The Stele That Names Israel

Thebes, Egypt, 1896. Flinders Petrie's team is puzzling over a black granite slab, and one group of signs near the end won't quite read.

Scripture: I gave you a land whereon you had not labored, and cities which you didn’t build, and you live in them. You eat of vineyards and olive groves which you didn’t plant.

In Joshua twenty-four, a speech looks back over Israel's story, from the Jordan and Jericho to the peoples of Canaan, and speaks of land and cities received.

Background: Canaan was then part of Egypt's empire. In the fifth year of the pharaoh Merneptah, about 1208 BCE, a Libyan king invaded Egypt, and Merneptah won a great victory.

Petrie found the stele at Thebes in 1896. It is over three metres, ten feet, high, and the text was cut on the rough back of an older stele of Amenhotep the Third.

Most of its twenty-eight lines celebrate the Libyan victory. The last three turn to Canaan, where Merneptah says he defeated Asqaluna, Gezer, Yanoam and Israel.

Scripture: Translator Wilhelm Spiegelberg was puzzled by one group of signs. Petrie quickly suggested Israel, and Spiegelberg agreed. Petrie's remark, as recorded: won't the reverends be pleased?

A technical term: a determinative is a silent sign that shows a word's category. Asqaluna, Gezer and Yanoam get the city sign. Israel gets a sign for a people.

How does it relate to the passage? It names a people called Israel in Canaan, but it doesn't describe how they came to hold land. The link is indirect, and scholars debate it.

Today the stele is in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. It is the earliest text to mention Israel, and the only reference from ancient Egypt.

A date, a place, a name in stone; the rest is still debated. May the Lord Jesus Christ be with you today. Follow for more from the ground beneath the Bible.