http://apologeticspress.org/AllegedDiscrepancies.aspx?article=808&b=Acts
Jacob's Journey to Egypt
by
Eric Lyons, M.Min.
Three
times in the Old Testament, it is stated that seventy people from the
house of Jacob went down into Egypt. According to Genesis 46:27, “All
the persons of the house of Jacob who went to Egypt were
seventy.”
In the first few verses of the book of Exodus, Jacob’s sons are named,
and then again we are told, “All those who were descendants of Jacob
were
seventy persons” (Exodus 1:1,5). The third Old Testament
reference to this number is found in Deuteronomy 10:22, where Moses
spoke to the Israelites about the “great and awesome things” that God
had done for them (10:21). He then reminded the children of Israel of
how their “fathers went down to Egypt with
seventy persons,”
which Jehovah made “as the stars of heaven in multitude” (Deuteronomy
10:22). The difficulty that Christians are challenged to resolve is how
these verses can be understood in light of Stephen’s statement recorded
in Acts 7:12-14. Being “full of the Holy Spirit” (7:55) with a “face as
the face of an angel” (6:15), Stephen reminded the Jews of their
history, saying, “When Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he
sent out our fathers first. And the second time Joseph was made known to
his brothers, and Joseph’s family became known to the Pharaoh.
Then Joseph sent and called his father Jacob and all his relatives to him, seventy-five people”
(Acts 7:12-14, emp. added). Skeptics, as well as concerned Christians
who seek to back their faith with reasonable answers, desire to know why
Acts 7:14 mentions “seventy-five people,” while Genesis 46:27, Exodus
1:5, and Deuteronomy 10:22 mention only “seventy persons.” Exactly how
many of Jacob’s household went to Egypt?
Similar to how a person truthfully can give different degrees for the
boiling point of water (100° Celsius or 212° Fahrenheit), different
figures are given in the Bible for the number of Jacob’s family members
who traveled into Egypt. Stephen (in Acts 7:14) did not contradict the
Old Testament passages where the number seventy is used; he merely
computed the number differently. Precisely how Stephen calculated this
number is a matter of speculation. Consider the following:
-
In Genesis 46:27, neither Jacob’s wife (cf. 35:19) nor his concubines is included in the seventy figure.
-
Despite the mention of Jacob’s “daughters and his son’s daughters”
(46:7), it seems that the only daughter included in the “seventy” was
Dinah (vs. 15), and the only granddaughter was Serah (vs. 17).
-
The wives of Jacob’s sons are not included in the seventy (46:26).
-
Finally, whereas only two descendants of Joseph are mentioned
in Genesis 46 in the Masoretic text of the Old Testament, in the
Septuagint, Joseph’s descendants are calculated as being nine.
Taking into consideration how many individuals were omitted from “the
seventy persons” mentioned in the Old Testament, at least two possible
solutions to this alleged contradiction may be offered. First, it is
possible that Stephen included Jacob’s daughters-in-law in his
calculation of seventy-five. Jacob’s children, grandchildren, and
great-grandchildren amounted to sixty-six (Genesis 46:8-26). If Jacob,
Joseph, and Joseph’s two sons are added, then the total number is
seventy (46:27). If, however, to the sixty-six Stephen added the wives
of Jacob’s sons’, he could have legitimately reckoned Jacob’s household
as numbering seventy-five, instead of seventy. [NOTE:
Jacob is listed by Stephen individually.] Yet, someone might ask how
sixty-six plus “twelve” equals seventy-five. Simple—not all of the wives
were included. Joseph’s wife obviously would not have been calculated
into this figure, if Joseph himself were not. And, at least two of the
eleven remaining wives may have been deceased by the time the family
journeyed to Egypt. We know for sure that Judah’s wife had already died
by this time (Genesis 38:12), and it is reasonable to conclude that
another of the wives had passed away as well. (In all likelihood,
Simeon’s wife had already died—cf. Genesis 46:10.) Thus, when Stephen
stated that “Joseph sent and called his father Jacob and
all his relatives to him, seventy-five people” (Acts 7:14), realistically he could have included the
living wives of Joseph’s brothers to get a different (though not a contradictory) number.
A second possible solution to this alleged contradiction is that
Stephen quoted from the Septuagint. Although Deuteronomy 10:22 reads the
same in both the Masoretic text and the Septuagint (“seventy”), Genesis
46:27 and Exodus 1:5 differ in the two texts. Whereas the Masoretic
text says “seventy” in both passages, the Septuagint says
“seventy-five.” As R.C.H. Lenski concluded, however: “This is a mere
matter of counting” (1961, p. 270).
The descendants of Jacob that went to Egypt were sixty-six in number
(Gen. 46:26), but counting Joseph and his two sons and Jacob himself
(Gen. 46:27), the number is seventy. In the LXX [Septuagint—EL]
all the sons of Joseph who he got in Egypt were counted, “nine souls,”
which, with the sixty-six, made seventy-five (Lenski, p. 270).
Thus, instead of adding the nine living wives of Joseph’s brothers (as
proposed in the aforementioned solution), this scenario suggests that
the number seventy-five is the result following the reading from the
Septuagint—which includes the grandchildren of Joseph (cf. 1 Chronicles
7:14-21). [NOTE: The Septuagint and the Masoretic
text may differ, but they do not contradict each other—the former
simply mentions some of Joseph’s descendants who are not recorded by the
latter.] In Albert Barnes’ comments concerning these differences, he
appropriately noted:
Why the Septuagint inserted these [Joseph’s descendants—EL],
it may not be easy to see. But such was evidently the fact; and the
fact accords accurately with the historic record, though Moses did not
insert their names. The solution of difficulties in regard to chronology
is always difficult; and what might be entirely apparent to a Jew in the time of Stephen, may be wholly inexplicable to us (1949, p. 123, emp. added).
One of the more “inexplicable” things regarding the 70 (or 75) “of the
house of Jacob who went to Egypt,” revolves around the mention of some
of Jacob’s descendants who apparently were not born until sometime
after
the journey to Egypt was completed. If one accepts the Septuagint’s
tally of 75, including the grandchildren of Joseph, he also must
conclude that Manasseh and Ephraim (Joseph’s sons) fathered these
children sometime
after Jacob’s migration to Egypt, and possibly
before Jacob’s death seventeen years later (since Ephraim and Manasseh
still were very young when the house of Jacob moved to Egypt). If one
excludes the Septuagint from this discussion, there still are at least
two possible indications in Genesis 46 that not all “seventy” were born
before Jacob’s family arrived in Egypt. First, Hezron and Hamul (the
sons of Perez) are included in the “seventy” (46:12), yet the evidence
strongly leans toward these great-grandsons of Jacob not being born
until
after the migration. Considering that Judah, the
grandfather of Hezron and Hamul, was only about forty-three when the
migration to Egypt took place, and that the events recorded in Genesis
38 (involving his family) occurred over a number of years, it seems
logical to conclude, as did Steven Mathewson in his “Exegetical Study of
Genesis 38,” that “Judah’s sons Perez and Zerah were quite young,
perhaps just a few months old, when they traveled to Egypt. Therefore it
would have been impossible for Perez to have fathered Hezron and Hamul,
his two sons mentioned in Genesis 46:12, before the journey into Egypt”
(1989, 146:383). He went on to note:
A close look, however, at Genesis 46:12 reveals a variation in the
mention of Hezron and Hamul. The end of the verse reads: “And the sons
of Perez were Hezron and Hamul.” Yet throughout Genesis 46, the listing
of descendants was done without the use of a verbal form. For example,
verse 12a reads, “And the sons of Judah: Er and Onan and Shelah and
Perez and Zerah” (146:383).
Hebrew scholar Umberto Cassuto commented on this “special phraseology,”
saying, “This external variation creates the impression that the Bible
wished to give us here some special information that was different from
what it desired to impart relative to the other descendants of Israel”
(1929, 1:34). Cassuto also explained what he thought was the intention
behind this special use of the verb “were.”
It intended to inform us thereby that the sons of Perez were not among
those who went down to Egypt, but are mentioned here for some other
reason. This is corroborated by the fact that Joseph’s sons were also
not of those who immigrated into Egypt, and they, too, are mentioned by a
different formula (1:35).
A second indication that all “seventy” were likely not born before
Jacob’s family migrated to Egypt is that ten “sons” (descendants) of
Benjamin are listed (46:21). If Joseph was thirty-nine at the time of
this migration (cf. 41:46), one can figure (roughly) the age of Benjamin
by calculating the amount of time that passed between their births. It
was
after Joseph’s birth that his father, Jacob, worked his final
six years for Laban in Padan Aram (30:25; 31:38,41). We know that
Benjamin was more than six years younger than Joseph, because he was not
born until sometime after Jacob discontinued working for Laban. In
fact, Benjamin was not born until after Jacob: (1) departed Padan Aram
(31:18); (2) crossed over the river (Euphrates—31:21); (3) met with his
brother, Esau, near Penuel (32:22,31; 33:2); (4) built a house in
Succoth (33:17); (5) pitched his tent in Shechem (33:18); and (6) built
an altar to God at Bethel (35:1-19). Obviously, a considerable amount of
time passed between Jacob’s separation from Laban in Padan Aram, and
the birth of Benjamin near Bethlehem. Albert Barnes conservatively
estimated that Benjamin was thirteen years younger than Joseph (1997).
Biblical commentator John T. Willis said Benjamin was likely about
fourteen years younger than Joseph (1984, p. 433). Also, considering
Benjamin was referred to as “lad” (“boy”—NIV)
eight times in Genesis chapters 43 and 44, which record events directly
preceding Jacob’s move to Egypt, one would not expect Benjamin to be any
more than 25 or 26 years of age at the time of the migration. What is
somewhat perplexing to the Bible reader is that even though Benjamin was
by far the youngest son of Jacob, more of his descendants are named in
Genesis 46 than any other son of Jacob. In fact, some of these
descendants of Benjamin apparently were his
grandsons (cf. Numbers 26:38-40; 1 Chronicles 8:1-5).
But how is it that ten of Benjamin’s descendants, along with Hezron and
Hamul, legitimately could appear in a list with those who traveled to
Egypt, when all indications are that at least some were yet to be born?
Answer: Because some of the names are brought in by prolepsis (or
anticipation). Although they might not have been born by the time Jacob
left for Egypt, they were in his loins—they “came from his body”
(Genesis 46:26). Renowned Old Testament commentators Keil and Delitzsch
stated: “From all this it necessarily follows, that in the list before
us grandsons and great-grandsons of Jacob are named who were born
afterwards in Egypt, and who, therefore, according to a view which we
frequently meet with in the Old Testament, though strange to our modes
of thought, came into Egypt
in lumbis patrum” (1996). Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown agreed, saying:
The natural impression conveyed by these words [“these are the names of the children of Israel which came into Egypt”—EL]
is, that the genealogy which follows contains a list of all the members
of Jacob’s family, of whatever age, whether arrived at manhood or
carried in their mother’s arms, who, having been born in Canaan,
actually removed along with him to Egypt…. A closer examination,
however, will show sufficient grounds for concluding that the genealogy
was constructed on a very different principle—not that of naming only
those members of Jacob’s family who were natives of Canaan, but of
enumerating those who at the time of the immigration into Egypt, and
during the patriarch’s life-time, were the recognized heads of families,
in Israel, though some of them, born after the departure from Canaan, could be said to have “come into Egypt” only in the persons of their fathers (1997, emp. added).
While all seventy mentioned in Genesis 46 may not have
literally traveled
down to Egypt, Moses, writing this account more than 215 years later
(see Bass, et. al., 2001), easily could have used a figure a speech
known as prolepsis to include those who would be born shortly
thereafter, and who eventually (by the time of Moses) would have been
“the recognized heads of families.”
REFERENCES
Barnes, Albert (1949),
Notes on the Old and New Testaments: Acts (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker).
Barnes, Albert (1997),
Notes on the Old and New Testaments (Electronic Database: Biblesoft).
Bass, Alden, Bert Thompson, and Kyle Butt (2001), “Questions and Answers,”
Reason & Revelation, 21:49-53, July.
Cassuto, Umberto (1929),
Biblical and Oriental Studies (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1973 reprint).
Jamieson, Robert, et al. (1997),
Jamieson, Fausset, Brown Bible Commentary (Electronic Database: Biblesoft).
Keil, C.F. and F. Delitzsch (1996),
Keil and Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament (Electronic Database: Biblesoft), new updated edition.
Lenski, R.C.H. (1961),
The Interpretation of the Acts of the Apostles (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg).
Mathewson, Steven D. (1989), “An Exegetical Study of Genesis 38,”
Bibliotheca Sacra, 146:373-392, October.
Willis, John T. (1984),
Genesis (Abilene, TX: ACU Press), orig. published in 1979 by Sweet Publishing Company, Austin, Texas.
I
wonder how many casual atheists (and agnostics who teeter on the brink
of atheism) have actually thought through the fact that atheism implies
that life ultimately is meaningless. One of the world’s most celebrated
atheistic, evolutionary writers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, Dr. Richard Dawkins, confessed in a 1995 Scientific American article, “The Universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom…no purpose…nothing but pitiless indifference.”
