This article does not offer any historical or archaeological evidence of this biblical story, but it is added in this series "The Bible is true" because the subject of the date of the Exodus from Egypt has caused much controversy for centuries. So, I will compare here the traditional approaches from biblical scholars and from the Jewish tradition and, why not, I will add an original approach of my own.
As usual, let's first look at the continuation of the historical and biblical chronologies (for earlier dates, refer to previous articles since Adam):
year 2210 (1550 BCE): start of the 18th dynasty of Egypt with Pharaoh Ahmose I
year 2229 (1531 BCE): Joseph becomes viceroy of Egypt, start of 7 years of abundance
year 2238 (1522 BCE): Jacob and his clan descend to Egypt
year 2374 (1386 BCE): birth of Moses, adopted by the daughter of Pharaoh Amenhotep III (Exodus 2:10)
(1353 BCE): reign of Amenhotep IV; Moses is thus his cousin by adoption
(1348 BCE): Amenhotep IV becomes Akhenaten; Amarna period
(1323 BCE): premature death of Tutankhamun; reign of General Ay
(1319 BCE): death of Ay; reign of General Horemheb
year 2454 (1306 BCE): date of the Exodus from Egypt = 15 Nissan 2454 (in 1306 BCE)
year 2454 (1306 BCE): end of the 18th dynasty
During the reign of Tutankhamun, the heresy of his father Akhenaten was erased and the faith of Amun restored. This period saw a resurgence of the Egyptian yoke against the Hebrew slaves whose monotheistic ideology was perceived as having been the cause of this heresy. But the young pharaoh died too young, without a male heir. His main advisor, General Ay, then took power. But being already old, he died after four years and his second, General Horemheb, became the new pharaoh.
What are the landmarks for situating the date of the Exodus from Egypt? The traditional approach from non-Jewish biblical scholars has been to believe that the pharaoh of this key event was the great Ramses II. Why? Because a biblical verse mentions:
Therefore they did set over them [the Hebrews] taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh store-cities, Pithom and Ramses. (Exodus 1:11)
The mention of the city Ramses made one think that, necessarily, it was during the rule of a pharaoh named Ramses. But the fact is that Ramses is a name that simply means "born of Ra". We saw in a previous article that the names Ahmose and Moses also use the Egyptian root mss which means "born of". The first pharaoh to use the name Ramses was the founder of the 19th dynasty, Ramses I. He had been Horemheb's advisor and successor because the latter also died without an heir despite a reign of 13 years, or even more according to some Egyptian chronologies. It was probably Horemheb who ordered the construction of these store cities mentioned in the Bible because Ramses I only reigned for two years. However, it is possible that it was he, Ramses I, who named one of the cities, Ramses, in his own honor. Thus we see that we cannot rely on the name Ramses alone to fix the date of the Exodus to the reign of Ramses II.
Another approach has been to use the following Bible verse, when God made a promise to Abraham:
And He [God] said unto Abram: "Know of a surety that your seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years." (Genesis 15:13)
And so, the other approach is to believe that the Hebrews were in Egypt for 400 years, or even suffered 400 years of slavery (after several generations of peaceful life, notably during the life of Joseph). The question then is to know from when to count these 400 years. Several biblical scholars thus date the Exodus to the time of the Hyksos and their expulsion by Ahmose, founder of the 18th dynasty. But this does not fit with the rest, because the date would be too early in time when we consider the time of the Israelite monarchy around 1000 BCE. Furthermore, the biblical text does not explicitly say that slavery lasted 400 years but that Abraham's posterity will sojourn (not only as slaves) in a foreign land (i.e. Canaan, Egypt and the deserts) for 400 years, implying before owning their own land.
Jewish tradition, for its part, is based on the calculation made by a 1st century rabbi, Rabbi Yossi ben Halafta, who in his work "Seder Olam" counts the 400 years from the birth of Isaac, in the biblical year 2048, or 1713 BCE. Why? Because God says to Abraham your seed and therefore the 400 years are to be counted from Isaac, Abraham's spiritual heir. Thus the Exodus would have taken place in the year 2048+400 = 2448, or 1313 BCE. This approach effectively allows us to situate the event neither too far in time with the Hyksos, nor too late in time with Ramses II.
Concerning the length of the Hebrews' stay in Egypt, the Bible mentions:
"And in the fourth generation [of Hebrews] they shall come back here [in Canaan]." (Genesis 15:16)
This verse allows us to eliminate the theory of a sojourn of 400 years, or even of a slavery of 400 years. Because the Bible gives us an excellent reference point: the succession of four generations from the arrival of Levi, son of Jacob, in Egypt, until the departure of his 4th descendant Moses. Indeed, here are the 4 generations of the Levites, as a reference point:
Levi, son of Jacob, went down to Egypt in the biblical year 2238; he was 44 years old and lived 137 years, therefore died in 2331: he lived 93 years in Egypt; Hebrew slavery began shortly after his death.
Kehath, son of Levi, was born in Canaan because his name is mentioned among the 70 souls who went down to Egypt with Jacob (Genesis 46:11); Kehath lived 133 years.
Amram, son of Kehath, was born in Egypt and lived there 137 years; but he probably died just before the birth of his son Moses because there is no mention of him from Moses' birth onwards (only Moses' mother, sister and older brother are mentioned and there are no children born after the three, while Hebrew women were very fertile according to the Bible).
Moses, son of Amram, born in the biblical year 2374, therefore represents the 4th generation that will arrive at the gates of Canaan after the Exodus and the 40 years of wanderings in the desert; and we know, from another verse of the Bible, that Moses died at the age of 120 (Deut. 34:7), so he was 80 years old at the time of the Exodus.
From the above, and in the worst case of counting the years (putting all the years of each generation end to end), the number of years in Egypt would be 133 years of Kohath (assuming that he was less than a year old when he arrived in Egypt) + 137 years of Amram (who is the only one of these 4 generations to have been born and to die in Egypt) + 80 years of Moses (his age at the Exodus) = 350 years, and that the number of years of slavery would have been 350 years - 93 years of Levi = 257 years. We therefore see that, in the extreme case, we do not even reach the 400 years mentioned! Despite this simple math exercise, many (non-Jewish) biblical scholars have fallen into the trap of assuming that the Hebrews endured 400 years of slavery in Egypt!
But there is one annoying point about using 400 years as a dating benchmark for the Exodus. It is that no use is made of the specific verse given by the Bible for the Exodus itself:
Now the time that the children of Israel dwelt in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years. (Exodus 12:40)
First, we know from the previous explanation that the Hebrews did not even sojourn 350 years in Egypt, let alone 430 years. So this verse must not be taken in a literal meaning. But how can anyone ignore this direct indication from the Bible? It seems obvious that these 430 years should be the basis for calculating the date of the Exodus. The problem resides in the translation of the Hebrew text which does not say the same thing than in English! Here is the text in question, for those who read the Bible in its original Hebrew:
וּמוֹשַׁב בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל, אֲשֶׁר יָשְׁבוּ בְּמִצְרָיִם, שְׁלֹשִׁים שָׁנָה וְאַרְבַּע מֵאוֹת שָׁנָה
The correct translation does not contain the translation of the term אֲשֶׁר, so the verse should rather be translated as:
Now the time that the children of Israel, those who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years.
So, semantically, the 430 years do not necessarily apply to the entire period of sojourn in Egypt, and we know this as a fact because the 4 generations of Levi do not add up to 400 or 430 years. In my view, the 430 years are to be considered from the time when Abraham permanently stayed in Canaan, just after his own exodus from Egypt in the biblical year 2024. So the Exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt must have taken place in 2024+430 = 2454. This is close to the date calculated by the rabbinical tradition of 2448 but it has the advantage of making use of the 430 years given by the biblical verse for this event.
Furthermore, the following verse reiterates the need to use the 430 years marker and, moreover, it states:
And it came to pass, at the end of four hundred and thirty years, even the selfsame day, it came to pass that all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt. (Exodus 12:41)
The mention of the selfsame day is surely made to invite us to draw a parallel between two events in the sameself day, thus two exits from Egypt, that of Abraham and then that of his descendants 430 years later. The second mention, all the hosts of the Lord went out, allows us to understand that we must indeed count the two exits because all are inclusive, including Abraham. In conclusion, I think that the two Exoduses from Egypt took place on the 15th of Nissan, that of Abraham in the year 2024 (1736 BCE) and that of the Hebrews in 2024+430= 2454 (1306 BCE).
Finally, an anecdotal note: the story of Abraham's Exodus is told in chapter 12 of Genesis and that of the Hebrews' Exodus in chapter 12 of Exodus. So, it is m my opinion that we cannot ignore the parallel to be made between the two Exoduses from Egypt.
If you are interested in this topic of the date of the Exodus, know that an Egyptian stela allows us to place this date in the window of years mentioned above, and not in the Hyksos period, nor in that of Ramesses II. To learn more, read the article here about the Merneptah Stele.
I hope that this article on the theme "the Bible is true" was of interest to you. Do not hesitate to send me your comments, while waiting for a next biblical episode proven by history and archaeology.
To return to the home page of articles on this theme of "the Bible is true", click here.
Albert Benhamou
Private tour guide in Israel
February 2025
