PHARAOH fâr’ ō,—ĭō (פַּרְעֹה, H7281; LXX Φαραώ, G5755; from Egyp. pr-(ə), great house). Title of the kings of ancient Egypt.

I. Origin and history of the title. The Egyp. term “great house” first appears in the Old Kingdom and was used to denote the palace of the king, the institution that was the seat of government. It was in the New Kingdom (c. 1550-1070 b.c.) that the term was first clearly applied to the person of the king himself, at least in written documents. In that period, as long before and after, the Egyp. kings had each an individual personal name (e.g., Amenophis, Ramses) as “Son of Ra,” preceded by four other titles each with a corresponding name. The last of these four was the special name, as the “King of Upper and Lower Egypt”; this and the personal name were each enclosed in an elongated ring known modernly as a “cartouche.” Whereas these official names and titles were at all times used for formal purposes and in the datelines of documents, the more popular term “pharaoh” was used within the body of such documents and, of course, in everyday speech—e.g., the workmen in western Thebes referred to “Pharaoh, our good lord,” and so forth. This informal and popular usage of “pharaoh” by itself, without a proper name, is customary in the OT, sometimes glossed by its Heb. equivalent “king of Egypt.” The exclusive use of “pharaoh” without name in the Pentateuch and down to Solomon compares well with Egyp. usage of the New Kingdom and the twenty-first dynasty respectively.

Later, from the twenty-second dynasty onward, Egyp. popular usage began to add the king’s name to the title, e.g., “Pharaoh Shoshenq” on a stela from Dakhleh oasis, prob. dating to Shoshenq I, the Biblical Shishak. This usage is correctly reflected in the more specific OT references for the first millennium b.c., e.g., to Pharaoh Neco or Pharaoh Hophra (Jer 44:30; 46:2), as opposed to the continuing general references to “Pharaoh” also to be found. One may compare the Assyrian references to “Pir’u king of Egypt (Musri).”

II. The role of the pharaoh. The role of the king was vital to the civilization and society of ancient Egypt. He was for his people a god among men and a man among the gods, the human holder of a divine office, the intermediary between the people of Egypt and the gods of the cosmos. In the earliest times, the king himself incarnated a god on earth, esp. the falcon god Horus of Upper Egypt. In the course of the Old Kingdom, his divine status diminished in level when, as Son of Ra, he was in some measure subordinate to another deity rather than being an autonomous deity himself. In the New Kingdom, the pharaoh was, further, considered as executing the decrees or plans of this or that god, esp. Amun. At all times (according to the evidence), the king as representative of the gods and as the ruler of Egypt had to uphold maat, the just and right world order, as guarantor of an ordered and stable society in which justice was to predominate. As being also the representative of the Egyp. people with the gods, the pharaoh was in principle the sole high priest of the gods of Egypt—hence, his ubiquitous presence in innumerable temple scenes, of the king offering to the gods. In practice, of course, the role devolved on human and mainly nonroyal high priests, and pharaoh officiated in person only intermittently at great state festivals. Ramses II, for example, celebrated in person the magnificent Opet Festival of the god Amun at Thebes at the beginning of his reign, before appointing a new high priest of Amun.

The pharaohs of Egypt constituted some of the most stable monarchies ever seen, very rarely disrupted by internal plots or insurrection. The main reason was perhaps the continuity of tradition, and esp. the religious link between any given pharaoh and his predecessor. It appears that the proper burial of his predecessor was a first duty (and a legitimizing act) of a new king, like Horus for his father Osiris, and that regardless of any actual relationship between the new king and his predecessor. On the throne, the living monarch was the embodiment of the god Horus; when dead, he was identified with Osiris in the realm of the blessed dead, and joined the august company of his long line of predecessors. The “Royal Ancestors” (i.e., all dead kings) had a vital part in the everyday temple cult, being associated with the gods for the welfare of Egypt.

It is perhaps not irrelevant to see this high status of the pharaohs as a background for a passage such as Exodus 7:1 (Moses as “God” to Pharaoh), and for the judgment of that event on the gods of Egypt (Exod 12:12). When a passage such as Isaiah 19:11 puts into the mouth of Pharaoh’s counselors the claim “I am a son of the wise, a son of ancient kings,” one may see a reflection here of the aura of age-long tradition current in the Late Period (Isaiah being contemporary with the twenty-second/twenty-third—twenty-fifth dynasties) and long before, and of the family links of officials of the Late Period with past royalty (shown by genealogies of that period).

III. Individual pharaohs in Scripture (1) Time of Abraham (Gen 12:15-20). If Abraham is placed in the early second millennium b.c. (roughly 2000-1800), he would be a contemporary of the Middle Kingdom, and most likely of the twelfth dynasty (1991-1786 b.c.), and so of one of the kings Ammenemes (I-IV) or Sesostris (I-III). At that time, the effective capital of Egypt was at Ithet-Tawy, just S of Memphis, and the pharaohs also had a residence near the land of Goshen (cf. J. van Seters, The Hyksos [1966], 132, 133).

(2) The pharaoh of Joseph (Gen 37-50). If Joseph flourished about 1700 b.c., he prob. lived in the late thirteenth dynasty and early Hyksos period (fifteenth dynasty). If so, the king who appointed Joseph to high office could have belonged to either dynasty; the change of power from the one to the other prob. occurred about 1650 b.c. (see, Land of Egypt).

(3) The pharaoh(s) of the oppression (Exod 1, 2). Identification depends on the date assigned to the Exodus and on the identification accepted for the pharaoh of the Exodus. If the latter is Ramses II, the oppression could stretch back under Sethos I to Haremhab and perhaps Amenophis III. On the theory of Amenophis II as pharaoh of the Exodus, the oppression would be largely under Thutmosis III.

(4) The pharaoh of the Exodus (Exod 5-12) cannot be identified with absolute certainty. Older views favored either Amenophis II of the eighteenth dynasty (c. 1440 b.c.) or Merneptah of the nineteenth dynasty (c. 1220 b.c.). These views are less easily tenable today (esp. the second one), and Ramses II (predecessor of Merneptah) may be a likelier candidate (see Exodus).

(5) The pharaoh who fathered Bithiah, a wife of Mered (1 Chron 4:18), cannot be identified at present, as the date of Bithiah is not easily ascertained.

(6) The contemporary of David who accepted the boy prince Hadad of Edom as a refugee when Joab ravaged that land (1 Kings 11:14-22). David’s reign (c. 1010-970 b.c.) was contemporary with the twenty-first dynasty in Egypt. As the dynasty ended with Psusennes II (c. 959-945 b.c.), David’s Egyp. contemporaries would be the kings Amenemope, Osochor, and Siamun; of these, either Amenemope or Siamun are the likeliest to have been Hadad’s host. Unfortunately, no details of the families of these kings are yet known. See also Land of Egypt.

(7) The king whose daughter married Solomon, and who handed over Gezer as her dowry (1 Kings 9:16). Reigning about 970-930 b.c., Solomon would be a contemporary of Siamun and Psusennes II of the twenty-first dynasty. Siamun is the more probable candidate for the role of Solomon’s father-in-law, as he was ruling in Solomon’s early years when the marriage prob. took place (cf. Malamat, JNES, XXII [1963], 9-17). A fragmentary relief from Tanis showing Siamun smiting an Asiatic might reflect a “police action” of his in Philistia, when he could also have captured Gezer.

(8) Shishak (q.v.), the Shoshenq I who founded the twenty-second dynasty in Egypt, of Libyan origin (1 Kings 14:25, 26).

(9) Zerah defeated by Asa (2 Chron 14:9-15) was prob. not a pharaoh, as his name is not identifiable with Osorkon as once thought.

(10) So (q.v.), to whom the last Israelite king, Hoshea, sent for aid against Assyria (2 Kings 17:4). He is not called pharaoh in the OT, but may have been the shadowy Osorkon IV of the late twenty-second dynasty.

(11) The political-military impotence of the twenty-fifth dynasty pharaohs is well recognized by Isaiah (30:1ff.). In 701 b.c., Shebitku prob. had ascended the throne, sending his brother Tirhakah into Pal. in a vain attempt to defeat the Assyrians (cf. Isa 36:6; 37:9).

(12) Tirhakah (q.v.), principal king of the twenty-fifth dynasty, contemporary of Hezekiah and Sennacherib (Isa 37:9) although he only became king from c. 690 b.c. (cf. Kitchen, Ancient Orient and Old Testament [1966], 82-84).

(13) Neco (q.v.), second ruler of the twenty-sixth dynasty, who defeated and slew Josiah of Judah when the latter tried to prevent his intervention in the conflict between Assyria and Babylon (2 Kings 23:29). Neco’s attempt to hold Syria-Pal. for Egypt was thwarted by Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon.

(14) Hophra (q.v.), belonging to the same dynasty is named only in Jeremiah 44:30, but is prob. the king intended in several other references; see Hophra. He rashly encouraged Zedekiah of Judah in his rebellion against Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon, but failed to give effective help at the critical moment. After military disaster in Libya, he was later dethroned and killed (prophesied in Jer 44:30).

(15) In Song of Solomon 1:9, the beloved is as a mare of pharaoh’s chariots, a poetic reflex of the fame of Egypt’s chariotry in the New Kingdom and later. Egyptian lyric poetry also found such comparisons apt, e.g. “like a horse belonging to the king, picked from a thousand steeds” (Gardiner, Library of A. Chester Beatty [1931], 35).

Bibliography Sir A. H. Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar (1957), 75 and n. 10; H. W. Fairman in S. H. Hooke, ed., Myth, Ritual, and Kingship (1958), 74-104; J. Vergote, Joseph en Égypte (1959), 45-48; Hayes, JEA, XLVI (1960), 41, 42; G. Posener, De la Divinité du Pharaon (1960); P. Derchain, “Le rôle du roi d’Égypte dans le maintien de l’ordre cosmique” in Le Pouvoir et le Sacré (1962), 61-73.