Seder Olam: C20- Moses
- Albert Benhamou
- Mar 10
- 10 min read
Updated: Mar 26
BIBLICAL CHRONOLOGY
Generation 20: Hebrew years 2280 to 2400 (1480-1360 BCE)
Introduction
This chapter covers the end of the life of Joseph in Egypt, the enslavement of the Hebrews until the birth of Moses.
Year 2280 - 1480 BCE - Hatshepsut
After Thutmose II’s death, in 1479 BCE, his wife Hatshepsut became regent. In fact, already during his reign, she was acknowledged as the real ruler of Egypt, as shown in many depictions where she is represented with a bigger size than her husband. And her effective reign continued after his death because her stepson, Thutmose III, was only 2 years old when he officially became Pharaoh. Later, even when he was getting mature enough, Hatshepsut continued to rule for a total of 21 years, until her death in 1458 BCE at the age of about 50 years old.
Year 2302 – 1458 BCE – Thutmose III
After the death of his stepmother Hatshepsut, Thutmose III became sole ruler of Egypt and endeavored to raise his country as a military power. Historians have nicknamed him the "Napoleon of Egypt". He campaigned in many lands, and even reached the Euphrates. His reign lasted a total of 54 years, or rather 33 years after Hatshepsut’s death. On the home affairs, he wanted to remove the souvenir of Hatshepsut from History, due to his anger at her retaining power during so many years.
At the beginning of his reign, he crushed a coalition of Canaanite kings led by the king of Kadesh who challenged his new rule. Their united army was assembled north and south from Megiddo to block the passages across the Carmel hills. Thutmose III, against their expectation, marched his army across a dense forest on the side of the small river "Aruna" (modern-day Irone River, or Wadi 'Ara) and fell by surprise on Megiddo from the south-western side, in the year 1458 BCE. Here is Thutmose's decisive strategy explained in the Egyptian annals that have been carved on the walls of the Temple of Amon in Karnak:
They [Thutmose's officers] said to his majesty: "How will it be to go [on] this road which becomes narrow, when it is [reported] that the enemies are waiting there [beyond and they] are numerous? Will not horse go behind [horse] and [soldiers] and people too? Shall our vanguard be fighting while the [rearguard] waits here in Aruna, unable to fight? [...] Do not make us go on that difficult road." [...]
[His majesty ordered to] tell the whole army: "Your valiant lord will guide your steps on] this road which becomes narrow." [...] [Thus his majesty resolved] that he himself should go before his army. [Every man] was informed of his order of march, horse following horse, with his majesty at the head of his army. (Annals of Thutmose III, the Battle of Megiddo)
Year 2309 – 1451 BCE – Death of Joseph
Joseph died at the age of 110 (Genesis 50:26): this was the Hebrew year 2309. He was the first of Jacob’s sons to die as the text mentions he died before his brethren:
And all the souls that came out of the loins of Jacob were seventy souls; and Joseph was in Egypt already. And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation. (Exodus 1:5-6)
With Joseph’s death ends the book of Genesis. The main events of his life have been:
Hebrew Year | BCE | Joseph’s age | Event |
2199 | 1561 | 0 | Birth of Joseph in Charan |
2216 | 1544 | 17 | Joseph sold by his brothers, slave to Egypt |
2227 | 1533 | 28 | Joseph and the dreams of two chamberlains |
2229 | 1531 | 30 | Joseph becomes Governor of Egypt |
2236 | 1524 | 37 | End of 7 years of abundance; famine starts |
2238 | 1522 | 39 | Joseph reunited with his family; in Goshen |
2255 | 1506 | 56 | Death of Jacob, aged 147 |
2309 | 1451 | 110 | Death of Joseph, aged 110 |
Year 2330 – 1430 BCE – Death of Levi
Levi was the last son of Jacob to die. Only Joseph and him are mentioned in the Bible concerning their life length, as the other brothers died in between. For Levi, it is said:
And these are the names of the sons of Levi according to their generations: Gershon and Kohath and Merari. And the years of the life of Levi were a hundred thirty and seven years. (Exodus 6:16)
As we assumed that Levi was born in year 2193 (see document C19), he therefore died in Hebrew year 2330 (1430 BCE).
Beside his three sons, he also had a daughter, Jochebeth, who was probably born on the way to Egypt. The eldest son of Kohath, called Amram, took her as a wife. She gave birth to Aaron and Moses (Exodus 6:20), who are the two brothers who will conduct the Hebrews out from Egypt.
According to Jewish tradition, all the sons of Jacob were taken back to Canaan after their death for burial in the promised land. There are various locations in Israel which are assumed to be the resting place of each of them. As for Joseph, although he had been an important official in Egypt, his embalmed body will be taken to Canaan when the Israelites will leave at the Exodus.
Year 2335 – 1425 BCE – Amenhotep II
Thutmose III died in 1425 BCE (Hebrew year 2335) and was replaced by his son Amenhotep II. This king ruled for 24 years until his death in 1401 BCE.
Year 2359 – 1401 BCE – Thutmose IV starts to the oppression of the Hebrews
The next Pharaoh was Thutmose IV who reigned for 10 years until 1391 BCE. He was the Pharaoh who started the oppression against the Hebrews:
A new king rose over Egypt who had not known Joseph. And he said to his people: "Behold, the people of Bene-Israel are numerous and mighty compared to us. Come and let us outsmart them lest they will increase, and if there were a war, they would join our enemies, and make war against us, and rise from the land." (Exodus 1:8-10)
Why is it written that he had not known Joseph? Because Joseph had died in Hebrew year 2309 (1451 BCE) so, indeed, 50 years before the start of Thutmose IV’s reign. He was probably the first ruler of Egypt who had indeed not known Joseph because his father, Thutmose III, died 25 years after Joseph’s death: we can assume that he had known Joseph at least in his in his youth, and thus became the last ruler to have known Joseph.
The Biblical text does not name him as Pharaoh, as previously used for Egyptian monarchs, but as a new king [who] rose over Egypt. The reason is that Thutmose IV was not the legitimate heir to the throne of Egypt: he usurped it from his brother. This also explains the expression a new king because Thutmose IV was not supposed to be the next Pharaoh, and he rose over Egypt means he took over the power.
Thutmose IV had initiated a policy of enslavement of the Hebrews, now called Bene-Israel. It means “sons of Israel” or Israelites (Israel was the name given to Jacob, see document C19). Thutmose IV probably did so because, as often with usurpers, they know that their power is initially fragile, and they need to avoid a crisis of succession. Their best way to avoid the issue is to focus people’s attention on imaginary threats or enemies. In addition, the Hebrews were wealthy in Egypt, so his decree gave to the Egyptians license to steal the wealth from the Hebrews when they enslaved them. This was a populist decree that won public support for the usurper. Hitler did something similar by excluding Jews from their jobs in Germany, also allowing German people to expel the Jews and take their property. Blaming the Israelites, or Jews, has always been a convenience for rulers, in every generation.
But the more Thutmose IV oppressed the Hebrews in servitude, with the view to reduce their number, the more their number increased.
An examination of his mummy showed that he had suffered from a disease that wasted his body in the last years of his life. Maybe a divine punishment for his decree against children.
Year 2369 – 1391 BCE – Amenhotep III
The next Pharaoh was Amenhotep III (also called Amenophis III) who reigned for 38 years until 1353 BCE. He was the one who, concerned by the ever-increasing number of Hebrew slaves, requested from the midwives to get rid of newborn boys. But the midwives used subterfuge to avoid executing his wish.
Year 2371 – 1389 BCE – Birth of Aaron
Some 3 years after the beginning of Amenhotep III’s reign, a boy was born from Amram and Jochebeth and they called him Aaron. He escaped the decree of death of the newborns thanks to the midwives. But, seeing that the previous decree bore no fruit, Amenhotep III asked his own people to get rid of the newborn males by throwing them into the Nile River. This new measure affected Moses who was born 3 years after Aaron.
Year 2374 – 1386 BCE – Birth of Moses
In Hebrew year 2374, which was the fifth year of Amenhotep III’s reign, another boy was born to Amram and Jochebeth. The birth years for Aaron and Moses are calculated from the year of the Exodus (See document C21 for the dating of the Exodus) when Moses will be 80 years old, and Aaron 3 years older than him.
Due to the decree being enforced this time, the new baby boy was put in a basket (the word in Hebrew is תֵּבַה, the same word used for the Ark of Noah) and left on the Nile, under the surveillance of his older sister Miriam. The fact that the word used for Moses' basket and Noah's ark is the same indicates a parallel between the two events, the Flood (See document C14) and the birth of Moses. These are the only two occurrences in the entire Bible where this specific word is used.
In both events, there is "re-birth": with Noah it was the re-birth of Creation, when God intervened to initiate a new era for mankind, and for Moses, it was a re-birth of the Hebrews, from slavery into nation. So, we can understand the birth of Moses is the third step of a three steps progress influenced by God: 1- the Creation, 2- the Flood, and finally 3- the birth of Moses (For the Jewish symbolism of the numbers, click here). With the birth of Moses, a new chapter of the Creation is started: the re-birth of the Hebrew enslaved family clan into the Israelite nation. They were chosen by God to receive the Torah. Before it happened, the Creation was clueless. After it happened, the Creation had meaning. This connection between Creation and Exodus, the latter being represented by the birth of Moses, may also be understood from the parallel between the account of Genesis, where God repeatedly “saw” that what He had done “was good” (Hebrew expression is כִּי-טוֹב) and when Jochebeth “saw” that her newborn child “was good” (using the same expression כִּי-טוֹב) (Exodus 2:2):
And Pharaoh’s Daughter went down to bathe on the river and her maidens walked along the river. And she saw the basket inside the reeds. She sent her maidservant, and she took it. She opened and saw the child and behold! He was crying. And she took pity of him and said he was a child from the Hebrews. […] and he was a son to her. And she named him Moses because, she said, “from the water” I have drawn him. (Exodus 2:5-10)
The word for I have drawn him in the Biblical text is Me-SHI-THe-U (מְשִׁיתִהוּ), which is not a Hebrew word but a transposition from Old Egyptian language to say, in hieroglyphic writing, the word MES-SS-TH-U, which means he was born as shown below. In other words, the daughter of Pharaoh meant to say that the young child was born from the waters, and this is indeed the meaning of the name Moses.
Amenhotep III started his reign as a young adult. Moses was born after five years of his reign, so he could not possibly have a daughter who would already be at an adult age herself to be a parent. So, this “Pharaoh’s Daughter” was not the daughter of Pharaoh Amenhotep III, but the daughter of the previous Pharaoh, Thutmose IV. She was thus Royal Princess and sister to the present Pharaoh Amenhotep III. She was probably in her 20-30’s of age, like her half-brother, the Pharaoh, and unmarried.
Among Thutmose IV’s daughters, one remained unmarried. She was called Tiaa. Her tomb was found in 1857 and the label on it mentioned she was “King’s Daughter” of Menkheperure which was the official name for Thutmose IV. The mention of “King’s Daughter”, like in the Bible, meant that she never married. She was the princess who adopted Moses as her own child. Princess Tiaa survived long enough to be in an age to become the adoptive mother of a boy and to raise him as a prince of the court of her ruling brother. According to the Midrash, Moses’ adoptive mother was nicknamed Bithiah (בִּתְיָה) by the Hebrews (as mentioned in I Chronicles 4:18: and these are the sons of Bithiah בִּתְיָה Pharaoh's Daughter, etc.), which can also be interpreted as “God’s Daughter” (Bath-Ya בּת-יה) or as “Tiaa is with Me” (Bi-Tiaa בִּ-תיה). One tradition mentions that God would have told her:
"Moses was not your son, yet you called him your son; you, too, though you are not My daughter, yet I will call you My daughter". (Leviticus Rabba I:3)
Moses was weaned by his biological mother, Jochebeth, who took him to Princess Tiaa when he was at the right age. He obviously grew up in the knowledge of his Hebrew origin and kept contact with his biological family and the tribe of Levi. He was however raised in the royal palace in Memphis, with the other young princes, the sons of Amenhotep III. Ancient Memphis has been identified as Noph, also known as Moph (Hosea 9:6), which was located near present-day Cairo.
Nothing much remains of the palace of Memphis which featured many temples dedicated to Ptah and other gods. The ruins are located at 29o51'N 31o15'E, about 3km East from Saqqara, the site of the more ancient city of Egypt. The city of Memphis was desolated at some point of its long history, never to raise again as prophesied by Ezekiel:
Thus, says the Lord God: "I will also destroy the idols, and I will cause the things of nought to cease from Noph; and there shall be no more a prince out of the land of Egypt; and I will put a fear in the land of Egypt." (Ezekiel 30:13)
There is little doubt that Amenhotep III ruled at a tough time for the Hebrews in Egypt. Because a hieroglyphic cartouche was found inscribed in the temple of Soleb, Sudan, and dated from the reign of Amenhotep III who built that temple. And this text mentions the Hebrew tetragram name for God but written as a tetragram made of four hieroglyphic letters, which has been transcribed as Y-H-O-U/A. For further information, read the related article from Associates for Biblical Research.
This 4-letter word may just be coincidental. Or it may be related to the enslavement of the Hebrews where the cartouche wanted to simply name them, or identify them, as “the people of such (4-letter) god”, as they would have been known at this time. We can see on the depiction that the man is of semitic origin (elongated beard) and his arm are attached on his back.
Moses was 33 years old when Amenhotep III died. His adoptive mother Princess Tiaa had probably died earlier. The next Pharaoh was the eldest surviving son, of the deceased king, and someone Moses grew up with in the royal household.
To return to the list of chronological generations from Seder Olam Revisited, click here.
Albert Benhamou
Private Tour Guide in Israel
Adar 5785 - March 2025