Moses, Leader of 603,550 people Out Of Slavery Of 400 Years

 Nadene Goldfoot                                             

     12 Tribes of Israel, Others, slaves of Egypt, Leaving

Moses of the tribe of Levi, the Lawgiver of Judaism, prophet for his people, and founder of the Jewish religion, was born in Egypt to  Jochabed and Amram in 1391 BCE, slaves of the Egyptians, 3,417 years ago in the city of Avaris, in Goshen. Levites did not have a state of their own, commanded to live in all of them to teach their religion. Avaris, the ancient Hyksos capital in the eastern Nile Delta, is most famously referred to in the Bible as Rameses (or Raamses). In the book of Exodus (1:11), it is described as one of the "store cities" built by the Israelites for Pharaoh.                                      

    Egypt's Goshen area and area of Canaan where slaves came from

The people first taken into slavery had been the children, descendants of Jacob and his family of Israelites, for the past 400 years. To understand time; that's like the 1900's when horse and buggies were being used for transportation to the time of 2300 or today.  However, Egypt in that period was not inventing new transportation at all.  They had slaves to do everything.  The Israelite slaves were used to build storage buildings needed in Goshen, so they lived there.                      

Moses and been saved by the pharaoh's daughter at a time boy babies were thought by the pharaoh to grow up and take over Egypt, so they had them all killed that year, and Moses was in great danger.  His mother hid him in the bull rushes growing in the Nile's marshy shallows that emptied into the Mediterranean Sea.  

He was raised as  Prince, so one day he saw an overseer whipping a slave almost to his death, and he stopped him but the overseer fell, hit his head and died in the process.  

 I imagine this is the same chariot that Moses used to get to Midian.

Even a Prince couldn't do that legally so Moses hid his body and left town, seeking refuge in Midian (Saudi Arabia) , a land next to Egypt, making it 420-440 miles to Midian. 

 

He came upon several women who were watching their sheep and being harassed by some other men, and Moses stepped into help them.  That's how he met his wife, Zipporah, daughter of the local priest, Jethro.  He spent his life there, becoming father of 2 sons, Gershom and Eliezer  until he was 80 years old, and then felt he must go back after seeing and hearing a vision in a burning bush, burning unusually from something other than fire,  and help his people escape from slavery. He felt it was a message from G-d.  

He followed the route he had taken 40 some years before back to Egypt and found in the slave's homes his brother, Aaron.  They went together to plead with a younger pharaoh for the Slaves to be freed.

Aaron did the talking as Moses had a lisp.  Snakes of each decided the debate of letting the slaves go with Moses.                                             

After some quick preparation, the people were ready to leave, and Moses took a census and counted 603,550 male Israelite slaves with others mixed in the tribes with:  The book of Numbers explains that before the camp was arranged, a census was taken of the Israelite men who were able to fight. More than 600,000 men were counted, not including women and children (Numbers 1:45-46). This means the camp may have included over two million people, making it like a moving city in the wilderness.

Reuben:  46,500       Zebulun:  57,400     Asher:       41,500

Simeon:  59,300      Dan:         62,700     Ephraim:   40,500

Judah:     74,600     Naphtali   53,400      Manasseh: 32,200

Issachar:  54,400    Gad          45,650      Benjamin:  35, 400

By day, a pillar of cloud rested over the Tabernacle, and by night, a pillar of fire lit up the camp (Exodus 40:36-38). When the cloud of God’s presence lifted from the Tabernacle, the Israelites would pack up and march in the same order as their camp. 1. Judah’s tribe led the way, followed by 2. Reuben’s, then the 3. Levites carrying the holy objects, then 4. Ephraim’s tribe, and finally 5.Dan’s tribe as the rear guard. This order protected the Israelites and kept them together on their journey through the wilderness.

During their wilderness journey, the Israelites camped at night under the brilliant glow of the pillar of fire. Organized by tribe, the massive encampment featured thousands of tents surrounding the central Tabernacle, with Moses' Tent of Meeting placed at a distance for communing directly with God. 

       Fighting against  the Amaleks 

Moses had learned how to move army groups in his Egyptian classes, so knew how to have them make camp at night, and how to walk during the day.  I doubt if his training had allowed for women to give birth, or rest so many, at times..  The men did have to fight off attackers, though, as they went through certain towns, and the Amaleks were after them, too.  The ones last in the Exodus line were attacked as slower people were there, the aged, more feeble ones finding it hard to keep up.  

Resource:

The Tanach (Old Testament, the Stone Edition, ArtScroll series.

                                                       

Why We Spoke In Many Languages At Time of Ivrim Slavery in Egypt Part I on Slavery: DEVELOPMENT OF SEMITES AND SLAVERY

 Nadene Goldfoot                                            

What enables us to speak and gives us the power of languages? 

 

The human larynx is much lower, relative to cervical vertebrae, than that of our ancestors and other primates. The descent of the larynx, the theory held, was what elongated our vocal tract and enabled modern humans to begin making the contrasting vowel sounds that were the early building blocks of language.

When mankind went from hunters to gatherers and became farmers, they were living in tribes, which are family groups all related.  Tribes eventually grew larger into clans and clans into villages and towns, of course.  We intermarry with people close by, sharing our genes with each other.

There are a few reasons why monkeys do not talk like humans. One reason is that monkeys have a different type of larynx, or voice box, than humans. The larynx in monkeys is located higher in the throat, which makes it difficult for them to produce the same range of sounds that humans can. Additionally, the neural pathways and language centers in the brain of monkeys are not as developed as they are in humans. Humans have evolved over time to have a unique ability to learn and use complex languages, while monkeys have not.  We have developed a specialized intelligence.  

This helps to develop a language, since we are sharing the same genes, and that creates the size and development of the human larynx.  That's why people of England have a different twang from people in the USA, both speaking English.  It sounds different. Most likely the larynx has changed. 

    Not knowing the language, Moses meets the daughters of Jethro in Midian, the local priest and their flock of sheep and falls in love with Zipporah, who later gave him 2 sons, Gershom and Eliezer.  They managed to communicate.   

        Moses, born and raised in Egypt, had fled to Midian after killing an overseer of slaves because of his cruelty.  Midian, unknown to him, had some lovely women.  Midianites were a Bedouin tribe related to Abraham (Gen.25:2) who traveled in Caravans with incense from Gilead to Egypt and later to other countries; and closely connected to the Israelites.  As usual, in later history the Midianites become enemies of Israel by fighting against them with the Moabites (Num.21:29).  From 2nd Temple times, the Land of Midian was thought to be located in NW Arabia.  Knowledge gets confused.                              

What's good to know is that every man is born with a  tag as to what tribe he came from called his Y haplogroup.  J1 is very common for Jews that are the descendants of Aaron, brother of Moses, and there were a lot of them.  Muslims are also found to with J1 as their haplogroup, with the usual slightly different tag ending on their title, showing that they are a little different from Aaron's descendants, but from the same original source.  I love, just love it when science is so specific in its findings and connects with our oral and written history found in the Torah.  It just strengthens the Torah 100%.                                   

Knowing this, and now knowing that a Semite is a person who speaks Hebrew, Arabic or a related other languages, shows how they differentiate from others in a land they may have entered.  It's like having a certain different color of skin; something to identify by.  That's why some people of Spanish blood can roll their rrrrrs, and semites have sounds in the bottom of their throats, a Khhh sound and why it's hard for me to reproduce in my throat.  You larynx has to make changes.  

The same thing happened when senior-aged Jacob and his family of 70,  who were referred to as the Hebrews, or Ivrim,  went into Egypt, needing to find relief from the drought they were suffering from in Canaan, hoping they had received the blessed rain.  Unknown to them, Jacob's beloved son, Joseph had made it there when his brothers sold him to a passing caravan, and he had risen to the top, becoming the #2 man under the pharaoh.  The pyramids were already built by this time.                                                     

With Joseph's help, Jacob, his father,  led the group of 70 from Canaan to Goshen, the northern area of Egypt to live in with their sheep at about that time.  Abram was born during the 2nd millennium in about 1948 BCE, and genealogy takes us then to Jacob.      

Did the Ivrim speak the same language as the Egyptians?  Arabic is a Semitic language.  Another source said, "The Semitic Hebrew of Ancient Israel and the Semitic Afro-Asiatic but not Semitic Late Egyptian language were distantly related, but not enough for direct communication.

Ancient Egyptians spoke Egyptian. Obviously, the Ivrim had to learn and to speak Egyptian as well.  Egypt's official language is Modern Standard Arabic, which is used in most written documents and schools.

In the Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Middle East, people of different languages sometimes used Akkadian as a Lingua Franca.

Akkad, in the Babylonian period, was the northern region of the valley between the Euphrates and the Tigris, which contained Babylon, Sipopar, and other important cities.  The Ancient city of Babylonia mentioned in Gen 10:10 was the residence of Sargon the Great.  The earliest Semitic language that has been suggested as a common source is Akkadian, an extinct dialect that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia, Babylonia, and Egypt [i].

In conclusion, Hebrew is the more ancient language but Arabic has preserved much more of its linguistic roots, however, both of them share a common origin.  They are both Semitic languages.  

    Coming from Canaan;  Moving into Goshen of Egypt with blessing of pharaoh because of Joseph's position.  They were Semites, speakers of Hebrew language- It is thought of in other resources like the Egyptians themselves that they were the Hyksos people who ruled Egypt from 1720 BCE to 1580 BCE and during this period, the Children of Israel entered the country and were favorably treated;  the period of bondage is believed to have begun after the expulsion of the Hyksos.  Hyksos is an Egyptian word meaning "rulers of the foreign lands";  Each people wrote their own history; and this seems to mesh with each other. Jewish and non-Jews history is always off in terms of dates.  We have Moses  from 1391 BCE to 1271 BCE, a much later date.  Jewish dates go with the history Moses wrote about.   

They loved Goshen, and stayed longer than they had planned, thriving and growing and having many children to the point where the next pharaoh was worried that they would soon dominate the land.  The worry was so great that they all were made slaves of Egypt.

           Slaves at Necropolis :  Necropolis, in archaeology, is an extensive and elaborate burial place of an ancient city. The locations of necropolises in ancient Egypt were varied; many were situated across the Nile River opposite the towns, as was western Thebes. The necropolis was typically outside the city proper in the Mediterranean world and often consisted of several cemeteries used over several centuries.  Cemetery diggers and workers, maybe even on preparing burial sites for new royal family members.  

Slavery was the way of life in those days used for manual laborers.  There were no appliances or artificial power sources except people and animals.  People could do things that animals couldn't so they were useful if under control.  People had been working so hard to improve their lot in life, and it had been a slow process, especially in building towns for human protection from wild animals  and in agriculture to feed them all.  

Notice how the 2 storage cities are located in Goshen, home of Ivrim.  

Slaves had no days off, nor any time off.  They were slaves 24 hours each day. The Israelites had entered Goshen and from then till Moses came along at age 80 to free them had been 500 years.  Perhaps out of that time they were free men for 100 years or so;  I hope so.  They were used to build the storage cities of , Pithom and Ramses.” These storage cities are not simply coterminous with Pithom and Rameses, since these two cities had a variety of buildings that included stone temples for who?  

 Joseph, who became a viceroy appointed by the pharaoh,  had saved the day by telling his pharaoh how to feed the people during a draught and how much to store and that it had to serve 7 years.  What's exciting is how this man, taken to prison and doomed to slavery, was listened to by Potiphar, the chief of Pharaoh's household when Joseph heard him ask an explanation about the dream he had.  The explanation reached the Pharaoh.  To top off the story, Potiphar's sexy wife wanted to have relations with Joseph who refused, and she then falsely accused him of rape to get even.  Who said the Bible is boring?  It told of people acting like those of today.                                         

     Fighting the Amaleks, constant enemies of the Jewish people as they had attacked the Exodus people from Egypt.  

Did slavery benefit the Ivrim?  No, not at all.  It kept them at a standstill in developing their minds for at least 400 years!  for 400 years their minds were in the survival mode only.  Oh, they no doubt thought of all the things wrong with slavery and how they wouldn't treat people like animals.  It helped to develop Moses's form of the 613 Laws who came along much later.  They were still under the care of another, Moses, as it was, who led them to freedom.  Until then, they found they had to follow his directions or die in the wilderness.  Moses knew how to survive, not them.  He had made it to Egypt at the age of 80, and now was leading them back to their ancestral homeland of Canaan, land of stories they had been told. It will take him 40 years to harden these people into a force that could stand on their own;  40 years of changing and adding what they had lost during the 400 years of slavery.      

Resource:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/human-ancestors-may-have-evolved-physical-ability-speak-more-25-million-years-ago-180973759/#:~:text=The%20human%20larynx%20is%20much,early%20building%20blocks%20of%20language.

Book:  The new Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://landioustravel.com/egypt/necropolises-ancient-egypt/

https://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/history-ideas/2020/04/what-were-the-israelites-building-in-egypt/#:~:text=And%20they%20built%20for%20Pharaoh,buildings%20that%20included%20stone%20temples.

https://www.getquranic.com/which-is-older-arabic-or-hebrew/#:~:text=In%20conclusion%2C%20Hebrew%20is%20the,them%20share%20a%20common%20ancestor.

The 40 Years That Changed Humanity

 Nadene Goldfoot                                              

Out of the past 10,000 years, it only took 40 of them to change the course humanity it was set on following.  It took a man who lost control of his temper and killed a man, then got away, escaping punishment for around 60 years to change the course.

Egypt had a great business going on raising their own slaves.  They had success with this enterprise for 400 years from the time the first 70 had entered their land in about 1711 BCE.  They were given land in Goshen, northern Egypt's Nile Delta to live in and raise their sheep, and when their population  increased quickly, it frightened the pharaoh enough to change the good intentions of the previous pharaoh and had them all captured and held as slaves.  

The whole world practiced polytheism including Egypt and the whole Middle East, Greece and Rome for thousands of years.  Each one had their own favorite gods, using a family style with a king, queen, etc.  They even had gods that married into humanity and produced half-gods- half-men.  

Many included human sacrifice to please their gods.  In Hawaii, sacrifices were made by throwing the sacrificial person into a volcano to keep it on even keel and not explode.  The Middle East had a Baal in the form of a bull statue and slaughtered their sacrifices to that.  

  Something like human sacrifice turned a population against Babylon and a group gathered together and traveled from Ur on the Tigris River to navigate to Egypt, and that included the family of Abram and his wife, Sarai and Abram's father and extended family.  Abram, born in about 1948 BCE,  was unusual as he didn't follow polytheism but felt there was a higher power and a good reason to treat people in better ways, sharing his beliefs in his actions  and talks with the children.

When we think of time, it was  247 years ago that the USA became a country.  The Salem witch trials occurred in colonial Massachusetts between early 1692 and mid-1693. More than 200 people were accused of practicing witchcraft—the devil's magic—and 20 were executed.  That was only 331 years ago.  1,994 years ago was when Jesus was said to be born.   We can see that the Exodus about to start in this history, took place anywhere from 3,499 to 3,602 years ago, and this was really long long ago.  The slaves, children of slaves for the past 400 years, only knew what they saw in Egypt and what their parents told them. 

Then, 500 years or more later, Moses was born in 1391 BCE, the son of  slaves Amram and Jochebed who was slated to be killed along with all other newborn sons of slaves on orders of the pharaoh of this period.  His mother couldn't bear the thought of losing her son to the midwives under these orders, nor could the midwives even  do it, giving excuses to the pharaoh he couldn't argue with.  Jochebed had placed him in a woven basket and set him in the Nile Delta hoping for the best and putting his older sister, Miriam in charge of watching the basket.  He was found by one of the pharaoh's daughters and her entourage and taken to her quarters. 

From there on he became the son of the princess and raised along with the other sons and grandsons, learning reading, writing, other languages, warfare, and prepared for the life of a general.  But one day he saw an overseer beating to death one of the young slaves, and he was enraged.  Being about 20 years and strong from army training himself, he hit the overseer to stop him, and in the act accidently killed the overseer.  Even then, this was against Egyptian law, and he knew it.

  He fled eastward to Midian, a Beduin tribe related to Abraham  (today's Arabia), a distance of about 300 miles away,  met some Arab women who were being threatened, aided them  and wound up marrying one, Zipporah.  They were daughters of the local priest, Jethro.                                     

Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up.

 Moses hadn't forgotten what he had done, and a voice told him to return to Egypt and free those slaves.  He was 80 years old.

Moses had been hearing voices and seeing things.  He saw a bush on fire that wasn't fire he knew about.  To Moses, a highly well educated literate person of that day, this told him  he had his work cut out for him. He was being led by a single power, the voice he heard,  to return to Egypt and take these slaves back to Canaan where had lived and create their own place in this world.  

 

This led to his brother Aaron and himself meeting with the present pharaoh and after dealing with him on 10 different occasions that brought different plagues upon Egypt, was able to leave with 603,550 Israelite slaves and others that were held by the Egyptians.  They had no time to prepare leaving when Moses told them they were leaving within the hour.  

The trek took 40 years.  It's understandable considering the terrain and moving that many people. Distance from Egypt to Jerusalem is 696 kilometers. This air travel distance is equal to 432 miles.  It could have taken on the average of 10 years to move 100 miles or 1 year to move 10 miles.  

Moses wanted to go slowly so he could educate the people. As he received information through the voice, he wrote everything down, which later was called "The 5 Books of Moses.  They were written on sheepskin.  The rolls must have had to be prepared while on the Exodus.  The old population died and he was left with a young and strong  group after losing a total of 1,820 as shown in the 2nd and last census.  They entered Canaan with 601,730.  

They were free of all the stories of gods and were left with one unseen G-d and ways of living with each other peacefully.  These people were to be the example for others.  We see out of this Judaism, Christianity and then Islam arising which involved those around them.   

Resource:

Tanakh, the Stone Edition (old testament)

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

 

Moses, Walking and Riding From Midian To Egypt, 3,601 Years Ago

 

 Nadene Goldfoot                                               

                                            

As I traveled on my very short walk today, being I'm going to  be 88 in a few weeks, I thought of Moses who started his very long walk at age 8o.  I realized that he never went back home after arriving in Egypt and meeting up with Aaron, his long forgotten brother.  He arrived in Egypt, met his brother, argued with the Pharaoh, and left on the Exodus that took 40 years.  He died just outside of Canaan at age 120.  

To make such a move, he had to travel with a large entourage of all his family for safety reasons, for an 80 year old man 3,601 years ago would be as much in danger on the road as one would today if alone.  So he had to have traveled with his wife and 2 sons and servants from Midian to Egypt, his old homeland. A grateful Jethro gave Moses his daughter, Zipporah in marriage, despite their religious differences. Their two sons were Gershom and Eliezer.  Moses set out with his family, including his father in law, Jethro,  to return to Egypt to free his people from slavery. 

Midian is way south of the Dead Sea and across from the Sinai Peninsula in today's Jordan. The name Midian instantly brings to mind images of barren desert landscapes, camel caravans crossing vast arid wastelands, and, above all, the land of Moses’s exile where he received for the first time G-d's revelation.

Now walking from Midian, where he had been living, to Egypt is a pretty long ways.   It’s only 150 miles or so  straight across the Sinai Peninsula.  It’s also desert, and  there are signs of small Bedouin encampments from much earlier.   The Sinai Desert has throughout history been the region separating the Land of Israel from the Land of Egypt.  

Midian was the location of Moses’ 40-year exile from Egypt, circa 1486-1446 BC (based on biblical chronology). During that time, he married the daughter of the priest of Midian (Jethro), and tended his flocks. He also visited the Mountain of God, later called Mount Sinai. (cf. Exod. 2:15-3:1; 4:18-20; 18:1-5).

Moses traveling like Abraham before him , no improvement in transportation from Midian to Egypt 

In recent days, Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula has been a sparsely populated desert region between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. On its southern tip, Sharm el-Sheikh resort is a base for diving and snorkeling around the reefs of Ras Mohammed National Park. Inland, 6th-century St. Catherine’s Monastery is near biblical Mount Sinai, where the 2,285m summit is renowned for its sunrise views. Elat is a famous resort today.  Scandinavians love to go there in the winter.  

85% of Israel's land is made of the Negev desert and its semi-desert region.  Actually, the northern part is a prairie and the southern is mountainous.  You can say that Israel is on the edge of the desert.  A large part of Israel is the Negev and that is mostly desert.  

    What we see of Israel is the Negev Desert land, and then there's the Sinai Desert of Egypt.  Desert, desert, desert; lots of sand.  

Moses and company must have walked in heat at least 150 miles.  How did he do it?  Walking, riding donkeys and or camels,  and maybe in a wagon now and then.  For an 80 year old that must have been 81 by the time he arrived in Egypt, that was pretty hard riding on the tush.  He must have had a very healthy heart, as he died at 120 years.  

What could Moses have seen on his journey in land to become Israel?  In biblical times, much of the land of Israel was covered with forests.  The Land abounded in wild animals,  including lions and bears.  This was another reason to walk in groups.  It was a land of wheat and barley and vines and fig-trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees (olive-oil) and honey, all mentioned in the Torah. 

 Egyptians grew crops such as wheat, barley, vegetables, figs, melons, pomegranates and vines. They also grew flax which was made into linen. The most important crop was grain. 

Moses was on the move for 40 years starting at age 80.  He was awesome!  I hope he traveled in some sort of conveyance.  

Incidentally, Beersheba or Beer Sheva, officially Be'er Sheva is the largest city in the Negev desert of southern Israel. Often referred to as the "Capital of the Negev", 

It's a city that goes back to Bible days to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, a big, important Jewish center.  Beer-sheba seems to have been the dwelling place of Abraham at that time, for after the sacrifice of Isaac, he returned and dwelt there (Gen. 22:19). According to Gen. 26:23-33, Isaac went up to Beer-sheba, and there the Lord appeared to him; he built an altar there and called upon the name of the Lord.

Resource:

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/sinai

facts about Israel, division of Information, Ministry for foreign affairs, Jerusalem

https://www.bibleodyssey.org/en/places/related-articles/midian

The Cushites: Ancient Nubia in Sudan and Jews Along The Egyptian Nile River and an Archaeological and a Biological Find

 Nadene Goldfoot                                            

                                 Could that be bagels on the platter that Nubians are carrying?  

Cush was the son of Ham;  brother of Mizraim-who was Egypt, Put who was Libya and Morocco , and Canaan. (Gen.10:6).  Cush was a region south of Egypt called Nubia, Ethiopia in Hebrew and other ancient languages.  It extended south from Elephantine, the island in the Nile Rver  and Syene, which is the modern Assouan.).  So the Nubians were also the Cushites.   

Nubia is traditionally divided into two regions. The southern portion, which extended north to the southern end of the second cataract of the Nile was known as Upper Nubia; this was called Kush (Cush) under the 18th-dynasty pharaohs of ancient Egypt and was called Ethiopia by the ancient Greeks.

  So:   Cush=Nubia=Ethiopia                             

        A silent unheard voice in the Old Testament: The Cushite woman whom Moses married in Numbers 12:1-10:  Moses had been rescued from the Nile River by the Pharoah's daughter and raised as a prince.  Then at age 80 he returned to Egypt from Midian and with his brother, Aaron, got the Jews freed from bondage.  Miriam, the sister of Moses while on the Exodus, slandered Moses about his Cushite wife, Zipporah, who was with him, because he had to be ritually pure at all times since G-d was speaking to him and this was an expectation; no sex.  Miriam was punished for this, and this is why Jews are so against slandering; it was a hard lesson.  

  Zipporah was the daughter of Jethro, a priest of Midian.  Midian was a Beduin tribe related to Abraham who traveled in caravans of incense from Gilead to Egypt, and later to other countries.  They were closely connected with the Israelites.  

Zipporah had traveled to Egypt with Moses, and saved her son's life by circumcising him (Exod. 4:24-6).  then she returned to her father with her 2 sons, Gershom and Eliezer, who rejoined Moses at Mount Sinai (Exod.18:1).  Moses had fled from Pharaoh to Midian and had married Zipporah.  From 2nd Temple Times, the Land of Midian was thought to be located in NW Arabia.  The 2 sons of Moses and Zipporah die in their teens connected with the Ark of the Covenant.                                                                    

       "Elephantine is an island in the Nile River, to the west of Aswan (on the eastern bank of the Nile). In ancient times, the island has been the southern-most city of Egypt. South of Elephantine, for a distance of approximately 223 km, extends the Nubian Desert where even the Nile banks are inhospitable. Beyond this distance lie the lands of Sudan, homeland of the Nubian civilization, which to ancient Egypt represented a prominent military threat. Trade relations between Egypt and Nubia continued active throughout history and Elephantine was the point where trade routes from Nubia met. Hence, to the ancient Egyptians, the city represented the 'door to the South'".

"A Jewish garrison community that was already settled in the island by the fifth century B.C.E, played an essential role in the interaction between Nubia and Egypt. The task of the Jewish garrison in Elephantine was to protect the Egyptian border with Nubia (Kush)(Cush).  

Nubians are an ethno-linguistic group of people who are indigenous to the region which is now present-day Northern Sudan and southern Egypt. They originate from the early inhabitants of the central Nile valley, believed to be one of the earliest cradles of civilization.                            

       Nubians of ancient Egypt-The best defined images of Nubians are probably these tiles, and this drawing of a Nubian from the Belzoni illustration of the tomb of Seti (the original sadly very damaged by moisture). 

Early Neolithic settlements have been found in the central Nubian region dating back to 7000 BCE, with Wadi Halfa believed to be the oldest settlement in the central Nile valley.   Parts of Nubia, particularly Lower Nubia, were at times a part of ancient Pharaonic Egypt and at other times a rival state representing parts of Meroë or the Kingdom of Kush. By the Twenty-fifth Dynasty (744 BC–656 BCE), all of Egypt was united with Nubia, extending down to what is now Khartoum. However, In 656 BCE the native Twenty-sixth Dynasty regained control of Egypt. As warriors, the ancient Nubians were famous for their skill and precision with the bow and arrow.  Nubia was not fully dominated by the Romans, but in Augustan times there was possibly a "client state" of Rome in northern Nubia.

 If Jewish mercenaries had indeed settled at Elephantine during the reign of Apreis, what role did they play in the civil war?  In 589 B.C.E, Apries succeeded Psammetichusis II as the king of Egypt.  That was when   Nebuchadnezzar marched with his troops to put down the rebels in Judeah.  Soon, the Babylonian troops captured and devastated the Holy City. On August 587 BCE, the Holy temple of Solomon, was destroyed and the first Diaspora of the Jewish people had begun. Thousands of Jews were exiled to Babylon leaving Jerusalem desolate.                                                                    

                           Today a Nubian family living in Sudan

Egypt has always been a source of refuge for the people of Judea starting from the Great Biblical Patriarch of the Bible, Abraham. After the Diaspora, Jews flooded into Egypt and established the largest Jewish communities there; perhaps, since the time of Moses. During the Persian period they were Jewish garrisons posted at Tahpanhes and Migdol.

During the sixth century B.C., 'First Isaiah' prophesized return of the Jews "from Assyria, from Lower Egypt, from Upper Egypt, from Kush [Nubia], from Elam, from Babylonia, from Hamath and from the islands of the sea."Isaiah 11:11)

As indicated in the passage, Isaiah probably knew about Jews residing in Nubia at the time. 'Deutero-Isaiah' (second Isaiah), who supposedly lived during the exile in the fourth century B.C., prophesized the restoration of Israel. On one passage he mentions the return of Jews from the region of Aswan as follows:  Aswan or Syene. In any case Elephantine is and was certainly not excluded from the region of Syene.

                                                                  

    Shukbah Cave in Judean mountains in Ramallah Governorate of Judea-Samaria.  

Long held in a private collection, the newly analysed tooth of an approximately 9-year-old Neanderthal child marks the hominin’s southernmost known range. Analysis of the associated archaeological assemblage suggests Neanderthals used Nubian Levallois technology, previously thought to be restricted to Homo sapiens. 

With a high concentration of cave sites harbouring evidence of past populations and their behaviour, the Levant or Middle East is a major centre for human origins research. For over a century, archaeological excavations in the Levant have produced human fossils and stone tool assemblages that reveal landscapes inhabited by both Neanderthals and Homo sapiens, making this region a potential mixing ground between populations. Distinguishing these populations by stone tool assemblages alone is difficult, but one technology, the distinct Nubian Levallois method, is argued to have been produced only by Homo sapiens.  Is this where I picked up my 2.9% of Neanderthal genes as shown on 23&Me?  

In a new study published in Scientific Reports, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History teamed up with international partners to re-examine the fossil and archaeological record of Shukbah Cave. Shuqba cave is an archaeological site near the town of Shuqba in the western Judaean Mountains  in the Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate of the West Bank.  Today Ramallah is a Palestinian city in the central West Bank located (10 km north) (6 miles)  of Jerusalem at an average elevation of 880 meters above sea level, adjacent to al-Bireh. It currently serves as the de facto administrative capital of the Palestinian National Authority.  While historically an Arab Christian town, Muslims constituted a majority of Ramallah's 27,902 residents by 2007, with Christians making up a significant minority.  

 In 1838 American biblical scholar Edward Robinson visited the area, noting that the inhabitants were Christian "of the Greek rite". There were 200 taxable men, which gives an estimated total population of 800–900 people. The village "belonged" to the Haram al-Sharif, Jerusalem, to which it paid an annual tax of 350 Mids of grain.

The site was briefly investigated in 1924 by Father Alexis Mallon, who suggested that the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem take responsibility for excavating the cave. This was the first time that a Natufian layer had been found as part of a stratified deposit. This layer contained charcoal traces and a previously unknown microlithic stone tool industry characterized by crescent-shaped lunates. Dorothy Garrod's team found worked bone objects. The fauna was dominated by gazelle, and also included the domestic dog. The remains of 45 human skeletons, mostly fragmentary, allowed insights into a range of distinctive mortuary practices. Recent investigations have identified what are believed to be Neanderthal remains, together with Nubian Levallois knapping tools previously thought to be specific to homo sapiens.                                                         

       During the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel captured Ramallah from Jordan, imposing a military closure and conducting a census a few weeks later. Every person registered in the census was given an Israeli identity card which allowed the bearer to continue to reside there. Those who were abroad during the census lost their residency rights.   For residents of Ramallah, the situation had now been reversed. For the first time in 19 years, residents could freely visit Israel and the Gaza Strip and engage in commerce there.

On November 11, 2004 Arafat died at the Percy training hospital of the Armies near Paris. He was buried in the courtyard of the Mukataa on November 12, 2004. The site still serves as the Ramallah headquarters of the Palestinian Authority, as well the official West Bank office of Mahmoud Abbas. Throughout 2005, while the Disengagement Plan was underway, some US government officials suggested to the Palestinian leadership to move the provisional capital back to Gaza, where it had been when the Palestinian Authority was first established in 1994. President Abbas, however, refrained from doing so, arguing that at this point, it was important to keep the administrative center in the West Bank in order to remind the international community that the West Bank was still awaiting a territorial solution.

Only in 2005 did the population reach more than 24,000. In a PCBS projection in 2006, Ramallah had a population of 25,467 inhabitants. In the 2007 PCBS census, there were 27,460 people living in the city. Sources vary about the current Christian population in the city, ranging around 25%.

Ramlah or Ramleh is not the same town, though the names are similar.  It also has a cave, the Ayyalon Cave.     It is an Israeli town, founded by Arabs in 716 CE.  It soon became the capital of the original named by Romans in 135 as Palestine, and most inhabitants of nearby Lydda (the previous capital) moved to Ramlah.  Its population in the Middle Ages was composed of Arabs, Samaritans, and Persians.  In the 10th century, a Jewish and a Karaite community were founded.  In the 11th century, the town suffered from Bedouin attacks and was nearly destroyed by earthquakes in 1016 and 1033.  Built up again, it was taken by the Seljuk Turks and later by the Crusaders of Europe under whose rule the Jewish, Karaite, and Samaritan communities almost disappeared.  After its conquest by  the Mamelukes, and later under Turkish rule, Ramlah remained an important station on the way to Jerusalem.  In the 19th century, a Christian community began to develop.  Ramlah was taken by Israel forces in 1948 at the time of Israel's War of Independence.  About 1,000 of its Arab inhabitants remained in the town and were soon augmented by large numbers of Jewish immigrants.  The population in 1990 was 44,500 including 7,500 Arabs.   In 2019, 76% of the population were Jewish and 24% Arab.

In May 2006, a naturally sealed-off underground space now known as Ayyalon Cave was discovered near Ramla, outside Moshav Yad Rambam. The cave sustains an unusual type of ecosystem, based on bacteria that create all the energy they need chemically, from the sulfur compounds they find in the water, with no light or organic food coming in from the surface. A bulldozer working in the Nesher cement quarry on the outskirts of Ramla accidentally broke into the cavern. The finds have been attributed to the cave's isolation, which led to the evolution of a whole food chain of specially developed organisms, including several previously unknown species of invertebrates. With several large halls on different levels, it measures 2,700 metres (8,900 ft) long, making it the third-

largest limestone cave in Israel.

One of the finds was an eyeless scorpion, given the name Akrav israchanani honouring the researchers who identified it, Israel Naaman and Hanan Dimentman. All ten specimens of the blind scorpion found in the cave had been dead for several years, possibly because recent overpumping of the groundwater has led the underground lake to shrink, and with it the food supply to dwindle. Seven more species of troglobite crustaceans and springtails were discovered in "Noah's Ark Cave", as the cave has been dubbed by journalists, several of them unknown to science.

Resource:

http://www.ancientsudan.org/articles_jewish_elephantine.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nubians#:~:text=Nubians%20(%2F%CB%88nu%CB%90b,the%20earliest%20cradles%20of%20civilization.

https://www.shh.mpg.de/1957277/blinkhorn-nubian-technology?fbclid=IwAR3vzoFQIjjcxTlAZTYrr6P5O5PYqEfcsW2SquDqvL2Z6UmH3qAJMqB96kA

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

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

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