PHARAOH. The name given by the Hebrews to the monarch ruling in Egypt at the time, in the same manner as Caesar was applied to the Roman emperors, and as Rhan is to the Tartar and Shah to the Persian rulers. The word is of uncertain etymology, being capable of two derivations—viz., either pa ra, "the sun," which is the leading or first title of all Egyptian monarchs, or the popular expression, pi ouzo, or phottro, time king." It is even possible to derive it from pa beer, horus, another title of Egyptian monarchs. The greatest difficulties have been encountered in attempting to determine the particular monarchs who pass tinder this name in the Scriptures. Tho first-mentioned pharaoh is the one in whose reign Abraham visited Egypt, who Is sup posed by seine chronologists to have been one of the shepherd monarchs, but nothing can he offered beyond mere conjecture in support of this theory. Another pharaoh is the one in whose reign Joseph was brought to Egypt, and who was supposed by Eusebius to be Apophis, one of the later shepherd kings of the 17th dynasty, who are known from the monuments to have immediately preceded the 18th. Bunsen, indeed, places the arrival of Joseph in the reign of Usertesen, or, as he reads his name, Sesertesen I. of the 12th dynasty, in which indeed a famine is stated in the hieroglyphical texts to have happened, and in which it appears numerous officers were established to take charge of the grain. Arguments, however, may be adduced for Joseph having arrived in the time of the 12th dynasty, from the fact of the establishment of the family of Jacob in the land of Goshen, the importance to which Joseph had risen, and the omission of the name of any of the principal Egyptian cities in the narrative, and the fact of Joseph having married Asenath, the daughter of Potipherah, priest of Heliopolis, a city evidently the seat of the court under the 12th dynasty, as Guar or Avails was under the shepherds. Equal difficulty is experienced in determin ing the pharaoh who reduced the Israelites to bondage, employed them in the labors of the brick-field, and compelled them to build the treasure-cities of Pithom and Rameses. He appears to have meditated the total adsorption of the Hebrews into the
Egyptian race. All that is clear from the narrative is that the city of Rameses was called after his name, in the same manner as modern forts have been by contemporary rulers. Now frequent mention occurs in the papyri and other texts of the Jfolcatalu en Ramessu, or Tower of Rameses II., which is represented on the walls of Medinat-Alm; and this has induced Lepsius and Bunsen to depress the date of the exodus from 1401 B.C. to the close of the 19th dynasty, or after Rameses 11., a point controverted by other chronologists, who wish to elevate it to the middle of the 18111 dynasty, or 1732 B.C. To synchronize the former date. Lepsins takes the rabbinical date of 1314 B.C. for the exodus, or 1340 B.C. for the birth of 3Ioses. The pharaoh of the Exodus is supposed to be Merienptah or Menephthes, the son and successor of Rameses II. Philologically. this explanation is preferable, as the fixed point in the inquiry is the name of the Migdol of Mimeses, found both in the Scriptures and on the monuments of Egypt. Other pharaohs are mentioned; as the father of wife of Hada(' and mother of Genu both ; the pharaoh whose daughter Solomon married; pharaoh Nechao, or Necho II., who gave battle to Josiah, king of Judah. whom he slew at Megiddo, and who made war against the Syrians, defeated them at Magdolus, and took Cadytus or Katsh, on the Araina(a or Orontes. He was subsequently defeated by Nebuchadnezzar at Carchemish, 607 B.C. Pharaoh ifophra, was the Vaphris or Apries of the Greeks, whose destruction was prophesied by Jeremiah, and who was strangled 570 B.C.-131111SM iEgiiptemr &elle, iii p. 100; Lepsius, Einteit. p. 317; Nash, The Pharaoh of the Exodus (8vo, Lend. 186•2).