Exodus 6:16-20

This study will show that the family line of Levi, specifically the line of Levi-Kohath-Amram-Aaron, spanned Israel's 430 year sojourn in Egypt.  In addition the concept of calendar patriarchs will be introduced.

Recall in the study on Genesis 15:13-16 that God told Abraham that his descendants would serve a nation and be afflicted for 400 years.  It was further shown in the study on Exodus 12:40-41 that Israel was in Egypt for a total of 430 years, of which the first 30 years were ones in which they were at peace with the Egyptians, but the last 400 years were ones of servitude and suffering.  In order to better understand Israel's sojourn, we'll begin by reviewing the verses of Genesis 15:13-16,

Genesis 15:13 And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years;

Genesis 15:14 And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance.

Genesis 15:15 And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age.

Genesis 15:16 But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.

Besides the reference to a 400 year period of servitude and affliction in verse 13, it is revealed in verse 16 that Abraham's descendants would come forth (from Egypt) in the fourth generation.  That is, four generations would span Israel's 430 years in Egypt.  The obvious question then becomes, who were these four generations?  We can be certain that these generations did not include Abraham or his son Isaac, as both had already died prior to the time Israel (Jacob, Abraham's grandson) went to Egypt.  So it would seem that the first generation might have started with Jacob, Abraham's grandson.  We also know from Exodus 7:7 that it was during the lifetime of Aaron and Moses that the Exodus occurred, so their generation must be the fourth generation.  However when we review the genealogy from Jacob to Aaron/Moses, we find that their are in fact five generations rather than four.  Let's consider the following verses:

Exodus 6:16 And these were the names of the sons of Levi by their generations: Gershon, and Kohath, and Merari. And the years of the life of Levi were a hundred and thirty seven years.

Exodus 6:17 The sons of Gershon: Libni, and Shimei, by their families.

Exodus 6:18 And the sons of Kohath: Amram, and Izhar, and Hebron, and Uzziel. And the years of the life of Kohath were a hundred and thirty three years.

Exodus 6:19 And the sons of Merari: Mahli, and Mushi. These were the families of Levi according to their generations.

Exodus 6:20 And Amram took his aunt Jochebed to him for a wife. And she bore to him Aaron and Moses. And the years of the life of Amram were a hundred and thirty seven years.

In verse 16 we find that Levi's sons were Gershon, Kohath and Merari.  Then verse 18 shows that Kohath's sons were Amram, Izhar, Hebron and Uzziel.  Finally, verse 20 lists Amram's sons as Aaron and Moses (these are illustrated in the figure below).  Thus, we find the line of descent from Jacob to Aaron/Moses includes five generations (Jacob, Levi, Kohath, Amram, Aaron/Moses), with Jacob being the first and Aaron/Moses being the fifth.  However it should be further recognized that Jacob and Levi came to Egypt together, so that the first generation in Egypt could actually begin with Levi without any loss of continuity, whereas starting the first generation in Egypt with Jacob would result in an unnecessary and ambiguous overlap with Levi's generation.  Thus, considering Levi the first generation, Kohath the second, Amram the third, and Aaron/Moses the fourth, provides a logical solution to the prophecy God made to Abraham in Genesis 15:13-16.  Now before continuing, it should be noted that many commentators commonly assume that Kohath was also born in Canaan, and therefore he should be considered the first generation in Egypt rather than Levi.  This assertion is typically made using Genesis 46:11 as a proof text that Kohath was born to Levi in Canaan, and thus also alive when Jacob and Levi came to Egypt.  Their proof for this rests entirely upon the assumption that all the sons listed in Genesis 46 were born in Canaan, an idea which is shown to be faulty in the study on Genesis 46:5-12.  The other reason to discount the idea of Kohath being born in Canaan and therefore the first generation in Egypt is that would only leave two other generations until the Exodus (Amram and Aaron/Moses), and therefore only account for three of the four generations required by Genesis 15:13-16. 

Now referring back to the verses of Exodus 6:16-20 above, one should note that what is provided there is a short genealogy of Levi's offspring, one that obviously spans the 430 year sojourn of Israel in Egypt (i.e., the generations from Levi to Aaron/Moses).  But just as importantly, notice that lifespan information is only provided for three of those listed in this account, Levi, Kohath and Amram, which just happen to be the line of descent that produced Aaron and Moses.  To put this in perspective, consider that of Levi's three sons of verse 16, only Kohath's lifespan is given, but nothing for Gershon and Merari.  Further, of Kohath's four sons of verse 18, only Amram's lifespan is given, but nothing for Izhar, Hebron and Uzziel.  Additionally, no lifespan information is provided for Gershon's two sons or for Merari's two sons.  To help visualize what this is showing consider the following family tree:

The green highlighted names are the ones in which the Bible provides lifespan information, while no age information is given for any of the others listed.  Not shown here but also telling is that of Jacob's twelve sons, lifespan information is only given for Levi and Joseph.  And for the children of Libni, Shimei, Izhar, Hebron, Uzziel, Mahli and Mushi, no age information is provided in the Bible, but yet that information is provided for Amram's offspring Aaron and Moses.  The point of all this is to highlight how significant it is that the lifespans of Levi, Kohath, Amram and Aaron/Moses are provided as it was these individuals whose lives spanned Israel's 430 year sojourn in Egypt.  Now since we know Israel's sojourn in Egypt was 430 years, we can to add up the lifespans of these individuals and compare that to the time of the sojourn.  This is summarized below (note, the lifespans of Aaron and Moses are provided in Numbers 33:39 and Deuteronomy 34:7, respectively): 

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Generation        Name                 Lifespan

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First                  Levi                   137

Second             Kohath               133

Third                 Amram               137

Fourth               Aaron/Moses      123/120

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Total                                           530/527

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The sum of the above numbers (530/527) is certainly sufficient to span the 430 year sojourn.  However we know two things, first, Levi didn't live his entire life in Egypt since he was born to Jacob in Haran.  Second, we know that Aaron and Moses left Egypt at the Exodus roughly 40 years before they died as indicated by Exodus 7:7,

Exodus 7:7 And Moses was fourscore years old, and Aaron fourscore and three years old, when they spake unto Pharaoh.

So Moses and Aaron were 80 and 83 years old, respectively, when they first came to Pharaoh telling him to release Israel.  It can be shown by comparing Numbers 33:38-39 and Exodus 7:7 that the Exodus occurred about 8 months after Moses and Aaron first stood before Pharaoh.  Thus, the age of Moses and Aaron at the time of the Exodus was 81 and 84 years old, respectively (rounding up the 8 months to the next year).  Secondly, as mentioned above, Levi was born to Jacob in Haran, and before his brother Joseph, who we know was born when Jacob was 91 years old (see study Genesis 31:38-41, Note 2).  And since Jacob was 130 years old when he came to Egypt, Joseph's birth occurred 39 years earlier.  And since Levi was born at least a few years earlier than Joseph we can figure that Levi was at least 42 years old when he came to Egypt.  Further, since Levi lived to be 137 years old, this means he lived no more than 95 years in Egypt.  Using this information the four generations of the sojourn becomes:

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Generation        Name                 Lifespan/Years in Egypt

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First                  Levi                    < 95 (i.e., Levi died at 137)

Second             Kohath                 133

Third                 Amram                 137

Fourth               Aaron                    84

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Total                                          < 449

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Notice that Aaron was used for the fourth generation above.  This was done because Aaron was the eldest (3 years older than Moses), so the start of the fourth generation would have tracked Aaron, not Moses.  Now when these updated ages are summed they come to 449 years, which is within 19 years of the 430 years of the sojourn.  This is quite a remarkable result because this means that the offspring of Levi, Kohath and Amram must have all been born very close to the year in which each of these died (within roughly six years for each, or 19 years total).  Thus, Kohath had to be born when Levi was about 131 years old, and Amram when Kohath was about 126, and finally Aaron when Amram was about 131!  But there is something else that must be considered before we can conclude whether this result satisfies all the relevant Biblical information.  In particular the statement of Genesis 37:3,

Genesis 37:3 Now Israel [Jacob] loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colours.

Recall that one key assumption made above was that Levi came to Egypt when 42 years old, which means that Levi was born just three years before Joseph (when Jacob was 88 years old).  Yet Genesis 37:3 clearly states that Joseph was the most favored (loved) of all Jacob's children because Joseph was the son of Jacob's old age.  But if Levi and Joseph were only separated by 3 years, one born at 88 and the other at 91, then they both would be sons of Jacob's old age.  But not only that, we know Jacob had five other sons born between Levi and Joseph (Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Issachar and Zebulun), so that Jacob would have had many sons of his old age (see study on Genesis 31:38-41).  In fact, his last son born by Leah (Zebulun) would have been born the same year as Joseph, so there would be no real distinction in Jacob's age at the birth of Joseph and Zebulun, or really any of those born from Levi onward.  But it must be recalled that it was the idea that Jacob's sojourn in Haran was only 20 years which causes theologians to crowd the births of Jacob's twelve children into a short seven year time span.  However once it is realized that Jacob actually lived in Haran for 40 years (see study on Genesis 28:9), there is no need to push the birth of Jacob's other sons so near to that of Joseph.  In fact, Genesis 37:3 supports the idea that Jacob probably began having children soon after he married Leah and Rachel at 64 years old, and was able to have all eleven children that were born prior to Joseph by the time he was approximately 76 years old (12 years later).  This then allows the birth of Joseph, when Jacob was 91 years old, to truly be a son of his old age (born 15 years after the last of his first eleven children). 

So based on this information it is possible that Levi, Jacob's third born son by Leah, might have been born as early as 3 years after Jacob married at 64 years old, so that Levi could have been born when Jacob was 67.  But it turns out that such an early birth for Levi would not satisfy Israel's 430 years in Egypt, since it would only allow Levi to live in Egypt for 74 years, which when added to Kohath's 133, Amram's 137 and Aaron's 84, falls two years short of 430 years.  Thus we know Levi couldn't have been born quite this early.  However, if Levi's birth occurred 2 years later, when Jacob was 69 years old, then this would fully account for Israel's 430 years in Egypt, as seen below: 

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The Four Generations of Israel's 430 Year Sojourn

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Generation        Name                 Lifespan/Years in Egypt

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First                  Levi                       76 (same year Levi died)

Second             Kohath                 133

Third                 Amram                 137

Fourth               Aaron                    84

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Total                                             430

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This solution allows a reckoning of the four generations of Genesis 15:13-16 that is in full agreement with the remarkably useful lifespan information provided in Exodus 6:16-20, as well as the various pieces of information regarding Jacob, his family and descendants given in Genesis and Exodus.  It should be noted that placing Levi's birth either earlier or later than when Jacob was 69 years old would not provide a harmonious solution to all the Biblical references above.

Genealogy of the Exodus

Appendix - Implications of the Four Generations in Egypt

One of the notable features of the timeline solution above is that it requires the birth of Kohath to occur in the year that Levi died, the birth of Amram in the year Kohath died, and the birth of Aaron in the year that Amram died.  One can see that a continuity of time across Israel's 430 years in Egypt was provided by the lives of these four men, Levi, Kohath, Amram and Aaron.  For this reason they can be referred to as calendar patriarchs, that is, individuals by which time was measured and tracked.  While this idea may at first seem a bit strange, one should recall that even today years are measured relative to the birth of Jesus Christ, so that the year 2000 represented the 2000th year since Christ was born.  In that sense, Christ is the calendar patriarch of our modern day calendar.  It is this principle of calendar patriarchs that can be used in understanding the genealogies of Genesis 5 (the time span from Adam to Noah) and Genesis 11 (the time span from Noah's son Shem to Abraham). 

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