the Egyptian monarch

Distinctions

The column takes its question from the author's fifth grade rebbe, Rabbi A. Y. Berman, who put it as the hundred-dollar question: why the Torah sometimes says Melech Mitzrayim, sometimes Paroh, and sometimes both.

Paroh (פרעה)

A title borne by every Egyptian king, not a name. Rashi (Tehillim 34:1; Ezra 6:14): every king of Egypt is called Paroh. Radak (Bereishis 26:9) is narrower: most Egyptian kings were so called. In some versions of Rashi's commentary he makes the point again at Bereishis 41:10, where the butler says "Paroh was angry with his servant," and Rabbi Ovadia of Bartenura (1440-1500) explains why: without it one would think Paroh was the king's personal name and the butler had used it to his face, which would be an insolence. Ibn Ezra there makes a similar point.

As to what the word means, Abarbanel (1437-1508) and Rabbi Avraham Menachem Rappaport (1520-1596) read it as a contraction marking the king's depravity, either po'el ra, doer of evil, or peh ra, bad mouth. Rabbi Eliezer ben Eliyahu Ashkenazi (1515-1585) claims in Maaseh Hashem that the Egyptians spoke Latin or Italian, and on that premise that Paroh means "master" in Italian; the column reports that after consulting experts it remains unable to confirm this, and that it is virtually a historical fact that the Egyptians spoke Egyptian, not Latin. Academia, the column adds, tends to explain that Paroh means "the great house."

Melech Mitzrayim (מלך מצרים)

The King of Egypt, the office as the nation's head. It appears close to fifty times against Paroh's 274. Shishak, the Egyptian king in the days of Shlomo and Rechavam, is called Melech Mitzrayim and never Paroh.

Paroh Melech Mitzrayim (פרעה מלך מצרים)

The doubled form, in six places: Shemos 6:11, 6:13, 6:29, 14:8; Melachim I 3:1; Yechezkel 29:2.

Why the Torah alternates

• The Zohar (Shemos 17a, 19b): through most of the opening of Shemos, Melech Mitzrayim names the heavenly minister of the Egyptian nation, while Paroh and Paroh Melech Mitzrayim name the flesh-and-blood king. On this reading "and the Melech Mitzrayim died" (Shemos 2:23) is not the death of the earthly king but the fall of Egypt's heavenly representative, after which Hashem began to hear the Jews' cries.
• Rabbeinu Bachya (Bereishis 41:1): through the dream narrative the king is only Paroh, because that episode begins his personal decline, which ends at the sea. The exception is Bereishis 41:46, where Yosef stands before Paroh Melech Mitzrayim, to say that he kept his throne only because he took Yosef's counsel. The column notes that this does not yield a rule covering every case.
• Rav Chaim Kanievsky, basing himself partly on Rabbeinu Bachya, offers a comprehensive discussion of all three usages: acting on behalf of the national interest, he is Melech Mitzrayim; acting out of personal interest, self-aggrandizement or sheer stubbornness, he is Paroh; where both are at work, Paroh Melech Mitzrayim.

Named Egyptian kings

Tanach names three: Shishak, in the days of Shlomo and his son Rechavam, whom archaeologists commonly identify with Pharaoh Shoshenq I; Paroh Necho, "lame" or "handicapped," in the days of Yoshiyahu; and Paroh Chafra, king of Egypt, whom Yirmiyahu names in foretelling Egypt's downfall (Yirmiyahu 44:30). The Midrash reads Necho's name as earned: he was partially paralyzed, because having killed Yoshiyahu in battle he captured Shlomo's throne, and when he dared sit on it one of its lions struck him.

Sefer HaYashar, which the column labels an apocryphal midrash, supplies more. Severus son of Anam (Bereishis 10:13 lists the Anamites among the descendants of Ham's son Mitzrayim) was king of Egypt when a Babylonian named Rakayon impressed him and his nation with his great wisdom; Severus renamed him "Paroh" and set him over the day-to-day rule of Egypt while remaining the ultimate king himself, appearing in public only once a year, and the Egyptians decreed that every future king of Egypt bear the name Paroh. The Paroh of the generation after Yosef's death was Paroh Melol, who ruled ninety-four years; instead of Melol Melech Mitzrayim the Jews called him Maror Melech Mitzrayim, because he embittered (maror) their lives with slavery. The column notes here that Egyptologists have found that ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics used one glyph for the r-sound and the l-sound, and that some scholars identify Paroh Melol with Pharaoh Pepi II, whose alternate name was Merire. Melol's successor was his son Paroh Adikam, also called Adikam Achuz because achuz means "short" in Egyptian and he stood one amah tall (see also Moed Katan 18a); he was a short, ugly fellow whose beard reached to his ankles, and the Exodus took place in his reign. On Sefer HaYashar's account Paroh and Melech Mitzrayim were originally two different titles held by different people, later, it seems, merged into one office, which still does not explain the Torah's alternation.

Rendering guidance

• Paroh alone: "Pharaoh," with no article in English, exactly as the Hebrew has it as a title functioning as a name.
• Melech Mitzrayim: "the King of Egypt." Do not silently upgrade it to "Pharaoh"; the two are not interchangeable in a passage that uses both.
• The doubled Paroh Melech Mitzrayim: "Pharaoh, King of Egypt." Keep both halves; on Rav Chaim Kanievsky's reading the doubling carries the whole distinction between the man and the office.
• Trap: English "Pharaoh" will absorb Melech Mitzrayim wherever a translator is smoothing. Where a piece of mussar or derush turns on the shift (the Zohar on Shemos 2:23 is the standing example), a smoothed rendering destroys the passage.
• Paroh is a title, so where a source says "every king of Egypt is called Paroh," write it as a title and not as a name.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "The Pharaoh and the King," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 19 Teves 5778 (2018-01-06): https://articles.ohr.edu/articles/the-pharaoh-and-the-king; raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/7572-the-pharaoh-and-the-king.md. Primary loci cited: Shemos 2:23, 6:11, 6:13, 6:29, 14:8; Bereishis 10:13, 26:9, 41:1, 41:10, 41:46; Melachim I 3:1; Yechezkel 29:2; Yirmiyahu 44:30; Tehillim 34:1; Ezra 6:14; Moed Katan 18a; Zohar, Shemos 17a and 19b; Rabbeinu Bachya to Bereishis 41:1; Abarbanel; Maaseh Hashem; Sefer HaYashar. The column's Egyptological material (Shishak as Shoshenq I, the shared r/l glyph, Melol as Pepi II or Merire) and the academic "great house" etymology are reported here as the column reports them. An earlier draft cited Melachim I 14:25 for Shishak; the column gives no locus for him, so the citation has been dropped.