Pithom

VIEW:44 DATA:01-04-2020

their mouthful; a dilatation of the mouth
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary


PITHOM.—One of the ‘treasure cities’ built by the Israelites in Egypt (Exo_1:11 etc.). It is the Egyptian Petôm (‘House of Etôm’), the site of which is now marked by Tell el-Maskhuta in the Wady Tumilat. The researches of Naville and Petrie indicate that the city dates as far back as the 12th Dyn., and was occupied down to very late times. It was capital of the 8th nome of Lower Egypt, and in it was worshipped a form of the sun-god under the name of Etôm.
F. Ll. Griffith.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909

An Egyptian store city built by Israelites for their oppressor (Exo_1:11). Identified by Brugsch with the fort of Djar, Pachtum. It existed early in the 18th dynasty, before Thothmes III (the Pharaoh who perished in the Red Sea), and was probably erected by his grandfather Aahmes I. The fort subsequently was called Heroopolis. The Egyptian name is Pe Tum, "the house (temple) of Tum," the sun god of Heliopolis. Chabas translated an Egyptian record, mentioning a "reservoir (berekoovota, a slightly modified Hebrew word; confirming the Scripture that ascribes the building to Hebrew) at Pithom on the frontier of the desert." Pithom was on the canal dug or enlarged long before under Osirtasin of the 12th dynasty.
Rameses II subsequently fortified and enlarged it and Raamses. Lepsius says the son of Aahmes I was RHMSS. The Rameses, two centuries subsequently, have a final "-u", Ramessu. Brugsch thinks the Israelites started from Raamses, which he thinks to be Zoan or Tauis, and journeying toward the N.E. reached the W. of lake Sirbonit, separated from the Mediterranean by a narrow neck of land. From Mount Kasios here they turned S. through the Bitter Lakes to the N. of the gulf of Suez; then to the Sinai peninsula. In the inscriptions Heracleopolis Parva near Migdol is named Piton "in the district of Succoth" (a Hebrew word meaning "tents"). The place is also called Pt-Ramses "the city of Ramses." (Jewish Intelligencer, Jan. 1877.)
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
By Andrew Robert Fausset, co-Author of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown's 1888.

Pi'thom. (the city of justice). One of the store-cites built by the Israelites in Egypt, for the first oppressor, the Pharaoh "which knew not Joseph." Exo_1:11 It is probably the Patumus of Herodotus, (ii. 1 159). Now called Abhaseh, at the entrance of Wady Fumilat, on the line of the ancient canal to the Red Sea. A town on the borders of Egypt, nest which Necho constructed a canal from the Nile to the Arabian Gulf.
Smith's Bible Dictionary
By Dr. William Smith.Published in 1863

one of the cities that the Israelites built for Pharaoh in Egypt, during the time of their servitude, Exo_1:11.
Biblical and Theological Dictionary by Richard Watson
PRINTER 1849.

pı̄?thom (פּתם, pithōm; Πειθώ, Peithṓ (Exo_1:11)):

1. Meaning of Name:
Champollion (Gesenius, Lexicon, under the word) considered this name to mean ?a narrow place? in Coptic, but it is generally explained to be the Egyptian Pa-tum, or ?city of the setting sun.? It was one of the cities built by the Hebrews (see RAAMSES), and according to Wessel was the Thoum of the Antonine Itinerary.
Brugsch (History of Egypt, 1879, II, 343) says that it was identical with ?Heracleopolis Parva, the capital of the Sethroitic nome in the age of the Greeks and Romans ... half-way on the great road from Pelusium to Tanis (Zoan), and this indication given on the authority of the itineraries furnishes the sole means of fixing its position.? This is, however, disputed. Tum was worshipped at Thebes, at Zoan, and probably at Bubastis, while Heliopolis (Brugsch, Geogr., I, 254) was also called Pa-tum.
There were apparently several places of the name; and Herodotus (ii. 158) says that the Canal of Darius began a little above Bubastis, ?near the Arabian city Patournos,? and reached the Red Sea.

2. Situation:
(1) Dr. Naville's Theory.
In 1885 Dr. E. Naville discovered a Roman milestone of Maximian and Severus, proving that the site of Heroopolis was at Tell el Maḥûṭah (?the walled mound?) in Wâdy Tumeilât. The modern name he gives as Tell el Maskhûtah, which was not that heard by the present writer in 1882. This identification had long been supposed probable. Excavations at the site laid bare strong walls and texts showing the worship of Tum. None was found to be older than the time of Rameses II - who, however, is well known to have defaced older inscriptions, and to have substituted his own name for that of earlier builders. A statue of later date, bearing the title ?Recorder of Pithom,? was also found at this same site. Dr. Naville concluded that this city must be the Old Testament Pithom, and the region round it Succoth - the Egyptian T-k-u (but see SUCCOTH). Brugsch, on the other hand, says that the old name of Heropolis was Ḳes (see GOSHEN), which recalls the identification of the Septuagint (Gen_46:28); and elsewhere (following Lepsius) he regards the same site as being ?the Pa-Khetam of Rameses II? (see ETHAM), which Lepsius believed to be the Old Testament Rameses (see RAAMSES) mentioned with Pithom (Brugsch, Geogr., I, 302, 262). Silvia in 385 AD was shown the site of Pithom near Heroopolis, but farther East, and she distinguishes the two; but in her time, though Heroopolis was a village, the site of Pithom was probably conjectural. In the time of Minepthah, son of Rameses II (Brugsch, History, II, 128), we have a report that certain nomads from Aduma (or Edom) passed through ?the Khetam (or fort) of Minepthah-Hotephima, which is situated in T-k-u, to the lakes (or canals) of the city Pi-tum of Minepthah-Hotephima, which are situated in the land of T-k-u, in order to feed themselves and to feed their herds.?

(2) Patoumos of Herodotus.
These places seem to have been on the eastern border of Egypt, but may have been close to the Bitter Lakes or farther North (see SUCCOTH), whereas Tell el Maḥûṭah is about 12 miles West of Ism'ailieh, and of Lake Timsah. The definition of the Pithom thus noticed as being that of Minepthah suggests that there was more than one place so called, and the Patoumos of Herodotus seems to have been about 30 miles farther West (near Zagazig and Bubastis) than the site of Heropolis, which the Septuagint indentifies with Goshen and not with Pithom. The latter is not noticed as on the route of the Exodus, and is not identified in the Old Testament with Succoth. In the present state of our knowledge of Egyptian topography, the popular impression that the Exodus must have happened in the time of Minepthah, because Pithom was at Heropolis and was not built till the time of Rameses II, must be regarded as very hazardous. See EXODUS. The Patoumos of Herodotus may well have been the site, and may still be discovered near the head of Wâdy Tumeilât or near Bubastis.

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.

Pi?thom, one of the 'treasure-cities' which the Israelites built in the land of Goshen 'for Pharaoh' (Exo_1:11) [EGYPT; GOSHEN]. The site is by general consent identified with that of the Patumos of Herodotus (ii. 158). Speaking of the canal which connected the Nile with the Red Sea, this author says, 'The water was admitted into it from the Nile. It began a little above the city Bubastus [PIBESETH], near the Arabian city Patumos, but it discharged itself into the Red Sea.' According to this, Patumos was situated on the east side of the Pelusiac arm of the Nile, not far from the canal which unites the Nile with the Red Sea, in the Arabian part of Egypt. We gather from the Itinerarium of Antoninus that this city was twelve Roman miles distant from Heroopolis, the ruins of which are found in the region of the present Abu-Keisheid. All these designations are appropriate if, with the scholars who accompanied the French expedition, we place Pithom on the site of the present Abhaseh, at the entrance of the Wady Fumilat, where there was at all times a strong military post.




The Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
by John Kitto.

Pithom
(Heb. Pithom', פַּתֹם, meaning, if of Heb. derivation, mouth of Thom; but the word is probably Egyptian, meaning the [city of] Thomei [justice]; Sept. Πειθώμ, v.r. Πειθώ), one of the store-cities built by the Israelites for the first oppressor, the Pharaoh “which knew not Joseph” (Exo_1:11). In the Heb. these cities are two, Pithom and Raamses; the Sept. adds On as a third. It is probable that Pithom lay in the most eastern part of Lower Egypt, like Raamses, if, as is reasonable, we suppose the latter to be the Rameses mentioned elsewhere, and that the Israelites were occupied in public works within or near to the land of Goshen. SEE RAAMSES.
Herodotus mentions a town called Patumus, Πάτουμος, which seems to be the same as the Thoum or Thou of the Itinerary of Antoninus, probably the military station Thohu of the Notitia. Whether or not Patumus be the Pithomn of Scripture, there can be little doubt that the name is identical. The first part is the same as in Bu-bastis and Bu-siris, either the definite article masculine or a possessive pronoun, unless indeed, with Brugsch, we read the Egyptian word “abode” pa, and suppose that it commences these names. SEE PIBESETH.
The second part appears to be the name of Atum or Tuur, a divinity worshipped at On, or Heliopolis, as well as Ra, both being forms of the sun, SEE ON, and it is noticeable that Thoum or Thou was very near the Heliopolite nome, and perhaps more anciently within it, and that a monument at Abu-Kesheid shows that the worship of Heliopolis extended along the valley of the canal of the Red Sea. As we find Thoum and Patumus and Rameses in or near to the land of Goshen, there can be no reasonable doubt that we have here a correspondence to Pithom and Raamses, and the probable connection in both cases with Heliopolis confirms the conclusion. It is remarkable that the Coptic version of Gen_46:28 mentions Pithom for, or instead of, the Heroopolis of the Sept. Whether Patumus and Thoum be the same, and the position of one or both, have yet to be determined, before we can speak positively as to the Pithom of Exodus. Herodotus places Patumus in the Arabian nome upon the canal of the Red Sea (2, 48). The Itinerary of Antoninus puts Thou fifty Roman miles from Heliopolis, and forty-eight from Pelusium; but this seems too far north for Patumus, and also for Piuthom, if that place were near Heliopolis, as its name and connection with Raamses seem to indicate. It was twelve miles from Vicus Judseorum, according to the Itinerary. It must therefore have been somewhere over against Wady Tlmilat, or the valley of Thom, or near the mouth of that valley, and not far from Pi- beseth or Bubastis, now called Tell Basta. Tell el-Kebir, or “the Great Heap,” which is a little to the south of it, may perhaps be the site of ancient Pithom. Heroopolis, which had so long disappeared, and had almost become mythical, may, after all, be the same as Pithom. Heroopolis, according to Ptolemy, lay at the extremity of Trajan's canal, i.e. its eastern extremity, where it joined or approached the more ancient canal of Pharaoh Necho, possibly at or within the mouth of this valley, and, according to Manetho, not far from the Bubastic branch of the Nile. Most writers' however, regard the ruins at Abut-Kesheid as marking the site of Heroopolis. Accordingly the scholars who accompanied the French expedition place Pithom on the site of the present Abhaseh, at the entrance of the Wady Tumilat, where there was at all times a strong military post. See Hengstenberg, Die Biicher Moses und Aegypten; Du Bois Ayme, in Descript. de l'Eyypte, 11, 377; 18:1, 372; Champollion, L'Egypte sous les Pharaons, 1, 172; 2, 58. SEE GOSHEN.

CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.

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