The Land of Goshen of Egypt and Who Was Touched By It

 Nadene Goldfoot                                           

Joseph, 2nd in command to the Pharaoh, the viceroy,  seeing his father, Jacob after asking his brothers to bring him to Egypt so that he may see him.  They are given Goshen to live; land that was given to Jacob by the Pharaoh.                            

When Jacob's family returned to Egypt to see the long lost Joseph, they discovered that he was 2nd to the Pharaoh and that certainly surprised them!   What was special about that place called "the land of Goshen," and why was it called by this name?

The simple understanding is that this place was far from the Egyptian population, to be separate from the Egyptians and not to be influenced by Egyptian culture. Therefore, Yosef sought to settle his brothers there. The Kli Yakar writes: "The purpose of all of this was to distance them from Pharaoh, so that they would settle in the land of Goshen." This has a practical lesson for our days also, that we should seek to live in a place that is not subject to alien influence.  Among the consequences of "opening" of Egypt were a tendency to accept religious practices from the Near East (e.g., astrology and the interpretation of omens), and an increase of social tensions between the native population and the newcomers, which the Saite pharaohs were not always able to control. A tool was the codification of the Egyptian laws. The first evidence for the existence of this code is from the Persian age, but it appears to be older, because king Darius I (inherited the throne from king Cyrus who sent the Jews back to Jerusalem) ordered the laws to remain as they were in Amasis' final year.

                                    

                                    Portrait of a Pharaoh of the Saite Dynasty

The Pharaoh  had given Joseph the land of Goshen, and Joseph allowed his family to settle there with their sheep.  It is thought to have been situated East of the Nile delta.  Goshen turns out to be the seat of power for the Hyskos kings.  Around 1720-1710 BCE, Egypt began to be invaded by a people "of obscure race", who became known as the Hyk-Sos, "shepherd kings".This was about 228 years after Abraham was born. He fathered Isaac and Isaac fathered Jacob and Esau.  Jacob was old when he met up with Joseph in Egypt, and he had all his sons and their wives and children with them.  It could have looked like an invasion.  The sons were:  Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Benjamin, Gad, Asher, Dan, Naphtali, and Joseph was the 12th son, and their sister, Dinah.                                  

Then again, Avaris was also said to be  the Hyksos capital of Egypt located at the modern site of Tell el-Dab'a in the northeastern region of the Nile Delta. It's either renamed or they were very close to each other. During the sojourn of Israel in Egypt (about 1652 – 1424 BCE) Avaris was the capital and largest city of the province of Goshen. As the main course of the Nile migrated eastward, its position at the hub of Egypt's delta emporia made it a major capital suitable for trade. It was occupied from about the 18th century BCE until its capture by Ahmose I.

                                                  

     A Hyskos ruler going for a ride with his protection.  Material finds at Tell El-Dab'a indicate that the Hyksos originated in the Levant. The Hyksos' personal names indicate that they spoke a Western Semitic language and "may be called for convenience sake Canaanites."    Joseph, Jacob and the rest of his sons were Canaanites.  

  Hyksos is a term which, in modern Egyptology, designates the kings of the Fifteenth Dynasty of Egypt. The seat of power of these kings was the city of Avaris in the Nile delta, from where they ruled over Lower and Middle Egypt up to Cusae. The 15th Dynasty of Egypt was the first Hyksos dynasty, ruling from Avaris, without control of the entire land. The Hyksos preferred to stay in northern Egypt since they infiltrated from the north-east. The names and order of kings is uncertain.  Avaris=Goshen; we know Goshen was Joseph's land for starters and may have later been called Avaris.  Israelites remained for 430 years as shepherds, then as slaves.                                               

            Goshen lies under the 3 branches of the Nile River (Delta). The cities of Ramesses, Pithon and On lie in a cluster near it.   It appears that the establishment of Hyksos rule was mostly peaceful and did not involve an invasion of an entirely foreign population. Archaeology shows a continuous Asiatic presence at Avaris for over 150 years before the beginning of Hyksos rule, with gradual Canaanite settlement beginning there c. 1800 BC during the Twelfth Dynasty. Manfred Bietak argues that Hyksos "should be understood within a repetitive pattern of the attraction of Egypt for western Asiatic population groups that came in search of a living in the country, especially the Delta, since prehistoric times." He notes that Egypt had long depended on the Levant for expertise in areas of shipbuilding and seafaring, with possible depictions of Asiatic shipbuilders being found from reliefs from the Sixth Dynasty ruler Sahure. The Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt is known to have had many Asiatic immigrants serving as soldiers, household or temple serfs, and various other jobs. Avaris in the Nile Delta attracted many Asiatic immigrants in its role as a hub of international trade and seafaring.
                                                 

Goshen is described as the best land in Egypt, suitable for both crops and livestock. It has been suggested that this location may have been somewhat apart from Egypt, because Genesis 46:34 states, "Ye may dwell in the land of Goshen; for every shepherd is an abomination unto the Egyptians." After the death of Joseph and those of his generation, the following generations of Israelites had become populous in number. The Egyptians feared potential integration or takeover, so they enslaved the Israelites.

Four hundred thirty years  later, to the day, Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, from Goshen (Ramesses) to Succoth, the first waypoint of the Exodus. They pitched at 41 locations after initially crossing the Nile Delta to the east, and then also crossing the Red Sea, to the last station being the plains of Moab.

This was the precursor of the Exodus, since their numbers will grow to the point where the next pharaoh will panic in fear of being eventually taken over by them.  In order to protect himself, he took the all as slaves to build the storage cities of Egypt.  They were in Egypt for 430 years counting this beginning and ended when Moses had them all released under his care and the Exodus back to Canaan began.  

                                                 

In 1885 Édouard Naville identified Goshen as the 20th name of Egypt, located in the eastern Delta, and known as "Gesem" or "Kesem" during the Twenty-sixth dynasty of Egypt (672–525 BCE). It covered the western end of the Wadi Tumilat, the eastern end being the district of Succoth, which had Pithom as its main town, extended north as far as the ruins of Pi-Ramesses (the "land of Rameses"), and included both crop land and grazing land.  Henri Édouard Naville was a Swiss archaeologist, Egyptologist and Biblical scholar. Born in Geneva, he studied at the University of Geneva, King's College, London, and the Universities of Bonn, Paris, and Berlin.     

The Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt (notated Dynasty XXVI, alternatively 26th Dynasty or Dynasty 26) dynasty was the last native dynasty to rule Egypt before the Persian conquest in 525 BCE (although others followed). The dynasty's reign (664–525 BCE) is also called the Saite Period after the city of Sais, where its pharaohs had their capital, and marks the beginning of the Late Period of ancient Egypt.  This scenario is not without precedent or parallel, since several kings, including Mentuhotep II, the famous Ramesses II, and Seti II, are known to have used two different prenomens (The prenomen, cartouche name or throne name (Ancient Egyptian: 𓆥 nswt-bjtj "of the Sedge and Bee") of ancient Egypt was one of the five royal names of pharaohs. The first pharaoh to have a Sedge and Bee name was Den during the First Dynasty. ... Others think that it originally represented the birth name of the rulers. during their reigns.

Warfare between the Hyksos and the pharaohs of the late Seventeenth Dynasty eventually culminated in the defeat of the Hyksos by Ahmose I, who founded the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt. In the following centuries, the Egyptians would portray the Hyksos as bloodthirsty and oppressive foreign rulers but that has been disproven.

                                                       

Josephus, the Roman-Jewish historian who wrote about the Roman destruction of  Jerusalem and its Temple in 70 CE,  associated the Hyksos with the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt. Many modern scholars believe the Hyksos may have partially inspired the Biblical account.

                                           

Goshen captured the imagination of a Black Musician. award-winning Chicago gospel singer-songwriter Donald Lawrence and the Tri-City Singers.    “Goshen,” a conceptual production he created in conjunction with Chicago’s Deeply Rooted Dance Theater. It was set to debut at the Broadway Playhouse in Chicago in May but has since been postponed.  He was on the Good Morning Show on ABC this morning.  Donald Lawrence is an American gospel music songwriter, record producer and artist. He studied at Cincinnati Conservatory, where he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in music. While in Cincinnati, he was also the Minister of Music at the Southern Baptist Church on Reading Road.

                                                                    

The Hebrew writing does NOT  spell Goshen.  It's the writing for G-d, which written from right to left uses the letters, (HVHY)  We start reading with the yud shown on the right side.  Then the hey, then vuv, then hey.   There are many different names for God in the Hebrew Bible, or the Tanach. These include , Adonai, El, Elohim, El Shaddai.  I've seen it backward too, written (YHVH)

“I had the concept of this album, I started working on it in 2015,” Lawrence said. “It was Goshen. It really tells the story of the Exodus. But I thought that had been told, so I decided to dig deeper into the story, and I learned that the body of the land that Israel resided in was Goshen. It had a lot of spiritual meaning. It was a place of protection. A place of God’s favor. Goshen is a supernatural zip code and those who reside there achieve against all odds,” he said.

A book has also come out about Goshen:  Moses of Avaris, Part I. Conspiracy in Goshen.   During the sojourn of Israel in Egypt (about 1652 – 1424 BCE) Avaris was the capital and largest city of the province of Goshen. This is the story of the departure of Israel, the last of the Hebrew (Hyksos) nations to leave Egypt, and of their leader, Moses the Prophet of God. This novel is classified fiction, but is based on historical and scriptural truth and may paint a more accurate picture of the Exodus than do traditional accounts. Moses of Avaris is a story of brutal oppression and sweet deliverance, of deep despair and wonderful hope, of love found, enjoyed, violently torn away and then regained. It considers the question of whether one should “turn the other cheek” to those seeking to do us evil or retaliate with bitter vengeance upon the evil doers. It is also a story of political intrigue at the highest levels of the Egyptian monarchy. It is about two able and ambitious women seeking to assert themselves in a culture dominated by men. It is the tale of an innocent babe, condemned at birth to a watery grave but preserved by the power of God to be raised up as a prince and heir to a throne; who then rejects that crown, humbling himself before the divine presence and receiving a portion of power and authority such that would provoke the envy of all earthly rulers.  He's also written Part V, son of Jethro. 

 Robert T. Evans was born in 1938 in Corpus Christi, Texas who spends his time in church, on genealogy, and writing historical/religious fiction.  Hope he can keep up with more archeological information that comes out,  like Hyskos were not warlike.  

I'm surprised and pleased to see that Christian artists have been so touched by the land of Goshen and its story; as shown in their music, dancing and writing.  💗

                                            

Resource:

Torah, Stone Edition-Tanakh

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_of_Goshen

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-sixth_Dynasty_of_Egypt

https://news.wttw.com/2020/04/14/chicago-gospel-singer-s-message-goshen-more-timely-ever

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyksos

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteenth_Dynasty_of_Egypt

https://www.donaldlawrence.com/

https://www.kby.org/english/torat-yavneh/view.asp?id=3633