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Real Life Biblical Kings and Other Historic Bible Facts and Figures

Khalid Elhassan April 25, 2025 18 min

Bible - Yul Brynner as the pharaoh in 'The Ten Commandments' — Yul Brynner as the pharaoh in 'The Ten Commandments'. Wikimedia

16. Marching to Battle Through Biblical Canaan

Color reproduction of a relief depicting Ramses II storming a Hittite fortress. Wikimedia

When all was ready, Ramses marched north from Egypt into Canaan with four divisions. First was the Amon Division, led by the pharaoh in person. It was followed by the divisions of Re, Ptah, and Sutekh. To meet him, Hittite King Muwatalli II marched south from Anatolia into Canaan, with 3000 heavy chariots and 8000 infantry. In late spring, 1274 BC, Ramses emerged from the hills above the city of Kadesh on the Orontes River, near today’s Syria-Lebanon border. Throughout, he had not spotted the enemy, but they were far closer than he knew. The Hittites were hidden behind Kadesh when Ramses II reached the city. However, nomads falsely informed the pharaoh that his enemies were nowhere near. Emboldened, Ramses hurried with the Amon Division to Kadesh, and left the rest of his army behind to catch up.

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.