Note 84 — Chapter XV · RAMESES THE GREAT.

The Bible narrative, it has often been observed, invariably designates the king by this title, than which none, unfortunately, can be more vague for purposes of identification. “Plus généralement,” says Brugsch, writing of the royal titles, “sa personne se cache sous une série d’expressions qui toutes ont le sens de la ‘grande maison’ ou du ‘grand palais,’ quelquefois au duel, des ‘deux grandes maisons,’ par rapport à la division de l’Égypte en deux parties. C’est du titre très frequent Per-aa, ‘la grande maison,’ ‘la haute porte,’ qu’on a heureusement dérivé le nom biblique Pharao donné aux rois d’Égypte.”—“Histoire d’Égypte,” Brugsch, second edition, Part I, p. 35; Leipzig, 1875.

This probably is the only title under which it was permissible for the plebeian class to speak or write of the sovereign. It can scarcely have escaped Herr Brugsch’s notice that we even find it literally translated in Genesis, 1. 4, where it is said that “when the days of his mourning were past, Joseph spake unto the house of Pharaoh, saying: ‘If now I have found grace in your eyes,’” etc. etc. If Moses, however, had but once recorded the cartouche name of either of his three Pharaohs, archæologists and commentators would have been spared a great deal of trouble.