In the Book of Genesis 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 Pharaoh, but God sends plagues because he wishes to marry her and she is already married. 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. This claim has been rejected by the vast majority of Egyptologists.
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. • The author Gerald Aardsma proposed that Jacob and his family entered Egypt around 2880 BC by extending the 480 years mentioned in 1 Kings 6:1 to 1,480 years and then adding 430 years of sojourn to it, arguing that the figure of 480 years was a scribal corruption. He used his own chronology, which places the
3rd dynasty of Egypt in the 29th century BC, identifying the pharaoh as
Djoser and Joseph as the Egyptian vizier
Imhotep. • Author
Ahmed Osman proposed that this pharaoh was
Thutmose IV and identified Joseph with
Yuya. Other scholars generally reject Osman's claims. • David Rohl argued that this pharaoh was
Amenemhat III and identified Joseph as the Egyptian vizier
Ankhu. Rohl's claim has been rejected. • Egyptologist and museum curator,
Ahmad Kamal identified this Pharaoh as the Hyksos ruler Khyan, based on the similarity of the Pharoah's Arabic name
Nahraus to Khyan's cartouche; which Kamal interpreted as reading "Ne Re Ous."
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.
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. This theory has not gained acceptance and has received strong criticism from Israeli archaeologist
Israel Finkelstein and American Egyptologist
James K. Hoffmeier. •
Merenre (23rd century BC): Gerald Aardsma proposed that the Exodus occurred in 2450 BC by extending the 480 years mentioned in 1 Kings 6:1 to 1,480 years, arguing that the figure of 480 years was a scribal corruption. He used his own chronology, which places
6th dynasty in the 25th century BC, and identified the pharaoh of the Exodus as
Merenre Nemtyemsaf II. He connects the destruction of Jericho, which occurred in the 24th century BC, and that of Ai, also dated to the 24th century BC, with Joshua's Conquest. •
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, 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. Rohl's chronological revisions have been rejected by the vast majority of Egyptologists. •
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. •
Hatshepsut (1507–1458 BC):
Diodorus Siculus identified the Jews with the Hyksos and identified the pharaoh of the Exodus with Queen Hatshepsut. However, the biblical story of the Exodus repeatedly refers to pharaoh as a man. •
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. •
Thutmose III (1479–1427 BC): His reign corresponds with the
Masoretic Text of when the
1 Kings account claims the Exodus occurred. 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. 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. •
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 is the most likely candidate. •
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 Akhenaten. •
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. •
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 , , , etc). 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. 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. 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. This is mainly because there is a significant lack of evidence for an Israelite presence in Canaan before that century, 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. •
Merneptah (c. 1213–1203 BC):
Isaac Asimov in
Guide to the Bible makes a case for Merneptah to be the pharaoh of the Exodus. Recently, Semiticist
Richard C. Steiner defended Merneptah as the exodus pharaoh, noting that the events of Numbers 14:44-45 coincide with the reference to Israel being "laid waste" in the
Merneptah Stele. •
Setnakhte (c. 1189–1186 BC): Igor P. Lipovsky and
Israel Knohl make a case for Setnakhte to be the pharaoh of the Exodus. •
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. •
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.
Lysimachus of Alexandria, quoted by
Josephus in
Against Apion, also identifies the pharaoh of the Exodus with Bakenranef. • 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.
In the Books of Kings In , 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 (). 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. In any case, Rohl's claim has been rejected by the vast majority of Egyptologists. •
Siamun (c. 986–967 BC): is the most commonly proposed candidate for this role. •
Psusennes II (c. 967–943 BC): the
Catholic Encyclopedia sees him as the best candidate.
Edward Lipiński also supports this idea. •
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. == Named pharaohs ==