Note 1016 — Chapter XXXVIII · ROD NOT EMPLOYED IN SPITE OF CLOSE INTERCOURSE WITH EGYPT— REASONS SUGGESTED FOR ABSENCE

The inscription mentions the existing conditions of foreign affairs with neighbouring countries as satisfactory. It is in this connection that the “people of Israel” come in. Their Exodus, according to Pharaonic fashion, would have been described by the King as an expulsion and not as an escape against his will. The author of the inscription, who wrote from a point of view which was not that of the Biblical account, seems not unsupported by Exodus xii. 39, “Because they were thrust out of Egypt and could not tarry.” Even stronger is the Revised Version marginal rendering in Exodus xi. 1, “When he shall let you go altogether, he shall utterly thrust you out hence.” Sir Hanbury Brown, Journal of Egyptian Archæology (Jan. 1917), p. 19.