Devotional Short Note on Genesis 32


In consultation with my wife I heard that the age of Jacob’s marriage is calculated with the life-span of Joseph, and if that is the case, that is what I will do here. The Exodus was in 1450 BCE and the Bible says that there was 400 years of slavery thus bringing us in 1850 BCE, not to the death of Joseph but to the pharaoh that did not know Joseph any longer, pharaoh Sesostris III, who’s face looks really in pain on his statues. He does not appear as if he was an easy person to get along with.

Now 30 years before this was the death of Joseph since Galatians 3:17-19 says the period from the last promise of God about the seed was with Joseph, thus 430 years before the law, which was given in 1448 BCE which would place us in 1878 BCE for the death of Joseph. Genesis 50:26 says that Joseph died at the age of 110. 1878+110 would bring us in 1988 and that was the year Joseph was born. Benjamin was not born yet. Isaac was to die in 1960 BCE.

Thus, the year Jacob would have had only 11 children, with Benjamin not born yet, was a year after 1988 for Joseph to be counted in the eleven indicated in Genesis 32:23 “And he rose up that night, and took his two wives, and his two handmaids, and his eleven children, and passed over the ford of the Jabbok” = וַיָּקָם בַּלַּיְלָה הוּא, וַיִּקַּח אֶת-שְׁתֵּי נָשָׁיו וְאֶת-שְׁתֵּי שִׁפְחֹתָיו, וְאֶת-אַחַד עָשָׂר, יְלָדָיו; וַיַּעֲבֹר, אֵת מַעֲבַר יַבֹּק.

The 20 years of working for Laban was probably completed circa 2010 BCE and he was free to move. The Jabbok experience would have been also around 1987 BCE.