Place · Region · Country
Egypt
Also known as Rahab
Named in 564 verses across 32 books, first in Genesis 12:10.
In these stories
- Crossing the Red Sea (and did the Exodus happen?)
- Rahab and the fall of Jericho
- Sinai and the Ten Commandments
- The Nativity and Isaiah 7:14: virgin or young woman?
Questions about this
In the Bible
All 76 verses in Genesis, in Bible order. Text from the Berean Standard Bible; verse numbers follow the KJV.
Genesis
- Genesis 12:10
Now there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was severe.
- Genesis 12:11
As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, “Look, I know that you are a beautiful woman,
- Genesis 12:12
and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me but will let you live.
- Genesis 12:14
So when Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful.
- Genesis 13:1
So Abram went up out of Egypt into the Negev—he and his wife and all his possessions—and Lot was with him.
- Genesis 13:10
And Lot looked out and saw that the whole plain of the Jordan, all the way to Zoar, was well watered like the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt. (This was before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.)
- Genesis 15:18
On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I have given this land—from the river of Egypt to the great River Euphrates—
- Genesis 21:21
And while he was dwelling in the Wilderness of Paran, his mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt.
- Genesis 25:18
Ishmael’s descendants settled from Havilah to Shur, which is near the border of Egypt as you go toward Asshur. And they lived in hostility toward all their brothers.
- Genesis 26:2
The LORD appeared to Isaac and said, “Do not go down to Egypt. Settle in the land where I tell you.
- Genesis 37:25
And as they sat down to eat a meal, they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Their camels were carrying spices, balm, and myrrh on their way down to Egypt.
- Genesis 37:28
So when the Midianite traders passed by, his brothers pulled Joseph out of the pit and sold him for twenty shekels of silver to the Ishmaelites, who took him to Egypt.
- Genesis 37:36
Meanwhile, the Midianites sold Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh and captain of the guard.
- Genesis 39:1
Meanwhile, Joseph had been taken down to Egypt, where an Egyptian named Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh and captain of the guard, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him there.
- Genesis 39:5
From the time that he put Joseph in charge of his household and all he owned, the LORD blessed the Egyptian’s household on account of him. The LORD’s blessing was on everything he owned, both in his house and in his field.
- Genesis 40:1
Some time later, the king’s cupbearer and baker offended their master, the king of Egypt.
- Genesis 40:5
both of these men—the Egyptian king’s cupbearer and baker, who were being held in the prison—had a dream on the same night, and each dream had its own meaning.
- Genesis 41:8
In the morning his spirit was troubled, so he summoned all the magicians and wise men of Egypt. Pharaoh told them his dreams, but no one could interpret them for him.
- Genesis 41:19
After them, seven other cows—sickly, ugly, and thin—came up. I have never seen such ugly cows in all the land of Egypt!
- Genesis 41:29
Behold, seven years of great abundance are coming throughout the land of Egypt,
- Genesis 41:30
but seven years of famine will follow them. Then all the abundance in the land of Egypt will be forgotten, and the famine will devastate the land.
- Genesis 41:33
Now, therefore, Pharaoh should look for a discerning and wise man and set him over the land of Egypt.
- Genesis 41:34
Let Pharaoh take action and appoint commissioners over the land to take a fifth of the harvest of Egypt during the seven years of abundance.
- Genesis 41:36
This food will be a reserve for the land during the seven years of famine to come upon the land of Egypt. Then the country will not perish in the famine.”
- Genesis 41:41
Pharaoh also told Joseph, “I hereby place you over all the land of Egypt.”
- Genesis 41:43
He had Joseph ride in his second chariot, with men calling out before him, “Bow the knee!” So he placed him over all the land of Egypt.
- Genesis 41:44
And Pharaoh declared to Joseph, “I am Pharaoh, but without your permission, no one in all the land of Egypt shall lift his hand or foot.”
- Genesis 41:45
Pharaoh gave Joseph the name Zaphenath-paneah, and he gave him Asenath daughter of Potiphera, priest of On, to be his wife. And Joseph took charge of all the land of Egypt.
- Genesis 41:46
Now Joseph was thirty years old when he entered the service of Pharaoh king of Egypt. And Joseph left Pharaoh’s presence and traveled throughout the land of Egypt.
- Genesis 41:48
During those seven years, Joseph collected all the excess food in the land of Egypt and stored it in the cities. In every city he laid up the food from the fields around it.
- Genesis 41:53
When the seven years of abundance in the land of Egypt came to an end,
- Genesis 41:54
the seven years of famine began, just as Joseph had said. And although there was famine in every country, there was food throughout the land of Egypt.
- Genesis 41:55
When extreme hunger came to all the land of Egypt and the people cried out to Pharaoh for food, he told all the Egyptians, “Go to Joseph and do whatever he tells you.”
- Genesis 41:56
When the famine had spread over all the land, Joseph opened up all the storehouses and sold grain to the Egyptians; for the famine was severe in the land of Egypt.
- Genesis 41:57
And every nation came to Joseph in Egypt to buy grain, because the famine was severe over all the earth.
- Genesis 42:1
When Jacob learned that there was grain in Egypt, he said to his sons, “Why are you staring at one another?”
- Genesis 42:2
“Look,” he added, “I have heard that there is grain in Egypt. Go down there and buy some for us, so that we may live and not die.”
- Genesis 42:3
So ten of Joseph’s brothers went down to buy grain from Egypt.
- Genesis 43:2
So when Jacob’s sons had eaten all the grain they had brought from Egypt, their father said to them, “Go back and buy us a little more food.”
- Genesis 43:15
So the men took these gifts, along with double the amount of silver, and Benjamin as well. Then they hurried down to Egypt and stood before Joseph.
- Genesis 45:4
Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Please come near me.” And they did so. “I am Joseph, your brother,” he said, “the one you sold into Egypt!
- Genesis 45:8
Therefore it was not you who sent me here, but God, who has made me a father to Pharaoh—lord of all his household and ruler over all the land of Egypt.
- Genesis 45:9
Now return quickly to my father and tell him, ‘This is what your son Joseph says: God has made me lord of all Egypt. Come down to me without delay.
- Genesis 45:13
Tell my father about all my splendor in Egypt and everything you have seen. And bring my father down here quickly.”
- Genesis 45:18
Then bring your father and your families and return to me. I will give you the best of the land of Egypt, and you shall eat from the fat of the land.’
- Genesis 45:19
You are also directed to tell them: ‘Take wagons from the land of Egypt for your young children and your wives, and bring your father and come back.
- Genesis 45:20
But pay no regard to your belongings, for the best of all the land of Egypt is yours.’”
- Genesis 45:23
And he sent to his father the following: ten donkeys loaded with the best of Egypt, and ten female donkeys loaded with grain and bread and provisions for his father’s journey.
- Genesis 45:25
So the brothers went up out of Egypt and came to their father Jacob in the land of Canaan.
- Genesis 45:26
“Joseph is still alive,” they said, “and he is ruler over all the land of Egypt!” But Jacob was stunned, for he did not believe them.
- Genesis 46:3
“I am God,” He said, “the God of your father. Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will make you into a great nation there.
- Genesis 46:4
I will go down with you to Egypt, and I will surely bring you back. And Joseph’s own hands will close your eyes.”
- Genesis 46:6
They also took the livestock and possessions they had acquired in the land of Canaan, and Jacob and all his offspring went to Egypt.
- Genesis 46:7
Jacob took with him to Egypt his sons and grandsons, and his daughters and granddaughters—all his offspring.
- Genesis 46:8
Now these are the names of the sons of Israel (Jacob and his descendants) who went to Egypt: Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn.
- Genesis 46:20
Manasseh and Ephraim were born to Joseph in the land of Egypt by Asenath daughter of Potiphera, priest of On.
- Genesis 46:26
All those belonging to Jacob who came to Egypt—his direct descendants, besides the wives of Jacob’s sons—numbered sixty-six persons.
- Genesis 46:27
And with the two sons who had been born to Joseph in Egypt, the members of Jacob’s family who went to Egypt were seventy in all.
- Genesis 47:6
the land of Egypt is before you; settle your father and brothers in the best part of the land. They may dwell in the land of Goshen. And if you know of any talented men among them, put them in charge of my own livestock.”
- Genesis 47:11
So Joseph settled his father and brothers in the land of Egypt and gave them property in the best part of the land, the district of Rameses, as Pharaoh had commanded.
- Genesis 47:13
There was no food, however, in all that region, because the famine was so severe; the lands of Egypt and Canaan had been exhausted by the famine.
- Genesis 47:14
Joseph collected all the money to be found in the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan in exchange for the grain they were buying, and he brought it into Pharaoh’s palace.
- Genesis 47:15
When the money from the lands of Egypt and Canaan was gone, all the Egyptians came to Joseph and said, “Give us food. Why should we die before your eyes? For our funds have run out!”
- Genesis 47:20
So Joseph acquired for Pharaoh all the land in Egypt; the Egyptians, one and all, sold their fields because the famine was so severe upon them. The land became Pharaoh’s,
- Genesis 47:21
and Joseph reduced the people to servitude from one end of Egypt to the other.
- Genesis 47:26
So Joseph established a law that a fifth of the produce belongs to Pharaoh, and it is in effect in the land of Egypt to this day. Only the priests’ land does not belong to Pharaoh.
- Genesis 47:27
Now the Israelites settled in the land of Egypt, in the region of Goshen. They acquired property there and became fruitful and increased greatly in number.
- Genesis 47:28
And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years, and the length of his life was 147 years.
- Genesis 47:29
When the time drew near for Israel to die, he called his son Joseph and said to him, “If I have found favor in your eyes, put your hand under my thigh and promise to show me kindness and faithfulness. Do not bury me in Egypt,
- Genesis 47:30
but when I lie down with my fathers, carry me out of Egypt and bury me with them.” Joseph answered, “I will do as you have requested.”
- Genesis 48:5
And now your two sons born to you in Egypt before I came to you here shall be reckoned as mine; Ephraim and Manasseh shall be mine, just as Reuben and Simeon are mine.
- Genesis 50:7
Then Joseph went to bury his father, and all the servants of Pharaoh accompanied him—the elders of Pharaoh’s household and all the elders of the land of Egypt—
- Genesis 50:11
When the Canaanites of the land saw the mourning at the threshing floor of Atad, they said, “This is a solemn ceremony of mourning by the Egyptians.” Thus the place across the Jordan is called Abel-mizraim.
- Genesis 50:14
After Joseph had buried his father, he returned to Egypt with his brothers and all who had gone with him to bury his father.
- Genesis 50:22
Now Joseph and his father’s household remained in Egypt, and Joseph lived to the age of 110.
- Genesis 50:26
So Joseph died at the age of 110. And they embalmed his body and placed it in a coffin in Egypt.
Events here
Events the dataset sets at Egypt. Dates follow its Ussher–Jones reckoning (one of several traditional counts), not established history.
- c. 1921 BCAbraham goes to Egypt
- c. 1921 BCSojourn in Canaan and Egypt
- c. 1745 BCBirth of Joseph
- c. 1745 BCLifetime of Joseph
- c. 1728 BCJoseph sold to Egypt
- c. 1718 BCJoseph imprisoned
- c. 1715 BCJoseph Promoted in Egypt
- c. 1715 BC7 years of plenty
- c. 1706 BCJoseph's brothers return to Egypt
- c. 1689 BCDeath of Jacob
- c. 1635 BCDeath of Joseph
- c. 1571 BCBirth of Moses
Dictionary
From Easton’s Bible Dictionary (1897), as attached to this record by Theographic. Its geography and “modern” descriptions date from the 1890s. Easton wrote in 1897, and some of his views are now debated.
Read Easton’s entry
The land of the Nile and the pyramids, the oldest kingdom of which we have any record, holds a place of great significance in Scripture.
The Egyptians belonged to the white race, and their original home is still a matter of dispute. Many scholars believe that it was in Southern Arabia, and recent excavations have shown that the valley of the Nile was originally inhabited by a low-class population, perhaps belonging to the Nigritian stock, before the Egyptians of history entered it. The ancient Egyptian language, of which the latest form is Coptic, is distantly connected with the Semitic family of speech.
Egypt consists geographically of two halves, the northern being the Delta, and the southern Upper Egypt, between Cairo and the First Cataract. In the Old Testament, Northern or Lower Egypt is called Mazor, “the fortified land” (Isa. 19:6; [37](/isa#Isa.37): 25, where the A.V. mistranslates “defence” and “besieged places”); while Southern or Upper Egypt is Pathros, the Egyptian Pa-to-Res, or “the land of the south” (Isa. 11:11). But the whole country is generally mentioned under the dual name of Mizraim, “the two Mazors.”
The civilization of Egypt goes back to a very remote antiquity. The two kingdoms of the north and south were united by Menes, the founder of the first historical dynasty of kings. The first six dynasties constitute what is known as the Old Empire, which had its capital at Memphis, south of Cairo, called in the Old Testament Moph (Hos. 9:6) and Noph. The native name was Mennofer, “the good place.”
The Pyramids were tombs of the monarchs of the Old Empire, those of Gizeh being erected in the time of the Fourth Dynasty. After the fall of the Old Empire came a period of decline and obscurity. This was followed by the Middle Empire, the most powerful dynasty of which was the Twelfth. The Fayyum was rescued for agriculture by the kings of the Twelfth Dynasty; and two obelisks were erected in front of the temple of the sun-god at On or Heliopolis (near Cairo), one of which is still standing. The capital of the Middle Empire was Thebes, in Upper Egypt.
The Middle Empire was overthrown by the invasion of the Hyksos, or shepherd princes from Asia, who ruled over Egypt, more especially in the north, for several centuries, and of whom there were three dynasties of kings. They had their capital at Zoan or Tanis (now San), in the north-eastern part of the Delta. It was in the time of the Hyksos that Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph entered Egypt. The Hyksos were finally expelled about B.C. 1600, by the hereditary princes of Thebes, who founded the Eighteenth Dynasty, and carried the war into Asia. Canaan and Syria were subdued, as well as Cyprus, and the boundaries of the Egyptian Empire were fixed at the Euphrates. The Soudan, which had been conquered by the kings of the Twelfth Dynasty, was again annexed to Egypt, and the eldest son of the Pharaoh took the title of “Prince of Cush.”
One of the later kings of the dynasty, Amenophis IV., or Khu-n-Aten, endeavoured to supplant the ancient state religion of Egypt by a new faith derived from Asia, which was a sort of pantheistic monotheism, the one supreme god being adored under the image of the solar disk. The attempt led to religious and civil war, and the Pharaoh retreated from Thebes to Central Egypt, where he built a new capital, on the site of the present Tell-el-Amarna. The cuneiform tablets that have been found there represent his foreign correspondence (about B.C. 1400). He surrounded himself with officials and courtiers of Asiatic, and more especially Canaanitish, extraction; but the native party succeeded eventually in overthrowing the government, the capital of Khu-n-Aten was destroyed, and the foreigners were driven out of the country, those that remained being reduced to serfdom.
The national triumph was marked by the rise of the Nineteenth Dynasty, in the founder of which, Rameses I., we must see the “new king, who knew not Joseph.” His grandson, Rameses II., reigned sixty-seven years (B.C. 1348-1281), and was an indefatigable builder. As Pithom, excavated by Dr. Naville in 1883, was one of the cities he built, he must have been the Pharaoh of the Oppression. The Pharaoh of the Exodus may have been one of his immediate successors, whose reigns were short. Under them Egypt lost its empire in Asia, and was itself attacked by barbarians from Libya and the north.
The Nineteenth Dynasty soon afterwards came to an end; Egypt was distracted by civil war; and for a short time a Canaanite, Arisu, ruled over it.
Then came the Twentieth Dynasty, the second Pharaoh of which, Rameses III., restored the power of his country. In one of his campaigns he overran the southern part of Palestine, where the Israelites had not yet settled. They must at the time have been still in the wilderness. But it was during the reign of Rameses III. that Egypt finally lost Gaza and the adjoining cities, which were seized by the Pulista, or Philistines.
After Rameses III., Egypt fell into decay. Solomon married the daughter of one of the last kings of the Twenty-first Dynasty, which was overthrown by Shishak I., the general of the Libyan mercenaries, who founded the Twenty-second Dynasty (1 Kings 11:40; 14:25, 26). A list of the places he captured in Palestine is engraved on the outside of the south wall of the temple of Karnak.
In the time of Hezekiah, Egypt was conquered by Ethiopians from the Soudan, who constituted the Twenty-fifth Dynasty. The third of them was Tirhakah (2 Kings 19:9). In B.C. 674 it was conquered by the Assyrians, who divided it into twenty satrapies, and Tirhakah was driven back to his ancestral dominions. Fourteen years later it successfully revolted under Psammetichus I. of Sais, the founder of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty. Among his successors were Necho (2 Kings 23:29) and Hophra, or Apries (Jer. 37:5, 7, 11). The dynasty came to an end in B.C. 525, when the country was subjugated by Cambyses. Soon afterwards it was organized into a Persian satrapy.
The title of Pharaoh, given to the Egyptian kings, is the Egyptian Per-aa, or “Great House,” which may be compared to that of “Sublime Porte.” It is found in very early Egyptian texts.
The Egyptian religion was a strange mixture of pantheism and animal worship, the gods being adored in the form of animals. While the educated classes resolved their manifold deities into manifestations of one omnipresent and omnipotent divine power, the lower classes regarded the animals as incarnations of the gods.
Under the Old Empire, Ptah, the Creator, the god of Memphis, was at the head of the Pantheon; afterwards Amon, the god of Thebes, took his place. Amon, like most of the other gods, was identified with Ra, the sun-god of Heliopolis.
The Egyptians believed in a resurrection and future life, as well as in a state of rewards and punishments dependent on our conduct in this world. The judge of the dead was Osiris, who had been slain by Set, the representative of evil, and afterwards restored to life. His death was avenged by his son Horus, whom the Egyptians invoked as their “Redeemer.” Osiris and Horus, along with Isis, formed a trinity, who were regarded as representing the sun-god under different forms.
Even in the time of Abraham, Egypt was a flourishing and settled monarchy. Its oldest capital, within the historic period, was Memphis, the ruins of which may still be seen near the Pyramids and the Sphinx. When the Old Empire of Menes came to an end, the seat of empire was shifted to Thebes, some 300 miles farther up the Nile. A short time after that, the Delta was conquered by the Hyksos, or shepherd kings, who fixed their capital at Zoan, the Greek Tanis, now San, on the Tanic arm of the Nile. All this occurred before the time of the new king “which knew not Joseph” (Ex. 1:8). In later times Egypt was conquered by the Persians (B.C. 525), and by the Greeks under Alexander the Great (B.C. 332), after whom the Ptolemies ruled the country for three centuries. Subsequently it was for a time a province of the Roman Empire; and at last, in A.D. 1517, it fell into the hands of the Turks, of whose empire it still forms nominally a part. Abraham and Sarah went to Egypt in the time of the shepherd kings. The exile of Joseph and the migration of Jacob to “the land of Goshen” occurred about 200 years later. On the death of Solomon, Shishak, king of Egypt, invaded Palestine (1 Kings 14:25). He left a list of the cities he conquered.
A number of remarkable clay tablets, discovered at Tell-el-Amarna in Upper Egypt, are the most important historical records ever found in connection with the Bible. They most fully confirm the historical statements of the Book of Joshua, and prove the antiquity of civilization in Syria and Palestine. As the clay in different parts of Palestine differs, it has been found possible by the clay alone to decide where the tablets come from when the name of the writer is lost. The inscriptions are cuneiform, and in the Aramaic language, resembling Assyrian. The writers are Phoenicians, Amorites, and Philistines, but in no instance Hittites, though Hittites are mentioned. The tablets consist of official dispatches and letters, dating from B.C. 1480, addressed to the two Pharaohs, Amenophis III. and IV., the last of this dynasty, from the kings and governors of Phoenicia and Palestine. There occur the names of three kings killed by Joshua, Adoni-zedec, king of Jerusalem, Japhia, king of Lachish (Josh. 10:3), and Jabin, king of Hazor (11:1); also the Hebrews (Abiri) are said to have come from the desert.
The principal prophecies of Scripture regarding Egypt are these, [Isa. 19](/isa#Isa.19); [Jer. 43](/jer#Jer.43): 8-13; 44:30; 46; [Ezek. 29](/ezek#Ezek.29)-32; and it might be easily shown that they have all been remarkably fulfilled. For example, the singular disappearance of Noph (i.e., Memphis) is a fulfilment of Jer. 46:19, Ezek. 30:13.