As has been frequently pointed out, famines occurred from time to time in Egypt, and records [pg 261] of them are in existence. Even before the time of the Hyksos kings, a failure of the waters of the Nile to rise to their ordinary height would bring great want and distress. At such times the governors of the various provinces of the kingdom gloried, as Ebers says, in helping their subjects, and saving them from distress. Thus Ameni or Amen-em-ha, whose tomb is at Benihasan, praises himself in the following words—
“I cultivated the entire nome of Maḫ with many workpeople, I troubled no child and oppressed no widow, neither did I keep a fisherman from his fishing, or a herdsman from his herd. There was no head of the village whose people I had taken away for compulsory labour, and there was no one unhappy in my days or hungry in my time. When, however, a famine arose, I tilled all the fields in the nome of Maḫ, from its southern to its northern boundary, and gave nourishment and life to its inhabitants. So there was no one in the nome who died of hunger. To the widow I allowed as much as to the wife of a man, and in all that I did I never preferred the great man to the small one. When the Nile rose again, and everything flourished—fields, trees, and all else—I cut off nothing from the fields.”—Ebers in Bædeker's Upper Egypt, 1892, p. 15.
Amen-em-ha departed this life in the 43rd year of Usertesen I., or about 2714 b.c.
More interesting still, however, is the famine which occurred in the time of Baba, or Beby, as his name is also written. This functionary actually lived during the period of the dominion of the later Hyksos kings, and therefore very close to the time of Joseph. According to Brugsch, Baba lived and worked under the native king Ra-seqenen or Seqenen-Rê III., at the city now represented by the ruins of El-Kâb. Though the famine of which he speaks lasted [pg 262] “many years,” and notwithstanding that the ruler whom he served was a contemporary of 'Apop'i, the Apophis of Josephus, in whose reign, according to this Jewish historian, Joseph lived, it is thought that there is no reason to regard the calamity here referred to as being the famine of which so full an account is given in Genesis—such a supposition is “entirely gratuitous,” according to the writer in Bædeker's Upper Egypt. However this may be, there is no doubt that it is a very important parallel, and would imply that two disastrous famines took place in Egypt in close succession.
The following is Brugsch's translation of this text—
“The chief of the table of princes, Baba, the risen again, speaks thus: ‘I loved my father, I honoured my mother; my brother and my sisters loved me. I stepped out of the door of my house with a benevolent heart; I stood there with refreshing hand, and splendid were the preparations of what I collected for the feast-day. Mild was my heart, free from noisy angers. The god bestowed upon me a rich fortune on earth. The city wished me health and a life full of freshness. I punished the evildoers. The children who stood opposite me in the town during the days which I have fulfilled were, small as well as great, 60; there were prepared for them as many beds, chairs (?) as many, tables (?) as many. They all consumed 120 ephas of durra, the milk of three cows, 52 goats, and nine she-asses, of balsam a hin, and of oil two jars.
“ ‘My speech may appear a joke to some opponent. But I call as witness the god Month that my speech is true. I had all this prepared in my house; in addition I gave cream in the pantry and beer in the cellar in a more than sufficient number of hin measures.
“ ‘I collected the harvest, a friend of the harvest-god. I was watchful at the time of sowing. And now, [pg 263] when a famine arose, lasting many years, I issued corn to the city at each famine.’ ”[53]
As, in Hebrew, “seven” is often a round number, equivalent to the English “several,” the parallel is noteworthy. An additional remark upon the subject of the Pharaoh of Joseph by Ebers (Smith's Dict. of the Bible, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 1729) is sufficiently striking. He says that the Byzantine chronographer who is known under the name of Syncelles (he held the office of Syncellus or suffragan in his monastery), like Josephus and others, calls the Pharaoh of Joseph Apophis. Now Arab tradition, “in which little or no reliance can be placed,” says that he was an Amalekite of the name of Raian ibn el-Walid, and Naville, when excavating for the Egypt Exploration Fund, at Bubastis, found a block with the name of Apophis, and near it the lower part of a statue of black granite with the name of Ian-Ra or Ra-ian, in hieroglyphics. In consequence of this, Dr. Rieu and Mr. Cope Whithouse maintain that this Arab tradition was founded on fact. “We must therefore leave it uncertain,” adds Prof. Ebers, “whether Joseph came down into Egypt in the reign of Apophis, or in the reign of the hitherto unknown Raian.” Perhaps both are right, and Joseph was in Egypt during the reigns of two or more Egyptian kings. Traditions are sometimes strangely correct, in certain points, though grossly untrustworthy in others.
In Ebers's article to which reference has already been made, the writer is of opinion that Joseph met the king of Egypt on the occasion of the interpretation of the latter's dream, either at Tanis, the Zoan of the English translation (better Ṣo'an), the Arab. Ṣân, borrowed to all appearance from the Coptic Dzhane (Dzhani, Dzhaane, Dzhaani), from the Egyptian Dzha'an, or at Bubastis, the Egyptian Pi-Bast, the Pi-Beseth of Ezekiel xxx. 17, or at Memphis, the Egyptian [pg 264] Men-nofr, the Biblical Moph or Noph. Of these three sites the first (Tanis) is considered the most probable. It is situated at the north-east of the Delta, and was founded, according to Numbers xiii. 22, seven years after Hebron. From this statement, one would think that there must be some connection between these two places, or else some historical fact is to be associated with it. One thing is certain, and that is, that Tanis was the residence of the Hyksos kings, who held court there for a considerable period, as did also many who preceded and followed them. The ruins are extensive, and the place is noted for its Hyksos sphinxes, in whose faces “the coarse Hyksos type” is strongly marked. The officers under the Pharaoh of the Exodus speak, in their letters, of the life there as being sweet, and praise the neighbourhood for its fertility and the abundance of the food it produced (Ebers).