Bible Dictionary
HYKSOS
HYKSOS
According to the conventional reconstruction of Egyptian history, the Hyksos were the dominant group in Egypt, constituting the 15th and 16th dynasties, on a date that varies with the authors (1650-1542, Great Rialp Encyclopedia).
The term Hyksos comes from Manetus, and its translation from Egyptian is “sovereigns of foreign countries” (“hk,. w,sw.t” = Hekayesut).
It is generally accepted that Jacob and his sons settled in Egypt during the Hyksos rule. However, the conventional chronology of Egypt is subject to major problems, one of which has been the identification of the Hyksos.
Authors such as Velikovsky and Courville have come to identify the Hyksos with the Amalekites, after a careful analysis of literary, historical and monumental sources. There are several elements that allow us to reach this identification:
(a) On the one hand there is the record of Manetus, an Egyptian priest, who states that the Hyksos, “an ignoble race from the east,” conquered Egypt without any difficulty, without even having fought a battle. (Quoted in Josephus, Against Apion 1:14.)
This can be understood within the framework of the Israelite exodus. At Rephidim, the Israelites were attacked by Amalek, remaining victorious only thanks to divine intervention through the intercession of Moses (Ex. 17:8-16).
(b) There is a whole set of traditions spread throughout Arabia on the subject of the conquest of Egypt by the Amalekites, as a result of a migration they undertook, driven by a cataclysm of great magnitude, towards Egypt.
Thus, authors of the early Middle Ages, such as Al-Shamhudi, Masudi, Albufeda, and others, recount this migration of the Amalekites and, also, the “military walk” in which Egypt fell into the hands of the Amalekites like a ripe fruit. .
(c) Hatsepsut, queen of a dynasty later than that of the Hyksos, left an inscription referring to her works of rebuilding the land plundered by the rapacious domination of the Hyksos. She gives them the suggestive name “amu”, stating that their capital was Hauar (Auaris), and that they had not worshiped the god Ra. This identifies the Amu with the Hyksos. Based on the revised chronology, Hatsepsut was a contemporary of Solomon.
(d) Names such as Apop I, Apop II have been found in official seals of the Hyksos dynasties. It was Apop I who, a few decades after the Amu invasion, founded the city of Thebes. In Greek tradition, there was a king in Egypt named Ogyges who was the founder of Thebes.
Now, Apop is a provisional transcription by Egyptologists for an inscription whose consonants admit the equivalence “Agog”, which then agrees with the biblical record about the name of the Amalekites kings.
This explains the mention of Agag and Amalek in the exalted terms in which they are found in the book of Numbers, while the people of Israel were in the wilderness: “He will exalt his king more than Agag” (Num. 24:7); “Amalek, head of nations” (Num. 24:20).
According to rabbinic traditions, Amalek set out to conquer the entire world. Seals of the Hyksos kings have been found in Crete, Palestine, Mesopotamia and other places far from Egypt.
Thus, the fame of King Ogyges, founder of Thebes, which had reached the ears of the Greeks, agrees with the name Agag, which is identified with the Apop line of pharaohs. This agrees with the equation Hyksos = Amu = Amalekites.
(e) The destruction of the Amalekites by King Saul, and the death of the last King Agag at the hands of Samuel (1 Sam. 15) marks in the Bible the point of the reappearance of Egypt as a power. Saul’s campaign against the Amalekites was southward, which is consistent with the fact that the hordes of Hyksos who were expelled by the first pharaoh of the Egyptian restoration, Ahmose I, left no historical trace.
Saul put an end to the Amalekite power, although there were still Amalekite groups that dedicated themselves to marauding. An interesting case is that of an Egyptian slave of an Amalekite lord, which agrees with this transitional stage (1 Sam. 30:13 ff.).
The identity of the Hyksos seems to have been definitively revealed with the valuable studies of Velikovsky, Courville and other researchers of ancient sources. The Hyksos-Amalekites entered a defenseless Egypt, without an army or military or political organization, devastated by the ten plagues and by the slaughter at the Red Sea, without Pharaoh or resources of any kind, and easily fell into the hands of the Amalekite nation in your search for new domains.
This conquest took place at the time of the Exodus, around the year 1,441 BC. The liberation of Egypt from the Hyksos-Amalekites took place during the reign of Saul in Israel, and the ascension of Ahmose I to the throne of Egypt as the first pharaoh of the first indigenous dynasty after the Hyksos, the 18th, around the year 1020 BC , was due to Saul’s victorious campaign, which broke the Hyksos yoke that kept Egypt under control.
All records agree on the extreme rapacity of the “shepherd-kings”, the Hyksos pharaohs. Their capital was largely located in Avaris, near present-day el-Arish.
BETHEL
is the name of a Canaanite city in the ancient region of Samaria, located in the center of the land of Canaan, northwest of Ai on the road to Shechem, 30 kilometers south of Shiloh and about 16 kilometers north of Jerusalem.
Bethel is the second most mentioned city in the Bible. Some identify it with the Palestinian village of Beitin and others with the Israeli settlement of Beit El.
Bethel was the place where Abraham built his altar when he first arrived in Canaan (Genesis 12:8; Genesis 13:3). And at Bethel Jacob saw a vision of a ladder whose top touched heaven and the angels ascended and descended (Genesis 28:10-19).
For this reason Jacob was afraid, and said, “How terrible is this place! It is nothing other than the house of God, and the gate of heaven »and he called Bethel the place that was known as «Light» (Genesis 35-15).
Bethel was also a sanctuary in the days of the prophet Samuel, who judged the people there (1 Samuel 7:16; 1 Samuel 10:3). And it was the place where Deborah, the nurse of Rebekah, Isaac’s wife, was buried.
Bethel was the birthplace of Hiel, who sought to rebuild the city of Jericho (1 Kings 16:34).
When Bethel did not yet belong to the people of Israel, Joshua had to battle against the king of Bethel and other kings and defeated them (Joshua 12-16).
When the people of Israel had taken possession of the promised land, in the division by tribes it was assigned to the Tribe of Benjamin (Joshua 18-22), but in later times it belonged to the Tribe of Judah (2 Chronicles 13:19).
It was one of the places where the Ark of the Covenant remained, a symbol of the presence of God.
In Bethel the prophet Samuel judged the people.
Then the prophet Elisha went up from there to Bethel; and as he was going up the road, some boys came out of the city and mocked him, and said to him: “Go up, bald man; Come up, bald! When he looked back and saw them, he cursed them in the name of the Lord. Then two bears came out of the forest and tore to pieces forty-two boys” (2 Kings 2:23).
After the division of the kingdom of Israel, Jeroboam I, king of Israel, had a golden calf raised at Bethel (1 Kings 21:29) which was destroyed by Josiah, king of Judah, many years later (2 Kings 23:15). .
Bethel was also a place where some of the Babylonian exiles who returned to Israel in 537 BC gathered. (Ezra 2:28).
The prophet Hosea, a century before Jeremiah, refers to Bethel by another name: “Bet-Aven” (Hosea 4:15; Hosea 5:8; Hosea 10:5-8), which means ‘House of Iniquity’, ‘House of Nothingness’, ‘House of Vanity’, ‘House of Nullity’, that is, of idols.
In Amos 7: 12-13 the priest Amaziah tells the prophet Amos that he flee to Judah and no longer prophesy in Bethel because it is the king’s sanctuary, and the head of the kingdom.
The prophet Jeremiah states that “the house of Israel was ashamed of Bethel” (Jeremiah 48:13), because of their idolatry and, specifically, the worship of the golden calf.
PUTEOLI
(lat.: “small fountains”).
Two days after arriving in Rhegium, the ship carrying Paul arrived at Puteoli, which was then an important maritime city.
The apostle found Christians there, and enjoyed their hospitality (Acts 28:13).
It was located on the northern coast of the Gulf of Naples, near the site of present-day Pouzzoles.
The entire surrounding region is volcanic, and the Solfatare crater rises behind the city.
PUT
Name of a nation related to the Egyptians and neighbors of their country (Gen. 10:6).
Put is mentioned with Egypt and other African countries, especially Libya (Nah. 3:9) and Lud (Ez. 27:10; Is. 66:19 in the LXX. Put appears between Cush and Lud in Jer. 46:9; Ez. 30:5).
In the LXX he is translated as Libyans in Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Josephus also identifies it with Libya (Ant. 1:6, 2), but in Nah. 3.9 is distinguished from the Libyans.
Current opinion is divided between Somalia, Eastern Arabia and Southern Arabia (Perfume Coast).
PURPLE
A coloring substance that is extracted from various species of mollusks. The ancient Tyrians used two types of them: the “Murex trunculus”, from which the bluish purple was extracted, and the “Murex brandaris”, which gave the red.
The ink of its coloring matter varies in color depending on the region in which it is fished.
Piles of murex shells, artificially opened, have been discovered in Minet el-Beida, port of ancient Ugarit (Ras Shamra), which gives evidence of the great antiquity of the use of this purple dye (see UGARIT).
Due to its high price, only the rich and magistrates wore purple (Est. 8:15, cf. the exaltation of Mordecai, v. 2, Pr. 31:22; Dan. 5:7; 1 Mac. 10 :20, 62, 64; 2 Mac. 4:38; cf. v 31; Luke 16:19; Rev. 17:4).
The rulers adorned themselves in purple, even those of Midian (Judg. 8:26). Jesus was mocked with a purple robe (Mark 15:17).
Great use had been made of purple-dyed fabrics for the Tabernacle (Ex. 25:4; 26:1, 31, 36) and for the high priest’s vestments (Ex. 28:5, 6, 15, 33; 39: 29). The Jews gave symbolic value to purple (Wars 5:5, 4).
PURIM
(Heb., plural of “luck”).
Haman cast lots to determine a day of good omen for the destruction of the Jews.
As Haman’s designs were undone, the liberation of the Jews was marked by an annual festival (Est. 3:7; 9:24-32) on the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the month of Adar.
This festival is not mentioned by name in the NT, although there are exegetes who assume that it is the one referred to in Jn. 5:1.
This festival continues to be celebrated within Judaism: the book of Esther is read, and curses are pronounced on Haman and his wife, blessings are pronounced on Mordecai and the eunuch Harbonah (Est. 1:10; 7: 9).
PURIFICATION, PURITY
In the Mosaic Law four ways to purify oneself from contamination were indicated:
(a) Purification of contamination contracted by touching a dead person (Num. 19; cf. Num. 5:2, 3),
(b) Purification from impurity due to bodily emissions (Lev. 15; cf. Num. 5:2, 3).
(c) Purification of the woman in labor (Lev. 12:1-8; Luke 2:21-24).
(d) Purification of the leper (Lev. 14).
To this, the scribes and Pharisees added many other purifications, such as washing hands before eating, washing vessels and dishes, showing great zeal in these things, while inside they were full of extortion and iniquity (Mark 7: 2-8).
In Christianity the necessary purification extends:
to the heart (Acts 15:9; James 4:8),
to the soul (1 Pet. 1:22), and
to the conscience through the blood of Christ (Heb. 9:14).
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BETHEL
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