Egyptian loanwords in the Torah

Faith & Science Conversation
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Maybe, but there’s not this exact science to it like listing a bunch of percentages presumes. We have lots of Arabic words in modern English via the conquest of Spain. The percentage of loan words from Arabic in English doesn’t tell you diddly about direct Arab contact with English speakers.

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Thank you all for your valuable comments. I reread Noonan and other papers. I find the following two problems with Noonan.

First problem is ignoring the Joseph-Genesis period. Noonan says “If the exodus and wilderness narratives represent authentic historical traditions, and if the Egyptian loanwords in these narratives were borrowed during the time of the exodus and wilderness wanderings, then these loanwords should have entered Hebrew during the Late Bronze Age” (Page 64). This period he says extended up to 1300 BCE: “Egyptian feminine -t in the words זֶֶּרֶּ תand טַ בַעַת
indicates that they were borrowed relatively early, probably sometime between
the Middle Kingdom and the Ramesside Period (ca. 2000–1300 BC)” (Noonan Page 17). Even otherwise, the Late Bronze Age is dated to 1595–1155 BCE ([Amanda H. Podany, The Ancient Near East: A Very Short Introduction Chapter 8, Oxford Academic). Between 1400 and 1300 BCE Egypt ruled Canaan: “Egyptian control was extended in the New Kingdom (c.1539 to 1075 BCE). Aggressive pharaohs marched their armies south into Nubia and north as far as Syria (Egypt in Canaan - Canaan & Ancient Israel @ University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology).

Therefore, the borrowings of loanwords could have taken place in Egypt c. 1900 BCE to the Exodus 1446 BCE. Alternatively, these could have taken place between 1446 BCE and 1300 BCE when Canaan was under Egyptian control. The borrowings, therefore, do not provide a “proof” of stay in Egypt.

The Joseph-Egyptian connection has been noted variously. For example, in his review of Benjamin J. Noonan, Non-Semitic Loanwords in the Hebrew Bible: A Lexicon of Language Contact (which I have not seen), Ivrit Student says “The Egyptian loans mainly appear in the Joseph narrative in Gen 37-50 as well as in the book of Exodus”. Again, Damien F. Mackey in Biblical Roots of Certain Pagan Myths and Philosophies says “that the Pentateuch was absolutely saturated with Egyptian – not only for the periods associated with Egypt, most notably the Joseph narrative including Israel’s sojourn in Egypt, but even for the periods customarily associated with Babylonia (presumably the Flood account and the Babel incident). Thus it cannot be alluded as Noonan does that the borrowings took place in the Exodus and Wilderness narratives–implicitly alone.

This leads to the second problem. The Hebrews stayed 400 years (280 years by other estimates if I recall correctly) in Egypt. The period covered in Esther and Ezra-Nehemiah was 485 to 424 BCE, 61 years in Persia (The Jones, The Complete Chronology of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther Fully Explained, The Spirited Nature, 2021; read with Noonan Page 66). The borrowings should show some proportionality to the period of stay. Noonan finds 0.64% borrowings in the Exodus-Wilderness narrative of 40 years, or 0.016% per year; and 0.62% from Esther and Ezra-Nehemiah period of 61 years or 0.010 % per year which is comparable. But this assumes that the borrowings were made only in the Exodus-Wilderness narratives and not in Genesis which covers their stay of 400 or 280 years. Thus, proportionally, much larger Egyptian borrowings would have taken place from the Egyptian if the period of Genesis is included in the period of direct contact between the Hebrews and the Egyptians. It follows that the borrowings from Egyptian were much less than from Persian on per year stay basis. That supports that the borrowings took place in Canaan after the Wlderness wanderings and may have no connection with their alleged stay in Egypt.

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  • I am not surprised. Some beliefs die hard.
  • The thing that is especially intriguing to me, is your willingness to accept the Hebrew Bible, a.k.a. the Tanakh, and your readiness and willingness to ignore certain passages in it which, in my opinion, seem to contradict some of your previous proposals. That strikes me as very omnistic of you.
  • One such passage is Exodus 20:2. “I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.”
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Pl start another thread on this. Pl know I am not into adversarial talk. I am happy to respond. Let us talk Noonan here.

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For the record, neither am I, in spite of appearances otherwise.

  • You state a position; I disagree with it. If you can’t or won’t change your position and I can’t or won’t change mine; further conversation, no matter how sweet the words, is a waste of your time and mine.
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Why would he include it? His purpose was to update Wilson’s work, and Wilson wrote about the exodus and wilderness periods.

This ignores the comparison with other languages in the area, which though the people who spoke them lived under Egyptian rule for the same time that the Hebrews did have significantly fewer loan words. Thus the borrowings indicate a longer and/or more intense exposure to Egyptian than can be accounted for in the time(s) that Egypt ruled Canaan.

And the Joseph contact with Egypt took place in Egypt.

That defies the statistical analysis he did, which showed that the portion of loan words is substantially higher during the exodus-wilderness period. It’s also worth noting that the Joseph accounts, which have a high loanword count, add to this since the Joseph events were closely tied to Egypt.

Unlikely. Once a set of useful vocabulary has been adopted from another language further adoption is decreasingly likely. Words don’t seep from one language to another by osmosis, they are adopted because they are either lacking in the one language or work better for some reason. Additionally, as vocabulary in a language expands by addition if new words, the likelihood of adopting more is reduced. Given that the Hebrew of the Exile period was much more developed than that of the Exodus period, the expectation would be that fewer borrowings would take place from old Persian, which is what is seen.

No, because word per year adoption is not a valid measure, as shown above.

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The topic is Egyptian loan words in the Torah, so you can’t artificially restrict the discussion to Noonan.

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Ok. I had avoided responding because of the shrill responses by Terry previously. I respond below.

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I accept the written word of Torah in Toto and with respect. But not the mainstream interpretation. There are huge debates on the location of the places mentioned in the Torah such as Ai. Likewise, the word for egypt in the Torah is mitsrayim. Where it is located has ti be derived by looking at geographical and archaeological evidences. My understanding is that it was located in the indus valley and known as Mathura by the indus people. I am attaching a paper I presented at union biblical seminary on the topic.

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If he is going to deduce the location of Hebrews from this paper then he should have noted this MAJOR limitation of Wilson. His conclusion does not follow from his paper.

Yes, more intense contact but not necessarily longer. Since Noonan compares with Persian to establish his case, the time span with Persian should also be comparable.

The point is that the loanwords at the alleged living of Hebrews from Joseph to Exodus are not accounted for by Noonan. If Joseph and the Hebrews indeed lived in Mitsrayim-at-Egypt then there should be higher count of loanwords.

I did not see Noonan’s study of the Joseph-Exodus period. Please give page numbers if I have missed it. This is my main difficulty.

You seem to be alluding to the economic law of “diminishing returns.” I am willing to go with it. But diminishing borrowings would diminish gradually and not drop dead at one arbitrary moment. If there is 0.64% borrowing in 100 years, there would be, say, 1.28% in 500 hundred years; not the same 0.64% in 50o years. Please note that Noonan puts forward the 0.62% Persia and 0.64% Egypt as a proof. So the periods cannot be wished away.

No, as shown above. Further, as @Christy said in this thread, loanwords themselves are a doubtful measure. Thanks for this conversation. I am learning and happy to do so.

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Actually, de Nile really is a river in Egypt.

The word for Egypt is mitsrayim not only in the Torah, but throughout the entire OT, as well as cognate forms in the semitic languages such as Akkadian, Ugaritic, and Assyrian. Outside your persistent effort to somehow tie the exodus to India, there is no huge debate as to the historic and geographical location of mitsrayim being identified with Egypt - to be clear that place with the pyramids.

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Don’t bother him with facts. Go back before the Exodus several centuries and mitsr or mizr is the Egyptian word for their land; mitsrayim is the plural and used because Egypt was actually two lands, upper and lower Egypt – so it’s also an Egyptian word for Egypt.

Correct. The proposed route for an exodus from India is ludicrous; the route matches nothing in the scriptural accounts, that’s nothing but a fantasy.

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  • Limiting one’s deep dive into the rabbit hole of Egyptian loanwords in the Bible starting with the single word “pharaoh” reveals to the diver that the word appears 279 times in 240 verses starting with 93 instances in Genesis, 122 instances in Exodus and Deuteronomy, 66 between 1 Samuel 1:1 and Malachi 4:5. and the remaining 5 instances in the New Testament.
  • Looking closer at the 93 instances in Genesis–see “Pharaoh”–one will find that 4 occur in Genesis 12, when Abraham and Sarah enter the Egyptian pharaoh’s house; and 89 instances occur during the lifetime of Joseph, Abraham’s great-grandson.
  • One additional instance occurs in Exodus 1:11, before Moses is born. From Exodus 1:19 through Exodus and Deuteronomy. 121 instances occur during the lifetime of Moses. Thereafter pharaoh appears when the Jews have settled in Canaan.
  • In summary, then, the 93 instances of pharao in Genesis plus 1 iin Exodus, occur before Moses, the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, and their settlement in Canaan.
  • If I’ve done my calculating right, what does that show, besides a very deep rabbit hole and what questions does that dive raise?
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  • Anyone still undaunted by the subject matter of Egyptian loanwords in the Bible may find this article interesting: Egyptian Loan Words in the Old Testament Thomas O. Lambdin and
  • “Did I Not Bring Israel Out of Egypt?” Biblical, Archaeological, and Egyptological Perspectives on the Exodus Narratives, Edited by James K. Hoffmeier, Alan R. Millard, and Gary A. Rendsburg
  • Of particular interest to me was the fourth article in Hoffmeier’s booK: The Signiicance of the Horns (ֶןֶרק ) of Exodus 27:2: The Egyptian ( ṯst ) and Levantine Four-Horned Altars, by David Falk.
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I gave up trying to find either of those not behind a paywall.

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*“Did I Not Bring Israel out of Egypt?” is a book, i.e. a collection of a good number of articles, only some of which are available in various places on-line, and which I was able to download for free.

  • Lambdin’s article was available when I posted the link, but I see that my link doesn’t work now. But I managed to find a copy somewhere. Alternative: Egyptian Loanwords in Tanach
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Two things sort of amazed me: first, how many of those I recognized, and second how many more have been identified.
At this point if I could send a message back to my earlier self I’d say to stick in grad school and get two more degrees, one in theology and one in ancient near east languages – I find this stuff just too much fun.

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I would like to draw your kind attention that there is no egypt in pre.exodus bible. The name is mitsrayim. The earliest evidence of this name anywhere outside the Bible is 1400 bce after the exodus. But we find it in the narrative of abraham c. 1900 bce. Again, thanks for the conversation.

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I have written on falk.