3. The Pharaoh of th - First Persecution of the Israel- ites.— The interval which elapsed between the Pharaoh of Joseph's time and the Pharaoh who commenced the persecution of Israel is much affected by opinion as to the length of the sojourn in Egypt. See Chronol- ogy. According to our view, the interval between Jacob's removal into Egypt and the birth of Moses was a little over one hundred and thirty-five years. The unknown quantity is the period from the com- mencement of the persecution to the birth of Moses. It was the same Pharaoh that began to afflict Israel who reigned when Moses was born (Acts vii, 20), and the persecution must have continued a considerable time previous to allow for the events mentioned in the first chapter of Exodus. These included the build- j ing of two considerable cities and other labor, for which
PHARAOH
a period of several years seems to be required. The name and dynasty of this king have been differently given (Jour, of Sac. Lit. [new ser.] i, 491). Wilkinson supposes him to have been Amosis or Ames, the first of the eighteenth dynasty of Theban or Diospolitan kings, and supports his view of the change of dynasty at this time, and the accession of kings from the distant province of Thebes, from the scriptural account of him as " a new king that knew not Joseph"( i, 47, 7G). Lord Prudhoe, in an able paper given by Wilkinson (i, 78), argues that the new king was Barneses J, who was also, according to him, the head of a new dynasty, and as such ignorant of the history of Joseph, while it was for Barneses II that the Israelites built the treasure cities. According to the fragment of Manetho pre- served by Theophilus, the new king was T<thmosis (Bunsen, Egypt, i, G55). He is very commonly sup- posed to have been the king who crushed the power of the Shepherds in Egypt. From a picture on the walls of a very interesting tomb of Roshere, " super- intendent of the great buildings" to king Thothmes III, Trevor (Egypt, p. 72) thinks it likely that it was during his dynasty, the eighteenth, that the oppression of Israel occurred, and that most likely Amosis, the first king, was the originator of it (p. 275). Josephus {Ant. ii, 9, 1) considers him to have been of a new family called to the throne; but Hengstenberg (Egypt, p. 252) argues that the appellation of " new king," in the Bible, which is very often referred to in proof of a change of dynasty, indicates only a disregard of the services of Joseph, and a forgetfulness of the old affec- tion that used to be entertained in Egypt and by its kings for the great preserver of their country. Ac- cording to Manetho's story of the Exodus — a story so contradictor}' to historical truth as scarcely to be wor- th}' of mention — the Israelites left Egypt in the reign of Meneptah, who was great-grandson of the first Ra- meses, and son and successor of the second. This king is held by some Egyptologists to have reigned about the time of the rabbinical date of the Exodus, which is virtually the same as that which has been supposed to be obtainable from the genealogies. There is, how- ever, good reason to place these kings much later ; in which case Rameses I would be the oppressor; but then the building of Rameses could not be placed in his reign without a disregard of Hebrew' chronology. But the argument that there is no earlier known king Rameses loses much of its weight when we bear in mind that one of the sons of Aahmes, head of the eight- eenth dynasty, who r-eigned about two hundred years before Rameses I, bore the same name, besides that very many names of kings of the Shepherd period, per- haps of two whole dynasties, are unknown. Against this one fact, which is certainly not to be disregarded, we must weigh the general evidence of the history, which shows us a king apparently governing a part of Egypt, with subjects inferior to the Israelites, and fearing' a war in the country. Like the Pharaoh of the Exodus, he seems to have dwelt in Lower Egypt, probably at Avaris. (When Moses went to see his people, and slew the Egyptian, he does not seem to have made any journey, and the burying in sand shows that the place was in a part of Egypt, like Goshen, encompassed by sandy deserts.) Compare this condition with the power of the kings of the latter part of the eighteenth and of the nineteenth dynasties : rulers of an empire, governing a united country from which the head of their line had driven the Shepherds. The view that this Pharaoh was of the beginning or middle of the eighteenth dynasty seems at first sight extremely probable, especially if it be supposed that the Pharaoh of Joseph was a Shepherd king. The ex- pulsion of the Shepherds at the commencement of this dynasty would have naturally caused an immediate or gradual oppression of the Israelites. But it must be remembered that what we have just said of the power of some kings of this dynasty is almost as true of their
PHARAOH
PIIAKAOH
predecessors. The silence of the historical monuments is also to I e weighed, when we bear in mind how nu- merous the gaps i re, and that we might expect many of the events of the oppression to be re< orded even it the exodus were not noticed. If we assign this Pharaoh to the age before the eighteenth dynasty, which our view of I lebrew i bronologj would probably oblige us to do, we have -till to determine whether he wen- a Shepherd or an Egyptian. If a shepherd, he must have been of • '.'.i or the seventeenth dynasty; and that 1 Egyptianized does not afford any argument