Egypt
Scripture first
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A new who did not know Joseph enslaves Israel in Egypt, setting the Exodus in motion.
Egypt fed the patriarchs in famine and enslaved their descendants. The Exodus out of Egypt became the foundational act of deliverance Israel retold ever after.
Egypt remained a rival and a . of Judah kept looking south for help against Assyria and Babylon, and the prophets kept warning that Egypt was a broken reed.
The Nile empire of the pharaohs: refuge for Jacob's family, house of slavery, and the power Israel left at the Exodus.
- Egypt, Mizraim (Hebrew), the land of Ham (poetic)
- Egypt · Egypt
Egypt lives by the Nile's flood, not by rain. Scripture's contrasts between Egypt and the land of promise (Deuteronomy 11:10-12) are agricultural before they are theological.
The Way of the Land of the Philistines along the coast was Egypt's military road; God deliberately did not lead Israel by it at the Exodus.
- Exodus 1:8-14 A new king who did not know Joseph enslaves Israel in Egypt, setting the Exodus in motion.
- Genesis 46:1-7 Jacob's whole household goes down to Egypt
- Exodus 12:40-41 Israel leaves Egypt after 430 years
- 1 Kings 14:25-26 Shishak of Egypt raids Jerusalem
- Matthew 2:13-15 Joseph takes the child Jesus to Egypt, and out of Egypt the Son is called
What we know
Certain
- Scripture presents Egypt as the setting of Israel's enslavement and the Exodus.
- Egypt as a Nile-centred kingdom is among the best documented civilisations of the ancient world.
Disputed
- The precise route of the Exodus and the identity of the pharaoh of the Exodus are debated; Scripture does not name him.