The Egyptians attributed to him a law concerning contracts, which provided for a way to discharge debts where no bond was signed; it was observed down to Diodorus' time (1.79).

The Roman historian Tacitus mentions that many Greek and Roman writers thought he had a part in the origin of the Jewish nation: Most writers, however, agree in stating that once a disease, which horribly disfigured the body, broke out over Egypt; that king Bocchoris, seeking a remedy, consulted the oracle of Hammon, and was bidden to cleanse his realm, and to convey into some foreign land this race detested by the gods.

Nothing, however, distressed them so much as the scarcity of water, and they had sunk ready to perish in all directions over the plain, when a herd of wild asses was seen to retire from their pasture to a rock shaded by trees.

After a continuous journey for six days, on the seventh they possessed themselves of a country, from which they expelled the inhabitants, and in which they founded a city and a temple.Shebitqo deposed and executed Bakenranef by burning him alive at the stake.

[5] King Bakenranef has been credited with initiating a land reform, but the brevity of his reign and the small geographical extent of the area he ruled, together with the indirect character of the historical evidence for it, has cast some doubt upon this.

[6] Diodorus credits Bakenranef with abolishing debt slavery, a claim based upon a now-lost work by the historian Hecateus of Abdera.