peace, thou shalt be buried in a good old age. But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again." The argument founded upon this by Bengel (ordo temporum, ed. ii. p. 53 seq.), and Baumgarten (i. 190 seq.), rests upon the assumption that the announcement of a 400 years' sojourn in a foreign land refers to a definite chronological period, to be reckoned from the birth of Isaac (viz. from that time to the birth of Jacob sixty years, thence to the migration into Egypt 130 years, and lastly the time spent in Egypt 210 years, in all 400), whereas the 430 years, mentioned in Ex. xii. 40, are supposed to be calculated from the first call of Abraham in Haran (which must in that case have taken place five years before he removed to Canaan). But the commencement of the 400 years of service must be looked for, not in Canaan, but in Egypt. This has been shown in a brief but forcible manner by Hofmann (p. 402). "Can it be supposed," he says, "that God was here predicting to Abraham something which had already taken place in part, in his own history? To Abraham's seed Canaan was not a land that was not theirs ;' on the contrary, it already belonged to his seed by promise, though not by possession. Moreover, there was nothing resembling service and oppression in Canaan." Baumgarten replies to this, with some plausibility it must be confessed, that the last argument tells as much against Hofmann's own explanation. The actual servitude was confined to the closing period, the reign of only two Pharaohs. And if the whole of the time from Jacob's going down to Egypt to the accession of the new king (Ex. i. 8) must be included in the period of Israel's servitude and oppression, there is no reason why the same designation should not apply equally well to the history of the last two patriarchs. The reason why it must be so applied is, that the most important part of the announcement is the fact of their living as foreigners (777), and that this mode of life commenced with Abraham, and was to continue with Isaac. But even if this were granted, there would still be two difficulties in the way. In the divine announcement only one land is spoken of, in which they were to be strangers, to serve and to be afflicted, as in a land that was not theirs; and we cannot, therefore, think of both Canaan and Egypt, especially as the words "afterward shall they come back" () place the land in which

In Gen. xv. 13

they were to serve and to be oppressed for 400 years in direct antithesis to the land of Canaan, the land of their fathers. The departure from the land of bondage (ver. 14) is a return home to their own land. Moreover, it is expressly announced to Abraham, in evident contrast with the foreign life, the servitude, and the oppression of his seed, that he shall die in peace and in a prosperous old age. From this it follows that the remainder of Abraham's life, at least, cannot be included in the 400 years; and just as little can we include the lives of Isaac and Jacob, which in this respect resembled Abraham's. But if we are thus brought to the conclusion, that the 400 years refer exclusively to the period spent in Egypt, there is certainly a difference between this announcement, and the passage in Ex. xii. 40 which speaks of 430 years. But who would think for a moment of calling this a discrepancy? we have a prophetic declaration, in which a round number is quite in place. In Ex. xii. 40, on the contrary, we have a definite chronological and historical statement.-With regard to the four generations, mentioned in ver. 16, it would be a most arbitrary thing to assign to these a different starting point from the 400 years in ver. 13, and to restrict them to the stay in Egypt, as Bengel and Baumgarten are obliged to do. The four generations are evidently identical with the four centuries. Baumgarten is perfectly right when he says, in opposition to Tiele, that does not mean a century, but a generation, an age; but he is just as decidedly in the wrong, when he supposes it to represent the modern artificial notion of a generation of thirty years. Hofmann had already given the correct explanation. was not to the Hebrew an artificially calculated yevéa, of which there were three in a century, but embraced, as Gen. vii. 1 is quite sufficient to prove, the sum total of the lives of all the men who were living at the same time; and according to the ordinary length of life at that time, this would give a century as the duration of each generation." The meaning of the word is still more apparent from Ex. i. 6, where we read "and Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation," especially if we compare Gen. 1. 23, where Joseph is said to have seen his grandchildren's grandchildren, all of whom are reckoned in Ex. i. 6 as one generation.

66

,he says ”דור

The second passage, which is thought to be irreconcileable with

a 430 years' stay in Egypt, is Exodus vi. 16-20. We have there a genealogical table of the tribe of Levi, in which Moses and Aaron are said to belong to the fourth generation (Levi, Kehath, Amram, Aaron). Levi was 137 years old when he died, Kehath 133, Amram 137; and when the Israelites went out of Egypt, Aaron was only 83. If from these numbers we deduct Levi's age when they first went down to Egypt, and the age at which Kehath and Amram begat children, the sum of these. numbers will fall very far short of the 430 years mentioned in Ex. xii. 40, and consequently, it is said, we must either give to Ex. xii. 40 a different meaning from that which lies upon the surface, or there will be an irreconcileable discrepancy between the two accounts.-J. G. Franck endeavours to bring this genealogy into harmony with the 430 years, by assuming that the sons in this family were not born till their fathers had nearly reached the end of their life, and that Levi begat Kehath seventyfive years after he went down to Egypt (Astron. Grundrechnung der bibl. Gesch. Gottes. Dessau u. Leipzig 1783, p. 178). But there is something so forced and unnatural in this explanation, that it is not likely to meet with approbation. Moreover, it is impossible to reconcile either this or Bengel's explanation with Num. iii. 27, 28, on which we shall presently speak more at large. But we do not want any such artificial aids in order to escape from the difficulty; for the explanation suggested by Koppe, Tiele, Hofmann, and others, that some of the members have been omitted from this genealogical table, is perfectly satisfactory. It is well known that such omissions are very common in the biblical genealogies, and in the present instance their occurrence is attested by indisputable proofs. In Num, xxvi. 29 sqq., we find six members comprised within the same space of time, viz., from Joseph to Zelaphehad; in 1 Chr. ii. 3 sqq., there are seven persons mentioned between Judah and Bezaliel; and in 1 Chr. vii. 22 sqq., there are as many as ten named from Ephraim to Joshua. Then, again, from a comparison which Hofmann has instituted between the other genealogies of Levi in Ex. vi. and 1 Chr. vi., it is evident that there are names omitted from the former, which have been obtained from other sources and inserted in the latter. The fact that only four names are given in the pedigree of Moses and Aaron, may be simply and satisfactorily explained, as Hofmann has acutely observed, if we suppose that the

number was selected with an evident reference to Gen. xv. 16, for the purpose of showing that the prediction was fulfilled. "Sometimes particular members are omitted; at other times several are linked together. The four members, which commonly appear, are intended merely to represent the four generations who dwelt in Egypt. And this is the reason why the ages of Levi, Kehath, Amram, and Moses, are given; and not to enable us to calculate how long the Israelites were in Egypt, which they would never enable us to do."

Lastly, we are referred to Num. xxvi. 59, compared with Ex. vi. 20. In the second passage, Moses' mother, Jochebed, is called the aunt (717) of her husband Amram, and this is stated even more plainly and decidedly in Num. xxvi. 59: The name of Amram's wife was Jochebed, the daughter of Levi, whom (his wife) bare to Levi in Egypt." If now Moses' mother was Amram's aunt and Levi's daughter, it is at once apparent that there is no room for the assumption that any members have been omitted from the genealogical list in the sixth chapter of Exodus. But when we look a little more closely into this argument, which is evidently the most important of all, it is quite clear that the expression, "a daughter of Levi," is not to be taken literally. Jochebed may be called a daughter of Levi, in the same sense in which Christ is called a son of David. Nor is there anything more conclusive in the statement that Jochebed was Amram's aunt, for and may both be used to express blood-relationship in general; for example, on comparing Jeremiah xxxii. 12 with ver. 7, we find applied to the son of the uncle, and also to the uncle himself. But even if there have been several members omitted, the probability of which we pointed out above, Jochebed may still have been Amram's aunt in the strict sense of the word. At the same time we must admit, that the words Jochebed a daughter of Levi, whom (his wife) bare to Levi in in Egypt" (Num. xxvi. 59), as they stand here, cannot mean anything else than his own daughter. But if this be the meaning, Jochebed must have been at least fifty or sixty years old when she was married, even if the stay in Egypt lasted only 210 years; and that would be certainly a most improbable age. There is sufficient, therefore, to suggest the thought, that there may be a corruption of the text or an error of some kind in Num. xxvi. 59; and we might perhaps be justified in coming to the

same conclusion on account of the harsh and peculiar form of

there is no subject. The Septuagint appears to have read instead of ms: θυγάτηρ Λευί, ἤ ἔτεκε τούτους τῷ Λευὶ ἔν Αιγύπτῳ. The word τόντους here can only refer to Aaron, Moses, and Miriam, whose names occur immediately afterwards. We cannot certainly make up our minds to pronounce the reading the correct one, on the authority of the Septuagint. Moreover does not, strictly speaking, mean TOÚTOUS, but avTOús, and would properly refer to persons already mentioned, not to those about to be named. Still even this deviation on the part of the Septuagint, when taken in connection with the absence of any subject, is a proof of the suspicious character of the passage in general. To us the whole clause, commencing with, has the appearance of a gloss, appended to the preceding words; and the author of the gloss seems to have understood - in its literal sense, as denoting an actual daughter of Levi, and then to have endeavoured to soften down the improbability of Moses' mother being a daughter of Levi, by appending a clause, to the effect that the daughter in question was born in Egypt. This gloss, we admit, must have been introduced at a very early period, as it is found in every codex and every version. But, in any case, the professedly chronological statement in Ex. xii. 40, confirmed as it is in a most decided manner by Gen. xv. 13, is more deserving of confidence than the suspicious notice in Num. xxvi. 59.

But, to return to Ex. xii. 40, Baumgarten holds fast to the reading of the Hebrew text, but thinks it possible to explain it as the Septuagint has done. He says: "There is an analogy in the computation of the forty years occupied in the journey through the desert (Num. xiv. 33, 34). In this passage thirty-eight years were reckoned as forty, because the two years, which had already elapsed, were considered as belonging to the same category of years of punishment, as the other thirty-eight, when once the apostasy of Israel had come to light" (p. 475 sq.). And just in the same manner, he thinks, could the 210 years, spent in Egypt, be reckoned as 430, the 220 years, which had elapsed from the call of Abraham to the migration to Egypt, being placed in the same category of servitude and exile, as the subsequent 210.