Biblical Egypt might not be Egypt

[This is a defunct theory now.  See this post https://midseventiethweekrapture.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-tribes-of-mizraim.html]

Egypt is the name of a modern nation on the north eastern coast of Africa, where the Nile river enters enters the Mediterranean Sea.  We also commonly use that name for the Ancient civilization that existed in various forms on that same location for over 2000 years ending around 30 BC.  

And it’s also used in English Bibles to translate the Hebrew Mizraim and the Greek Aegyptos.  Resulting in an assumption that those Biblical names refer to that same ancient civilization.  However what that ancient nation called itself was Kemet/Kemt/Khem.

A number of theories have been proposed which argue that translation is wrong.  That Mizraim was a nation located somewhere in ancient Arabia, and that the word commonly transliterated “pharaoh” was a personal name.  My first instinct was naturally to oppose that idea.  But the more I’ve thought about it and researched many things, the more plausible I think it is.  I had specifically opposed it in my The Nile in The Bible post, but admittedly my logic behind seeing that alternate Hebrew word for river (or some kind of body of water) as an Egyptian name for The Nile was pretty flawed.

Now lots of people tie this into other weird theories, like saying Israel was actually in Arabia, or pre-exile Israel at least.  I definitely reject that.  Jesus was born in the same Bethlehem as David, and probably Crucified on the same mountain Isaac was offered.  And 12th Dynasty Kemet records place the Anakim in Hebron.

Where in Arabia to look seems to vary, its been placed in Yemen, or north-east of Yemen, others I think place it as a closer neighbor to Israel.  I have a factor to bring up later I don’t think others have noticed.  And one website has specifically called Mizraim an “insignificant village”.

The name Kemet/Khem has been argued to possibly be a form of Ham.  Misraim isn’t the only nation to come from Ham, but The Bible calls Misraim the “Land of Ham” in a few places, so that is used to say the name Kemet is also Biblical.  However that is flawed logic at best.

The Biblical “River” we assume to be the Nile could be one of many ancient bodies of Water in Arabia long since dried up, like the one some seek to identify with the Pison.

People like to read significance into Mizraim ending with a Dual suffix.  But that same Dual Suffix also ends the name Ephraim.  Ephraim was born in Mizraim to a Mizraimite mother, but it’s more relevant perhaps that Mizraim and Ephraim were both second born sons.

In Genesis 12 Abraham travels through the Land promised to him till he reaches the Negev (usually translated South), then famine brings him to Mizraim.  From this point he could have easily went either south-west to Africa, or south-east to Arabia.  How these lands are today has us thinking the Nile is a far better solution for fleeing a famine.  But there is good reason to believe much of Arabia used to be not be as barren as it is now, and perhaps was so more recently than most think.

While in Mizraim a whole drama unfolds.  This is probably when Hagar became Sarah’s maid-servant. Then Abraham returned to the promised land via the Negev in chapter 13.   Later when Hagar leaves the house of Abraham after Isaac is born, pretty much everyone agrees she went to what qualified as Arabia, Christians just sometimes disagree with Muslims on how far south.  And while there, in Arabia, she arranges for Ishmael to marry a Mizraimite wife.  So this is often considered the first clue that Mizraim should be in Arabia if we remove our assumptions.

There is also the fact that there is little evidence Kemet ever practiced Slavery like what’s depicted in Exodus.  Even Kerma’s servitude was more like a serfdom.  Slavery was very common in Arabia however, and as such was perfectly legal under Islam.

In the narratives surrounding the reign of Solomon.  The phraseology “Pharaoh King of Egypt” and “Shishak King of Egypt” are the same, so if one is a personal name so is the other.  And if Shishak is a personal name then it’s significant that it's clearly a Semitic name, with clearly related names elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, so saying it must be Shoshenq is absurd.  Also Shishak is never called Pharaoh.  Even when Pharaoh is compounded with other personal names much later, Necho and Hophra, King is still used separately, so still doesn’t make sense as a synonym for King.  Pharaoh is not a good transliteration of the Hebrew spelling here either, Par’oh or Par’u would be more accurate.

There are some Pre-Islamic traditions about the tribes of Joktan that are interesting.  Referring to a Firnifs as the first king of Egypt or Mesraye.  But a Pharaoh as a separate King ruling over Saba, Havilah  and Ophir in Yemen.  After him Sheba became a matriarchy for 60 generations.  But in another version Puntos was the first king of Egypt.  And another says Phara’an ruled over Ophir.  So confusion clearly existed here.

Assyrian records refer to a people called Misrim, Misr, Misuri or Misur, sometimes with a ruler called Pir’u.  Attempts to interpret these records as referring to Kemet are difficult.  Even scholars who do think Biblical Misraim is Kemet still find themselves seeing these as separate.  One such example is the battle of Qarqar from the reign of Shalmaneser III, most notable for mentioning Ahab.  The Misr there seem like an awfully minor player to be the powerful Nile empire.  This tribe is often mentioned alongside other Arab kingdoms like Dedan and Kedar.  A couple times listed next to a Samsi queen of Arabia/Kedar.  

And the name Pir’u pops up in Assyrian records totally unrelated to the Misr, showing it’s in generally a Semitic name.  Par’osh/ParoshPharosh is a Biblical Hebrew name that is similar in its first root/syllable and so appears next to Phar’oh in the Strong's Concordance.  However Paruah is a Hebrew name I think might be closer to being a variant on the same name.

Much speculation has gone on about the Bithiah daughter of Pharaoh mentioned in 1 Chronicles 4 who was a wife of Mered. The Ten Commandments film reflects a tradition identifying her with the adoptive mother of Moses.  But this Pharaoh is not connected to Mizraim or called a King, so maybe he was just an Israelite with that name?

Par’oh could be a name that many kings of Misraim had, like how many kings of Aram were Benhadad.

At a certain point Mizraim definitely becomes the Egypt we usually think of.  In Jeremiah and Ezekiel and at the very end of the 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles narratives, starting in the reign of Josiah.  Because we know Necho and Hophra are the Nekos and Apries of Herodotus.  And later the allusions to Mizraim in Daniel 11 are definitely about the Ptolemaic Dynasty.  Maybe Mizraim could be identified with one of the Hyksos tribes?  But more importantly, this is post Assyria.

I do agree that Tirhakah king of Cush/Ethiopia of 2 Kings 19:9 and Isaiah 39:9 is Taharqa, a ruler of the 25th Dynasty, the Kushite Dynasty.  But the Biblical references to him do not link him directly to Mizraim.  Neither calling him a Mizraimite or saying he was a king of Mizraim.

Other references to Mizraim at this time exist elsewhere in Isaiah, and in the historical narratives of Hezekiah’s reign.  What Assyria did do to Kemet matches what Isaiah (in places like chapter 20) foretold to happen to Mizraim, but that’s kind of what Assyria did to everyone.  In addition to deporting populations, they resettled in a new population from elsewhere, hence the origins of the Samaritans in II Kings 17.  So perhaps after Assyria deported Kemet, they resettled Mizraimites there who then became the Dynasty conventional chronology calls the 26th.  Herodotus does say Necho’s dynasty has it's origins in governors appointed by Assyria.  Manetho claimed the 26th Dynasty had kings before Necho I (The Biblical Necho is Necho II), but that could be based on their propaganda trying to seem more indigenous than they really were.

Where I’m later going to propose Mizraim might have been (or at least included) isn’t by mainstream scholars usually included in what Assyria conquered, but there is a lot we don’t know about ancient Arabia, and plenty that’s obscure in the geographical references of Assyrian inscriptions.  Regardless Assyria certainly did conquer some of what qualifies as Arabia including parts of modern Saudi Arabia, as foretold in Isaiah 21, which I’ve talked about before.

The Greek name Aegyptus was applied to Kemet certainly by Herodotus's time.  And was the name of the Roman province in that region (Copt and Coptic also come from Aegyptus by a long process).  The Greek texts of the New Testament use this name a lot, including in Old Testament references that are about Mizraim.  So many proponents of this theory say the Septuagint is the origin of the confusion.

However I think that Greek name may be in exactly the same situation as Mizraim.  In Greek mythology the namesake of Aegyptus was the son of King Belus who ruled the Nile and married it’s daughter, but Belus first gave to Aegyptus a kingdom in Arabia, according to Apollodorus ( 2.1.4-5).  I’d discussed this before speculating them to be Hyksos/Amalekites, but maybe Belus was a Greek memory of Ham and Aegyptus of Misraim.  Dannus was given Libya, making him perhaps Phut.

I believe Homer was a contemporary of Gyges of Lydia.  So even his references to Aegyptus and “Pharan Thebes” are after Assyria began moving people around.  By Herodotus time Aegyptus came to refer to all the Dynasties that ruled Kemet, but it may not have originally.  And so the Septuagint usage of Aegyptus came to confuse people.  And people like Josephus, Philo and the Early Church Fathers were influenced by that confusion.  

Many think the Greek Aegyptus comes from a name of Memphis hwt-ka-ptah.  But that looks like a stretch to me.  Some wanting to make this cycle of myths refer to Biblical Patriarchs say Aegyptus comes from Jacob, I don’t buy that either.  The etymology of Aegyptus I may return to later.

The New Testament references to then contemporary Aegyptus probably usually refers to the Roman Province of Egypt, and Alexandria to the Alexandria on The Nile.  But I wonder about the Aegyptus the family of Jesus fled to in Matthew 2, since it drew on an Old Testament reference.  Maybe it would have been safest for them to leave what Rome Controlled since Herod had Rome’s backing?

The presence of Camels in Mizraim is among things cited as evidence that it seems more likely to be Arabia then Africa.  And the basis for finding “Pharaoh” in Egyptian records is pretty flimsy, coming from a word that referred to the Royal Palace, and even then is kind of forced.

The ancient nation of Kemet not only did practice Circumcision, but to secular historians they provide the oldest known documentation of it, from the Saqqara tomb of the 5th Dynasty Ka-Priest Ankh-Mahor.  And Hellenistic Greek writers seemed to consider the Jewish practice of Circumcision evidence of their Egyptian origins.  However I was mistaken about Exodus implying Mizraim didn’t practice circumcision, we don't know one way or the other.  We don’t know if Moses himself was circumcised, the issue was Moses son.  The narrative in Exodus 4 is more implying Zipporah/Jethro’s family didn’t practice it, which I feel deconstructs assumptions they descended from Abraham.  They are either Kenite or Cushite or both, maybe the Kenites were a Cushite clan.  Part of this speculation is if the Cushite wife Moses married was the same person as Zipporah or not.

Which reminds me, I’ve already discussed how Africa wasn’t the only place where you could find Cushites.  So that should be considered when discussing passages where Mizraim and Cush are mentioned together.  In the Greek Mythology, maybe Belus’ son Cephus was Cush.

On the subject of Mizraim having something to do with the Hyksos.  We call them the Hyksos because of what Manetho wrote in Greek, the records of Kemet call them the Amu, maybe Amu could come from the Anamim, one of the sons of Mizraim.  A number of Mizraim’s sons in Genesis 10 are linked to regions of the Nile valley, but again these seem to be Semitic names applied to those regions later, not what they originally called themselves.  The Ludim and Lahubim have been proposed as alternatives to Phut for the origins of some of the people we call Libyans, but names like those did exist in Arabia too, and perhaps some of the Libyans also came via the Hyksos.  Caphtor is the most controversial son of Mizraim (The Philistines came from him not Calushim, that’s a KJV mistake), attempts to make Caphtor Crete have never impressed me.  Kamal Slaibi’s section on Mizraim and his sons seems to make strong cases for locations linked to the Taif region.

“Where does Kemet fit into the Table of Nations (Genesis 10) then?” You may ask.  Also according to archeology Kemet often controlled the Holy Land.  So they must be in The Bible somewhere?

Some Egyptologists think the early people of Kemet were a variety of tribes from different origins, some southern in origin and some northern.  The name Kemet can be considered evidence they were at least partly Hamite.  I did a post arguing that Seir and the Horites of Genesis 36 were the historical figures behind Osiris and Horus.  At the time I did that post still assuming Mizraim was Kemet.

But that Kemet practiced Circumcision as early as the 5th Dynasty makes me think it possible they partly come from Abraham.  Since it seems to me like Genesis 17 is introducing that whole idea.  (And yes that means I even consider Circumcision practiced by Native Americans evidence of Abrahamic ancestry for them).  As different groups fell into idolatry how they practiced it may have been corrupted, but I still see it’s existence as evidence of coming from Abraham, or at least having been influenced by Abrahamites.  The Genesis 36 connection could provide a connection to Edom.  According to the African writer Olaudah Equiano, the 18th-century English theologian John Gill believed the African people were descended from Abraham via Keturah. [Equiano, Olaudah (1995). The Interesting Narrative and Other Writings. Penguin Books. p. 44. ISBN 0-14-243716-6.]  That includes suggesting that the name Africa came from Epher.  I doubt Kemet per say is what they had in mind, but Circumcision was part of the argument.

Naturally much of my revised Chronology speculation would be defunct if this is true.  But even conventional Chronology is dependent on some Biblical synchronisms.  The belief that Shishak was Shoshenq of the 22nd/Libyan dynasty is the only reason Shoshenq is placed as early as he is.  If we only tweak the chronology by a century or so, the Kingdom period begins about where the Third Intermediate Period does.  And since my date for the Exodus is older than most, about 1606 BC.  Even in conventional Chronology I could place it close to when the Middle Kingdom ended.

So in that case, times in which Kemet ruled the land of Israel would be mostly the Judges period or before.  Could they be identified with one of the oppressors?  The usual identification of Kemet with Misraim has made it weird that Misraim isn’t listed as one during this 450 year period.  Maybe theories about identifying the Midianites and/or Amalekites with Hyksos tribes could still be true.  But if the Horites/Horim were an offshoot of the Hivites, perhaps Kemet was a Canaanite nation.  But the Judges narrative focuses mainly on the Northern Tribes seemingly.  Another difficult to identify tribe in Judges is the Maonites.

The initial reason I looked into Revised Chronology wasn’t even about Shishak or the Exodus, but about how Kemet conventionally predates both Ussher and my own dates for The Flood.  So it’s still in my interest to make Kemet younger, though there are reasons I have become open to older Flood dates.  And I’m still compelled by evidence that the supposed 26th Dynasty was really the 19th Dynasty.  If it’s also possible some Mizraimites were among the Hyksos, that also keeps in consideration my model making Shishak a Hyksos, and the Amarna period contemporary with Shalmaneser V.  There are reasons to speculate the 19th Dynasty might have been of Hyksos stock.

Going back to the Greek mythology discussed above.  The Genealogy of Belus is also traced back to Greece, to Inachus King of Argos.  Robert Graves believed Inachus descended from Iapetus(Japheth).  This is ignored in many theories about the history behind those myths, including my above making Belus Ham and Aegyptus Mizraim.  But the Greek mythology is garbled, so some conflicting influences could exist.  My basis for making Egypt a head of Daniel 7 is based on the Ptolemaic Dynasty being one of the divisions of Alexander’s Empire.  But I’ve also proposed a second meaning for the four heads of the Leopard being Javan, that they correspond to Javan’s four sons.   So perhaps it’d seal up that argument even more if I can justify identifying a son of Javan with the land Ptolemy ruled.

This is NOT me trying to argue ancient “Egyptians” were “White” as some websites do.  I’ve already discussed why I do not believe we should expect a perfect correlation between Noah’s sons and Ethnic features.  I do think even early on Kemet might have been more diverse than most give it credit for.  But they were overall a brown or dark skinned people, regardless of which son of Noah they came from.

Cyprus was also strongly linked to the Ptolemaic Dynasty, and Kittim son of Javan was most anciently a name for Cyprus.  In my reexamination of assumptions about Daniel 11, I’ve questioned the common idea that the Ships of Kittim refers to Rome.  Ancient Kemet often controlled Cyprus as well, being particularly important to the history of Amasis during the era of Ezekiel and Daniel.

A second candidate for a son of Javan being Kemet could be Tarshish.  The location and identity of Tarshish has been complicated by a few factors, one being that it’s seemingly a nation Israel had contact with both via their Mediterranean ports like Joppa and the Red Sea port at Elath.  We usually don’t consider Kemet an option since we think they’re Mizraim, but perhaps we should rethink that.  They are the easiest nation to think of as one Israel could trade with via both ports.  Tarshish is also the Hebrew word for Beryl.  Kemet was a source of much Beryl in antiquity.  In fact it’s been suggested that Kemet was the only source of Beryl for much of antiquity.  So could the Hebrew language have named that stone after who they got it from?

Remember, Ezekiel is contemporary with the Mizraim of Necho.  So it’s interesting that when mentioning nations who traded with Tyre in chapter 27, he mentioned Mizraim in 6-7, sandwiched between Kittim and Elishah, two sons of Javan.  Tarshish is mentioned latter, twice, at a point when he’s already began repeating some names, yet Mizraim doesn’t come up a second time.  Interestingly Tarsus in Cilicia was under Ptolemaic control for quite a bit.

I’ve read recently that even Kemet as a name they called themselves first shows up around the eleventh dynasty.  My attempts to find other names they called themselves are proving difficult.  Maybe we simply don’t know.

Maybe their words for Earth are clues to what they called themselves, since people often view the world as revolving around themselves.  The father of Osiris, Isis and Set in mythology was Geb, originally pronounced Seb or Keb, who was a god of the Earth, unlike other mythologies where that is usually a goddess.  Could that be Seba, the firstborn son of Cush?  Also mentioned in Psalm 72:10 and Isaiah 43:3, linked to Tarshish in one of those and to Mizraim in the other.  Isaiah 45:14 also refers to Sabeans from Seba with Mizraim and Cush.  Isaiah is late enough for the beginning of Mizraim’s association with the Nile.  BTW in the Hebrew this Seba does not begin with the same letter as Sheba.

The 22nd and I think also 23rd Dynasties of Kemet were of Libyan origin, that is Biblically usually identified as Phut.  Though some might suggest all this placing of Mizraim and Cush in Arabia might force us to put Phut there too.  But I feel Ezekiel 38 is definitely associating Phut with the West, which includes North Western Africa, because of how it ties into Revelation 20 and the Four Corners/Winds references of that book.

Is it possible the "Arabians who were by Cush" in the time of Jehoram King of Judah were the people ruling Kemet at that time?

What about the Eschatological significance of Mizraim/Egypt I’ve been looking into on my Prophecy Blog?  How does this change and recontextualize all of that?  Well in a sense the main smoking gun of my Egyptian Beast theory was Ezekiel 29-32, so the Mizraim of Necho.  Same mostly with my England and Egypt post.  And Daniel 11 still has to involve the Ptolemaic Dynasty since they ruled the Negev.  

But Deuteronomy 28 and Hosea seem to foretell Israel returning to Mizraim in the clear sense of returning to where they were Slaves.  Chad Schafer has been selling a book predicated on applying that to the Roman Egypt of Africa.  In the long run they do also get scattered to all the nations.

Josephus does definitely tell us the Roman Province of Egypt played a role in the Roman Captivity.  But plenty of Jews of the Roman Captivity also wound up in Arabia, Jewish populations of Arabia and Yemen (and the Lemba whose oral history says they were in Arabia and Yemen for a while) mostly trace their history back to the Roman or Babylonian Captivity.  At the beginning of Wars of The Jews Josephus refers to there still being many Jews of the Babylonian Captivity in the extremity of Arabia.

However the Northern Kingdom’s Captivity, which is what Hosea is specifically about, seems to go the opposite direction (whether Mizraim is in Arabia or Africa), with Assyria traditionally carrying them beyond the Euphrates River.  Well the Transjordan Tribes were arguably in Arabia to begin with.  I believe Biblically everything between the Jordan and the Euphrates is given to Ishmael.  Reuben, Gad and half of Manasseh were allowed to stay there even though their desire to do so is presented as bad.  And some maps apparently put locations called Gad and Reuben along the Persian Gulf, near where Saudi Arabia and Oman meet.

1 Kings 14:15 is taken as an example of “The River” without qualification presumably meaning the Euphrates, but maybe it doesn’t.  Damien Mackay’s interpretation of the Book of Tobit involves suggesting that the Medes of the Northern Kingdom’s scattering are mistaken for the Midian and Medan of Keturah in Arabia, possibly including Medina which was a Jewish settlement in the time of Muhammad called Yathrib.  Maybe the Habor of 2 Kings 17:6 could be Khaybar, another Israelite settlement in Arabia at the time of Muhammad.  And Maybe Gozen is a variation of Goshen?  That hypothesis has problems, but it’s interesting.  However I generally don’t think too highly of Mackay’s scholarship.  

I think some Simeonites wound up in Yemen, specifically the Jaminite clan descended from Jamin, who the name Yemen might come from.  Plus the coincidence of Simeon being associated with his own Sheba.  That would be independent of the Northern Kingdom’s conquest, but a further migration of the Simeonites who conquered Seir and the Amalekites at the end of 1 Chronicles 4.

Hosea 8:13 and 9:3 says Ephraim will return to Mizraim.  Some have seen allusions to Islam prophetically in Hosea 9, with talk of an evil Madman Prophet, and the Hebrew word some Muslims want to see as a form of Muhammad's name elsewhere.  BTW, Moph is the Hebrew word translated Memphis here.  Other Bible passages presumed to refer to Memphis are Noph, mostly used of the Misraim of Necho, but once in Isaiah 19.  Noph is closer to what Kemet actually called Memphis, but still not exactly, with it becoming Men-Nefer only at a late New Kingdom point.

Chad Schafer however makes part of his “The whole world is Egypt now” theory supported by Hosea 11:5 allegedly contradicting 8 and 9 by saying Israel won’t return to the “Land of Mizraim”.  Well maybe that’s because they’re returning to Misraim when Misraim wasn’t in their original land anymore?  But perhaps the context of Hosea 11:5 should be understood as being before the full captivity happened, when they were tributaries of Assyria for awhile.  Chapter 11 is like a summary of Israel’s history.

Associating Mizraim with the Antichrist becomes a strong Islamic Antichrist argument in this context.  Mizraim like Islam started in Arabia and then came to rule Kemet, One important Caliphate even had its capital at Cairo.  Which leads to a theory I have on where in Arabia to look for Mizraim.

In Velikovsky's argument for the Amalakites being the Hyksos, he claims Arab historians say Amalek at some point left Arabia to rule Egypt.   This is based on Islamic traditions about the Jurhum tribe, who are sometimes said to be Amalakites, but this is one of a few things the Islamic sources are confused on.  The Jurhum are the tribe said to have controlled the Kaaba/Mecca between the death of Nabioth son of Ishmael and the coming of the presumably Yemenite Banu Khuza’a.  What’s interesting though is it’s said when Ishmael become old enough to marry, he married the daughter of a Jurhumite who become the mother of his children.  Genesis 21 says Ishmael married a Mizraimite woman when he settled in Paran.  The second half of Jurhum sounds like it could come from Ham, thus the land of the Jurhum being a Land of Ham.  So could the Jurhum of Islamic sources be Mizraim?  The Taif region is near Mecca.

1 Kings 11 in it’s bio of Hadad king of Edom also seems to support placing Mizraim in or south of Paran.  And it’s not just Muslims who said Paran was the Hijaz where Mecca is, Eusebius and Jerome before Muhammad placed it in Arabia Deserta, a very specific Roman term for the deserts of Saudi Arabia, it can’t include parts of Jordan or the traditional Sinai Peninsula.  This would make theories about Mecca being exactly where Kadesh-Barnea or Sinai was wrong, which I’d favored in the past.  Velikovsky based his Barnea=Mecca theory on confusing the Banu Khuza’a with the Israelites at the time of Moses.  Maybe a Sinai in Yemen theory could still work, but I’m kind of leaving that theory too.

Joseph while in Mizraim married the daughter of a Priest of On.  “On” here is commonly taken to refer to the city in Kemet the Greeks called Heliopolis, (but the natives called it Iwnw, a name that could come from Javan interestingly, and also House of Ra).  But the Hebrew spelling is the same as Aven, which is possibly used of Heliopolis in Ezekiel.  But most often Aven and Beth-Aven is used as a derogatory term for Beth-El when Israel was in disobedience.  In Islamic tradition the oldest name for the Kaaba was Beytullah, an Arabic equivalent of Beth-El.  So could the On/Aven of Mizraim be The Kaaba?  Aven is also used in the Hebrew of Isaiah 19 (translated destruction) leading to theories Heliopolis is mentioned there.  Could Mecca be the Altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Mizraim?  Or the Pillar at the Border?  A Pillar better fits what the Kaaba is.

Kamal Salibi’s Israel in Arabia theory seems to be based partly on making the Beth-El of Israel the same as Mecca.  But that doesn’t work, why would the Islamic traditions leave out Jacob’s connection to it?  And Genesis never linked Ishmael to Beth-El.  The Aven of Mizraim is more likely to be Mecca.

Maybe the Baca of Psalm 84:6 that many identify with Mecca/Bakkah makes sense as a location Israel passed as they were leaving Egypt.

The Kaaba is also sometimes referred to in Arabic as Kabat-ullah.  So maybe the name Aegyptos could come from Ha-Kabat?

Some think Shishak must have taken the Ark, I've generally disagreed with that, yet also disagreed with what most consider the main argument against it.   Perhaps this adds new context to theories that the Ark wound up in the Kaaba?

The Jurhum of Islamic Tradition are said to have become highly immoral and corrupt, but not to have become Polytheists or Idolaters.  It was a ruler of the Banu Khuza’a who first placed the Hubal Idol in the Kaaba.  Well again the Biblical Mizraim, at least of The Torah and even of Solomon’s time, don’t seem to be depicted as Polytheist Idolaters either.

I know that subverts a lot of assumptions.  Countless commentaries asserting that each Plague attacked a specific god of Kemet’s pantheon, (but not all agreeing on how to line them up).  And assuming the Golden Calf was based on Apis even though there is plenty of precedent for Bull based Idols in the Near East, including a Bull association for Baal in the Ugarit Baal cycle.  And a mountain in/near Mecca has a name implying some ancient Bull worship association, usually cited in theories trying to place Sinai there.  But you’ll only find references to Idols of Egypt in Isaiah 19 and in Ezekiel, and we see other polytheist allusions in Jeremiah and Daniel 11 about the Ptolemies.  

Yahuah does not seem to have objected to intermarriages with Mizraimites the way he did Canaanites or Moab and Ammon because of their Idolatry.  Joseph married the daughter of a Priest without it being a problem.  And that daughter has a clearly Semitic name, Asenath.  Her name has never been linked by scholars to a god native to Kemet, but a possible connection to Anath has been suggested.  Fortunately for the mainstream view Anath worship did come to Kemet, usually presumed to have started with the Hyksos, she was sometimes identified with Neith.

Leviticus 24 contrary to your assumptions does not blame that Blasphemous Israelite’s Blasphemy on having a Misraimite father.  But even if there was, Blaspheming the name of Yahuah is a distinct Sin from worshiping other gods.

In 1 Kings 11 the Daughter of Pharaoh is not actually defined as complicit in the other wives leading Solomon into idolatry, there is no reference to any Graven Image being built to a Mizraimite Idol.  Her customs are implied to be incompatible with proper Torah worship, but that is still different from being an Idolater.

Exodus 8:26 does NOT use the Hebrew word for Abomination that is a synonym for Idol, but Tovah.  The context is also clearly using it of the thing being sacrificed, not what it’s sacrificed to.  Likewise with Genesis 43:32 and 46:34, where there it is things the Mizraimites consider Tovah being mentioned.  Ezra 9:1 is also Tovah, with the context clearly being of customs.  Deuteronomy 29:16-17 uses the word Abomination that means Idols, and the context is using it of other nations not Mizraim.

The phrase “Gods of Mizraim” is used in Exodus 12:12 however.  It’s not used of all the Plagues but of specifically the killing of the First Born.  According to an interlinear Bible Elohim or Elim is not used here, there is no im suffix.  So the translation could be questionable.  There is a Heh though, making it like a Hebrew spelling often used of trees, commonly translated as Elm Trees.  Since this follows Yahuah saying he’ll not only kill first born Humans but even animals, maybe moving on to plant life makes more sense in context.  

If they were worshiping a false god, it could have been a singular one, perhaps the Allah of Mecca is the god who Yahuah said he would destroy?

In Exodus 5 Phar’oh says he “Knows not Yahuah”, but Melchizedek of Salem didn’t know God under that name either, he was simply the Priest of Elyon.  And there are references to Mizraim having Magicians, but plenty of Magicians in history have claimed to not be serving any god but the Biblical God.

The traditional genealogy of the Banu Khuza’a traces the king who placed the Hubal idol on the Kaaba back to a Babulon son of Sheba or Saba.  Because they presumably came from Yemen they are assumed to be Joktanite by the tradition, and so probably the Sheba son of Joktan of Genesis 10.  But 1 Chronicles 5:13 mentions a Sheba as a chief among the Transjordan Tribes (Manasseh specifically, so descendents of Asenath).  As they made war with the Hagarites and other Ishmaelites.  So could the Banu Khuza’a be Israelites in Arabia?  Muhammad had some Khuza’a ancestry, though Patrilineally he went back to Adnan of Kedar.  A Sheba having a son named Babylon makes more sense in the timeframe of the Assyrian captivity, when enemies of Assyria often counted Babylon as an ally, like in Isaiah 21.  And the Nabatean Hubal Idol makes more sense with coming from the Trans-Jordan then it does with coming from Yemen which I’m pretty sure had a distinct pantheon.

There was again also a Sheba as a location in Simeon.  If the Jurhum traditions are based on some sort of confused merging of Mizraim and Amalak, maybe the end of 1 Chronicles 4 sets the stage directly for the Banu Khuza’a coming to Mecca?

The Red Sea (Yam Suf in Hebrew) crossing is the main difficulty I have here.  Others have argued for some variation of making it not the Red Sea.  And translating Suf as a reference to the color Red on it’s own would be wrong.  But Solomon’s Yam Suf port was on the Gulf of Aqaba.  Maybe like some other names in the Bible it referred to more than one thing.  Or maybe the Red Sea used to have some other branches going into Arabia now dried up.  

I’d considered having them go the other way.  Maybe placing the wandering in mostly Ethiopia and Sudan.  Or ironically using the Wyatt and Cornuke Red Sea Crossing site for a wandering in the traditional Sinai peninsula.  But ultimately no, I still think the full testimony of Scripture places the wandering in Arabia.  And I recently argued for Sinai being in Iraq or Kuwait.  Which includes the Kadesh where Miriam and Aaron died being Petra.

Could the aftermath of the Plagues God inflicted upon Mizraim be part of why Arabia become such a barren wasteland?

I’m not 100% going all in on this yet.  But after resisting it for a long time, I’ve come to conclude this is most likely the case.