[Biggirl]

Now I can understand one of the factors WHY the children of Israel left Egypt with Moses to go to the promise land, it was to LEAVE that form of dicttorship behind.

[lentulusgracchus]

There is another dimension, and that is that the Hebrews, later Israelites and Judaeans/Jews, were an Amorite people; their name in their own language was Habiru, cf. the original tribal name of the Assyrians, Shubiru, who were also Amorites (the "hateful Amurru" of the Babylonian chronicles), i.e. members of the second wave of Semitic outmigration from the rapidly desiccating Arabian Peninsula (the original Paradise, a.k.a. "the land of milk and honey", which even the Romans called "Arabia Felix", i.e. "Happy Arabia").

During the 9th, 10th, and 11th Dynasties of Egypt, the Nile Delta received immigrants from the Fertile Crescent called "Hyksos" -- they were Semites, and it is supposed that Joseph and the Hebrews were among them. Eventually, the Egyptians reconquered the Hyksos kingdoms that had sprung up on Egyptian land in the last days of the 11th and then the 12th ("Middle Kingdom") Dynasties. Presumably this is when the Hebrews began their Biblical 400 years of slavery under the pharaohs, ending under Ramesses II of the brilliant 18th Dynasty, early in the 14th century BC.