The 210-Year "Solution"

by Farrell Till

In "How Long Were the Children of Israel in Egypt?" I presented a mountain of evidence in support of the view that the genealogy of Aaron in Exodus 6 was intended to be interpreted as a generation-by-generation listing from Israel [Jacob] to Phinehas, a grandson of Aaron, and that no generations were skipped. Hence, the genealogy, which contained only four generations from Levi to Aaron and Moses, is chronologically incompatible with the claim that the children of Israel dwelt in Egypt for 430 years (Ex. 12:40). I concluded that article with the recognition that no self-respecting biblical inerrantist is ever going to admit that this is a biblical discrepancy, because when inerrancy is at stake, biblicists will invariably resort to all sorts of verbal gymnastics to try to make the Bible not mean what it clearly says. In this article and others to follow, I will analyze some of the "solutions" that biblicists have presented to try to explain away the chronological discrepancy that exists in Exodus 6 and 12:40. To understand my rebuttals of those "solutions," one should read first my article, linked to above, in which the chronological problem was presented.

Both Jews and some Christian inerrantists have tried to solve this discrepancy by claiming that the 430 years of Exodus 12:40 covered the time that the Israelites "sojourned" in both Canaan and Egypt, and so the Israelites were in Egypt for only about 210 years, a time span that would be compatible with the genealogy in Exodus 6. In support of this "explanation," inerrantists who espouse it will point out that the Septuagint translation included Canaan in Exodus 12:40.

Brenton's Translation: And the sojourning of the children of Israel, while they sojourned in the land of Egypt and the land of Chanaan, was four hundred and thirty years.

Proponents of this "explanation" theorize that Exodus 12:40 had orginally included the sojourning in Canaan in the 430 years but that through copyist error, the land of Canaan had been inadvertently omitted and the error passed along thereafter. In support of this theory, they will also cite Galatians 3:16-17.

16 Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring; it does not say, "And to offsprings," as of many; but it says, "And to your offspring," that is, to one person, who is Christ. 17 My point is this: the law, which came four hundred thirty years later, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to nullify the promise.

Inerrantists who quote this passage will point out that the apostle Paul said here that 430 years had passed from the time that Yahweh had promised the land of Canaan to Abraham and his seed or offspring, so by necessity, they argue, Exodus 12:40 must mean that there had been 430 years from the time that the Israelites had dwelt in Canaan until the time that they left Egypt. This, of course, is an argument that tries to prove the inerrancy of Exodus 12:40 by assuming the inerrancy of Galatians 3:17, but as I discuss the 210-year "solution" to this discrepancy, I will show that quoting the Septuagint and the text in Galatians will not resolve the problem, but first I want to look at the Jewish approach to resolving this discrepancy, which is similar to the one just noted.

Jews cannot very well claim that a copyist error in Exodus 12:40 accounts for the discrepancy, because they believe that their Masoretic text has faithfully preserved the truths that Yahweh revealed to their ancestors. Hertz's commentary on the Chumash simply asserts that Exodus 12:40 should be interpreted to mean that the Israelites sojourned in Canaan and Egypt for 430 years and that only 210 of those years were spent in Egypt.

"Of these four hundred and thirty years," the Rabbis state, "the Israelites were in Egypt for a period of 210 years. This accords with the narrative of Exodus, and with the genealogies given in chap. 6."

When this issue was recently discussed in the ii_errancy forum, David Ariel, a Jewish rabbi, dutifully parroted this "explanation" of the discrepancy. On March 6, 2004, he posted the following statement in the thread that was discussing this issue.

Oh, BTW, tell your apologists that every Jewish child in religious school knows that the Jews spent 210 years in Egypt from when Jacob descended until the Exodus. It is so recorded in our historical extra biblical writings as a people. The verses of 400 and 430 are referring to a count from the birth of Issac and from the covenant between the parts with Abraham respectively. But of course its up to you to accept that or not. Thought you would just like to know that the Jews who were responsible for the keeping of the Bible text admit that we spent not more than 210 actual years there.

In reply to this, I presented essentially the same information that I will use below to show that this "solution" will not explain away the fact that Exodus 12:40 in the Masoretic text, which the Jews "kept" for us over the years, clearly says that the children of Israel sojourned in Egypt for 430 years. With this in mind, let's now notice reasons why, despite what every Jewish child in religious school may know, the 210-year solution will not work.

First of all, this "solution" is incompatible with Genesis 15:13-16 where Yahweh prophesied to Abraham that his descendants would be abused aliens for 400 years in a land that was not theirs.

13 Then Yahweh said to Abram, "Know this for certain, that your offspring shall be aliens in a land that is not theirs, and shall be slaves there, and they shall be oppressed for four hundred years; 14 but I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. 15 As for yourself, you shall go to your ancestors in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. 16 And they shall come back here in the fourth generation; for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.

The 210-year solution contains the following inconsistencies with Yahweh's prophecy just quoted.

(1) Yahweh told Abraham that his descendants would be aliens and slaves in a land that is not theirs, but in the same context of the prophecy, Yahweh went on to tell Abraham that he had given him the land of Canaan: "In that day Yahweh made a covenant with Abram, saying, to your seed I have given this land, from the river of Egypt and the great river, the river Euphrates" (Gen. 17:18). So if Abraham's seed had spent 220 years in Canaan and then 210 years in Egypt, that could hardly constitute being aliens and slaves for 400 years in a land that was not theirs, because Yahweh clearly said that he had given to Abraham and his seed the land from the river of Egypt to the Euphrates, which were boundaries that would have encompassed the land of Canaan. Hence, the 220 years that Abraham's seed had spent in Canaan would not have been years spent in a land that was not theirs, yet Yahweh plainly said that Abraham's seed would be aliens for 400 years in a land that wasn't theirs.

(2) Yahweh's prophecy was that Abraham's descendants would be enslaved and "oppressed" for 400 years in a land that was not theirs, so if the Israelites had spent only 210 years in Egypt, that would hardly have constituted being "oppressed" for 400 years. Furthermore, as I will note below, Joseph was only 40 when the Israelites went into Egypt, and he died when he was 110 (Gen. 50:20). Hence, the Israelites, if they were in Egypt for only 210 years, had spent 70 of those years in the comfort that would have come from being close relatives to Joseph, the second most powerful figure in Egypt, so the most that Ariel and his biblical inerrantist cohorts could get from their 210-year theory would be 140 years of slavery and oppression in a land that was not theirs. That would be a far cry from the 400 years that Yahweh prophesied in Genesis 15. Aside from this problem, there is nothing in the Bible text to indicate that Abraham's seed suffered oppression while they were in Canaan and certainly not 220 years of continual oppression. Notice that David Ariel said above that the 430 years should be "counted from the birth of Isaac." He didn't elaborate, but those who are familiar with this "solution" to the 430-year discrepancy will recognize a familiar quibble. After Isaac's birth, Ishmael, Abraham's son who had been born to Sarah's handmaiden Hagar, mocked Isaac on the day that he was weaned (Gen. 21:18-19), and, believe it or not, proponents of the 210-year "solution" will actually quibble that Ishmael's mocking of Isaac marked the beginning of the 430-year oppression of Abraham's seed. This quibble is so ridiculous that it deserves no serious comment, because the story of Abraham's descendants as told in the book of Genesis presented them as a family group that enjoyed relative prosperity in Canaan for the times in which they lived. Anyone who would seriously argue that Abraham's descendants were enslaved and oppressed for 220 years in Canaan is desperate for a solution to a discrepancy.

(3) Yahweh prophesied that Abraham's seed would come out of a land that was not theirs with "great possessions" (v:14). This could apply to the Israelites who allegedly left Egypt after having been lavished with gifts by the Egyptians (Ex. 12:35-36), but when did they "come out" of Canaan with great possessions? According to the story of the Israelite descent into Egypt, which begins in Genesis 46, the Israelites didn't go out of Canaan with "great possessions" but rather went into Egypt (out of Canaan) in great need of assistance because of a famine. Furthermore, Yahweh's prophecy was that Abraham's seed would come out of this land that was not theirs after 400 years, but the 210-year solution would have them having come out of Canaan after only 220 years.

(4) Yahweh also predicted that Abraham's descendants would "come back here" in the fourth generation (v:16), so since the prophecy was spoken in Canaan, the reference to coming back here obviously had to mean that Yahweh was telling Abraham that his descendants would go into another land (a land not theirs) and be slaves there for 400 years and then come back here (to Canaan) in the fourth generation. The "fourth generation" causes problems all the way around (whether the 430 years referred to the time actually spent in Egypt or the time spent in both Canaan and Egypt), but for now I just want to notice that Yahweh's prophecy made reference to the enslavement of Abraham's seed in a land "not theirs" and a coming back to here after 400 years, so this prophecy cannot be reconciled with efforts to make the sojourn in Egypt only 210 years, for if a "solution" to a discrepancy creates inconsistencies with other biblical texts, nothing has been resolved. A satisfactory solution to a discrepancy must be one that is consistent with all other biblical texts; otherwise, inerrancy has not been successfully defended. The 210-year "solution" is fraught with too many problems to be a satisfactory explanation of the 430-year problem.

The "children of Israel" problem: To understand my next rebuttal point, readers must understand that Exodus 12:40 does not say that the seed or offspring of Abraham sojourned in Egypt for 430 years but says that the children of Israel were in Egypt for 430 years. Israelwas another name for Jacob, the second born of Isaac's twin sons. He was known as Jacob, but in Genesis 32:28 his name was changed to Israel. Hence, the "children of Israel" would necessarily have been descendants of Jacob or Israel. That they would have also been descendants of Israel's father Isaac and his grandfather Abraham would be beside the point. Children or descendants of Israel could not have existed until there was an Israel to produce descendants that were known as Israelites, so I will now show that there were no children or descendants of Israel until about 50 years before Jacob (Israel) took his extended family into Egypt, but first let's notice that Exodus 12:40 plainly says that "the children of Israel" sojourned in Egypt for 430 years.

Now the time that the children of Israel dwelt in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years.

Many translations use Israelites for children of Israel in this verse, but a check of the Hebrew text will show that children of Israel was the actual term used here. Whether the Hebrew term is translated Israelites or children of Israel is really immaterial, because just as there could have been no descendants of Israel until Israel had had children, there could have been no Israelites until Israel had produced descendants. Those who want to argue against this should ask themselves if there could have been Moabites or Amalekites or Midianites before Moab, Amalek, and Midian had produced descendants.

With this point in mind, I will now show that Israel or Jacob had produced no children until about 50 years before the descent of Jacob's family into Egypt. Genesis 12:4-5 claims that Abram [Abraham] was 75 years old when he left Haran and went into the land of Canaan. He was 100 years old when Isaac was born (Gen. 21:5). Isaac was 40 when he married Rebekah (Gen. 25:20), and he was 60 years old when his twin sons Esau and Jacob were born (Gen. 25:26). From these passages, we can see that the Bible claims that 85 years passed from Abraham's entry into Canaan until the birth of Israel (Jacob), so certainly the "children of Israel" could not have been enslaved and oppressed during this time when they didn't yet exist. Now the chronology gets really interesting, because Genesis indicates that Jacob or Israel didn't even have any children until he was well into his 80s. I confirmed this age of Jacob (Israel) in the article "Jacob an Old Geezer?" which was published in the November/December 1996 issue of The Skeptical Review. So that readers won't have to exit this article to read it, I will quote the relevant part here, which uses biblical chronology to show that Jacob or Israel was in his mid-80s when his children began to be born.

How can we know that Jacob was 83-96 years old when all this [the births of his children] was happening? It is a matter of simple arithmetic. When Joseph presented his father to Pharaoh after the arrival of Jacob's family in Egypt, Jacob was 130: "Pharaoh said to Jacob, 'How many are the years of your life?' Jacob said to Pharaoh, 'The years of my earthly sojourn are one hundred thirty; few and hard have been the years of my life'" (Gen. 47:8-9). This age was confirmed later in the chapter, at the time of Jacob's death, when it was claimed that "Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years; so the days of Jacob, the years of his life, were one hundred forty-seven years" (v:28). So if we can determine the age of any of his sons at the time when Jacob was presented to Pharaoh, it would be possible to know how old he was when his sons were being born to him in Paddanaram.

In the case of Joseph, we can make that determination. After his brothers sold him into Egypt, Joseph rose to prominence through his dream-interpretation skills. Having interpreted with accuracy the dreams of Pharaoh's butler and baker while they were in ward with him, Joseph was called out of prison to interpret two disturbing dreams that Pharaoh had had. In his interpretation, Joseph predicted seven years of plenty to be followed by seven years of famine. So pleased was Pharaoh with Joseph's performance, that he elevated Joseph to the second highest political position in Egypt to supervise the storage of food during the seven years of plenty so that the country would have food supplies during the famine. At the time of his promotion, Joseph was thirty: "Joseph was thirty years old when he entered the service of Pharaoh king of Egypt" (Gen. 41:46).

Joseph's task was to gather excess food during the seven years of plenty and store it for use during the seven years of famine (Gen. 41:34-43). The Bible implies that the 14-year period foreseen in Pharaoh's dreams (seven of plenty and seven of famine) began immediately after Joseph was made food administrator, because Joseph had said when interpreting Pharaoh's dreams, "God will shortly bring it to pass" (Gen. 41:32). Also, the verses following the passage quoted above to establish his age when Joseph "entered the service of Pharaoh king of Egypt" said that "Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh, and went through all the land of Egypt" to gather up "all the food of the seven years when there was plenty in the land of Egypt" (41:46-48). Obviously, then, the Bible teaches that Joseph was thirty years old when the seven years of plenty began.

This would mean that Joseph was 39 when he identified himself to his brothers who had come into Egypt to buy grain. They came after the seven years of plenty had passed and "the famine was sore in all the earth" (41:57; 42:1-3, ASV). Although he had immediately recognized his brothers, Joseph did not reveal his identity to them. They bought grain and returned home, and when the grain was consumed, Jacob ordered them to return to Egypt to buy more (Gen. 43:1-2). On this second trip, Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and by then, the famine was in its second year (45:6, 11). So at this point, Joseph had to be nine years older than when he had first entered into the service of Pharaoh at age 30.

Joseph sent his brothers back into Canaan to bring their father and relatives into Egypt where they would have food to sustain them during the five remaining years of famine (45:11). If it had taken no more than a year for the brothers to return home and bring Jacob and their families to Egypt, Joseph would have been about 40 years old, according to the biblical narrative. So if Jacob was 130 at this time, as the Bible claims, that would mean that he was 90 years old when Joseph was born.

Inerrantists will insist that men lived longer in those days and were therefore more vigorous in their eighties than men of today, but that is an assumption that they have no proof for but what the Bible says. To make such a defense as this, then, would be a resort to the familiar tactic of circular reasoning or trying to prove inerrancy by assuming inerrancy. Besides, they would still have the problem of explaining Abraham's statement quoted earlier, which plainly indicated that even in biblical times it was considered unlikely that a man in his nineties could sire children. If Jacob was 90 when Joseph was born, as the chronology cited in support of this conclusion certainly showed, then he was at least 96 when Benjamin was born. When he learned that Laban had given him Leah instead of Rachel, Jacob agreed to work seven more years if Laban would give him Rachel too. Then "it came to pass when Rachel had borne Joseph" that Jacob asked Laban for permission to take his wives and children and return to his country... "for thou [Laban] knowest my service wherewith I have served thee" (Gen. 30:25-26). As previously noted, however, Laban persuaded Jacob to stay and continue working in exchange for all the spotted and speckled lambs and kids that would be born in the flocks. When Jacob finally left Paddanaram, he said to Laban, "These twenty years have I been in your house; I served you fourteen years for your two daughters, and six years for your flock" (Gen. 31:41, NRSV). So if Jacob had felt free to go after Joseph's birth because he had served Laban well, this must mean that Joseph was born at the end of Jacob's second seven-year term of servitude or, in other words, 14 years after Jacob arrived in Paddanaram. Rachel died giving birth to Benjamin en route to Canaan after Jacob had spent 20 years in Paddanaram, so if Jacob was 90 when Joseph was born (as already shown), then he would have been at least 96 when Benjamin was born. At age 99, Abraham laughed when told that he would father a son within a year, so the claim that Abraham's grandson Jacob sired a son when he was 96 should warrant at least a chuckle.

This analysis of biblical chronology shows that the Bible claims that Jacob (Israel) was around 90 years old when Joseph was born. As this story was told, Jacob (Israel) had agreed to work for Laban for seven years for the right to marry Rachel, but as the story was told (Gen. 29), Laban deceived Jacob and gave Rachel's sister Leah to Jacob. Upon learning that he had been deceived (if one is gullible enough to believe that a man could spend an entire night doing what a man and his wife do on their wedding night and not know until morning [Gen. 29:25] that the woman he had spent the night with wasn't the woman he had been in love with for seven years), Jacob (Israel) agreed to work for seven more years if Laban would also give him Rachel. So if Jacob's (Israel's) obligation to Laban had been fulfilled after Joseph's birth, as noted above, then it would have been seven years prior to this time that Jacob (Israel) had begun his sexual escapades with the two sisters and their handmaidens. At that time, then, Jacob (Israel) would have been about 83. After Jacob (Israel) had "fulfilled his week" with Leah, Laban gave him Rachel too, and the ecstasy for Jacob (Israel) started. Right away, it seems, Leah began to have sons (Gen. 29:32), when Reuben was born, so it wasn't until Jacob (Israel) was about 84 that there was any such thing as a son or child of Israel. Right away, apparently, Leah had her second son, Simeon (v:33), which we would assume was at least a year later. So Jacob (Israel) would have been at least around 85 before there were any such thing as the "children of Israel."

Now let's take inventory of what we have. As noted above, 85 years passed from the time of Abraham's entry into Canaan till the birth of Jacob (Israel), and now we have noticed that Jacob or Israel was about 85 before he even had any children. We have noticed too that Jacob (Israel) stayed in Paddanaram (which wouldn't have been Canaan) for six years after Joseph's birth before he took his "children" back to Canaan. As noted above, Joseph would have been about six years old at this time. Since Joseph was 17 years old when his brothers sold him into Egypt (Gen. 37:2), the "children of Israel" would have lived in Canaan for a total of 10 whole years before Joseph went into Egypt. The chronological analysis above noted that Joseph was about 40 when he brought the Israelites into Egypt at the time of the famine, so this would mean that the "children" of Israel had "sojourned" in Canaan 23 years after Joseph went into Egypt. Add the 10 years that the "children of Israel" had been in Canaan prior to the selling of Joseph, and we have a total of 33 years (10 + 23 = 33) that the "children of Israel" could have sojourned in Canaan. Even if we consider as part of their "sojourn" in Canaan the 13 years that Jacob (Israel) spent in Paddanaram after his wives had had "children of Israel," this would make only 46 years that the "children of Israel" had spent in Canaan. Add these 46 years to the 210 in Egypt, and that would make a total of just 256 years that the "children of Israel" had sojourned in Canaan and Egypt.

Those who try to explain away the problem in Exodus 12:40 on the grounds that this text really meant that the "children of Israel" had sojourned in both Canaan and Egypt for 430 years have a lot of explaining to do, but before I finish my rebuttal of this "solution" to the 430-year discrepancy, let's just assume for the sake of argument that the author of this verse did indeed say in his original scroll that the children of Israel had sojourned in Canaan and Egypt for 430 years. If that were the case, then even this reading of the verse would be in conflict with Old Testament chronology, because the Hebrew text states not that the descendants of Abraham had sojourned for 430 years but that the children of Israel had sojourned in Egypt (and Canaan?) for 430 years. As I have just shown above, however, the "children of Israel" could not have sojourned anywhere until there were children of Israel living, and biblical chronology shows that there were no "children of Israel" until about 50 years before Israel's descent into Egypt.

The 210-year solution, therefore, is no solution at all. Furthermore, the fact that the apostle Paul claimed, as noted early in this article, that 430 years passed from the time of the promise made to Abraham until the giving of the law would explain nothing either, because Exodus 12:40 plainly said that the children of Israel had sojourned in Egypt for 430 years. Paul may have been correct in saying that 430 years had passed from the time of the promise till the giving of the law, but that would be entirely different from saying that "children of Israel" had dwelt in Canaan and Egypt for 170 years before there were even any children of Israel to dwell anywhere. In other words, nothing that Paul could have said could change the fact that there were no children of Israel until about 50 years before the Israelites went into Egypt. In follow-up articles, I will reply to other lean-over-backwards attempts that inerrantists have made to try to resolve the 430-year discrepancy.