380 
phecy, just as the 430 years afterwards given by Moses as the 
exact period of the sojourning, cover the whole period, the 
former reaches from the birth of Isaac, the lattei iiom 
Abraham’s call, to the coming out of Egypt. Whereas the 
period of four generations, at the close of which they were 
to return to Canaan, reaches back no farther than to the time 
of Jacob and his family going down thither. 5. The opening 
sentence of the prophecy to Abraham is therefore clearly 
parenthetical, and amounts to this, “ Thy seed shall be a 
stranger in a land not theirs 400 years, during a portion ol 
which time they shall serve and be afflicted.” . All this appeals 
to me sufficiently evident from the prophecies. The record 
of their fulfilment fully confirms it. ‘ 
6. Moses writes thus :* “ Now the sojourning of the children 
of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was 430 years. And it came 
to pass at the end of 430 years, even the selfsame day it came 
to pass, that all the hosts of the Lord went out of the land 
of Egypt.” Now, the form of expression in the first clause 
of this passage is very marked. I see no reason whatever 
for altering the translation. The exactness of expression, 
therefore, which is so clearly intimated in the last clause, 
ought to be extended to the first clause of the passage ; and 
the words, “ the sojourning of the children of Israel,” ought 
to be considered as inclusive of the whole sojourning m 
Canaan as well as in Egypt. I would rest nothing on the 
addition to this effect made in the Samaritan Pentateuch and 
in the Alexandrine copy of the Septuagint. I turn rather to 
certain incidental but very exact notices of ages and dates m 
the history, which, fixing very exactly both the stay m Egypt 
and the sojourn in Canaan, prove that Moses intended m the 
430 years to include both. . _ 
7. First, as to the period of the stay in Egypt, he informs 
usf that he was himself in the fourth generation from Jacob ; 
and even that Levi was his maternal grandfather. He ana his 
father Amram were the only two in the line of succession w o 
were born in Egypt; Kohath and Levi having been born 
before the descent. He further lets us know that Levi, 
dving at the age of 137, must have lived in Egypt abou .to/ 
years, that Kohath lived to the age of 133, and Amram to 137, 
and that he himself was 80 years old at the Exodus. On the 
extreme hypothesis, then, that Amram was born during j^e 
first year of the sojourn in Egypt, and that Moses was born 
in the last year of Amrands life, the stay in Egypt carmo 
possibly be stretched beyond 215 years; whilst analogical 
t Exod. vi. 16-20 ; Numb. xxvi. 59. 
* Exod. xii. 40. 
