![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() The princes are prostrate, saying: “Mercy!” He was born as the one destined to be her protector, the King of Upper and Lower Egypt: Ba-en-Re Meri-Amon the Son of Re: Mer-ne-Ptah Hotep-hir-Maat. Re has turned himself around (again) to Egypt. There is no cry of people as when there is mourning. There is no breaking out of a cry in the night: “Halt! Behold, a comer comes with the speech of strangers!,” (but) one goes and comes with singing. The cattle of the field are left as free to roam without herdsman, (even) crossing the flood of the stream. The Madjoi are stretched out as they sleep the Nau and Tekten are in the meadows as they wish. The battlements of the wall are calm in the sun until their watchers may awake. The forts are left to themselves, the wells (lie) open, accessible to the messengers. One walks with unhindered stride on the way, for there is no fear at all in the heart of the people. How fortunate is he, the lord of command!Īh, how pleasant it is to sit when there is gossip!” “How amiable is he, the victorious ruler! Which Mer-ne-Ptah Hotep-hir-Maat made in Tehenu: Jubilation has gone forth in the towns of Egypt. It is Amon who binds him with his hand, so that he may be delivered to his ka in Hermonthis the King of Upper and Lower Egypt: Ba-en-Re Meri-Amon the Son of Re: Mer-ne-Ptah Hotep-hir-Maat. Now behold, the swift carries off the swift the Lord, conscious of his strength, will ensnare him. Give him into the hand of Mer-ne-Ptah Hotep-hir-Maat, that he may make him disgorge what he has swallowed, like a crocodile. The stela was discovered by 1896 by William Flinders Petrie. The back side of the stela records information from Amenhotep III, grandfather of Tutankhamen / Tutankhaton. Horus, the falcon-headed god in his guise as the morning sun, stands at far right, the goddess Mut, wife of Amon, at far left. Merneptah stands to Amon’s right and left, saluting his divine patron. In the center of the symmetrical scene at the top of the stela, the god Amon-Re appears twice under the winged sun-disk. offspring, of Israel had been wiped out is a conventional boast of power at this period.) He also claims in line 27, “Israel is laid waste, his seed is not.” (Merneptah exaggerates here the statement that the “seed,” i.e. Found in his funerary temple in western Thebes, among his list of fallen enemies Merneptah mentions the city-states of Ashkelon and Gezer, along with settled peoples such as the Hatti (Hittites). Pharaoh Merneptah (Mer-ne-Ptah) commissioned the victory hymn engraved on this granite stela to celebrate a military campaign in Syria-Palestine. What more would it take to convince the naysayers?” C.Įgyptologist William Dever notes: “The Merneptah Stele is … just what skeptics, mistrusting the Hebrew Bible (and archaeology), have always insisted upon as corroborative evidence: an extrabiblical text, securely dated, and free of biblical or pro-Israel bias. Thus, Israel was definitely in Palestine by ca 1220 B. Israel was well enough established by that time among the other peoples of Canaan to have been perceived by Egyptian intelligence as a possible challenge to Egyptian hegemony. The word “Israel” is preceded by the Egyptian determinative for “people” or “ethnic group,” and Israel’s presence on the stele indicates that the Israelites were an important enough political force in Canaan at this early date for a Pharaoh in the 1200s B. C., constitutes an official recognition of a people called Israel in extra-biblical documents. 1224-1214 BC), boasting of victories over foreign nations to his north, claims to have badly defeated “Israel” in a series of comments about victories over groups in “Canaan.” The stele, dating to c. Early Israel’s presence in the land of Canaan is validated by this stela. The Merneptah Stele (Cairo 34025) found in the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, Cairo, Egypt, is commented upon by leading Egyptologist, Biblical and Old Testament scholar, and evangelical Christian Dr. ![]()
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