ARCHAEOLOGY: Merneptah Stela

"Undoubtedly, the most important mention of Israel outside the Bible is that in the Merneptah, or “Israel,” Stela. Discovered in 1896 in Merneptah's mortuary temple in Thebes by Flinders Petrie, the stela is a poetic eulogy to pharaoh Merneptah, who ruled Egypt after Rameses the Great, ca. 1212-1202 BC. Of significance to Biblical studies is a short section at the end of the poem describing a campaign to Canaan by Merneptah in the first few years of his reign, ca. 1210 BC. One line mentions Israel: “Israel is laid waste, its

seed is not.” Here we have the earliest mention of Israel outside the Bible and the only mention of Israel in Egyptian records.
Since the date of the reference to Israel in the Merneptah Stela is during the time of the judges, prior to the establishment of the monarchy, it is of crucial importance to understanding Israel's formative period. For example, a popular theory among Biblical scholars today is that Israel emerged from peoples indigenous to Canaan in the mid 12th century BC. If this is true, then Biblical history and chronology prior to ca. 1150 BC would have to be jettisoned.


The discussion of the significance of Israel in the Merneptah stela revolves around the meaning of two words: “Israel” and “seed.” A number of possibilities have been suggested, as summarized by Hasel.

Scholars have implied that the name Israel could be interpreted as Iezreel or Jezreal, the valley to the north of the country.
Another idea is that the name has a descriptive meaning (“the wearers of the side lock”) and applies to the Libyans.
Or, in the time of Merneptah, the name Israel was a geographic term referring to a territory corresponding to Canaan.
Hasel discusses the problems associated with each of these interpretations and concludes,

Israel, identified by the determinative for people, is a socioethnic unity powerful enough to be mentioned along with major city-states that were also neutralized.

Turning to the meaning of the Egyptian word prt, “seed,” there are only two possibilities, “grain” or “offspring.”
Based on the use of prt in other Egyptian texts, Hasel deduces that it refers to grain. Thus, the phrase “its seed is not” indicates that Israel's food supply was no longer in existence. Hasel observes,

We may perceive Israel within the context and information of the Merneptah stela to be a rural sedentary group of agriculturalists without its own urban city-state support system

Proponents of the “12th century emergence theory” maintain that the Israelites did not come into Canaan from outside to conquer the land around 1400 BC, as the Bible indicates. The emergence scenario would also reject the historicity of the Wilderness Wanderings, Exodus, Egyptian Sojourn and the Patriarchal narratives. However, if Israel were an established entity in Canaan already in 1210 BC, as the Merneptah Stela implies, then the 12th century emergence theory would be refuted. If Israel was well established by the end of the 13th century, it could not have come into being in the middle of the next century." CA

Now these are the names of the children of Israel, which came into Egypt;

Exodus 1:1