At length one of those in the secret volunteered to give information regarding this burial-place. For a long time he failed, with all his ingenuity, to find the source of these rare treasures. This led him to suspect that some hitherto undiscovered burial-place of the Pharaohs had been opened, and that these and other relics, now secretly sold, were a part of the treasure found there. Note, Professor Maspero, keeper of the museum of Bulak, near Cairo, had his attention in 1870 directed to the fact that scarabs, i.e., stone and metal imitations of the beetle (symbols of immortality), originally worn as amulets by royal personages, which were evidently genuine relics of the time of the ancient Pharaohs, were being sold at Thebes and different places along the Nile. He associated with him in his government his son, Rameses II., when he was yet young, probably ten or twelve years of age. A new dynasty, the Nineteenth, as it is called, came into power under Seti I., who was its founder. In process of time a change appears to have taken place in the government of Egypt. They began to be afflicted and tyrannized over.

The Israelites now began to be looked down upon. The invaders, the Hyksos, who for some five centuries had been masters of Egypt, were driven out, and the old dynasty restored. After his death their condition was probably very slowly and gradually changed. Recent discoveries, however, have led to the conclusion that Seti was the 'new king.'įor about seventy years the Hebrews in Egypt were under the powerful protection of Joseph. The 'new king who knew not Joseph' ( Exodus 1:8-22 ) has been generally supposed to have been Aahmes I., or Amosis, as he is called by Josephus.Is this singular fact to be explained from the presence of some of Joseph's kindred at the Egyptian court? Pharaoh said to Joseph, 'Thy father and thy brethren are come unto thee: the land of Egypt is before thee in the best of the land make thy father and brethren to dwell' ( Genesis 47:5 Genesis 47:6 ). The wife of Amenophis III., of that dynasty, was a Semite. Some argue that Joseph came to Egypt in the reign of Thothmes III., long after the expulsion of the Hyksos, and that his influence is to be seen in the rise and progress of the religious revolution in the direction of monotheism which characterized the middle of the Eighteenth Dynasty. To the old native Egyptians, who were an African race, shepherds were 'an abomination ' but to the Hyksos kings these Asiatic shepherds who now appeared with Jacob at their head were congenial, and being akin to their own race, had a warm welcome ( Genesis 47:5 Genesis 47:6 ). The Pharaoh of Joseph's days ( Genesis 41 ) was probably Apopi, or Apopis, the last of the Hyksos kings.The name they bear on the monuments is 'Mentiu.' They were probably driven forward by the pressure of the Hittites. They were of Semitic origin, and of kindred blood accordingly with Abram. The Pharaoh who was on the throne when Abram went down into Egypt ( Genesis 12:10-20 ) was probably one of the Hyksos, or 'shepherd kings.' The Egyptians called the nomad tribes of Syria Shasu, 'plunderers,' their king or chief Hyk, and hence the name of those invaders who conquered the native kings and established a strong government, with Zoan or Tanis as their capital.) The name is a compound, as some think, of the words Ra, the 'sun' or 'sun-god,' and the article phe, 'the,' prefixed hence phera, 'the sun,' or 'the sun-god.' But others, perhaps more correctly, think the name derived from Perao, 'the great house' = his majesty = in Turkish, 'the Sublime Porte.' The official title borne by the Egyptian kings down to the time when that country was conquered by the Greeks. Bible Dictionaries - Easton's Bible Dictionary - Pharaoh Pharaoh

The pharaoh