Mizraim (; cf. ) is the Hebrew language and Aramaic name for the land of Egypt and its people.
Linguistic analysis
is the Hebrew cognate of a common Semitic source word for the land now known as Egypt. It is similar to in modern
Arabic,
in the 14th century B.C. Akkadian Amarna tablets, in
Ugaritic,
in Neo-Babylonian texts,
and
Mu-ṣur in neo-Assyrian Akkadian (as seen on the
Rassam cylinder).
To this root is appended the dual suffix
-āyim, perhaps referring to the "two Egypts":
Upper Egypt and
Lower Egypt.
This word is similar in pronunciation and spelling to the Hebrew words
and , meaning literally "
siege" and "
strait, distress" respectively, and may carry those connotations to Hebrew speakers.
Biblical accounts
According to Genesis 10, Mizraim, son of Ham was the younger brother of Cush and elder brother of
Phut whose families together made up the Hamite branch of
Noah's descendants. Mizraim's sons were
Ludim,
Anamim,
Lehabim,
Naphtuhim,
Pathrusim,
Casluhim, and
Caphtorim.
[Bullinger, 2000, p. 6.] 19th-century scholar Henry Welsford identifies this Mizraim of Egypt in the Book of Genesis as
Minos.
In the Book of Exodus, it is considered the "house of bondage". Regarding Passover, Moses says to the Israelites, "And Moses said to the people, 'Remember this day, on which you went free from Egypt, the house of bondage, how Yahweh freed you from it with a mighty hand: no leavened bread shall be eaten.'"
The book of Deuteronomy forbids the children of Israel from abhorring a Mizri, an Egyptian, "because you were a stranger in his land."
Greco-Roman sources
According to
Eusebius's
Chronicon,
Manetho had suggested that the great age of antiquity of which the later Egyptians boasted had preceded the
Great Flood and that they were descended from Mizraim, who settled there anew. According to Byzantine chronicler
George Syncellus, the
Book of Sothis, attributed to
Manetho, identified Mizraim with the legendary first
pharaoh,
Menes, who is said to have unified the Old Kingdom of Egypt and built Memphis. Mizraim also seems to correspond to
Misor, who is said in Phoenician mythology to have been the father of
Taautus, who was given Egypt, and later scholars noticed that it also recalls Menes, whose son or successor was said to be
Athothis.
Islamic sources
According to medieval Islamic historians, such as Sibt ibn al-Jawzi, the Egyptian ibn 'Abd al-Hakam, and the Persians
al-Tabari and Muhammad Khwandamir, the pyramids, etc. had been built by the wicked races before the Deluge but that Noah's descendant Mizraim (Masar or Mesr) was later entrusted with reoccupying the region. The Islamic accounts also make Masar the son of a Bansar or Beisar and grandson of Ham, rather than a direct son of Ham, and add that he lived to the age of 700.
See also
Bibliography
