PITHOM

Pithom

pı̄´thom (פּתם, pithōm; Πειθώ, Peithṓ (Exo_1:11)):

1. Meaning of Name:
Champollion (Gesenius, Lexicon, under the word) considered this name to mean “a narrow place” in Coptic, but it is generally explained to be the Egyptian Pa-tum, or “city of the setting sun.” It was one of the cities built by the Hebrews (see RAAMSES), and according to Wessel was the Thoum of the Antonine Itinerary.
Brugsch (History of Egypt, 1879, II, 343) says that it was identical with “Heracleopolis Parva, the capital of the Sethroitic nome in the age of the Greeks and Romans ... half-way on the great road from Pelusium to Tanis (Zoan), and this indication given on the authority of the itineraries furnishes the sole means of fixing its position.” This is, however, disputed. Tum was worshipped at Thebes, at Zoan, and probably at Bubastis, while Heliopolis (Brugsch, Geogr., I, 254) was also called Pa-tum.
There were apparently several places of the name; and Herodotus (ii. 158) says that the Canal of Darius began a little above Bubastis, “near the Arabian city Patournos,” and reached the Red Sea.

2. Situation:
(1) Dr. Naville's Theory.
In 1885 Dr. E. Naville discovered a Roman milestone of Maximian and Severus, proving that the site of Heroopolis was at Tell el Maḥûṭah (“the walled mound”) in Wâdy Tumeilât. The modern name he gives as Tell el Maskhûtah, which was not that heard by the present writer in 1882. This identification had long been supposed probable. Excavations at the site laid bare strong walls and texts showing the worship of Tum. None was found to be older than the time of Rameses II - who, however, is well known to have defaced older inscriptions, and to have substituted his own name for that of earlier builders. A statue of later date, bearing the title “Recorder of Pithom,” was also found at this same site. Dr. Naville concluded that this city must be the Old Testament Pithom, and the region round it Succoth - the Egyptian T-k-u (but see SUCCOTH). Brugsch, on the other hand, says that the old name of Heropolis was Ḳes (see GOSHEN), which recalls the identification of the Septuagint (Gen_46:28); and elsewhere (following Lepsius) he regards the same site as being “the Pa-Khetam of Rameses II” (see ETHAM), which Lepsius believed to be the Old Testament Rameses (see RAAMSES) mentioned with Pithom (Brugsch, Geogr., I, 302, 262). Silvia in 385 AD was shown the site of Pithom near Heroopolis, but farther East, and she distinguishes the two; but in her time, though Heroopolis was a village, the site of Pithom was probably conjectural. In the time of Minepthah, son of Rameses II (Brugsch, History, II, 128), we have a report that certain nomads from Aduma (or Edom) passed through “the Khetam (or fort) of Minepthah-Hotephima, which is situated in T-k-u, to the lakes (or canals) of the city Pi-tum of Minepthah-Hotephima, which are situated in the land of T-k-u, in order to feed themselves and to feed their herds.”

(2) Patoumos of Herodotus.
These places seem to have been on the eastern border of Egypt, but may have been close to the Bitter Lakes or farther North (see SUCCOTH), whereas Tell el Maḥûṭah is about 12 miles West of Ism'ailieh, and of Lake Timsah. The definition of the Pithom thus noticed as being that of Minepthah suggests that there was more than one place so called, and the Patoumos of Herodotus seems to have been about 30 miles farther West (near Zagazig and Bubastis) than the site of Heropolis, which the Septuagint indentifies with Goshen and not with Pithom. The latter is not noticed as on the route of the Exodus, and is not identified in the Old Testament with Succoth. In the present state of our knowledge of Egyptian topography, the popular impression that the Exodus must have happened in the time of Minepthah, because Pithom was at Heropolis and was not built till the time of Rameses II, must be regarded as very hazardous. See EXODUS. The Patoumos of Herodotus may well have been the site, and may still be discovered near the head of Wâdy Tumeilât or near Bubastis.

Exo 1:8-14
The promised blessing was manifested chiefly in the fact, that all the measures adopted by the cunning of Pharaoh to weaken and diminish the Israelites, instead of checking, served rather to promote their continuous increase.
Exo_1:8-9
“There arose a new king over Egypt, who knew not Joseph.” וַיָּקָם signifies he came to the throne, קוּם denoting his appearance in history, as in Deu_34:10. A “new king” (lxx: βασιλεὺς ἕτερος; the other ancient versions, rex novus) is a king who follows different principles of government from his predecessors. Cf. חֲדָשִׁים אֱלֹהִים, “new gods,” in distinction from the God that their fathers had worshipped, Jdg_5:8; Deu_32:17. That this king belonged to a new dynasty, as the majority of commentators follow Josephus
(Note: Ant. ii. 9, 1. Τῆς βασιλέιας εἰς ἄλλον οἶκον μεταληλυθυΐ́ας.)
in assuming, cannot be inferred with certainty from the predicate new; but it is very probable, as furnishing the readiest explanation of the change in the principles of government. The question itself, however, is of no direct importance in relation to theology, though it has considerable interest in connection with Egyptological researches.
(Note: The want of trustworthy accounts of the history of ancient Egypt and its rulers precludes the possibility of bringing this question to a decision. It is true that attempts have been made to mix it up in various ways with the statements which Josephus has transmitted from Manetho with regard to the rule of the Hyksos in Egypt (c. Ap. i. 14 and 26), and the rising up of the “new king” has been identified sometimes with the commencement of the Hyksos rule, and at other times with the return of the native dynasty on the expulsion of the Hyksos. But just as the accounts of the ancients with regard to the Hyksos bear throughout the stamp of very distorted legends and exaggerations, so the attempts of modern inquirers to clear up the confusion of these legends, and to bring out the historical truth that lies at the foundation of them all, have led to nothing but confused and contradictory hypotheses; so that the greatest Egyptologists of our own days, - viz., Lepsius, Bunsen, and Brugsch - differ throughout, and are even diametrically opposed to one another in their views respecting the dynasties of Egypt. Not a single trace of the Hyksos dynasty is to be found either in or upon the ancient monuments. The documental proofs of the existence of a dynasty of foreign kings, which the Vicomte de Rougé thought that he had discovered in the Papyrus Sallier No. 1 of the British Museum, and which Brugsch pronounced “an Egyptian document concerning the Hyksos period,” have since then been declared untenable both by Brugsch and Lepsius, and therefore given up again. Neither Herodotus nor Diodorus Siculus heard anything at all about the Hyksos though the former made very minute inquiry of the Egyptian priests of Memphis and Heliopolis. And lastly, the notices of Egypt and its kings, which we meet with in Genesis and Exodus, do not contain the slightest intimation that there were foreign kings ruling there either in Joseph's or Moses' days, or that the genuine Egyptian spirit which pervades these notices was nothing more than the “outward adoption” of Egyptian customs and modes of thought. If we add to this the unquestionably legendary character of the Manetho accounts, there is always the greatest probability in the views of those inquirers who regard the two accounts given by Manetho concerning the Hyksos as two different forms of one and the same legend, and the historical fact upon which this legend was founded as being the 430 years' sojourn of the Israelites, which had been thoroughly distorted in the national interests of Egypt. - For a further expansion and defence of this view see Hävernick's Einleitung in d. A. T. i. 2, pp. 338ff., Ed. 2 (Introduction to the Pentateuch, pp. 235ff. English translation).)
The new king did not acknowledge Joseph, i.e., his great merits in relation to Egypt. יָדַע לֹא signifies here, not to perceive, or acknowledge, in the sense of not wanting to know anything about him, as in 1Sa_2:12, etc. In the natural course of things, the merits of Joseph might very well have been forgotten long before; for the multiplication of the Israelites into a numerous people, which had taken place in the meantime, is a sufficient proof that a very long time had elapsed since Joseph's death. At the same time such forgetfulness does not usually take place all at once, unless the account handed down has been intentionally obscured or suppressed. If the new king, therefore, did not know Joseph, the reason must simply have been, that he did not trouble himself about the past, and did not want to know anything about the measures of his predecessors and the events of their reigns. The passage is correctly paraphrased by Jonathan thus: non agnovit (חַכִּים) Josephum nec ambulavit in statutis ejus. Forgetfulness of Joseph brought the favour shown to the Israelites by the kings of Egypt to a close. As they still continued foreigners both in religion and customs, their rapid increase excited distrust in the mind of the king, and induced him to take steps for staying their increase and reducing their strength. The statement that “the people of the children of Israel” (יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּנֵי עַם lit., “nation, viz., the sons of Israel;” for עַם with the dist. accent is not the construct state, and ישראל בני is in apposition, cf. Ges. §113) were “more and mightier” than the Egyptians, is no doubt an exaggeration.
Exo_1:10-14
“Let us deal wisely with them,” i.e., act craftily towards them. הִתְחַכֵּם, sapiensem se gessit (Ecc_7:16), is used here of political craftiness, or worldly wisdom combined with craft and cunning (κατασοφισώμεθα, lxx), and therefore is altered into הִתְנַכֵּל in Psa_105:25 (cf. Gen_37:18). The reason assigned by the king for the measures he was about to propose, was the fear that in case of war the Israelites might make common cause with his enemies, and then remove from Egypt. It was not the conquest of his kingdom that he was afraid of, but alliance with his enemies and emigration. עָלָה is used here, as in Gen_13:1, etc., to denote removal from Egypt to Canaan. He was acquainted with the home of the Israelites therefore, and cannot have been entirely ignorant of the circumstances of their settlement in Egypt. But he regarded them as his subjects, and was unwilling that they should leave the country, and therefore was anxious to prevent the possibility of their emancipating themselves in the event of war. - In the form תִּקְרֶאנָה for תִּקְרֶינָה, according to the frequent interchange of the forms הל and אל (vid., Gen_42:4), nh is transferred from the feminine plural to the singular, to distinguish the 3rd pers. fem. from the 2nd pers., as in Jdg_5:26; Job_17:16 (vid., Ewald, §191c, and Ges. §47, 3, Anm. 3). Consequently there is no necessity either to understand מִלְחָמָה collectively as signifying soldiers, or to regard תִּקְרֶאנוּ drager ot , the reading adopted by the lxx (συμβῆ ἡμῖν), the Samaritan, Chaldee, Syriac, and Vulgate, as “certainly the original,” as Knobel has done.
The first measure adopted (Exo_1:11) consisted in the appointment of taskmasters over the Israelites, to bend them down by hard labour. מִסִּים שָׂרֵי bailiffs over the serfs. מִסִּים from מַס signifies, not feudal service, but feudal labourers, serfs (see my Commentary on 1Ki_4:6). עִנָּה to bend, to wear out any one's strength (Psa_102:24). By hard feudal labour (סִבְלֹות burdens, burdensome toil) Pharaoh hoped, according to the ordinary maxims of tyrants (Aristot. polit., 5, 9; Liv. hist. i. 56, 59), to break down the physical strength of Israel and lessen its increase-since a population always grows more slowly under oppression than in the midst of prosperous circumstances-and also to crush their spirit so as to banish the very wish for liberty. - וַיִּבֶן - .ytrebil r, and so Israel built (was compelled to build) provision or magazine cities vid., 2Ch_32:28, cities for the storing of the harvest), in which the produce of the land was housed, partly for purposes of trade, and partly for provisioning the army in time of war; - not fortresses, πόλεις ὀχυραί, as the lxx have rendered it. Pithom was Πάτουμος; it was situated, according to Herodotus (2, 158), upon the canal which commenced above Bybastus and connected the Nile with the Red Sea. This city is called Thou or Thoum in the Itiner. Anton., the Egyptian article pi being dropped, and according to Jomard (descript. t. 9, p. 368) is to be sought for on the site of the modern Abassieh in the Wady Tumilat. - Raemses (cf. Gen_47:11) was the ancient Heroopolis, and is not to be looked for on the site of the modern Belbeis. In support of the latter supposition, Stickel, who agrees with Kurtz and Knobel, adduces chiefly the statement of the Egyptian geographer Makrizi, that in the (Jews') book of the law Belbeis is called the land of Goshen, in which Jacob dwelt when he came to his son Joseph, and that the capital of the province was el Sharkiyeh. This place is a day's journey (for as others affirm, 14 hours) to the north-east of Cairo on the Syrian and Egyptian road. It served as a meeting-place in the middle ages for the caravans from Egypt to Syria and Arabia (Ritter, Erdkunde 14, p. 59). It is said to have been in existence before the Mohammedan conquest of Egypt. But the clue cannot be traced any farther back; and it is too far from the Red Sea for the Raemses of the Bible (vid., Exo_12:37). The authority of Makrizi is quite counterbalanced by the much older statement of the Septuagint, in which Jacob is made to meet his son Joseph in Heroopolis; the words of Gen_46:29, “and Joseph went up to meet Israel his father to Goshen,” being rendered thus: εἰς συϚάϚτησιν Ἰσραὴλ τῷ πατρὶ αὐτοῦκαθ ̓ Ἡρώων πόλιν. Hengstenberg is not correct in saying that the later name Heroopolis is here substituted for the older name Raemses; and Gesenius, Kurtz, and Knobel are equally wrong in affirming that καθ ̓ ἩρώωϚ πόλιν is supplied ex ingenio suo; but the place of meeting, which is given indefinitely as Goshen in the original, is here distinctly named. Now if this more precise definition is not an arbitrary conjecture of the Alexandrian translators, but sprang out of their acquaintance with the country, and is really correct, as Kurtz has no doubt, it follows that Heroopolis belongs to the γῆ Ῥαμεσσῆ (Gen_46:28, lxx), or was situated within it. But this district formed the centre of the Israelitish settlement in Goshen; for according to Gen_47:11, Joseph gave his father and brethren “a possession in the best of the land, in the land of Raemses.” Following this passage, the lxx have also rendered גֹּשֶׁן אַרְצָה in Gen_46:28 by εἰς γῆν Ῥαμεσσῆ, whereas in other places the land of Goshen is simply called γῆ Γεσέμ (Gen_45:10; Gen_46:34; Gen_47:1, etc.). But if Heroopolis belonged to the γῆ Ῥαμεσσῆ, or the province of Raemses, which formed the centre of the land of Goshen that was assigned to the Israelites, this city must have stood in the immediate neighbourhood of Raemses, or have been identical with it. Now, since the researches of the scientific men attached to the great French expedition, it has been generally admitted that Heroopolis occupied the site of the modern Abu Keisheib in the Wady Tumilat, between Thoum = Pithom and the Birket Temsah or Crocodile Lake; and according to the Itiner. p. 170, it was only 24 Roman miles to the east of Pithom, - a position that was admirably adapted not only for a magazine, but also for the gathering-place of Israel prior to their departure (Exo_12:37).
But Pharaoh's first plan did not accomplish his purpose (Exo_1:12). The multiplication of Israel went on just in proportion to the amount of the oppression (כֵּן = כַּאֲשֶׁר prout, ita; פָּרַץ as in Gen_30:30; Gen_28:14), so that the Egyptians were dismayed at the Israelites (קוּץ to feel dismay, or fear, Num_22:3). In this increase of their numbers, which surpassed all expectation, there was the manifestation of a higher, supernatural, and to them awful power. But instead of bowing before it, they still endeavoured to enslave Israel through hard servile labour. In Exo_1:13, Exo_1:14 we have not an account of any fresh oppression; but “the crushing by hard labour” is represented as enslaving the Israelites and embittering their lives. פֶּרֶךְ hard oppression, from the Chaldee פְּרַךְ to break or crush in pieces. “They embittered their life with hard labour in clay and bricks (making clay into bricks, and working with the bricks when made), and in all kinds of labour in the field (this was very severe in Egypt on account of the laborious process by which the ground was watered, Deu_11:10), כָּל־עֲבֹדָתָם אֵת with regard to all their labour, which they worked (i.e., performed) through them (viz., the Israelites) with severe oppression.” כל־ע את is also dependent upon ימָרֲרו, as a second accusative (Ewald, §277d). Bricks of clay were the building materials most commonly used in Egypt. The employment of foreigners in this kind of labour is to be seen represented in a painting, discovered in the ruins of Thebes, and given in the Egyptological works of Rosellini and Wilkinson, in which workmen who are evidently not Egyptians are occupied in making bricks, whilst two Egyptians with sticks are standing as overlookers; - even if the labourers are not intended for the Israelites, as the Jewish physiognomies would lead us to suppose. (For fuller details, see Hengstenberg's Egypt and the Books of Moses, p. 80ff. English translation).