Note 1017 — Chapter XXXVIII · ROD NOT EMPLOYED IN SPITE OF CLOSE INTERCOURSE WITH EGYPT— REASONS SUGGESTED FOR ABSENCE

In connection with, perhaps even helping to fix, the date of the Exodus, it is in the victorious hymn of Menephtah that the earliest written reference to Israel appears: “Israel is desolated: her seed is not. Palestine has become a (defenceless) widow of Egypt” (Breasted), or “The Israelites are swept off: his seed is no more” (Naville). Petrie’s translation, “The people of Israel is spoiled: it has no corn (or seed),” does not for various reasons seem to find favour. The majority of Egyptologists now identify Aahmes I. with the “new king who knew not Joseph,” c. (1582), Rameses II. as the first Pharaoh of the Oppression, and of Exodus ii. 15 (c. 1300), and Menephtah the son of Rameses II. with the Pharaoh of the Plagues and the Flight from Egypt (c. 1234).