Wednesday Bible Study- Exodus 3:16

Today, we go to Exodus 3:16.  This is where God explains the first parts of His job for Moses to him:

Go, and gather the elders of Israel together, and say unto them, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, appeared unto me, saying, I have surely visited you, and seen that which is done to you in Egypt: 

And this verse has a lot to it in what it says- and what it made me sniff out.  God makes it clear that the first thing on Moses' list is to contact the elders of Israel- the oldest, the closest to the Patriarchs, the ones who had been faithfully praying, while the younger and stronger leaders (who would turn against Moses in a bit) were busy serving the Egyptians.  Which brought to mind for me two questions- how close were the elders to the Patriarchs, and why were they now serving the Egyptians?

And I found some surprising answers.  For example, the Patriarch Levi lived for 137 years; he had a son Kohath who lived to 133; and Kohath's son was Amram, who lived 137 years.  Significance one: these are the only persons of the genealogies of these generations that have the dates of their lives given; and two, Amram was the father of Moses.  So we have three generations from Levi to Moses; and if the Hebrews were supposedly in Egypt 430 years, or 400 years, depending on where you read, how can there only be three generations?  If you take the 80 years that was Moses' age when he led the Hebrews out, then figure how old Amram was probably when he had Moses, etc, the best you'll get is 215 years.  BUT- some commetors believe that God counted either from the FIRST time Abaraham went to Egypt; or that Israel began being afflicted when 19-year old Ishmael (son of an Egyptian woman, Hagar), began harrassing 5 year old Isaac.  This gives you the 400 (or 430) years, and sets up our next bit.

How did they start serving Egypt?  Well, many believe that the Hebrews were among many peoples who came in the waves of "Asiatics" invading Egypt called the Hyksos invasion.  Here is where I need to introduce the ONE date we can be sure of :

1Ki 6:1  And it came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month Zif, which is the second month, that he began to build the house of the LORD. 

The Temple was started right around 968 BC- which places the Exodus at around 1450 BC.  Now add 430 years farther back from THAT, and you get a date between 1800-1900 BC.  Now, lookie what Wiki says about that:

Immigration by Canaanite populations preceded the Hyksos. Canaanites first appeared in Egypt at the end of the 12th Dynasty c. 1800 BC or c. 1720 BC and established an independent realm in the eastern Nile Delta.

And there you have Abraham following everyone else in what came to be, over a century or two, the Hyksos "invasion".  And now, the serving part:

Records of the latter part of the campaign were discovered on the tomb walls of a participating soldier, Ahmose, son of Ebana. These records indicate that Ahmose I led three attacks against Avaris, the Hyksos capital, but also had to quell a small rebellion further south in Egypt. After this, in the fourth attack, he conquered the city.[26] He completed his victory over the Hyksos by conquering their stronghold Sharuhen near Gaza after a three-year siege.[14][27] Ahmose would have conquered Avaris by the 18th or 19th year of his reign at the very latest. 

And that would put the date of that conquest- and its potential to be the start of Hebrew slavery- about 1531 BC- giving them about 130 years of slavery before Moses came.

"But I thought Abraham just came down with his family, at Joseph's request?"  Well, here's where something else I tumbled into asking about comes into play- the genealogy of Caleb.  Caleb is supposed to be the son of Jephunneh the Kennizite.  What is a Kennizite?  Why, it is one of the ten peoples who occupied the land that God first promised to Abraham- and one of the 3 of those that were never mentioned in later lists.  The Kennizites must have drifted into Egypt and got absorbed by Israel- specifically Judah, as Caleb was considered a Judahite.  So that gives us a reason to believe that the proto-Hebrews joined the Caananites in travelling to Egypt.  So then the next question is, what made me question Caleb's genealogy?  Why, the bigger question of his partner Joshua's lineage.

You see, while EVERY OTHER genealogy of a major character showed at best 3-4 generations from the Patriarch to Moses' arrival, 1 Chronicles seven show TEN generations from Patriarch Ephraim to Joshua- 11 to Joseph!  Now how could this possibly be?  I naturally assumed that this HAD to be some translational misreading, but I could find nothing to dispute it.  In fact, what I found made the case even worse- that Ephraim's first sons were all killed in a rustling raid!  From a son and a daughter born after the massacre, this whole line would have to be rebuilt.  But then I stumbled onto what was really going on- it was God fulfilling a promise in His typical, inimitable way:

Gen 48:9  And Joseph said unto his father, They are my sons, whom God hath given me in this place. And he said, Bring them, I pray thee, unto me, and I will bless them. 

Gen 48:10  Now the eyes of Israel were dim for age, so that he could not see. And he brought them near unto him; and he kissed them, and embraced them. 

Gen 48:11  And Israel said unto Joseph, I had not thought to see thy face: and, lo, God hath shewed me also thy seed. 

Gen 48:12  And Joseph brought them out from between his knees, and he bowed himself with his face to the earth. 

Gen 48:13  And Joseph took them both, Ephraim in his right hand toward Israel's left hand, and Manasseh in his left hand toward Israel's right hand, and brought them near unto him. 

Gen 48:14  And Israel stretched out his right hand, and laid it upon Ephraim's head, who was the younger, and his left hand upon Manasseh's head, guiding his hands wittingly; for Manasseh was the firstborn. 

Gen 48:15  And he blessed Joseph, and said, God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which fed me all my life long unto this day, 

Gen 48:16  The Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads; and let my name be named on them, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth. 

Gen 48:17  And when Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand upon the head of Ephraim, it displeased him: and he held up his father's hand, to remove it from Ephraim's head unto Manasseh's head. 

Gen 48:18  And Joseph said unto his father, Not so, my father: for this is the firstborn; put thy right hand upon his head. 

Gen 48:19  And his father refused, and said, I know it, my son, I know it: he also shall become a people, and he also shall be great: but truly his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his seed shall become a multitude of nations. 

And thus, God fulfilled the blessing on Ephraim by giving him 3 times the generations in even less time!

Now Ahmose led me into the age old battles over which Pharoah was the one that Moses dealt with.  I am only going to follow that bunny trail here to two spots.

First, many of the internet answers to this question have one thing in common. leading them to wrong answers.  One, a Muslim site, puts out Ramses because they follow an outlier Egyptian timeline; the Jerusalem Post puts up Akenahten since "he was the only one to built a brick monument of that size" (totally disproved in other sources); another, from an atheist site ( I surmise; I didn't stay long), claimed it didn't matter "because the Exodus never happened".  All of these paths fell into error because they tried harder to refute the Bible- specifically the timeline set from the Temple- than to make a legitimate point.  Other sites tried to use both; but like the whole deal with understanding the 400/430 years, God makes things just vague enough to blind those without faith.

Second, who do I think it was?  Doesn't matter.  But just in case you are curious, an article on Thutmose III- 4 down the line from Ahmose- said that he was the first king of Egypt to use the term Pharaoh as king, instead of for the palace itself (Pharaoh means "big house")- and in the Exodus narrative, God doesn't use the phrase "Pharaoh" UNTIL Moses' first meeting with him- saying "king" all the mentions before.  TIII's death meshes with the Temple date of the Exodus.  "But wait", you say, "Did TIII have a firstborn that died?"  Well, yes, but not then, but over a decade before.

HOWever...  much like in the later lines of Kings in Israel, Judah, Babylon, and others, the next king shared the throne for a length of time with the main ruler.  TIII's co-ruler was Amenhotep III- and he DID have a son die, and at least one source put it around the time TIII died.