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"Moses was forty years in Pharaoh's court and forty years in Midian, and forty years
he served Israel. Rabba Jochanan Ben Zaccai exercised merchandise forty years, was
learning the law forty years, and forty years he ministered to Israel. R. Akibah was an
illiterate person forty years, he bent himself to study forty years, and forty years he
ministered to Israel" (Hebrew and Talmudical Exercitations on the Acts).
From Exod. 7: 7 and Acts 7: 30 we learn that Moses was eighty years of age at
the end of the Midian sojourn, when he stood before Pharaoh. Going back to our
chronological lists we find that from the call of Abram to the death of Joseph
(2083-2369) was 286 years. If we add the age of Moses 286 + 80 = 366, and subtract
this sum from 430 (430 366 = 64), we discover that the interval between the death of
Joseph and the birth of Moses was 64 years. We can now continue our table of dates and
carry it forward from the record of Genesis.
2369
Joseph died at the age of 110 years (50: 26).
64
Add 64 years to the birth of Moses.
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2433
Moses born (Exod. 2: 2).
The reader will remember that in Gen. 15: 16, the Lord said that Israel would return
from their bondage "in the fourth generation". In Exod. 6: 16-20 we have the
genealogy of Moses from Levi.
"These are the names of the sons of Levi according to their generations: Gershon, and
Kohath and Merari . . . . . the sons of Kohath, Amram . . . . . and Amram took him
Jochebed his father's sister to wife; and she bare him Aaron and Moses."
It is evident that Amram married his aunt, and until the law, there was apparently
nothing revealed that would forbid such a union. Numb. 26: 59 adds to the genealogy
of Exod. 6:, the comment:
"The name of Amram's wife was Jochebed, the daughter of Levi, whom her mother
bare to Levi in Egypt."
LEVI
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Kohath
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Amram ------------- married ------------ Jochebed
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MOSES
"In the fourth generation."
Four generations therefore do actually span the interval, strange as it may appear at the
first.