Why did God send the Israelites to Egypt for 400 years?
Genesis 15:13
ESV - 13 Then the Lord said to Abram, "Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years.
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Asked July 01 2013
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Anonymous (via GotQuestions)
For follow-up discussion and general commentary on the topic. Comments are sorted chronologically.
Sandra Butler
There are some excellent reasons given here ..... Adding to which
I would propose that because his brother's sold him into Egypt as a slave and then later after Israel, that is Jacob had passed away and was buried his brother's had come to Joseph, being afraid that he would now punish them for what they did to him, ....
They then said in Genesis 50 verse 18 forgive us, and bowing down to him, said, we are your slaves, ..... given that he was an Egyptian ruler when they made this vow - one could say those very words came to pass; they spoke their destiny.
God had said that they would be in Egypt for 400 years he didn't say that they would be slaves. Their action of selling their own brother into into slavery, then later pledging themselves to become slaves of Egypt because they could neither forgive themselves nor receive Joseph's forgiveness gave them the slave mentality, an example for us as Believers to both forgive and receive forgiveness and cancel out vows we have made otherwise it will be visited upon our progeny for generations to come.
Allan Templeton
Moses wrote all of the information regarding the history of the world to date during the forty years in the wilderness, including the covenant with Abram from Genesis 15:13 re the 400 years as sojourners. We should never forget that Moses was writing to this specific "Exodus Generation" of whom God had said to Moses when He commissioned him, that He (God) had heard the groining of His people. Why did He wait so long to hear them?
God said through Moses in the second commandment that ... He would punish His people to the third AND fourth generations for the sins of their parents. My understanding is that throughout history generations have been calculated using different criteria: (1) forty years for a generation from birth to bearing offspring (2) 100 years for the approximate lifespan from birth to death or (3) some type of hybrid of the first two - namely 70 years. If one applies the 100 year model we find punishment of slavery for approximately 400 years... or "to the third and fourth generations"; those generation being the three generations and part of the fourth generation of slavery in Egypt, the balance of the fourth died during the 40 years of the Exodus wandering. Hence the third AND the forth generations. Following the consistent rebellion of Israel God basically informed them that the last of the fourth generation would die in the wilderness.
I note the use of the word "and" rather than "or" which is what one might expect in such a statement i.e. the third OR fourth generation. God was not giving some sort of approximate timeframe He was being specific in giving an explanation to Israel as to why He had waited so long to deliver them.
It is very easy to forget that all of this stuff that Moses was writing was very new to these people. Moses was giving them a complete update on many of the "whys" as well as a massive 2,500 year history lesson while at the same time drawing up their covenant with God for their future (and ours also).