Who came first, Jacob or Moses?

Job lived to the age of 140 years, and Jacob to 147 years. The ages of men, as recorded in the Book of Genesis, decline from Noah, who lived for 950 years, Shem, his son, died at 600, Shelah, the grandson of Shem, at 433, and Peleg, the grandson of Shelah, at 239. After three generations comes Abraham, who lived to be 175 years old, and after another three there is Joseph, who died at 110. Moses and Joshua, who died at 120 and 110 years respectively, seemed to have lived longer than their contemporaries, for Moses, in Psalm 90 writes, "The days of our years are threescore years and ten," showing that by his time the normal span of human life had been brought down to what it is now.

A question not easily answered is, How long were the Israelites in Egypt? In Gen. 15:13; Acts 7:6, the period seems to be stated as four hundred years. Ex. 12:40 says "the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years;" and Gal. 3:17 declares that the law was given four hundred and thirty years after the promise to Abraham. The promise to Abraham was long before Israel went into Egypt, and the law was given after they came out; so that according to this passage their sojourning in Egypt must have been much less than four hundred years. A much shorter period is implied in Gen. 15:16, which says of Israel in Egypt that "in the fourth generation they shall come hither again;" and if we turn to Ex. 6:16-20 we find exactly four generations, thus: Jacob's son Levi. Levi's son Kohath. Kohath's son Amram. Amram's son Moses.

Or, if we start with Levi, who entered with Jacob, there was ample time for Moses to have had a son, as he was eighty years old at the Exodus. Now if we reckon that at that time a man had his first son when he was forty years of age, there would have been ten generations in four hundred years. Further, the mother of Moses (Jochebed) was Levi's daughter, (Num. 26:59), Amram having married his own aunt. Ex. 6:20. Levi lived only a hundred and thirty-seven years in all, and supposing (it can be approximately proved) that he lived in Egypt eighty-eight years, Jochebed was born during those years. If Moses was born when she was forty-seven years of age, and Moses was eighty years old at the Exodus, these sums (88 + 47 + 80 = 215 years) show that Israel may have been in Egypt about two hundred and fifteen years, and this is the period now generally supposed.

He begins therefore their history from the beginning of God's way, that is, from Abraham, called out by the revelation of the God of glory, slow indeed to obey, but at length led by the patient grace of God into Canaan. Nevertheless, he was a stranger in the promised land; and bondage was to be the portion of his descendants, until God interposed in grace. The lot, therefore, of the blessed patriarch was not that of possessing the promises, but of being a stranger; and that of his descendants was to be captives until God delivered them with a strong arm. Nothing can be more striking than the calm superiority to circumstances displayed by Stephen. He recites to the Jews a history they could not deny, a history they boasted in, yet it condemned them utterly. They were doing as their fathers had done. But two persons are specially prominent in Stephen's account, in connection with the goodness of God towards Israel at this period — Joseph and Moses. Israel had rejected them both, given up Joseph to the Gentiles, rejected Moses as judge and leader. It was, in cases which the Jews could not deny or object to, the history of Christ also, who, too, at the time appointed of God, will indeed be the Redeemer of Israel. This is the substance of Stephen's argument. The Jews had always rejected those whom God had sent and in whom the Holy Ghost had acted, and the testimony of the same Holy Ghost in the prophets who had spoken of the Christ whom they had now betrayed and slain. Besides this, according to Moses, they had worshipped false gods, even from the time of their deliverance out of Egypt — a sin which, however great the long-suffering of God, would cause them to be carried away, now that they had filled up the measure of their iniquity, beyond the Babylon which had already been their punishment.

The root of the Olive Tree lay in God’s gracious working with Abraham, and by the time we get to Jacob’s descendants, we find the tree beginning to grow. There were twelve patriarchs, who had some knowledge of God, and by-and-by the branches and twigs and leaves are seen as a mighty nation was redeemed out of Egypt, the males twenty years old and upward numbering 603,550 men.

The seed of Abraham are now about to be put under the covenant from Mount Sinai, that gendered bondage. But I must notice this — that the Lord makes no mention whatsoever of such a thing in all His previous dealings either with them or their fathers. The affliction in Egypt had been noticed in the revelation of the divine purposes, touching his seed, to the patriarch Abram (Gen. 15), but no other affliction is at all alluded to. Egypt was to be the scene of the suffering which was to prepare them for becoming the people of God's covenant. The Lord's promises to the fathers were all of grace. "The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob" is the title of the God of Israel, as full of grace, and having salvation, and it was in that name that He claimed His people from the Egyptian king (Ex. 3:6, 8), and with that name He had marked, as it were, all His dealings with them from the Red Sea to the foot of Mount Sinai, where they are now, in chapter 19, standing. I say, throughout the execution of all this mighty deliverance, which He had begun, continued, and ended in His own strength, there is no mention of Sinai terrors, no hint at anything of the kind. The counsel and expectation, which are ever and faithfully kept in view, are simply this — the people holding a feast to the Lord in the wilderness, and then going up to the land of promise. (See — among other passages — Ex. 5:1; Ex. 6:1–8; Ex. 10:9, 26; Ex. 12:25; Ex. 13:5.)

Patriotism and family affection could have little play in a strange land; but be as it might, all alike were defied and trampled under foot by the cruel mandate of Egypt's king; and neither feeling, though benumbed by oppression and slavery, could be lacking to a race called and guided and kept as the seed of Abraham had been in and out of Canaan. But a still deeper principle lay underneath the promises made to their fathers, which bound together with these grand family expectations a hope still more ancient, mysterious, and wonderful. From the beginning of man's sinful and sad history the revelation of the woman's Seed shone as a star from the darkened heavens, the sure pledge of the serpent's destruction one day; and the blessing, not of their own line only but of all families of the earth in one of their line might be dormant, but could not be forgotten, no, not even in a day of affliction. And had not the word of Jehovah come to the first and greatest of their fathers, telling him that his seed would be a sojourner in a land not theirs, in bondage and affliction four hundred years, but that the nation which oppressed them should be the object of divine judgment, after which the chosen people should emerge with great substance? Was not the fourth generation to see them return to Canaan?

Then comes a lesson with which the saints, generally, are made familiar, since it is one wrought out in their histories. Esau entered into his possession; but when Edom's armed men held their strongholds, "Jacob and his children went down into Egypt." There for centuries they possessed but God's promise, for as a nation they were buried in the bondage of Egypt. This is a familiar experience of God's children, who have to learn to trust in God's word, and to walk by faith, and to wait in patience. But God's arm fails not, in due time the deliverance came. "I sent Moses also and Aaron, … I brought your fathers out of Egypt." The Lord "sent," and the Lord "brought out." All was of Him.

The condition of the people and the call of a deliverer. The narrative is linked with the closing part of Genesis by the repetition of the names of Jacob's family who came down into Egypt. Next, we have the multiplication of the people from a family into a race. As long as Joseph and his brethren live under the beneficent favor of Pharaoh, who had experienced the blessing of God through Joseph, the people prosper. After that generation has passed away, however, another king tyrannizes over Israel, and we see the smoking furnace which God promised would come in the vision which he gave to Abraham (Gen. 15). There is an evident twofold tyranny over the people. Lest they should be exalted into the place of primacy in the land on the one side, or, on the other, escape entirely and so the Egyptians lose their service, the edict went forth that all their males were to be slain. Thus the nation would be kept in servitude, unable to escape, and yet furnish slaves to do the work of the Egyptians. Their oppression and misery cause them to cry aloud under the distress,while the faith of individuals that lays hold of God and refuses to obey the king's commandment shows how God works through His people who count upon Him.

It is just at this juncture, when Israel was in despair and Moses was overwhelmed, that the record introduces the genealogy of Aaron and Moses, and their high dignity as God's servants in the deliverance of Israel. And we see that, though Israel was enslaved, still there eras no loss in their tribal order or in the headship of their princes. Israel was a nation: it was not reduced to a herd of slaves even at the time of its most bitter and hopeless bondage. The genealogy indicates a new starting point in the divinely given history. In this case it begins the story of the era of fulfilment of the promise of deliverance.

First, then, it is striking to notice that their history as a nation began with the afflictions of Egypt. To Abram it was said, "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" (Gen. 15:13), and it was in connection with that prophecy that Abram had the vision of the smoking furnace and the burning lamps passing between the pieces of his sacrifice. Into Egypt's smoking furnace of affliction Abram's seed passed. It was an unpromising beginning, for Jacob and his sons were far beneath Abram's spiritual level. They came down as a small tribe of quarrelsome and suspicious nomads into Goshen, apparently ignorant of what awaited them.