Looking For The Historical Exodus

Understanding the historical Exodus isn’t as simple as asking whether it happened or not. That’s the wrong kind of question really. It’s not a yes/no kind of deal. Instead, it is a stack of separable and competing claims with a variety of background and evidence. The answer is not a simple one, it is a layered one, bringing different sources together, to make a probable suggestion rather than giving a definitive answer.

The short answer is that there was probably an Exodus event, although it was also probably different to how it is presented in scripture. This event demonstrates the historical and cultural links between the people of Israel and Egypt, and provides the narrative behind the early formation of Israel as a unified people and religious group. The Exodus narrative is one of the most powerful in the whole Bible. Huge amounts of Biblical text, history, and prophecy, are coded or look back to the Exodus. Jesus framed his own ministry within the context of a new Exodus moment.

The better we understand the Exodus, the better we will understand the Bible. This includes understanding the Exodus within its narrative context, but also within its historical one.

Who Was In Egypt?

Our starting point is to work out who was actually in Egypt at the time of the Exodus. We can fairly safely assume that several million slaves do not just get up and walk out of Egypt, cross a wilderness, and conquer a land, without leaving evidence behind them. Egypt would have collapsed if several million slaves suddenly left. Canaan could not have supported them initially when they did invade. And the sheer logistics involved in keeping several million people fed, watered, washed, and healthy in the wilderness is staggering. So let’s look at the evidence and see who might have been in Egypt at that time.

The likelihood is that the tribe of Levi were in Egypt. It was probably this tribe which did the Exodus. One tribe, rather than the whole nation. But a tribe that, on its return, fundamentally formed and developed the people of Israel. So, what is the evidence for this?

Egyptian Names in Israel

Let’s start with the Bible, and let’s start with names. There are several people from the tribe of Levi (the priestly tribe) who have Egyptian names, or names built on Egyptian roots. These include the names Phinehas, Hophni, Merari, Mushi, and Moses himself. These names are built on Egyptian roots, or are just Egyptian names. If other Israelite tribes also had Egyptian names, or Egyptian derived names, it would be different. However, according to Richard Friedman, the scholar who makes this argument, there are no Egyptian names, or Egyptian derived names, in the other Israelite tribes.

This suggests that the Levites were influenced by Egyptian culture, and the other tribes were not in the same way. Which points towards the possibility that the tribe of Levi spent time in Egypt and the others did not. There is also plenty of evidence, as the post on Joseph explored, that Semitic people with roots in Canaan lived in Egypt, and moved in and out of it, over many centuries. The Levites could well have been one such group, who took on Egyptian names and customs while they lived there.

The Song of Deborah, The Song of the Sea

In Judges 5 there is a passage called the Song of Deborah. This song is usually dated to the 12th century BC, and is one of the oldest passages in scripture. In this song, the ten tribes of Israel are listed (where Machir = Manasseh, and Gilead = Gad) but it does not mention Levi. Judah and Simeon are also absent, but according to Friedman this is because they were a separate community and not yet part of the confederation of tribes that formed ancient Israel. Others suggest that Simeon in particular was part of a ‘rural backwater’ which wasn’t always well represented.

There is a fair amount of contention to this argument, and the evidence is weaker than some of the other points. It has been argued that Levi was always considered a kind of priestly order rather than a land-holding tribe, which would explain its absence. The evidence in this section on its own would not be enough to carry the argument, but it builds a picture.

Similarly to the Song of Deborah, there is another poem, usually dated to the 12th century, that was integrated into a later text. In Exodus 15 there is the Song of the Sea, and in this song the word ‘Israel’ never occurs (although it occurs before and after this song, and it is the song itself that is thought to be the older insert into the text). The Hebrew uses the word ‘am which means ‘a people’ and is not a national name.

The people are being led not to a land, even a holy land, but to God’s own sacred abode, or his ‘legacy’s mountain.’ The Hebrew for this includes the word miqedash, which means sanctuary, and a phrase Friedman translates as God’s ‘throne’s platform’, which appears elsewhere in the Bible only in connection with the Temple, as in 1 Kings 8:13 at the dedication scene for Solomon’s Temple. The suggestion is that the Exodus is part of a huge commissioning narrative for the Levites as priests and servants of God, being led out of slavery and towards God’s sanctuary.

Again, this is a weaker strand of evidence, but when taken with other pieces of evidence, it strengthens what is already there. The song set in Egypt does not mention Israel, and the Song of Deborah, set in Canaan, does not mention Levi.

The Name of God in Egypt

Another piece of evidence is the difference used for the name of God. In Canaan amongst Israel the name for God was El (including various forms attached as a qualifier on that name such as El Shaddai). Eventually, the name YHWH would supersede the name El, when used for God. In Exodus 6 there is a reference to this, where God tells Moses that God had only been known as El Shaddai to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but now they would know God as YHWH.

There is evidence in Egyptian inscriptions from the 13th and 14th centuries of the use of the name that would become YHWH. These inscriptions come from a list at Amenhotep III’s temple at Soleb in Nubia, which was later copied at Amarah West either by Seti I or Ramesses II (Ramesses II was potentially the Pharaoh during the Exodus). These inscriptions talk about the “Land of the Shasu of Yhw”. The Shasu are from the south, around Edom. This suggests that the name YHWH was recorded by the Egyptians, but that it comes from the lands surrounding Egypt, including Midian, where Moses lived for a while. Moses’s father in law was a priest of Midian, who could have introduced Moses to YHWH as a name for God.

The Levites either already knew the name YHWH in Egypt, as Friedman argues, or took it up in Midian. Either could be true. Whichever it was, when they returned to Canaan they merged YHWH and El Shaddai into one God, keeping the use of both names, but recognising them as the same one God. The Song of the Sea also uses the name YHWH for God.

Source criticism, the method scholars use to separate the strands that make up the Torah, adds a further piece. The strands thought to have been written by Levites say that God was known as El or Elohim until the name YHWH was revealed to Moses. The strand thought to come from the other tribes uses YHWH from the very beginning. This is a method scholars still argue about, so it is one more piece of the picture rather than a proof.

Weight of Argument

On its own, one of these pieces of evidence would not lead to much. However, taken as a whole, the weight of evidence begins to mount. This is not a universally accepted argument, it is contested, but I think that the weight of evidence is persuasive that during the time of the Exodus it was not the entire nation of Israel in Egypt, but rather the tribe of Levi.

Looking At The Material Evidence

There is also evidence of Egyptian influence on the physical artifacts described in the Bible that are made after the Exodus.

The first point to look at is the Tabernacle itself. The sacred tent that was eventually replaced by the Temple but which served as the shrine for the Ark of the Covenant, where God met with the priests, and the place where sacrifices were offered.

The structure and design of the Tabernacle reflects the Kadesh war tent used by Ramesses II. The royal war tent had an outer reception area, twice as long as it was wide, leading into an inner square throne room. The historic sources also say that the war tent was East facing. All things shared by the Tabernacle.

There is a similar Egyptian influence on the design of the Ark of the Covenant. The cherubim flanking the place of meeting is similar to the winged falcons flanking the cartouche of the royal name. The Ark as a whole has also been compared to Egyptian processional ‘barks’ which were designed to look like Nile boats and used in religious ceremonies to carry images of the gods.

The design and craft of overlaying wood with gold was a classic Egyptian technique. The linen garments worn by the priests, including the ephod, are similar to those worn by Egyptian priests. The Hebrew word for this fine linen, shesh, is glossed in a standard Hebrew lexicon as ‘fine Egyptian linen’.

The second are some tomb paintings from the tomb of Rekhmire, the Vizier under Thutmose III and Amenhotep II, dating to around 1450 BC, in the 15th century. These paintings show foreign captives, including Semitic and Canaanite people as well as Nubians, making bricks for a Karnak building project.

There are also New Kingdom administrative papyri, known as Papyrus Anastasi IV and V, that complain that there are not enough men or straw to make bricks for building projects.

We can see in this evidence not only that Semitic slaves were used to make bricks, but that the materials and artifacts used by the Levites in their worship of God were based on or informed by Egyptian priestly culture and rites.

Josephus, and Tacitus: An External Perspective

There are some broader pieces of evidence from beyond the immediate context of Egypt and the Hebrew Scriptures. On their own, and even together, they are not a strong argument for the Levite case. What they show is that stories about leaving Egypt were circulating, and being argued over, outside Israel.

Josephus, a first century AD Jewish historian, gives us the story from a 3rd century BC Egyptian priest called Manetho. Manetho ties a Hyksos expulsion story to the founding of Jerusalem. The Hyksos were Canaanite people who dominated Egypt for a while before being expelled. There was some suggestion that this linked to the time when the story of Joseph is set.

The Roman historian Tacitus, writing around 110 AD, gives us another example. He writes that a plague-ridden people were expelled from Egypt by the Pharaoh Bocchoris on the advice of the Oracle of Ammon, and that the leader of the group was called Moses. Tacitus is openly hostile to the Jews, and this is only one of several rival stories he gives about where they came from. It also doesn’t agree with Manetho about which Pharaoh or period was involved.

Both of these pieces of evidence tell us that the story of the Israelites leaving Egypt was known in other cultures, and in later histories. This doesn’t confirm the events of the story, but it does show that the story was well known enough to have survived into external history texts.

What Probably Happened in the Exodus

Let’s see if we can come up with what is probably true about the historic Exodus.

First, there was probably an Exodus from Egypt. It probably happened, rather than being just a story. This is a really important starting point. It is likely not just a mythic event, although some mythic qualities have been added or developed in the narrative. One of the most significant events in Jewish history probably did happen.

However, it was probably not millions of people, or the entire people of Israel. It was likely the tribe of Levi. They were Semitic people with roots in Canaan, who had lived in Egypt long enough to take on Egyptian names and customs. They were enslaved, but held on to their traditions until they were brought up out of slavery. They may already have known YHWH as the name of God, or they may have met the name later in Midian. Either could be true.

It is unlikely that they spent 40 years wandering in the wilderness as a huge host. However, they may well have lived a nomadic existence for a while, and may have had the kind of transformative encounter the tradition remembers at Sinai. They may well have travelled in Midian, where Moses had been, and where worship of YHWH may already have existed.

The Levites eventually rejoined the Israelite remnant in Canaan, the other tribes who were not in Egypt. These tribes were already there. The Merneptah Stele is an Egyptian victory inscription from around 1208 BC, made for Merneptah, the son and successor of Ramesses II. It names Israel as a people in Canaan, and is the earliest surviving mention of Israel outside the Bible. In Canaan, the Levites combined the worship of YHWH with El, and implemented the religious codes and practices they had brought with them. The Levites became the priestly caste for the people of Israel and maintained that role for over a thousand years.

A Small Story but a Big Truth

Taking up the historical story of the Exodus, with all of its competing and contested claims, doesn’t take away from the story that many of us will have learned. Understanding the probable reality of the historical event (as well the narrative form it was presented in) actually helps us take it more seriously.

The story of a small group who were redeemed from slavery by God, and who then took that story and the Law to their ancestral people, is not a small or diminished story. It is how communal testimony has always worked. The fact that this small and strange story became the defining feature of Judaism is amazing.

The story did not fade away, nor was it limited to just one group of people. It was adopted by the whole people of Israel. Even in subsequent generations, the people of God were told to consider themselves, and their relationship to others, as if they themselves had been redeemed from Egypt (see Exodus 13:8 and Deuteronomy 6:21).

The story is even more remarkable for how God chooses to work. Not always with the big impressive things. But in the small moments that later turn out to have a massive impact. One tribe of people, one family group, end up transforming their ancestral people, and thus eventually the entire world.

This is a reminder for us today, that even when we think what we have to offer is small, God will use it in ways we can never expect.

“It was not because you were more numerous than any other people that the LORD set his heart on you and chose you—for you were the fewest of all peoples.” (Deuteronomy 7:7)

Reflection: The people God rescued were the fewest of all peoples, and God says plainly that size had nothing to do with it. Where in your own life or church is there something small that you have been tempted to write off?

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