The Merneptah or the “Israel Stele”
By: Dr. Chad Summa
In approximately 1210 BC, Merneptah, a pharaoh of the 19th dynasty, led a campaign into Canaan defeating various people groups. One of the people groups that are listed as having been defeated by the Pharaoh is Israel. We know this from an inscription known as the Merneptah Stele sometimes called the “Israel Stele” for it is the first recorded mention of the people group known as Israel outside of the pages of Scripture. Most understand that this places the nation of Israel within the land that would become known as Israel as early as 1210 (the approximate date of the composition of the Merneptah Stele). This artifact is one of the key elements that is used to help define the date of the Exodus, which must have been previous to the writing of the inscription (assuming the biblical account of an actual Exodus is true, which I believe it is).
The existence of the Stele has been known for a long time. It was discovered by the famed archaeologist Flinders Petrie (the man who would become the father of ceramic typology, which is widely used for dating sites) at Thebes (the New Kingdom capital of Egypt) in 1896.It is a ten-foot-tall slab of black granite. It originally was a stele inscribed by Amenhotep III (1391-1353), but Merneptah repurposed it and inscribed the back side with his own inscription. The inscription recounts Merneptah’s military victories over the Libyans and Sea peoples for most of the text, but the last several lines focus on some sort of campaign in the land of Canaan, with the cities of Ashkelon, Gezer, Yeno’am being mentioned and then the expression “Israel is laid waste and his seed is not.” The hieroglyph for Israel has the classifiers of a seated man and woman (symbolizing people) with three strokes below it (plural) with the symbol of a throwing stick which usually indicates foreigners and then the term
While there were (as there are almost always when it comes to an inscription that might touch on the Bible) alternative suggestions for the reading of “Israel” in Merneptah’s Stele, the overwhelming conclusion is that the reading of Israel in the Stele is correct. Where there is some debate now is the question of where Merneptah encountered the Israelites.
For most who take either the 15th century or the 13th century Exodus, the answer would be in Canaan, but for those who argue a 12th century Exodus during the time of Ramses III, they suggest that Israel was still in the eastern Delta (the Biblical Goshen) and that this region was part of true Egypt, but a borderland which would explain why Israel would be given a “foreign” label. They also suggest that the reason why the Egyptian campaigns of Ramses II and Merneptah into Canaan (as noted in the Stele) are not mentioned in Judges is that Israel was not yet in Canaan during their reigns.
While admittedly this theory is interesting, it struggles against the Biblical record of the Exodus as found in 1 Kings 6:1 and Judges 11:26 which point to a 15th-century BC Exodus date. Also, a 12th-century date for the Exodus would only allow a little more than a century for the Judges period, and while it is admitted that the chronology of the Judges period requires some overlapping of Judges even for an early Exodus, only a hundred or so years seems still way too short to squeeze all of the judges in. As to the question of the lack of reference to the Egyptian campaigns being mentioned in Judges, it should be noted that Judges is theologically motivated history and does not try to record all events, but only ones that teach the theological truth tied into the focus of the book.
It seems best to assume that Merneptah is discussing people groups and cities that he encountered in the land of Canaan. So, this inscription is the earliest inscription mentioning the people group of Israel that we have and in that by itself makes it valuable.