A new Pharaoh who nothing of Joseph came to power.

Monday, 7/13/15

Our first reading begins by saying, “A new king, who knew nothing of Joseph, came to power in Egypt.” And, that new king began treating the Israelites like unwanted foreigners. We have no Hebrew or no Egyptian writings that tell us who that king was or that tells us when any of this happened; but the reliable Egyptian records that have survived from back then give us clues as to when all that happened.

That history tells us that in 1675 B.C. a Semitic people called the Hyksos invaded Egypt. They swarmed over from Arabia, and they ruled Egypt until 1320 B.C.. That was  when a native Egyptian force led by Raamses I rose up and drove them out’

Since the Bible tells us that from Joseph to Moses the Israelites were in Egypt for four hundred years, it is likely that they were treated well by the Hyksos who spoke the same language as them.

Egyptian history tells us that it was Raamses II after 1250 B.C. who oversaw the building of Raamses and Pithom. So, he was probably the pharaoh in whose home Moses grew up.