom he calls Psammis, and
great-grandson of Psammetichus I. In the Bible it is related that Zedekiah, the
last king of Judah was aided by a Pharaoh against Nebuchadnezzar, in fulfillment
of it treaty, and that an army came out of Egypt, so that the Chaldeans were obliged
to raise the siege of Jerusalem. The city was first besieged in the ninth year
of Zedekiah B.C. 590, and was captured in his eleventh year, B.C. 588. It was
evidently continuously invested for a length of time before was taken, so that
it is most probable that Pharaohs expedition took place during 590 or 589. The
Egyptian army returned without effecting its purpose. ( Jeremiah 27:5 - 8 ; Ezekiel
17:11 - 18 ) comp. 2 Kings 25:1 - 4 . No subsequent Pharaoh is mentioned in Scripture,
but there are predictions doubtless referring to the misfortunes of later princes
until the second Persian conquest, when the prophecy, "There shall be no more
a prince of the land of Egypt," ( Ezekiel 30:13 ) was fulfilled. (In the summer
of 1881 a large number of the mummies of the Pharaohs were found in a tomb near
Thebes --among them Raskenen, of the seventeenth dynasty, Ahmes I., founder of
the eighteenth dynasty, Thothmes I,II, and III., and Rameses I. It was first thought
that Rameses II, of the nineteenth dynasty, was there, But this was found to be
a mistake. A group of coffins belonging to the twenty-first dynasty has been found,
and it is probable that we will learn not a little about the early Pharaohs, especially
from the inscriptions on their shrouds. --ED.)
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
fa'-ro, fa'-ra-o (par'oh; Pharao); Egyptian per aa, "great
house"):em; the King James Version Pharacim): One of the families of temple-servants
who returned with Zerubbabel (1 Esdras 5:31; not found in Ezra or Nehemiah).
1. The Use of Name in Egypt:
Many and strange differences of opinion have been expressed concerning the use
of this name in Egypt and elsewhere, because of its importance in critical discussions
(see below). Encyclopaedia Biblica says "a name given to all Egyptian kings in
the Bible"; it also claims that the name could not have been received by the Hebrews
before 1000 BC. HDB (III, 819) says that a letter was addressed to Amenhotep as
"Pharaoh, lord of," etc. According to Winckler's theory of a North Arabian Musri,
it was the Hebrews alone in ancient times who adopted the term Pharaoh from the
Egyptians, the name not being found even in the Tell el-Amarna Letters or anywhere
else in cuneiform literature for the king of Egypt. Such a result is obtained
according to Winckler's theory by referring every reference in cuneiform to "Pir'u,
king of Musri" to the North Arabian country.
In Egyptian inscriptions the term "Pharaoh" occurs from the Pyramid inscriptions
onward. At first it is used with distinct reference to its etymology and not clearly
as an independent title. Pharaoh, "great house," like Sublime Porte, was applied
first as a metaphor to mean the government. But as in such an absolute monarchy
as Egypt the king was the government, Pharaoh was, by a figure of speech, put
for the king. Its use in Egypt clearly as a title denoting the ruler, whoever
he might be, as Caesar among the Romans, Shah among Persians, and Czar among Russians,
belongs to a few dynasties probably beginning with the XVIIIth, and certainly
ending not later than the XXIst, when we read of Pharaoh Sheshonk, but the Bible
does not speak so, but calls him "Shishak king of Egypt" (1 Kings 14:25). This
new custom in the use of the title Pharaoh does not appear in the Bible until
we have "Pharaoh-necoh." Pharaoh is certainly used in the time of Rameses II,
in the "Tale of Two Brothers" (Records of the Past, 1st series, II, 137; Recueil
de Travaux, XXI, 13, l. 1).
2. Significance of Use in the Bible:
It appears from the preceding that Biblical writers use this word with historical
accuracy for the various periods to which it refers, not only for the time of
Necoh and Hophra, but for the time of Rameses II, and use the style of the time
of Rameses II for the time of Abraham and Joseph, concerning which we have not
certain knowledge of its use in Egypt. It is strongly urged that writers of the
7th or 5th century BC would not have been able to make such historical use of
this name, while, to a writer at the time of the exodus, it would have been perfectly
natural to use Pharaoh for the king without any further name; and historical writers
in the time of the prophets in Palestine would likewise have used Pharaoh-necoh
and Pharaoh Hophra. This evidence is not absolutely conclusive for an early authorship
of the Pentateuch and historical books, but is very difficult to set aside for
a late authorship (compare Genesis 12:14 - 20 ; 41:14 ; Exodus 1:11 ; 3:11 ; 1
Kings 3:1 ; 14:25 ; 2 Kings 23:29 ; Jeremiah 44:30 ; also 1 Kings 11:19 ; 2 Kings
18:21 ; 1 Chronicles 4:18).
M. G. Kyle
Tags:
bible commentary, bible history, bible reference, bible study, define, egyptian king, pharao, pharaoh
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