During the reign of Khu-n-Aten, indeed, their own Semitic kinsmen from Canaan held the chief offices of state, and the Pharaoh was endeavouring to force upon his subjects a form of monotheism which had much in common with that of Israel.

The language of the hymns engraved on the walls of the tombs at Tel el-Amarna reads not unfrequently like the verses of a Hebrew Psalm.
The national reaction which found its expression in the rise of the Eighteenth dynasty swept away the power and influence of Asia, and brought back the gods and religion of Egypt.

The Semites who had absorbed the government of the country were expelled or slain; their weaker brethren, the Israelites in Goshen, were enslaved.

Egypt became for them a house of bondage, and they had to toil under the lash of the taskmaster at the cities and temples which the Pharaoh built.

Ramses held his court at Zoan, like the Hyksos of old days, but it was to keep guard over the Asiatic frontier, not to be in touch with a kindred people in Canaan.