The Hyksos, Kings of Egypt and the land of Edom

The mysterious Hyksos or "Shepherd Kings" of ancient Egypt have long presented scholars with one of the more puzzling questions of history. These people were foreigners, not Egyptians. They invaded the country and then reigned in that land of the Nile as Pharaohs.

Seemingly out of nowhere, about seventeen hundred years before Christ, (1) a Hyksos king called Salatis, with his people, suddenly swarmed in on horseback across the eastern border of Lower Egypt. For a few generations they vigorously ruled from the Delta of the Nile, part of the time dominating all of Egypt. During this time they took on all the titles of native Pharaohs. They even adopt Egyptian ways, yet were never absorbed by or loved by the Egyptians. Indeed the Egyptians seem to have hated them intensely. The Hyksos seem to hold sway over an enormous ancient empire, of which luxurious Egypt was but a part, until finally the Egyptians arose against their masters. Then, as suddenly as they mysteriously came, they equally mysteriously pass away, dropping completely out of sight altogether. Driven back out of Egypt, not very long before the birth of Moses, the Hyksos Kings with their great empire promptly fade and disappear never to rise again. Not another trace of these people has ever yet been identified.

Where did these people go when they vanished in retreat? When Ahmose I (the Egyptian king who founded the XVIIIth Dynasty) drove the Hyksos armies from his country soon after 1580 B.C. the enemy retreated not only to southern Palestine, but retreated out of history itself!

The great Hyksos Empire became a forgotten empire, unrecorded in preserved history until the new science of archaeology began piecing together the exciting bits of evidence dug up here and there. No one has yet succeeded in tracing their retreat any farther, or in discovering their home towards which they seemed to be retiring. Who were these people? Many speculations and suggestions have been made. Some researchers have suggested they came from Kadesh and others suggest other cities in Syria. Some historians have looked toward Palestine itself. Still others try to link them with the Hittites of Asia Minor; and for a little while it was speculated that they might have been Hurrians. Some have gone as far as suggesting that their original home was beyond the Caucasus, while others have tried to connect them with the early Hebrews, relatives of the Israelites. (2) It is all very uncertain. The Hyksos remain an enigma and an unsolved riddle to this day.

A Solution from the Bible?
The proposal we would like to put forward is that a clue to the origin of the Hyksos Kings and people may be found in and through the pages of that profound and ancient Book, the Bible.

Too often the earlier portion of the Bible has been viewed as only myth, legend, and folklore. (3) It is looked upon as the literary product of a small and rather insignificant Hebrew tribe, which, after years of wandering around, ended up settling in the Palestine hills; a tiny nation which happened to possess some great and sublime ideas of the Creator and who evolved an excellent monotheism, but which was, paradoxically, woefully local and terribly cramped in geographical and historical outlook. Its book of origins (The Book of Genesis) is often considered as quite fantastic and unreliable as a source of historical fact.

But, surely, if such writers were capable of such sublime, spiritual concepts and were also keen observers of nature about them, (vastly superior to their polytheistic, magic-fearing neighbors) they must have been also capable of just as wide and as discerning a grasp of the political world about them and of the events of their own times in which they sometimes took part. Is it not utter folly for us to dismiss their writings as rather unreliable because they were a small people? One may as well argue that a writer living in little Switzerland, nestling among the Alps, simply could not be an authority on early history because he comes from a small nation or again that he would be unreliable on the history of two world wars because the Swiss took no part in it.

Swiss minds are not inferior to German, English, or American in grasping world evens. Hebrew minds were not inferior to Egyptian, Assyrian, or Babylonian minds in recording history. Indeed we are inclined to think the Hebrews thought in a wider and longer historical view and sense than is visible in much of the earlier records recovered from the great nations of antiquity. We must also remember that the Hebrews, living closer to the events we deal with, likely had better sources than we with our often sketchy and incomplete monuments dug out of the ruins of the palaces of self-centered and boastful monarchs. Again, in contrast to those records which acclaim victories but omit defeats, the Hebrews tell of both defeats as well as victories. Which do you think ultimately most trust worthy? So let us with confidence look to the Bible for light on the times of the Hyksos Kings.

In setting forth this theory, may we first however, examine the historical records uncovered by archaeologists and survey what they may tell us concerning these puzzling Hyksos Kings? Afterwards this will be compared with certain lesser noted parts of Scripture and a check made concerning a people there mentioned, to see if that people may be the origin of the Hyksos. Each reader may then draw his own conclusion as to whether our theoretical identification is to be classified as possible, or plausible or, (we hope not!) preposterous.

Scantiness of Hyksos Records
It is unfortunate that many of the monuments of the Hyksos Kings of Egypt have been lost. Such monuments would no doubt, have supplied the key to the information we now seek. The Delta region of Egypt, where the Hyksos appear to have established their capital after entering Egypt, is not as favorable to the preservation of records as is Upper Egypt. Possibly later Egyptian kings may have sought to destroy every trace of the hated invaders by throwing down and demolishing all their monuments. (4) While archeologists have discovered some traces of the Hyksos, a few records have been preserved, outside of occasional references in later Egyptian writings. The following is a brief summary of the main points of our knowledge of these mysterious kings.

No. l. The Extent of the Hyksos Empire
The name "Hyksos" was thought by the Egyptian historian Manetho (who lived before Christ, yet fifteen long centuries later than the Hyksos) to mean "Shepherd Kings." Many writers still refer to them under that name. As the Hyksos were Semites, and are also called "Arabians," and there may be an element of truth in the idea.

Arabians are commonly shepherds, and Manetho may have known of traditions current in his day giving him reason to believe they actually were shepherds. This may have influenced him to endeavor to make this meaning out of the obscure word, "Hyksos."

Modern scholars, however, are inclined to believe Manetho was mistaken in his derivation of the word. They think it means "Rulers of Countries." (5) Certainly, what we now learn of them bears out that meaning very well. According to Sir Charles Marston in "The Bible Comes Alive," (Eyre and Spotiswoode, London, 1937; pg. 42ff.), the word means "Royal Bedouin." He draws attention to the Ras Shamra or Ugarit tablets which mention the existence of Arabs in Southern Palestine in Patriarchal times, speaking an archaic Hebrew.

Prof. Breasted stated in "A History of the Ancient Egyptians" in 1919, (paragraphs 170-173), that monuments of Khian (or "John"), one of the Hyksos rulers, have been found not only in Lower Egypt, (the Delta region where they resided) but also 350 miles away to the south at Gebelen in Upper Egypt. His royal cartouches are found in Southern Palestine and his name turns up 450 miles off across the sea to the northwest in the Island of Crete. It is also found 750 miles away to the north east, in the distance beyond Palestine, Syria and the Arabian Desert where a granite lion bearing his cartouche upon its breast was found near Baghdad. Consider the far reach of these points on the map below.

No wonder Prof. Breasted when viewing the great wide sweep of this astonishing evidence was moved to say that a person cannot behold it without entertaining the suggestion of, "... a vision of an empire which once stretched from the Euphrates to the first cataract of the Nile."

Were the Hyksos kings really "Rulers of Countries"? Yes, indeed! As heads over an empire embracing anywhere near such an extensive area as indicated by the locations of these monuments, they truly ruled over many countries and varied peoples. They must have dominated the world of their day.

This, then, is our first point. There was a great Hyksos Empire, which was centered in or not far from Lower Egypt; its general area as indicated above. The Hyksos entered Egypt from the east, and, strangely, instead of dominating Egypt from without, that is, from their own capital, they moved into Egypt and made that their center. These facts will be quite important to our later studies.

No. 2. Race and Language of the Hyksos
As to the race and language of the Hyksos, scholars were at first fully agreed they were Semites. They spoke a language closely akin to Hebrew. Then further research detected also a strong Hurrian element in their language, and suggestions were made that the Hyksos were Hittites. One researcher proposed a possible Amorite connection (6) Dr. Merrill F. Unger in "Archaeology and the Old Testament," Zondervan, 1954, p.14" states: "Eventually there arose a new king over Egypt, who ... knew not Joseph. (Exod.l:8). Thus began the long years of oppression. This new king seems to have been the founder or an early king of the powerful 18th dynasty (1546...1319)."

Since the Hyksos invasion of Egypt was led by Semites, and not by Hurrians or Indo-Aryans, as studies have shown, it appears that the expulsion of the Hyksos around the middle of the 16th century BC was the important event that resulted in the oppression of the Israelites. Thus we conclude that scholars now again consider the puzzling Hyksos to be mainly a Semitic people, but with a Hurrian element, which we must not overlook.

On the monuments the Egyptians call the Hyksos "Asiatics" and "Barbarians." Manetho calls them "Arabians" and "Phoenicians." The Jewish writer Josephus, who lived in the time of the early Christians and was a contemporary to the events in the later chapters of the Book of Acts, found the then known facts concerning them so similar to his own nation that he jumped to the conclusion the Hyksos tradition was but a garbled account of the children of Israel in Egypt before the Exodus. This we know is not correct, as the Israelites were slaves, not kings of a great empire, but it does reveal that those traditions concerning the Hyksos made them appear racially very like to the Israelites who were Hebrews.

Sir Charles Marston in "The Bible Comes Alive" argues that the Hyksos were a Hebrew people, though not Israelites. That is, they were of the same racial stock as Abraham, who was a Hebrew. Marston also links the Hyksos with Arabs in part. We feel that in this, he was very near to the solution, as will be evident from our later studies.

Of course, we must recognize that there were other Hebrews aside from Abraham and his descendants, the Israelites. As Arthur Custance very keenly observed in a personal communication to the author, Joseph when talking to Pharaoh's butler says he was "stolen out of the land of the Hebrews." (Genesis 40:15) Dr. Custance continues, "But the mere presence of Jacob and his family in Palestine would hardly warrant it being called Hebrew-land. Evidently a much wider Hebrew domination was in fact existing, a domination by others than Israelites, who were, nevertheless, termed Hebrews." (http://www.custance.org)

Even at the time of Joseph those Hebrews descended from Abraham were becoming numerous in some areas. Both the Ishmaelites and the Midianites who purchased Joseph of his brethren, were Hebrew entities, descended from Abraham. No doubt other Hebrew groups had sprung up from the families of Abraham's father Terah, and the general area where these groups existed from Edom up into Mesopotamia, might thereby be termed Hebrew-Land. See the chart: The Founding of the Nations

To sum this matter up, it seems abundantly clear that the Hyksos were definitely a Semitic people, or led by those who were pre-dominantly Semitic, and that there was a Hurri element as well. Racially, they were very like the Israelites, and could be Hebrews of some sort, or were similar to Hebrews.

We feel that this racial data is so important to our study, that it should be summarized. To discover whence came the Hyksos, we find we must look for a people who can rightly be called any and all of the following:

a. Asiatic From an Egyptian point of view this meant that they were racially not Egyptians but foreigners and strangers from the east.

b. Barbarians The Egyptians considered the Hysksos as a people to be on a lower cultural plane than themselves.

c. Arabians This would be a people linked with the deserts of Arabia, as shepherds, Bedouin, nomads, etc.

d. Phoenicians Referring to Canaanites, either directly from the Land of Canaan or a related people.

e. Semites A people speaking a Semitic tongue; but with a Hurrian admixture.

f. Hebrew A people so like the Israelites that the two could be confused by a later Hebrew writer.

Each of these factors will be referred to later on in our search for the Hyksos homeland. Each will be accounted for.

No. 3 The Hyksos City "Avaris"
The first Hyksos King is said by Manetho to have been Salatis. The account runs that Salatis built himself a capital city named Avaris, somewhere east from Bubastis. It is described as being located east of the eastern arm of the Nile as it fans out in the Delta. For several years I and other historians have suggested that the city Avaris would be close to or in the desert area either in or not too far from the east side of the Delta towards the south-western corner of Palestine. Some historians have identified with Tanis, called Zoan in the Bible. (7)

The site of Tell el-Dab'a is currently thought to be the site of Avaris. In the mid 1960's, Dr. Manfred Bietak of the Austrian Institute in Cairo began to excavate his site, finding evidence of an extensive occupation by an intrusive non-Egyptian population which led him to identify the cultural objects he found as almost identical to Middle Bronze Age artifacts from Syria-Palestine. This in turn led to the belief that Tell el-Dab'a was the lost town-site of the Asiatic Hyksos peoples of Egyptian texts. Excavations have been continued by the Institute of Egyptology at the University of Vienna.

It is of interest in this connection to observe that the eastern border of Egypt has been considered by the majority of scholars to extend over the desert beyond the Isthmus of Suez as far as the Wady el 'Arish. They have held that this wadi, dry most of the year, is called "the river of Egypt" in many Bible passages, and they thus name it as the real boundary between Egypt and Canaan. On the other hand, H. Bar- Deroma in an article, "The River of Egypt (Nahal Mizraim)", (Palestine Exploration Quarterly, Jan.-June 1960, P. 37), studies the passages and gives sound reason to believe "the river of Egypt" is the Nile and or the eastern or Pelusaic arm thereof in the Delta in particular.

Somewhere in this vicinity, in the times of Moses and Joshua, lived the Avim or Avites (Deut.2:23; Josh.13:3). The name is phonetically similar to "Avaris," the Hyksos capital, but no connection has yet been shown.

When the Egyptians finally began to regain power, the Hyksos were besieged in this city of Avaris for an unknown length of time; it may have been a long, hard siege. When the city ultimately fell before the growing power of Pharaoh Ahmose I, the Hyksos lost all control of Egypt and had to retreat to the city of Sharuhen in Southern Palestine.

No. 4. The Hyksos had Horses
It is well known that the Hyksos kings had and used horses. Indeed, it is quite generally believed that it was the Hyksos who introduced the horse into Egypt, since pre-Hyksos monuments do not mention these animals while later monuments do. (8)

Sir Flinders Petrie, when excavating Hyksos graves in Southern Palestine at Tell el Ajjul, near Gaza, found that horses had been buried evidently with their owners. Certainly, the horses must have been loved and held in highest esteem by these men, to merit burial with their masters. (See, "A Pompeii of Southern Palestine" in "The Illustrated London News," June 20,1931, page 1050, also articles in the same journal under dates of May 14,1932, page 814, and July 9, 1932, page 57.)

Archaeologists have also discerned several cemeteries in Tell el-Dab'a belonging to the Second Intermediate Period during recent excavations. These burials date from late Dynasty XIII to the end of the Hyksos Period. One of the more remarkable finds is a mud brick vaulted tomb to the west of the main temple enclosure, which apparently belonged to a Hyksos warrior. He was buried with his weapons, a well-preserved copper sword (the earliest of its type found in Egypt) and dagger, as well as other grave-goods and offerings. In the entrance to the tomb the skeleton of his horse was found and next to the north-eastern wall the body of a young girl - thought to have been a servant, perhaps a sacrifice, who was interred at the time of her master's burial. A number of other horse-burials have recently been uncovered. (See the web site: Egyptian Monuments: http://www.egyptsites.co.uk/lower/delta/eastern/daba/daba.html) Whatever people we seek to identify as the Hyksos, they must be a people having horses.

No. 5. The Religion of the Hyksos
In the matter of religion it seems most evident that the later Hyksos Kings worshipped "Sutekh" or "Seth." (9) "This Egyptian name way be identified as the god "Baal" of the Phoenicians or Canaanites, or shall we say, one of the many "Baals" as local districts had their own "Baal-gods."

Breasted translates a folk-tale circulating in Egypt four hundred years later, which includes this statement concerning Apophis, one of the Hyksos Kings, "Now King Apophis made Sutekh his Lord serving no other god, who was in the whole land, save Sutekh. He built the temple in beautiful and everlasting work." One might think from this that some of the earlier Hyksos kings worshipped some other god either solely or as well as Sutekh, until King Apophis made Sutekh his Lord."

Nevertheless, it is certain Sutekh (or Baal) was one of their chief gods, and at times possibly their only god. What other god or gods they may have had before, the Egyptian records do not reveal.

Therefore, in our identification, we must look for a people who worshipped "Baal" in one form or another.

No. 6. The Date of the Hyksos Empire
The time that the Hyksos kings ruled in Egypt and the date of their great empire is well established in relation to Egyptian history of that period. It fills or nearly fills the time between the Middle Kingdom and the New Empire commencing with the Eighteenth Dynasty. We may say it occupies the gap between the XIIth and the XVIIIth Dynasties. The Hyksos kings for Dynasties XV and XVI.

The chronology of the XVIIIth Dynasty is relatively good, and links up well with Palestinian and Babylonian events both through written records (as monuments and the Amarna Letters) and by archaeological evidences.

Ahmose I, the first king of the XVIIIth Dynasty of Egypt, is the king who drove the Hyksos out of Egypt. The Pharaoh of the Exodus of Bible history, was either Amenhotep II, or Thutmose IV, (of the XVIIIth Dynasty), or Merneptab (of the XIXth Dynasty), by the most popular theories. This gives us a rough method of linking the time of the Hyksos Empire with Biblical history.

The collapse of the Hyksos Empire was about 160 years before Amenhotep II and Thutmose IV, and about 350 years before Merneptah; so we may say the fall of the Hyksos Empire was about 160 or 350 years before the Exodus of the Children of Israel from Egypt. Using the long chronology of the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt, that is, that they were in Egypt for 430 years (Exod.12:40-4l), we may put it that the Hyksos Empire existed while Israel sojourned in Egypt. More will be said on this later.

Bible scholars should note that there is no conflict between Exodus 12:40-41 and St. Paul's statement in Gal 3:17, if the emphasis is put on the word "confirmed" in St. Paul's statement. Then the Abrahamic Covenant was confirmed 430 years before the giving of the law, which confirmation would naturally be the last confirmation given to the Patriarchs. The last time God confirmed the Abrabamic Covenant to the Patriarchs, in a vision, was just before Jacob entered Egypt (Gen.46:l-4), from which confirmation we should measure 430 years to the giving of the law at Mount Sinai.

The existence and history of this great Hyksos Empire would not be forgotten by the time of Moses. Therefore, some reference to the Hyksos people and their kings would be quite natural in Moses' writings. Of course, such reference would be under a name known to the Hebrews, rather than under the odd, Egyptian name "Hyksos."

In writing his great book of origins, that is, The Book of Genesis, it does seem, as this study will later set forth, that Moses paused in his main story long enough to outline quickly and briefly, what his readers at that day would readily recognize as the origin of that elusive but great empire under the Hyksos kings.

Summary of Evidence to be Matched
Here, then, is the sum of the particular evidences regarding taken the Hyksos discovered from sources available to us; taken from tradition and gleaned from monument and archaeological findings. It presents us with a fairly definite picture, which we must see paralleled and reflected in the Biblical people we are to introduce in the following chapters in our attempt to unravel this exciting and unique puzzle handed to us from the past.

The Hyksos were:

1. Rulers of an empire, started before the invasion of Egypt and which, at its greatest, seems to have included Egypt, the Southern portions of Palestine, the North Sinai desert, and to have extended its influence, if not direct control, across Northern Arabia to the regions about the Euphrates River.

2. A Semitic people, closely akin to Hebrews and Arabians; allied or akin to the Canaanites (Phoenicians); yet possessing a quite noticeable Hurrian element.

3. A people who likely had a capital city before entering Egypt, yet preferred to set up a new capital city, Avaris, upon entering Egypt (to them a conquered land) thus forsaking, as a seat of government whatever capital they had previously.

4. A people who very early had horses, and used them extensively in warfare.

5. A people who worshipped Baal (Sutekh).

6. A people who attained the height of their power about 200 to 300 years before the Exodus of Israel from Egypt.

Our problem now is to see whether the Biblical people to be suggested can match every one of these six points, and whether there are any irresolvable differences or difficulties which might confute, annul, or weaken our proposed identification. The Bible does record one nation, and one alone, which appears to fit all the six points listed above. To the origin and early history of that nation we will now turn for close study.

End of Chapter One