EGYPTIAN "GOD" WHOSE FIRSTBORN SON'S DEATH WAS A SYMBOLIC OF YHWH'S JUDGEMENT
As early as 1278 BCE a pharaoh was praying to goddess Ma'at and other deities that they may have with his side until at least of his 30 years of reign.
Obviously his fervent wish was to secure his name to be written in Egyptian history as one of the Egyptian gods.
Heb sed will be received by a pharaoh in a jubilee festival when he reached his regnal Year 30, the same celebration when he would be ritually transformed into a god. Rameses II was determined for this end when he inaugurated the building of two temples of gods at Abu Simbel in 1255 BCE. At the entrance of the temple are four giant statutes of the king himself, proudly implying that this is the domain where Rameses is a god. The place was known from ancient as
"Rameses Miry-Amun,"
named after the pharaoh.
Moses aliased his eldest sibling in 1228 BCE as
" Miriam,"
likely derived from the name of Rameses, to mean "rebellious" as Moses inculcated to the Hebrews that the pharaoh was stubborn or rebellious against YHWH.
Rameses made many canals and ponds or lakes in the capital city, and one of their functions, besides being "walls" against enemies and being "highways" for citizens, was to host a lot of frogs, which symbolize producing many children, water, and regeneration and rebirth. The image of frog called hefnu is actually the number "100,000" in hieroglyphic writing system.
Many years are needed for the preparation of the sed festival as stone-cutters would have to search stones to build accomodations and shelters for the royal family, the visitors, government officials, and idols.
The pharaoh would have to make invitations to be sent to Foreign Dignitaries and envoys. Officials and representatives all over Egypt were invited, too.
On the week-long feast, the pharaoh would perform some rituals, including sleeping in his burial coffin, only to be awakened by deities ('voices of gods') on the morrow.
While kneeling with his arms out, Rameses opened his palms to receive the "heb sed" (bowl with frogs) from a representative of an Egyptian god. And then he stood up, and god Thoth through the voice of a priest would say:
“Receive the Sed Festival from Ra and the years from your father Amun, so that you can rile as King for Eternity.”
To perpetuate this event, the pharaoh wrote it on the 3rd Pylon on the North Wall in Karnak Temple.
In this festival he would ritually transform into a god. Rameses was too serious of this new job, he let his eldest son to sit on his throne and act on his behalf. So, while the pharaoh was absent and performing his duty as an Egyptian god, his eldest son was functioning as the de facto pharaoh.
It seems that Rameses II was cursed to have no firstborn son would succeed him, his eldest son died and the second eldest son, Ramesses B was declared as the heir (Crown Prince) in 1254 BCE, just after king Rameses the Great inaugurated the temple of Abu Simbel.
Prince Ramesses B was the eldest brother of prince Merneptah.
Moses had a knowledge about the curse on the firstborn sons of the Egyptians that was taking its effect likely in some Abibs or spring seasons, besides of the fact that Caphtorites were now migrating to some lands near the border of Egypt, and used this as an advantage to warn the king.
The pharaoh believed that a god could talk through the voice of a prophet. And he was aware of the fact that a tribe of wandering Shasu was living in the "Land of Yahweh." In fact, Rameses himself identified their geographic location near Seir south of Arad.
Hoping that the king would grant his request to celebrate feast in the desert (to anticipate Pharaoh's sed festival), Moses said to man the sitting on the throne:
" ... Thus saiys YHWH God of Israel,
'Let my people go, that they may hold a
feast
unto Me in the wilderness.'
And Pharaoh said, Who is Yahweh, that I should obey His
voice
to let Israel go? I know not Yahweh,
neither will I let Israel go.
And they said,
'The God of the Hebrews has met with us: let us go, we pray you, three days' journey into the desert, and sacrifice unto YHWH our God; lest He fall upon us with pestilence, or with the sword. " - Exodus 5:1-3
This request was irritating on the ears of Egyptians because it might suggest trickery, as according to the legend Set of desert and violence tricked Osiris to climb into a coffin and then threw away the coffin to Nile river whence it reached Byblos, where a tree grew up, sandwiching it inside the tree's trunk. That tree was cut down and used as a pillar in Egypt. And this was likely where the idea of "pillar" of Byblos ('Herakles') came from to mark where the rebellion started by Mu-ku-su-us (Moses) during Late Bronze Age collapse.
Hearing about making a feast for a God in the desert...
" ... the king of Egypt said unto them, Wherefore do you, Moses and Aaron, let the people from their works? get you unto your burdens. " - Exodus 5:4
In this instance, Moses is giving a warning about the drawing near of pestilence and battles and connected it to the God of the Hebrews (Habiru/Hapiru).
During the Amarna period, monotheistic God of king Akhenaten could be likely blamed for the pandemic that spread out in Hittite and Egyptian lands, and might be the reason why Tutankhaten did not hesitate to abandon the city of the monotheistic pharaohs in Amarna after the clergy of Amun and Re influenced the teenager pharaoh.
Now, Moses was predicting that the Hebrews' God would bring pestilence to Pihahirot (Avaris), Egypt if the pharaoh would reject the request to let them celebrate a feast in the desert.
The way Moses had talked to the guy on the throne, it seemed for the king that the voice was not coming from any other god but from Moses only.
To reduce the importance of the power of the pharaoh, Moses preached himself as a "God" to pharaoh and Aaron his mouthpiece or prophet (Exodus 7:1). According to king Rameses III, he "treated gods as just like humans" (Papyrus Harris I, 75.3-6).
The de facto pharaoh said to Moses:
"... Get thee from me, take heed to thyself, see my face no more; for in that day thou seest my face thou shalt die.
And Moses said, Thou hast spoken well, I will see thy face again no more. " - Exodus 10:28-29 (KJV)
Moses predicted that he would not see again the face of the de facto pharaoh.
Why?
Moses had a knowledge that the said man on the throne would be died sooner after their meeting. And the person that that time sitting on the throne was no other than but the firstborn son of the king.
Prince Ramesses B, the acting pharaoh, died when the pandemic on human spread in Africa in 1229 BCE, particularly in the Delta.
" And all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the
firstborn of Pharaoh that sitteth upon his
throne,
even unto the firstborn of the maidservant that is behind the mill; and all the firstborn of beasts. " - Exodus 11:5 (KJV)
The prediction of Moses was expected to materialize since the capital city was a place of many youths who were taking certain gatherings there. A scribe (fl. c. 1210 - 1200 BCE) just that era wrote:
"The Great-of-Victories youths are in festive attire every day; sweet moringa-oil is upon their heads having hair freshly braided. They stand beside their door. Their hands bowed down with foliage and greenery of
Pi-Hahirot
and flax of the Waters-of-Horus. The day that one enters
Rameses
(wsr-m3'-r' stp-nr') l.p.h."
- Egyptian inscription: Papyrus Anastasi 3:3 (BM 10246,3)
The human pandemic started just after the start of the African Swine (or Cattle) Fever, when the air was too hot, and when there were simultaneous volcanic activities in many parts of the Mediterranean.
Moses was apparently targeting the season of the
ruakh kadim ('east wind")
as a possible culprit for the illnesses on human and of the spoil of foods and a trigger to awaken innumerable locusts. And since firstborn sons were given double portion of food supply, they were on high risk of eating mold and toxic foods twice.
Many youth and animals died, and even the first son of the country died.
" And Moses wrote their goings out according to their journeys by the commandment of YHWH: and these are their journeys according to their goings out.
And they departed from
Rameses
in the first month, on the 15th day of the 1st month; on the morrow after the passover the children of Israel went out with a high hand in the sight of all the Egyptians. For the Egyptians buried all
their firstborn,
which the LORD had smitten among them: upon their
gods
also the LORD executed judgments.
And the children of Israel removed from Rameses, and pitched in Succoth. " - Numbers 33:2-5
According to the journal of Moses, Israel left Rameses on Abib 15 (April 24), as the Egyptians were burying their deceased firstborn children.
Prince Ramesses B, who was sitting on the throne of the Pharaoh, died in 1229 BCE.
The death of the Pharaoh's firstborn son, according to Moses (Torah), was a judgement of YHWH against the Egyptian
gods.
And king Rameses II the Great was one of the those gods.
Even Jethro Reuel, the Kenite priest of Midianites and the father-in-law of Moses (1309-1189 BCE), was implying that the pharaoh was one of the Egyptian gods when he said,
" ... Blessed be Yahweh, who has delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of
Pharaoh,
who has delivered the people from under the hand of the Egyptians.
Now I know that Yahweh is greater than all
gods:
for in the thing wherein they dealt proudly he was above them. " - Exodus 18:10-11
************
Notes:
Hefnu : givemehistory.com/frogs-in-ancient-egypt.
Miriam : ohr.edu/explore_judaism/ask_the_rabbi/ask_the_rabbi/7033.
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