by
Damien F. Mackey
The use of the term “pharaoh” (פַרְעֹ֔ה) as a title as early as Genesis 12:15
is likely anachronistic - a later editing - as it appears that this term was applied
to the rulers of Egypt only late, during so-called New Kingdom Egyptian history.
Part One: Naming the ruler by title only
Joshua J. Mark explains that “Pharaoh” was a Greek version of the Egyptian pero or per-a-a, meaning “Great House”: https://www.ancient.eu/pharaoh/
The Pharaoh in ancient Egypt was the political and religious leader of the people and held the titles 'Lord of the Two Lands’ and 'High Priest of Every Temple’. The word 'pharaoh’ is the Greek form of the Egyptian pero or per-a-a, which was the designation for the royal residence and means `Great House'. The name of the residence became associated with the ruler and, in time, was used exclusively for the leader of the people.
The early monarchs of Egypt were not known as pharaohs but as kings. The honorific title of `pharaoh' for a ruler did not appear until the period known as the New Kingdom (c.1570-c.1069 BCE) [sic]. Monarchs of the dynasties before the New Kingdom were addressed as `your majesty' by foreign dignitaries and members of the court and as `brother' by foreign rulers; both practices would continue after the king of Egypt came to be known as a pharaoh.
[End of quote]
Here, however, I shall be following the biblical usage by referring even to the early rulers of Egypt as “Pharaoh”.
Pharaoh One: Genesis 12:10-20
The ruler of Egypt who abducted Abram’s wife, Sarai, at the time of the famine, is simply called “Pharaoh”:
Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was severe. As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, “I know what a beautiful woman you are.
When the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me but will let you live. Say you are my sister, so that I will be treated well for your sake and my life will be spared because of you.”
When Abram came to Egypt, the Egyptians saw that Sarai was a very beautiful woman. And when Pharaoh’s officials saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh, and she was taken into his palace. He treated Abram well for her sake, and Abram acquired sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, male and female servants, and camels.
But the Lord inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh and his household because of Abram’s wife Sarai. So Pharaoh summoned Abram. “What have you done to me?” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me she was your wife? Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her to be my wife? Now then, here is your wife. Take her and go!” Then Pharaoh gave orders about Abram to his men, and they sent him on his way, with his wife and everything he had.
He seems to be, from this text, a not entirely unreasonable character.
The same may be said about the “Pharaoh” of Joseph also at the time of a famine.
The life of Moses, though, right down to the Exodus (80 years), experienced only persecuting, hard-hearted pharaohs.
Now, it was standard practice amongst the early Egyptian scribes not to name their Pharaoh (see e.g. professor A. S. Yahuda’s The Language of the Pentateuch in its Relation to Egyptian, Oxford, 1933), despite the fact that the rulers of Egypt had a multiplicity of names.
Ishmael, whose toledôt history records the abduction of Sarai, was born of an Egyptian mother, Hagar (some traditions say that she was the daughter of Pharaoh), and he later married an Egyptian, and accordingly, perhaps, followed Egyptian practice.
Moses, having been educated in Egypt (Acts 7:22) would have been expected to – and does in fact – do the same.
And before Moses, Joseph must have become thoroughly Egyptianised as to court protocol and Egyptian etiquette.
However, when we come to Isaac’s toledôt history, telling the same story of the abduction of Sarai - but whom Isaac names, Sarah (his actual mother):
- the Pharaoh is finally named. He is “Abimelech”.
In my article (above) we even find that the elements, “Pharaoh” and “Abimelech”, connecting in a chiastic structure – although this does not inevitably mean personal identity.
Isaac (or whoever wrote his toledôt) was under no such constraint to follow Egyptian practice.
This may bring us to another point that will be raised in this series. The name given to a biblical pharaoh may not necessarily be an Egyptian name, but simply the name by which that ruler is known to the Hebrews (Israelites, Jews). Still, “Abimelech” may be compatible in meaning with an Egyptian-style name. See my article:
Comparing the Meaning of Names "Abimelech" and Egyptian "Raneb"
“… the majority of scholars believe that Abimelech was not really a personal name but rather a Philistine royal title, not unlike Pharaoh in Egypt, Candace in Cush or Caesar in Rome”.
Egypt at this time, we have found, to have taken possession of southern Canaan (or Philistia), hence we get a “Pharaoh” who is also a “king of the Philistines” (Genesis 26:1).
And this, Abram’s “Pharaoh”, I have determined, having ruled from Abram to the marriage of Isaac and Rebekah, must have been an early Pharaoh who reigned for a half century and more.
I thus favour for this biblical “Pharaoh” the very first dynastic ruler, Hor-Aha (Min = Menes).
I thus favour for this biblical “Pharaoh” the very first dynastic ruler, Hor-Aha (Min = Menes).
For more on this, see e.g. my article:
Dr. W.F. Albright’s Game-Changing Chronological Shift
If Dr. Albright was correct in his view that the Egyptian Manium (or Mannu), against whom the Akkadian potentate Naram-Sin (c. 2200 BC conventional dating) successfully waged war, was none other than the legendary first pharaoh Menes, himself, then that must lead to the shocking conclusion that the beginning of the Egyptian dynastic history (c. 3100 BC conventional dating)
is a millennium out of whack with Akkadian history.
I have even been tempted to try to equate the name “Abimelech” with “Lehabim”, the son of Mizraim (or Egypt). Someone has picked up an old post of mine regarding this:
Genesis 10:6-14
The sons of Ham were Cush and Mizraim and Put and Canaan. The sons of Cush were Seba and Havilah and Sabtah and Raamah and Sabteca; and the sons of Raamah were Sheba and Dedan. Now Cush became the father of Nimrod; he became a mighty one on the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the LORD; therefore it is said, “Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the LORD.” The beginning of his kingdom was Babel and Erech and Accad and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. From that land he went forth into Assyria, and built Nineveh and Rehoboth-Ir and Calah, and Resen between Nineveh and Calah; that is the great city. Mizraim became the father of Ludim and Anamim and Lehabim and Naphtuhim and Pathrusim and Casluhim (from which came the Philistines) and Caphtorim.
….
Would not the King Abimelech, contemporary of Abram, be Lehabim (= Abim-lech), son of Mizraim?
Part Two: Who were the nameless Pharaohs of Joseph and Moses?
“Then a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt”.
Exodus 1:8
Right at the beginning of my article:
Moses – may be staring revisionists right in the face. Part One: Historical Moses has presented quite a challenge
I declared this with regard to revisionists who are trying to set the biblical Joseph, historically, in the Twelfth Egyptian Dynasty, and who then have to try to find a suitable place for Moses:
If any revisionist historian had placed himself in a good position, chronologically, to identify in the Egyptian records the patriarch Joseph, then it was Dr. Donovan Courville, who had, in The Exodus Problem and its Ramifications, I and II (1971), proposed that Egypt’s Old and Middle Kingdoms were contemporaneous. That radical move on his part might have enabled Courville to bring the likeliest candidate for Joseph, the Vizier Imhotep of the Third Dynasty, into close proximity with the Twelfth Dynasty – the dynasty that revisionists most favour for the era of Moses.
Courville, however, chose to set Joseph in the (so-called Middle Kingdom) Twelfth Dynasty, the dynasty of Moses, thereby losing the opportunity historically to identify both Joseph and Moses. And certain revisionists have tended to follow him in that direction.
Some revisionists recently, though, have woken up to the fact that by far the best historical candidate (or so I have long thought) for the “new king” (מֶלֶךְ-חָדָשׁ) of Exodus 1:8 is pharaoh Amenemes (Amenemhat) I, the founder of the Twelfth Dynasty.
See my article on this:
Twelfth Dynasty oppressed Israel
Joseph’s “Pharaoh” of the Famine era thus pre-dated the Twelfth Dynasty, and is best found as pharaoh Zoser of the so-called Old Kingdom’s Third Dynasty, with Joseph himself being the genius Vizier, Imhotep.
What Dr. Courville’s revision has enabled us to do, however, is to revise Egypt’s Old Kingdom in relation to the Middle Kingdom, thereby bringing the Third Dynasty (Joseph’s) into far closer proximity to the Twelfth Dynasty (Moses’s).
The “new king” of Exodus 1:8, Amenemes I, can then be linked to his pharaonic mirror-image Sixth Dynasty counterpart, pharaoh Teti:
Moses may help link 6th and 12th dynasties of Egypt
which move, in turn, facilitates the identification of Moses historically as the Sixth Dynasty’s Chief Judge and Vizier (another genius), Weni, who served pharaohs Teti, Pepi and Merenre.
Moses can then also be the Chief Judge and Vizier, Mentuhotep, of Egypt’s Twelfth Dynasty – this Mentuhotep being Dr. Courville’s actual choice for Joseph.
So far in this series we have concluded that:
The “Pharaoh” of Abram (Abraham) and Isaac was also known as “Abimelech” (may possibly be the biblical Lehabim), and may, historically, have been Hor-Aha (Min = Menes) of the First Dynasty;
The “Pharaoh” of the Famine era of Joseph was Zoser of the Third Dynasty;
The “new king” of Moses’s infancy was Teti of the Sixth Dynasty = Amenemes I of the Twelfth Dynasty.
Part Three: During United Kingdom Era
Going by memory, here, I can think of a potential three Pharaohs (biblically mentioned as such) who ruled Egypt during Israel’s era of the United Kingdom of kings Saul, David and Solomon.
The first of these was reigning at the time of King David, according to I Kings 11:15-20:
Earlier when David was fighting with Edom, Joab the commander of the army, who had gone up to bury the dead, had struck down all the men in Edom. Joab and all the Israelites stayed there for six months, until they had destroyed all the men in Edom. But Hadad, still only a boy, fled to Egypt with some Edomite officials who had served his father. They set out from Midian and went to Paran. Then taking people from Paran with them, they went to Egypt, to Pharaoh king of Egypt, who gave Hadad a house and land and provided him with food. Pharaoh was so pleased with Hadad that he gave him a sister of his own wife, Queen Tahpenes, in marriage. The sister of Tahpenes bore him a son named Genubath, whom Tahpenes brought up in the royal palace. There Genubath lived with Pharaoh’s own children.
The second one was ruler around about the beginning of the reign of Solomon (I Kings 9:16): “Pharaoh king of Egypt had attacked and captured Gezer. He then burned it, killed the Canaanites who lived in the city, and gave it as a dowry to his daughter, Solomon's wife”.
The third one, now towards the end of the reign of king Solomon, is actually named.
He is “Shishak” (I Kings 11:40): “Solomon tried to kill Jeroboam, but Jeroboam fled to Egypt, to Shishak the king, and stayed there until Solomon's death”.
Soon, I shall be adding to these a fourth, though biblically unspecified (that is, as “Pharaoh”).
If it were not for the research of Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky, in his series Ages in Chaos, we would still be floundering around within the conventional system, trying desperately to find archaeological and documentary evidence for Israel’s United Kingdom amidst the murky - and archaeologically entirely inappropriate - Third Intermediate Period (so-called) of Egyptian history (c. 1069-525 BC, conventional dating).
Velikovsky happily aligned the rise of the United Kingdom of Israel with the beginning of the famous Eighteenth Egyptian Dynasty (c. 1540-1295 BC, conventional dating), now to be lowered on the timescale by some 500 years by Velikovsky. With this new scheme set in place, kings Saul and David became contemporaneous with the first Eighteenth Dynasty pharaohs Ahmose, Amenhotep I and Thutmose I.
Velikovsky, in Ages in Chaos 1 (p. 99), even claimed to have historically identified the above-mentioned “Queen Tahpenes”, as belonging to first pharaoh, Ahmose:
This was in the days of David. The pharaoh must have been one by the name of
Ahmose. Among his queens must have been one by the name Tahpenes. We open the register of the Egyptian queens to see whether Pharaoh Ahmose had a queen by this name. Her name is actually preserved and read Tanethap, Tenthape, or, possibly, Tahpenes ….
Ahmose. Among his queens must have been one by the name Tahpenes. We open the register of the Egyptian queens to see whether Pharaoh Ahmose had a queen by this name. Her name is actually preserved and read Tanethap, Tenthape, or, possibly, Tahpenes ….
Thutmose I fits nicely into place for Velikovsky as our second Pharaoh, who attacked Gezer. Dr. John Bimson once argued that this identification appears to be supported archaeologically. I had previously written on this:
Velikovsky had identified David’s era as the same as that of the 18th dynasty pharaoh, Thutmose I, as Dr. J. Bimson tells when providing an appropriate stratigraphy (“Can there be a Revised Chronology without a Revised Stratigraphy?”, SIS: Proceedings. Glasgow Conference, April, 1978):
In Velikovsky’s chronology, this pharaoh is identified as Thutmose I [ref. Ages in Chaos, iii, “Two Suzerains”] … In the revised stratigraphy considered here, we would expect to find evidence for this destruction of Gezer at some point during LB [Late Bronze] I, and sure enough we do, including dramatic evidence of burning [ref. Dever et al., Gezer I (1970, pp.54-55 …)].
[End of quote]
Since having written this, however, I have become convinced that - and intend soon to write to the effect that - the “Gezer” referred to in I Kings 9:16 was not the well-known city in central Israel, but was another “Gezer” located much further to the south.
Now Thutmose I’s famous (so-called) “daughter”, Hatshepsut, who does figure in the Bible, apparently, but not as a “Pharaoh” (which she would become later, nonetheless), and who was brilliantly identified by Velikovsky as the biblical Queen of Sheba (or Queen of the South), will be that fourth “Pharaoh” to whom I referred above as being “biblically unspecified”.
As to her precise relationship with pharaoh Thutmose I, I previously wrote, in:
The vicissitudinous life of Solomon's pulchritudinous wife
Though not of royal Egyptian blood, Thutmose I had married pharaoh Amenhotep I’s sister, according to some views. ….
Thutmose I is generally considered to have become the father of Hatshepsut. “Yet”, according to Gay Robins” (“The Enigma of Hatshepsut”), “none of Thutmose I's monuments even mentions his daughter”: https://www.baslibrary.org/archaeology-odyssey/2/1/11
But what I have suggested is that pharaoh Thutmose I, when crowning Hatshepsut, used a tri-partite coronation ceremony that uncannily followed the tri-partite pattern of David’s coronation of his son, Solomon. See my article:
Thutmose I Crowns Hatshepsut
For kings first and second above no actual name is given as we have learned.
Both are called “Pharaoh king of Egypt”.
We have noted in this series that that was an Egyptian trait - “Pharaoh” being un-named by Egyptianised biblical writers, Ishmael (at least in his toledôt history), and Joseph and Moses.
Now there is the possibility that the accounts of our first (I Kings 11) and second (I Kings 9) pharaohs in this article were recorded by the Egyptianised king Solomon (Senenmut), in his “book of the annals of Solomon” according to a verse (I Kings 11:41) following these texts.
The only “Pharaoh” who is actually named in the Bible for this particular period is our third one, “Shishak”. Chronologically speaking - especially in Velikovsky’s context of Hatshepsut as Solomon’s contemporaneous Queen of Sheba - this “Shishak” can only be, as Velikovsky had indeed identified him, pharaoh Thutmose III (the “Napoleon of Egypt”: Breasted), who reigned contemporaneously with Hatshepsut.
See also my article on this:
Solomon and Sheba
for my identification of Solomon-in-Egypt as the famous, quasi-royal official, Senenmut (var. Senmut), thought by some to have been ‘the real power behind Hatshepsut’s throne’.
Moreover, the “Genubath” whom Queen Tahpenes bore to Hadad, as we read above, Velikovsky claimed to have identified, now as a people, at the time of “Shishak”/Thutmose III.
I wrote of this in my “… vicissitudinous life …” article (above) as follows:
As for “Genubath”, the son of Hadad, Velikovsky had rather strikingly identified his name amongst those giving tribute to Thutmose III, very soon after the latter’s First Campaign. Velikovsky wrote about it (in ch. iv) in “Genubath, King of Edom” (pp. 179-180):
Hadad had returned to Edom in the days of Solomon, after the death of Joab [I Kings 11:21-22]. Since then about forty years had elapsed. Genubath, his son, was now the vassal king of Edom …. Tribute from this land, too, must have been sent to the Egyptian crown; there was no need to send an expedition to subdue Edom. When Thutmose III returned from one of his inspection visits to Palestine he found in Egypt tribute brought by couriers from the land, “Genubatye”, which did not have to be conquered by an expeditionary force.
When his majesty arrived in Egypt the messengers of the Genubatye came bearing their tribute.3 [3. Breasted: Records, Vol. II, Sec. 474].
It consisted of myrrh, “negroes for attendants”, bulls, calves, besides vessels laden with ivory, ebony, and skins of panther.
Who were the people of Genubatye? Hardly a guess has been made with regard to this peculiar name. The people of Genubatye were the people of Genubath, their king, contemporary of Rehoboam.
Velikovsky had, in the course of his historical revision – and despite his obvious mistakes – managed to come up with many such brilliant and helpful identifications as this one pertaining to Genubath – an identification obviously impossible in the conventional system, with Egypt’s 18th dynasty and the biblical Genubath separated in time by some 500 years.
[End of quotes]
While there is still plenty of work to be done by revisionists, especially to modify appropriately certain controversial aspects of the “Shishak” identification, I would now consider Velikovsky’s Hatshepsut-Sheba and Thutmose III-Shishak twin identifications to be firm pillars of the revision. Revisionists who have rejected these twin links have inevitably failed to come up with any plausible alternatives.
Recently a researcher has tried to shift the identification of “Shishak” to Thutmose III’s successor, pharaoh Amenhotep II. For more detail on all of this, see my series beginning with:
This writer, a Creationist believer in a biblical literalism, may perhaps be inconsistent in looking for the name “Shishak” in Amenhotep II’s nebty name, considering that the Bible appears to use only the Egyptian prenomen or nomen whenever it actually names a pharaoh.
We shall find this to be the case in Part Four.
Here is a small, but relevant section of my interchange with this researcher in Part Two: https://www.academia.edu/36157096/Slightly_Shifting_Shishak_._Part_Two_Response_to_my_critique
The article under review follows a conga-line of revisionists who have tried to find an Egyptian explanation for the biblical name, “Shishak”, in this case taking the Egyptian nebty name of pharaoh Amenhotep II, weser fau, sekha em waset, whilst admitting that:
“At first glance, this name might not look like “Shishak”.”
And with very good reason, I say. It looks nothing like it!
It certainly does look like it. I recognized it at once when I saw it. The “f” seemed to be in the way, until I researched it and discovered that they didn’t have the “f” sound back then.
I found perhaps more plausible K. Birch’s suggestion (“Shishak Mystery?”, C and C Workshop, SIS, No. 2, 1987, p. 35) that “Shishak” may derive from pharaoh Thutmose III’s Golden Horus name, Djeser-khau [“chase a cow”] (dsr h‘w): “… the (Golden) Horus names of Thutmose III comprise variations on: Tcheser-khau, Djeser-khau …”.
[End of quotes]
More than likely, though, I think that the name “Shishak” was the name by which young Thutmose III was known to king Solomon and his court in his close relationship with his relative, Hatshepsut-Sheba.
Solomon had officials, secretaries, whose father was named “Shisha” (I Kings 4:1-3):
So King Solomon ruled over all Israel.
And these were his chief officials:
Azariah son of Zadok—the priest;
Elihoreph and Ahijah, sons of Shisha—secretaries ….
Part Four: During Divided Kingdom Era
Going by memory, here, I can think of a potential four Pharaohs who ruled Egypt during Israel’s era of the Divided Kingdom (c.930–c.586 BC, conventional dating).
The first of these was this enigmatic ruler at the time of Assyria’s Shalmaneser and Israel’s Hoshea (2 Kings 17:4):
But the king of Assyria discovered that Hoshea was a traitor, for he had sent envoys to So king of Egypt, and he no longer paid tribute to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year. Therefore Shalmaneser seized him and put him in prison.
“So king of Egypt”.
Intriguingly, the Lucianic tradition of the LXX refers instead to “Adrammelech the Ethiopian, living in Egypt” (Duane L. Christensen, “The Identity of “King So” in Egypt”, Vetus Testamentum, Vol. 39, Fasc. 2 April., 1989, p. 141).
The second one was Tirhakah, and happily by now we have far more solid Egypto-Assyrian historical links. Tirhakah is especially famous for this incident (Isaiah 37:9-10):
Now Sennacherib received a report that Tirhakah, the king of Cush, was marching out to fight against him. When he heard it, he sent messengers to Hezekiah with this word: ‘Say to Hezekiah king of Judah: Do not let the god you depend on deceive you when he says, ‘Jerusalem will not be given into the hands of the king of Assyria’.’
The third one, late in the reign of King Josiah of Judah, is Necho, who actually killed Josiah (2 Chronicles 35:20-24):
After all this, when Josiah had set the Temple in order, Necho king of Egypt went up to fight at Carchemish on the Euphrates, and Josiah marched out to meet him in battle. But Necho sent messengers to him, saying, ‘What quarrel is there, king of Judah, between you and me?
It is not you I am attacking at this time, but the house with which I am at war. God has told me to hurry; so stop opposing God, who is with me, or he will destroy you’.
Josiah, however, would not turn away from him, but disguised himself to engage him in battle. He would not listen to what Necho had said at God’s command but went to fight him on the plain of Megiddo.
Archers shot King Josiah, and he told his officers, ‘Take me away; I am badly wounded.” So they took him out of his chariot, put him in his other chariot and brought him to Jerusalem, where he died’.
From the Assyrian records we know that Tirhakah and Necho were contemporaneous rulers of Egypt and/or Ethiopia.
And what tightens things even further, at least according to my revised version of chronology, is that King Hezekiah of Judah, a contemporary of King Hoshea of Israel (and hence of So king of Egypt), is to be identified with Josiah of Judah (and hence was also a contemporary of Necho king of Egypt). For this chronological tightening, see e.g. my article:
'Taking aim on' king Amon - such a wicked king of Judah
The fourth is this one at the time of King Nebuchednezzar II (Jeremiah 44:30):
This is what the LORD says: ‘I am going to deliver Pharaoh Hophra king of Egypt into the hands of his enemies who want to kill him, just as I gave Zedekiah king of Judah into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, the enemy who wanted to kill him’.
It needs to be said of these four named pharaohs that some may turn out to be duplicates.
That is unlikely to be the case, though, with Tirhakah and Necho, who appear from the Assyrian records to have been two distinct rulers at the time of Ashurbanipal (or Assur-bani-pal): https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Assur-Bani-Pal
ASSUR-BANI-PAL (“Assur creates a son”), the grand monarque of Assyria, was the prototype of the Greek Sardanapalus, and appears probably in the corrupted form of Asnapper in Ezra iv. 10. He had been publicly nominated king of Assyria (on the 12th of Iyyar) by his father Esar-haddon, some time before the latter’s death, Babylonia being assigned to his twin-brother Samas-sum-yukin, in the hope of gratifying the national feeling of the Babylonians.
After Esar-haddon’s death in 668 B.C. the first task of Assur-bani-pal was to finish the Egyptian campaign. Tirhakah, who had reoccupied Egypt, fled to Ethiopia, and the Assyrian army spent forty days in ascending the Nile from Memphis to Thebes. Shortly afterwards Necho, the satrap of Sais, and two others were detected intriguing with Tirhakah; Necho and one of his companions were sent in chains to Nineveh, but were there pardoned and restored to their principalities. Tirhakah died 667 B.C. ….
In my reconstructed history the neo-Assyrian succession from Esarhaddon to Ashurbanipal becomes altered. Esarhaddon, following Sennacherib, is now identified as Ashurbanipal. Whilst Esarhaddon-Ashurbanipal is now further identified as Nebuchednezzar II.
See my series on this most radical revision:
Aligning Neo Babylonia with Book of Daniel. Part One: Shortening the Chaldean Dynasty
Aligning Neo-Babylonia with Book of Daniel. Part Two: Merging late neo-Assyrians with Chaldeans
I have also suggested, in light of this revision, that Necho I and Necho II of conventional history might be condensed into just the one pharaoh Necho.
What we find with our potentially four pharaohs in this article is that all of them are named:
“So”; “Tirhakah”; “Necho” and “Hophra”.
Of these, “So” - just like “Shishak” - may not be an actual Egyptian name, but the name by which the pharaoh was known to the scribes of Israel. Conventional scholars have searched long and hard for him, always destined to arrive at a dead end.
The situation is briefly summed up at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharaohs_in_the_Bible
2 Kings 17:4 says that king Hoshea sent letters to "So, King of Egypt". No pharaoh of this name is known for the time of Hoshea (about 730 BC), during which Egypt had three dynasties ruling contemporaneously: 22nd at Tanis, 23rd at Leontopolis, and 24th at Sais. Nevertheless, this ruler is commonly identified with Osorkon IV (730–715 BC) who ruled from Tanis,[5][6] though it is possible that the biblical writer has mistaken the king with his city and equated So with Sais, at this time ruled by Tefnakht.
Dr. Courville was far closer to the mark (The Exodus Problem and its Ramifications, 1971) when he proposed for “So” the great Ramses II himself of the Nineteenth Egyptian Dynasty. Though his suggestion that “So” was derived from the Suten Bat name of Ramses II is far-fetched. Moreover, Courville had the long reign of a now-aged Ramses II concluding with the ‘So’ incident, whereas I think that the ‘So’ era would be far closer to the beginning of the reign of Ramses II. Previously I have written on this:
Courville’s hopeful derivation of the name, ‘So’, from a Suten Bat name of Ramses II is far from convincing. I wrote of this in my university thesis:
A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah
and its Background
(Volume One, p. 266):
Now according to Courville’s system … Ramses II, whose reign would have terminated in 726/725 BC, must have been the biblical “King So of Egypt” with whom Hoshea of Israel conspired against the king of Assyria (2 Kings 17:4).
Courville had plausibly (in his context) suggested that the reason why ‘So’ was unable to help Hoshea of Israel was because the Egyptian king was, as Ramses II, now right at the end of his very long reign, and hence aged and feeble.
Courville had looked to find the name ‘So’ amongst the many names of Ramses II, and had opted for the rather obscure ‘So’ element in that pharaoh’s Suten Bat name, Ra-user-Maat-Sotep-en-Ra.727 (See also pp. 286-287). ….
[End of quotes]
