Rameses

Biblical References

Rameses appears in four places in the Old Testament.

• Genesis 47:11: At Pharaoh's command, Joseph settled his father Jacob and his brothers "in the best of the land, in the land of Rameses." In this verse Rameses refers not to a single city but to a region.
• Exodus 1:11: While oppressed in Egypt, the children of Israel built for Pharaoh "treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses." A treasure city, or store city, was a city where grain and other supplies were stockpiled.
• Exodus 12:37: After the final night of the ten plagues, the children of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth. The text records their number as "about six hundred thousand on foot that were men, beside children."
• Numbers 33:3, 5: Rameses heads the list of encampments on the wilderness journey. Israel departed from Rameses on the fifteenth day of the first month, the day after the Passover, and encamped at Succoth.

Background

The name Rameses is the same as the ancient Egyptian royal name Ramesses, which is commonly interpreted to mean "born of Ra," the sun god. Because the Hebrew text has two spellings, some English Bibles render the name as Raamses in Exodus 1:11 and as Rameses in the other verses. The New Korean Revised Version uses a single form, "Raamset," in every occurrence.

Many scholars connect the city with Pi-Ramesses, the capital that Ramesses II built in the eastern Delta. Its site is commonly identified with modern Qantir and nearby Tell el-Dab'a. An earlier view, once widely held, identified it with Tanis. Because scholars differ on its location, it is difficult to identify it definitively with a single site. In the biblical text, Rameses is portrayed as lying near the land of Goshen, where Israel lived.

Significance in the Whole of Scripture

Rameses was both the scene of Israel's bondage and the point of departure for the Exodus. From the city they had been forced to build, the Israelites set out through God's deliverance and began their wilderness journey. The name Rameses does not appear in the New Testament. However, the theme of deliverance from Egypt continues in passages that look back on the Exodus as a whole, such as Stephen's sermon (Acts 7) and 1 Corinthians 10:1–4.

Interpretation and Debated Issues

The date of the Exodus. The reference to Raamses in Exodus 1:11 is frequently cited in discussions of the date of the Exodus.

• Those who place the Exodus in the thirteenth century BC (the late-date view) regard the city's name as consistent with the era of Ramesses II.
• Those who argue for the fifteenth century BC on the basis of 1 Kings 6:1 (the early-date view) explain it differently, holding either that an older place name was replaced with a later, more familiar one or that the name Ramesses was already in use before that time.

The question divides along the lines of individual scholars and theological positions rather than denominations.

The wording of Genesis 47:11. The appearance of the name "land of Rameses" in Genesis 47:11, which concerns the time of Joseph, is also a subject of discussion. Many interpreters understand it as the writer's use of a later place name familiar to his readers.

Symbolic readings in preaching. In sermons on the Exodus, Rameses is sometimes used as a figure for a life of sin and bondage, the place the believer must leave behind. This is the preacher's spiritual application; the text itself does not assign such a meaning.