The Stones Cry Out
(Akhenaten, Wikimedia Commons, José-Manuel Benito Álvarez)
“I tell you,” He answered, “if they remain silent, the very stones will cry out.” Luke 19:40
Rahab, and other Canaanites knew what had happened in Egypt though they were hundreds of miles away in Jericho. Forty years after the events, Canaanites were still “melting in fear” because of the plagues, the parting of the sea, and the near collapse Israel’s God had brought upon the Egyptian Empire. The Israelites left in their wake widespread death and impoverishment, taking the gold and riches Egyptians voluntarily gave them to speed them out of their country. When the spies came looking for cover, Rahab already believed in their God, telling them "For the Lord your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below.” She hid them under stalks of flax and received the promise that she and her family would be saved from the coming destruction of Jericho.
The news continued to push the boundaries of time. Three generations after the Exodus, Pharaoh Amenhotep IV heard the stories about Moses and all that occurred during the reign of his great-grandfather, Amenhotep II.
Amenhotep IV ruled Egypt for five years in the same way centuries of pharaohs ruled before him. But then he made extraordinary changes. He changed his name to Akhenaten, he moved his capital from Thebes to Amarna, he upended the long-held religion of his people taking them from polytheism to monotheism, doing away with the powerful and wealthy priesthood. He had the names of the old gods chiseled out from public inscriptions throughout Egypt.
The pharaoh’s new god was Aten, the sun disk. His new name, Akhenaten, means “Effective for the Aten.” A hymn he wrote to Aten was found inscribed in hieroglyphs on the tomb wall of his vizier. In Reflections on the Psalms, C.S. Lewis points out that Akhenaten’s hymn is more in keeping with Jewish thought than pagan thought. Lewis writes:
“As we have seen, even in the creation-myths, gods have beginnings. Most of them have fathers and mothers; often we know their birthplaces. There is no question of self-existence or the timeless.”
Akhenaten’s hymn attributes self-existence to his God, “One God, like whom there is no other…thou alone existing…” (Did he know Moses’ psalm? “…from everlasting to everlasting you are God.”) He views Aten as Creator, the “ordainer of life,” not created, making mankind and animals and “all the lands.” He praises Aten, “O how many are the things which thou hast made!” More parallels to Jewish thought are found throughout the hymn. Where the psalms show us that God determines the number of our days, the pharaoh’s God “dost compute the duration of his life.” As the psalms tell us God set the earth on its foundations, Akhenaten similarly speaks of his God who “didst lay the foundation of the earth.” And as the Bible speaks to God’s sovereignty, Akhenaten acknowledges of his God, “Thou settest every person in his place.”
Akhenaten heard the accounts of the Exodus passed down from family members who experienced the events first hand. His bold stand to overthrow the foundations of Egyptian culture and religion rewarded him with the retaliation of obscurity. After his death, his name and image were removed from temples and monuments. This was not only to ensure he would lapse from Egyptian memory, but according to Egyptian religious beliefs, it ensured he would not enter the afterlife. It wasn’t until the 19th century, when archeologists excavated in Amarna, that Akhenaten’s story was made known.
Like Rahab, other non-Israelites believed in God including Moses’ father-in-law Jethro, a Middianite; Ruth, a Moabite; Caleb, a Kenizzite; and, after Jonah reluctantly preached to them, the people of Nineveh – Assyrians who were Israel’s sworn enemies. Even if his theology wasn’t precise, it is possible Akhenaten accepted the accounts of the Exodus and his words and actions are meant as a tribute to the God of Israel. As C.S. Lewis says, maybe Akhenaten “has long seen and now enjoys the truth which so far transcends his own glimpse of it.” Maybe his hymn, speaking out from ancient stones, proclaims that he was someone else God had in mind when he told his great-grandfather, “I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”