Exodus 12:40

It is plain that those years are to be computed from the first promise made to Abraham, Genesis 12:1,2, to the giving of the law, from Galatians 3:17, where this is affirmed. And although it doth not plainly appear when that promise was made, because the Scripture mentions not Abraham's age, neither when it was made, nor when Abraham came to Haran with his father, Genesis 11:31, but only when he went out of Haran, being seventy-five years old, Genesis 12:4; yet a good while after it was made, and, as it may seem more than probable, thirty years afterward, it is manifest there were only four hundred years of this time to come, Genesis 15:13. And many more years passed ere there was such a man as Israel or Jacob, and more ere there were any children of Israel, or of Jacob, and yet more ere they came into Egypt. How then can this be true which is here said? Answ.

1. Some affirm that they were in Egypt four hundred and thirty years, which is sooner said than proved.

2. Some ancient Hebrew copies are said to have had more words than ours now have; for the LXX. and Samaritan interpreters after the words in Egypt, read, and in the land of Canaan. And some other copies after the word who, add, together with their fathers, or, and their fathers. And so rite difficulty vanisheth. And if it should be granted that there were some few such errors in our present copies in matters irately historical or chronological, which God might permit to be there for many wise and holy reasons, yet this is no prejudice to our faith, or to God's providence, which hath been pleased to have so special a care of those texts which concern the essentials of faith and a good life, that all copies are agreed in them.

3. These four hundred and thirty years are not by the text confined to Egypt, but may be extended to any place where they were sojourners; and the Hebrew word asher is not to be rendered which, as relating to the time of their sojourning, but who, as belonging to the persons sojourning, as our translation well renders it; and the sense is, that they were sojourners, or, which is all one, strangers, or dwellers in a land that was not theirs, as it is said Genesis 15:13, for four hundred and thirty years. And the emphasis lies in the Hebrew word moshab, which is here fitly rendered sojourning; as toshab, coming from the same root, is commonly used for a sojourner, or one that lives in a place or land which is not his, as Leviticus 22:10, Leviticus 25:35,40 Num 35:15 Psalms 39:12. There is now but one difficulty remains, How the children of Israel can be said to be sojourners so long, seeing much of this time passed before they were born? Answ. As Levi is said to pay tithes in Abraham, Hebrews 7:9, because he was in the loins of Abraham when Abraham paid tithes; with much more reason might the children of Israel be said to sojourn so long, because they sojourned a great part of it in their own persons, and the rest in the loins of their parents. And as ofttimes when the parents only are men- tioned, the children are included or intended, as Genesis 12:3, in thee, i.e. in thy seed; and Genesis 13:17, I will give it (the land) unto thee, i.e. to thy seed; and Jacob is said to be brought up again out of Egypt, Genesis 46:4, to wit, in his posterity; and David is oft put for his posterity, as 1 Kings 12:16 Ezekiel 34:23, Ezekiel 37:24,25; why may not parents also be understood sometimes when the children only are mentioned? But we need not make suppositions, seeing we have examples; the persecution in Egypt, and deliverance out of it, which happened to the parents only, being attributed to their posterity, who neither felt the one, nor saw the other, Deuteronomy 26:5, &c. Compare Psalms 16:6 Judges 10:11,12. And the souls of the house of Jacob, (i.e. of the children of Israel, for by house it is evident he means only children,) which came with Jacob into Egypt, are said to be threescore and ten souls, Genesis 46:26,27. In which number and title Jacob himself is confessedly included. And therefore upon the very same ground, under this title of the children of Israel, we must understand Israel himself, who being the chief author and subject of this sojourning in Egypt, it were unreasonable to exclude him from the number of those sojourners. And this phrase being once extended to their immediate parent, may by a parity of reason be extended to their great grandfather Abraham, as being the first author of that famous peregrination or sojourning, which being begun in Canaan, ended in Egypt. Add to this, that the word Israel, as it is put for the people or children of Israel, is elsewhere used for the whole church of God, as Romans 9:6, and therefore may well include Abraham as the father, and, under God, the founder of it. And the title of the children of Israel might well be given to all that people, and to the family from which they descended, because they were now known by that name. And that this indeed was Moses's meaning, which is here produced, may be further gathered from hence, that otherwise Moses had contradicted himself; for by the years of the lives of Jacob, and Levi, and Kohath, and Amram, and Moses himself, which he precisely sets down, it appears that the sojourning of the children of Israel, strictly so called, in Egypt, was not above two hundred and fifteen years. And it is absurd to think that so wise and learned a man, as all acknowledge Moses to have been, should commit so gross an error, especially seeing that generation could easily have confuted him.