BIBLICAL CHRONOLOGY
Generation 21: Hebrew years 2400 to 2520 (1360-1240 BCE)
Introduction
The second part of this chronological generation 21 covers the last years of the Hebrews in the desert until the conquest of Canaan by Joshua. To return to the first part of this generation 21, click here.
Year 2454 – 1306 BCE – The Giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai (Matan Torah)
The Hebrews left Egypt on the 15th of the month of Nisan (which was called Aviv, meaning “spring”, in Biblical times), and crossed the sea 7 days later. It took them a total of 49 days until they reached Mount Sinai where God gave them the Torah on the 50th day from the Exodus. The festival of the Exodus is called Pesach (Passover in English) and the festival of the Giving of the Torah is called Shavuot (meaning “weeks” but it also refers to the number seven which is the number of weeks from one festival to the other). For more information about Jewish symbolism in the numbers, click here.
Moses was ordered to build an ark to host the two tablets where God had inscribed His Ten Commandments: it became the Ark of Covenant, with two facing cherubim (angels) on top.
Mount Sinai is also called Horeb in the Bible. It has been identified by most scholars as Ras Safsafeh, at the northern edge of the Mount Sinai range. The main reason for this choice of Ras Safsafeh is that it faces a very large plain which would be suitable in size to host the camp of about two million Israelites, before the mount as the Biblical text mentions:
And when they were departed from Rephidim, and were come to the wilderness of Sinai, they encamped in the wilderness; and there Israel encamped before the mount. (Exodus 19:2)
Year 2455 – 1305 BCE – Yom Kippur and the Jubilee
Some of the commandments that God gave to the Israelites at Mount Sinai concerned the cycle of the year. To start, He instituted the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) following the death of the two elder sons of Aaron, Nadab and Abihu:
"And it shall be a statute forever unto you: in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall afflict your souls, and shall do no manner of work, the home-born, or the stranger that sojourns among you. For on this day shall atonement be made for you, to cleanse you; from all your sins shall you be clean before the Lord. It is a sabbath of solemn rest unto you, and you shall afflict your souls; it is a statute forever." (Leviticus 16:29-31)
This chapter is read in synagogues on the day of Yom Kippur, which is compared to a special Sabbath day. With this statute, God offered them a way to repent from sins, and thus avoid a divine fatal decree like it fell upon the sons of Aaron.
Several chapters later, God instituted a special commemoration day, as being the first day of the seventh month, to anticipate the 10th day of that same month, Yom Kippur:
"Speak unto the children of Israel, saying: In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall be a solemn rest unto you, a memorial proclaimed with the blast of horns, a holy convocation." (Leviticus 23:24)
No further signification is given to this special day, but it became the day of the new year in the Oral Law (Rosh Hashanah). One of the reasons for this, beside the fact that it is indeed a special day preparing for God's judgment of the people and their atonement, is that the same day of Kippur (on the seventh month) marks the start of the Sabbatical years and Jubilee cycle which is clearly defined as a cycle of years. The Jubilee year is to fall every 50th year, after seven periods of 7 years, each of these periods being concluded by a Sabbatical year:
And you shall number seven Sabbaths of years unto you, seven times seven years; and there shall be unto you the days of seven Sabbaths of years, even forty and nine years. Then shall you make proclamation with the blast of the horn on the tenth day of the seventh month; in the Day of Atonement shall you make proclamation with the horn throughout all your land.
And you shall hallow the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof; it shall be a jubilee unto you; and you shall return every man unto his possession, and you shall return every man unto his family. (Leviticus 25:8-10)
It is important to stress that the start of the Jubilee Cycle is proclaimed on Yom Kippur, thus giving a special role to the seventh month. So, the Sages of the Oral Law found it necessary or useful to consider the first day of the seventh day, defined as a solemn memorial day in the Torah, as the first day of the year cycle (to read more about the Jewish calendar, click here).
If we parallel each day or year towards a Sabbath into the chronological generations described in these documents, we can notice that every 7th such generation (see documents C07, C14, C21, C28, C35, C42, C49.) has been a special one in the history of the Jews and of Humanity:
7th generation: death of Cain, and start of the Bronze Age
14th generation: the Flood
21st generation: monotheism in Egypt, the Exodus and conquest of Canaan
28th generation: redemption of the Israelites from Babylon, and 2nd Temple
35th generation: end of the Jewish political nation and start of the great exile
42nd generation: start of Jewish spiritual nation (Zohar, Rambam, Ramban)
49th generation: final return to Sion and pre-Messianic times
Year 2455 – 1305 BCE – Census of the Israelites
In the second year after the Exodus, God ordered Moses to carry out a census of all Israelites of age above 20 years old. The numbers per tribe were (Numbers 1:20-43):
Ruben: 46,500
Simeon: 59,300
Gad: 45,650
Judah: 74,600
Issachar: 54,400
Zebulun: 57,400
Ephraim, son of Joseph: 40,500
Manasseh, son of Joseph: 32,200
Benjamin: 35,400
Dan: 62,700
Asher: 41,500
Naphtali: 53,400
The total number was 603,550 men. The tribe of Levi was not part of this census, because the census only included the men able to go to war (Numbers 1:45), while the Tribe of Levi was destined to priesthood (Numbers 1:46-47). With over 600,000 men of the age of war, we can assume that they had as many wives, and at least one child each, so the total number of Israelites was in excess of 2 million people when counting the young children and older family members as well who would obviously not go to war.
The number of the Israelites who left Egypt corresponds to the number of the letters contained in the Torah, which is also over 600,000. The number of letters in the Torah is known to be of just over 300,000. But the Zohar Chadash 74d mentions that there are 600,000 letters in the Torah. So, some assume that this count adds one vowel per letter which brings the count to over 600,000. Another view is that each letter in Hebrew is composed by 1, 2 or 3 basic letters (for example the letter Aleph is made of two letters Yod and one letter Vaw, thus the letter Aleph would count as three letters in the total count). Assuming two basic letters per alphabet letter also brings the count to just over 600,000.
It is well assumed that the Israelites were divided into 12 Tribes but in fact there were 13 tribes when we consider the Tribe of Levi. And 13 was the number of children that Jacob had, composed of 12 sons and one daughter, Dinah. Jacob did want to have 13 sons, to create 13 tribes and thus reflecting upon the unicity of God, because 13 is the numerical value of the Hebrew word אחד meaning One. But Jacob had one daughter. He later took the opportunity to single out the tribe of Joseph into two tribes, one tribe for each of his two sons Ephraim and Manasseh. Thus, he obtained 13 tribes, as desired. The number 13 proclaims the unicity of God, and the Covenant with the Israelites which is reflected in the age of Bar Mitzvah for a boy, also 13. For more information about Jewish symbolism in the numbers, click here.
Year 2456 – 1304 BCE – The explorers
After having received the Torah and God’s commandments from Moses, the Israelites moved to a camp at Kadesh-Barnea, on the southern border of Canaan, between the Negev and the Sinai deserts. From there, instead of invading the promised land, in full trust in God’s support, they wanted to first send explorers to assess the difficulty of the conquest. These explorers were one man from each tribe, mostly all the same age of 40 years old (Numbers 13:4-16):
Ruben: Shammua, son of Zaccur
Simeon: Shaphat, son of Hori
Gad: Geul son of Machi
Judah: Caleb, son of Jephuneh
Issachar: Igal son of Joseph
Zebulun: Gaddiel son of Sodi
Ephraim: Hoshea son of Nun (renamed Joshua by Moses)
Manasseh: Gaddi son of Susi
Benjamin: Palti son of Raphu
Dan: Ammiel son of Gemalli
Asher: Sethur son of Michael
Naphtali: Nahbi son of Vophsi
They came back after 40 days with reports which undermined the faith of the Israelites, except for Caleb and Joshua:
And they returned from spying out the land at the end of forty days. And they went and came to Moses, and to Aaron, and to all the congregation of the children of Israel, unto the wilderness of Paran, to Kadesh; and brought back word unto them, and unto the entire congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land. And they told him and said: "We came unto the land where you sent us, and surely it flows with milk and honey; and this is the fruit of it. However, the people that dwell in the land are fierce and the cities are fortified, and very great; and moreover, we saw the children of Anak there. Amalek dwells in the land of the South; and the Hittite, and the Jebusite, and the Amorite, dwell in the mountains; and the Canaanite dwells by the sea, and along by the side of the Jordan."
And Caleb stilled the people toward Moses and said: "We should go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it." But the men that went up with him said: "we are not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we." And they spread an evil report of the land which they had spied out unto the children of Israel, saying: "The land, through which we have passed to spy it out, is a land that eats up the inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it are men of great stature. And there we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak, who come of the Nephilim; and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight."
And the entire congregation lifted their voice and cried; and the people wept that night. And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron; and the whole congregation said unto them: "Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would we have died in this wilderness!" (Numbers 13:25 - 14:2)
The explorers were surely shocked by some of the abominations they witnessed among the Canaanites, who sacrificed their own children to their gods. They also feared from the tribes of Amalek who were relentlessly attacking the Israelites as soon as they would approach their territory, and probably imagined that the conquest of Canaan would prove to be a disaster if all the people were as belligerent as the Amalekites. They were also impressed by the size of the people who dwelled in the mountains, near Hebron, as being giants like the so-called Nephilim described in Genesis (see document C14). But these fears, although understandable, were also the proof of a lack of sufficient faith in God to deliver this land to the people He promised it to. If He had been able to extract them out of a powerful nation such as Egypt, couldn’t He help them overcome less powerful peoples in the land of Canaan? Only Joshua and Caleb raised their voice against the rumors that the other explorers spread in the camp. So, God punished this generation, the one that came out of Egypt (the 4th generation after Jacob) to die in the desert, after a wander of 40 years, because He counted one year for every day of exploration (Numbers 14:34). One text refers to the sin of the explorers to have been the worst of all:
With ten trials have our ancestors tried the Holy One, blessed be He, but they were punished only for one of them, which is calumny. There are as follows: one at the sea, one at the beginning of the manna period and one at the termination of it, one at the first and last appearance of the quails, and at Marah, at Rephidim, one at Horeb, one on the occasion of the golden calf, and one when they sent spies. That of the spies was the hardest of all as it is written [Numbers 14:22]: "And (they) have tempted me these times ten times and have not hearkened to my voice." (Tosephta Avot de-Rabbi Nathan, in Rodkinson, Michael, The Babylonian Talmud, Volume I (IX), page 38, published 1900)
Year 2456 – 1304 BCE – Caleb and Joshua
Only Joshua and Caleb survived this punishment, as well as all the children of age below 20 years old and some of the Levites who were not counted in the census (Numbers 14:29): they formed the generation who will enter the Promised Land. Caleb was 40 years old at the time (Joshua 14:17), but how old was Joshua? The Biblical text does not give it explicitly, but it gives us the necessary hints to work it out. When the Exodus took place, Moses came across to know Hoshua and took him to his service. Besides he also renamed him Joshua and described him as נַעַר a young man (Exodus 33:11). There are not many occurrences of the mention of a young man in the Biblical text before him. In fact, the only other Hebrew person called as such was Joseph when he was described by the chamberlain who was with him in prison (Genesis 41:12). The other correlation between Joseph and Hoshua is that the latter was an Ephraimite, so his direct ancestor was Joseph. Moses knew the text of the Torah by then and knew that Joseph was 28 years old when he had known the chamberlain who called him a young man. And this was the reason for Moses to also call Hoshua a young man, thus reminding that he was 28 years old like his ancestor Joseph when they met first (in the year of the Exodus). Also, Moses had renamed Hoshua (הוֹשֵׁעַ) as Joshua (יְהוֹשֻׁעַ), adding the letter yod (יְ) as a prefix to Hoshua (Numbers 13:16). Why did he do this? Because the yod is the symbol of God (to read about the Jewish symbolism of the numbers, click here), and maybe also because Hoshua's ancestor, Joseph, has a name starting with this letter Yod. Last, we will learn later in the Biblical text that Joshua died at the age of 110 years old (Joshua 24:29), precisely like Joseph (Genesis 50:26). So, there is an obvious parallel from the texts between the characters of Joseph and Joshua. So, when Moses called the latter a young man, it was a direct reference of the fact that, like his ancestor Joseph had been 28 years old in the jail when the chamberlain knew him as such, two years before Joseph was called in front of Pharaoh, the same goes for Joshua who was 28 years old when Moses knew him (at the time of the Exodus), two years before he was called in front of him to participate to the mission of the explorers. So, at the time of this mission, Joshua was 30 years old, and Caleb was 40 years old like the other explorers. "Hoshua" should not have been eligible to be part of this mission, composed of men of 40 years of age, but "Joshua" was included with the addition of the letter yod, of value 10, to his name so it added a value of 10 to his age.
Weakened in spirits by God's punishment after them, the Israelites avoided confrontation against the Amalekites and the Canaanites and remained 19 years in the camp of Kadesh-Barnea.
Year 2475 – 1285 BCE – Encounter with Moab
When they finally left their camp, the Israelites took a long detour, instead of taking the direct route into Canaan, and passed onto the other side of the Red Sea, into the land of Edom (Numbers 21). From that side of the land, they went north and made their first encounter with a peaceful people in Moab. There they took wives among this people and even adopted their pagan rites. So, God punished them at Shittim (Numbers 25:1), which is north from the Dead Sea.
Year 2476 – 1284 BCE – Seti I's campaign in Canaan
Interestingly, the departure of the Hebrews from Kadesh-Barnea, eastwards towards Edom and Moab, corresponded to the time when Pharaoh Seti I, son of Ramses I, led his army to a victorious campaign into Canaan and the Levant. Since the collapse of the 18th Dynasty, several city-states thought it was a good time to break away from Egyptian yoke and Seti I aimed to restore order over this region which had been under their rule for over 150 years since Thutmose III.
Seti first consolidated his immediate borders, with Nubia and Libya, and then turned his attention to Canaan. One of his army's victories was against the Canaanite city of Beth-Shean. This victory is recorded in a basalt stele that was found during excavations in this ancient city.
The text reminded the people of Beth-Shean of Seti's victory and warned them against any future rebellion. This campaign restored to Egypt the control of the northern part of Canaan. He then campaigned further north against the Hittites but without conclusive result.
He reestablished Egyptian influence in the region of the Levant. This fact has been confirmed by the finding of the coffin of a Canaanite lord who had himself buried in the Jezreel Valley, in today’s Northern Israel, in an Egyptian fashion at the time of Seti I.
Year 2486 – 1274 BCE – Ramses II
Many historians have assumed that Ramses II was the Pharaoh of the Exodus, but this hypothesis was, and still is, based on erroneous translation of the Biblical text which misled the non-Hebrew speakers, as explained previously in this document. When Ramses II came to power, in the year 1279 BCE, he started a series of campaigns in Canaan and in Syria against the Hittites, thus pursuing the policy of his father, Seti I.
During his campaigns into Canaan, Ramses II had no encounter with the Israelites because, at the time of his splendor, they already passed to the other side of the Jordan River and of the Dead Sea (Judges 11:18).
After securing Canaan, Ramses II ventured further north and fought against the Hittites. His biggest victory took place at the battle of Kadesh, in Southern Syria in 1274 BCE.
Ramses II campaigned again in the region in the years 1271-1270 BCE and then he stopped for the rest of his long reign. His following campaigns were solely focused on the southern part of his kingdom, in Nubia. In fact, he never stepped foot again in the land of Canaan after 1270 BCE.
Why did Ramses II stop his annual campaigns in the Levant after 1270 BCE? Because it was about that time when the Israelites started their conquest of Canaan under the leadership of Joshua. He may have had echoes of this unexpected arrival of the Israelites in Canaan and may not have wanted to confront them, after what he had learned from the time of Horemheb, which must have been still present in the Egyptian memory. It is also at this time that he pursued a policy of systematic destruction of all traces from the Amarna heresy, of Akhenaten, Moses and the Hebrews. Instead, he cultivated the memory of Horemheb as a national hero although, as previously mentioned, the tomb of this Pharaoh remained empty.
The absence from Canaan of a Pharaoh as powerful as Ramses II, who ruled over Egypt for a very long period, until 1213 BCE, is a mystery that has never been fully assessed by Historians. How could it be possible that such Pharaoh would have never again found reasons to campaign in this neighboring region for the rest of his 60 years of reign? There is no clear reason to this other than he wanted to avoid engaging in that region from the moment he had learned that the Israelites were about to enter it.
Year 2494 – 1266 BCE – Facing the Land of Canaan
Before engaging in the conquest of Canaan, a second census was recorded of every man of age 20 years and above, as follows (Numbers 26:4), which gives a comparison with the census done at the start of the wandering in the desert, 40 years before:
Tribe of Reuben: total of 43,730 which dropped from 46,500
Tribe of Simeon: total of 22,200 which dropped from 59,300
Tribe of Gad: 40,500 which dropped from 45,650
Tribe of Judah: 76,500 which dropped from 74,600
Tribe of Issachar: 64,300 which increased from 54,400
Tribe of Manasseh: 52,700 which increased from 32,200
Tribe of Zebulun: 60,500 which increased from 57,400
Tribe of Ephraim: 32,500 which decreased from 40,500
Tribe of Benjamin: 45,600 which increased from 35,400
Tribe of Dan: 64,400 which increased from 62,700
Tribe of Asher: 53,400 which increased from 41,500
Tribe of Naphtali: 45,400 which decreased from 53,400
The total number of men from 20 years old had slightly decreased to 601,730 (Numbers 46:51) compared to the previous census with 603,550. As before, the tribe of Levi was not part of this new census.
God also named the princes from each tribe to whom Moses was to give the possession of the territory that will be assigned to them in the land of Canaan:
And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying: "These are the names of the men that shall take possession of the land for you: Eleazar the priest, and Joshua the son of Nun. And you shall take one prince of every tribe, to take possession of the land. And these are the names of the men.
Of the tribe of Judah, Caleb the son of Jephunneh. And of the tribe of the children of Simeon, Shemuel the son of Ammihud. Of the tribe of Benjamin, Elidad the son of Chislon. And of the tribe of the children of Dan a prince, Bukki the son of Jogli. Of the children of Joseph: of the tribe of the children of Manasseh a prince, Hanniel the son of Ephod. And of the tribe of the children of Ephraim a prince, Kemuel the son of Shiphtan. And of the tribe of the children of Zebulun a prince, Eli-zaphan the son of Parnach. And of the tribe of the children of Issachar a prince, Paltiel the son of Azzan. And of the tribe of the children of Asher a prince, Ahihud the son of Shelomi. And of the tribe of the children of Naphtali a prince, Pedahel the son of Ammihud.
These are they whom the Lord commanded to divide the inheritance unto the children of Israel in the land of Canaan." (Numbers 34:16-29)
Moses took these 40 years of wandering to instruct the Israelites of the terms and conditions of their covenant with God. He also addressed the issue of choosing a king over the people as God probably told him that this is what would eventually happen:
"When you are to come unto the land which the Lord your God gave you, and shall possess it, and shall dwell therein; and shall say: 'I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are round about me'; you shall in any wise set him king over you, whom the Lord your God shall choose; one from among your brethren shall you set king over you; you must not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother. Only he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, so that he should multiply horses; forasmuch as the Lord has said unto you: 'You shall henceforth return no more that way.'
Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away; neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold.
And it shall be, when he will sit upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book, out of that which is before the priests the Levites.
And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life; that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them; that his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and that he turn not aside from the commandment, to the right hand, or to the left; to the end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children, in the midst of Israel." (Deuteronomy 17:14-20)
About the selection of a king, not to be a foreigner from the tribes, this explains why, in the future, King Herod who was named King of the Jews by Rome will be unpopular among the Jewish people.
It can also be noted from this text that God forbad the Israelites to ever go back to Egypt.
Year 2494 – 1266 BCE – Death of Aaron
When the Israelites reached the mountains of Moab, on the eastern side of the Dead Sea, Aaron went up on Mount Hor at the commandment of God and died there, in the 40th year of the wandering in the desert (Numbers 33:38). He was 123 years old, 3 years older than Moses. Mount Hor is today the mountain called Jebel Harun in Arabic (Jebel means mountains and Harun is Aaron), a high peak near Petra in Jordan. The location used to mark the border between Edom in the south and Moab in the north.
The great Medieval commentator, Rashi of Troyes, stated the following about Mount Hor:
[It is] a mountain atop a mountain, [appearing like] a small apple atop of big apple. (Rashi, commentary on Numbers 20:22)
Rashi made this comment, without ever visiting the site, because the Biblical name for Mount Hor is הֹר הָהָר which features twice the word הר as mountain: so, it is a mountain on top of a mountain.
And indeed, the topography of the location shows exactly that, where the tomb is located on top of a sort of protrusion which itself is above a mountain.
Year 2494 – 1266 BCE – Og, king of Bashan
When the explorers surveyed the land of Canaan, they mentioned that they saw "the sons of Anak", meaning the giant people who were the offspring of the Nephilim. At that time, these giant people lived in the Golan Heights, a land in the north-east side of the Lake of Galilee in Northern Israel. After they drove the Amorites out of their land, on the east side of the Jordan River, the Israelites then turned their attention to the land of Bashan:
And they turned and went up by the way of Bashan; and Og the king of Bashan went out against them, he and all his people, to battle at Edrei. And the Lord said unto Moses: 'Fear him not; for I have delivered him into your hand, and all his people, and his land; and you shall do to him as you did unto Sihon king of the Amorites, who dwelt at Heshbon.' So they smote him, and his sons, and all his people, until there was none left him remaining; and they possessed his land. (Numbers 21:33-35)
Og, the king of Bashan, is referred many times in the Jewish scriptures, and is nearly singled out among the many kingdoms that the Israelites defeated. According to Jewish tradition, Og was a son of the Nephilim who survived the Flood (see document C14). An archaeological site in the Golan Heights, called Rujm el-Hiri, and nicknamed the “Stonehenge of the Holy Land”, seems to bear witness of very special cult, unseen elsewhere in the Levant, with concentric circles of stones. This archaeological site is so unusual that a web site has made up a story that several skeletons of giant people have been unearthed there! It is a fake story of course but, nonetheless, the site features a burial mound at the center which is much larger than an ordinary human size.
The existence of ancient 'giants' is not something that paleoanthropologists are totally rejecting. This is because a certain number of human-type bones have been found on earth (mostly in Asia and Australia) with very large size: these human-type 'giants' are known under the scientific name of Meganthropus and are estimated to be as tall as 8 feet (2.50 meters).
Year 2495 – 1265 BCE – The prophet Balaam
Just before the fateful punishment at Shittim, there was the episode of the pagan prophet Balaam. He was a renown prophet of his times, living up north in Aram land, in the city of Pethor, by the River Euphrates. The Aramaean city of Pethor is assumed to have been named Pitru when taken by the Hittites; the city was destroyed during the Assyrian invasion at the time of Shalmaneser II.
Balaam was called by the Moabites to curse the Israelites who were too mighty to be challenged. What did Balaam do? On the way, he had a vision from God that he should not pronounce any word except what God will put in his mouth. And this is what Balaam said:
הֶן-עָם לְבָדָד יִשְׁכֹּן, וּבַגּוֹיִם לֹא יִתְחַשָּׁב
lo, it is a people that shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations. (Numbers 23:9)
This sentence was seen as a curse by the Moabites but is also a blessing for the Israelites. What did it mean? On the surface, it looks like a curse, because the Israelites are said to be outcast from the other nations. But this is the blessing for the Israelites who shall, and must, dwell alone, meaning that they have to avoid assimilation and adopting foreign rites. If they do not respect God's will in this matter, then Balaam words become indeed their curse. There is also a gematria about the significance of the introducing word הֶן (value 55) which concurs with the lesson of Balaam's crypted message.
According to Tradition, Balaam was considered as one of the heathen prophets, and the son of Job. Unlike his father, who is said to have lived 210 years, Balaam lived a short life and was considered evil. Yet he was a prophet. The Biblical text describes him several times as:
Balaam the son of Beor [Job] and the saying of the man whose eye is opened. (Numbers 24:3)
This description is important because it was confirmed by an archaeological exploration in Deir 'Alla, Jordan, in 1967. The inscription found there starts with:
The sa]ying[s of Bala]am, [son of Be]or, the man who was a seer of the gods. (Deir Alla inscription, translated by McCarter, Wikipedia)
The inscription has been dated around 840-760 BCE, which is much later than the timing of the current events, but it shows that the extraordinary tale of Balaam, a prophet hired by the Moabites, had lasted for centuries. The discovered Balaam inscription is probably a copy of a copy of another inscription that dated at the time of Joshua. The key points here, and before the Biblical text was actually compiled (a few centuries later) is that there is a direct parallel between the Biblical text and this inscription as for the identity of Balaam: he is said to have been the son of Beor, and he is said to have been a seer of the gods, meaning a man whose eye is opened [to God's messages].
Year 2495 – 1265 BCE – Death of Moses
The Israelites then went further north, following the east side from the Dead Sea, until the Jordan River at the level of the city of Jericho. God showed the promised land to Moses but he was not permitted to enter it nor direct the conquest: it was the time for him to die. Beforehand, he gave ultimate instructions to his people:
And Moses wrote this law and delivered it unto the priests the sons of Levi, that bore the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, and unto all the elders of Israel. And Moses commanded them, saying: "At the end of every seven years, in the set time of the year of release, in the feast of Tabernacles [which is Sukkoth], when all Israel is come to appear before the Lord your God in the place which He shall choose, you shall read this law before all Israel in their hearing. Assemble the people, the men and the women and the little ones, and your stranger that is within your gates, that they may hear, and that they may learn, and fear the Lord your God, and observe to do all the words of this law; and that their children, who have not known, may hear, and learn to fear the Lord your God, as long as you live in the land when you go over the Jordan to possess it." (Deuteronomy 31:9-13)
Then Moses gave his blessing to each Tribe of Israel (Deuteronomy 33) before mounting from the plains of Moab onto Mount Nebo to die there, at the age of 120. God Himself buried him in a location hidden from mankind (Deuteronomy 34:6).
The place of Moses' burial is today revered in a traditional site in Jordan called Jebal Naba (in Arabic, Jebal means mountain and Naba means prophet). This site is under custody of a Franciscan group (Catholics) who even placed a plaque declaring it "Christian Holy Place"...!
To continue to the next part of this generation 21, click here.
To return to the first part of this generation 21, click here.
To return to the list of chronological generations from Seder Olam Revisited, click here.
Albert Benhamou
Private Tour Guide in Israel
Adar 5785 - March 2025