Egypt at the Time of Joseph

c. 1900 B.C.

Joseph arrived in Egypt during the reign of the Twelfth Dynasty, arguably the zenith of Egypt’s power. Shortly before this era, Upper and Lower Egypt had been unified under one ruler, and now Egyptian influence expanded south and east. The regular flooding of the Nile River provided a relatively stable supply of food and offered some degree of protection from the famines suffered by other lands of the ancient Near East.