Pharaohs in the Bible

Shoshenq I (centre), founder of the Twenty-second Dynasty of Egypt and the earliest Biblical figure to be attested in the archaeological record

The Bible makes reference to various pharaohs (Hebrew : פַּרְעֹה‎, Parʿō) of Egypt. These include unnamed pharaohs in events described in the Torah, as well as several later named pharaohs, some of whom were historical or can be identified with historical pharaohs.

Unnamed pharaohs

In the Book of Genesis

Joseph presenting his father and brethren to the Pharaoh (1896)

Genesis 12:10–20 states that Abram moved to Egypt to escape a period of famine in Canaan. Abram worries that the unnamed pharaoh will kill him and take away his wife and half-sister Sarai, so Abram tells her to say only that she is his sister. They are eventually summoned to meet the Pharaoh, but God sends plagues because he wishes to marry her. Discovering that Sarai is also Abram's wife, he releases her and orders Abram to take his belongings and return to Canaan.

• David Rohl's New Chronology states this pharaoh would have been Nebkaure Khety. ^[1] This claim has been rejected by the vast majority of Egyptologists. ^[2]

Genesis 37–50 narrates that Joseph, son of Jacob, was sold by his brothers into slavery in Egypt, appointed by another, unnamed Pharaoh as vizier of Egypt, and later permitted to bring his father, his brothers, and their families from Canaan to live in the Land of Goshen in the eastern Nile Delta around what is now Faqous.

• Author Ahmed Osman proposed that this pharaoh was Thutmose IV and identified Joseph with Yuya. ^[3] Other scholars generally reject Osman's claims. ^[4]
• David Rohl argued that this pharaoh was Amenemhat III and identified Joseph as the Egyptian vizer Ankhu. ^[5] Rohl's claim has been rejected. ^[6]

In the Book of Exodus

In the Book of Exodus, the Israelites, who are the descendants of Jacob's sons, are living in Goshen under a new Pharaoh, who oppresses them. He forces them to work long hours to build Pithom and Pi-Ramesses, making mortar and baking bricks. He also issues a decree to kill their newborn males to reduce their numbers due to concerns about their growing population. Shiphrah and Puah try to prevent this, to no avail.

Moses, a Levite, is saved from this decree by his mother, who instructs his sister Miriam to watch over him after he is placed in a reed basket in the Nile. He is discovered and adopted by Pharaoh's daughter. Miriam asks the princess if she would like an Israelite woman to help nurse the child, and returns with Moses' mother, who is then able to raise her child under royal protection. Later, Moses is returned to Pharaoh's daughter and raised as part of the royal household. Rabbinic literature identifies the Pharaoh of the Exodus as one of the four men who pretended to be gods. ^[7]

Hypotheses on identity

Numerous Pharaohs have been proposed as contemporary with the Exodus. The following list is comprehensive and ordered chronologically by when the pharaoh ruled rather than on the plausibility of the identification itself:

• Pepi I (24th–23rd century BC): Emmanuel Anati has argued that the Exodus should be placed between the 24th and the 21st century BC and that Pepi I should be identified as the pharaoh of the Exodus. ^[8] This theory has not gained acceptance and has received strong criticism from Israeli archaeologist Israel Finkelstein and American Egyptologist James K. Hoffmeier. ^{[9] [10]}
• Dedumose II (died c. 1690 BC): Though Rohl's hypothesis that Exodus occurred during the Middle Kingdom follows the Samaritans' chronology, according to which the Israelites settled in Canaan in the 17th century BC, ^[11] Rohl shortened the Third Intermediate Period of Egypt by almost 300 years with his New Chronology. As a result, the synchronisms with the biblical narrative results in the Second Intermediate Period would indicate Dedumose II was Pharaoh during the Exodus. ^[12] Rohl's chronological revisions have been rejected by the vast majority of Egyptologists. ^[13]
• Ahmose I (1550–1525 BC): Several Church Fathers identified Ahmose I, who reconquered lower Egypt from the Hyksos, rulers of Canaanite origin, as the pharaoh of the Exodus, based on Herodotus, Manetho, Josephus and other classical authors' identification of the Hyksos with the Hebrews. ^[14]
• Hatshepsut (1507–1458 BC): Diodorus Siculus identified the Jews with the Hyksos and identified the pharaoh of the Exodus with Queen Hatshepsut. ^[15] However, the biblical story of the Exodus repeatedly refers to pharaoh as a man. ^[16]
• Thutmose II (1493–1479 BC): Alfred Edersheim proposes in Old Testament Bible History that Thutmose II is best qualified to be the pharaoh of Exodus because he had a brief, prosperous reign that suddenly collapsed without a legitimate heir. His widow Hatshepsut then became first regent (for Thutmose III, his son by his concubine Iset, before becoming Pharaoh herself. Edersheim states that Thutmose II is the only pharaoh's mummy to display cysts, which he suggests as possible evidence of plagues that spread through the Egyptian and Hittite Empires at that time. ^[17]
• Thutmose III (1479–1427 BC): His reign corresponds with the Masoretic Text of when the 1 Kings account claims the Exodus occurred. ^{[18] [19]} His oldest son, and presumptive heir, also died as a child for unknown reasons, in keeping with the Exodus account of the final plague.
• Amenhotep II (1427–1401 BC): Amenhotep II claimed to have brought tens of thousands of slaves from the Levant to Egypt. ^[20] Associates for Biblical Research asserts that these slaves were taken to compensate for the loss of Jewish slaves as a result of the Exodus. Amenhotep II was not the firstborn son of his father, Thutmose III, consistent with the Exodus pharaoh surviving the death of the firstborn. ^{[21] [22]}
• Thutmose IV (1401–1391 BC): Wayne A. Mitchell and David F. Lappin argued in the book "Thutmose IV as the Exodus Pharaoh: Chronological and Astronomical Considerations" that Thutmose IV the most like candidate. ^{[23] [24]}
• Akhenaten (1353–1349 BC): In his book Moses and Monotheism , Sigmund Freud argued that Moses had been an Atenist priest of Akhenaten who was forced to leave Egypt, along with his followers, following the pharaoh's death. Eusebius identified the pharaoh of the Exodus with a king called "Acencheres", who may be identified with Akenhaten. ^[25]
• Ramesses I (1292–1290 BC): Ahmed Osman identified Ramesses I as the pharaoh of the Exodus in his controversial argument about the identity of the Egyptian official Yuya. ^[26]
• Ramesses II (c. 1279–1213 BC): Ramesses II, or Ramesses the Great, is the most common figure for the Exodus pharaoh as Rameses is mentioned in the Bible as a place name (see Genesis 47:11, Exodus 1:11, Numbers 33:3, etc). ^[27] Although the Beisan steles of Ramesses II mentions two conquered peoples who came to "make obeisance to him" in his city of Pi-Ramesses, the text mentions neither the building of the city nor, as some have written, the Israelites or Hapiru. ^[28] However, many confessional scholars today do not subscribe to a late date for the Exodus and therefore hold that he lived far too late to be the Exodus pharaoh. ^{[29] [30]} Despite this, most scholars consider that the story of the Exodus is set in the 13th century BCE, and that the pharaoh referred to in the narrative is Ramesses II. ^{[31] [32] [33] [34]} This is mainly because there is a significant lack of evidence for an Israelite presence in Canaan before that century, ^[34] because several place names in the Torah correspond to that period, ^[35] and because the mention of certain materials, such as iron—though not in the Exodus narrative itself but elsewhere in the Torah and in the Judges Period—align more accurately with that historical context. ^[36]
• Merneptah (c. 1213–1203 BC): Isaac Asimov in Guide to the Bible makes a case for Merneptah to be the pharaoh of the Exodus. ^[37] Recently, Semiticist Richard C. Steiner defended Merneptah as the exodus pharaoh, noting that the events of Numbers 44 coincide with the reference to Israel in the Merneptah Stele. ^[38]
• Setnakhte (c. 1189–1186 BC): Igor P. Lipovsky and Israel Knohl make a case for Setnakhte to be the pharaoh of the Exodus. ^{[39] [40]}
• Ramesses III (c. 1186–1155 BC): Gary A. Rendsburg, Baruch Halpern and Manfred Bietak make a case for Ramesses III as the pharaoh of the Exodus. ^{[41] [42] [43]}
• Bakenranef (c. 725–720 BC): Tacitus writes in his Histories that Bakenranef (whom he refers to as "Bocchoris") had expelled the Jews from Egypt because they suffered from a horrible disease and because he was instructed to do so by an oracle of the god Amun. ^[44] Lysimachus of Alexandria, quoted by Josephus in Against Apion , also identifies the pharaoh of the Exodus with Bakenranef. ^[45]
• Ramses (?–?): Manetho and Chaeremon of Alexandria, both quoted by Josephus in Against Apion, state that the Jews were expelled from Egypt by a pharaoh named "Ramses", son of another pharaoh named "Amenophis". It is unclear which pharaoh this could be, since no pharaoh named Ramses had a predecessor named Amenophis. ^[45]

In the Books of Kings

Main article: Pharaoh's daughter (wife of Solomon)

In 1 Kings 3:1, it is narrated that to seal an alliance, the pharaoh of Egypt gave a daughter in marriage to Solomon. The same ruler later captured the city of Gezer and gave it to Solomon as well (1 Kings 9:16). No name is given for the pharaoh, and some hypotheses have been proposed:

• Horemheb (c. 1319–1292 BC): David Rohl's 1995 A Test of Time identified Horemheb as the Pharaoh who destroyed Gezer and later gave it to Solomon, together with one of his daughters as a wife. When Horemheb took Gezer he was not yet the ruler, but was a military commander serving under Tutankhamun. However, he became Pharaoh not long after, and Tutankhamun died too young to have left any marriageable daughters. ^[46] In any case, Rohl's claim has been rejected by the vast majority of Egyptologists. ^[47]
• Siamun (c. 986–967 BC): is the most commonly proposed candidate for this role. ^{[48] [49] [50]}
• Psusennes II (c. 967–943 BC): the Catholic Encyclopedia sees him as the best candidate. ^[51] Edward Lipiński also supports this idea. ^[52]
• Shoshenq I (c. 943–922 BC): Edward Lipiński dated the destruction of Gezer to the late 10th century rather than earlier, and suggested that its conqueror was Shoshenq I of the 22nd Dynasty. ^[53]

Named Pharaohs

Taharqa offering to Falcon-god Hemen (close-up)

The transition in the biblical text from referring to pharaohs by the title "Pharaoh" (Hebrew: פַּרְעֹה) without their individual names, may follow the Egyptian convention of referring to pharaohs only by their titles. This was only broken by the middle of the 21st Dynasty by Pharaoh Siamun, becoming standard at the time of Shoshenq I, who is incidentally the first pharaoh to be mentioned by name in the biblical text. See the main page for Pharaoh.

An invasion of Israel by the Egyptian King Shishak (Hebrew שִׁישַׁק מֶלֶךְ־מִצְרַיִם), and a subsequent raid of Jerusalem and the Temple of Solomon is recorded in 1 Kings 11:40 and 2 Chronicles 12:2 sqq..

• Shishak is generally identified with Shoshenq I (943–922 BC), whose military campaign in the Levant is attested in his inscriptions. ^[54]

King Hoshea sent a letter to an Egyptian King So (Hebrew סוֹא מֶלֶךְ־מִצְרַיִם), mentioned in 2 Kings 17:4. At this time (about 730 BC), Egypt had three dynasties ruling contemporaneously: 22nd at Tanis, 23rd at Leontopolis, and 24th at Sais.

• So is commonly identified with Osorkon IV (730–715 BC), who ruled from Tanis. ^{[55] [56] [57] [58]}
• Goedicke and Albright argued that "So" refers not to the name of a pharaoh but to the city of Sais, at this time ruled by Tefnakht. ^{[59] [60]} Kitchen definitively rejected this view. ^[61]

A military commander named Tirhaqa is described in 2 Kings 19:9 and in Isaiah 37:9 as a king of Kush, who waged war against Sennacherib during the reign of King Hezekiah of Judah. ^[62]

• This figure is universally identified as Taharqa (690–664 BC). The events in the biblical account are believed to have taken place in 701 BC, whereas Taharqa came to the throne some ten years later. The title of king in the Biblical text refers to his future royal title, while at the time of this account he was likely only a military commander serving under Shabaka. ^[63]

A Pharaoh Necho (Hebrew: פַּרְעֹה נְכֹה) is mentioned in several books of the Bible (2 Kings, 2 Chronicles, and Jeremiah). ^[64]

• Necho is universally identified as Necho II (610–595 BC).

The successor of Necho named Hephra (Hebrew: חׇפְרַע), mentioned in Jeremiah 44:30.

• Hephra is universally identified as Apries (589–570 BC).

See also

• List of biblical figures identified in extra-biblical sources
• Moses in Islam
• Thrasyllus of Mendes
• Biblical Egypt

References

1. Rohl 1995 , pp. 341–348
2. Bennett 1996
3. Osman, Ahmed (1987). Stranger in the Valley of the Kings . New York: Harper & Row. pp. 14–15. ISBN   9780062506740 . Retrieved July 28, 2022.
4. Sweeney, Deborah (1992). "Review of The Stranger in the Valley of the Kings" . The Jewish Quarterly Review. 82 (3/4): 575–579. doi:10.2307/1454900. JSTOR   1454900.
5. Rohl 1995 , pp. 341–348
6. Bennett 1996
7. The other three were Joash of Judah; Hiram and Nebuchadnezzar (Louis Ginzberg's The Legends of the Jews From Moses to Esther; Notes for Volumes Three and Four(p.423)
8. Anati, Emmanuel (2016). Esodo. Tra mito e storia (in Italian). Atelier. ISBN   978-88-98284-24-5.
9. Finkelstein, Israel (14 July 1988). "Raider of the Lost Mountain—An Israeli Archaeologist Looks at the Most Recent Attempt to Locate Mt. Sinai". Biblical Archaeology Review .
10. Hoffmeier, James K. (1999). Israel in Egypt: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Exodus Tradition. Oxford University Press, USA. p. 126. ISBN   978-0-19-513088-1.
11. Samaritan Museum. “The Samaritans.”
12. Rohl 1995 , pp. 341–348
13. Bennett 1996
14. Meyers, Stephen C. "IBSS – Biblical Archaeology – Date of the Exodus". www.bibleandscience.com. Institute for Biblical & Scientific Studies. Retrieved 13 April 2017.
15. Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica , Book 1
16. "Exodus 9:34-35 DRA - - Bible Gateway".
17. Edersheim, A., Old Testament Bible History, originally published 1876–1887, ISBN   156563165X, p. 134
18. "Thutmoses III was Pharaoh of the Exodus in 1446 BC".
19. "1 Kings 6:1 NASB - - Bible Gateway".
20. "Amenhotep II and the Historicity of the Exodus Pharaoh".
21. Douglas Petrovich. "Amenhotep II and the Historicity of the Exodus Pharaoh". biblearchaeology.org. Associates for Biblical Research.
22. "Who Was the Pharaoh of the Exodus?". Armstrong Institute of Biblical Archaeology.
23. "Review: Thutmose IV as the Exodus Pharaoh: Chronological and Astronomical Considerations".
24. Lappin, David F.; Mitchell, Wayne A. (6 December 2024). Thutmose IV as the Exodus Pharaoh: Chronological and Astronomical Considerations. Wayne A. Mitchell. ISBN   978-0979508523.
25. Moses and Monotheism , ISBN   0-394-70014-7
26. Osman 1987, p. 119.
27. Geraty 2015, pp. 58–59.
28. Stephen L. Caiger, "Archaeological Fact and Fancy," Biblical Archaeologist, (9, 1946).
29. "The 'Raamses' of Exodus 1:11: Timestamp of Authorship? Or Anachronism?".
30. "The Date of the Exodus: What Does the Bible Say and Why Does it Matter? Part 2". July 2024.
31. Beegle, Dewey M. (2025). "Moses". Encyclopedia Britannica.
32. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica (25 Apr. 2025). "Exodus". Encyclopedia Britannica.
33. Faust, Avraham (2015). "The Emergence of Iron Age Israel: On Origins and Habitus". in T.E. Levy, T. Schneider and W.H.C. Propp (eds.), Israel’s Exodus in Transdisciplinary Perspective: Text, Archeology, Culture and Geoscience. Springer, p. 476. ISBN   9783319047683
34. Finkelstein, Israel (2002). The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel. Touchstone. pp. 56–57. ISBN   978-0-684-86913-1.
35. Falk, David. A. (2018). What we know about the Egyptian places mentioned in Exodus . In TheTorah.com
36. Perry, Steve (1992). The Dating of the Exodus . In biblicalstudies.org.uk
37. Isaac Asimov, Asimov's Guide to the Bible , Random House, 1981, p. 130–131, ISBN   0-517-34582-X
38. Scalf, Foy; Muhs, Brian Paul; Ritner, Robert Kriech, eds. (2024). A master of secrets in the chamber of darkness: Egyptological studies in honor of Robert K. Ritner, presented on the occasion of his sixty-eighth birthday. Studies in ancient cultures. Chicago: Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures of the University of Chicago. ISBN   978-1-61491-110-4. OCLC   1451100030.
39. Igor P. Lipovsky, Early Israelites: Two Peoples, One History: Rediscovery of the Origins of Biblical Israel ISBN   0-615-59333-X
40. "Exodus: The History Behind the Story".
41. Rendsburg, Gary. "The Pharaoh of the Exodus – Rameses III – TheTorah.com". www.thetorah.com.
42. Shanks, Hershel; Dever, William G.; Halpern, Baruch; McCarter, Peter Kyle (1992). The Rise of Ancient Israel. Biblical Archaeology Society. ISBN   978-1-880317-07-5.
43. Bietak, Manfred (2015). "On the Historicity of the Exodus: What Egyptology Today Can Contribute to Assessing the Biblical Account of the Sojourn in Egypt". In Levy, Thomas E.; Schneider, Thomas; Propp, William H. C. (eds.). Israel's Exodus in Transdisciplinary Perspective: Text, Archaeology, Culture, and Geoscience. Springer. pp. 17–37. ISBN   978-3-319-04768-3.
44. Tacitus, Histories, Book V, Paragraph 3
45. Assmann, Jan (2009-06-30). Moses the Egyptian. Harvard University Press. ISBN   978-0-674-02030-6.
46. Rohl 1995 , pp. 341–348
47. Bennett 1996
48. Brian Roberts. "ANE - Solomon taking an Egyptian wife (to David Lorton)".^{[ dead link ]}
49. Kenneth Kitchen (2003), On the Reliability of the Old Testament . William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids and Cambridge. ISBN   0-8028-4960-1, p. 108.
50. Dever, William G. (2020-08-18). Has Archaeology Buried the Bible?. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. ISBN   978-1-4674-5949-5.
51. Gabriel Oussani (July 1, 1912). "Solomon". The Catholic Encyclopedia.
52. Lipinski, Edward (2006). On the Skirts of Canaan in the Iron Age(Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta). Leuven, Belgium: Peeters. pp. 96–97. ISBN   978-90-429-1798-9.
53. Lipinski, Edward (2006). On the Skirts of Canaan in the Iron Age(Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta). Leuven, Belgium: Peeters. pp. 96–97. ISBN   978-90-429-1798-9.
54. Troy Leiland Sagrillo. 2015. "Shoshenq I and biblical Šîšaq: A philological defense of their traditional equation." In Solomon and Shishak: Current perspectives from archaeology, epigraphy, history and chronology; proceedings of the third BICANE colloquium held at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge 26–27 March, 2011, edited by Peter J. James, Peter G. van der Veen, and Robert M. Porter. British Archaeological Reports (International Series) 2732. Oxford: Archaeopress. 61–81.
55. Patterson 2003 , pp. 196–197
56. Peter A Clayton: Chronicle of The Pharaohs, Thames & Hudson, (2006), pp. 182–183
57. Theis, Christoffer (2020). "Contributions to the Vocabulary of the Old Testament: The Connection of the Name סוֹא with Greek Σηγωρ in 2 Kings 17, 4". Biblica. 101 (1): 107–113. doi:10.2143/BIB.101.1.3287517.
58. Kang, Seung Il (2010-01-01). "A Philological Approach to the Problem of King So (2 Kgs 17:4)". Vetus Testamentum. 60 (2): 241–248. doi:10.1163/004249310X12631787271796. ISSN   0042-4935.
59. Goedicke, Hans (October 1963). "The End of "So, King of Egypt"". Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research. 171: 64–66. doi:10.2307/1355608. ISSN   0003-097X.
60. Albright, W. F. (October 1963). "The Elimination of King "So"". Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research. 171: 66–66. doi:10.2307/1355609. ISSN   0003-097X.
61. Kitchen, Kenneth A. 1932-2025 (1973). The third intermediate period in Egypt: 1100-650 B. C. Warminster: Aris & Phillips. ISBN   978-0-85668-001-4.
62.  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain :  Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906). "Tirhakah". The Jewish Encyclopedia . New York: Funk & Wagnalls.
63. Kitchen, Kenneth A. (2006). On the Reliability of the Old Testament. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. p. 16. ISBN   978-0-8028-0396-2.
64. Encyclopædia britannica. Edited by Colin MacFarquhar, George Gleig. p785

Bibliography

• Bennett, Chris (1996). "Temporal Fugues". Journal of Ancient and Medieval Studies XIII. Archived from the original on 2018-07-16. Retrieved 2011-11-03.
• Faust, Avraham (2015). "The Emergence of Iron Age Israel: On Origins and Habitus". In Thomas E. Levy; Thomas Schneider; William H.C. Propp (eds.). Israel's Exodus in Transdisciplinary Perspective: Text, Archaeology, Culture, and Geoscience. Springer. ISBN   978-3-319-04768-3.
• Patterson, Richard D. (2003). "The Divided Monarchy: Sources, Approaches, and Historicity". In Grisanti, Michael A.; Howard, David M. (eds.). Giving the sense: understanding and using Old Testament historical texts. Kregel. ISBN   978-0-8254-2892-0.
• Redmount, Carol A. (2001) [1998]. "Bitter Lives: Israel In And Out of Egypt". In Coogan, Michael D. (ed.). The Oxford History of the Biblical World. Oxford University Press. pp. 58–89. ISBN   978-0-19-988148-2.
• Rohl, David (1995). A Test of Time. Arrow. ISBN   0-09-941656-5.
• Geraty, Lawrence T. (2015). "Exodus Dates and Theories". In Levy, Thomas E.; Schneider, Thomas; Propp, William H. C. (eds.). Israel's Exodus in Transdisciplinary Perspective: Text, Archaeology, Culture, and Geoscience. Springer. pp. 55–64. ISBN   978-3-319-04768-3.