Jewish Bubba: Being An Israelite Slave In Egypt Just Under 400 Years

Nadene Goldfoot

The pharaoh, most likely Rameses, noticed that the Israelites were so many in Goshen that there were more of them than there were of Egyptians ! So he had them enslaved and set them to work building the storage cities of Pithom and Rameses. From the time the Israelites had entered Egypt till the time that Moses freed them was about 400 years. 300 years of it could have been spent enslaved, and that is a long time. The United States is only 247 years old. 1776 was its birthday.

Israelites settled in Goshen in the city of Avaris where Hyskos also settled.

At the time of Moses when 80 years old (1391-1271BCE Jewish time off 200 years from others) , Thutmose III was in power. Egyptian servants were treated more humanely as employees, whereas foreign slaves were the objects of trade.

Midian Midian was an ancient region located in northwestern Arabia, so it lay southwest of Judah. Compared with other peoples of the ancient Near East, knowledge about Midian and the Midianites is limited and restricted to a few and relatively late written sources, particularly the Hebrew Bible. Midian was a Beduin tribe related to Abraham(Gen.25-2). Its members traveled with caravans of incense from Gilead to Egypt, and later to other countries. They were closely connected with the Israelites. It's in Midian that Moses fled from Pharaoh and married the daughter of Jethro, the priest of that land.

This picture also shows skin tone of slaves being of lighter shade then Egyptian overseers.

That may be about servitude, but in building cities the overseers were known for their cruelty. In fact, one was seen beating an Israelite to death when young Moses stepped in and stopped him, accidently killing him in the act! He, the Prince of Egypt, was so mortified that he ran away, far away to Midian.

So Moses fled from before Pharaoh and settled in the land

of Midian. He sat by a well. The minister of Midian had 7

daughters.....This is where he met Zipporah...

The foreigners captured during military campaigns are, for example, referred to in the Annals of Thutmose III (Thutmose III, (died 1426 bce), king (reigned 1479–26 bce) of the , often regarded as the greatest of the rulers of ancient Egypt.) as "men in captivity" and individuals were referred to as "dependents" (mrj). In reward for his services in the construction of temples across Egypt, Thutmose III rewarded his official Minmose over 150 "dependents".

Thutmose III's son was Amenhotep II, though not a 1st son. The 1st had died earlier. He was the 7th pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt. Amenhotep inherited a vast kingdom from his father Thutmose III, and held it by means of a few military campaigns in Syria; however, he fought much less than his father, and his reign saw the effective cessation of hostilities between Egypt and Mitanni, the major kingdoms vying for power in Syria. His reign is usually dated from 1427 to 1401 BC. His consort was Tiaa, who was barred from any prestige until Amenhotep's son, Thutmose IV, came into power.

Slavebeating-from a Tomb's wall painting Egyptians left us news of how they lived and died.

During and after the reign of Amenhotep II, coerced temple labor was only performed by male and female slaves. At Medinet Habu, defeated Sea Peoples are recorded as having been captured as prisoners of war and reduced to slavery. During this period, slaves could sometimes be rented. One manuscript known as Papyrus Harris I records Ramses III claiming to have captured innumerable foreign slaves:

"I brought back in great numbers those that my sword has spared, with their hands tied behind their backs before my horses, and their wives and children in tens of thousands, and their livestock in hundreds of thousands. I imprisoned their leaders in fortresses bearing my name, and I added to them chief archers and tribal chiefs, branded and enslaved, tattooed with my name, their wives and children being treated in the same way."

The Torah (Old Testament from Exodus and Genesis)states plainly that Israelites were assigned to build the storage cities of Pithom and Ramesses. Nothing was mentioned about the ancient, much older pyramids. They may have been living in Avaris for 100 years by then, but were they still considered as "foreign"? Could be. They seem to be living in their own neighborhood and of a lighter skin color that Egyptian citizens.

The allegation that Israelite slaves built the pyramids was first made by Jewish historian Josephus in Antiquities of the Jews during the first century CE, an account that was subsequently popularized during the Renaissance period.

Josephus before Vespasian

Josephus had been a Jewish general living in 70 CE during the destruction of the 2nd Temple and all of Jerusalem. He was captured by the Romans and given his life in order to write the History of the Jews. So his audience were non-Jews. This shows he didn't have his facts straight. Nor had he read or heard of the account of Exodus, this being 2,000 years ago, or remembered only parts of it.

While the idea that the Israelites served as slaves in Egypt features in the Bible, In any case, the construction of the pyramids does not appear in the story. Modern archaeologists consider that the Israelites were indigenous to Canaan and never resided in ancient Egypt in significant numbers. Again, the Israelites left Ur after Abraham who lived in the 2nd millennium or about 1948 BCE Jewish time to Canaan, and then entered Egypt with Abraham's grandson, Jacob/Israel during a long-lasting drought.

Many Egyptian slaves, specifically during the New Kingdom era, originated from foreign lands. The slaves themselves were seen as an accomplishment to Egyptian kings' reign, and a sign of power. Slaves or bak were seen as property or a commodity to be bought and sold. Their human qualities were disregarded and were merely seen as property to be used for a master's labor. Unlike the more modern term, "serf", Egyptian slaves were not tied to the land; the owner(s) could use the slave for various occupational purposes. The slaves could serve towards the productivity of the region and community. Slaves were generally men, but women and families could be forced into the owner's household service.

During the New Kingdom period, the military and its expenses grew and so additional coerced labor was needed to sustain it. As such, the "New Kingdom, with its relentless military operations, is the epoch of large-scale foreign slavery". Many more slaves were also acquired via the Mediterranean slave market, where Egypt was the main purchaser of international slaves. This Mediterranean market appears to have been controlled by Asiatic Bedouin who would capture individuals, such as travelers, and sell them on the market. The tomb of Ahmose I contains a biographical text which depicts several boasts regarding the capture of foreign Asiatic slaves.

Hyksos were described as having a more yellow skin tone.

Egypt being racists with those getting circumcised of a lighter, yellower skin tone than those slaves doing the job. Was it the Hyksos getting circumcised? Of course, this was the only way to show historically who got to practice circumcision; by pictures. This Egyptian act would be repeated by Moses while on the Exodus, told to the 600,000 some Israelites to do on the 8th day of life.

Israelites much later building Solomon's Temple. Solomon died in 920 BCE Jewish time. According to the 1st century CE historian Flavius Josephus, "Solomon began to build the temple in the fourth year of his reign, on the second month, which the Macedonians call Artemisius, and the Hebrews Jar, five hundred and ninety two years after the exodus out of Egypt, but after one thousand and twenty years from Abraham's coming out of Mesopotamia into Canaan and after the deluge one thousand four hundred and forty years; and from Adam, the first man who was created, until Solomon built the temple, there had past in all three thousand one hundred and two years."

Several departments in the Ancient Egyptian government were able to draft workers from the general population to work for the state with a corvée labor system. The laborers were conscripted for projects such as military expeditions, mining and quarrying, and construction projects for the state. These slaves were paid a wage, depending on their skill level and social status for their work. Conscripted workers were not owned by individuals, like other slaves, but rather required to perform labor as a duty to the state. Conscripted labor was a form of taxation by government officials and usually happened at the local level when high officials called upon small village leaders.