Importance of Egyptian for the Mosaic Corpus and Prophets

by koot van wyk (DLitt et Phil, ThD)

Kyungpook National University

Sangju Campus

South Korea

conjoint researcher for Avondale College

Australia

23 March 2009

Moses lived, studied and worked in Egypt in the royal palace. He was fluent in Akkadian, fluent in Egyptian, fluent in Hebrew of that time. The books of Job, Genesis to Deuteronomy and Psalm 90 came from his hand. There is a possibility that some songs collected in the Psalm corpus, Psalm 104-107 are also dating early to the time of the wanderings of Israel in the desert.

Lessons 20-21 by Gardiner is a discussion on numerals, time in Egyptian reckoning and also the verb.

Temple day was part of a 360 day cycle

One of the aspects that Gardiner discussed is that the temple day in Egypt was considered to be one of the 360 days. The temple year was thus 360 days long (Gardiner 1923/1988: 197 citing Siut I, 285).

ir hrw n ḥwt-ntr r-360 pw ḫnt rnpt

"as for a temple day, it is the three hundred and sixtieth part of (literally, out of) the year".

This is very remarkable since the religious year in Egypt had only 360 days but the Egyptian civil year had 365 days since 5 epagomenal years were added on to the 360 days (see Gardiner 1923/1988: 203).

When the Old Testament in the prophecies are dealing with periods, like Daniel with the 2300 days, 1260 days, 1290 days and 1335 days then this refer to a religious year of 360 days.

The Kassite hemerological years, which were kind of prophecies for the king as to what will happen every day in his year, were also 30 days x 12 months = 360 days in the year. An example is in the Instanbul Museum IM 505969 published by R. Labat and other examples are also known as R. Labat ,"Un Almanach Babylonien (V R  48-49)," RA 38/1 (1948): 13-40 which is a hemerological text dating to the time of Sargon II. Many examples can be cited  Sumer 17/1 (1961): 17-66; ZA 17 (1903): 238; ZA 18 (1904): 228-231; Iraq 21 (1959): 42-53. The Assyrians and Babylonians during the neo-Assyrian and neo-Babylonian period also knew of a 360 day religious year. That is beside their lunar year of 354 days.

Middle Egyptian is thus paramount for someone who wants to work with the Pentateuch and Job and Psalms. Many of the other authors of the  Old Testament knew the Mosaic corpus very well and borrowed loanwords from Moses which included these Egyptianisms  and a clarity of Egyptian linguistics and Egyptian culture can help to understand also Isaiah, Ezechiel and Jeremiah better. Certain hapax legomena in Job is shared only in Isaiah or Jeremiah and an understanding of Egyptian helps to bring clarity to the Old Testament.

Getting the Middle Egyptian Grammar of Alan Gardiner is a great start.   Patience is needed and time.  

Middle Egyptian Grammar Exercises and Answers Lesson XIX