17; 18:1, 4, 19) Many Jews lived in Babylon, where Peter preached. (1 Pet. 5:13) Josephus records that “great numbers” of Jews were in Babylonia in the first century B.C.E. (Antiquities of the Jews, Book XV, chap. II, par. 2) Early in 50 C.E. the Roman Emperor Claudius banished all the Jews from Rome. This also affected Jews who had become Christians, among them Aquila and Priscilla (Prisca), whom Paul met in Corinth about 50 C.E., shortly after the edict by Claudius. (Acts 18:2) They accompanied Paul to Ephesus, and at the time he wrote the letter to the Romans (c. 56 C.E.) they were evidently back in Rome, for Claudius had died and Nero was then ruling. Many of the other Jews had also moved back to Rome.—Acts 18:18, 19; Rom. 16:3, 7, 11.

In fulfillment of Jesus’ prophecy at Luke 21:24, the Roman army under Titus, in 70 C.E., surrounded Jerusalem, crowded with Jews from many lands assembled for the Festival of Unfermented Cakes. The Romans besieged and finally destroyed the city; 1,100,000 Jews perished and 97,000 were taken captive, to be scattered among the nations.

EXODUS

The deliverance of the nation of Israel from bondage to Egypt. Jehovah spoke to Abraham (before 1933 B.C.E.), after promising that Abraham’s seed would inherit the land, and said: “You may know for sure that your seed will become an alien resident in a land not theirs, and they will have to serve them, and these will certainly afflict them for four hundred years. But the nation that they will serve I am judging, and after that they will go out with many goods. . . . But in the fourth generation they will return here, because the error of the Amorites has not yet come to completion.”—Gen. 15:13-16.

It is clear that the beginning of the four-hundred-year period of affliction had to await the appearance of the promised “seed.” While Abraham had earlier visited Egypt during a time of famine in Canaan and had experienced some difficulties with the Pharaoh there, he was then childless. (Gen. 12:10-20) Not long after God’s statement about the four hundred years of affliction, when Abraham was eighty-six years old (in the year 1932 B.C.E.), his Egyptian slave girl and concubine bore him a son, Ishmael. But it was fourteen years later (1918 B.C.E.) that Abraham’s free wife Sarah bore him a son, Isaac, and God designated this son as the one by means of whom the promised seed would result. Still, God’s time had not yet arrived for giving Abraham or his seed the Land of Canaan, and so they were, as foretold, ‘alien residents in a land not theirs.’—Gen. 16:15, 16; 21:2-5; Heb. 11:13.

TIME OF THE EXODUS

When, therefore, did the four hundred years of affliction begin? Jewish tradition reckons the count from Isaac’s birth. But the actual evidence of affliction first came on the day that Isaac was weaned. Evidence points to 1913 B.C.E., when Isaac was about five years old and Ishmael about nineteen, as the date of the start of affliction. It was then that Ishmael “the one born in the manner of flesh began persecuting the one born in the manner of spirit.” (Gal. 4:29) Ishmael, who was part Egyptian, in jealousy and hatred, began “poking fun” at Isaac, the very young child, this amounting to much more than a mere children’s quarrel. (Gen. 21:9) Other translations describe Ishmael’s action as “mocking” (Yg; Ro, ftn.) The affliction of Abraham’s seed continued on during Isaac’s life. While Jehovah blessed Isaac as a grown man, he was nevertheless persecuted by the inhabitants of Canaan and forced to move from place to place because of the difficulties they brought against him. (Gen. 26:19-24, 27) Eventually, during the later years of the life of Isaac’s son Jacob, the foretold “seed” came into Egypt to reside. In time they came into a state of slavery.

The four-hundred-year period of affliction thus ran from 1913 B.C.E. until 1513 B.C.E. It was also a “period of grace” or of divine toleration allowed the Canaanites, a principal tribe of whom were Amorites. By this latter date their error would come to completion; they would clearly merit complete ejection from the land. As the preliminary step toward such ejection, God would turn his attention to his people in Egypt, setting them free from bondage and starting them on the way back to the Promised Land.

The 430-year period

Another line of calculation is provided in the statement at Exodus 12:40, 41: “And the dwelling of the sons of Israel, who had dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years. And it came about at the end of the four hundred and thirty years, it even came about on this very day that all the armies of Jehovah went out of the land of Egypt.” The footnote on Exodus 12:40 (NW, 1953 ed.) says regarding the expression “who had dwelt”: “The verb here is in the plural number, and the relative pronoun (a·sherʹ) before it in Hebrew can apply to the ‘sons of Israel,’ rather than to the ‘dwelling.’” The Septuagint Version renders verse 40: “But the dwelling of the sons of Israel which they dwelt in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan [was] four hundred and thirty years long.” The Samaritan Pentateuch reads: “In the land of Canaan and in the land of Egypt.” All these renderings indicate that the four-hundred-and-thirty-year period covers a longer period of time than the dwelling of the Israelites in Egypt.

The apostle Paul shows that this four-hundred-and-thirty-year period (at Exodus 12:40) began at the time of the validation of the Abrahamic covenant and ended with the Exodus. Paul says: “Further, I say this: As to the [Abrahamic] covenant previously validated by God, the Law that has come into being four hundred and thirty years later [in the same year as the Exodus] does not invalidate it, so as to abolish the promise. . . . whereas God has kindly given it to Abraham through a promise.”—Gal. 3:16-18.

How long was it, then, from the validation of the Abrahamic covenant until the Israelites moved into Egypt? At Genesis 12:4, 5 we find that Abraham was seventy-five years old when he moved into Canaan, and the Abrahamic covenant, the promise previously made to him in Ur of the Chaldeans, took effect. Then, from the genealogical references at Genesis 12:4; 21:5; 25:26 and Jacob’s statement at Genesis 47:9, it can be seen that 215 years elapsed between the validation of the Abrahamic covenant and the move of Jacob with his family into Egypt. This would show that the Israelites actually lived in Egypt 215 years (1728-1513 B.C.E.). The figure harmonizes with other chronological data.

From Exodus to temple building

Two other chronological statements harmonize with and substantiate this viewpoint. Solomon began the building of the temple in his fourth year of kingship (1034 B.C.E.) and this is stated at 1 Kings 6:1 to be the “four hundred and eightieth year” from the time of the Exodus (1513 B.C.E.).

“About 450 years”

Then there is Paul’s speech to an audience in Antioch of Pisidia recorded at Acts 13:17-20 in which he refers to a period of “about four hundred and fifty years.” His discussion of Israelite history begins with the time God “chose our forefathers,” that is, from the time that Isaac was actually born to be the seed of promise (1918 B.C.E.). (Isaac’s birth definitely settled the question as to whom God would recognize as the seed, this having been in doubt due to Sarah’s barrenness.) From this starting point Paul then goes on to recount God’s acts in behalf of his chosen nation down to the time when God “gave them judges until Samuel the prophet.” The period of “about four hundred and fifty years,” therefore, evidently extends from Isaac’s birth in 1918 B.C.E. down to the year 1467 B.C.E., or forty-six years after the Exodus of 1513 B.C.E. (forty years being spent in the wilderness wandering and six years in conquering the land of Canaan). (Deut. 2:7; Num. 9:1; 13:1, 2, 6; Josh. 14:6, 7, 10) This makes a total number that clearly fits the apostle’s round figure of “about four hundred and fifty years.” Both these chronological references therefore support the year 1513 B.C.E. as the year of the Exodus and harmonize as well with the Bible chronology concerning the kings and judges of Israel.—See CHRONOLOGY.

Other views

This date for the Exodus, 1513 B.C.E., and consequently the Israelite invasion of Canaan and the fall of Jericho in 1473 B.C.E., forty years after the Exodus, has been considered far too early by some critics, who would place these events as late as the fourteenth or even the thirteenth century. However, while some archaeologists place the fall of Jericho down in the thirteenth century, they do so, not on the basis of any ancient historical documents or testimony to that effect, but on the basis of pottery finds. Such calculation of time periods by pottery is obviously very speculative and this is demonstrated by the research at Jericho. The findings there have produced contradictory conclusions and datings on the part of the archaeologists.—See ARCHAEOLOGY, particularly the section “Comparative Value of Archaeology.”

Similarly with the Egyptologists, the differences among them in dating the dynasties of Egypt have amounted to centuries, making their dates unusable for any specific period. For this reason it is impossible to name with confidence the particular Pharaoh of the Exodus, some saying it was Thutmose III, others Amenhotep II, Ramses II, and so forth, but on very shaky foundations in each case.

Some have tried to establish the date of the Exodus by astronomical calculations in connection with the rising of the star Sirius, by which the Egyptians calculated the years in a “Sothic Period.” But its rising is not constant in retardation. A slight miscalculation of one day can throw a date off about a hundred and twenty years. The observations based on the naked-eye observance of the Egyptians were certainly not as accurate as modern-day observations with the telescope, and could easily have been a day wrong. The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia (Vol. II, pp. 1053, 1054) says, concerning the establishing of Egyptian dates by astronomical calculations: “The later dates which Mahler based on certain astronomical calculations of the Fr[ench] astronomer Biot . . . are not accepted by other Egyptologists. Brugsch [a leading Egyptologist] says that on this question, ‘scientific criticism has not yet spoken its last word.’ . . . Renouf . . . more definitely states that ‘unfortunately there is nothing on Egyp[tian] documents which have as yet come down to us which can, by their astronomical calculations, be made to result in a date.’ This judgment appears to be justified by recent discoveries, since Mahler’s dates are about a century too late, as shown by the known history of the Kassites of Babylon.” The Encyclopaedia concludes: “There is in fact no discrepancy between the actual results of monumental study and the chronology of the O[ld] T[estament].”

AUTHENTICITY OF THE EXODUS ACCOUNT

An objection against the Exodus account has been that the Pharaohs of Egypt did not make any record of the Exodus. However, this is not unusual, for kings of more modern times have recorded only their victories and not their defeats, and have often tried to erase anything historical that is contrary to their personal or nationalistic image or to the ideology they are trying to inculcate in their people. Even in recent times rulers have tried to obliterate the works and reputations of their predecessors. Anything regarded embarrassing or distasteful was left out of Egyptian inscriptions or effaced as soon as possible. An example is the chiseling away by her successor, Thutmose III, of the name and representation of Queen Hatshepsut on a stone monumental record uncovered at Dêr el Bahri in Egypt. (See Archaeology and Bible History by J. P. Free, p. 98 and photograph opposite p. 94.)

Manetho, an Egyptian priest who evidently hated the Jews, wrote in the Greek language about 280 B.C.E. The Jewish historian Josephus quotes Manetho as saying that the ancestors of the Jews ‘carried an army into Egypt, and subdued the country, but that, being expelled soon after, they settled themselves in a province that is now called Judea, built a city by the name of Jerusalem, and erected a temple.’

While Manetho’s account is in general very unhistorical, the significant fact is that he mentions the Jews as being in Egypt and as going out and in further writings, according to Josephus, identifies Moses with Osariph, an Egyptian priest, indicating that, even though Egyptian monuments do not record the fact, the Jews were in Egypt and Moses was their leader. Josephus speaks of another Egyptian historian, Cheremon, who says that Joseph and Moses led 250,000 diseased people who were driven out of Egypt; also Josephus mentions a Lysimachus who tells a similar story.—Josephus’ In Answer to Apion, Book I.

THE NUMBER INVOLVED IN THE EXODUS

At Exodus 12:37, the round number of 600,000 “able-bodied men on foot” besides “little ones” is given. In the actual census taken about a year after the Exodus, as recorded at Numbers 1:2, 3, 45, 46, they numbered 603,550 males from twenty years old upward besides the Levites (Num. 2:32, 33), of whom there were 22,000 males from a month old upward. (Num. 3:39) “Able-bodied men” here in the Hebrew is g^eva·rimʹ, which has the meaning of men as “strong ones,” and does not include women. (Compare Jeremiah 30:6.) “Little ones” is from the Hebrew taph and has the meaning of one going with quick, tripping steps, as making a tapping sound, “little patter-foots,” most of whom would have to be carried or at least could not march the full length of the journey.

“In the fourth generation”

We must remember that Jehovah told Abraham that in the fourth generation his descendants would return to Canaan. (Gen. 15:16) In the entire 430 years from the time when the Abrahamic covenant took effect to the Exodus there were more than four generations, even considering the long life-spans that they enjoyed during that time, according to the record. But it was only 215 years that the Israelites were actually in Egypt. The ‘four generations’ following their entering Egypt can be calculated in two ways, using as an example just one tribe of Israel, the tribe of Levi, thus: (1) Levi, (2) Jochebed the daughter of Levi, (3) Aaron and (4) Eleazar, who entered the Promised Land; or by (A) Levi, (B) Kohath, (C) Amram and (D) Moses.—Ex. 6:16, 18, 20, 23; see JOCHEBED.

The number coming up out of Egypt, namely, 600,000 able-bodied men besides women and children, would mean that there could have been more than three million persons. This, though disputed by some, is not at all unreasonable. For, while there were only four generations from Levi to Eleazar or from Levi to Moses, when viewed from the standpoint of the life-span of these long-lived men, each of these men could have seen several generations or several sets of children born during his lifetime. Even at the present