The book of Jeremiah 47 contains a prophecy foretold about the Philistines. “That the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet concerning the Philistines before Pharaoh smote Gaza. So said the Lord: Behold water is coming up from the north, and it shall become a flooding stream and will inundate a land and the fullness thereof, a city and those who dwell therein, and the people shall cry out, and all the inhabitants of the land shall wail. From the sound of the stamping of the hoofs of his mighty ones, from the noise of his chariots, the stirring of his wheels; fathers did not turn to sons out of [the] feebleness of [their] hands, because of the day that is coming to plunder all the Philistines, to cut off from Tyre and Zidon every surviving helper, for the Lord plunders the Philistines, the remnant of the island of Caphtor. Baldness has come to Gaza, Ashkelon has become a waste, yea the remnant of their valley; how long will you tear your flesh? Ho! Sword of the Lord, how long will you not be silent'? Go into your sheath, rest and be silent. How shall you be silent when the Lord commanded it? To Ashkelon and to the sea coast, there He appointed it.”
The prophecy is understood to reference the destruction of the Philistines around 605 BCE at the hands of Pharaoh Necho II.1 This event is right in the middle of the 26th dynasty of Egypt during their last major native dynasty over Egypt before a period of complete foreign dominance from the Persian period until the modern era. Scholarship considers the 26th dynasty the first of the “Late Period” Pharaoh, and could be understood to represent the Caphtorim under our previous assertions, but analysis of the text reveals a problem.
The Pharaoh was not a Caphtorim, nor from that lineage, because then he would not have smote the Philistines who are called a “remnant of the island of Caphtor”. If the Pharaoh’s were Caphtorim, they would have been a remnant of Caphtor as well and the text would have indicated such a connection regardless of Pharaonic intent. The alliance with Sidon and Tyre, the first ‘sons’ of Canaan, also places their allegiances to the people of Canaan rather than to those of Egypt.
Obviously, the Pharaoh neither would have been Casluhim, who were even closer to the Philistines, leaving Pathrusim as the only obvious answer. Pathrusim here just means people of the New Kingdom of Egypt, and we know the Pharaoh’s of the 26th dynasty were from Sais and natively born in the city making them culturally “New Kingdom” Pharaohs. They were not Casluhim, such as the Nubian Taharqa who fought against the other natively born Sais residents.
There is a reason I believe the prophecy is less specific, and more general, potentially referring to a separate Pharaoh. Ashkelon wasn’t destroyed by a Pharaoh, but by Babylonians. It is well known the Torah is not written in chronological order, thus making it nearly impossible to say where and when this prophecy was meant to describe without a serious analysis, but it’s safe to say it’s inclusion is indication that it came true sometime around the period of Jeremiah, before the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. However, from a scholarly perspective the Philistines completely disappeared from the historical record in 604 BCE, a dramatic and sudden disappearance at that, exactly when Nebuchadnezzar and Necho II collided. The prophecy was affirmed when this event occurred.
One major reason Necho II is still relevant to us was his attempt to be the first person to circumnavigate Africa - in other words looking for a different route to India to probably bypass the Babylonians. This actually was completely successful, and seemingly finished in only three years.2 Much of this account is handed down to us through Herodotus3, but Pliny also claims the Phoenician navigator Hanno similarly circumnavigated the continent, which may have also occurred, or simply been a conflation with Necho II.4 Clearly they didn’t leave any maps of their voyages, but they do show the very close relationship between Egyptian and Phoenician (Sidonian/Canaanite) navigators and how they passed information to the Greeks.
Necho II died around 595 BCE and was succeeded by his son Psamtik II who in his third year 592 BCE launched a campaign to invade Nubia.5 On the left leg of the massive statue to Ramesses II at the entrance to the temple of Abu Simbel there is a very interesting Greek inscription which reads: “When King Psammetichus (i.e., Psamtik II) came to Elephantine, this was written by those who sailed with Psammetichus the son of Theocles, and they came beyond Kerkis as far as the river permits. Those who spoke foreign tongues (Greek and Carians who also scratched their names on the monument) were led by Potasimto, the Egyptians by Amasis.”
Breaking down this information rich text, we see that Psamtik II actually arrived at Elephantine, the very border of Egypt in the south with Nubia where we previously identified the city of Kasluhet (Casluhim). They actually sail down the Nile, all the way to Kerkis not far from the 5th Cataract where they completely desolate the Nubians for the next couple hundred years, forcing them to flee to Meroe. However, the final line is where things get juicy, and we learn about Greek and Carian soldiers under a general named Potasimto. The Egyptians are led by Amasis, who is actually the important Amasis II who eventually becomes a Pharaoh himself, but we will shelve that for the time being.6
After this successful campaign, Psamtik II turns his attention to the Levant where he attempts to foment a rebellion against the Babylonians involving particularly Zedekiah, final King of Judah.7 These exact events are for later books on the historicity of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah, but the legacy of this Levantine policy falls to Psamtik II’s son Apries when he dies February 589 BCE.8 The merely 6 year long reign of Psamtik is significantly shorter than the 19 year long reign of Apries, who lasted until 570 BCE.
Jeremiah 44:30 calls Apries by the name of “Hophra חָפְרַע” which is likely based on the Egyptian name Wahibre Haaibre. Jeremiah declares Hophra will be delivered into the hands of his enemies, like Zedekiah was delivered unto Nebuchadnezzar, showing how an event from Jeremiah 44 actually comes after Jeremiah 47. Apries is a Greek name, as was Psamtik due to much of their legacy passing through Greeks like Herodotus and Diodorus.9 Manetho called him “Waphres”, which seems to be a mediate form between Wahibre>Waphres then Ouafris>Apries which became Hophra.10
Early on in his reign, 588 BCE, Apries dispatched a force to Jerusalem to protect it from the oncoming Babylonian forces of Nebuchadnezzar II, seen in Jeremiah 37:5 and 34:21, yet again events written before events that are written later, yet happened chronologically before the others. Realizing he couldn’t handle a major confrontation with the Babylonians, Apries actually withdrew, leading to the disastrous 18 month long siege of Jerusalem.11 The eventual destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BCE was easily the most horrific event in Jewish history up to that point, and potentially the trigger point for every serious calamity to come since. Leaving aside a discussion of the alternative history, if Apries actually came to the Judahite defense and the inevitability of the destruction of the Temple, this was clearly the right move from Apries perspective since later in 582 BCE he successful repelled an invasion by Nebuchadnezzar II.12
Apries didn’t leave the Levant empty handed, however, and apparently took Sidon, terrifying the other cities of Phoenicia to the point of submission.13 Keep in mind Jeremiah’s prophecy and the lack of chronological order of Jeremiah’s book. “because of the day that is coming to plunder all the Philistines, to cut off from Tyre and Zidon every surviving helper, for the Lord plunders the Philistines, the remnant of the island of Caphtor.” All of Philistia, cut off from Sidon and the rest of Phoenicia. Seemingly, it is Apries who fulfills the prophecy right before the destruction of the Temple.
Around 570 BCE, Apries was called into a dispute between the ‘indigenous’ Libyan king Adicran and Battus II of Cyrene who encouraged Greek colonization of Cyrenaica.14 Adricran appealed to Apries to intercede in the dispute, and Apries launched a military expedition into Cyrene where he was decisively defeated at the Battle of Irasa.15 As a result of this disaster, an actual ethnic war broke out between the indigenous, Libyan loyal troops in the Egyptian army, and the foreign mercenaries (Greek, Carian, Lycian, etc, aka Sea Peoples).
One of the ‘conspiracies’ from the perspective of Apries Egyptian army was they were led into Cyrenaica with the intention of depleting their strength so that he could more easily rule over them with the help of Greek mercenaries. Already this shows the near dominant political force that Greeks had become in Egypt, nearly 200 years before anyone from Greece “ruled” Egypt. These Late Period dynasties were very wrapped up in Greek political affairs, The Egyptians threw their support behind the previously mentioned general named Amasis II who declared himself Pharaoh in 570 BCE where only three years later he defeated an army led by Apries. Amasis II is a pretty important Pharaoh since he ruled nearly 45 years and was the final ruler - other than a sixth month failed reign by his son Psamtik III - before the period of Perisian dominance. According to Herodotus, Egypt became fabulously wealthy and the temples of Egypt were adorned with splendid monolithic shrines and other monuments.16
Ironically, the Egyptian troops were pretty screwed with their choice either way because Amasis is actually the Pharaoh who integrated the Egyptian bureaucracy with the Greeks closer than ever before. The Greek colony city of Naucratis was assigned as a commercial settlement for Greeks, and Amasis even contributed 1000 talents when the temple of Delphi was burnt. This site, for hundreds of years until the founding of Alexandria, was the primary location of Greek integration and settlement in Egypt essentially bootstrapping the later Greek conquests, and the city of Alexandria itself further up the Canopic branch of the Nile.
Helping Greeks out wasn’t the only piece of Amasis Greek legacy, but he even married a Greek princess named Ladice, daughter of King Battus III, grandson of that earlier Battus II - so obviously, Amasis was pretty friendly with the Battied dynasty and would have also gone to Cyrenaica to help. Not only did his own dynasty merge with Greek blood, making the following Pharaoh’s literally Greek, but he made alliances with Polycrates, the Tyrant of Samos, and Croesus, who was the King of Lydia until his defeat at the hands of the Persians in 546 BCE.
The defeat of Lydia was critical, because obviously these alliances with the Greeks and Lydians served to ward off an invasion by Persia into Egypt. When Lydia collapsed, shortly followed in 538 BCE by the fall of Babylon, no major states were left for Amasis to reach out to for the obviously impending Persian invasion.17 In a desperate attempt to cultivate allies, Amasis reaches out to the various Greek city states, but in his extremely old age dies in 526 BCE just before the Persia attack. One has to wonder, the Persians had already waited twenty years to conquer Egypt, so they probably had been waiting for the death of the very old, but well supported Pharaoh since they only gave his son six months before the invasion commenced.18
The following 120 years are Persian, followed by a tumultuous 60 years of Egyptian rule, with another 11 of Persian, before finally the Greeks under Alexander the Great conquer Egypt, beginning the Greco-Roman period of Egyptian chronology. The Pharaohs at this point being definitively Greek under what is actually the single longest Pharaonic dynasty in all of Egyptian history. Yes, longer than the 1st dynasties 250 years, 258 years of the 18th dynasty Thutmosids, the Ramessid 19th’s comparatively tiny 103 years, or the 223 years of the foreign Meshwesh (Libyan) ‘Bubastite’ dynasty. The Ptolemaic Greek dynasty, well known for culminating in the Queen Cleopatra before Roman conquest, lasted over 275 years even without adding on the Argead dynasty of Alexander who lasted 23 years. A nearly 300 year reign, essentially dwarfing any other cultural influence on the country and effectively overwriting previous historical memory. Egypt had become Greek. (Except for the following 350 year “Roman” Pharaonic period where nearly every Roman Emperor was actually crowned Pharaoh, but let’s leave that aside since they primarily viewed themselves as Emperors, not Pharaohs like the Ptolemies)
There was one tiny fact left out of this story, which was the increasing Egyptian presence on the Island of Cyprus falling under the jurisdiction of Pelusium in Egypt - the northern and eastern most city on the Nile. Jewish tradition from the Aramaic and Syriac Targums, as well as the commentary of Rambam (Maimonides) indicates they were at Caphutkia, which was roughly in the vicinity of Damietta.19 Now, anyone reading the over 600 pages of my material so far knows I rarely cite Rambam when it comes to historical definitions despite my own bias and love for his method and approach. Part of this is because Rambam is not usually using his own intuition on these points, and as is the case here probably lifted this from Saadia Gaon.20 However, I actually think the Rambam’s affiliation with this source is important because he was the Chief Rabbi of Egypt, and lived not far from all of these locations, making him probably an even better source than Saadia. Likewise, Benjamin of Tudela - famed traveler who also had a good grasp of cartography - and historian/astronomer Abraham Zacuto also agree with Rambam’s identification making it hard for me to contradict these giants.
However, I think something is being left out of their picture. Where was Sidon? Was it simply the city of Sidon, or also the entire representation for Phoenicia? (Trick question, you wouldn’t know the answer to that unless you skipped ahead!) Where was Assur? The city, or the country of Assyria? Better question, where was “Canaan”? Was Canaan a city, or an entire region, or even further a people/nation?
We will return to these questions and answer them next time. The story so far is critical to understanding the context which the Caphtorim were thought to exist.
The Holy Bible, According to the Authorized Version (A.D. 1611). Edited by Frederic Charles Cook. p131
Anthony Tony Browder, Nile valley contributions to civilization,Volume 1. 1992
The Histories 4.42
The New Encyclopædia Britannica: Micropædia, Vol.9, 15th edition, 2003. p.756
Clayton, Peter A. (2006). Chronicle of the Pharaohs: The Reign-by-Reign Record of the Rulers and Dynasties of Ancient Egypt (Paperback ed.). Thames & Hudson. pp. 195–197.
Alan B. Lloyd, 'The Late Period' in The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt (ed. Ian Shaw), Oxford Univ. Press 2002 paperback, p.381
Clayton, Peter A. (2006). Chronicle of the Pharaohs: The Reign-by-Reign Record of the Rulers and Dynasties of Ancient Egypt (Paperback ed.). Thames & Hudson. pp. 195–197.
Herodotus ii. 161 Diodorus i. 68
Cf. Theis, Christoffer (2011). "Sollte Re sich schämen? Eine subliminale Bedeutung von עפרח in Jeremia 44,30". Ugarit-Forschungen (in German). 42: 677–691.
Miller, J. Maxwell; Hayes, John H. (1986). A History of Ancient Israel and Judah (Hardback ed.). Westminster Press. p. 414.
Abd El-Maksoud, Mohamed; Valbelle, Dominique (2013). "Une stèle de l'an 7 d'Apriès découverte sur le site de Tell Défenneh". Revue d'Égyptologie (in French). 64: 1–13.
Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica, (Book I, Chapter 68)
Kenrick, Philip (2013). Cyrenaica. Libya Archaeological Guides. Vol. 2. Silphium Press. p. 2 ISBN 978-1-900971-14-0.
Rosamilia, Emilio (2023). La città del silfio. Istituzioni, culti ed economia di Cirene classica ed ellenistica attraverso le fonti epigrafiche (in Italian). Pisa: Scuola Normale Superiore. p. 19.
Griffith, Francis Llewellyn (1911). "Amasis s.v. Amasis II.". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 1 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 782.
Lloyd. (2002) p.382
Griffith, Francis Llewellyn (1911). "Amasis s.v. Amasis II.". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 1 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 782.
John Lightfoot, From the Talmud and Hebraica, Volume 1,Cosimo, Inc., 2007
Saadia Gaon (1984). Yosef Qafih (ed.). Rabbi Saadia Gaon's Commentaries on the Pentateuch (in Hebrew) (4 ed.). Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook. p. 33 (note 39).