Egypt, with Sumer, is one of the oldest known civilizations in the world. By the time Abram arrived in Egypt with his wife Sarah, and passing her off as his sister (Gen 12:10-14; the first time Egypt is mentioned in the Bible), the famous pyramids of Giza were, in fact, already more than 500 years old and beginning their slide into disrepair.
Author's wife In the footsteps of Abram.
Egypt from Early Days to c.12th Cent BC
Egyptologists divide the history of Egypt from its first political unification into the nation that we know it (about 3000 BC) to its conquest by Alexander in 332 into seven different periods into which are scattered 31 dynastic houses (for details see Chronology). Historians generally place Joseph's office and Jacob's journey to Egypt during the reign of the Hyksos, an Asiatic group of people who ruled the country for about two centuries (the Second Intermediate Period, c.1700-1540; Dynasties 14-17). There Israel bid her time, multiplying from a large family into— 450 years later—a people, according to God's promise to Abraham (Gen 15:13). But by c.1570 the Hyksos was already failing, being able to hold onto power only in the north from their capital at Avaris in the Nile Delta. Under the leadership of the Theban general and future pharaoh, Ahmoses, the Hyksos were railed out of the country and the newly established 18th Dynasty set about a new era of territorial expansion and the glorious status of a "world power." The riches of museum-celebrity Tutankhamun (1333-23 BC) reflect something of its accomplishments. The famous Valley of the Kings and many of the sites modern tourists come to Egypt to see at Karnak, Luxor, Abu Simbel, Medinet Habu, and Abydos can all be traced to this period. Though we cannot ascertain under which of the pharaohs of this period (Pharaoh Seti or Rameses have often been cited as possibility) the Israelites were subjected in slavery to build the cites of Rameses and Pithom, it was during this season of Egypt's history that they made the exodus to the Promised Land under the leadership of Moses. On a granite stele inscribed with a report of his victories over his enemies in the fourth year of his reign, Merenptah (r.1213-03), boasted, among other things, that "Israel is laid waste, his seed is not." This is concrete datum that Israel was already a force in Palestine to be reckoned with by 1220 BC when the stele was set up (for more on the date of the exodus, see Exodus, the Event☰)
Egypt from c.12th-1st Cent BC
By the time the Israelites were trying to sort out all their local troubles in the days of the judges, this period of Egyptian re-flowering was coming to an end and giving way to the Third Intermediate Period, a time of great upheaval and political instability and Libyan (aping the out-dated Egyptian custom of burying their kings in pyramids, there are more pyramids in Libya than in Egypt), and Kushite princes ruled the land; the 25th Dynasty, especially under Tirhakah providing Egypt with a short burst of glory bold enough to challenge—even if only for a short while—the might of Assyria. All the Egyptian kings who interfered in the affairs of Israel from David onwards came from these generally weak and declining potentates, including (even) Pharaoh Neco who deemed himself courageous to facedown the Babylonians. Native Egyptian glory was already a thing of the past.
By the late 6th Cent BC Egypt was no longer a serious power. Soon after coming to the throne, the Persian king, Cambyses (r.525-404 BC), conquered Egypt, according to Herodotus, in a ruthless and sacrilegious campaign. When a revolt broke out upon hearing the news of Persia's defeat by the Greeks at Marathon in 490 BC, Xerxes, without even bothering to visit the country, reduced it to the status of a conquered province. Egyptian records dubbed him "the criminal Xerxes." While more attempts were made to cast of the Persian yoke, Egypt would never again display the rigour of power again. By 332 BC, Egypt happily welcomed Alexander the Great as their king (and he was politically shrewd enough to play the game that endeared himself to them). There he founded the city he named after himself (Alexandria) which quickly replaced all the other ancient cities of Egypt as the centre of politics and (Hellenistic, i.e., Greek) culture. Upon his death in 323 BC, one of his generals, Ptolemy, quickly established his own hold on Egypt and the Ptolemaic dynasty that would rule Egypt until 30 BC when, upon the death of Cleopatra and Mark Antony, Augustus Caesar made it a Roman colony. By then Egypt, together with Libya, was Rome's "bread basket." It was thus in a Hellenistic Egypt that Jesus found refuge as an infant when, warned by an angel that Herod's men were out to kill him, Joseph fled Judea.
Egypt from 1st Cent AD to Modern Times
From the Romans Egypt passed quietly into Byzantine hands in the 4th Cent. It was conquered by the Muslims in 639, passing through at least five different Islamic dynasties—most notably the Fatimid (969-1117), the Ayyubid(1171-1250), and the Mamluk (1250-1517)—before becoming an Ottoman possession, becoming more and more Arabized and Islamized, and shifting from an Ismaili Shia brand of Islam during the Fatimid period to orthodox Sunnism under the Ayyubids, led by Egypt's most famous Muslim son, Saladin. Under the Mamluk, Egypt rose to become an unrivalled political, economic and culture power in the Muslim world. Under the Mamluks also, attitudes towards the Christian Copts began to take a turn for the worse and active persecution of Christians began apace. On no less than nine occasions between 1279 and 1447, churches were ordered closed, and the Coptic language disappeared from all but the liturgical life of the church.
In 1516/7 the Mamluks were defeated by the Ottomans and Egypt returned to being a mere province ruled from Istanbul. Till today Egypt has not recovered from the political, economic and cultural lethargy that followed from being ruled by the Ottomans. As the Ottoman Empire aged and became in the 19th Cent "The Sick Man" of Europe, Napoleon Bonaparte could simply sail in one day in 1798, and after an undistinguished battle, occupy the country with impunity. Though the French could not hold on to what they had gained (except for the treasures they looted and remove to Paris), they exposed Egypt to Western interests (and also culture) that were to impact her for the next century and a half. In particular, Britain saw Egypt as strategically crucial to the security of her own imperial interests in the East, particularly India. In 1805, a revolt in Cairo broke out against the Ottoman authority, that brought Muhammad Ali to power, who was then recognized as the new viceroy. A highly capable and ruthless leader (for a time he succeeded in capturing Syria for Egypt) Muhammad Ali, by reform and murder, made himself the most powerful man, with near monopoly of the wealth of the land. While many of the reforms Muhammad wished to see failed for lack of resources, one highly significant project—the construction of the Suez Canal, opened in November 1869—was accomplished by his son. Unfortunately it bankrupted the Egyptians and the only ones who benefitted from it were its European shareholders.
The rivalry between esp. France and Britain for influence and control of the region led to the "unofficial" occupation of Egypt by Britain in 1882, aimed really at the partition of the country from the Ottomans. Egypt became effectively a British protectorate, with a huge garrison in the Canal Zone and Cairo a British neighbourhood club. With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of WWI, Egypt gained her independence, and reformed as a constitutional monarchy, with one of Muhammad Ali's descendants, Fu'ad, becoming the first King in 1922. It was a monarchy with a leash held by British hands. By the end of WWII, Egypt was in the groundswell of discontent. With the people more and more radicalized by the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood and of Arab nationalism, calls for reforms rose to a pitch. In 1952 a revolt by the Free Officers' movement forced the playboy King Farouk to abdicate and go into exile. A year later, a new constitution proclaimed Egypt a republic with General Mohammad Naguib as president. The last British soldier finally left Egypt in June 1955. But already a tussle for power was already in play, and in 1956 a fellow officer, Col. Gamal Nasser replaced Naguib.
Caught then in the cross-fires of global suspicions provoked by the Arm Race, and made worse by his vocal support for Arab nationalism, Nasser found himself hemmed in on every side from finding the financial help and resources he needed to bring the country out of its near medieval conditions. Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal in January 1969, and for the first time money from the lucrative enterprise benefitted the Egyptian people (a new channel was added to the existing canal in 2015). In response to the act, France and Britain, with the collusion of the Israelis, hatched a mad-hatted plan to invade Egypt to seize back control of the canal. Pressured by the US and Russia, however, they soon withdrew. The tripartite climb-down rather boosted Nasser's standing in the Arab world. Egypt, however, has not flowered with independence, and it remains an economically and culturally backward nation, with a corrupt and incompetent political institution. Nor has its hope of playing a leading role in the Arab world proved fruitful. Popular civil unrest broke out in 2011, in what was called "the Arab spring." Sadly, nothing significant has come out of it either.
B. Its Place in the Life of Ancient Israel
C. Its Place in the Life of the Early Church
D. Chronology
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