Bible Synapse

Were the Israelites in Egypt for 400 years or 430?

Hard question · Creation, the flood and the patriarchs · raised by 1 of the lists sceptics circulate

Different ways of counting
See the passages joined in the interactive map

The passages

Genesis 15:13

God tells Abram that his seed will be strangers in a land not theirs, and will be afflicted “four hundred years”.

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;

Exodus 12:40–41

“the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years”, ending on “the selfsame day”.

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 the Lord went out from the land of Egypt.

Galatians 3:17

Paul: the law, given “four hundred and thirty years after” the covenant God confirmed, cannot cancel the promise.

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.

Acts 7:6

Stephen repeats God’s word that Abraham’s seed would be enslaved and ill-treated “four hundred years”.

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.

The objection

God told Abram that his descendants would be strangers and afflicted for “four hundred years” (Genesis 15:13), and Stephen repeats the figure (Acts 7:6). But Exodus says that Israel’s stay lasted “four hundred and thirty years”, to the very day (Exodus 12:40–41). And Paul uses the 430 years for the time from God’s promise to Abraham to the giving of the law (Galatians 3:17), which seems to start the count much earlier. Which figure is right, and what does it measure?

The answer

The two figures do not compete. Genesis 15:13 is a prophecy, given in a round number, and Stephen quotes it as it was given. Exodus 12:40–41 is the record after the event, and it is exact: the 430 years ended on “the selfsame day”. Ancient writers commonly gave round figures when precision did not matter, as the same chapter does when it puts the return “in the fourth generation” (15:16), a generation there standing, as Haley notes, for about a hundred years.

Galatians 3:17 raises a further question: where did the 430 years begin? Christians have answered it in two ways, and both remove the conflict. The Greek Old Testament and the Samaritan Pentateuch read Exodus 12:40 as the sojourning in Egypt and in Canaan, and the Jewish historian Josephus counts the 430 years from Abraham’s coming into Canaan, only 215 of them in Egypt. On that reading the 430 years run from Abraham’s call to the Exodus, a little over 200 of them in Egypt; John Gill, counting from Abraham’s departure from Ur, adds up the ages in Genesis and reaches exactly 430, and Paul’s count fits closely. Many who hold this view count the 400 years of Genesis 15 from the birth of Isaac, Abraham’s seed. On the other reading, held by Keil and many others, Israel spent the whole 430 years in Egypt. Paul then counts from the promise as God last renewed it, to Jacob on his way down to Egypt (Genesis 46:3–4), or, as Keil thought, simply uses the figure familiar from the Greek Bible, since his argument needs only that the law came long after the promise. Either way Genesis, Exodus, Stephen and Paul are not at odds.

Still open

Whether Israel was in Egypt for about 215 years or the full 430 is still debated among Christian scholars. The short view fits the four generations from Levi to Moses (Exodus 6:16–20) and Paul’s count. The long view allows more time for seventy people to grow into a nation, and reads the genealogy as skipping generations, as biblical genealogies often do.

From the classic commentators

here, however, since the precise length of time did not affect his argument, we may suppose that he follows the commonly received view of his day, or, as Lange says, he may have regarded the death of Jacob as "the closing date of the time of the promise"J. W. Haley, Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible (1874), p. 419

Sources

Further reading

Raised by: The Skeptic’s Annotated Bible. Only the verse references come from these lists.

Checked 2026-10-22. All hard questions