SDMB weekly Bible Study (SDMBWBS)-Week 39 Exodus 5 & 6

[cmkeller]

C K Dexter Haven:

I did a quick search of a few sources, but I see nothing to reconcile the ages of the Levites with the time spent in Egypt. Moses is said to have been 70 years old at the time of the Exodus (since he died at 120, and spent 40 years in the wilderness) – contrary to the image of a young and virile Moses portrayed in every movie, painting, etc. So adding the ages 137 + 133 + 137 + 70 = 477, so that allows for some overlap. It still pretty much requires each person in that line to have fathered a child at around age 100. Sarah has a child at age 100 and thinks that’s a joke (or a miracle), but males can certainly sire children at old ages.

P’raps cmkeller has some other insights?

Nothing that’s within the written scripture. Nothing that will really satisfactorily answer the objective reader. The Jewish commentators have an interpretation, but of course, it all depends on one’s faith in the divinity of the scripture. Basically, it’s all about the perspective on which you come to reading scripture with:

Objective reader: in Genesis 15:13 G-d tells Abram his children will be in a foreign land and enslaved for 400 years. In Exodus 12:40, the Bible says the Israelites lives in Egypt 430 years. And in Exodus 6, the combined lifespans of Kohath (who entered Egypt as per Genesis 46:11), Amram, and 80 years of Moses’ life add up to, at most, 350 years. Clear contradictions, must be different authors and sloppy editing.

Biblical believer (per Rashi’s commentary): Since Exodus 6 clearly tells us that the Israelites could not have been in Egypt for more than 350 years (and likely far fewer, as fathers and sons lives probably overlap, and Kohath probably wasn’t a day-old infant upon arrival in Egypt either), that must be G-d’s way of telling us that the “400” and “430” numbers do not strictly mean the time spent under Egyptian domination. Rather, the 400 years is reckoned from Isaac’s birth (the first person that G-d acknowledges as Abraham’s rightful offspring), and the 400 years include time spent simply as “strangers” in the lands of others (and Abraham, Isaac and Jacob considered themselves such in Canaan) as well as enslaved and afflicted (which started later, in Egypt). The 430 years is from the time of the covenant between the parts (Genesis 15), and the text there is to be interpreted as the “lifestyle” such as the Israelites led in Egypt - i.e., the mindset of being foreigners - lasted that long, dating back to Abram’s covenant.

So, with this (Isaac’s birth until the Exodus the 400 years) as a baseline, Rashi calculates the period of the Israelites living in Egypt specifically to have been 210 years long.

What I have yet to find in the Rabbinic literature is some explanation as to why the Torah would convey that information in such a roundabout, seeming-contradictory way rather than be more explicit. I’m sure there are explanations out there.

Take the above for whatever you feel it’s worth.