BIBLICAL CHRONOLOGY
Generation 21: Hebrew years 2400 to 2520 (1360-1240 BCE)
Introduction
This chronological generation covers the last years of the Hebrews in Egypt, the Exodus, the 40 years in the desert until the conquest of Canaan by Joshua. But it is presented here in two parts: one page for the events until the Exodus, and another page for the time of conquest of Canaan.
Year 2407 – 1353 BCE – Amenhotep IV
When Amenhotep III died in 1353 BCE, he was succeeded by his son, Amenhotep IV, who was going to reign for the next 17 years. Moses, born in the 5th year of the reign of Amenhotep III, was about the same age of the new Pharaoh. They were de facto first cousins by way of adoption.
Year 2412 – 1348 BCE – Akhenaten and the Amarna period
In the 5th year of his reign, Amenhotep IV decided to change religion, and adopt the faith of one unique God, Aten, which is represented by the disk of the Sun, as a symbol for perfection. He changed his name to Akhenaten.
This was like a new birth for the young Pharaoh, mirroring the birth of Moses in the 5th year of the precedent reign. There is little doubt that Moses, who had lived and grown in the palace next to the new Pharaoh, must have had some influence over such sudden and unique change in the history of Ancient Egypt.
Akhenaten radically changed everything when he adopted the new monotheist religion. He moved his capital from Memphis to Amarna because the city of Memphis, built with many temples to Egyptian deities, became impure to his new faith.
In Amarna, Akhenaten entertained an official correspondence, in the form of clay tablets, with vassals and neighbors. The tablets were surprisingly not written in Egyptian hieroglyphs but in cuneiform language as it was used in Mesopotamia.
Some tablets refer to a people of Alashiya, in Cyprus, which have been identified as descendants from Elishah, son of Japeth. Among other letters related to vassal city-states in Canaan, there are a few from a warlord called Abdi-Heba (or maybe Ebed-Nob), who may have been established there by Pharaoh himself, asking for urgent military support:
May the king know (that) all the lands are at peace (with one another), but I am at war. May the king provide for his land.
Consider the lands of Gazru [Gaza], Asqaluna [Ashkelon] and Lakisi [Lakish]. They have given them [my enemies] food, oil and any other requirement. So may the king provide for archers and send the archers against men that commit crimes against the king, my lord. If this year there are archers, then the lands and the hazzanu [vassals] will belong to the king, my lord. But if there were no archers, then the king will have neither lands nor hazzanu.
Consider Urusalim [Jerusalem]! This neither my father nor my mother gave to me. The strong hand of the king gave it to me. Consider the deed! This is the deed of Milkilu and the deed of the sons of Lab’ayu [Labaya, warlord of Sichem], who have given the land of the king to the Apiru. Consider, O king, my lord! I am in the right! (Amarna letter EA 287)
Many historians have associated the term Apiru to the "Hebrews" (see document C19), and these Apiru are mentioned in other chronicles of these times also in Mesopotamia. Alternatively, the term Apiru may apply to some descendants of Eber, who is the root of the names Apiru and Hebrew, who was also established in Canaan (see document C19).
The above letter mentions a deed between Milkilu of Urusalim and the people of Sichem. First, Milkilu (which means king in Canaanite) surely refers to Melchi-Zedek (Sem son of Noah) who established himself in Urusalim, which was the Salem of the Bible (see document C17). After him, Eber lived there and had been the mentor of Jacob. Second, the deed that is mentioned may be the deed that enabled the establishment of the descendants of Eber in Urusalim. But, as the text shows, a Pharaoh (probably the warrior Thutmose III) had conquered Urusalim and gave it to another Canaanite people: the Jebusites.
Akhenaten’s new monotheist religion had many symbols and texts which find parallels with similar concepts from the Bible. For example, concerned some names derived from Aten:
Akhenaten means “spirit of the Aten”: spirit is the term used to illustrate the abstract immaterial presence of God, which was very distinct from the usage of the time that pictured gods with material representations (such as animals or people)
Tutankhaten, who was Akhenaten’s son and heir, means “living image of the Aten”: the concept of being someone at the image of God is borrowed from the Creation story of the Bible (see document C00)
The symbol chosen by Akhenaten to represent Aten was not borrowed from Egyptian and other traditions of these times, which used either human or animal shaped gods. It was the disk of the sun, perfect circle, and the emanations from it, the rays, representations of the “spirit of the Aten”.
In many representations from this period, the number of rays issued from the god-sun Aten is 19 which is a number of years related to the cycle of the Sun called the Metonic Cycle. However this cycle was not discovered by astronomers before about the sixth century BCE. Coincidentally or not, the verse 19 from the tale of the Creation is the one that concludes the completion of what God created in the fourth day, viz. the great luminary set in the sky to dominate the night and to give light upon the earth (Genesis 1:16-19).
Akhenaten is also the author of the Great Hymn to the Aten. The text of this hymn is often compared with Biblical concepts and texts, thus showing mutual influence:
O sole God, like whom there is no other!
You did create the world according to your desire,
While you were alone: All men, cattle, and wild beasts,
Whatever is on earth, going upon (its) feet,
And what is on high, flying with its wings.
[…]
You are in my heart,
There is no other who knows you,
Only your son, Neferkheprure, Sole-one-of-Re,
Whom you have taught your ways and your might.
[Those on] earth come from your hand as you made them.
(Great Hymn of the Aten)
In this text, some expressions are derived from the divine commandments such as there is no other God. The passage only your son, […] whom you have taught your ways and your might suggests that Akhenaten may have had a divine revelation, and that God instructed him about His ways. This was not uncommon in the Biblical times as God already revealed Himself to several characters, not just the Patriarchs, in their dreams such as the Pharaoh at the time of Joseph.
Akhenaten’s wife, Nefertiti, whose full name “Nefer-Nefer-u-Aten Nefer-Titi” means “Beauty, Beauty of Aten, the Beautiful has come” was supportive of her husband in the adoption of the new religion.
Year 2424 – 1336 BCE – Death of Akhenaten
Akhenaten ruled for 17 years until 1336 BCE (Hebrew year 2424). He died when Moses had already left Egypt following an accusation of murder (Exodus 2:15). Because, according to Jewish tradition, Moses left Egypt at the age of 40, lived 40 years in Midian in the Sinai Peninsula, then he led the Israelites in his final 40 years following the Exodus.
Akhenaten was succeeded by a couple of his children for a very short period of time, probably under the regency of Nefertiti, and, due to their sudden deaths, his younger inexperienced son Tutankhaten became Pharaoh.
Year 2428 – 1332 BCE – Tutankhamen
Nefertiti had only given birth to daughters, six in total. The new Pharaoh was the son of another late consort of Akhenaten (one of his own sisters), so Nefertiti would have no influence over him. Indeed, according to a DNA analysis, the mother of Tutankhamen seems to be the "Younger Lady" for whom a mummy had been discovered but never formally identified before (to read this article, click here).
Being very young, the new Pharaoh was soon flocked by advisors who had interest to bring Egypt back to the ancestral customs and turn the page on his father’s heresy. One of them was Ay, his commander-in-chief. Following the recommendations, and surely by fear of a coup otherwise, he restored the previous religion to Amon and changed his name to Tutankhamen, meaning the living image of Amon. As his advisors knew that the cause of Akhenaten's heresy came from the Hebrew influence over his court, they also convinced him to strengthen their oppression and impose new labor tasks. And labor was needed because they restored the capital in Memphis after years of neglect.
Nefertiti, having been very instrumental to the Amarna era and favorable to the Hebrew monotheist religion, had given one of her daughters as spouse to a young man from the tribe of Judah, called Caleb. He will play a prominent role in future events of Israelite history. Caleb has several nicknames in the Bible, one of them being Mered which means “Rebel” in Hebrew, as explained below:
The Holy One, blessed be He, said: Let Caleb who rebelled [marad] against the plan of the spies come and take the daughter of Pharaoh who rebelled against the idols of her father's house. (Talmud, Megilah, 13a)
This princess went further than her parents because she embraced the Hebrew faith under the influence of her husband. In the Biblical text, she was called Hayehudiyah which means “the Jewess”. At a time when Jewish religion did not exist yet, Jews were however tagged as the people who believed to one God only. But she was also called Bithiah, maybe as a means to describe that she was the spiritual heir of Tiaa, the princess who saved and adopted Moses. Bithiah means “Daughter of God”, which says that she embraced the faith of God:
And his wife [Caleb/Mered’s] Hayehudiyah bore Jered the father of Gedor, and Heber the father of Soco, and Jekuthiel the father of Zanoah -- and these are the sons of Bithiah the daughter of Pharaoh whom Mered took. (I Chronicles 4:18)
Who was this Egyptian princess who married Caleb? There could be several possibilities among the six daughters of Nefertiti. One of them being the princess Merit-Aten whose name means “She is the beloved of Aten”. In some official correspondence, this princess was also named Mayati and, in the Egyptian genealogy, it is unclear to whom she was actually married, thus creating the hypothesis that she was not married to any important person of the Egyptian royal or upper class. Some records seem to indicate that she had been married to one of her half-brothers, a prince called Smenkhare who succeeded to his father Akhenaten for a very short time before he died. His widow Meritaten may have the one given to young Caleb. But the wife of Caleb could have also been one of the other daughters of Nefertiti, all of them being half-sisters to Pharaoh Tutankhamen.
Year 2430 – 1330 BCE – Death of Nefertiti
The renewed hardship on the Hebrew slaves affected Moses’ feelings towards his people. One day, he hit an Egyptian who was beating on a Hebrew slave, and this resulted in the Egyptian's death. The incident had no apparent witness and yet, the fact became immediately known (Exodus 2:11-14). This detail tends to indicate that Moses was "framed" by people who wanted to get rid of him. A new power wanted to erase every influence of the previous policy and religion that Akhenaten had set.
When did this event happen? The Bible doesn’t say but tradition breaks down the life of Moses in three parts: 40 years in Egypt, 40 years in Midian, and 40 years in the desert. So, Moses would have been 40 years old when he fled to Midian. But 40 years old would make year 2374 (birth) + 40 = 2414, at the time of Akhenaten’s reign. It is hard to believe that such was the case, as this ruler would have found a way to excuse Moses. Instead, it is more likely that the event took place after Nefertiti’s death as she was the last person of the ruling family to still have some influence. After her death, Moses had no protection and had to flee for his life.
And indeed, the Biblical text seems to hint of this happening when it says:
And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown up, that he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens; and he saw an Egyptian smiting a Hebrew, one of his brethren. (Exodus 2:11)
The verse is, however, misleading with the translation Moses was grown up, as if it happened at the end of childhood. The Hebrew word is וַיִּגְדַּל מֹשֶׁה which means when Moses grew, in other word there was a point of time when Moses "matured" in his mind, took a new step and he went out unto his brethren. This could have happened as a change of mind, or at the change of policy when he was rejected from the royal palace, after Nefertiti’s death, and thus went out to his brethren.
As of Nefertiti’s death, it is likely that she was put to death, by poisoning or otherwise. She died at the young age of 40, in 1330 BCE and her mummy has never been found as if her body had been destroyed out of revenge, to prevent her an afterlife in which she didn’t believe due to her rejection of the religion of Amon, and to prevent any posthumous cult.
Moses was at once condemned to death by Tutankhamen or rather by his main adviser Ay who had restarted the oppression of the Hebrews. The Biblical text indeed infers that the Pharaoh at the time was not such a powerful character but was rather led by somebody else (obviously an advisor):
And Pharaoh heard this thing [that Moses slain an Egyptian] and he requested to kill Moses. (Exodus 2:15)
The expression he requested (וַיְבַקֵּשׁ), rather than he ordered, hints that someone else ordered to kill Moses and that Pharaoh made the official request. This would perfectly fit the assumption of the said Pharaoh was the young influenceable Tutankhamen who was manipulated by his priests and advisors, the first of them being Ay. This is further confirmed by the following verse later:
And the Lord said unto Moses in Midian: 'Go, return into Egypt; for all the men that requested your soul are dead.' (Exodus 4:19)
So, many men had requested to kill Moses? Pharaoh was not alone in this decision because the decision did not belong to him alone. And the verse actually mentions your soul, and not just your life. This is indicative that the men around Pharaoh, not only wanted to destroy Moses physically but also destroy the spiritual legacy he had left in Egypt, which was the monotheist heresy of Akhenaten.
Moses had to ran away from Egypt at the time of Nefertiti’s death in 1330 BCE: he was 56 years old. He went to Midian in the Sinai Peninsula and started a new life, marrying Zipporah, the daughter of a local chieftain called Yitro. These nomadic people were the descendants of Midian, one of the sons of Abraham and of his second wife Keturah (see document C18).
Year 2437 – 1323 BCE – Pharaoh Ay
After less than 10 years of reign, Tutankhamen fell ill, maybe due to some genetic disorder caused by successive consanguineous marriages within the 18th dynasty. He died in 1323 BCE, without heir.
His commander-in-chief and first advisor, Ay, seized power. He was linked to the royal family but an old man. He died after 4 years of rule. He was the one who had reinitiated the oppression against the Hebrews, as he is mentioned as king of Egypt rather than “pharaoh”:
And it came to pass in the course of those many days that the king of Egypt died; and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. And God saw the children of Israel, and God took cognizance of them. (Exodus 2:23-25)
Year 2441 – 1319 BCE – Horemheb, Pharaoh of the Exodus
The next ruler to reign after Ay was Horemheb, the military chief during Tutankhamen’s reign. Horemheb pursued the policy of oppression against the Hebrews and made them build the cities mentioned in the Bible, Pithom and Ramses (Exodus 1:11).
What was Ramses? The name means “Ra bore him”. Ra-mses contains the word mses which means "born from"; it is the same word as “Moses” which means “born from” (the waters, in his case). See document C20 for the origin of Moses’ name. Ramses was a new city built east of the Nile Delta, at the site of an older city called Avaris which had been the Hyksos’ capital that Ahmose I had destroyed. Later this new city of Ramses will be extended and named Pi-Ramses (or Per-Ramessu) (See document 19), meaning “House of Ramses”, during the reign of Ramses II and will become the capital of Egypt during his 19th Dynasty. Horemheb called this city “Ramses”, a name that must have been of importance to him as his designated heir will take the same name “Ramses”.
What was Pithom? The name spells Pi-Thom, where Pi means “House of” in Ancient Egyptian, like above-mentioned Pi-Ramses. And Thom could have been the Hebrew word for the Egyptian god Ptah. So, Pi-Thom means “House of Ptah”. This place would be the priests’ quarter within the city of Memphis because this is where the cult of Ptah developed and where the Great Temple of Ptah was built. Of course, the city had already existed before the Hebrew slaves worked on it but, from Tutankhamen to Horemheb, it had been constantly restored to its former status after the years of abandon during the Amarna heresy. Another theory is that Pithom meant Pi-Atom, “House of [God] Atum”. In such case, the city of Pithom would have been located on the eastern side of the Nile Delta and would have been renamed Heroonopolis at the time of the Greeks. There was the Royal Canal in this location that connected the Nile with the Red Sea.
Year 2454 – 1306 BCE – The Exodus
Horemheb was the Pharaoh to whom Moses told the divine demand: Let my people go. The Bible doesn’t state the year of the Exodus, but it can be derived from calculation that it took place in Hebrew year 2454. The key indications are in the Biblical text that announce the Exodus:
Now the time that the children of Israel dwelt in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years. (Exodus 12:40)
But the translation is wrong because it is impossible to fit a duration of 430 years as the time of the Hebrews’ dwelling in Egypt. So, let us look at the actual text in Hebrew:
וּמוֹשַׁב בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל, אֲשֶׁר יָשְׁבוּ בְּמִצְרָיִם--שְׁלֹשִׁים שָׁנָה, וְאַרְבַּע מֵאוֹת שָׁנָה
The correct translation is rather:
And the dwelling of the Bene-Israel, [those] who had dwelled in Egypt, [was] four hundred and thirty years. (Exodus 12:40)
Spot the difference! The Hebrew text doesn't actually say the Bene-Israel "dwelled 430 years in Egypt"; it says the Bene-Israel, [those] who had dwelled in Egypt. In other words, the counting of the dwelling is not for their sole number of years in Egypt but for the total number of years they had been dwelling (anywhere) so far, before becoming a nation with their own land. If we take a simple analogy of a person who lived a life of 70 years in total, and had lived in Italy for some of these years, we would say: "and the life of this person, the one who had lived in Italy, was of 70 years." Similarly, here in the Biblical text: the period of 430 years applies to the word מוֹשַׁב (dwelling) but not solely to the word אֲשֶׁר יָשְׁבוּ (had dwelled).
Then the next point is: from when do we need to count these 430 years? Those who had believed that the 430 years applied to the sole dwelling in Egypt were obviously led to the wrong path. In general, the non-Jewish Biblical researchers assumed that the Exodus either happened much earlier, during the Hyksos invasion, or much later, during the reign of Ramses II. Neither are correct. The Jewish tradition however follows the text of the Seder Olam chronology which correctly states that the 430 years applies to a greater period, not just the time of dwelling in Egypt. However, for the date of the Exodus, the Seder Olam counts 400 years from the birth of Isaac in Hebrew year 2048 based on the following verse:
And He 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)
The reasoning is that your seed applies to Isaac, thus 400 years should be counted from the time of his birth (in year 2048). Thus, the ancient Seder Olam book states that the Exodus occurred in Hebrew year 2048+400= 2448. However, this approach ignores the direct text of Exodus 12:40 which gives us 430 years to count from. Why would the text tell us about 400 years if it refers to a count of 430 years? The next verse gives the clue:
And it was (וַיְהִי), at the end of four hundred and thirty years, and it was (וַיְהִי), even the same day, that all the armies of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt. (Exodus 12:41)
We can notice that the text wants us to put in parallel two events, represented by the symbolic repetition of “and it was” (וַיְהִי). The previous event was also an exodus from Egypt, even the same day of 15 Nisan: it was when Abraham left Egypt in Hebrew year 2024 (1736 BCE). And the year 2024 + 430 years = 2454, year of the Exodus !
The 430 years was the total number of years during which all the armies of the Lord had lived under the rule of foreigners, meaning all the chosen people, from Abraham until the Hebrews, from one exodus to the Exodus when the Hebrews became a free nation. In the Covenant with Abraham, the so-called Brit Bein Habetarim (the Covenant of the Pieces, see document C17), God specifically mentioned to him that his descendance will live in a land that will not be theirs: this applies to any land where the Hebrews lived, Canaan, Aram and Egypt.
And there are parallels between the two events. Both Abraham and the Hebrew clan initially went down to Egypt because of a famine. Then God inflicted great plagues (נְגָעִים גְּדֹלִים) over Egypt (Genesis 12:17). Then Abraham was pushed out of Egypt by Pharaoh, in a rush, on a 15 Nisan, with a lot of wealth. The same can be said of the Hebrews. Finally, both returned to Canaan. Last, the two stories of exodus are told in a same chapter number: Genesis 12 for Abraham and Exodus 12 for the Hebrews (the division of the Bible in chapters was made in Medieval times by a Christian scholar but it is so universally used that it is thought that this scholar had been divinely inspired as his proposed division greatly eased Biblical studies).
How can we understand the other mention of 400 years, on which the Seder Olam based the date of the Exodus? It states that it should be counted from the birth of Isaac in the Hebrew year 2048 (see document C17), so the Exodus would be in the year 2048+400= 2448. We believe that this calculation is misled because the Biblical text says:
they shall afflict them four hundred years. (Genesis 15:13)
In other words, the 400 years should not be counted from the birth of Isaac but from when the affliction started. And this is the verse that mentions it:
The child [Isaac] grew up and was weaned. Abraham made a great feast on the day Isaac was weaned. Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, making fun of him. (Genesis 21:8-9)
So, Isaac's affliction only began with Hagar, when he grew up and was weaned. The Bible does not tell us how old Isaac was. A weaning period is typically up to 3 years: the midrash Genesis Rabbah states that Isaac was weaned at the end of 24 months old, as Rashi mentioned in his commentary on this verse, so it would be in Isaac’s 3rd year. But the text also mentions he grew up “and” was weaned, so we can "double" this period to 6 years. Therefore, the Exodus would have taken place in the year 2048 (birth) + 6 years (growth + weaning) + 400 years affliction = the year 2454.
Another calculation made by Jewish thinkers is the Book of Jubilees, which dates from before the Common Era and the times of the Talmud. This ancient book gives the biblical date of 2451 (see document C31).
However, the difference of a few years between these three Jewish calculations does not change the result: the year of the Exodus from Egypt was during the reign of Horemheb.
At the middle of the night after the last plague of the first-born, Pharaoh finally called for Moses:
And he [Pharaoh] called for Moses and Aaron by night and said: 'Rise up, get you forth from among my people, both you and the children of Israel; and go, serve the Lord, as you have said. (Exodus 12:31)
What was Moses’ age when he led the people out of Egypt?
And Moses was fourscore years old, and Aaron fourscore and three years old, when they spoke unto Pharaoh. (Exodus 7:7)
So, Moses was 80 years old, and Aaron was 83. This detail allows to reconcile the chronology of Moses who was born in year 2374 AM (1386 BCE), during the reign of Amenhotep III.[17]
Jacob and his 70 souls came down to Egypt in Hebrew year 2238, and the Exodus took place in year 2454. So, the actual total number of years in Egypt was 2454-2238 = 216 years. This is much below the figures of 400 or 430 years of bondage mentioned by common Biblical chronologies! In fact, the time in Egypt was exactly half the 430 years.
This mistake of the non-Jewish Biblical scholars who assumed 400 or 430 years of bondage from the simple reading of the text could have been avoided because of the following details about Amram, Moses’ father:
And Amram took him Jochebed his father's sister to wife; and she bore him Aaron and Moses. And the years of the life of Amram were a hundred and thirty and seven years. (Exodus 6:20)
So, Amram lived 137 years, but he is not mentioned among the “70 souls” who came down to Egypt (see document C19), while Jochebed was hinted to be born on the way. The common conclusion is that Amram was born in Egypt when the Hebrews arrived in Hebrew year 2238, and he later married his aunt Jochebed, a daughter of Levi (Exodus 2:1), who was born just a few weeks, or few days, before him. And he died in his 137th year, so it is in the year 2374. But Amram is no longer mentioned at the birth of Moses as Jochebed alone decided to put the 3-months old baby in a basket to the Nile (Exodus 2:2-3). So, the common conclusion is that Amram died just around the time when Moses was born. As we know that Moses was 80 years old at the time of the Exodus, we can conclude that the year of the Exodus was indeed 2374 + 80 = year 2454.
By a similar consideration, it can be excluded that the Hebrews were 400 or 430 years in Egypt because there are only 4 Levite generations in total: Levi > Kohath > Amram > Moses. Levi was born in year 2194 so he was 44 years old when he came down to Egypt in year 2238. Kohath lived 133 years, but he was among the 70 souls so we cannot know how old he was when he arrived to Egypt. The only years that can be considered are Amram’s 137 years and Moses’ 80 years, so 137+80 = 217 years. If we assume that the Hebrews were 400 years in Egypt, and knowing that Moses was 80 years old at the Exodus, and that Amram lived 137 years entirely in Egypt, it will require that Kohath would have given birth to Amram when he was 400 -80 -137 = 183 years old. But the Bible tells us that Kohath lived 133 years. So, the assumption of 400 years is incorrect and, of course, the assumption of 430 years would be even more wrong.
As we know, the Seder Olam gives the Exodus in Hebrew year 2448, which means that the number of years in Egypt would have been 2448-2238= 210 years. This would mean that Amram, presumably born in 2238 when the Hebrews arrived in Egypt, died in year 2238+137= 2375, when Moses was 7 years old (2448-80= 2368). This makes it less plausible that Amram would have had no say in the fate of Moses, and only Jochebed took the initiative of putting him in a basket onto the Nile.
The Jewish commentator Rashi follows the traditional Seder Olam calculations. He points out that the 210 years are hinted by the word re'du (Go down) in Genesis 42:2 because the gematria of this word רְדוּ is 210. It is correct but re’du implies an exile from the promised land. If we count the total years in Egypt were not all an “exile” because the first 6 years rather were a “necessity” due to the severity of a famine, we can conclude that the total time in Egypt was indeed 6 (necessity) + 210 (re’du exile) = 216 years. In other words, the “exile” really started when the famine ended and when the Hebrews ought to have returned to Canaan and end their exile. But they stayed in Egypt, and this is when the 210 years of re’du started.
In His covenant with Abraham, God told him:
And in the fourth generation they shall come back hither. (Genesis 15:16)
What were these four family generations of Hebrews in Egypt? We know that, in the family genealogy of Moses, there were: Levi > Kohath > Amram > Moses.
Levi: the first generation that came down to Egypt; they came to sojourn for a while during the famine but remained in Egypt, because they were given a rich land (Goshen), important positions in the administration (managed by their brother Joseph); the Biblical text emphasizes on their assimilation: And the children of Israel were fruitful, increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceedingly mighty, and the land was filled with them. (Exodus 1:7). Levi was 44 years old when he came down to Egypt and lived there for 93 years (as he died in year 2331)
Kohath: the second generation completed their assimilation and eventually worshipped Egyptian gods (except the tribe of Levi who remained in the path of God, and will be later rewarded for this as being tasked with priesthood); Kohath lived 133 years
Amram: the third generation was the one enslaved from Thutmose IV; Amram was born and died in Egypt, most certainly just before the birth of Moses; he lived 137 years
Moses: the fourth generation is the one of the Exodus; Moses was 80 years old
Year 2454 – 1306 BCE – Death of Horemheb
God struck Egypt with ten plagues, starting from the 1st of the month of Av of the preceding year, at the rate of one plague each first of a new month. The 8th plague was the locust which struck on the 1st of Adar. The 9th plague was obscurity which fell in the 1st of Nisan. The last plague was the death of every first-born (Exodus 11:5).
Horemheb is known in History to have died without heir, so Historians assume that he never had any children. But this cannot be true because his wife could indeed bear children, as her mummy was found containing a fetus or newborn child (source: Geoffrey Martin, The Hidden Tombs of Memphis, Thames & Hudson (1991), pp.97-98). This wife was called Mutnedjmet and she died in the 13th year of the reign of her husband (to read about her, click here), so this was precisely the same year as the Exodus, in 1306 BCE. It is possible that both her and her son (Horemheb’s heir) were first-born children and thus were both struck by God’s last plague.
It is today assumed that Horemheb died in the 14th year of his reign, although earlier historians thought he reigned for 27 years. It is also known that he died without having an heir. So, if he had survived his wife for some 13 years, there is no doubt that he would have married again and try to have an heir. But that was not the case, so it makes sense to admit the current opinion that he died soon after his wife Mutnedjmet, with no time to remarry.
Is it possible that Horemheb, who had been a military commander, had died in the pursuit of the Hebrews to the sea after the Exodus? The Biblical text does mention that Pharaoh and his chariots pursued the Hebrews to bring them back into slavery. Then came the episode of the Crossing of the Sea which saw all Pharaoh's army being drawn in the waters (Exodus 14:28). The text doesn’t, however, mention the fate of Pharaoh himself. But, as of today, and although Horemheb had benefited from a magnificent tomb built by his successor, nobody has ever found his mummy yet! His tomb was rediscovered in 1975 in Saqqara by Geoffrey Martin and his excavation team (to read about it online, click here). But, such an empty tomb also means that no pharaoh after him had re-used it for himself, which was common practice in Ancient Egypt. One explanation may be that this tomb was considered ‘cursed’ because Horemheb’s body was never embalmed so he could not have passed into the world of the afterlife.
Before his death, Horemheb had appointed his vizier, Paramesse, as successor. This Paramesse reigned as Pharaoh Ramses I and started the 19th Dynasty of Egypt, thus turning the page on the glorious, but cursed, 18th Dynasty.
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.
To continue reading to the second section 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