October 8, 2007

• How Long Was Israel In Egypt?  Part 1

  As I began to answer this question, I did not realize the amount of
  detail that was involved in attempting to solve it.  The main problem
  is that while the scriptures seem definitive about this in Exodus
  12:40-41, our English translations of the Bible and a literal reading
  compared to other related scriptures become problematic. Now, every
  issue that I dug into in the past has turned out in support of the
  scriptures, yet this one required a bit more diligence than usual and
  the ramifications could be serious if there were no good answers for
  the discrepancies.  Thankfully, the whole matter makes sense and I’m
  not the first to uncover such things as there is evidence that this was
  known before Christ was born and was resolved.  It is my hope that the
  work in these two posts will help deal with the issues properly and
  through careful consideration of the scriptures including their
  genealogical content, reasonable answers can be given.

  So if you are willing to solve the puzzle with me (and one can rightfully call it that), let’s begin.

  First, let’s take a look at four passages that seem to surround this question :

  The Genesis 15 passage:

  
  God said to Abram, “Know for certain that your descendants will be
  strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and
  oppressed four hundred years. But I will also judge the nation whom
  they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many
  possessions. As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you
  will be buried at a good old age. Then in the fourth generation they
  will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.
  Genesis 15:13-16 (NASB)

  The Exodus 12 passage:

  
  Now the time that the sons of Israel lived in Egypt was four hundred
  and thirty years. And at the end of four hundred and thirty years, to
  the very day, all the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of
  Egypt.  Exodus 12:40-41 (NASB)

  The Acts 7 passage:

  
  But He gave him no inheritance in it, not even a foot of ground, and
  yet, even when he had no child, He promised that HE WOULD GIVE IT TO
  HIM AS A POSSESSION, AND TO HIS DESCENDANTS AFTER HIM. But God spoke to
  this effect, that his DESCENDANTS WOULD BE ALIENS IN A FOREIGN LAND,
  AND THAT THEY WOULD BE ENSLAVED AND MISTREATED FOR FOUR HUNDRED YEARS.
  AND WHATEVER NATION TO WHICH THEY WILL BE IN BONDAGE I MYSELF WILL
  JUDGE,’ said God, ‘AND AFTER THAT THEY WILL COME OUT AND SERVE ME IN
  THIS PLACE. Acts 7:5-7 (NASB)

  The Galatians 3 passage:
  
  
  Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed He does not
  say, “And to seeds,” as referring to many, but rather to one, “And to
  your seed,” that is, Christ. What I am saying is this: the Law, which
  came four hundred and thirty years later, does not invalidate a
  covenant previously ratified by God, so as to nullify the promise.
  Galatians 3:16-17 (NASB)

  Some general observations regarding these four passages:
  1.    All four passages mention either a 400 or 430 year period.
  2.    They all involve Abram’s descendants who would or did have involvement in the bondage in Egypt.
  3.    The Acts 7 passage reiterates the Genesis 15 passage.
  4.    The first three passages either deal with a “nation being judged”
  or is mentioned in context of the judgment 
         already having happened.

  Specific Observations of Each Passage:

  Acts 7 is Stephen’s defense before the Council. In his speech, he
  refers to Genesis 15 and cites the 400 years given there. There seems
  to be two readings, one that says “his descendants would be strangers
  in a foreign country (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) and then (in Egypt)
  be enslaved and oppressed 400 years” or the other “his descendants would
  be strangers in a foreign country and enslaved and oppressed for a
  total of 400 years. Now we have a second number “400”, perhaps we can
  deal with this as well later on.

  In Genesis 15’s passage, let’s look at a couple of other things:

  1.    The word translated “enslaved” in the NASB seems unfortunate. The
  Hebrew word here is “abad” has a
         simple, ordinary meaning “to work, to
  serve”, nothing more or less. It means something like “to work in a
  
         field” or what “a laborer in the city” does. The same word is used of
  Jacob who “worked” for Laban and
         gained Leah and Rachel and Jacob
  didn’t mind because he loved Rachel so much.  When it is used in
  
         conjunction with the Hebrew word “perek”, as in Exodus 1:14, the work
  become oppressive and cruel
         precisely what is described as Israel’s
  enslavement in Egypt
  2.    God mentions that in the “fourth generation” his descendants will
  come back to Canaan. We already know
         that Abraham through Moses would
  be 7 generations so by the overall context we know that the 4
  
         generations would be a “subset” of the total time between then and the
  return of Abraham’s descendants. 
         This also gives us reason to suspect
  that the enslavement and oppression happen within these four
  
         generations.
  3.    There would be a nation that would enslave them that God would
  judge. This turned out to be Egypt and it is
         clear from the rest of
  scripture that God did indeed judge Egypt during the Exodus.

  In Galatians 3’s passage, Paul says the Law came 430 years after the
  promise. The first mention of this promise is in Genesis 12:1-7. This
  is a clear statement of what he understood the time period to be; from
  the promise to Abram to the giving of the Law. This is now helping us
  understand which reading to take in Acts 7.

  Now is where it gets “fun”.  Exodus 12’s passage, the text would
  clearly seem to contradict what we’ve just concluded and say that
  Israel was in Egypt for all of the 430 years. Do we really have a
  problem here? Not really but it takes a lot more digging to figure it
  out by several methods to confirm a solution. First, we can check other
  “texts”…

  If we were to confer with the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the
  Hebrew text, and the Samaritan Pentateuch, Exodus 12:40 is translated
  almost the same as the Hebrew text. adding the words “and in Canaan”.
  So the full reading would be close to the following “Now the time that
  the sons of Israel lived in Egypt, and in Canaan, was four hundred and
  thirty years.” 

  Was someone altering the Biblical text and trying to get away with it?
  One should doubt this since there would be an outcry from those who
  would know better. A stronger likelihood exists that in the translation
  of the Hebrew to Greek, the meaning of the total time of 430 years
  would be lost. In such a case, the translations of these two documents
  would require the sort of thing we often see in our own Bibles to clear
  up a possible misconception from a literal translation… italicized
  words and verses. It would seem this is the most plausible explanation.

  However, there is more we can do to work to establish a better
  foundation for this than just this different translation works. We can
  actually see that it works out numerically as well.

  More evidence can be gleaned by examining the actual genealogical
  account of Abraham’s descendants prior to the Exodus. This information
  can be obtained from Genesis 46:8-26, Exodus 6:16-20; 7:7, Numbers
  26:57-59, and I Chronicles 6:1-3 and pretty much eliminates any
  argument of intervening descendants between the ones mentioned. So we
  are left with the line of those who were Abraham’s descendants who were
  in Egypt. (Genesis 15:15) Now Abraham died at 175 years of age, during Jacob’s lifetime and not Levi’s.

  Levi  +  Kohath  +  Amram  + Moses =  4 generations in Egypt…  just as God said it would be in Genesis 15:16.

  Now Abraham lived 75 years after the birth of Isaac. Jacob was born
  when Isaac was 60. (Genesis 25:26) This means that Abraham actually
  lived 15 years after Jacob’s birth. After Abraham dies, it will be
  those four generations that follow from Jacob that will spend time in
  Egypt. It is after this that Jacob goes back to his ancestral homeland, Padan-Aram, works for
  Laban, gets his wives, Leah and Rachel, and comes back the exact same
  route and places that Abraham did earlier and enters Egypt under the
  same circumstances. See the post “Abram and the 1st Exodus”.

  To be continued in Part 2, where we will try to dial in the details a bit better… and we will begin to see the usefulness of those “boring” genealogical records. Without them, we’d have no hope for solving this.  Mr. Vee

  • 4:11 pm
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