Page 24 - Advanced Biblical Backgrounds Revised

The social and economic culture of Egypt:
Egypt was an economic might of the patriarchal world. Its location on the Mediterranean Sea and the
Nile was instrumental in Egypt’s rise to prominence. Egyptian families had many children. Those in more
affluent families would hire a wet nurse to care for them. Those in less affluent families would nurse
their own children. This is consistent with the daughter of Pharaoh hiring the mother of Moses to nurse
the baby. Circumcision was a regular practice of the Egyptians that partially marked the transfer of being
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a boy to a man.

Marriage was often arranged among families. Usually, when the children were young. In Egypt, the
practice of a barren woman giving her slave to a husband as a concubine was normal. The couple would
then adopt a son born to the concubine as their own. This again gives a background that explains Sarah
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was giving her slave to Abraham.

Egypt offered one of the greatest
educations available at the time. They also
were known for the process of
mummification. Joseph was mummified
when he died in Egypt in Genesis 50:2-3.
This picture of an Egyptian mummy was
taken when they were on display at the
Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC.
The Bible records Moses taking Joseph’s
bones with the people during the exodus
in Exodus 24:32.
Economically the Egyptians were known
for trade, agriculture, and cattle. The Nile provided the method to ship cargo up and down Egypt and
throughout the world. The Egyptians did business with many other lands such as Phoenicia, Canaan,
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Crete, and many other regions.

The exodus conception in Jewish thought:
The exodus is the story of how God delivered His people and brought them to the land He promised. It
was seen by Jews as proof of Yahweh’s supremacy over the powers of the earth and the cosmos.
Because of the miraculous intervention of God on their behalf, the vivid memories of the events of the
exodus largely shaped the Jewish view of God’s interaction. Michael Fishbane explains that “the exodus
tradition was used, from the first, as a paradigmatic teaching for present and future generations.” In
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other words, it became the primary teaching pattern to teach the next generations. This continued
throughout the exiles during the empires of Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome. Exodus 13:8 made this
pattern of teaching standard when Moses said to the people, “You shall tell your son on that day, ‘It is
because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt” (ESV). The work of God in the exodus is
what gave hope to the Jews in the exiles that were to come. God had delivered once and established His
people in the promised land. He would do so again. This language is seen throughout Isaiah. Isaiah says

42 Voss, Nelson's New Illustrated Bible Manners and Customs, 68.
43 Ibid., 68-69.
44 Ibid., 76-77.
45 Michael Fishbane, “The Exodus Motif/The Paradigm of Historical Renewal,” in Text and Texture: A Literary
Reading of Selected Texts, ed. Fishbane (Oxford, England: One World, 1998), 121.

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