Let us go to Exodus 2. I am going to read the first four verses of Exodus 2. Exodus 2:1-4:
And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi. And the woman conceived, and bare a son: and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months. And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags by the river’s brink. And his sister stood afar off, to wit what would be done to him.
This is referring to Moses. There is also mention of this in Hebrews 11. Hebrews 11:23 says:
By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents, because they saw he was a proper child; and they were not afraid of the king’s commandment.
This phrase, “by faith,” that we see in this chapter, as well as in many other places in the Bible, means “by Christ” when it involves salvation.
By [the Lord Jesus] Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents, because they saw he was a proper child…
In Acts 7, this is translated as “exceeding fair.” I do not know what they saw in the baby Moses more than other parents see with their babies when they are born, because I think it is pretty rare when a mother looks at her baby and does not see a “proper” or a “fair” child. It is possible that they had some indication that he was saved, just like Rebekah was told concerning her twins that Jacob would be one of God’s elect and that he would receive the birthright. God does not tell us why they saw that he was a “proper child” or how, but he definitely was.
In the two accounts that we just read, the first few verses of Exodus 2 and here in Hebrews 11, it does not mention the name of the parents specifically. In Exodus 2:1, it just says:
…a man of the house of Levi, and…a daughter of Levi.
And here in Hebrews 11:23, it refers to them as:
…his parents…
This past week, the idea of Amram and Jochebed being Moses’ parents came up a few different times on Paltalk. Thursday night, we had a couple of individuals come in who tried to say, “You are trusting in a calendar that is incorrect because Amram and Jochebed were the parents of Moses and Aaron and Miriam.” But in the calendar that is being put forth, they are not his parents. This also came up through an email, in an email group that we have.
By the way, I do not think that we have announced this here. We started a Yahoo Group called “Time and Judgment” that has been operating for a few months. If anyone is interested, you could maybe stop by electronically and check it out. Actually, we have it on the EBible Fellowship website in order to attract individuals who are maybe searching for truth. (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TimeandJudgment_May212011/) We are going to keep very strict controls of what is presented in this group. Everyone is under moderation and there are no exceptions, except for the group moderators. What we really would like to see is people who are curious come in, because then we can provide links to Family Radio and a lot of other faithful material in a consistent way.
Well, someone in there had brought it up and on Paltalk and I also received a personal email about it. I think that this issue (of the Biblical timeline) is going around possibly since the debate on the “Iron Sharpens Iron” radio program. Some criticisms were made about the Biblical calendar of history that we know is from the Bible that God has laid out.
Actually, let me give you a quote from a Reformed individual who had this to say:
“Mr. Camping’s key to unlocking these genealogies is wrong. Without that key, we have no reason to trust his chronologies. Without chronologies, we have no reason to trust the date of the flood that he gives. Furthermore, since we have no reason to trust the date of the flood, we have no reason to trust his date of Christ’s second coming.”
You can see how this is obviously important to some people. They are trying to attack the key that Mr. Camping himself has stated unlocks the Biblical calendar of history.
If you remember with the Biblical calendar, there are actually other keys, other information in Genesis chapters 5 and 11. There is a clue phrase, qara’ shem, that points to when there is an immediate father/son relationship. Not all the time but a lot of the time, God will let us know when it is a father-to-son relationship because it will have a statement in relation to “called his name,” which are the Hebrew words qara’ shem. However, there are many other times when it just says “begat,” as in so-and-so begat so-and-so.
Let me give an example from Genesis 5:21-25:
And Enoch lived sixty and five years, and begat Methuselah: And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters: And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years: And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him. And Methuselah lived an hundred eighty and seven years, and begat Lamech:
I do not know how familiar we are with this but I think that most of us have heard this. If there is not that very important catch phrase, qara’ shem, and if there is no other information in the Bible that lets us know that it is a father/son relationship, then the word “begat” does not mean that Enoch was the immediate father of Methuselah. It does not mean that. It means that he was in his line. Methuselah was in the line of Enoch. Enoch lived 365 years and then he was raptured or translated. In the year that Enoch was taken up, Methuselah was born. Methuselah would cover 969 years. Then in the year that Methuselah died, 969 years later, the next Biblical calendar reference patriarch would be born.
In other words, it is end-to-end. When Enoch’s 365 years ends, then Methuselah’s turn for 969 years begins. On the 969th year, upon his death, another individual in his line would be born that year, and the Biblical calendar would continue.
Because this is so precise and accurate, this is how we know that 11,013 B.C. is the date of creation, 4990 B.C. is the flood date, and 2011 A.D. is exactly 7,000 years after the flood. This is because the calendar fits together so well and perfectly.
But I think that there are individuals who are putting a lot of work into trying to undermine this calendar. This is because if they can disprove the calendar, I guess to them they then have nothing to worry about.
Mr. Camping went to the time bridge that spans the Israelites sojourning in the land of Egypt for 430 years to show that this is how God has developed the calendar. It is end-to-end.
For instance, let us go to a few verses. Let us start with Exodus 6. I wanted to do this because when the person came up with this in the Paltalk room, I knew that he was wrong. He was trying to say that Amram was Moses’ immediate father. I knew that this was wrong because I have read Mr. Camping’s studies; and yet as I thought about it, I could not recall why he was wrong. I try to go over writings and just study various things because I never know when I might be asked something. I thought that if I could not recall this, maybe you could not recall this either, although there are probably some people here or listening on Paltalk who know this better than I do. So I thought that it would be good for us to review this. In Exodus 6:16-20, it says:
And these are the names of the sons of Levi according to their generations; Gershon, and Kohath, and Merari: and the years of the life of Levi were an hundred thirty and seven years. The sons of Gershon; Libni, and Shimi, according to their families. And the sons of Kohath; Amram, and Izhar, and Hebron, and Uzziel: and the years of the life of Kohath were an hundred thirty and three years. And the sons of Merari; Mahali and Mushi: these are the families of Levi according to their generations. And Amram took him Jochebed his father’s sister to wife; and she bare him Aaron and Moses: and the years of the life of Amram were an hundred and thirty and seven years.
This is the information that God gives us. He gives us the ages of these people and how long they lived, and then we would know the year that they died.
He also lets us know from Exodus 7:7:
And Moses was fourscore years old…
He was 80.
…and Aaron fourscore and three years old, when they spake unto Pharaoh.
Aaron was 83. It would not be long in the future before God would bring the plagues and deliver His people out of Egypt and when Aaron would actually be turning 84. This is a correction that Mr. Camping has made to this time bridge. In the book Adam When, it says that Aaron was 83. However, Mr. Camping has recently corrected this. He was actually 84 years old. I am not going to get into this because I do not think that I could explain it right now, but you can either check this out in Mr. Camping’s writings or call him on the “Open Forum.”
With this information that Aaron was 84 at the time of the deliverance, we only need to find out one other thing, which is the age of Levi when he entered Egypt. Levi was 137 years old when he died, but he did not spend the whole 137 years in Egypt. He lived in the land of Canaan with his father and his brothers and family for a number of years.
This also can be very complicated because a lot of this depends on whether Jacob stayed 20 or 40 years in Haran when he went to work for his later-to-be father-in-law, Laban. Jacob went into Haran and in one verse it appears to say that he was there 20 years. Actually, the truth is that he was there 40 years. We can know this because it is impossible for him to have been there 20 years. The first seven years he was working for Rachel to be married. He was not married and, therefore, had no children in the first seven years. In the second seven-year period, if he was there for 20 years, we would have to say that all of his sons except for Benjamin would have had to have been born in that second week or that second seven-year period, because the last stage is the six years when he worked for the flocks. By then, Joseph and his other sons have already been born.
This means that from the eighth year he was there until that fourteenth year or entering into the fifteenth year, Leah would have had to have given birth to four sons: Reuben and Simeon, then Levi was the third and Judah was the fourth. Then Leah left off bearing for a period of time. We do not know how long, but she did leave off bearing. By this point, I think that Rachel had given her handmaid to Jacob, and Jacob had two sons through the handmaid. Then Leah gave her handmaid to Jacob, and Jacob had two sons through that handmaid. Then Leah resumed bearing and had two more sons, Issachar and Zebulun, plus Dinah would have had to have been born in this seven-year period also, if we go with what the theologians say, which is that Jacob was only there for 20 years,
Now, try to think about this, especially you mothers who have had children. Think of all those children being born in the span of seven years. This is practically impossible.
There is another mention in Genesis of Jacob serving Laban for 20 years in his house, and this is the solution. Jacob served seven years for Rachel. He was then tricked into marrying Leah. Then he served another seven years for Rachel. Then sometime after these 14 years, there was a 20-year period when he was in Laban’s house. During this time, his family was growing, which gives plenty of time for him to have had all of those sons. Then he finally makes a deal with Laban over the last six-year period for the flocks. God greatly blessed him and multiplied the flocks and he is able to leave Haran with a great amount of cattle.
So this is one thing. The purpose for looking at this is because it relates to Levi’s age. Levi was the third son born to Leah, so he could have been born in the third year or he could have been born perhaps 20 years later.
Now, God lets us know that when Jacob entered into Egypt, he was 130 years old. At the same time, Joseph was 39. Joseph came out of prison at the age of 30. There were seven years of plenty followed by two years of famine. We will not get into the number 13, which is found everywhere in this account. Jacob was 130 years old, which is 10 x 13. Joseph was 39 at exactly the same time, which ix 3 x 13. We also know that Jacob is 91 years older then Joseph; therefore, he was 91 years old when Joseph was born, which is 7 x 13. There are numerous references to the number 13 because God uses this period of time to picture the Great Tribulation, which occurs after 13,000 years of history.
So it said in Exodus 6:20:
And Amram took him Jochebed his father’s sister to wife; and she bare him Aaron and Moses: and the years of the life of Amram were an hundred and thirty and seven years.
We have been understanding the Biblical calendar to be end-to-end. Levi entered Egypt when he was 61 years old. We will just sum this up. You can definitely find out that these are facts. Levi was 76 years in Egypt. Followed by his death, Kohath was born. Kohath lived to be 133 years old. At the age that Kohath died, which was in his 133rd year, Amram was born. Amram lived another 137 years and died. In the year Amram died, Aaron was born. It does not work out well that Amram, at such an old age, would be the father of Moses and Aaron and Miriam. Actually, this is not possible, understanding it end-to-end like this.
But individuals are saying, “Look at what the Bible says. It says, ‘She bare him Aaron and Moses.’” It does not only say it here. Let us also go to Numbers 26:58-59:
These are the families of the Levites: the family of the Libnites, the family of the Hebronites, the family of the Mahlites, the family of the Mushites, the family of the Korathites. And Kohath begat Amram. And the name of Amram’s wife was Jochebed, the daughter of Levi, whom her mother bare to Levi in Egypt: and she bare unto Amram Aaron and Moses, and Miriam their sister.
This is also stated in another place or two. Again, it is pretty clear as far as what the Bible is saying in this statement. It says:
…she bare unto Amram Aaron and Moses, and Miriam their sister.
The question is what does it mean that “she bare”? Were Amram and Jochebed the parents who were mentioned in the first few verses of Exodus 2? Are they the parents that Hebrews 11 is commending because in Christ they did not fear Pharaoh’s commandment that all the children be slain so they kept Moses for three months?
No, absolutely not. Amram and Jochebed are not the immediate parents of Moses, and this is another good example of how God wrote the Bible and how He has really placed many snares and traps to where it is so easy to read it as it is plainly written and to go along with it.
Now, there are all kinds of problems that present themselves if you think that Amram was the immediate father of Aaron and Moses. One problem is found in Numbers 3:27-28, which says:
And of Kohath was the family of the Amramites, and the family of the Izeharites, and the family of the Hebronites, and the family of the Uzzielites: these are the families of the Kohathites. In the number of all the males, from a month old and upward, were eight thousand and six hundred, keeping the charge of the sanctuary.
Here this is indicating that there were 8,600 descendents of Kohath. When people are looking at those verses and saying that Amram’s father was apparently Kohath and that Amram then had Aaron and Moses, it was not enough time to have had that many descendents if what we are finding in this genealogy is correct.
Realizing this, many theologians actually try to say that Israel was in Egypt not 430 years but 215 years. Do you know who says this? John Calvin. Do you know who else says this? Matthew Henry. Do you know who else? John Gill, as well as others. Others also say this. They dare to say that Israel was not in Egypt for 430 years. Yet here is what the Bible says in Exodus 12:40-41:
Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years. And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years, even the selfsame day it came to pass, that all the hosts of JEHOVAH went out from the land of Egypt.
This is pretty straightforward and clear. God is saying that it was “even the selfsame day.”
They entered Egypt. They went out of Egypt 430 years later. But the problem with Amram being, they think, Moses’ immediate father weighs on them because they cannot make this fit into a 430-year period.
I have another quote here. This is an additional problem. There is a translation of the Old Testament called the Septuagint. In the Septuagint, which many of these men quote, they quote it where it says:
“The sojourning of the children of Israel, which they sojourned in Egypt and in the land of Canaan, was 430 years.”
They change it to include “and in the land of Canaan.” This is because they go back to the days of Abraham and say that this is when this period of time began. Actually, they find problems with this, so then they move it up to the time when Isaac supposedly is being weaned at the age of five years, when God gave a promise to him. From this point, they go to the Exodus, the coming out of Egypt, to come up with 430 years.
I can tell you that even as I am saying these things, this is very complicated and difficult. I do not feel like I have a full grasp on this myself, as far as how to explain this. I know that the Bible definitely teaches that Israel was in Egypt 430 years.
In Galatians 3:16, it says:
Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.
By the way, since God made promise to the seed, Jesus, He made this promise to all His people in Christ. That is what verse 29 says, Galatians 3:29:
And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
God promised the seed, the Lord Jesus, and His people are all counted within that promise in the person of Christ because He will give salvation to all His people, to all of His chosen ones.
Then it says in verses 17-18, Galatians 3:17-18:
And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect. For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise: but God gave it to Abraham by promise.
You see, what they are reading here is that God gave a promise, the covenant, to Abraham, and then verse 17 says:
…the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul…
This is why they are going back to Abraham to start the 430-year period. They realize that they have some problems, yet they do not know what to do with them.
I was trying to find out what they think of other Scriptures that relate to this. For instance, in 1 Kings 6:1, God makes a statement to Solomon as the temple foundation was being laid and it was 480 years from that point when Israel came out of Egypt.
Some of these same scholars that I quoted, like Calvin and some of these others, if they date Solomon’s reign, they would date his commencing to reign about 970 or 971 B.C. Four years later into his reign is when the foundation is being laid. The correct date for this is 967 B.C.
So you would think, if they would go 480 years from 967 B.C., which would take them to 1447 B.C., that they would see that they have a problem because then some of their other dates are off. Therefore, thinking that this confirmation of the promise to Abraham was the beginning of the 430 years throws them off by a couple of hundred years.
I was really disappointed in Matthew Henry because in trying to go back to that 480 years, he did not say, “Okay, this is the year; 1447 is the year it falls on.” Rather, he gave a bunch of individual’s lifespans in order to cover this timeframe so that he would not have to give a date that the 480 years fell on, since in falls on 1447. He did not say, “This is the year,” because that would present a lot of complications to what they believe.
By the way, since we are quoting others, Mr. Camping is not the first one to understand these things. Jamison, Fausset, and Brown say that instead of from Abraham, the 430 years are to be reckoned from Jacob to the giving of the Law. Mr. Camping also says this. This is because when Jacob went into Egypt in 1877 B.C., God confirmed the promise. It says in Genesis 46:2-4:
And God spake unto Israel in the visions of the night, and said, Jacob, Jacob. And he said, Here am I. And he said, I am God, the God of thy father: fear not to go down into Egypt; for I will there make of thee a great nation: I will go down with thee into Egypt; and I will also surely bring thee up again: and Joseph shall put his hand upon thine eyes.
This is 1877 and this is the solution to the 430 years of Galatians 3. God confirmed the promise with Jacob, which was a good point for Him do this because he had been in the promise land of Canaan. At this point, they are leaving the promised land, and so the Lord says, “Do not be concerned. Do not fear. I will bring you again.” This is the point at which Jamison, Fausset, and Brown think that the 430 years in Galatians should be counted, from the point when Jacob enters into Egypt.
Also, another theologian by the name of Kitchen argues that Exodus 6:16-20—where we read about Amram and Jochebed supposedly being the immediate parents of Moses and Aaron—gives the tribe of Levi, the clan of Kohath, and the family group of Amram, to which Moses and Aaron belong. They are not the immediate father and mother of Aaron and Moses.
We do not normally read other theologians, but I thought it would be good to do this because so many people have it in their minds that this all comes from Mr. Camping. But no, this has been discussed for hundreds of years. This is because the verse in Galatians apparently leads one back to Abraham. God just really clouded the whole thing in the Bible.
For instance, go to Genesis 15 where God promises Abram that He will bless him and his seed. Remember that the seed is Christ and all of Christ’s elect in Him. It says in Genesis 15:13-16:
And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years; And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance. And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age. But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.
Here is another problem because the Lord records Abram speaking under the inspiration of the Spirit saying that they will be afflicted in a strange land for 400 years, not for 430 and not for 215 but for 400 years. The individuals who try to claim that this dates to the time of Abram try to say that they were afflicted in the land of Canaan for the 215 years and then they were afflicted again once they got into Egypt.
However, what God is saying and the way that we can understand this is that 1877 B.C. was the date when Jacob and his family entered into Egypt, which was in the midst of the seven-year famine that God had used Joseph to reveal to Pharaoh in order that they could store up the grain after those seven years of plenty.
As a result of this famine, Pharaoh’s powers were tremendously strengthened like they had never been before. This is because the people of Egypt were starving just like everyone else and so they also went to Joseph. The first year, they gave all of their animals. Then the next year, they gave all of their land. Finally, they gave themselves, which is a beautiful picture of Christ redeeming His people during the time of the Great Tribulation. All of the people of Egypt were bought for Pharaoh. From that point on, Joseph established the law of the fifth part being given to Pharaoh of all their income [note: speaker inadvertently said “tenth part” instead of “fifth part”]. In other words, this was like a tax of all the people in Egypt, which would have given the ruler in Egypt tremendously more power, more money, and more authority and honour than any of the previous Pharaohs.
We can see why this Pharaoh would have loved Joseph. He would have greatly loved Joseph. This is why this Pharaoh was so open to Joseph bringing in his family, “Yes, bring your family in. I will give them the best in the land, the land of Goshen.”
So they came into Egypt. From this point, the 430-year clock starts ticking and it ticks until 1447 B.C. Thirty years after this point, it is 1847 B.C. From this point, we do not know what happened. Maybe the Pharaoh who was in power lost some of his power. Maybe he stepped down or maybe he died. We do not now; but even though Joseph was still a powerful man, his seed, his family of Israelites would have been more of a target for affliction, not bondage or slavery because that is not how affliction starts. Instead, it would have been in the form of persecution and discrimination. The Egyptians would have begun the affliction of the Israelites, which would eventually lead to their slavery and cruel bondage, the time that we read about early in the book of Exodus when God takes note of their pain and trial and delivers them.
This is kind of like Daniel in Babylon. Daniel could not be touched himself, right? He could not be touched because he had interpreted King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream; but because there are always individuals who do not like the Jews or who do not like the people of God, they thought, “Daniel supports Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and they were put up into a position of prominence. Let us get something on them,” but Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego refused to bow down to the image, and we know the story. They were actually thrown into the fiery furnace; however, the Lord delivered them.
Even though Daniel was in a high political position within the kingdom of Babylon, it did not stop the enemies of God from trying to afflict the people of God. Of course, after they came out of the fire, they could not touch them anymore. There was nothing more that they could do with them, and we do not read about them again until the Medes and the Persians take over. At that point, we see this same jealousy and envy of the world towards the people of God, just like Cain and Abel or Jacob and Esau. The other presidents and leaders under the Medes and the Persians were jealous of Daniel, and so they finally have him thrown into the lion’s den. Then God delivers him there, too.
But what happened might be an indication of Joseph’s power. Joseph would have been 69 because it was 30 years later. Maybe once that Pharaoh stepped down and Joseph’s role became less prominent, affliction began upon the Israelites for the next 400 years and grew increasingly worse until we see the ultimate slavery and the taskmasters whipping them for the tale of the bricks.
So this is how we can explain the 400 years. Also, God uses Abram to speak of four generations. In the fourth generation, they will come out of Egypt. Levi, Kohath, Amram, and Aaron are the four generations. The way God has written this, it is not easy to understand; however, it does begin to take shape.
We might as well look at a lot of these verses that are problematic and difficult. If we go to Acts 7:6, this verse goes along with Genesis 15. Acts 7:6 says:
And God spake on this wise, That his seed should sojourn in a strange land; and that they should bring them into bondage, and entreat them evil four hundred years.
Again, this agrees with Genesis 15; however, the actual time is a total of 430 years in Egypt and then they come out.
Well, all right, let us say that this is true, but that does not solve the problem of Amram and Jochebed. How can God say that “she bare” Aaron, Moses, and Miriam?
This word “bare” is kind of what I was thinking about. I know from the Genesis genealogies, God speaks of men begetting sons; however, Exodus 6 and Numbers 26 speaks of a woman as well as Amram bearing. At the time, I was not sure about this; but this word “bare” is the same word as “begat” that we find in Genesis 5 and 11. It is the Hebrew word yalad. When it says that Enoch begat Methuselah, it is the same word as in find in Exodus 6:20:
And Amram took him Jochebed his father’s sister to wife; and she bare [begat] him Aaron and Moses…
At times this word can refer to an immediate father or son, but the context determines it. Many times, it does not; it is just someone in the line. Some of the commentators and theologians recognize this and some of them understand that it is not an immediate father/son relationship.
Let us go to Genesis 46 again because the word “bare” is used there of women who bare children. In Genesis 46:14-15, we read:
And the sons of Zebulun; Sered, and Elon, and Jahleel. These be the sons of Leah, which she bare unto Jacob in Padanaram…
This is that same word that is used of Jochebed.
…with his daughter Dinah: all the souls of his sons and his daughters were thirty and three.
How many children did Leah have? This is a quiz. You know I do some of the quizzes for Family Radio. I have a whole storehouse full of quizzes. This is a quiz. How many sons did Leah have, not counting her handmaid? Leah had six sons and one daughter, Dinah, so seven children in all. How many souls of his sons and his daughters? It says here in verse 15 that there were “thirty and three.”
We could still kind of read this in a way that is not very clear, so turn over to Genesis 46:16-18:
And the sons of Gad; Ziphion, and Haggi, Shuni, and Ezbon, Eri, and Arodi, and Areli. And the sons of Asher; Jimnah, and Ishuah, and Isui, and Beriah, and Serah their sister: and the sons of Beriah; Heber, and Malchiel. These are the sons of Zilpah, whom Laban gave to Leah his daughter, and these she bare unto Jacob, even sixteen souls.
There are two sons who are the sons of Jacob that we read about here. Who are all these others? They are just descendents from those two sons. She bore actually two, but her children bore children. God recognizes this and He says that she bore sixteen, even though we definitely know that this is not the case and that she was not the mother of sixteen.
Then we read in Genesis 46:20:
And unto Joseph in the land of Egypt were born Manasseh and Ephraim…
Let us skip all the naming of the sons and go down to Genesis 46:22:
These are the sons of Rachel, which were born to Jacob: all the souls were fourteen.
Rachel bore fourteen? She is the one who was barren for awhile, but then the Lord heard her and she had Joseph. Then she struggled in childbearing and died giving birth to Benjamin, the last son to be born to Jacob. Without any question, she had two children. She had two boys, yet here God says that there were fourteen.
Go a little bit further down to Genesis 46:23-25:
And the sons of Dan; Hushim. And the sons of Naphtali; Jahzeel, and Guni, and Jezer, and Shillem. These are the sons of Bilhah, which Laban gave unto Rachel his daughter, and she bare these unto Jacob: all the souls were seven.
She also had two.
You see, God is making it very clear here. In this same chapter, He lets us know that He came to Jacob in the very time they were leaving the land of Canaan and entering into Egypt. He is assuring him, reassuring him, giving him the promise again that He is going to make a great nation, “You are going to go down but you are going to come back up.”
God lets us know that this is the starting point of the 430 years. Then in the very same chapter, He gives us these verses that clearly let us know that to bear a child in the Bible does not mean that you are the immediate mother or father. It could be used in that way or it could be your grandchildren, your great grandchildren, or your descendents who are further down the line.
This is why in the first few verses of Exodus 2, a man of Levi and a daughter of Levi gave birth to Moses, unnamed. In Hebrews 11, God commends them. What a wonderful spot it would have been to mention Amram and Jochebed. He mentions all of the other people of faith, and yet He commends the parents of Moses unnamed.
I understand why people are checking this out. It is good that people are checking this out carefully. Yes, check out the information, check the Biblical calendar, make sure that it is exact, and make sure that it is true and faithful. But you have to do so with the correct thought in mind. You need to be checking to see if it is so, which is what the Bereans did. They were not checking to see if it was not so.
There are some people who are so upset and offended by the teaching of Family Radio that they are becoming blinded to certain teachings and truths. The only truth they have is, “If it is against Family Radio, then I believe it. If it is contrary to what Family Radio is teaching, even though Family Radio is teaching from the Bible, then I trust it.”
This is what many people are doing today and this is a shame. It is a shame because they are not going to come to the knowledge of the truth in this way; they are resisting. The Bible says that there are those who refuse or who resist acknowledging the truth. Sadly, this is happening to many people today.
Questions and Answers
Chris: If anyone has a question or a comment that you would like to make, now is the time. You can either raise your hand on Paltalk or come up to the mic here.
1st Question: For the sake of people who do not know, I was wondering if you could show the difference between the qara’ shem genealogy. Since you pointed this out earlier, I think that would help.
But that is not my question. I wanted to know if Christ was annihilated, is it possible that God could have annihilated Himself? Someone pointed out that He is Spirit and that He could not have done this.
Chris: We know that Jesus paid the penalty in full, whatever the penalty is. God says, “the wages of sin is death.” Christ paid this penalty for all of His people. A great multitude of sin was laid on Him from the foundation of the world and God poured out His wrath and He suffered and died. How that works out, I do not know.
As far as qara’ shem, let us go to Genesis 5:2:
Male and female…
Speaking of God:
…created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.
Now in Genesis 5:3:
And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth:
“Called his name” is qara’ shem and that is a clue, which in this case we really did not need to know. This is at the very beginning and, of course, Adam is the father of Seth.
But when God uses this phrase in the English, “called his name,” it refers to Daddy, not an ancestor, not someone way down the line, but an immediate (relationship). Adam is the father; Seth is the son. This is also used elsewhere in a couple of places where God helps us out. We cannot just look for the death age and then (add all of those years to the timeline) end-to-end as we do with the rest (of the calendar reference patriarchs).
Then in Genesis 5:12, we read:
And Cainan lived seventy years, and begat Mahalaleel:
All right, Bible quiz question. Cainan lived 70 years and begat Mahalaleel. Does this mean that Mahalaleel was born at that point? No. He was not born at that point, but what did happen at that point? What happened was that someone was born in the line who would later bring forth Mahalaleel, someone who would be in that same line.
Why did God do it this way? He did it this way to trap people, to lay snares. This is like those of you who were in the war in Vietnam. I was not, but you hear of all the jungle traps that the Vietnamese would set. That is the Bible. That is the Bible as God has written it in such a way that you had better be very careful; you had better make sure that you understand what God is saying correctly because you could fall into a trap and a snare.
It goes on to say in Genesis 5:13:
And Cainan lived after he begat Mahalaleel eight hundred and forty years…
The mistake that Ussher and practically the whole church world makes with his calendar is that they think that Mahalaleel is alive for the next 840 years. So we can see that when they come to the calendar, they are going to come to a date that is far shorter than 13,000 years. This is why in Ussher’s calendar that creation is around 4006 B.C and why the flood is right around 2500 B.C., but they are thousands of years off from creation.
Plus, what do they do with the problems of the Egyptian dynasties? We have pyramids that date back into 3000 B.C.. We have archaeological evidence that the Egyptian dynasty had already been around for hundreds of years. Would the flood not have just wiped all of that out?
Yes, so they do not finish it. They do not give a complete analysis of all of the information to show how it fits together like Mr. Camping has done in the book Adam When or in other places like Time Has An End where he shows how this all fits together and how there had to have been several thousand years (more) on earth.
Another proof is that we would not have a Mayan calendar. We would not be hearing anything about December 2012 if the flood took place somewhere around 2500 B.C. because the foundational date of the Mayan calendar is 3114 B.C.. It goes from 3114 B.C. to 2012 A.D. It is more than a 5,000-year calendar that they developed.
They developed it, in all probability, in 3114 B.C, because it was in the days of Peleg when the earth was divided. The earth had been one continent. In the days of Peleg, God tells us that the continents began to move and shift. At that time, Africa became Africa and South America became South America.
If we look at a map, we can see how the continents could all fit together pretty nicely; but then in the days of Peleg, the earth was divided, and this was well after the flood of 4990 B.C. God does not tell us exactly the date when the earth was divided. It just says, “in the days,” in that span of time. I think that 3114 B.C. is within Peleg’s timeline. This is why the Mayans would have been so interested in that date as the foundational date. Something huge just happened, something incredible just happened, and so they wanted to keep track of time probably from that date into the future.
Just imagine. Here we are on our piece of land. If the New Jersey and Philadelphia area broke off from the eastern coast of the United States and we started drifting and became an island, are we going to remember this? This would be a huge thing in our minds.
Does anyone else have anything that you would like to share?
2nd Question: In Galatians 3:18, you read about Abraham. You are showing that this finally refers to Jacob, right?
Chris: Right. In Galatians 3:16 and in Galatians 3:18, Abraham is mentioned. In Galatians 3:17, the key verse, he is not mentioned. God could have called Jacob “Abraham.” He could have done that if He wanted to, because they are the “fathers.” For instance, we can go to Acts 7.
2nd Question (continued): Yes, that is what I was going to mention. There is another case in Acts 7:16 where it says that Abraham bought the burial site, but really Jacob bought it.
Chris: Exactly. In Acts 7:15-16, we read:
So Jacob went down into Egypt, and died, he, and our fathers, And were carried over…
By the way, this is the word that is used of Enoch when he was translated.
And were carried over into Sychem…
Jacob died after 17 years in the land of Egypt. He came out of the famine, in the midst of that famine, and then he lived 17 more years. God identifies the famine with the Great Tribulation. Then he is coming out of Canaan, where there is a famine, into Egypt where Joseph is nourishing him.
This is very similar to 1994 in the midst of our present Great Tribulation because the first 2,300 days were an extreme famine because virtually no one was being saved. From 1994 to 2011 are how many years? 17. In a period that God identifies in Acts 7 as Great Tribulation, Jacob and his family go into Egypt and are nourished under Joseph’s care for 17 years. Then in verse 16, God uses this word in relation to Jacob when he was translated upon his death into the land of Canaan, which represents Heaven.
This is pretty significant I think as we know 2011 is 17 years from 1994 and May 21 is the Rapture day, the translation of all God’s people into Heaven.
Acts 7:16:
And were carried over into Sychem, and laid in the sepulchre that Abraham bought for a sum of money of the sons of Emmor the father of Sychem.
True or False? Abraham bought this piece of ground—Abraham, the father of Isaac and later Jacob—is this true? The Bible says it, but is it true? Abraham did buy a piece of land, but he bought the piece of land in Machpelah to bury Sarah before Mamre in Genesis 23.
It does not mention Shechem and it does not mention the people of Emmor, but if you go to Genesis 33:18-19:
And Jacob came to Shalem, a city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, when he came from Padanaram; and pitched his tent before the city. And he bought a parcel of a field, where he had spread his tent, at the hand of the children of Hamor, Shechem’s father, for an hundred pieces of money.
Acts 7 is pretty complicated and we will not get into that, but look again at Acts 7:16. Jacob and their fathers:
…were carried over into Sychem, and laid in the sepulchre that Abraham bought for a sum of money of the sons of [Hamor] Emmor the father of Sychem.
It is “Emmor” when you translate this into the Greek.
So it says “Jacob” in the Old Testament but “Abraham” here. This is another way that we can see in Galatians 3 that even if God is referring to Abraham, He is just using that as a name for the fathers of which Jacob was a father and Isaac was a father. Or it could be that He is not referring to Abraham in that verse but, instead, He is just setting the trap in the previous verse and the verse after, but He has in mind Jacob in verse 17. Either way, it points to Jacob entering Egypt in 1877 and the 430-year period beginning there.
We will stop here.