The present article continues our study of the city-names Pithom and Rameses in Exodus 1:11 (the first part having been published in the Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections 33), along with related matters, with particular attention to the linguistic evidence. It is determined that: a) the transcription of the Hebrew writing of r’-ms-sw as “Rameses” coheres with the Semitic evidence of the 13th‒12th centuries BCE; b) the Hebrew word for “corvée” is not a borrowing from Neo-Assyrian (or any other Akkadian dialect) but rather constitutes a pure West Semitic word; c) the Hebrew word for “storages, storehouses” also is patient of a good West Semitic derivation; d) the narrative of Exodus 1–2 should not be divided into separate sources, but rather should be read in a holistic manner; and e) the two chapters are dated on linguistic grounds to the earliest stratum of Biblical Hebrew narrative prose literature.
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