According to historians Manetho and Herodotus, Mizraim was also known as Menes, the first king of the Egyptians who reigned for about 60 years. Babylonian texts use the term Mizraim for Egypt as is seen inscribed on the Ishtar Gate of Babylon. Other examples of inscriptions include Ugaritic inscriptions that refer to Egypt as Mṣrm and the 14th century B.C. Amarna tablets that refers to it as Misri. The Assyrian records called Egypt Mu-ṣur and the classical Arabic word for Egypt is Miṣr / Miṣru, the name that refers to Egypt in the Quran. Some Ancient Egyptian inscriptions at the time of Pharaoh Amenhotep IV refer to Egypt as Masara and to Egyptians as Masrawi.
Mizraim is the Hebrew word for Egypt. The name Egypt appears hundreds of times in the Old Testament, and with only one exception it is always translated from the word Mizraim. In the book of Exodus, it is considered the house of bondage. Regarding the passover, Moses says to the sons of Israel, “Remember this day, in which ye came out from Mizraim, out of the house of bondage; for by strength of hand the LORD brought you out from this place; there shall no leavened bread be eaten” (Exodus 13:3). You do not even need a lexicon to discover that fact. In Genesis chapter fifty, when the Egyptians accompanied the body of Jacob back to Canaan, the Canaanites observed the mourning of the Egyptians and called the place Abel Mizraim. Gen. 50:11 reads, “And when the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning in the floor of Atad, they said, This is a grievous mourning to the Egyptians: wherefore the name of it was called Abel Mizraim, which is beyond Jordan.”
Mizraim’s sons were Ludim, Anamim, Lehabim, Naphtuhim, Pathrusim, Casluhim (out of whom came Philistim), and Caphtorim.
In Antiquities of the Jews, the historian Josephus records: “Now all the children of Mesraim, being eight in number, possessed the country from Gaza to Egypt, though it retained the name of one only, the Philistim; for the Greeks call part of that country Palestine. As for the rest, Ludieim, and Enemim, and Labim, who alone inhabited in Libya, and called the country from himself, Nedim, and Phethrosim, and Chesloim, and Cephthorim, we know nothing of them besides their names; for the Ethiopic war, which we shall describe hereafter, was the cause that those cities were overthrown. (Bk. I, vi, 2)
Book of Jasher (ch. 10:21-23) provides extra-biblical details on these sons. It reads, “And the children of Mitzraim are the Ludim, Anamim, Lehabim, Naphtuchim, Pathrusim, Casluchim and Caphturim, seven families. All these dwell by the river Sihor, which is the brook of Egypt, and they built themselves cities and called them after their own names. And the children of Pathros and Casloch intermarried together, and from them went forth the Pelishtim, the Azathim, and the Gerarim, the Githim and the Ekronim, in all five families; these also built themselves cities, and they called their cities after the names of their fathers unto this day.
The entry in the International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia (ISBE) is as follows: “In Ge 10:13 Ludim appears as the firstborn of Mizraim (Egypt), and in 10:22 Lud is the fourth son of Shem. We have therefore to do with two different nationalities bearing the same name, and not always easy to distinguish. The descendants of Lud, the fourth son of Shem, were supposedly the Lydians.
The reference in Isaiah 66:19 seems to locate the land of Lud in the Mediterranean, whilst Jeremiah (46:9) and Ezekiel (27:10; 30:5) place it squarely in Africa. The likelihood is that it is in North Africa on the Mediterranean shores.
The second son of Mizraim has a name meaning affliction of the waters (animism) and apparently derives from an Egyptian word. The Septuagint uses the term Enemetiim. During the time of Sargon II, an Assyrian text refers to certain people as Anami, although they were apparently located in Cyrene, Libya.
Lehabim is identified with the Lubim, which is that of the country, Libya, to the northwest of Egypt. It is probably that the term Lybios as a son of Mizraim refers to the Ludim and the Lehabim who were conjoined, as were two other sons of Mizraim in North Africa, thereby forming the Philistines and also the Thebans.
The Naphtuhim have a name that the Septuagint calls the Nephthalim. As many as five or six identifications are offered by modern authorities. Yet, all of them are in Egypt. For instance, some say they are the Nehthys in northeast Egypt, Na-ptah (people of Ptah) in Memphis, Hathu in Lower Egypt, or the people in the delta. Some of these may refer to the same people as the territories are very close in proximity.
The Pathrusim were a tribe located at Pathros near Thebes in Upper Egypt (south Egypt). The name Pathros means region of the south. The LXX refers to the people as the Patrosoniim. According to the book of Jasher, both the Pathrusim and Casluhim were recorded as the progenitors of the Pelishtim, Azathim, Gerarim, Githim, and Ekronim, in the area of prominent Philistine cities, such as Gerar, Gath, and Ekron. If these two merged together, there were two branches where one went south to Thebes while the other joined the Cashluhim and formed the five Philistine cities.
Casluhim was the forefather of one of the more notable of the tribes, namely the Philistines. These people are known as “shavers of the head, a practice among Phoenicians. They were associated with the Capthorim, another son of Mizraim, and lived with them on Crete and possibly in Asia Minor. However, they are asserted to have come from Caphtor, which was understood as Crete. They settled on the seacoast of what became known as Palestine, from the term Philistine.
Capthor first appears in the Akkadian texts as Kaptara, where it was described as beyond the Upper Sea and Egyptologists generally accept that keftiu is the Egyptian form of Kaftara/Caphtor. It is clear from all the evidence that this refers to Crete with whom Egypt had commerce from 2200 BCE. It has been suggested that this tribe was the son of the Casluhim
It has been suggested that this tribe, along with the Philistines, was in fact a grandson of Mizraim. If so, this makes him the son of the Casluhim. The ancient connection between Crete and Philistia is supported by the fact that the Philistines were called Cherethites, which may mean Cretans (cf. 1 Chron. 1:12). The Ancient Sea Kings had an expansive trade system and may well have had colonies in various places. The separation of the Casluhim and the Capthorim may well have been a deliberate decision of colonization due to space for the two tribes.
Casluhim was the father of the Philistines. Before the Exodus, another people by the name of the Hyksos had been expelled from Egypt. In a number of scriptures, we see King David accompanied by a bodyguard of Cherethites and Pelethites, which most commentators agree were clans of the Philistines (cf. 2 Sam. 15:18).