The Departure from Egypt

Notes

"And they borrowed of the Egyptians jewels of silver, and jewels of gold; and raiment." Ex. 12:35. It may be noticed, in passing, that the word rendered "jewels" more properly signifies "vessels," "instruments," etc. But the object of this note is to disabuse the minds of any of the idea that the Israelites, according to the word of God, borrowed from the Egyptians that which they knew there was no possibility of repaying. They did not borrow these things, but demanded them, as the Hebrew word indicates. The Hebrew word here rendered "borrowed" is the same that is rendered "require" in Deut. 10:12: "And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all his ways," etc. Here, it will be readily seen, the idea is not of asking something which should be returned, but of asking that which is justly due. So it is in Ex. 12:35. The Revised Version has it, "They asked of the Egyptians." The Israelites had been working for the Egyptians for many years, without compensation. They had added immensely to the wealth of Egypt (see Ex. 1:11); indeed, the Egyptians owed their very existence under God, to the Hebrews, for if it had not been for the wise counsel and vigorous action of Joseph, they would have perished by famine. And now, when the Israelites were about to leave, they demanded of their former oppressors some little compensation; and the Lord had so moved upon the hearts of the Egyptians that they could not refuse. Just as his judgments had made them willing to let the Israelites go, so they had made them willing to pay something of what they justly owed. Dr. Clarke says that our common English version is almost the only transgressor in representing the Israelites as borrowing; that the Septuagint, the Vulgate, the Samaritan, the Coptic, and the Persian, are the same as the Hebrew, and that the European versions are generally correct.

Gen. 15:13 says: "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." Ex. 12:40 says: "Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years." Mark that this latter text does not say that the children of Israel dwelt in Egypt four hundred and thirty years; but that the sojourning of the children of Israel, "who dwelt in Egypt," was so long. Their sojourning was not alone in Egypt, but in Canaan, as Paul says of Abraham: "By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise." Heb. 11:9. And in harmony with this is the reading of the Samaritan Pentateuch, and the Alexandrian copy of the Septuagint, which are believed to exhibit the most correct copy of the five books of Moses. They read thus:—

"Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, and of their fathers, which they sojourned in the land of Canaan, and in the land of Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years."

This four hundred and thirty years of sojourning dates from the promise to Abraham; for Paul speaks of the giving of the law, which was immediately after the deliverance from Egypt, as four hundred and thirty years after the promise. Gal. 3:17, 18. But while the sojourning was four hundred and thirty years, the affliction was only four hundred years. Gen. 15:13; Acts 7:6. Therefore, since the four hundred and thirty years of sojourn began with the giving of the promise, the affliction must have begun thirty years after the promise; and this was when Isaac was about five years old, for he was not born until twenty-five years after the promise. Compare Gen. 12:1-4 and 21:5. So the affliction dates from the time when Ishmael mocked Isaac (Gen. 21:9, 10), for Paul refers to this as the persecution of him that was born after the Spirit, by him that was born after the flesh.