THE TEN PLAGUES OF EGYPT
Prelude; This pharaoh's empire was visibly beginning to weaken and break up and it was time to make the most of these circumstances without delay.
As soon as they reached the Delta, Mosheh and Aaron approached the elders of the Yisraelite tribes, and explained the plan for a return to Canaan, and secured their agreement to this act of deliverance. Mosheh performed some wonders in the sight of the people and these convinced them that the ABBA of their fathers really intended to free them from slavery. It was a promising start to the mission.
The second stage of the task had now to be begun without delay. Pharaoh, lord of the Nile valley, had to be persuaded to authorize the departure. YAHWEH had warned Mosheh that he would encounter a series of refusals and that in the end the king would only give way to force. The Scriptural author does not give the name of this particular pharaoh, but he was most probably Meneptah, the son of Rameses II.
Rameses II dies and the empire was visibly beginning to weaken and break up under his son Meneptah (1224-1210), pharaoh of the Exodus
Here again the Scriptural narrative is closely connected with the history of the ancient Near East. In fact, the Exodus, the Hebrews’ flight from Egypt, can only be seen in its true light in the context of the political events of the period.
The death of Rameses II, and the accession of his son Meneptah, gave the signal for Canaan to rebel. Meneptah at once led his army into Palestine and pushed on into Syria. It was an arduous campaign, but it ended with the re-establishment of Egyptian supremacy over these regions.
Meanwhile, west of the various outlets of the Nile, a formidable threat was developing. Meneptah’s reign coincided with a migration of warrior bands into the eastern basin of the Mediterranean. These were the swarms of invaders called by the Egyptians, the ‘Peoples of the Sea’. Their earliest advances had tried to secure a footing in the Delta in the reign of Rameses II. They conceived an ingenious idea of an alliance with the Libyans -Egypt’s traditional enemies on the African coast, west of the Delta -so that they could carry out a combined assault on the Egyptians. The aim was to obtain a hold on Egypt comparable to that of the Hyksos, five hundred years earlier. It was a moment of grave danger. Meneptah could not take personal command of his troops, nevertheless, the Egyptian forces managed to repel this attack.
Despite these defensive victories, won, it seemed, by a hair’s breadth, the whole Near East was quite aware that the era of Rameses II was over. Meneptah wanted appeasement, and therefore he ordered a stele to be set up on which, in properly pharaonic language, his recent military triumphs were suitably praised; on this stone were engraved the names of the peoples he had subdued. In this list occurs the name of Yisrael. It was the first time in ancient history that this name had appeared in an official document -and this was an Egyptian document. But its exact meaning is a matter of disagreement among experts.
The composition and engraving of this famous stele of black granite, known as Meneptah’s stele, dates from the fifth year of this pharaoh’s reign, that is 1220 B.C. It was dug up in the plain of Thebes at the end of the last century (1896) near the colossi of Memnon. The translation of the relevant passage runs: ‘The princes are overthrown and cry out: Shalom. Not one of the vassals lifts its head. Tohenu has been laid waste; Hatti is at peace; Canaan and all its evil doers have been sacked; Ascalon is in exile; Gezer is in chains; Yanu’an annihilated. Yisrael has been devastated, it has no more crops. Palestine is now like a widow to Tamari.’ 1
In this war communiqué one sentence in particular demands attention: ‘Yisrael has been devastated’. Yisrael, which appears here in the list of Meneptah’s conquests, occurs in a series of clearly identified names: Canaan, Ascalon, Gezer, with Palestine as the concluding item. This raises a problem: how can it be that Yisrael, that is the sons of Yacob, should according to the stele, have been slaughtered in Canaan (the Palestine of today) by Meneptah, when we know for certain that at this time, they were encamped in Goshen where this same Meneptah was forcing them to make bricks. In other words, were they in Canaan or in Egypt? A choice must be made.
Modern scholars have clarified the issue. The Yisrael devastated by the Egyptians, the Yisrael that had no more crops is identified, without much risk of error, with one of the following groups:
1. A body of Hebrews, descendants of Abraham, Yitschaq (Isaac) and Yacob, who did not follow Yoseph into Egypt, may well have remained in the pastures of the central mountains of Judah. It has already been suggested that the account of Yoseph’s adventure in Egypt was probably an historical summary, gathering into a single narrative a comprehensive survey of a number of migrations of Hebrew tribes into the Delta. Taking advantage of the Asiatic occupation of the Hyksos in north Egypt, small groups of Yisraelites must have followed each other, over a period of several centuries, into the flatland of the Nile. On the other hand, it is quite possible that a number of clans did not move from home and stayed firmly attached to their pastures in Palestine. In that case, it would be to these groups of genuine Hebrews to which the stele of Meneptah refers, and which he had severely punished for joining in the general movement of rebellion by the Canaanites against their Egyptian overlord.
2. We may also agree that a contingent of nomad shepherds, called either ‘sons of Yacob’ or ‘sons of Yoseph’ had followed the Hyksos in their hasty retreat to the east, when the army of liberation led by the pharaoh Amosis (c. 1580), drove the Asiatic occupying power from Egyptian soil. It is true, however, that a section of the Hebrews remained in their camps in the Delta region, and we have explained why and how the new Egyptian government allowed these foreigners in its territory. But the presence of this Hebrew islet in Goshen is no proof that all the Yisraelite clans had stayed in the Delta. It is reasonable to suppose that some of them had made a prudent retreat to their native land in company with the Hyksos who were being swept from Egypt. And it was there, three hundred and fifty years later, that Meneptah had come across their camps and seen that they had allied themselves with the Canaanite rebels bent on breaking the political control of the pharaohs.
3. There is a further possible explanation, as reasonable as the others and not contradicting them, but throwing fresh light on the sentence in the stele. It was mentioned above that Meneptah’s reign began with political turbulence. In this situation, it is surely possible that some of the Hebrew clans took advantage of the rebellions inside and outside Egypt and took to the road so as to escape from the ‘House of Bondage’ and regain the pastures of Hebron or Beersheba. (At that time Mosheh was probably still in Midian tending his father-in-law’s sheep.) These people had become weary of their slavery in Goshen and, giving their guards the slip, may have managed to reach Canaan. Once again, it would have been real Hebrews that Meneptah encountered. Hence the mention of Yisrael on his stele.
In any case, and whatever the explanation, it is a fact that, for the first time in the history of the ancient Middle East, the name of Yisrael occurs in an official document.
While Rameses reigned, an exodus would have been impossible, and difficult even to imagine. But in the time of Meneptah it falls naturally into the historical context, for then the empire was visibly beginning to weaken and break up. To an intelligent leader of men like Mosheh, therefore, it was time to make the most of these circumstances without delay: the Hebrews must be freed from bondage and led back to Canaan.
1 In the Egyptian text, the Canaanite word ‘Shalom’ has been retained. Literally, it means: Goodwill! or Peace! Here, it must be translated by Grace! Tohenu; an African tribe in Libya ‘Hatti’ the Hittites whose capital was Hattushash (Boghaz-Keni) in the heart of Asia Minor. Ascalon and Gezer are well known geographical names, but the exact position of them is still disputed The last sentence should be interpreted thus: Tameri (a poetical name for Egypt) can henceforth consider Palestine as a contemptible adversary, like a widow who is without support, and has no one to defend her.
The first, unsuccessful, approach undertaken by Mosheh and Aaron (Shemoth (Exodus) 5-7:8)
From the start, the dialogue went badly. Mosheh and Aaron asked permission for the tribes to make three days journey in the desert, and camp there, so that they might sacrifice to YAHWEH. Pharaoh’s anger can easily be understood: ‘WHO is YAHWEH that I should listen to HIM….I know nothing of YAHWEH. ...What do you mean by taking the people away from their work. Get back to your labouring.’ In order to punish these ‘idlers’ whose sole concern was the worship of their ABBA, he decided to increase their work. They were to be given no more straw, and in spite of this serious handicap, the foremen were to ensure that every day the same number of bricks were produced as before. This decision needs explaining. The typical architecture of the Delta, which is entirely devoid of stone, made use of two kinds of brick; one kind was baked in ovens; the other was exposed to the blazing sun of the summer months, and was called ‘unfired brick’. It was a primitive method of drying, but when used for the inside of walls, the bricks were entirely satisfactory. In order to strengthen the texture of the earth that had been treated in this way, it was usual to mix some chopped straw with it. Slaves were sent into the fields to gather the straw. Harvesters left a fair length of the corn stalks in the ground; for, at that time, the straw was cut with a clean stroke of the sickle at about half its height. So special teams were sent out after the harvest to collect what remained of the stubble and bring it to the workers who were moulding the clay. Pharaoh’s punishment for their ill-considered request was to compel the brick-makers themselves to go into the fields and collect the straw, and in spite of this added duty, they were to supply the same number of finished bricks each day. But that number at once fell. The Hebrew foremen, appointed to control the work and held responsible for the output, were flogged. Anger against Mosheh and Aaron simmered in the Hebrew camp because their clumsy approach -that at least was what it was considered to be -had provoked Pharaoh’s wrath against Yisrael.
Mosheh and Aaron were considerably perplexed. Had they not, in all conscience, carried out YAHWEH’s orders? The people reproached Mosheh bitterly. He turned to YAHWEH, and in his familiar way, asked HIM: ‘ABBA, why do YOU treat this people so harshly? Why did you send me here?’ YAHWEH reassured him: ‘You will see now how I shall punish Pharaoh.’
A preliminary to great wonders; a time for the mighty blows that YAHWEH had promised.
It seems probable that Pharaoh wanted to find out just how far the supra-normal powers of YAHWEH’s ambassadors could go. This was quite natural curiosity on the part of an inhabitant of the Nile valley, steeped in magic, and it explains why the two Hebrews had resort to a series of spectacular signs, to give some idea of the power of their ABBA. There then occurred a new version of something that had happened on Horeb. Aaron, who according to the command given by YAHWEH on Sinai, was Mosheh’ spokesman and collaborator, threw his staff to the ground and immediately it became a serpent. But Pharaoh had taken the precaution to summon ‘his sages and sorcerers’ and these, in their turn, produced the same marvel, even though Aaron’s serpent swallowed up the magicians’ staffs. The king was not in the least convinced of YAHWEH’s superiority over the gods of Egypt, and refusing any further discourse with the brothers, he sent them away.
The position was critical. It was time for the mighty blows that YAHWEH had promised.
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