Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Walter R. Mattfeld" <mattfeld12 AT charter.net>]

Marianne Luban has proposed that 'remnants" of the Hyksos remained in Lower 
Egypt till the days of Hatshepsut and Thuthmose III, and were expelled ca. 
1446 BCE by Thuthmose III to become the Bible's Exodus.

My "reading" of Clayton's comments on Pharaohs Ahmose I, Amenhotep I,

Thuthmosis I and II, leave me with the impression that these were valiant

"warrior-pharaohs" engaged in campaigns designed to "extend the borders of

Egypt" in both Nubia and Syria-Palestine. They "brag" of bringing back 
captured rebels and making slaves of them in Egypt.

I cannot  -for the life of me-  envision maurading Hyksos, rampaging in

Lower Egypt to the days of Hatshepsut and Thuthmosis III, while the previous

pharaohs marched Egyptian armies off into foreign lands, exposing an

undefended Egypt to the mercies of Marianne's "roving, pillaging Hyksos 
remnants."

Surely no

king would be so foolish as to leave a dangerous enemy within his borders

while he marches off to engage Syrians and Nubians ! On this issue, a

two-front war, "divide and conquer an enemy," (the Hyksos in Lower Egypt and

the Egyptian army in Nubia and or Syria), I recall that Ka-mose intercepted 
a

messenger from the Hyksos king Apophis, asking the Nubians to attack the 
rear of the

Kamose's army while Apophis held the army down in the north, that is to say 
a

strategy of using "two fronts" would divide and weaken Kamose's forces

leading to his defeat.

If Kamose was shrewd enough to anticipate that his Hyksos antagonist, 
Apophis, would seek a two front war against him, why wouldn't this caution 
be passed on to future pharaohs ? That is to say, don't allow a situation to 
arise of a two front war (a two front war Napoleon's undoing in Spain and 
Russia and later Hitler's undoing- his army split in Russia and in France 
and in Italy. A two front war was employed against America, Japan in the 
West, Germany in the East).

Ka-mose :

"So your wishes have failed, miserable Asiatic, who had been saying : "I am 
lord without peer. As far as Hermopolis and the House of Hat-Hor are 
bringing tribute to Avaris in the two rivers." I shall leave it in 
desolation, without people therein, after I have destroyed their towns. I 
shall burn up their places, made into red mounds forever, because of the 
damage which they did in this (part of) Egypt, they who gave themselves over 
to serving the Asiatics, after they had abandoned Egypt, their mistress.

I captured a message of his above the oasis, going south to Cush, upon a 
letter of papyrus. I found it, in written words from the ruler of Avaris :

"Aa-user-Re, the son of Re: Apophis, sending greetings to my son, the ruler 
of Cush. Why do you arise as a ruler without letting me know ? Do you see 
what Egypt has done to me: the ruler who is in it, Ka-mose the Strong, given 
life, attacking me on my own soil, (although) I had not assaulted him- just 
like everything that he has done to you ? He picks out these two lands to 
persecute them, my land and yours. He has destroyed them. Come north. Do not 
falter. See, he is here in my hand, and there is no one waiting for you in 
this part of Egypt. See, I will not give him leave until you have arrived. 
Then we shall divide the towns of this Egypt, and our [two lands] will be 
happy in joy." (cf. pp.89-93. Vol. 2. "The War Against the Hyksos." James B. 
Pritchard. Editor._ The Ancient Near East, A New Anthology of Texts and 
Pictures_. Princeton University Press. 1975. paperback)



I thus cannot endorse Marianne's notion that the Hyksos

were still a threatening power in Lower Egypt to be reckoned and still 
rampaging in Lower Egypt as late as Hatshepsut and

Thuthmosis III. Thus, for me, there was "no" Hyksos expulsion ca. 1446 BCE 
aligning with the Bible (1 Kings 6:1).

Regards, Walter