PHARAOH

fa'-ro, fa'-ra-o (par`oh; Pharao); Egyptian per aa, "great house"):em; the King James Version Pharacim): One of the families of temple-servants who returned with Zerubbabel (1 Esdras 5:31; not found in Ezra or Nehemiah).

1. The Use of Name in Egypt:

Many and strange differences of opinion have been expressed concerning the use of this name in Egypt and elsewhere, because of its importance in critical discussions (see below). Encyclopaedia Biblica says "a name given to all Egyptian kings in the Bible"; it also claims that the name could not have been received by the Hebrews before 1000 B.C. HDB (III, 819) says that a letter was addressed to Amenhotep as "Pharaoh, lord of," etc. According to Winckler's theory of a North Arabian Musri, it was the Hebrews alone in ancient times who adopted the term Pharaoh from the Egyptians, the name not being found even in the Tell el-Amarna Letters or anywhere else in cuneiform literature for the king of Egypt. Such a result is obtained according to Winckler's theory by referring every reference in cuneiform to "Pir`u, king of Musri" to the North Arabian country.

In Egyptian inscriptions the term "Pharaoh" occurs from the Pyramid inscriptions onward. At first it is used with distinct reference to its etymology and not clearly as an independent title. Pharaoh, "great house," like Sublime Porte, was applied first as a metaphor to mean the government. But as in such an absolute monarchy as Egypt the king was the government, Pharaoh was, by a figure of speech, put for the king. Its use in Egypt clearly as a title denoting the ruler, whoever he might be, as Caesar among the Romans, Shah among Persians, and Czar among Russians, belongs to a few dynasties probably beginning with the XVIIIth, and certainly ending not later than the XXIst, when we read of Pharaoh Sheshonk, but the Bible does not speak so, but calls him "Shishak king of Egypt" (1 Kings 14:25). This new custom in the use of the title Pharaoh does not appear in the Bible until we have "Pharaoh-necoh." Pharaoh is certainly used in the time of Rameses II, in the "Tale of Two Brothers" (Records of the Past, 1st series, II, 137; Recueil de Travaux, XXI, 13, l. 1).

2. Significance of Use in the Bible:

It appears from the preceding that Biblical writers use this word with historical accuracy for the various periods to which it refers, not only for the time of Necoh and Hophra, but for the time of Rameses II, and use the style of the time of Rameses II for the time of Abraham and Joseph, concerning which we have not certain knowledge of its use in Egypt. It is strongly urged that writers of the 7th or 5th century B.C. would not have been able to make such historical use of this name, while, to a writer at the time of the exodus, it would have been perfectly natural to use Pharaoh for the king without any further name; and historical writers in the time of the prophets in Palestine would likewise have used Pharaoh-necoh and Pharaoh Hophra. This evidence is not absolutely conclusive for an early authorship of the Pentateuch and historical books, but is very difficult to set aside for a late authorship (compare Genesis 12:14-20; Genesis 41:14 Exodus 1:11; Exodus 3:11 1 Kings 3:1; 1 Kings 14:25; 2 Kings 23:29 Jeremiah 44:30; also 1 Kings 11:19 2 Kings 18:21; 1 Chronicles 4:18).

M. G. Kyle

PHARAOH HOPHRA

hof'-ra (par`oh chophra`; Houaphre):

1. Sole King, 589-570 B.C.:

He is so called in Scripture (Jeremiah 44:30); Herodotus calls him Apries (ii.169). He is known on the monuments as Uah `ab `ra. He was the son of Psammetichus II, whose Greek mercenaries have left in scriptions upon the rocks of Abu-Sim-bel, and the grandson of Pharaoh-necoh. He reigned alone from 589 B.C. to 570 B.C., and jointly, by compulsion of his people, with his son-in-law Aahmes (Greek Amasis) for some years longer.

2. Alliance with Zedekiah:

No sooner had he mounted the throne than he yielded to the overtures of Zedekiah of Judah, who thought Hophra's accession a good opportunity for throwing off the yoke of Babylon. So, as Ezekiel says (17:15), "he rebelled against him (Nebuchadrezzar) in sending his ambassadors into Egypt, that they might give him horses and much people." Zedekiah had entered into the intrigue against the advice of Jeremiah, and it proved fatal to Zedekiah and the kingdom. Nebuchadrezzar was not slow to punish the disloyalty of his vassal, and in a brief space his armies were beleaguering Jerusalem. The Egyptians did indeed march to the relief of their allies, and the Chaldeans drew off their forces from Jerusalem to meet them. But the Egyptians returned without attempting to meet the Chaldeans in a pitched battle, and Jerusalem was taken, the walls broken down and the temple burnt up with fire.

3. Reception of Jeremiah and Jewish Captives:

When Jerusalem had fallen and Nebuchadrezzar's governor, Gedaliah, had been assassinated, the dispirited remnant of Judah, against the advice of Jeremiah, fled into Egypt, carrying the prophet with them. They settled at Tahpanhes, then Daphnae (modern Tell Defenneh), now identified with a mound bearing the significant name of Qatsr Bint el Yahudi, "the palace of the Jew's daughter." Here Pharaoh had a palace, for Jeremiah took great stones and hid them in mortar in the brickwork "which is at the entry of Pharaoh's house at Tahpanhes," and prophesied that Nebuchadrezzar would spread his royal pavilion over them (Jeremiah 43:8-13). The Pharaoh of that day was Hophra, and when the fortress of Tahpanhes was discovered and cleared in 1886, the open-air platform before the entrance was found. "Here the ceremony described by Jeremiah took place before the chiefs of the fugitives assembled on the platform, and here Nebuchadrezzar spread his royal pavilion. The very nature of the site is precisely applicable to all the events" (Flinders Petrie, Nebesheh and Defenneh, 51). It was in 568 B.C. that the prophecy was fulfilled when Nebuchadrezzar marched into the Delta.

4. Palace of Memphis:

More recently, in 1909, in the course of excavations carried on by the British School of Archaeology in Egypt, the palace of King Apries, Pharaoh Hophra, has been discovered on the site of Memphis, the ancient capital of Egypt. Under the gray mud hill, close to the squalid Arab village of Mitrahenny, which every tourist passes on the way to Sakkhara, had lain for centuries Hophra's magnificent palace, 400 ft. long by 200 ft., with a splendid pylon, an immense court, and stonelined halls, of which seven have been found intact. With many other objects of value there was found a fitting of a palanquin of solid silver, decorated with a bust of Hathor with a gold face. It is said to be of the finest workmanship of the time of Apries, a relic of the fire, which, Jeremiah predicted at Tahpanhes, the Lord of Hosts was to kindle "in the houses of the gods of Egypt" (Jeremiah 43:12).

Pharaoh Hophra, as Jeremiah prophesied (44:29), became the victim of a revolt and was finally strangled.

LITERATURE.

Flinders Petrie, History of Egypt, III, 344 f; Wiedemann, Geschichte von Alt-Aegypten, 190;; Flinders Petrie and J. H. Walker, Memphis, I, II ("The Palace of Apries"); Herodotus ii.161-69.

T. Nicol.