The Practices of the Land of Egypt (Lev. 18:3): Incest, ʿAnat, and Israel in the Egypt of Ramesses the Great

Abstract

To my mind, the simplest, most straightforward answer is that the Israelites were in Egypt during Ramesses’s reign. Many of them––especially if they worked in Ramesses’s new residential capital––would have heard the title “King’s Daughter and Royal Wife” used with reference to at least three of Ramesses’s daughters: Bint-ʿAnat, Meryet-Amūn, and Nebt-tawy. 52 This is particularly true of Bint-ʿAnat, who would have appeared alongside the king on public occasions during her reign as Chief Queen. 53 As for the king’s special relationship with the Canaanite goddess ʿAnat, anyone working in Pi-Ramesses would have been aware of that as well, since ʿAnat “evidently even possessed in Piramses a remarkable temple complex, in which two groups of statues, of ʿAnat and Ramses, were found.” 54 One of the groups is thought to have been displayed outside the temple, in front of a pylon. 55 In short, the impression made on the Israelites by the sexual practices of this monarch, even more than the impression made on them by his labor practices, testifies to their presence in Egypt in his time