Acts 7:14

‘And Joseph sent, and called to him Jacob his father, and all his kindred, threescore and fifteen souls.'

The result was that those selected of the people of Jacob responded to the call of their Deliverer, and all was well. And the number of them was threescore (three times twice ten - completeness intensified) and fifteen (three times five, complete covenant connection). These were God's elect. In the words of Acts 13:48, ‘as many as were ordained to eternal life believed'.

The number is as given in Genesis 46:27 LXX and not as in the Massoretic Hebrew text, which gives ‘seventy'. But both numbers were what they would call explanatory and we would call ‘artificial'. They were deliberately obtained in the narrative because of the significance of the numbers which indicated the ‘divine perfection' of those involved, by simply selecting sufficient names to make up that number (LXX adds extra sons of Joseph who may have died in infancy). Both are therefore saying the same thing, and neither was intended to be an accurate count. Indeed the seventy five matches better with Abraham's entrance into Canaan (Genesis 12:4). In fact, of course, the people who went into Egypt, including wives, children and servants would have far exceeded that number. It was never a number intended to be taken literally. It was heavy with symbolism.