Here we continue the biblical timeline of the patriarch Abraham. After his father and family left their city of Ur in Mesopotamia, just after the confusion of languages with the Tower of Babel, they settled in Harran, a large oasis located today on the border between Turkey and Syria. The Biblical and Historical chronologies continue as follows:
year 0 (3760 BCE): creation of Adam
year 930 (2830 BCE): death of Adam
year 1558 (2202 BCE): birth of Shem, son of Noah
year 1656 (2104 BCE): the Flood begins
year 1657 (2103 BCE): end of the Flood
year 1658 (2102 BCE): birth of Arphaxad, son of Shem
year 1948 (1812 BCE): birth of Abraham, son of Terah, in Ur
(1792 BCE): beginning of Hammurabi's rule
year 1996 (1764 BCE): tower of Babel, and departure of the Hebrews from Ur
year 2022 (1737 BCE): God speaks to Abraham, in Harran
In Harran, God told Abraham to leave his family and his current settlement to go to Canaan. There, God showed him the land of promise as He said to him:
Unto your seed will I give this land. (Genesis 12:7)
26 years had passed since the episode of the Tower of Babel and Abraham was then 75 years old. The number 26 is not fortuitous: it marks divine action (to learn more about the Jewish symbolism of numbers, click here). The biblical story then takes a strange turn: God brings Abraham to Canaan, but a famine nevertheless strikes the region. This was undoubtedly a test of faith and, it seems, the patriarch gave in to the urgency of the moment: he leaves the land offered by God.
And there was a famine in the [promised] land; and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there; for the famine was sore in the land. And it came to pass, when he was come near to enter into Egypt, that he said unto Sarai his wife: 'Behold now, I know that yeu art a fair woman to look upon. And it will come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see you, that they will say: This is his wife; and they will kill me, but you they will keep alive. Say, I pray you, you are my sister; that it may be well with me for your sake, and that my soul may live because of you.' And it came to pass, that, when Abram was come into Egypt, the Egyptians beheld the woman that she was very fair. And the princes of Pharaoh saw her, and praised her to Pharaoh; and the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house. And he dealt well with Abram for her sake; and he had sheep, and oxen, and he-asses, and men-servants, and maid-servants, and she-asses, and camels. (Genesis 12:10-16)
But God intervened and afflicted His wrath upon Egypt and its Pharaoh:
And the Lord plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai Abram's wife. (Genesis 12:17)
Note that, at the time, Abraham's name was Abram and his wife Sarah's name was Sarai. God would change their names a little later.
Is there any trace in the Egyptian chronology of these "great plagues" mentioned in the biblical story? It would seem so... Because a papyrus has been found that speaks of improbable catastrophes that struck Egypt. It is the Ipuwer papyrus, which is kept in Leiden, the Netherlands. It was too tempting for historians to see in this document the biblical story of the Exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt, situated around the 19th Egyptian dynasty, especially since the story of the papyrus speaks of water which turns into blood!! But the papyrus had been composed around the 12th Egyptian dynasty... So the catastrophes of which this document speaks about are not related to the Exodus from Egypt, which took place some seven dynasties later.
Let's look closely at these catastrophes:
The tribes of the desert have become Egyptians everywhere. Indeed, the face is pale. [...] Indeed, the women are barren and none conceive. Khnum fashions (men) no more because of the condition of the land.
[...]
Indeed, [hearts] are violent, pestilence is throughout the land, blood is everywhere, death is not lacking, and the mummy-cloth speaks even before one comes near it. [...] Indeed, the river is blood, yet men drink of it. Men shrink from human beings and thirst after water. towns are destroyed and Upper Egypt [under control of the Egyptians, unlike Lower Egypt controlled by Hyksos] has become an empty waste.
[...]
Indeed, the desert is throughout the land, the nomes are laid waste, and barbarians from abroad have come to Egypt.Indeed, men arrive [. . .] and indeed, there are no Egyptians anywhere.
(The Admonitions of Ipuwer, sections I, II, III, extracts)
The fact that the document speaks of Khnum, an ancient deity at the time of the building of pyramids, means that it dates from before the 18th dynasty which turned the cult to Amun. So the document cannot date from -say- the 19th dynasty in the time of Ramses II for example.
This text speaks of an invasion of foreign tribes "with pale faces" following which catastrophes struck the Egyptians. What is known of the History of Ancient Egypt is that it went through a decline at the end of the 12th dynasty. The Hyksos, migrants of Semitic origin, therefore pale-faced Asians, settled in Lower Egypt (the Nile Delta region) at this time. This human flow is demonstrated by the decoration of the tomb of an official of this 12th dynasty, called Khnumhotep. His tomb, at Beni Hasan, shows migrants of Semitic character called the "Aamu". The large number of these migrants over time caused their seizure of power and the establishment of the 13th dynasty. One of its sovereigns was called Khendjer. In the Semitic language, his name was written HNZR, equivalent to the Semitic word for ha-natzir (הנצר) which means the Scion.
It is interesting to note the richness of the clothing of these migrants depicted in the tomb of Beni Hasan, with very elaborate woven garments, compared to the simple white robes of the Egyptians. The men are bearded, unlike the Egyptians who shaved their bodies. They also brought to Egypt new products and new techniques including the manufacture of glass. The 13th dynasty, which was of Semitic Hyksos origin, ruled Lower Egypt between 1800 BCE and 1650 BCE.
The seemly unnatural catastrophes that fell upon Egypt at that time are indeed reminiscent of the biblical plagues of the time of the Exodus from Egypt: the waters of the river turning into blood, pestilence, desertification. One of the catastrophes also recalls a punishment that was considered to be of divine reason in Antiquity: the sterility of women. The Bible mentions in particular that God applied this same punishment to the people of Abimelech for the same reason:
For God had fast closed up all the wombs of the house of Abimelech, because of Sarah, Abraham's wife. (Genesis 20:18)
Abraham came down to Egypt in 1736 BCE, during this Hyksos dynasty. The pharaoh would have been the powerful Sobekhotep. Having called his magi to explain the catastrophes that had befallen his kingdom, this pharaoh understood that Sarah's presence in his palace had engendered the wrath of the gods. He sent Abraham and her away from Egypt with all their riches. Their expulsion from Egypt took place in the year 1736 BCE, a few months after their arrival. When we do the chronological calculation of the Bible, we can understand that this "exodus from Egypt" of Abraham took place in the biblical year 2024 (1736 BCE), most certainly on the 15th of the Hebrew month of Nissan.
In conclusion, the events described in this papyrus of Ipou-Our (Ipuwer) are contemporary with Abraham's stay in Egypt and corroborate the biblical account relating to the great plagues, not natural but divine, which fell upon this country at that time.
We will come back to the date of this "exodus from Egypt" of the patriarch Abraham when we analyze the other Exodus from Egypt, more famous, of the Hebrews.
I hope that this article on the theme "the Bible is true" was of interest to you. Do not hesitate to send me your comments, while waiting for a next biblical episode proven by history and archaeology.
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Albert Benhamou
Private tour guide in Israel
February 2025
