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VOLUME XLIV
20t7 -20t8

Egypt and the Me drterranean World.

Studies in Memory of Sally L. D. Katary

published by
THE, SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OF EGYPTIAN ANTIQUTNES /
LA SOCIETE POUR T'ETUDE DE T'EGYPIE ANCIENNE
Toronto, Canada
 Sinuhe Yet Again: Sinuhe and Mosesl
Edmund S. Meltzer, Paciflca Graduate Institute

Sally Katary in memoriam

Abstract: A discussion of the common elements of the ancient Egyptian story of Sinuhe
and the narrative of Moses in the Hebrew Bible, and the appearance of similar motifs in
folklore and in other works of ancient and modern literature.

R6sum6: Cet article constitue une discussion sur les 6l6ments communs entre le conte de
Sinouh6 et le r6cit de Moise dans la Bible hdbraique et sur la pr6sence de motifs similaires
dans le folklore et autres oeuvfes de 1a litt6rature ancienne et moderne'

Keywords/mots cl6s: Sinuhe/Sinouhd, Moses/Moise, Hebrew Bible/Bible h6braique, Jo-

,.ph, Two Brothers/Conte des Deux frdres, Homer/Homdre, Odyssey/L'Odyssde, folklore,
comparative literaturellitteralxe compar6e, H. Rider Haggard, Shakespearc, Hamlet

Sally Katary was very interested in ancient Egyptian stories, their intercultural
connections and folkloric aspects. This was among many interests that we shared, and
I dedicate this hypothetical reflection on two literary masterpieces, Sinuhe and the Bible
- with a little Shakespeare thrown in, as well as the Classical literature that she loved
so

much and several modern novels - to her memory in the hope that she would have enjoyed
it, and enjoyed discussing it.
In two earlier papers2 I have noted comparisons between Sinuhe and the Biblical
Joseph narrative. There are also signiflcant resonances with Moses. In Exodus 2:11-15,
Moses sees an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, and, when he thinks no one is watching, he kills
and buries the Egyptian. When Moses encounters two Hebrews fighting and remonstrates
ooDo
with the aggressor, the latter says to him, you mean to kill me as you killed the
Egyptian?'; whereupon "Moses was frightened, and thought : Then the matter is known !"
acttrding to the text, he then "fled from the face of Pharaoh, and dwelt in the land of

1 This is a revised version of a paper presented at the SSEA Scholars' Colloquium in Toronto, in
November
2016.
2 E. S. Meltzer, 'oSinuhe, Jonah and Joseph: Ancient 'Far Travelers' and the Power of God," in J. Harold
Ellens, et al., ed., God's Word for Our World (Simon John De Vries Fs.), vol' 2 (London: Clark/Continuum,
2004) 77 -81, and idem, "In Search of Sinuhe: What's in a Name?" in Apuntes de Egiptologia, New Series
(online) 2 (2006).

JSSEA 44 (20t7 - 2018)

220 Meltzer, "Sinhue Yet Again"

Midian."3
The elements of furtiveness, guilt or guilty knowledge, fear, flight to a distant land,
and killing are all reminiscent of Sinuhe. As Sinuhe is fleeing, to quote Jack Foster's
translation, " I encountered a man who stood in my path,land he showed me respect, for
he was afraid."a I thank Prof. Ronald J. Leprohon for pointing out that the Ashmolean
o'and
Ostracon gives sn{.n.i n.f I
was afraid of him."5 The likeness is affirmed by l

subsequent developments, when Moses is adopted into the Midianite family of the priest
Jethro, one of whose daughters he marries, and he has a son (Exodus 2:20-22). As is the
case with Sinuhe and the Asiatics he encounters, Moses, a product of the Egyptian court,
appears to the Midianites as "an Egyptian" (v. l9).
After this paper was already written and submitted, it belatedly came to my attention
that the basic resemblance between the plot of Sinuhe and the Moses narrative had already
been briefly noted by Thomas E. Levy in the Foreword to Miroslav Birta, Sinuhe, the
Bible, and the Patriarchs;
"Sinuhe's story is remarkably similar to that of Moses who fled Egypt after killing
an Egyptian to the desert region of northern Arabia to live with the Midianites (Exodus
2: 11-12) and marry one of their daughters, Zipporah (Exodus 2: 15-22) enabling him to
ascend to prominence."6
Since Prof. Levy does not go into any greater detail, I think that it is worthwhile to
present a more extensive exploration of the ramifications of these observations, and of the
convergences, divergences and ironies revealed by a comparison of the two works, as well
as interfaces with other literature.
A11 three stories referenced thus far -
Sinuhe, Joseph and Moses embody-
recognizable folkloric elements. A11 of them are literary texts and the products of
sophisticated literary activity, but this in no way precludes the incorporation of folklore, as
is also the case with the Late Egyptian stories which Sally illuminated with her insights.T It
is also possible that we are seeing an instance of what both Georges Posener8 and Ronald
J. Williamse described as the role of Egypt as a creative force in the realm of folklore.
Having sketched out the essentials of my proposal, I shall now proceed to connect
some of the dots and fill in some of the blanks. First, let us look at some major shared
thematic and folkloric elements encompassing all three of the abovementioned stories (as

3 Quotations from the Hebrew Bible in this paper are taken fromTanakh: A New Translation of the Holy
Scriptures According to the Traditional Hebrew Text (Phlladelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 57 4611985).
4 John L. Foster, Thought Couplets in The Tale of Sinuhe: MAB 3, pp. 6,41.
5 John W. B. Barns, The Ashmolean Ostracon of Sinuhe (Oxford: Griffith Institute, 1952), recto, line 13.
6 Thomas E. Lelry, Foreword in Miroslav Bdrta, Sinuhe, the Bible, and the Patriarchs (Prague: Set Out,
2003), p. 5.
7 8.9., Sally L. D. Katary "The Two Brothers as Folktale: Constructing the Social Context," JSSEA 24
(1994, published 1997: R. J. Wliams Gs.) 39-70; idem,'oConcerning Bata and the Doomed Prince: Their
'Afterlives' in the Classical Literature" JSSEA 42 (2015-2016: J. L. Foster Gs.) 25-41.
8 "Literature," in James R. Harris, ed., The Legacy of Egypt,2"d ed. (Oxford: OUP, 1971) 238.
9 "Ancient Egyptian Folk Tales," UT Quarterly 27 .3 (April 1958) 256-272.
 22t
JSSEA 44 (20t7 - 2018)

well as other major literary works, ancient and modern)'

One very evocative motif is the return or reappearance of the protagonist after
a
to the
considerable time interval, vastly changed or unrecognrzable. When Sinuhe returns
Egyptian court after many years have passed, he no longer resembles the Egyptian official
*fro t.fu he returns looking like, or rather being, an Asiatic, prompting the incredulous
.,It isn't really he!"10 Another well-known example of this motif is the return
exclamation,
gives
of Odysseus to Ithaca in the Odyssey, in which Athena changes his appearance and
him the semblance of advanced age to prevent his being recognized.lr This is in addition
to the natural aging which has taken place during his twenty years' absence.
In the Joseph story, Joseph does not return to his childhood home in Canaan, but his
brothers unknowingly follow his path abroad and encounter him as a powerful
Egyptian
official. They do not recognize him until he reveals himself to them'l2
This motif is also utltized by H. Rider Haggard in his extremely interesting novel
in
Cleopatra (which shows intriguing flashes of its author's Egyptological knowledge),
years
wnlcn the eueen's lover and nemesis, the Egyptian claimant Harmachis, returns,
later and much changed, as her physician Olympus.t3 She does not recognize
him until she
hastakenthepoisonandheexhortsher,"Lookuponme,woman !. '..Look !Look ! Who
aml?,,la Another familiar example from modern literature is the novel by A. Dwas
pdre,
ChAteau d'If and
The Count of Monte Cristo, in which Edmond Dantds escapes from the
returns with a new persona and identity.
A different elaboration of this motif appears in another Haggard novel, Ayesha :
aged 2000 years
The Return of "She." In this sequel, Ayesha - who, at the end of She,
time
in moments and apparently died when she entered the flame of immortality a second
back to the fullness of her beauty
- reappears as a withered ancient crone, but transforms her rival
after Leo Vincey affirms his love and commitment to her and chooses her over
Atene, who is the reincarnation of his ancient loverAmenartas'ls

10 Foster, Thought Couplets,pp. 33,60'

11 Herbert Bates, trans., The-Odyssey of Homer, School Edition
(NY-London: Harper & Brothers 1929),

pp.778'179,411.
12 Genesis 45:3-4.
A Biography [Oxford:
13 Olympus was an actual historical personage (e.g. Duane W. Roller, Cleopatra:
oup 2010], index, s.v. "olympo, oi Al.*undria"), as was Harmachis, though his name is now read
with Cleopatra;
Harwennefer and Haggard has dlislocated him chronologically to make him contemporary
642 (U. of California 1986), p. 30; and Karl-
see Alan K. Bowman]-Egypt After the Pharaohs: 332 BC-AD
(1978) 157-158'
Theodor Zatzich,..Neue Namen flir die Konige Harmachis undAnchmachis," GM29
14 H. Rider Haggard, Cleopatra: Being an Account of the Fall and Vengeance of Harmachis the Royal
Egyptian as Set Forth by His Own Hand (London: Harrap 1924) p' 307 '
15 H. Rider Haggard,-Ayesha: The Return of "she" (London: ward, Lock & co',
n.d.), pp' 205-212'
Ayesha as "a narrative as
One cannot help raising one's eyebrow at the book-jacket blurb that describes
pardoned for thinking
enthralling and realistic [slc] as anything that Haggard ever wrote." One might be
the epithet "realistic."
that works such as A Farmer b year and A Gardener b Year are better candidates
for
For a comprehensive account of Haggard's writings, see Morton Cohen, Rider
Haggard: His Life and Work,
2"d ed., London: Macmillan 1968.
222 Meltzeq "Sinhue Yet Again"

Turning now to Moses, when he retums to the Egyptian court, also after many years
have passed, it is as an Asiatic, not recognizable as the Egyptian who had left Egypt and
first encountered the Midianites. With regard to Moses'Egyptian persona, one aspect of
the Biblical description that strikes me as very interesting is Moses' characterization of
himself as "slow of speech and slow of tongue" (Exodus 4:10). This could well describe
someone who grew up speaking Egyptian and learned Northwest Semitic/Hebrew as a
second language - like Count Cavour, the great statesman of Italian unification, who grew
up a Francophone and learned Italian as a second language.
This motif of the protagonist who returns many years later, much changed or
unrecognizable, is tantalizingly reminiscent of the apparently analogous one of the
protagonist who is repeatedly killed and returns transformed and resurrected, as Bata does
in the Tale of the Two Brothers.16 After each resurrection, the transformed Bata reveals
himself,lT though in the final instance - when he is born to his treacherous wife, now the
queen of Egypt - he waits many years to do so, until he himself has succeeded as king.18
Following the common threads of the journeys of Sinuhe and Moses, it can be observed that
in both cases, when the protagonist returns home (i.e., to Egypt), he is invited or summoned
by a god. In Sinuhe's case, he is invited by the divine king Senwosret I, while Moses is
called to return to Egypt by the God of Israel. Sinuhe and Moses both have profoundly
heartfelt and visceral encounters with the deities who call them to return "home" and to
fulfil their destinies - Sinuhe in his nearly desperate prayer to "whichever god decreed
this flight"re, or, with Foster, "Lord of the gods, who occasioned this flight"2o to hear his
plea and bring him home, and his correspondence with the Good God, the divine king
Senwosret I, and Moses in his harrowing encounter with the God of Israel in the theophany
of the burning bush (Exodus 3:2ff).
Both Sinuhe and Moses have to undergo intense self-examination and severe
soul-searching, and achieve the realizatior that they are ready and able to follow their
destiny. Both of them experience powerful self-doubts that have to be surmounted. Sinuhe
experiences this as he prepares for his combat with the Champion of Retjenu (which has
often been compared to another Biblical episode, the flght between David and Goliath),2r
and his rather Shakespearean soliloquizing betokens what Goedicke calls his "self-

o'Concetning
l6 For the latter, see Sally Katary "The Folktale," 41,50-52,64 n. 8; and idem,
Two Brothers as
Bata and the Doomed Prince," 33-35; Susan Tower Hollis, The Ancient Egyptian "Tale of Two Brothers":
The Oldest Fairy Tale in the tlorld (Norman-London: U. of Oklahoma 1990), 17,21,184 n. 13, 185 n. 31,
187 n. '70,247 n. 155; to which should be added R. J. Williams, "Ancient Egyptian Folk Tales."
17 Sally Katary, "The Two Brothers as Folktale," 50-51.
18 E.g., Edward F. Wente's translation in W. K. Simpson, ed., The Literature of Ancient Egypf, 3'd ed. (New
Haven-London:Yale U. Press 2003), pp. 88-90.
I 9 Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient E gyptian Literature I, p. 228.
20 J.L. Foster, Thought Cottplets in The Tale qf Sinuhe: MAB 3, pp. 20, 51.
2l E.g.,Gtinter Lanczkowski, "Die Geschichte vom Riesen Golith und der Kampf Sinuhes mit dem Starken
von Retenu," MDAIK 16 (1958) 214-218.
I
JSSEA 44 (2017 - 2018) 223

reahzation".22 Sinuhe seems to reach a point of resolve, acceptance and readiness that
to me at least resembles Hamlet's reflections as he prepares for his fencing match with
Laertes23:

..Not a whit. We defy augury. There's a special providence in the fall of a spalrow. If it be
now, it is not to come. If it be not to come, it will be now. If it be not now, yet it will come.
The readiness is a11."

This seems to me to resonate strongly with Sinuhe's reflection,2a

"Is God ignorant of what he has started (or ordained - ESM)?

It is a matter of 'How can one know ?"'

Sinuhe is now ready for the combat and for the unfolding of the rest of his drama.
Moses expresses self-doubt after self-doubt and protests his unfitness and unpreparedness
for the challenges and contingencies that he will face (Exodus 3-4). In fact, he comes
across as one who "protests too much" -- a charactertzation that Mncent Tobin and I have
both suggested can apply to Sinuhe.25 Before Moses has the inner readiness to proceed, his
God has to address all of his objections and "what ifs."
Although this is a more minor point, or it may be "pushing it" to point to it as a
parallel, both the Sinuhe and Moses narratives involve a royal succession or transition
tetween two Egyptian kings. The narrative portion of Sinuhe begins with the death of
Amenemhet I and succession of his son Senwosret I, which is perhaps underscored by
the
the use of flying falcon imagery to describe both the death/ascent of Amenemhet and
hurried and secret departure of Senwosret with his followers, unbeknownst to the rest of
his army.26 In the Exodus narrative, while Moses is living in Midian, the reigning Pharaoh

22 Hans Goedicke, "sinuhe's Self-Realization (Sinuhe B ll3-127)," ZA.S 117 (1990) 129-139.
23 Hamlet, Act 5, scene 2, lines 157-161, The J'lorton Shakespeare,2nd ed. (2008), p. 1779. For a
very insightful and informative discussion of Hamlet's internal conflicts, and how these evolved with
Shakespeare's revisions of the play, see James Shapiro, AYear in the Life of William
Shakespeare: 1599
(NY: HarperCollins 2005), Chapters 14-15-
24 Foster, Thought Couplets in The Tale of Sinuhe, PP. 17,49, lines 274-275.
25 Vincent Arieh Tobin, "The Secret of Sinuhe," JARCE 32 (1995) 161-178; E. S. Meltzer,
"In Search of
Sinuhe,,, Apuntes NS 2 (2006). A provocative reading in which Sinuhe and Senwosret are
complicit in the
events of the succession and "senwosret is implicated in the reasons for Sinuhe's flight" has
been proposed
Meeting
by Cory L. Wade, "sinuhe and Senwosret: ATale of Shared Secrets," paper presented at the Annual
of ARCE in Portland, oR, April 2014, abstract in the program book, p. 84.
26 Forthe imporlance of this inchtsio in the literary structure of Sinuhe, see Foster, Thought Couplets,pp.
3-5,39-40,98; E. S. Meltzel "Jack Foster - A Continuing Conversation," JSSEA 42 (2015-2016: Foster
Gs.)21withn. 16. Wearenotdealingherewiththequestionofacoregency,which,if itexisted,would
mean that Senwosret I succeeded to sole rule. For a view favoring a coregency, see Wolfram Grajetzki,
The Middle Kingdom of Ancient Egypl (London: Duckworth 2006),pp.33-34; for a skeptical view, see Gae
Callender, "The Middie Kingdom," in Ian Shaw, ed., The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt
(Oxford: OUP
224 Meltzer, " S inhue Yet Again"

dies and a new Pharaoh succeeds to the throne (Exodus 2:23).

As Sinuhe and Moses pursue their respective destinies, their paths, though parallel in some
ways, diverge ironically in others. Both protagonists return to Egypt for an encounter with
a Pharaoh, one to profess his loyalty and devotion and to be reunited with the royal family
he abandoned, the other to express defiance and to announce the opposition of the will of
another god to that of Pharaoh. And ultimately, Sinuhe's sovereign grants him the gift of
a fine tomb in the royal necropolis arrd a statue overlaid with gold and electrum,27 while
Moses is denied entry into his Promised Land.

2000), p. 160.
27 In this connection, some mention should be made of the intriguing proposal that when Sinuhe returns,
or is returned, to Egypt, he is already dead: Strother Purdy, "Sinuhe and the Question of Literary Types,"
ZAS 104 (1977) 12-37, though I do not personally find it convincing. This would make the Sinuhe story an
ancient counterpart to Ambrose Bierce's "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" and Robert W Chambers'
"The Key to Grief."