Between Egypt and Iraq: Land of the Jewish Experience

 Nadene Goldfoot                                            

Abraham came from Ur of the Chaldees which was on or near Mesopotamia's Euphrates River city south of Babylon, today known as the country of Iraq.  He migrated with his father, Terah,  wife, Sarah-his niece, and others to Canaan.  Isaac was born in the Negev, and Isaac became the father of Jacob by his wife, Rebekah bat Bethuel. 

                                               

 Jacob, the youngest of twin sons of Isaac,  married his cousin Leah of Aram , today's Syria at Haran and then her younger sister,  Rachel, also at Haran. Haran was named for Abraham's brother, and was a trading town of NW Mesopotamia and the center of a moon cult. Assyrian inscriptions mention a Hebrew settlement there.  Leah had 6 boys and a girl.  Rachel had 2 sons, Joseph (Jacob's 11th son)  and Benjamin, his 12th son.                                                   

 The family, having  experienced a time without rain, and food was terribly scarce  during this famine. Jacob instructed ten of his sons to travel to Egypt to buy some grain to prevent his family from starving. Jacob purposely kept his youngest son, Benjamin, from going to Egypt to prevent him from experiencing harm. In obedience to their father, the ten brothers departed from Canaan to buy some grain in Egypt.

Jacob died in Goshen, E. Egypt at age 147. The Cave of the Patriarchs or Tomb of the Patriarchs, known to Jews as the Cave of Machpelah and to Muslims as the Sanctuary of Abraham, is a series of caves situated 30 kilometres south of Jerusalem in the heart of the Old City of Hebron in the West Bank. Abraham buried Sarah here.  Jacob is buried here, too.  The next burial in the cave is that of Abraham himself, who at the age of 175 years was buried by his sons Isaac and Ishmael. The title deed to the cave was part of the property of Abraham that passed to his son Isaac. The third burial was that of Isaac, by his two sons Esau and Jacob, who died when he was 180 years old. There is no mention of how or when Isaac's wife Rebecca died, but she is included in the list of those that had been buried in Machpelah in Jacob's final words to the children of Israel. Jacob himself died at the age of 147 years.

Joseph had been taken by traders to Egypt as a young man.  There he eventually became Viceroy of the Pharaoh. A viceroy is an official who runs a polity in the name of and as the representative of the monarch of the territory. He must have been like the 2nd in command to the pharaoh.                                   

             Jacob giving son Joseph his coat of many colors

Joseph, 30 years old, owned grazing land in Goshen, Egypt, which was the beginning of settlement for the Israelites. He married Asenath, daughter of Poti-phera, Chief of On, Joseph's old master.   Joseph had told his brothers to return home and tell their father Jacob that his son Joseph was still alive, and to bring Jacob, all of their families, and all of their belongings to live in Egypt where they would be taken care of. Genesis 46:8-27, lists all the descendants of Jacob that came into Egypt.

Joseph meets his brothers and tells them to bring back Jacob so the family now numbering 70 packed up and went to Egypt.   Exodus 1:5 says, “The total number of Jacob’s descendants was 70.” Deuteronomy 10:22 says, “Your fathers went down to Egypt, 70 people in all, and now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars of the sky.”

Joseph died at age 110 and his body was brought back to Canaan for burial.  His history has been dated back to the 18th to 16th centuries BCE.  

This was the time during the Hyksos domination of Egypt.  They were also Semitic people who overran Egypt  after the destruction of the Middle Kingdom.  Their scarabs, etc, bore names similar to Hebrew. They ruled Egypt from 1720-1580 BCE (English dating) and during this period, the Israelites entered the country and were favorably treated.  the period of bondage when the Jews were held as slaves for 400 years, is believed to have begun after the expulsion of the Hyksos.  

The term, Hyksos is Egyptian, meaning "rulers of the foreign lands."  It was first applied to his people by MANETHO, a 3rd century BCE Egyptian priest and author on the History of Egypt, who erroneously took the word to mean "shepherd kings."  

When the  10 northern Tribes were taken as slaves by the Assyrians in 721 BCE, 27,290 Israelites  were taken by Sargon to Assyria and Media, replacing them with Syrian and Babylonian prisoners.  They were taken right back to whence they began, Babylon and Ur on the Euphrates River area.   The map below advances 398 years showing the growth of countries during Alexander the Great's Empire in 323 BCE and how the northern tribes expanded from Ur and Babylon.                                    

Today we have identified the Pashtuns as some of the descendants of the Northern tribes.  Pashtuns have been found in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.  They had been brought right back to where their ancestors had left.  Abraham was born in  about 1948 BCE of the 2nd millennium BCE, and his descendants were kidnapped in 721 BCE; 1,227 years later and heading back to their ancient origins.   

                                                               

 Iraq showing the 2 rivers, Tigris and Euphrates and showing Egypt, where our history lies between the two.  

Resource:

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://truthsnitch.com/2017/06/21/many-jacobs-descendants-went-egypt-70-75/