A Different View of the Exodus

I do not know the critical source of the story I am about to tell you. I can only tell you that my source was "The Abingdon Bible Commentary".

A brief paragraph in the "ABC" mentions that there was a legend still circulating among the Jews of the 1st century concerning the life of Moses. It said that Moses was actually a high ranking officer in the Egyptian army. In the course of his duties he led a military expedition south to do battle with the Ethiopians. After defeating them Moses took one of the Ethiopian king's daughters as his personal prize. Apparently this angered the Pharaoh and Moses fell into great disfavor as a result. It happened that at this particular time the Pharaoh was planning to clear his country of the human rabble that had been accumulating over the years. He decided that Moses met all the requirements needed to lead such a mob into the wilderness.

[Num.12:1 - And Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married, for he had married an Ethiopian woman.]

This story may not jibe well with the biblical account but it matches perfectly with the historical realities of the time. Consider the very name: Moses. It is an Egyptian name, not a Hebrew one. And in Egyptian the name means; 'Son of...' Such a name forces us to ask, 'Who was he the son of?' Since the father's name is not given it is reasonable to assume that either the father was not known or that the son was not worthy of the father's name.

In this case I think the father was known. And we can make certain assumptions about the mother as well. She was probably Semitic. Maybe a household servant or, more likely, a girl of the harem. In Egyptian royalty we know that scores of 'sons of...' might be produced in the lifetime of a Pharaoh. And though they might be bastards, they would be royal bastards and rank a notch above an ordinary Egyptian. We would expect that illegitimate offspring of royalty would receive an education or training in a trade of some sort. And what trade would fit the son of a king better than the military?

The Bible itself does not tell us what Moses did for a living before he killed the Egyptian overseer. But it does tell us that he was raised in the palace. So there is at least that much agreement between the legend and the Bible. The question then becomes, 'What evidence is there to support the claim that he might have been an Egyptian soldier?' To begin with there can be no doubt that he knew how to lead a large number of people. He knew how to command their respect. He knew how to organize them into a fighting force. He knew how to keep them alive in extreme conditions. And, most importantly, he knew where he was going. He'd been to Palestine before! Egypt kept military posts in Palestine just as we keep bases around the world today. And if he'd never been posted there he would surely have done battle there. Palestine was the DMZ of its day.

Next we have to ask what kind of people were these that Moses was given to lead? It wasn't the biblical 12 tribes. We know that because they were well entrenched in the land of Canaan in 1223 BC and would remain there for the next four centuries. You could say that individuals within the Exodus were descendants of Hebrew captives but none of these were pure blooded 'sons' of any tribe. The genes of this pool came from everywhere in the known world. Together they formed a new tribe:

[Ex.2:1-10 "And there was a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi, and the woman conceived and bare a son...And she called his name Moses...]
[Ex.6:16-20 "And these are the names of the sons of Levi...Aaron and Moses..."]

Only one tribe came out of Egypt under Moses' leadership. When it managed to survive its journey to Canaan they were refused entrance. They were cursed and given an insulting name because of their mixed blood. They were called "the joined". We know them from the Bible as the Levites.

The Bible tells us that the Levites had no inheritance in the land. They had no inheritance because by the time they arrived the other tribes had laid claim to every square inch of Palestine. Their inheritance was the priesthood.