p. 9 | 3570 - Harmony Between Texts

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Sep 26, 1911

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 38, No. 38.

3570 — Harmony Between Texts

Please show the harmony between Gen. 15:13; Acts 7:6; Ex. 12:40; Gal. 3:17. O. N.

Gen. 15:13 is the prophecy made to Abraham that his seed should be strangers, and should serve others four hundred years. That is, they would not own the land in which they would dwell, and would be more or less subject to those who surrounded them. This would take in the sojourning in the land of Canaan, as well as in the land of Egypt, but the end of that sojourning came in the land of Egypt. The Septuagint and the Samaritan version of Ex. 12:40, 41 read as follows: "Now the time of the sojourning of the children of Israel and of their fathers which they had dwelt in the land of Canaan and in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years. And it came to pass at the end of four hundred and thirty years, even on the selfsame day, that all the hosts of Jehovah went out from the land of Egypt."

With the period in Ex. 12:40, Gal. 3:17 agrees, while Acts 7:6 refers directly to Gen. 15:13, the 430 years dating from an earlier period — God's first call to Abraham, the 400 years from the offering up of Isaac, altho some have taken it as simply referring in round numbers to the four centuries. There is no contradiction in the texts at all.