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Let My People Go! – The History and Historicity of the Biblical Account of the Exodus

Khalid Elhassan May 31, 2025 17 min

11. Parallels Between the Expulsion of the Hyksos and the Biblical Account of the Exodus

Exodus - The Destroying Angel passes through Egypt to inflict the tenth and final plague — The Destroying Angel passes through Egypt to inflict the tenth and final plague. Wikimedia

Both the Hyksos and Israelites were Semitic peoples with ties to the Levant. The Hyksos capital at Avaris is in the same region where the Bible situates the Israelites – Exodus 1:11 mentions cities like Pithom and Rameses. The Hyksos were forcibly expelled from Egypt, and the Israelites are said to have fled after a series of plagues.

Both groups ultimately ended up in the Levant – the Hyksos in southern Canaan, and the Israelites in what became Israel. Such similarities have led scholars such as Manfred Bietak, the archaeologist who excavated Avaris, and Jan Assmann, a cultural historian, to propose that the Exodus might be a reversed version of the Hyksos expulsion – a transformation of the historical oppressors into the oppressed.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.