The Year of the Exodus

 

If we continue adding the counts of years the Bible gives, we can figure out that Jacob/Israel moved his family to Egypt in 2238AM (Anno Mundi, Year of the Worldl). This is 205-215 years after the ten year window of time when Abram received the Covenant and the prophecy. Add two or three generations worth of time for Jochebed, Amram and Moses, and you come to an approximate of 400-430 years. That would put the start of the countdown with Abraham's son Isaac. But if it began with Isaac, you must make certain that he and every generation after him fits the criteria. They did not own the land. They were afflicted. 

 

Isaac did not own the land. There is no record in the Bible of him buying any parcel of it, like his father did to bury his mother. Neither is there any record of any of it being given to him. And if he was not afflicted, then why did he have so much trouble with the inhabitants of the land filling his wells? Jacob did not own the land. And if he was not afflicted, then why did he not feel he had the right to demand justice for his defiled daughter and tried to negotiate with her defilers instead? If he was not afflicted, then when her brothers took vengeance, why was he so terrified of the inhabitants of the land that he packed up the family and immediately moved? Joseph obviously did not own the land as he was first a slave and then a prisoner. Even when he rose to power he did not own the land. It belonged to the Pharaoh he served. A generation or two later, Jacob's descendants fell into slavery (Jochebed was Levi's daughter [Numbers 26:59] and Amram was Levi's grandson [Exodus 6:16-18]). They did not own the land, and slavery is definitely an affliction. All of these generations fit the criteria. 

 

To prove any truth, there must be a second witness. So we now turn to the year of the Jubilee and do some simple subtraction. According to Leviticus 25:2, Joshua led the Children of Israel across the Jordan to take the Land in a Sabbatical year. This is confirmed in Joshua 5:12, where it states they were eating fruits that they didn't plant. This year they also started their count for the next Jubilee cycle, Leviticus 25:2-12. This would make that Sabbatical year also a Jubilee. 

 

If the 400 year countdown began with Isaac, then we must look at the Jubilee years during his lifetime and beyond, accounting not only for the 400 years, but all the years of wandering in the wilderness after the Exodus. He was born in 2048AM, when Abraham was 100 years old, Genesis 21:5. If a Jubilee cycle is 50 years, then the first one for him would have been in 2050. Add four hundred years and you get 2450. Add forty years of wandering (Numbers 14:33-34) plus 2 years at Mount Sinai (Numbers 10:11) and you come to the year 2492. That's 8 years short of the Jubilee in 2500. Unless the countdown didn't start with Isaac's birth, but his weaning. 

 

Genesis 21:8 states that Isaac grew. After that it states that he was weaned. The word weaned is translated from gamal H1580. This can also be translated to ripen or bestow on. If the child had ripened, he could not have been a babe newly off his mother's milk at the feast Abraham gave him. He could have been weaned from absolute dependence on his father's household. He could have had adult status bestowed on him. While he obviously was not turned out (like Ishmael was), he could have survived without his parents from that point on. If this happened when he was 10, that would have been in the year 2058. Add four hundred years to 2458. Add two years at Mount Sinai to 2460. Add forty years of wandering to 2500, the Jubilee. This fits. 

 

An interesting point to note. There are those who believe a Jubilee cycle is only 49 years long, the fiftieth and Jubilee year also being the first year in the next cycle count. The Jubilee year Joshua led the Israelites into the Land was also the year they started their next cycle count. This would also match the pattern set by the counting of the Omar up to the Festival of Shavuot, or Pentacost. Starting with the Festival of Firstfruits (which is always on a Sunday), you count seven weeks, or 49 days. The fiftieth day, which is also the first day of the next weekly cycle count, is the Festival of Shavuot, or Pentacost. It is not an extra day stuck in between, starting the next weekly cycle count on the fifty-first day. 

 

What makes this even more interesting is how God laid this out. He knows all. So He knew there would be a controversy here. But if you count by 49's rather than by 50's, the Jubilee still falls 2500 years after the Fall of Adam. Add up the 49's far enough and you land on the year 2499AM. The next year, the 50th and the 1st in the next cycle count, is the Jubilee of 2500AM. Either way, you can add and subtract, simple math, figure out that was the year the Children of Israel entered the Land to take it, putting the Exodus in the year 2458AM, putting the start of the 400 year countdown in 2058AM when Isaac turned 10 years old. That's 30 years after the exact middle of the window the Bible gives for when Abram recieved the Covenant and the Prophecy, in 2028AM. That fits both the 400 and 430 years stated in two different passages, making the Bible line up perfectly with no contradictions.