ABSTRACT
The Hebrew Bible's other references to the early Hebrews having been in Egypt and escaping from that land are numerous at all levels, and view their departure as a liberation. Biblical tradition has an entry under a figure Joshua, followed by a slow consolidation under largely local Hebrew non-professional leaders, culminating in a kingdom, unitary in the late 11th to 10th centuries bce, then split into two rump-kingdoms thereafter. The importance of this preliminary statement of the later basic data is that at c. 1000–925 bce, we are within only about 250 years of any putative early Hebrew exodus from Egypt and entry into Canaan. At the beginning of the 13th century bce, a new upsurge of interest and then of fresh building in the East Delta led to the Egyptians press-ganging elements of the local Semitic population, a situation echoed in Exodus 1–5.
