Tom Shipley
We have been in a series discussing the reality and timing of Joshua’s altar:
In Part 6A of this series, we examined the discovery of Joshua’s Altar on Mount Ebal in the central highlands of Israel by secular archaeologist, Adam Zertal. This was a momentous discovery, the very altar spoken about in the Bible in Joshua 8. This discovery conclusively and effectively nullified much secular biblical scholarship including the Documentary Hypothesis.
In Part 6B and Part 6C, we established the chronology of Joshua’s altar to 1406 BC and the Exodus in 1446 BC; we established that the reason Mount Gerizim of Joshua 8 cannot be seen from the site of the altar on Mount Ebal and why the city of Shechem is not mentioned in Joshua 8 is because the Mount Gerizim of the Bible is actually modern Mount Kabir to the East of Mount Ebal.
Today we step back to place the timing of Joshua’s altar in its true chronological context just after the end of Israel’s sojourn in Egypt.
How Long Were the Children of Israel in Egypt?
To Christians familiar with their Bible, this may seem like an unnecessary question because Exodus 12:40 tells us explicitly:
The time that the people of Israel lived in Egypt was 430 years.
However, Exodus 12:40 is not the only passage relevant to this question. There is also Galatians 3:16–17 in the New Testament, which seems to suggest a possible alternate chronology:
Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ. And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect.
Paul is talking about the timeframe between the promises made “to Abraham and his seed” to the giving of the Law immediately after the Exodus. Both Exodus and Galatians refer to the 430 years. Since there is no other biblical reference to a 430-year timeframe other than Exodus 12:40, and since Paul is expounding Scripture, it must be that Galatians and Exodus refer to the same 430-year period. Paul is focused on the promises “to Abraham and his seed” rather than the sojourn in Egypt but it is clear that these are coterminous.
The Central Questions
What is the correct chronology of the patriarchs and the patriarchal period from Abraham to Moses and the Exodus?
Were the children of Israel in Egypt for 430 years? Or was the time frame from Abraham to the giving of the Law by Moses 430 years?
These are questions that have been debated for a long time. More than a few words have been expended on both sides of this issue. A complicating factor is the additional debate regarding an early-date Exodus vs a late-date Exodus.
In my opinion, this is a relatively straightforward question to answer when the relevant passages of Scripture are examined.
The Value of This Subject
Biblical archaeology is a branch of biblical apologetics. The answers to these questions influence the interpretation of historical, chronological and archaeological data, so it is very critical to biblical archaeology as a field of apologetics to correctly answer the biblical questions first.
Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth
To properly correlate the record of Scripture with the archaeological record, we first need to correctly understand what the Scripture says and does not say. We need to be wary about bringing unfounded assumptions and ill-informed presuppositions to the task. We need to understand the difference between explicit statements of Scripture and inferences that we make from Scripture. Sometimes such inferences are difficult not to make; it can be difficult to even discern when we are making such inferences.
Our current task is to properly correlate two passages of Scripture, Exodus 12:40 and Galatians 3:16–17 so that relevant biblical archaeological and historical analysis can proceed on the proper footing. Let us first note Exodus 12:40 and how it is rendered across various versions. Each time the pertinent phrase is translated as some variation of “lived in” or “dwelt in” Egypt. There is no mistaking the meaning and sense of the original Hebrew.
Galatians 3:16–17 adds what at first seems to be a possible contradiction between these two passages. While Exodus 12:40 requires a sojourn of 430 years in Egypt, Galatians seems to suggest that the chronology starts with Abraham, long before Jacob and his entire clan went down to Egypt.
Let us take a careful look at this passage. First…
“Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made.” It is easy to carelessly read the passage as “To Abraham were the promises made.”
But the passage does not read, “To Abraham were the promises made.” It reads, “To Abraham and his seed were the promises made.” These promises were made not only to Abraham but to his seed, as late as Genesis 46:1–4:
And Israel [i.e., Jacob] took his journey with all that he had, and came to Beersheba, and offered sacrifices unto the God of his father Isaac. And God spake unto Israel in the visions of the night, and said, Jacob, Jacob. And he said, Here am I. And he said, I am God, the God of thy father: fear not to go down into Egypt; for I will there make of thee a great nation: I will go down with thee into Egypt; and I will also surely bring thee up again: and Joseph shall put his hand upon thine eyes.
The same promises God made to Abraham were repeated to Isaac and Jacob. I want to thank Dr. Douglas Petrovich, who answered my inquiry and pointed me to Genesis 46 as the referent in Exodus 12:40.
Jacob received the promise on the very eve of his entry into Egypt with his entire clan. The Scripture even tells us where Jacob was when he was given this promise in a vision. He was in the very southernmost part of Canaan in Beersheba near the border with Egypt. This is where the clock starts counting the 430 years. Not with Abram in Genesis 12, but with Jacob in Genesis 46.
Exodus 12:40
We note also the unequivocal statement in Exodus 12:40, “Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years.”
Moses does not speak of Abraham or Isaac in Exodus 12:40, only of those “who dwelt in Egypt.” The dwelling in Egypt started with Jacob. Some expositors want to date the start of the 430 years sojourn in Egypt either with Abraham or with Isaac. This simply makes no sense: Abraham went down to Egypt but did not stay there, and Isaac was specifically prevented from going to Egypt by God (Gen. 26:2).
Timeline of Early Israel
We now have a substantial chronological outline as a frame of reference with which to attempt to correlate biblical and Egyptian history:
1876 BC – Jacob enters Egypt with his clan
1446 BC – God delivers the Hebrews from Egyptian bondage via the Exodus
1406 BC – Joshua builds the altar on Mt. Ebal and establishes Israel as a nation in covenant with Yahweh
Variant Texts
Those who defend a short sojourn in Egypt of 215 years and count the 430 years as starting with Abraham’s sojourn in Canaan are forced to resort to the Samaritan Pentateuch and the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament, which add the clauses of “in Egypt and in Canaan” (Septuagint) and “in Canaan and in Egypt” (Samaritan Pentateuch) to Exodus 12:40. (Note the reversal of word order between the two variants, throwing doubt upon them from this consideration alone.)
The Samaritan Pentateuch is precisely that: Samaritan. It is the Pentateuch of the apostate Samaritans (who rejected the rest of the Old Testament) and deviates from the Masoretic text of orthodox Judaism.
We saw in Part 6C of this series that the Samaritans corrupted the Pentateuch at crucial points to validate their sect with their center of worship in Samaria (Mount Gerizim/Mount Zalmon) rather than in Jerusalem. We know from this for a certainty that the Samaritan Pentateuch has been corrupted at this point. We dare not look to the Samaritan Pentateuch as the authoritative source where there is a discrepancy with the Masoretic text.
Four Generations
Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years….And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” Genesis 15:13,16
Another objection to the long sojourn in Egypt is the mention of the four generations in Genesis 15. The defenders cite Numbers 26:58–59.
These are the families of the Levites: the family of the Libnites, the family of the Hebronites, the family of the Mahlites, the family of the Mushites, the family of the Korathites. And Kohath begat Amram. And the name of Amram’s wife was Jochebed, the daughter of Levi, whom her mother bare to Levi in Egypt: and she bare unto Amram Aaron and Moses, and Miriam their sister.
The “land that is not theirs” is Egypt, not Canaan, or Canaan and Egypt, because Canaan was “theirs,” vouchsafed for by Yahweh Himself. It also should be noted that the Scripture says they would be strangers in “a land” singular, not “lands” plural. This rules out the possibility that multiple lands or nations are being referred to.
So, how can a mere four generations cover a span of 430 years? This would make each generation 107 years!
The four generations of Genesis 15 can easily refer to the period of the oppression, not the entire sojourn. The Israelites were favored and highly prosperous during the initial stages of their sojourn in Egypt due to Joseph. It was only much later when a new king came to power who did not know Joseph that the oppression began.
Gleason Archer sufficiently answers this question of the four generations very well in his book, Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties (pp 111–112):
Fortunately in 1 Chronicles we have many genealogies that are more complete,” [than Numbers 6:58–59] “and these indicate that there were nine or ten generations between the sons of Jacob and the generation of Moses.
In other words, the shorter genealogies were not intended to represent the entire genealogical line but to name sufficient of them to identify the genealogy referred to. “Son” would be understood as descendant. The fact that we can find a seven and ten-generation list in the same time frame tells us that the shorter lists are abbreviated. For example…
In 1 Chronicles 7: 23–27, the genealogy of Jacob’s son Ephraim is listed as ten generations, and in 1 Chronicles 2, we have seven generations from Judah to Bezalel who built the Tabernacle during the wilderness wandering.
Says Archer,
Nine or ten generations between Jacob and Moses harmonizes very well with a 430 year sojourn for the Israelites in Egypt…This would average out to 43 years per generation. The 215 year theory, espoused by those who follow the Septuagint reading for Exod. 12:40, would yield only 215 years for the sojourn, for an average of 21 years per generation. In the case of Bezalel and Joshua, this is well nigh incredible.” – Pg 112
Twisting Scripture
Some short-sojourn expositors recognize the fallacy of attempting to validate their position by appealing to the Samaritan Pentateuch and the Septuagint. Instead, they interpret the Masoretic text of Exodus 12:40 thusly:
Now the sojourning (of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt) was four hundred and thirty years.
In this highly imaginative rendering, the two clauses “of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt” are construed as a parenthesis, and consider the time the patriarchs spent in Canaan as constituting a part of their 430-year sojourn.
This is yet another interpretive gloss superimposed upon Scripture. No one would have ever thought of this were it not for the pre-existing doctrine of the short sojourn in Egypt. The meaning of Exodus 12:40 is clear and explicit: the Israelites spent 430 years in Egypt. All of the translators of the Masoretic text agree on this point and there is nothing in the Hebrew text to imply any kind of parenthesis.
We will continue our examination of the discovery of Joshua’s altar in Part 6E with a survey of the particular artifacts unearthed at the site of Joshua’s altar and why these artifacts point to the biblical date of 1406 BC.
