Exodus - an Authentic Record of Events

The Bible is the inspired word of God. This page is a continuation in a series of articles about the Bible as God’s word.

Part 7  Exodus - an Authentic Record of Events

God told Abraham in Genesis 15:13, “Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them...And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions...But in the fourth generation they shall return here [to Canaan].”

In fulfilment seventy men of Jacob and his family moved to Egypt - Genesis 46:27. At the exodus Moses, who was the fourth generation from Levi son of Jacob, led “six hundred and three thousand five hundred and fifty” men of Israel fit for war toward the borders of Canaan, - Numbers 1:46.

Colenso, a 19th century Bishop of Natal, wrote The Pentateuch Critically Examined, in which he took “the fourth generation” of Genesis 15:16 to be saying that Abraham’s descendants through Jacob would return to Canaan after having grown to 600,000 warriors in only four generations.

He comments: “The Israelites came out of Egypt in the fourth generation from their leaving Canaan to go down into that country; and in four generations it is impossible that seventy souls could grow into two millions.” Colenso continued, “Thus we are told in Genesis 46 that ... The twelve sons of Jacob ... had between them 53 sons, that is, on the average, 4½ each.”

“Let us suppose that they increased in this way from generation to generation. Then in the first generation, that of Kohath, there would be 54 males...in the second, that of Amram 4.5 x 54 = 243, in the third 4.5 x 243 = 1,094, and in the fourth, that of Joshua and Eleazar, 4.4 x 1,094 = 4,923...instead of 600,000 warriors....”

“Further, if... they were all living at the time of the Exodus, they would only amount to 6,311. If we even add to these the number of the fifth generation, 22,154, who would be mostly children, the sum-total of males of all generations could not, according to these data, have exceeded 28,465, instead of being 1,000,000...The Israelites came out of Egypt in the fourth generation from their leaving Canaan to go down into that country; and in four generations it is impossible that seventy souls could grow into two millions.”

In reply we note that Colenso’s calculations assume four generations in all families, and 48 years per generation, neither of which fit the facts -

The articles “Marriage” in The New International Dictionary of Archaeology and “Marriageable Age” in Wikipedia report that in Europe, for more than 18 centuries, until 1917, the legal minimum age for marriage for boys was 14 and 12 for girls. Closer to the time of Jacob, Egyptian records show that the usual age range for the marriage of boys was 14-20 and girls 12-14.

Taking the husbands’ age to average 18 would allow for twelve generations in the 210 years from the entry of Jacob and his family into Egypt until the exodus. The Scripture record shows that among the families of Jacob’s sons, there were differing numbers of generations in that time, for example, 1 Chronicles 7:14-15, as we can find within families now.

Bezaleel, the gifted artisan selected by God for the construction of the tabernacle, was in the family of Judah, the seventh generation from the entry into Egypt as shown in 1 Chronicles 2:3-5, 9-12,18-20.