Hebrews (Habiru) in Egypt Making Bricks for Store Cities: Egyptologist & OT scholar James Hoffmeier

On site at the Ramasseum (the mortuary temple of Pharaoh Rameses [Ramesses] II in the Theban Necropolis near Luxor, Egypt), leading Egyptologist and evangelical Christian Old Testament scholar Dr. James Hoffmeier discusses the evidence for the accuracy of the Exodus narrative of the ancient Hebrews (Habiru) making bricks (mudbricks) with straw for the Egyptian store cities.

The Bible states:

“[T]he Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigour: and they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in morter, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field … And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses. … And Pharaoh commanded … the taskmasters of the people … saying, Ye shall no more give the people straw to make brick, as heretofore: let them go and gather straw for themselves. And the tale of the bricks, which they did make heretofore, ye shall lay upon them; ye shall not diminish ought thereof. (Exodus 1:11-14 & 5:6-9)

An Egyptian text dated close to the period of the Exodus likewise reports that Habiru foreigners were moving blocks for building projects in the city of Pi-Ramesses (cf. Exodus 1:11). The tomb of Rekhmire, a vizier of Pharaoh Thutmose III (possibly the Pharaoh during the time of Israel’s Exodus), shows Asiatic slaves making bricks while Egyptian taskmasters carrying rods look on, confirming the record of Exodus 5. Scholars note: “Obviously Exodus 5 was written by someone who actually saw the brickfields along the Nile. ... This section reflects a remarkably accurate historical knowledge of Egyptian slave-labor organization and its building techniques. … [R]esearch ... attests [t]o the very scenario portrayed in the Exodus narratives: a two-tiered administrative structure, the assignment of sometimes unattainable quotas, the problems of making bricks without straw, and the issue of allowing time off from work to worship one’s deity. ... [T]he book of Exodus comes to us straight from the world of ancient Egypt. The story of the exodus is not fantasy but history ... accurate down to the last piece of straw” (Ryken & Hughes, Exodus, 151–152).

Mudbricks were the standard construction material in the Nile Delta, but stones were not, while stone was the material of choice centuries later in Canaan and would have been the natural choice had the narrative been a fictional one invented centuries after the fact. What is more, straw was not typically used to make mudbricks in Canaan, while it was in Egypt (Hershel Shanks, ed., Ancient Israel: From Abraham to the Roman Destruction of the Temple, 41).

Dr. Hoffmeier writes:

“After generations of sojourning in Egypt and tending flocks, herds, and cattle in the lush delta … conditions changed [for Israel, Exodus 1:8]. … Ahmose began an ambitious building program in Avaris, including a large mudbrick citadel to serve as Egypt’s military base to launch campaigns into the Near East. The presence of Egyptian rulers in the delta after more than a century of absence may account for the hostility toward the Hebrews in the delta, who would be associated with the hated Hyksos. Other major building projects at Avaris followed, possibly during the reign of Thutmose III (1479–1425 BC), when a massive palace complex, complete with storage facilities, was built, all of mudbrick. … That the Hebrews were engaged in forced labor making brick for royal building projects is certainly the most remembered feature of the Israelites’ labor in Egypt (Exod 1:8–14; 2:23–24; 3:7; 5:1–23). Beginning with the military campaigns to western Asia and Sudan of the fifteenth century, POWs were brought back to Egypt as slaves of the state[.] ... The classic scene from the tomb of Rekhmire (ca. 1450–1400 BC) shows Levantine and African POWs making and hauling bricks for the construction of the Akh-menu Temple at Karnak. The caption over the tableau clarifies that the brickmakers were among the ‘plunder’ taken by the king on his campaigns. … When Ramesses II was making his new capital, Pi-Ramesses, adjacent to Avaris, Papyrus Leiden 348 reports that foreigners called ‘pr (Habiru) were dragging stone blocks for the construction of a “great pylon” in the new city. … The term ‘pr/ḫāpiru/ḫābiru (Habiru) corresponds to the word Hebrew; linguistically it is a match. … The Habiru in this stone building project at Pi-Ramesses could be biblical Hebrews[.] … New Kingdom era texts and illustrations show that foreigners, typically prisoners of war, were forced into hard labor for the state. It is not unreasonable to believe that the Hebrews could have received similar treatment during the New Kingdom as various royal building projects were undertaken in the northeastern delta.” (James K. Hoffmeier, in Five Views on the Exodus, 87–89)

The fact that Habiru were using mudbrick to construct storage cities at the time of the Biblical exodus is one of thousands of pieces of archaeological evidence validating the Bible as God’s Word.