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  • From: "Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Israel "in" Egypt 215 or 430 years ?
  • Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2004 18:03:44 -0500

Dear Peter,

Genesis 15:13: Here I won't bother with the textual details as there is no difficulty. But we should remember that Abraham was already a stranger in a country not his own, so this 400 year period can easily be understood as starting from that time. True, they were not at this time enslaved or mistreated, but in the Hebrew the timescale refers to all three preceding clauses without implying that all three will be simultaneously true for all of the time.

So I would consider the issue entirely open, whether the 430 (or 400) years is from Abraham to Moses or from the move to Egypt until Moses. The chronology is not tied down either way.

HH: It's true that the fathers were in a country not their own, but the following verbs seem to give clarity by their form. The first one is W(BDWM, which, whatever its precise meaning, implies a 3mp subject and a 3mp object. There has to be an antecedent for both pronouns. The antecedent for one is "your seed," and the antecedent for the other has to be "a land which is not theirs." So it is a land that is not theirs that will enslave them and afflict them. This needs to be a particular land, I think, the one whose inhabitants enslave and afflict them.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard




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