Our only source of information about Moses, the lawgiver of the Jews, is the Old Testament account in Exodus. Jill Kamil puts the emigration of the Canaanites from Egypt in a historical context Click to view caption Levantines from all walks of life have been settling in Egypt from very early times. Their presence can be traced back to the Middle Kingdom about 2000 BC, and they came in increasing waves from the New Kingdom, about 1567 BC, when Egypt commanded a vast empire that included Syria and northern Mesopotamia. They settled all over the country and were not all the brick-makers dissatisfied with their lot as described in Exodus. Ordinary folk became farmers in their new land; craftsmen settled in cities to take up their former professions; and there was doubtless more than a sprinkling of traders and merchants. Many found employment in the "workers' communality" at Deir Al-Medina on the Theban necropolis. By the second generation, Jews had lost the use of their native tongue; many bore Egyptian names, and not a few of the biblical stories (such as those of Joseph, his brethren, and Moses) are also of certain Egyptian folkloric tradition. In the biblical record Egypt appears alternately as a place of slavery and of refuge, a land of plenty for the foreigner or a place from which he could flee. It was a country characterised by a high level of cultural and religious tolerance. Throughout the millennia foreigners were absorbed into Egyptian society, among them Hebrews as attested by carved reliefs in the jubilee temple of Akhenaten at Thebes (Luxor). This was the Pharaoh who, in the early 14th century BC, worshipped a single god as the creator and preserver of mankind. One of the talatat (the distinctive carved stone of which his temples were constructed) show Levantine headmen in his court, while another shows spearmen as loyal members of his bodyguard. The ancient city of Memphis was marked out with quarters for Phoenicians, Syrians and other Semitic peoples. Among the Asiatic deities popular among the foreign community at Thebes were Baal, a war god of Canaan who has been identified with the Egyptian god Seth, and Resheph, a Canaanite-Phoenician god of thunder. Temples to alien gods were a familiar sight in Egypt. Evidently the settlers were mostly happy with their lot. Some married Egyptians and gave their children Egyptian names. Others rose to high positions. Moses, for example, was born in Egypt of Levantine parents and raised in Pharaoh's court. His name was derived from msw ("child") and, according to the Bible, " ...Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians" (Acts of the Apostles 7:22). However, there were groups of immigrants, especially those who settled in the fertile triangle between the modern towns of Zagazig, Tel Al-Daba'a (the ancient Hyksos capital) and Ismailiya, who seem to have been less than satisfied with their position. This area might have been the "Land of Goshen" of biblical tradition, and taxes were apparently levied on newcomers in the form of compulsory labour. These people were set to manufacture bricks for the construction of the new Delta capital, the "House of Ramses", which has been identified as Tel Al-Daba'a near the modern village of Khatana-Qantir. Click to view caption According to biblical accounts in Exodus, Moses' first exposure to Sinai was when he fled there after incurring the wrath of Pharaoh by killing an Egyptian who had caused suffering to the Hebrews. On that occasion it is probable that he escaped along the well-beaten track in north Sinai, "the Way of Shur" (see map). After several days of fugitive life, Moses was resting by a well when the daughters of Nethro, a priest of Midian -- whose location is not known -- came to water their father's flocks. Moses helped them, which courtesy they recounted to their father. He offered Moses hospitality, and subsequently his daughter in marriage and a new life in Midian. Moses appears to have settled happily into his new circumstances and his wife, Zipporah, bore him a son. According to the Bible, "In process of time ... the king of Egypt died," and there is no doubt that Moaes heard of his death and perhaps considered returning to his family in Egypt. Be that as it may, the decision was taken out of his hands by the spectacular vision of the burning bush on Mount Horeb, identified by biblical scholars with Mount Sinai. "And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of the bush... " He was told to remove his shoes because he was on holy ground -- a detail which has captured the imagination of believers, scholars and artists ever since -- and God commanded him to lead his people out of Egypt. "Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt." His own inclinations thus given reassuring confirmation, Moses, with God's guidance, set out on his journey to Egypt where he met his brother Aaron, whose eloquence persuaded the elders of the Hebrew community to adopt Moses' plan for their delivery out of Egypt, and "unto the land flowing with milk and honey". Some of his people who felt economically trapped in Egypt, and no doubt felt resentful of their situation, were only too happy to fall in with Moses' plan. But it is difficult to picture all the Jewish communities in Egypt willing to abandon the country for an uncertain future. In fact, it is difficult to estimate the number that did. According to Exodus it was three million, but British archaeologist William Flinders Petrie suggested that the number was much smaller. He pointed out that the word alaf meant both "a thousand" and "a family" and, by calculating an estimated number of men and their dependents, he concluded that the number may have been nearer 27,000. There is no evidence of this episode in Egyptian records, perhaps because people of different nationalities were free to come and go as they wished. Egyptians were unconcerned by the migration of a community of foreigners; they had abundant human resources of their own. The Exodus and the subsequent 40 years' wandering in the wilderness have been a subject of debate since early Christian times. Hermits and monks who sought refuge from Roman persecution in the Sinai peninsula were familiar with the Old Testament story, but had no idea of the route taken by Moses and his people. The Bible refers to the "mountain of God" as either Horeb or Sinai, nowhere making clear whether this was a single peak, two different mountains, or even the names used by different tribes to describe the same mountain. In the 19th century, when Sinai became popular amongst explorers in search of holy places, some effort was made to trace the exact sites mentioned in the Bible. These researches were based on documentary and inscriptional evidence, and on the geographical characteristics of the land. Among those who published opinions (that were each, in turn, refuted) were JL Burckhardt, E Robinson, HS Palmer, WH Bartlett, Flinders Petrie, Y Aharoni, CS Jarvis, C Beke, A Musil, A Lucas and D Nielson. No more agreement could be reached among modern scholars than among ancient hermits. Even the exact point at which Moses crossed to Sinai was a subject of dispute. There were three dominant views: the first was that the emigrants reached the Red Sea -- which is supposed to have extended further north in biblical times -- at or near Suez, and crossed to the Spring of Moses (Ain Musa). The second was that they proceeded southwards on the Egyptian shore and crossed the Gulf of Suez at Ain Sukhna, moving across to that spring. The third was that they travelled from the Nile Delta towards Sinai along the Wadi Tumilat to Lake Timsah and the Bitter Lakes, where the crossing was made. The latter hypothesis, the most generally accepted by the 20th century, became cemented in the 21st in accordance with active religious tourism promotion. This is the traditional route of the Exodus, and the sites tourists are taken to are the Spring of Moses, some 28 kilometres south of Suez; biblical Elim, which has been identified with several sites including Wadi Garandel; the "Wilderness of Sin", the large open plain of Al-Markha, 10 kilometres south of Abu Zeneima; biblical Rephidem, as either Wadi Watia or Wadi Firan; and the plain of Raha, taken as the site where Moses and his people encamped for an extended period of time. To the west of this plain is a hill, on a spur of which is a chapel believed to be the place where Aaron placed the golden calf, the graven image they had carried out of Egypt. Towards the north, the narrowing plain of Raha leads to Safsaf, hills with bold precipices which some biblical scholars posited was a more accessible point for Moses to have received the law than Mount Sinai. From there Moses and his people made frequent journeys to Kadesh Barnea, a site in north-eastern Sinai which is strong in biblical tradition. Kadesh Barnea, present day Ain Gedeirat, is situated about six kilometres east of Kuseima, one of the oldest Bedouin settlements in the area known as Moses Valley, an extremely fertile area which shares a tradition, with Wadi Firan, of being where Moses produced water from a rock. Modern biblical scholars, however, observed that despite the fertile areas around valleys and oases in southern Sinai, vegetation was limited and it was doubtful whether it could ever have been sufficient to sustain a large number of people as well as vast herds of sheep and goats over a period of 40 years. This, together with studies based on historic and geographical evidence, gave rise to the theory that Moses and the Hebrew tribes crossed northern Sinai. To fit the theory, one hypothesis was that Moses led his people out of Egypt via Succoth (biblical Pithom, present-day Tel Al-Maskuta), from which point he travelled along the Way of Shur across the dunes of north Sinai to Mount Hilal (claimed as the Mount of the Law). Another, which is based on archaeological studies in the north-eastern Delta and on the northern coast of Sinai, has tended to support an even more northerly route: Moses travelled north towards the Al-Tina mud flats and Lake Bardawil, the site of the crossing, and from there south to the Kadesh Barnea of the Bible. Philologists have hastened to point out that yam saf, which has been translated into "Red Sea", was actually the "Sea of Reeds", the lakes between Port Said and Al-Arish. These are well over two metres below sea level and, moreover, have rushes and reeds on the southern shores that fit the biblical description. Furthermore, the northern coast is the only route for which a logical explanation can be presented for the drowning of the Pharaoh's pursuing army; they could have been caught on the sandbars by the incoming tide. Advocates of the northerly routes point out that ancient Egyptians occupied most of southern Sinai during the period of the Hebrew sojourn since their turquoise and copper mines were located there. Indeed, there is evidence that southern Sinai was heavily garrisoned by Egyptian forces, and their barracks were within easy distance of the Plain of Raha and the Hebrew encampment. Another observation that favours the northern route is that the tamarisk trees, which produce the gum known as manna, are plentiful in northern Sinai; that quails are common all along the coast and not infrequently land on the shore or seek cover in the scrub during the autumn migration; and, the most convincing argument of all, the only cultivable land large enough to support a horde of people, their goats and cattle, lies in the Al-Arish- Rafah-Kuseima triangle. This is the same area as Kadesh Barnea of the Bible, where the 12 tribes are described as pitching their tents around the sacred tabernacle. Additionally, a number of names in northern Sinai strongly resemble places mentioned in Exodus: Kadeis (Kadesh Barnea), Hazira (Hazeroth), Libni (Libnah) and Arish (Alush) whereas, in the south of the peninsula, tamarisks are rare, quails are seldom seen, and the only area with an arguable connection may be Wadi Firan (the wilderness of Pharan). As for a suitable Mount of the Law, northern Sinai is not lacking in this either. Mount Hilal is 892 metres high. The Arabic word hilal means "crescent", but the word halal means "lawful" in the context of ritual slaughter, or sacrifice, of animals. Although it has not proved possible to map out correctly the route along which Moses led his people out of Egypt, scholars have noted the profound influence of Egyptian culture on the Hebrews, especially the similarity of the Old Testament Book of Proverbs. "Yahweh (Jehovah) weigheth the hearts," it is written in Proverb 21:2, and the only doctrine in which a god weighs the human heart is in the court of Osiris in the underworld. Similarly, the biblical description of men being fashioned out of clay by Yahweh is so akin to the ancient Egyptian image of men being fashioned on a potter's wheel out of the clay of the river Nile by the god Khnum that the connection is indisputable: "The potter of the same clay he maketh both the vessels that serve for clean uses, and likewise also all such as serve to the contrary" (Book of Wisdom XV, 7). Finally, the sage Amenemope, whose work is written in demotic (British Museum Papyrus 10474), admonished: "Set yourself in the arms of god," while Moses said in his blessing: "The eternal God is a dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms." The "Instruction it of Amenope" comprises 30 numbered chapters on right thinking and right action. It covers justice (Chapter VI) with "not (to) move the boundary-stone nor shift the surveyor's rope ... do not tamper with the widow's land- bounds"; coveting (Chapter XI) in "covert not the poor farmer's property nor hunger after his bread: the peasant's morsel will gag in the throat and revolt in the gullet"; morals and neighbourly love (Chapter XIII) " ...it is better to be praised for neighbourly love than have riches in the storeroom; better to enjoy your bread with a good conscience than to have wealth weighed down by reproaches"; and consideration towards those afflicted (Chapter XXVII) in "mock not the blind nor deride the dwarf, nor block a cripple's path". "It can hardly be doubted that the author of Proverbs was acquainted with the Egyptian work and borrowed from it," wrote Miriam Lichtheim in her Ancient Egyptian Literature, Vol II, "for in addition to the similarities in thought and expression, 'Have I not written for you 30 sayings of admonition and knowledge' derives from the author's acquaintance with the '30 chapters' of Amenemope." The Hebrew culture did not emerge in a vacuum. It was subjected to influences from many quarters, among them the wisdom of Egypt. Moses and his people carried much more than a graven image out of Egypt.
