Rameses is the first name of a pharaoh encountered in the Bible, but it is used in connection with land. In my chronology, the name of the pharaoh when Joseph's family arrived from Canaan was Amenhotep I of the 18th Dynasty. His father, Ahmose I, had conquered the Hyksos* shepherds who had lived in the eastern Nile delta and blocked goods going up or down the Nile; and Ahmose I had gained oxen from a recent conquest in Canaan. The Egyptians hated their enemies, the Hyksos, and their occupation as shepherds; so Joseph asked his brothers to lie.
And the men are shepherds, for their trade has been to feed cattle; and they have brought their flocks, and their herds, and all that they have. And it shall come to pass, when Pharaoh shall call you, and shall say, What is your occupation? That you shall say, Your servants' trade has been about cattle from our youth even until now, both we, and also our fathers: that you may dwell in the land of Goshen; for every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians. (Genesis 46:32-34)
Shepherds is
ra-ah tseon in Hebrew; meaning one who pastures flocks.
Flocks is
tseon in Hebrew, which could be sheep or goats.
Cattle is
miqneh in Hebrew, meaning purchased property, cattle or livestock.
Goshen is
goshen in Hebrew, meaning “drawing near” according to Brown-Driver-Briggs.
*In Egyptian,
hyksos derived from the phrase
heka khasewet (“rulers of foreign lands”) which was used to describe chieftains of Nubia, Canaan, and Syria. These Hyksos of the 15th Dynasty were originally from Phoenicia/Syria.
Location of “
land of Rameses”
And Joseph made ready his chariot, and went up to meet Israel his father, to Goshen, and presented himself to him; and he fell on his neck, and wept on his neck a good while. (Genesis 46:29)
Joseph lived in On/Heliopolis, and may have been working at Saqqara when Judah came to him with the news his father had arrived in Goshen. The “
land of Goshen” and “
land of Rameses” were synonymous, located north and south of nome #8. Saqqara, in nome #1, was about 38 km away from On in nome #13. Avaris, was located in nome #20 on the Pelusiac branch of the Nile Delta at a site now called Tell el Dabᶜa.1
Pharaoh Khety established a trade center inland from the port on the Pelusiac, which he named “Great House;” (pharaoh means “great house” in Egyptian). Khety's town would later be named Avaris by the Hyksos of the 15th dynasty, Peru-nefer (“good port”) by the 18th dynasty, and Pi-Rameses by the 19th dynasty. Today it is known as Tell el-Daba. The largest extent of Tell el-Dabᶜa was 250 hectares (at a time when other large port cities averaged 75 hectares) during the occupation of the 15th dynasty when the Hyksos made Avaris their capital.
Pi-Rameses was a city, not a land. The city of Pi-Rameses has been archaeologically connected to Qantir, abutting Tell el-Daba. [
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi-Ramesses] Rameses is referred to as a city in Exodus 12:37 and Numbers 33:3-5 as the place of origin from which the exodus began with 600,000 men with families and flocks and herds. Only 250 hectares may have been tight quarters.
The “
land of Rameses” is associated with pasture. A pharaoh named Rameses won't arrive until the 19th dynasty, but somehow the land was already called Rameses? The grazing "
land of Rameses" was in Goshen.
And Joseph placed his father and his brothers, and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt, in the best of the land, in the land of Rameses, as Pharaoh had commanded. (Genesis 47:11)
Basically, Amenhotep I was giving them the pasture lands of the Hyksos shepherds whom his father conquered. In my book Pharaohs of the Bible (4004-960 BC), I included the following statement which I no longer endorse: Dr. Shaw stated “
remsosch” meant “shepherds” in the Egyptian language.2 Although Egyptian Rameses can be pronounced /ra-am-as-es/ harkening to /ra-ah/ in Hebrew for the beginning of
ra-ah tseon as shepherd. In Egyptian “
Rameses” means “son of Ra” (Ra, the sun god), or “Ra created it”, and Moses was very careful throughout the Pentateuch not to name any pharaoh with a false diety in his name. Why this exception? Many Jews concluded long ago, it was because Rameses was the pharaoh of the exodus. Sadly, most believe it was Rameses II instead of Rameses I.
