A hint of Kemet in Tanach?
According to Wikipedia , the Egyptian name for Egypt was not Mitzrayim (*gasp*) nor even Egypt (which is Greek *double gasp*) but Kemet , which is apparently Egyptian (or Kemetian?) for "black land" (something about the richness of Nile soil). One could sort of twist that to form the name Cham - חם, who was of course the father of Mitzrayim. With that said, I noticed something interesting today in the Book of Yehoshua: It is well-known that until not long before Am Yisrael came to Eretz Yisrael, the Egyptian maintained here a strong presence. Many Egyptian artifacts have been found in digs all around Israel. However, to my knowledge and understandings, their presence here was hardly ever reflected in place-names. Rabbi Ahron Marcus in his essay "Of The Jewish Chronology" mentions in a footnote Citri's (not sure who he was) view that the name Ma'ayan Mei Nafto'ach - מעין מי נפתוח ( Yehoshua 15:9 and 18:15 ) comes from Merneptah and that his real name wa...