Land of Goshen

If the Septuagint reading "Gesem" is correct, the word, which in its Hebrew form has no known meaning, may mean "cultivated"—comparing the Arabic root j-š-m, "to labor". Egyptologists have suggested a connection with the Egyptian word qas, meaning "inundated land". Because Goshen was apparently the same region, called by the Greeks the "Arabian nome," which had its capital at Phakousa. The name represented the Egyptian Pa-qas (Brugsch, Geog., I, 298), the name of a town, with the determinative for "pouring forth".[1] Donald Redford, while not disputing the location of Goshen, gives a different origin for the name, deriving it from "Gasmu," the rulers of the Bedouin Qedarites who occupied the eastern Delta from the 7th century BC, but John Van Seters thinks this unlikely.[2]

Goshen

According to the Joseph narrative in the Book of Genesis, the sons of Jacob (Israel) who were living in Hebron, experienced a severe famine that lasted for seven years. Word was that Egypt was the only kingdom able to supply food, and thus the sons of Jacob (Israel) journeyed there to buy goods. In the second year of famine,[3] the Vizier of Egypt, Joseph,[4][5] invited the sons of Israel to live in Egyptian territory. They settled in the country of Goshen.[6] Goshen is described as the best land in Egypt, suitable for both crops and livestock. It has been suggested that this location may have been somewhat apart from Egypt, because Genesis 46:34 states, "Ye may dwell in the land of Goshen; for every shepherd is an abomination unto the Egyptians." After the death of Joseph and those of his generation, the following generations of Israelites had become populous in number. The Egyptians feared potential integration or takeover, so they enslaved the Israelites.

Four hundred and thirty years later, to the day,[7] Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, from Goshen to Succoth,[8] the first waypoint of the Exodus. They pitched at 41 locations crossing the Nile Delta, to the last station being the plains of Moab.[9]

Pithom

Raamses

On

Locations of Pithom, Raamses and On (Heliopolis) in northern Egypt

In 1885 Édouard Naville identified Goshen as the 20th nome of Egypt, located in the eastern Delta, and known as "Gesem" or "Kesem" during the Twenty-sixth dynasty of Egypt (672–525 BC). It covered the western end of the Wadi Tumilat, the eastern end being the district of Succoth, which had Pithom as its main town, extended north as far as the ruins of Pi-Ramesses (the "land of Rameses"), and included both crop land and grazing land.[10]

• Macalister, R. A. Stewart (1911). "Goshen, a division of Egypt settled by the Israelites between Jacob's immigration and the Exodus" . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.).