The Abrahamic–Israelite–Exodus Sojourn and Apparent Discrepancies in the Historical Record

Jósef Molnár, The March of Abraham (19th century)

Galatians 3:17 reads, “And this I say: A covenant having been previously ratified by God, the law having come into being after four hundred and thirty years does not annul [it], so as to abolish the promise.”¹

Similar to a secular will or contract (v. 15), once God has ratified a covenant, it cannot be altered or nullified. Therefore, whatever purpose the Sinaitic law was meant to serve, having emerged over four centuries after the Abrahamic covenant, it cannot invalidate the divine promise to bless all nations through Abraham’s seed (v. 16). 

Chronological Confusion

While not the main point of Paul’s statement, the passing reference to “430 years” has generated much scholarly debate and confusion. Other than trying to satisfy the curiosity of Bible-chronology geeks (like me), the chief concern here is the integrity of the biblical record in view of apparent chronological discrepancies.

From the beginning of Abraham’s sojourn to the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt was 430 years, sometimes rounded off at 400 (Gen. 15:13; Acts 7:6).² Abraham was seventy-five when his sojourn began (Gen. 12:4), and Isaac was born twenty-five years later (Gen. 21:5); Isaac was sixty when Jacob was born (Gen. 25:26), and Jacob was 130 when he and his family entered Egypt (Gen. 47:9), making a total of 215 years from God’s promise to Abraham until his descendants entered Egypt. Their departure from Egypt, therefore, was 215 years later (cf. Gen. 46:8, 11; Ex. 6:16-20; 7:7): thus 215 + 215 = 430 years. Josephus reports: “They left Egypt in the month Xanthicus, on the fifteenth day of the lunar month; four hundred and thirty years after our forefather Abraham came into Canaan, but two hundred and fifteen years only after Jacob removed into Egypt” (Ant. 2.15.2, trans. W. Whiston). 

Documentary Evidence and Textual Variation

The chronology, however, is not that simple. Exodus 12:40 (according to the Masoretic Text) indicates that the Israelites actually lived in Egypt the entire 430-year period (ASV, ESV, RSV).³ Yet the passage reads in the Septuagint (LXX): “Now the sojourning of the sons of Israel, which they sojourned in [the] land of Egypt and in [the] land of Canaan, [was] 430 years.” Note that the added expression “and in [the] land of Canaan” is not in the MT, although the writings of Josephus (noted above), the LXX, and the respective documentary sources upon which these readings are based predate the MT by hundreds of years.⁴ 

It is not insignificant that Paul was especially familiar with the LXX, and of the ninety-three OT quotes in his extant writings, fifty-one are in exact or virtual agreement with the LXX, twenty-two of which are at variance with the current Hebrew text.⁵ The Samaritan Pentateuch (which is also substantially older than the MT) agrees with the LXX reading.

At the same time, if the Masoretic version of Exodus 12:40 is deemed correct, the phrase “who lived in Egypt” could be parenthetical, describing “the children of Israel” rather than “the sojourn,” and should therefore read: “Now the sojourn of the children of Israel (who lived in Egypt) was 430 years.” This would not restrict the entire sojourn to the time spent in Egypt and is easily harmonized with the other chronological information.⁶

The 430 years to which Paul alludes dates the entire oppressive sojourn, beginning ca. 1920 BC with Abraham’s departure from Haran, to the exodus ca. 1490 BC (cf. 1 Kings 6:1).⁷ While conservative scholars have proposed a variety of dates for the exodus, ranging from about 1520 to 1440 BC, considering the antiquity of the event, this gap is relatively insignificant.

The Point of Galatians 3:17

Notwithstanding my pedantic curiosity about precision of dating, what point is Paul making in this passage? The judaizing instigators who had infiltrated the churches of Galatia, by elevating Moses over Abraham (cf. Acts 15:1, 5), were recklessly missing the essential nature of God’s covenantal promises. Paul is redirecting this misconstrued focus, away from the Mosaic law and its misappropriation and consequent divisive and burdensome distortion. Instead, the central feature of the argument is God’s long-established purpose in the promises made to Abraham centuries earlier concerning “the blessing of Abraham” coming to the Gentiles “in Jesus Christ” (v. 14), the promised messianic seed (v. 16).

--Kevin L. Moore

Endnotes:

     ¹ Unless noted otherwise, scripture quotations are the author’s own translation. The Byzantine Majority Text has the added phrase εἰς Χριστὸν (“in Christ”), probably borrowed from the previous verse. See Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament. 2nd ed. (New York: American Bible Society, 1994) 525.

     ² Instead of considering the “400 years” as a rounded off figure, Philip Mauro argues that the thirty-year difference can be accounted for by starting the 400-year count at the weaning of Isaac and casting out of Hagar (Gen. 21:8-10; Gal. 4:29-30), which was about thirty years after the inauguration of the Abrahamic covenant (The Wonders of Bible Chronology [Ashburn, VA: Hess, 2001] 27-28).

     ³ See C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the OT: The Pentateuch, trans. James Martin (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1968) 2:29. The Masoretic text (MT) is the standard text of the Hebrew scriptures, copied and edited between the 7th and 11th centuries AD by a group of Jewish scholars known as masoretes (“transmitters”). This text is widely used as the basis for translations of the OT, although it differs from extant 4th-century AD copies of the LXX (translated from Hebrew to Greek in the 3rd-2nd centuries BC). The earliest extant fragments of the MT date from the 9th-10th centuries AD.

     ⁴ The Jewish masoretes, who were responsible for the MT, would almost certainly not have acknowledged Paul’s statement in Gal. 3:17 to help determine the correct reading of Ex. 12:40. For those who accept the divine inspiration of the NT writings, the information provided by Paul (and supported by the LXX and Josephus) is significant. Until the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947, the oldest extant manuscripts of the Hebrew scriptures dated to the 9th century AD. The Qumran texts date as far back as the 2nd century BC and include at least portions of every OT book except Esther. While no fundamental biblical doctrine is affected by textual uncertainty, Frank S. Frick correctly observes: “Today the tasks of textual criticism are unfinished, and numerous textual questions remain unresolved. Modern scholars, however, have been amazingly successful in recovering a reliable text of the Hebrew Bible, and contemporary translations benefit from their work. When using any modern English translation of the Bible, we should be aware that behind the translation are hundreds of decisions regarding the reconstruction of the biblical text in the original language” (A Journey Through the Hebrew Scriptures [Orlando, FL: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1995] 18). See also David M. Rohl, Pharaohs and Kings: A Biblical Quest (New York: Crown Publishers, 1995) 329-32; Gleason L. Archer, A Survey of OT Introduction (Chicago: Moody Press, 1964) 31-58; Stephen L. Harris and Robert L. Platzner, The OT: An Introduction to the Hebrew Bible. 2nd ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2008) 21-38.

     ⁵ E. Earle Ellis, Paul’s Use of the OT (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1981) 10-12.

     ⁶ Since twenty years was the general age of maturation (Ex. 30:14; Num. 1:3), it is still possible for Joshua’s somewhat ambiguous genealogy in 1 Chron. 7:20-27 to fit into this timeframe. On the integrity and veracity of the text of the Hebrew scriptures, despite the minor variations between the MT and other versions, see G. L. Archer, Survey of OT Introduction 31-58; H. S. Miller, General Biblical Introduction: From God to Us (Houghton, NY: The Word-Bearer Press, 1937) 183-308; Edward J. Young, An Introduction to the OT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,1970) 26-37; and various articles in the Gospel Advocate 7 (July 2008): 12-25.  

     ⁷ These dates are based on the chronology in K. L. Moore, Getting to Know the Bible (Winona, MS: Choate, 2002) 29-33; see esp. 32 n. 4.

Related Posts: How many times can Egyptian cows die?

Related articles: Alden Bass, Joe DeWeese, Kyle Butt, and Bert Thompson, “Questions and Answers,” RR (July 2001): 49-54 <Link>; Kyle Butt, “How Long was the Israelites’ Egyptian Sojourn?” AP <Link>; Jonathan Moore, "Date of the Exodus," AP <Link>.

 

Image credit: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Abraham