Lesson
The Exodus
Moses is 80. Ten strikes, a lamb, a sea. Year 2668 if the 430 years start at Jacob's arrival. About 1446 BC or about 1260 BC, and Merneptah says Israel is in the land by 1208.
October 7, 2026
A king rises who does not know Joseph. Israel is enslaved in brick and field. The midwives fear God and let the boys live. A Levite child is hidden, drawn out of the Nile, and named Moses. He kills an Egyptian, flees, and keeps sheep in Midian for years. At Horeb the LORD speaks from a bush that burns and is not consumed. The name He gives is I AM.
Moses is 80, and Aaron 83, when they stand before Pharaoh. The demand does not change. Let my people go, that they may serve me. The ten strikes are told, plague by plague, on The Plagues of Egypt. This lesson does not retell each one. It tells what the night was for, and when to put it.
On the tenth day a lamb is taken. On the fourteenth it is killed at twilight. The blood is put on the doorposts and the lintel. They eat in haste. At midnight the LORD strikes the firstborn of Egypt and passes over the houses with the blood. Pharaoh drives them out. A mixed multitude goes with them, and flocks, and the bones of Joseph.
At the sea, the pillar moves behind them. Moses stretches out his hand. A wind drives the sea back all night. Israel crosses on dry ground. The Egyptians go in after them. Moses stretches out his hand again, and the water returns. Israel sees the Egyptians dead on the shore, and the people fear the LORD and believe Him and His servant Moses. Miriam sings. Three days later they are grumbling about water. Rescue does not rewrite the heart in a weekend.
The year the book gives
The time that Israel lived in Egypt was 430 years, to that very day. If that count starts when Jacob enters, year 2238, the exodus is year 2668. That reading, and the other ways of counting the 400 and the 430, are in Four Hundred and Thirty Years. The Hebrew year on the timeline card is this one, and it is labeled as this reading.
A second biblical number sets a BC estimate. Solomon founds the temple in his fourth year, 480 years after the sons of Israel came out. If that fourth year is about 966 BC, the exodus is about 1446 BC, and the crossing into the land about 1406. Many scholars do not accept that straight count, and the Merneptah stele only tells us Israel was in Canaan by about 1208 BC.
The is the feast later reads as filled in Christ, a lamb, blood, a night the Lord passed over. That reading is Feasts of the First Coming. The night itself is this night, in this year of the story, with shoes on and a staff in the hand.
The year of the exodus is argued. It is about 1446 BC if the 480 years of are an exact count, and about 1260 BC if the city of Rameses and the Late Bronze Age set the clock. The Merneptah stele only tells us Israel was in Canaan by about 1208 BC.
This lesson's home is Timeline.