Allegedly, pharaoh—the chief adversary

was among the smitten Egyptians. If Amenhotep II actually was the exodus-pharaoh, then his reign would have ended abruptly during the year of the exodus, or ca. 1446 BC. Since he ruled at least 26 years, which will be proven below, his reign must have begun by ca. 1471 BC. The weakness with the death-in-the-Red-Sea theory, though, is that it cannot be synchronized with the reigns of the previous five pharaohs, whose regnal dates are known, being fixed by the Ebers Papyrus. Since regnal dates are known—except for that of Thutmose II, whose rule lasted from four to twelve years—Amenhotep II’s ninth year could not have begun in or before ca. 1471 BC. Even if Thutmose II ruled for the minimum of four years, the reign of Amenhotep II had to begin in ca. 1462 BC or later, leaving nine years too few for the reigns of all of the intervening monarchs. Therefore, due to limitations that represent fixed points in Biblical and Egyptian chronologies, if Amenhotep II was the exodus-pharaoh, he could not have died in the Red-Sea incident.If the exodus-pharaoh lived through the Red-Sea massacre, Ps 106:11 remains uncompromised. The text never specifically mentions pharaoh, so there is no reason to conclude that he drowned with his army. The hater and enemy of Israel is Egypt as a collective whole, and certainly not every Egyptian drowned in the Red Sea when “the water covered their adversaries,” so God delivered his people from Egypt itself. Only those Egyptian adversaries—as national representatives—who chased the Israelites into the sea were consumed by water, and since they were the taskforce dispatched on this mission, their defeat signals the demise of the entire nation.Moreover, not one of these representatives, who comprised the bulk of pharaoh’s vast imperial army, survived after the dividing walls of the sea collapsed. This is confirmed by the Mosaic text that probably provided the basis for the psalmist’s words: “The waters returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen, that is, in relation to Pharaoh’s entire army that followed them into the sea; not one of them remained” (Exod 14:28).2. Psalm 136:15 as a Proof-Text for the Death of the Exodus-Pharaoh in the Red Sea. The text most frequently used to assert that pharaoh died with his army is Ps 136:15. “But he overthrew pharaoh and his army in the Red Sea . . . .” A cursory reading of the text leads most to believe that because God “overthrew” pharaoh and his army, both parties must have died.60 However, the Hebrew verb ????????? (n‘r, “he shook off”) shows that God actually “shook off” the powerful pharaoh and his army, who were bothersome pests that God—whose might is far greater than theirs—merely brushed away. The same Hebrew verb is used in Ps 109:23, where David laments, “I am gone like a shadow when it lengthens; I am shaken off like the locust.” Here, he describes the sad condition of his suffering, as both lines of this synonymous parallelism indicate his feeling of being cast away, or discarded. The picture painted by the verb is that David has become as a locust that is casually flicked away from a man’s garment. Surely David was not describing his own demise and death! The context of Ps 136, which states that God “brought Israel out from their midst . . . with a strong hand and an outstretched arm” (Ps 136:11–12), confirms that the unequalled might of God is the thrust of the passage, thus accentuating the ease with which he shook off Israel’s adversary: the mighty Egyptian army.Another argument against the view that Ps 136:15 signals the death of pharaoh is that this verse is probably taken from Exod 14:27, which uses the same verb, “to shake off,” but (purposefully?) omits pharaoh from the list of those whom the Lord shook off from the Israelites’ garments. Instead, the text clearly states, “I [God] will be honored through pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord” (Exod 14:4; cf. 14:17). God was honored through pharaoh in the mass destruction of his army, but pharaoh did not have to die for this to occur.61 In Ps 136:15, the psalm writer was not rejoicing over the death of anyone, but that almighty God shook off the Egyptians from Israel’s garments by freeing them from their enemy’s clutches.3. The Death and Regnal Length of Amenhotep II.Under what circumstances, then, did Amenhotep II die? Fortunately, his mummified corpse has been preserved.62 Victor Loret, fresh from his discovery of the tomb of Thutmose III in the Valley of the Kings, discovered the royal tomb of Amenhotep II on 9 March 1898. Confirmation that this burial chamber belonged to Amenhotep II came when Loret identified his nomen and praenomen on the painted, quartzite sarcophagus. This magnificent sepulcher represented a first for the excavations in the Valley of the Kings, as the king actually was found in place in his own sarcophagus, albeit lying in a replacement cartonnage coffin.63a. An Indisputable Regnal Length of at Least 26 Years.While Thutmose III is documented to have died in Year 54, no evidence exists to date explicitly the regnal year of Amenhotep II’s death. The highest known regnal date among the indisputable evidence, Year 26, is inscribed on a wine juglet from the king’s Theban funerary temple.64 Redford, using questionable logic, asserts that since the juglet was found in the king’s funerary temple, Year 26 represents the end of his reign.65 Wente and Van Siclen dispute this assertion, though, showing evidence for the long-term storage of wine, and the active functioning of Egyptian mortuary temples long before the deaths of the pharaohs for whom they were built.66b. A Possible Regnal Length of at Least 30 or 35 Years.One source contributing to the argument that Amenhotep II reigned beyond 26 years is BM 10056. At least one scholar dates a fragmentary regnal year in v. 9,8 of this papyrus to “Year 30,” though he admits that the number also could be read differently, such as “Year 35.”67 If one of these readings is correct, Amenhotep II’s reign lasted at least 30 or 35 years. Many scholars have postulated that he reigned beyond 30 years because he observed a regnal jubilee called a sed festival, a celebration that historically marked the 30th year of a pharaoh’s reign. While the sed festival was used for centuries to honor this regnal anniversary,68 Der Manuelian warns against concluding too much about the regnal length of Amenhotep II just because he celebrated one: “No dates accompany the jubilee monuments [of Amenhotep II], and our understanding of the jubilee institution is too imperfect to allow us to assign an automatic ‘30th year’ at every mention of a hb-sed festival.”69c. A Possible Regnal Length of Exactly 37 1/3 Years.Certainly caution must be exercised before assigning a 30-year reign automatically to every pharaoh who celebrated this event, but the sed festival of Amenhotep II just may signify that his reign exceeded 30 years. More conclusive than the sed-festival evidence is that from Thutmose IV’s Lateran Obelisk, which was erected a full 35 years after the death of Thutmose III, to whom it was dedicated. Wente and Van Siclen suggest that the 35 years marks the length of the interceding reign of Amenhotep II minus the coregency with his father, which is known to be 2 1/3 years.70 If their argumentation is correct, Amenhotep II reigned exactly 37 1/3years, making him 55 years of age at the time of his death.d. A Lifespan of 55 Years.A lifespan of 55 years for Amenhotep II is deduced by adding his 37 1/3-year reign to the 18 years he lived before his coronation, a number taken from the larger of the two Sphinx Stelae of Amenhotep II: “Now his majesty appeared as king as a fine youth . . . having completed 18 years in his strength . . . ; now after these things, his majesty appeared as king.”71 An X-ray investigation of the royal mummies may assist in dating his regnal length. After an examination of the mummy of Amenhotep II,



Rosetta Stone