The name Pithom continued as one of the names of this store-city or fortress until at least 250 B. C., for it is found on a pillar which Ptolemy Philadelphus set up there, but side by side with this name the place, all through its history, bore the name Thakut, which is philologically the Egyptian equivalent of the Hebrew Succoth. As this was the first station of the Hebrews when they left Egypt (Exod. 12:37; 13:20; Num. 33:5, 6), Naville holds that the Hebrews, after leaving the land of Goshen, must have passed out on the south side of the Isthmus of Suez.
Petrie believes that in the winter of 1905-1906 he discovered the city of Raamses[6] at Tell el-Retabeh, eight miles west of the site of Pithom, on the Wady Tumilat. The objects found here show that the site was occupied in the time of the Old Kingdom and onward, but as Ramses II and Ramses III both set up here statues of themselves, and erected important buildings, and as the location is the only one that fulfils the conditions of the city Raamses, Petrie feels confident that this was the site. This view receives some confirmation from the title of an officer who served here under Ramses III, and who is called: “Chief archer, keeper of the granaries, keeper of the palace; chief archer, keeper of the granaries of Arabia (or Syria).”
Merneptah, who is generally supposed to have been the Pharaoh under whom the Exodus occurred, was not drowned in the Red Sea, as some have wrongly inferred from Exod. 14:23-28, but was duly buried like his predecessors. His mummy has been found and is now in the Gizeh Museum at Cairo.
Merneptah in the fifth year of his reign set up a hymn of victory on a pillar in a temple erected by his father, Ramses II. This hymn, discovered by Petrie in 1896, is famous as the only writing outside the Bible that mentions Israel by name. A part of it is translated in Part II, [p. 311], where its bearing on the Exodus is discussed; (see [Fig. 15]).
(5) Campaign of Sheshonk I.—The record on a wall of the temple of Karnak in Egypt by Sheshonk I, the Shishak of 1 Kings 14:25, of his campaign in Palestine, confirms the statement of Kings and puts the whole campaign in a new perspective. It is treated in detail in Part II, [p. 359], f.
(6) Papyri Discovered at Elephantine.—In recent years papyri discovered at Elephantine, an island in the First Cataract, reveal the existence of a Jewish colony there, which had a Jewish temple on the island. This colony was established there at some time during the twenty-sixth dynasty, and was thus one of the earliest of those Jewish settlements in foreign countries which formed the dispersion. A number of the records of these papyri, which relate the fortunes of this temple, the relations of this colony to their Egyptian neighbors and their knowledge of the law, are translated in Part II, [p. 387], ff. The origin of the colony is also discussed there.
(7) The Palace of Hophra.—Hophra, of the twenty-sixth dynasty, was, as noted in § 6 (9), the king who lured Judah to her ruin. Petrie in 1907 discovered his palace at Memphis. The discovery makes Hophra seem a little more real.[7]
(8) The Castle at Tahpanhes.—We learn from Jer. 43:7, 8 and 44:1 that, after the destruction of Jerusalem, Jeremiah with many other Jews fled to Tahpanhes in Egypt and established a Jewish colony there. Jeremiah, as a symbolical act, was directed to hide some stones in the cement of the tiled area of the court of Pharaoh’s house there (Jer. 43:8). Tahpanhes was the Daphne of the Greeks. It was on the site of the modern Tell Defenneh. This was in ancient times the easternmost city of the northern Delta. A hundred and fifty miles of desert stretched away to the east of it, until one came to the gardens of Gaza in Palestine. Petrie excavated Tell Defenneh in 1883-1884, and discovered the large castle there, which is probably the building in which Jeremiah buried his stones. This was the last act of Jeremiah’s life of which we have any record. He was then an old man and apparently died soon afterward, probably at Tahpanhes, certainly in Egypt.
(9) The Jewish Temple at Leontopolis.—Josephus tells us twice, once in his Antiquities of the Jews, Book XIII, Chapter III, and again in his Wars of the Jews, Book VII, Chapter X, that, when Jonathan, the Maccabee, was made high priest of the Jews, about 153 B. C., Onias, the son of Onias III, the deposed high priest, went to Egypt and obtained a grant of land and permission to build a Jewish temple. This land was in the region of the city of Bubastis, the nome where the cat goddess was sacred, and was accordingly called by the Greeks Leontopolis. There were at this time about as many Jews in Egypt as in Palestine, and doubtless Ptolemy VII thought to keep them more loyal by granting them a temple. He gave to Onias the revenues of a considerable territory for the support of the temple. Josephus tells us that Onias urged as a reason for the construction of this temple that it would be in fulfilment of the prophecy in Isa. 19:19-22. Josephus goes on to say that this temple was built as an exact reproduction of the temple at Jerusalem and that it continued to exist as a place of worship until after the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, when troubles caused by Jewish zealots led the Roman government to close the temple at Leontopolis and discontinue its worship; (see [Fig. 12]).
The site of this temple was at Tell el-Yehudiyeh, the “Tell of the Jewess,” about 20 miles north of Cairo. This tell was excavated by Petrie in 1905-1906. He found there remains of the Jewish temple, which fully confirm the statements of Josephus. Not only the temple, but the form of the Jewish settlement, was made as far as possible a replica of the city of Jerusalem. One of the most interesting discoveries was a series of ovens for the roasting of Paschal lambs. Others of a similar character were found higher up in the mound, but this first series was most numerous. Petrie infers that the temple was dedicated by a great Passover Feast, to which Jews came in large numbers from throughout Egypt;[8] (see [Fig. 13]).