The treasure-chambers occupy almost the whole area of the old city, the walls of which are about 650 feet square and 22 feet thick. Its name Pithom--in Egyptian Pa-Tum--signifies the city of the Setting Sun; and since it had another name, Succoth, we can now understand how it was that the Israelites started on their march not from Goshen, but from Succoth (Ex. xiii. 20), that is, from the very place where they had been working. Etham, their next stage, seems to be the Egyptian fortress of Khetam, while Pi-hahiroth (Ex. xiv. 2), is probably Pi-keheret, which is mentioned in an inscription found at Tel el-Maskhûta as somewhere in the neighbourhood of the canal that led from the Nile to the Red Sea.
The Pharaoh under whom the Exodus actually took place could not have been Ramses II himself, but his son and successor, Meneptah II, who ascended the throne about B.C. 1325. His reign lasted but a short time, and it was disturbed not only by the flight of the Children of Israel, but also by a great invasion of Northern Egypt by the Libyans, which was with difficulty repulsed. This took place in his fifth year. Three years later a report was sent to him by one of his officials stating that "the passage of tribes of the Shasu (or Beduins) from the land of Edom had been effected through the fortress of Khetam, which is situated in Succoth (Thuku), to the lakes of the city of Pithom, which are in the land of Succoth, in order that they might feed themselves and their herds on the possessions of the Pharaoh." The lakes of Pithom must be those of Bâlah and Timsah, on which Ismailia now stands, not far from Tel el-Maskhûta, and Khetam is the Etham of Scripture. It is possible that Timsah, "the lake of crocodiles," is the _yâm sûph_, or "sea of papyrus reeds," of Scripture, which the translators of the Septuagint erroneously identified with the Red Sea.