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It is not without significance that the length of the period which covers Exod. 1: 6, the
death of Joseph 2369, to the Exodus of Exod. 12: 40, 2513 is 144 years, a number
that carries the mind on to the overcomers under a greater tyrant than Pharaoh.
According to the record of Deut. 24: 7, 8, Moses was 120 years old when he died.
That means, that from the Exodus of Exod. 12:, to the end of Deuteronomy is another
period of 40 years. Now, with a book so ancient as the Pentateuch, we might expect that,
while quite a number of dates occur throughout the record of Israel's wanderings, yet,
absolute accuracy, that takes account of months, yea, of days, is neither to be looked for
nor expected. We are dealing however with an inspired volume, and the Higher Critical
conception of a veritable "Mosaic" of different authors put together long after the event
by an unknown and unhonoured "editor" makes the accuracy of this chronological data
verge upon the miraculous, so that it is simpler to believe that Moses wrote the whole
while under the inspiring control of God.
The first set of dates that must receive attention are those that link the Exodus with
the setting up of the Tabernacle, and these form a chain of three well-established links.
(1) From the Exodus to the Wilderness of Sin; (2) From the wilderness of Sin to the
giving of the Law at Sinai; (3) From Sinai to the erection of the Tabernacle. We find
our data in the following passages. A new date line is drawn at Exod. 12: 1.
"This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of
the year to you" (Exod. 12: 1).
"The fourteenth day of the same month" (Exod. 12: 6).
"It came to pass at midnight . . . . . Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth"
(Exod. 12: 29-37).
"And Moses wrote their goings out according to their journeys by the commandment
of the Lord . . . . . they departed from Rameses in the first month, on the fifteenth day of
the first month, on the morrow after the Passover" (Numb. 33: 2, 3).
"On the fifteenth day of the second month Israel came unto the wilderness of Sin, after
their departure out of the land of Egypt" (Exod. 16: 1).
Nothing could be more explicit. Exactly one month was occupied in this journey, and
we note the fact and pass on to the next station, Sinai.
"In the third month . . . . . the same day came they unto the wilderness of Sinai"
(Exod. 19: 1).
While Moses does not actually say "the fifteenth day" here, the words he uses "the
same day" indicate as much, and the happenings recorded in Exod. 16:, 17: and 18:
can scarcely be crowded into a lesser period. This then gives us one month to
Exod. 16: 1 and one month to Exod. 19: 1. We now consider the third link in this
chain. The tabernacle was erected,
"In the first month in the second year, on the first day of the month" (Exod. 40: 17).
This gives us a period of nine months and a half, and consequently Exod. 12:-40:
covers just eleven and a half months.