How Long Were the Jews In Egypt?

The length of time that the Israelites lived in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years; at the end of the four hundred and thirtieth year, to the very day, all the ranks of G-d departed from the land of Egypt.

Simple enough, right?

Except that we know Moses was 80 years old when the Exodus process started. And we know his father, Amram lived 137 years in all. And his father, Kehas, lived 133 years in all, and Kehas came down into Egypt with Jacob. But if we assume that Amram was born soon after they entered Egypt, and he fathered Moses at the age of 20, it could have been less than 200 years in all! Which is, of course, a far cry from 430.

And if we take the most generous figuring possible (that Kehas entered Egypt as a newborn, and Amram fathered Moses at the very end of his life), we still reach 270+80, or 350 years. Not 430.

Is the Torah contradicting itself?

We could argue that 430 is a symbolic number – 4/40/400 being the number of transformative change (the Flood, Revelation at Sinai, etc.), and the number 3/30 always being connected to life and death, from the third day of creation to the days of mourning for Jacob and Moshe.

And I think this is certainly correct. But I think there is more, and it has perhaps even deeper significance. The issue is when do we start counting the 430 years? Is it when Jacob comes down to Egypt? Or when Joseph does (20+ years earlier)?

Or perhaps we could date the entire time of being “in Egypt” as from the first time the text even mentions the place (Gen 12:10): when Avram and Sarai descend to Egypt, and Sarai is sold into harem slavery in Pharoah’s house.

There is a deeply unpopular comment from a sage (Ramban) that says that the reason we had to be enslaved in Egypt was because of the way Avram treated Sarai when they went into Egypt. I have written on that here. More positively, we could suggest that the reason the Jewish people needed to be slaves in Egypt was not merely because Avram lacked empathy for his wife, but because the mission of the Jewish people for all eternity requires us to have empathy for all people, regardless of tribe or status. I have written on this here, showing how every time the text justifies a commandment ‘because you were slaves in Egypt,” it is teaching us to remember the ability to empathize that we learned when we were slaves.

In this case, the 430 years could quite easily date from that first descent, from the event that meant we were destined to be in Egypt. So in a mental sense, from the time Avram and Sarai went down, until the entire people all left together. Egypt was more than just a petri dish for our biological development: it was the place where we learned that power does not define goodness or truth. Egypt was where we needed to be, in order to learn how to consider the point of view of other people.

[an @iWe and @EliyahuMasinter work]