Israel Named on the Merneptah Stele

Merneptah, the son and successor of Ramesses II (Merneptah Stele museum record JE 31408), faced an invasion of Egypt from Libya in the fifth year of his reign and turned it back. A hymn celebrating the victory (Merneptah Stele lines 1–26) was carved on a granite stele (Merneptah Stele museum record JE 31408) more than three metres high (Petrie, Six Temples at Thebes p. 10). The stone was an old one. It had been made for Amenhotep III, and Merneptah’s text was cut on its back (Merneptah Stele museum record JE 31408). It stood in the first court of Merneptah’s mortuary temple on the west bank at Thebes, where Flinders Petrie found it fallen on its face in 1896 (Petrie, Six Temples at Thebes p. 13).

Almost all of the twenty-eight lines are about Libya (Merneptah Stele lines 1–26). The closing lines turn to the rest of Egypt’s neighbours. No one among the foreign peoples lifts his head: Libya is wasted and the Hittite land is at peace; Canaan is plundered, Ashkelon carried off and Gezer seized (Merneptah Stele lines 26–28). Yanoam is “made as a thing not existing”, and then comes the line that gives the stele its modern name: “Israel is desolated, his seed is not” (Merneptah Stele line 27).

The statement is short, and it is a boast. What it shows is limited but firm. A group called Israel existed in Merneptah’s fifth year. It was in or near Canaan, since it is listed there with Ashkelon, Gezer and Yanoam. And, as the museum’s record notes, the name refers to a people and not to a state (Merneptah Stele museum record JE 31408); Wilhelm Spiegelberg, who first published the text, rendered it “the people of Israel” (Petrie, Six Temples at Thebes p. 28). The stele says nothing of where this people came from. It does not mention Moses, a stay in Egypt or an exodus.

No undisputed older mention of Israel outside the Bible is known. For the dispute about the date of the Exodus from Egypt the stele is the one fixed point: on any reckoning Israel has to be in or near Canaan by about 1208 BC. Beyond that it has been read in several ways from the start. Petrie, publishing the find, set out five different views of how these Israelites might relate to those of the Bible (Petrie, Six Temples at Thebes p. 30).

How this is dated

Estimated date. A scholarly estimate from primary evidence, with a margin of years.

The stele dates itself to the third day of the third month of the third season in the fifth year of Merneptah (Merneptah Stele line 1). Turning that into a calendar year depends on the reconstruction of Egyptian chronology. On the one now most used, Ramesses II reigned for 66 years, about 1279–1213 BC, and Merneptah about 1213–1203 BC, so that year 5 falls about 1209 or 1208 BC. The reign dates are those given by James K. Hoffmeier, “What Is the Biblical Date for the Exodus? A Response to Bryant Wood”, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 50 (2007), p. 232, who puts the campaign about 1208 BC (p. 243). Other reconstructions move the reign by some years; the older “high” chronology put Ramesses II at 1304–1237 BC (Hoffmeier, p. 239). The stele dates the Libyan victory, not the fighting in Canaan, which is mentioned only in passing.

The writing of the name, which marks Israel as a people and not as a city or a land, is studied by Michael G. Hasel, “Israel in the Merneptah Stela”, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 296 (1994), pp. 45–61. J. H. Breasted showed that “his seed is not” is a set phrase used of other defeated enemies (Ancient Records of Egypt, vol. 3, 1906, §§ 603–605). A reading of “Israel” on an older inscribed block in Berlin, proposed by Manfred Görg, is disputed; Hoffmeier rejects it (pp. 241–242).

Israel Named on the Merneptah Stele

How this is dated

Primary sources

The Merneptah Stele (Israel Stela)

Six Temples at Thebes, 1896