moses and pharoah

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M O S E S AND P H ARAO H .


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Other books by Gary North

Marxk Religion of Revolution, 1968 An Introduction to Christian Economics, 1973Foundations of Christian Scho la r shz#(editor), 1976 Unconditional Surrendeq 1981Successy%lInvesting in an Age ~ Env~ 1981The Dominion Covenant: Genest i ,1982Governm ent By Em ergency 1983

The Last Train Out, 1983 Backward , Christian S oldiers?, 198475 Bible Questions E u r Instructors Pray h Wont Ask, 1984Coined Freedom: Gold in the Age of the Bureaucrats, 1984

Negatrends, 1985Th e S inai Strate~, 1986 Conspiraq: A Biblical View, 1986 Unho~ S pirits: Occultism and N ew Age Humanism, 1986


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MOSES AND P H AR AOHD o m i n i o n R e l i g i o n Ve r s u s P o w e r R e l i g i o n

G a r y N o r t h

I n s t i t u t e f o r C h r i s t i a n E c o n o m i c sTyler, Texas


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Copyright 01985Gary North

Secondprinting, 1986

Pu blished byThe Institute for Christian Economics

P. O. B O X 8000Tyler, Texas 75711


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This book is dedicated to

Robert A. Nisbet

who taught me to ask two crucialquestions: What is the n at ur eof social change? and What

is so natural about it? -


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ixIntroduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

1. Population Growth: Tool of Dominion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112. Imperial Bureaucracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283. Rigorous Waste . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 504. lllegitimate State Power. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 635. Envy, Rumor, and Bondage. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 696. Cum ula tive Tra nsgr ession an d Restit ut ion . . . . . . . . . . . . 797. The Optimum Production Mix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 888. Covenan ta l J udgm ent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 1049. Original Own ersh ip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 116

10. Total Sacrifice, Total Sovereignty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 1241 l. Separation and Dominion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13212. Continuity and Revolution.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 14213. Un condit ional Su rrender . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17714. The Rule of Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..18815. The Firstborn Offering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 24716. The Psychology of Slavery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 25417. The Metaphor of Growth: Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 26218. Manna, Predictability, and Dominion . . . . . . . . . . . . .. .27419. Imperfect Justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .282

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...295APPENDIX AThe Reconstruction of Egypts Chronology.. 299A P P E N D I X B - The Demographics of Decline . . . . . . . . . . ... 326APPENDIX CThe Labyrinth andtheGarden . . . . . . . . . ... 369SCRIPTURE IN DE X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 389GENERAL INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 397

WHAT IS TH E ICE? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 421

vii


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PREFACE

This book is the first section of volume 2 of my series, An Eco-nom ic Com m entary on th e Bible. It is Par t 1 of The Dominion Couenant :Ex-odus. Volum e 1 wa s T he Dom inion Covenant : Genesis (Institute forChristian Economics, 1982). The focus of this commentary is onth ose as pects of th e Book of E xodu s t ha t r elat e to economics. Never-th eless, it is broa der t ha n a na rr owly defined economic an alysis, forbiblical economics is broader than strictly economic analysis. Theearly nineteenth-century term, political economy, is closer to the

biblical norm for economics; the late eighteenth-century term,mora l ph ilosophy, is closer yet.It would be unwise for me to repeat the foundational material

th at I covered in Dominion Covenant: Genesis. In t ha t book, I made th estr ongest case t ha t I could for th e existen ce of a un iquely Christianeconomics, especially with respect to epistemology: What can weknow, and how can we know it? This book is based on the epis temo-logical foundation laid down in volume 1. For those who are uninter-

ested in epistemology and there are a lot of you in this category Ican only resta te m y origina l position: it is not th at th ere is a mea n-ingful Christian economics among all other economic schools of th ought; it is th at th ere is on ~ Christian economics. There is no othersu re fou nd at ion of tr u e kn owledge except th e Bible. The on ly firm lygrounded economics is Christian economics. All non-Christian ap-proaches are simply crude imitations of the truth imitations thatcannot be logically supported, given their own first principles con-cern ing God, ma n , law, an d k nowledge. Biblica l econ omics is th ere-~fore at war with all other economic systems.

We can see th is in th e conflict between Moses an d P ha ra oh. Thisconflict wa s a con flict wh ich involved ever y a spect of life, includin geconomics. We need to understand the theological issues that dividedEgypt from Israel in order to understand similarly divisive a p-

ix


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x MOSES AND P HARAOH

preaches to economics and political theory today. Economic disa-greements today are closely related to the same theological divisions

tha t separat ed Moses from P ha ra oh.There is no doubt that Pharaoh knew some things about eco-nomics. If we do not assume this, we can make no sense of his ac-tions. He a lso kn ew a grea t d eal about biblical law. But th is knowl-edge only led to his cond emn at ion, just as it does in th e cas e of allother forms of non-Christian knowledge. The anti-Christians haveenough knowledge to condemn them eternally, but not enough toconstruct a progressive long-term civilization. They have occasionally

constructed long-term static civilizations, most notablyChina, but only through the imposition of tyranny. 1

Using Humanists to Defeat Humanism

Similarly, modern economists have considerable

Egypt an d

knowledgeabout the workings of the market, and the failures associated with allforms of central economic planning. But again and again, the offi-

cially neutral, value-free economists appeal to biblical notions of peace and prosperity. The idea of value-free science is a myth. So itis time t o ta ke u p wher e Moses left of f with a challenge to huma nis-tic economics.

Readers will find that I cite the writings of many economists andsocial thinkers. I u se th eir insights insight s t ha t ar e stolen from the

Bible when they are correct. When men come to conclusions that arealso the conclusions of the Bible, we should use their discoveries.

These discoveries ar e our pr opert y, not t heirs . God owns th e world;th e devil owns n oth ing. We ar e Gods a dopted children ; they a reGods disin h erit ed children . Ther efor e, I am quit e willing to citesecular scholars at length, since I know that most readers haveneither the time nor access to the sources to follow up on every idea.I do not expect the majority of my readers to master the intricatedetails of every scholars argument, nor m a s t e r my refutations or ap-plications of their insights.

When we read Christian refutations of this or that writer inbooks writ ten a gener at ion a go, let alone a cent ur y or a millenn iumago, we find that the reading is slow going. Why did the authors

1. Kar l Witt fogel, Oriental Despotism: A Comparative S t t i y of Total Power (NewHaven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1957),, reprinted in 1981 by VintageBooks.


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spend so much space dealing with such dead issues? we ask our-selves. The an swer is simple: becau se when th e books were wr itt en,those issues were not dead. Similarly, a hundred years from now,any readers who may stumble across this book will skim over most of its exten ded quota tions . Few work s of scholarsh ip in one gener at ionsurvive into the next, and the writers I cite or refute will be long-forgotten for the most part. Indeed, many of them are not well-known today. I am not devoting time simply to refute every erroneousidea in sight; I am using these citations as examples, as springboardsto introduce explicitly biblical interpretations. The scholars I cite arevery often foils for m e; I wan t r eader s t o kn ow th at su ch idea s existan d need refut ing or r eint erpret ing.

The most important thing is how well I integrate such humanisticinsigh t s in to my biblica l recons t ru ction of economics, without 1) los-ing the importance of these insights or 2) becoming a slave of the hu-manist presuppositions which officially undergird such insights. Butthis is the most important task in any field. Every Christian faces thisproblem. We buy and sell with pagans in many marketplaces, andone of these marketplaces is the marketplace for ideas. We must useth eir best ideas against th em, and we mu st expose th eir worst ideasin order to undermine mens confidence in them. In short, in Godsuniverse, it is a question of heads, we win; tails, they lose .

The Outrage of the Christian Classroom Compromisers

It is import ant to understan d from t he beginning that th e per-spective expoun ded in t his book is un popu lar in a cad emic Chr istian

circles. Two economic ideas domina te th e t hin king of th e t went iethcentury: the idea of central economic planning, and the idea of themixed economy, meaning interventionism by the civil governmentinto the economy: Keynesianism, fascism, or the corporate state.Men have had great confidence in the economic wisdom of the State,at least un til th e 1970s. Most Ch rist ian academics in t he socialsciences still go along enthusiastically with some variant of thisstatist ideology. Thus, when the y are confronted with what the Bible

really t eaches in t he field of political economy, they rea ct in hor ror.Most am usin gly, one of th ese inter ventionists h as a ccused m e of holding En lightenm ent ideas,z not rea lizing th at he a nd h is associ-

2. Ronald Sider, Rich Ch ristians in an Age of Hu nger (rev. ed.; Downer s Grove,Illinois: Inter-Varsity Press, 1984), p. 102.


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ates are the true heirs of the dominant Enlightenment tradition, thetradition which exalts the State. When these radical Christian crit-

ics think Enlightenment , they think Adam Smith. They obviouslydo not un dersta nd t he En lighten ment . When we look a t t he h istori-cal r esults of th e En lightenm ent, we should th ink Fr ench Revolu-t ion, Rus sian Revolut ion, a nd Pr esident Fr an klin Roosevelts NewDeal. We should think the glorification of the State.

The Enlightenment had its right wing, of course, and AdamSmith was in it, but he was heavily influenced by the moral ideals of Deism, which were in t ur n a pale reflection of Chr istian th eism. 3 Bu t

this individualistic tradition barely survived the revolutionary andsta t ist E nlight enmen t h eritage. What th e successful bearers of th etorch of th e En lighten ment did was to set Eu rope on fire in th ename of liberty, fraternity, and equality. James Billingtons book hasdescribed it well: Fire in the M i n d s of Men (1980). It was t he left wingof th e Enlight enmen t wh ich t rium phed. When men dei~ mankind,the y almost always wind up deifying the State, the highest collectiveof man kind , th e a poth eosis of man s power. Th ey become ad her ent s

of th e power r eligion .I r eject all Enlight enmen t th ought . This is w h y I reject most of

what is taught in your typical Christian college. The baptized hu-ma nism of the m odern Chr istian college classr oom, especially in t hesocial sciences an d hu ma nit ies, ha s led man y people ast ra y. This isone rea son why I wrote m y litt le book, 75 Bible Questions Your lnJtruc-tors Pray Y ou Wont A d (P. O. Box 7999, Tyler, Texas: Spurgeon Press,1984; $4.95). It is su btitled, How to Spot Hu ma nism in t he Clas s-

room and the Pulpit . There is a lot of it to spot. The book is an anti-dote to baptized humanism.

Wha t th e t ypical Ch rist ian college cour se in th e social sciencesteaches is left-wing Enlightenment thought: naive Kantianism,warmed-over Darwinism, armchair Marxism (especially his theoryof class cons cious ness a nd . the in na te dish ar mony of int erest s), andth e discar ded economic policies of some Pr esidentia l ad min istr at ionof a decade a nd a ha lf earlier. It is all taught in th e na me of J esus, in

the interests of Christian social concern and relevant Christianity.They fight that great bugaboo of 1880-1900, Social Darwinism(which hardly anyone has ever believed in), in the name of Christian-

3. Adam Smith,T he T h e m yof Moral Sentiment-s(1759), with a n ew int roductionbyE. G. West (Indianapolis, Indiana: Liberty Classics, 1976). -


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Xlll

it y, but th ey do so by means of th e sam e ar guments th at th e foundersof the dominant intellectual stream, Darwinian central planning,used a gainst t he Social D a r w i n i s t s . q They p eddle t h e conclusion s of the really dangerous brand of Darwinism the Darwinism of theplanning elite5 in the na me of Christian ity.

The hue and cry against my explicitly revelational Christian eco-nomics has now been raised in the unread little journals of the Chris-tian academic community. b What has offended them most is theheavy reliance I place on Old Testament law. On this point, they arein agreement with the antinomian pietists: all such laws are nolonger binding.T

Why this hostility to Old Testament law, or even New Testamentinst ru ctions? Beca us e Old Testa men t la w ca tegorically rejects t h eus e of ta xes to pr omote st a tist social welfa re pr ogra m s. It ca tegoric-a lly rejects t he idea of St at e power in coercive wealt h -red istr ibut ionprograms. Samuel warned the people against raising up a king, forthe king would take ten percent of their income (1 Sam. 8:15, 17). Hepromised that the State would, in short, extract the equivalent of Gods t ithe from th e ha pless citizenr y. And in t he t wentieth cent ur y,most modern industrial civil governments extract four to five timesGods tit he. The t a x policies of th e modern welfa re St a te a re t her e-fore immoral. More than this: they are demonic.

Proof texting, proof texting! cry the church-attending Dar-

4. The best int roduction t o th e history of th is subject is Sidney Fin e, Laissez Faireand the General- W-~are S tate: A S t u d yof ConJut in American Th ought, 1865-1901 (Ann Ar-bor: University of Michigan Press, 1956).

5. Gary North , Th e Dom inion Covmant :Genesis, Appendix A: Fr om Cosmic Pur -poselessness to Humanistic Sovereignty.

6. See, for example, the essay by Thomas E. Van Dahm, professor of economicsat Car th age College (which I ha d never before h ear d of), The Chr istian Fa r Rightan d t he E conomic Role of the St at e , Christian Scholars Reoiew,XII (1983), pp. 17-36.He peddled another diatr ibe, this t ime against th e biblical case for th e gold sta nd-ard, to Th e J ournal of th e American Scientt$c Ajil iation,XXXVII (March 19$4): TheChristian Far Right and Economic Policy Issues? This journal originally devoted itsspace to essays critical of the six-day creation position, but in recent years, it hasbranched out, publishing articles that deny the legitimacy of applying Old Testa-men t biblical st an dar ds in man y oth er a cademic ar eas besides geology an d biology.

7. Van Dahm writes: This article did not deal with the basic issue of whether OldTestam ent laws an d even New Testam ent instr uctions ar e binding on Chris-tians and others in contemporary society. A recent treatment of this issue,offering a definite no answer I found persuasive is Walter J . Chantrys Go#sRight-eous K ingd om . . . . J A S A ,p. 35, footnote 44, Here we have it: the defenders of power r eligion (sta tist plan ning) join han ds with t he defenders of escapist r eligion(antinomianpietism) in their opposition to dominion religion(bibiical law),

.


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winists of the college classroom. (Proof texting apparently meansciting a biblical passage which undercuts their position. ) These menth ink th at J ohn Maynar d Keynes General Theoy (which, in fact, theyhave never read, since practically no one ever has, so convoluted areits language and arguments) is the essence of permanent truth, on apar with Newtons Princz@a (which they also have never read). Onth e oth er h an d, they regard t he Old Testa ment as th e Word of God(emeritus).

Perh aps th e most n ota ble exam ple of th is sort of th inking is theKeynesian-Chr istian economist, Pr ofessor (emeritu s) DouglasVicker s. He ha s a dopt ed Keynes economic theories in t he na me of J esus, bu t h e ha s n ot a dopted Keynes economy of lan gua ge. Thu s,he does his best to refute my approach to economics with argumentssuch as this one: . . . it is the economists task so to understand thedeeper determinants of economic conjectures and affairs that his pol-icy prescriptions can be intelligently and properly shaped towardtheir proper ordering, or, where it is considered necessary, their cor-rection and resolution. This should be done in such a way as to ac-

cord with the demands of both those deeper causal complexes nowperceived in t he light of Gods word an d pu rpose, and th e requ ire-ments and basic desiderata of economic thought and administration .sThis is what he substitutes for Thus saith the Lord! His book has yet to go into a second printing. I can understand why not.

These scholar s regar d th e Old Testam ent as a kind of discar dedfirst draft. Now that God has wisely seen fit to revise it (that is, nowthat He has completely replaced it), they argue, it is wrong to appeal

to it as the basis for the construction of a Christian social order.g Butthe Christian Reconstructionists continue to appeal to all Old Testa-ment laws th at ha ve not been explicitly revised by the New Testa -ment. So the classroom scholars are outraged; they are incensed;they threaten to hold their breath until they turn blue if Reconstruc-t ionists keep writing books like this one. They have sounded thealar m. But n obody pays much a tt ention t o th em. This enra ges th emeven more. Their temper tantrums probably will get even worse. It

is best to ignore t hem . They ha ve bet on th e wrong h orse the wel-fare State and they resent anyone who tries to embarrass, let alonesh oot, th is aging horse.

8. Douglas Vicker s, Economics and Man: Prelude to a Christian Critique (Nut ley, N ewJersey: Craig Press, 1976), p. 90.

9. See, for exam ple, Vickers rem ar ks t o th is effect: ibid., pp. 47-48.


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Preface xv

The End of an Era

The fires of the Enlightenment are beginning to burn low. The

civilization of the Enlightenment is losing confidence in its own prin-ciples. Perha ps even m ore importa nt , it zsbeginning to lose fai th in th e

future. The American historian-sociologist Robert Nisbet has put itwell:

It wa s belief in t he sa cred a nd th e myth ological t ha t in th e beginning of Western history made possible belief in and assimilation of ideas of time,history, development, and either progress or regress. Only on the basis of confidence in the existence of divine power was confidence possible withrespect to design or pattern in the world and in the history of theworld. . .

But it is absent now, whether ever to be recovered, we cannot know.And with th e absen ce of the sen se of sacredn ess of kn owledge th ere is n owto be seen in more a nd more a rea s a bsence of real resp ect for or confidencein kn owledge tha t is, the kin d of kn owledge th at proceeds from reasonand its intrinsic disciplines. From the Enlightenment on, an increasingnumber of people came to believe that reason and its works could maintain

a moment um an d could preserve their st at us in society with n o influencesave which they themselves generated. But the present age of the revoltagainst reason, of crusading irrationalism, of the almost exponentialdevelopment and diffusion of the occult, and the constant spread of n a r -cicissm and solipsism make evident enough how fallible were and are thesecular foundations of modern thought. It is inconceivable that faith ineither progress as a historical reality or in progress as a possibility can existfor long, to the degree that either concept does exist at the present moment,am id such alien an d hostile int ellectu al forces. IJ

The leaders of this staggering humanist civilization have nowad opt ed t he st ra tegy of every dying civilizat ion which ha s ever lost

the confidence of its citizens: they resort to the exercise of raw power.This was the strategy of the Roman Empire, and it failed. 11 Thissubstitution of power-for ethics is the essence of the satanic delusion. It isthe essence of the power religion. It also is the essence of failure.

Wha t will replace th is pha se of hu ma nist civilizat ion? Some ver-sion of the society which Solzhen i t syn has called the Gulag Ar -

10. Robert Nisbet, Histo~of the Idea of Progress (New York: Basic Books, 1980), p.355.

11. Cha rles Norris Cochrane, ChristianiQ and CiassicalCulture: A S tud y of Thought and Action from Augustus to Augustine (New York : Oxford Un iversity P ress , [1944]1957).


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xvi MOSES AND PH ARAOH

chipelago? As a form ofjudgment, t h is is possible. God u sed Assyriaan d Babylon as rods of iron to bring Isr ael t o repen ta nce. Or will itbe th e st eady grin ding down of freedom by th e Wests m as sive bu-r eau cra cies? This wa s Ma x Webers vision of t h e fu tu r e of th e West,an d it is not a pr etty pictu re. 12It has also come progressively truesince he wrote his warnings from 1905 to 1920. Or will it be a new so-ciety based on a religious revival? Nisbet h as seen t his a s a rea l possi-bility: Much more probable, I believe, is the appearance of yeta n oth er full-blown a wak en ing, even a ma jor r eligious refor ma t ion .For some time now we have been witnessing what might properly be

called the beginnings of such a transformation, beginnings whichra nge from popular to scholarly, from eru ptions of fun dam ent alism,pentecostalism an d, even within th e J ewish, Roma n Cath olic an dProtestant establishments, mil lennia l i sm all th e way to wha t h as t obe rega rd ed a s a tr ue efflorescence of form al theology.13

The time has come for a program of Christian reconstruction.Something new must replace humanism, from the bottom up, inevery sphere of human existence. The dominion religion must

r eplace th e power r eligion . Hu ma n isms world is collapsin g, both in-tellectually and institutionally, and it will drag the compromisedChristian academic world into th e abyss with it . Tha t is where t heyboth belong. Weep n ot for th eir pa ssing. And if you ha ppen to spotsome a spect of hu ma nism which is beginn ing to wobble, ta ke a n a p-propriat e action. Pu sh it .

Liberation from the State

The liberation theologians keep appealing to the Book of Exodusas their very special book. Michael Walzer s study of Exodus callsth is assert ion into question. Walzer s earlier studies of the Puritanrevolution established h im a s a n au th ority in t he field. His stu dy of Exodus argues that this story has affected politics in the West,especially radical politics, for many centuries. But it is a story whichdoes not fit the model used by liberation theologians, whose enemy isth e free ma rk et social order . As he sa ys, th e Isra elites were not t he

victims of th e ma rk et bu t of th e sta te, th e absolut e mona rchy of th epha ra ohs . Hen ce, Sam uels war nin g to th e elders of Isr ael aga inst

12. Gary North, Max Weber: Rationalism, Irrationalism, and the BureaucraticC a g e ; in Nort h (cd.), Foundations of Christian S cholars+: Essays in the Van T il Pers@c-tioe (Vallecito, California : Ross House, 1976).

13. Nisbet , op. cit., p. 357.


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choosing a king. . . . Egyptian bondage was the bondage of a peopleto the arbitrary power of the state . 1A

The misuse of the Exodus story by liberation theologians isanother example of the misuse of the Bible generally to promoteanti-biblical social, political, and economic views. This is why prac-tical comm ent ar ies dealing with specific disciplines ar e n eeded. TheBible still commands great authority, and this public perception of the Bibles authority is increasing, especially regarding social issues.This willingn ess on t he pa rt of social crit ics t o appea l to th e Bible isitself a m ajor brea k with th e recent pa st, yet a r etur n t o a m ore dis- ,

t an t past .Prior to 1660, it was common for conservatives and radicals to

appeal to the Bible to defend their visions of a righteous social order.Almost overnight, in 1660, this appeal to the Bible ended. Defendersof the free market appealed to logic or experience rather than debat-a ble religious or mora l views. 15Socialists a nd reform ers also drop-ped their appeal to the Bible after 1660, again, almost overnight.Shafarevich writes: The development of socialist ideas did not

cease, of cour se. On t he cont ra ry, in t he sevent eent h a nd eight eent hcenturies, socialist writings literally flooded Europe. But these ideaswere pr odu ced by differen t circumst an ces a nd by men of a differen tment ality. The prea cher an d t he wan dering Apostle gave way t o apublicist and philosopher. Religious exaltation and references torevelat ion wer e replaced by ap peals t o rea son. The litera tu re of so-cialism acquired a purely secular and rationalistic character; newmeans of polarization were devised: works on this theme now fre-

quent ly appear un der t he guise of voyages t o un kn own lan ds, in te r-l a r d e d w i t h f r i v o l o u s episodes.lG .

The Exodus was a tim e of libera tion libera tion from t he st at istsocial order that had been created by adherents of the powerreligion. The spiritu al h eirs of th ose sta tist Egyptian s ar e now com-ing before t he spir itu al heirs of th e Isra elites with a n ew claim: th eneed to be liberated from the institutions of the once-Christian West.They offer chains in the name of liberation, bureaucracy in the name

of individu al freedom, a nd cent ra l economic plan nin g in th e na me of

14. Michael Walzer, Exodus and Resolution (New York: Basic Books, 1985), p. 30.15. William Letwin , T he Origins of S cimt@c Economics (Gar den Cit y, New York:

Anchor, 1965), ch. 6.16. Igor Shafarevich, T he S ocialist Phenomenon (New York: Harper & Row, [1975]

1980), pp. 80-81.

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Xvlll MOSES AND PHARAOH

prosperity. They offer m en a ret ur n t o power r eligion in th e na me of the God of the Bible. What this commentary offers, in contrast, is a

ca ll for men to ret u rn to dominion r eligion the r eligion of biblicalorthodox-y.

How to Read This Book

There is an old line tha t asks: How do you eat an elephant ?The answer: One bite at a time. That rule should be applied to thisbook.

Yes, this is a fat book. Some of its chapt ers a re length y, but th ey

ar e broken d own in to convenient sections an d su bsections. The ideais not to memorize each chapter. The idea is to get a general sense of what happens in the field of economics when rival religions clash:power religion vs. dominion religion. If you want to follow upon any par-ticula r idea, footn otes a re pr ovided at no extr a char ge an d at th ebott om of th e page, too, so th at you will not spend extra t imeflipping to th e back of t he book. Footnot es a r e th ere t o help you , notto int imidat e you.

Read the conclusions of each chapter before you read thechapter. Then skim over it rapidly. If it seems worth your time,rer ead it m ore carefully. You can r ead t his book a cha pt er a t a time,since it is a comm ent ar y. It d eals with one or two verses a t a time.The book develops its cha in of ar gum ent s only ins ofar as th e versessh ow a pr ogression. I th ink t hey do reveal a pr ogression, but not sor igorous a pr ogress ion a s you wou ld find in a logic t extbook, or evenan economics textbook (Keynes General Theoy excluded, since itsubstitutes confusion for progression). 17

Subsequent sections of this commentary on Exodus will cover theTen Comm an dment s an d th e biblical case laws th at apply the prin-ciples of the Ten Commandments to society. la

17. One of th e reasons why I am sur e tha t h is Genwal Theo~ is a class ic exam ple of deliberate disinformation is that most of Keynes other books are models of logic

-and clarity. But th e Genera l Theoy is nearly unr eadable. He was writing nonsense,

and the book reflects it. For a good introduction to this classic example of jar gon-filled n ons ens e, see Hen ry Hazlitts book, T he Fadure of the N ew E conom ics(Pr inceton, New J ersey: Van Nostran d, 1959). Hazlitt never went to college, so hewas not fooled by Keynes, something two generations of Ph.D.-holding powerrel igionistscannot say for themselves. For more technical scholarly critiques, writ-ten quite early in response to Keynes by economists who were not powerreligionists, see Hazlitt (cd.), T he Crstzcs ojKcynesianEconomics (Van Nostra nd, 1960).

18. See also J ames B. Jordan , Th e Law of the Covt-nant :An Exposition of Exodus 21-23(Tyler, Texas: In st itu te for Chr istian Economics, 1984).


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I N T R O D U C T I O N

This book is about a clash between two religions , with believersin a third religion standing on the sidelines, waiting to see the out-come of the clash. The Bible presents it as the a rche typa l clash inhistory between these two religions. This confrontation has beengoing on since the garden of Eden. The first of the conflicting relig-ions was power r eligion, t he religion of Pha ra oh, wh o was Sat an srepresentative in the battle. The second was dominion religion, ther eligion of Moses, Gods rep r esen t at ive in t h is might y bat t le. Thetestimony of the Book of Exodus is clear: first, those wh o seek power apa rt from God a re doom ed to comp rehensive, total d efeat. Second, thosewho seek God ar e ca lled to exercise dom inion, an d t h ey sha ll be vic-torious over the enemies of God. But this victory takes time. It is notachieved instantaneously. It is the product of long years of self-disci-

pline under Go&s authori~. The power religionists do not want to wait.Like Adam in his rebellion, sinners choose to dress themselves in therobes of authority, so that they can render instant autonomous judg-ment . 1 They do not want to subordinate themselves to God.

The third form of religion is what I call escapist religion. It is areligion which pr oclaims th e inevitability of extern al d efeat for th epeople of God. The defenders of temporal impotence thereby be-come the allies of temporal power. This religion was dominant in thelives of t h e Hebr ew slaves. They beca me ea sy pr ey for t h e power r e-ligionists. But when the power manifested by dominion religionovercame the pagan power religion, they grudgingly followed thevictors.

Before discussing the specifics of the clash between Moses andPharaoh, it is necessary to survey briefly the first principles of these

three religious outlooks.

1. Gary North, Witnesses and J u d g e s : Biblical Economics Toda~ VI (Aug.lSept.1983), pp. 3-4.

1


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2 MOSES AND PHARAOH

1. Power Religion

This is a r eligious viewpoint which affirms th at th e most impor-ta nt goal for a ma n, group, or species, is th e capt ur e an d m aint en-ance of power. Power is seen as the chief attribute of God, or if thereligion is officially atheistic, then the chief attribute of man. Thisper spective is a sa ta n ic per version of Gods command t o man toexercise dominion over a ll th e cr eat ion (Gen. 1:26-28). z I t is th e at-tem pt to exercise domin ion apa rt from covenan ta l subordina tion tothe true Creator God.

What distinguishes biblical dominion religion from satanicpower r eligion is ethics. Is the person who seeks power doing so forth e glory of God, an d for h imself seconda rily, and only to th e exten tth at he is Gods lawful an d covenanta l ly faithful representative? If so, he will act in t e r m s of Gods et hical st an da rd s a nd in t erm s of aprofession of faith in the God of the Bible. The church has recog-nized this two-fold requirement historically, and has established adual requirement for membership: profession of faith and a godly

life.In contrast, p~wer religion is a religion ofautomrny. It affirms t hat

My power an d th e might of mine h an d bat h gott en m e th is wealth(Deut. 8:17). It seeks power or wealth in order to k n a k e credible thisvery cla im.

Wealth and power are aspects of both religions. Wealth andpower ar e covenan ta l manifest a t ions of th e su ccess of riva l religiousviews. This is why God warns His people not to believe that their au-

tonomous actions gained them their blessings: But thou shaltremember the L ORD thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power toget wealth, th at he m ay establish h is covena nt which h e swar e unt othy fathers, as it is this day (Deut. 8:18). Gods opponents also wantvisible confirmation of the validity of their covenant with a rival god,but God warn s th em t ha t th e wealth of th e sinn er is laid up for t he

just (Prov. 13: 22 b). The entry of the Hebrews into Canaan was sup-posed to remind t hem of th is fact: th e Cana an ites ha d built homesand vineyards to no avail; their enemies, the Hebrews, inheritedthem (Josh. 24:13).

Those who believe in power religion have refused to see thatlong-term wealth in any society is the product of ethical conformity

2. Gary North, Th e Dominion Covenant: Genesis,vol. 1 o~An Econom ic Com m entary onthe Bible (Tyler, Texas: In st itu te for Chr istian Economics, 1982).


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Introduction 3

to biblical law. They have sought the blessings of Gods covenantwhile denying the validity and eternally binding ethical standards of

that covenant. In short, they have confused the fruits of Christianitywith the roots. They have attempted to chop away the roots butpreserve the fruits.

2. Escapist Religion

This is the second great tradition of anti-Christian religion. Seeingthat the exercise of autonomous power is a snare and a delusion, theproponents of escapist religion have sought to insulate themselves

from the general culture a culture maintained by power. Theyhave fled the responsibilities of worldwide dominiori, or even re-gional dominion, in the hope that God will release them from the re-quirements of the general dominion covenant.

The Christian version of the escapist religion is sometimes calledpietism, but its theological roots can be traced back to the ancientheresy of mysticism. Rather than proclaiming the requirement of ethi-cal un ion with Jesus Christ, the perfect man, the mystic calls for meta -phy~ical union with a monistic, unified god. In the early church, therewere m an y types of mysticism, but t he most feared rival religionwhich cont inua lly infiltr at ed th e chu rch was Gnosticism, It proclaimedmany doctrines, but the essence of gnostic faith was radical personalindividualism personal escape from m at ter leading to radical imper-sonal collectivism: the abolition of human personality through absorp-tion into the Godhead. It proclaimed retreat from the material realmand escape to a h igher, purer, spir itua l rea lm through var iousEastern techniques of self-manipulation: asceticism, higher con-sciousn ess, an d initiat ion int o secret myst eries.

Gnosticism survives as a way of thinking and acting (or failing toact) even today, as Ru sh doony h as point ed out . The essence of th isfaith is its antinomianism. Gnostics despise biblical law. But their hat-red for the law of God leads them to accept the laws of the State.Gnost icism su rvives today in th eosophy, J ewish Kabbalism, occult-

ism, existentialism, masonry, and like faiths. Because Gnosticismmade the individual, rather than a dualism of mind and matter, ulti-ma te, it was essen tially hostile to mora lity a nd law, requiring oftenthat believers live beyond good and evil by denying the validity of allmoral law. Gnostic groups which did not openly avow such doctrinesaffirmed an ethic of love as against law, negating law and morality inter ms of t he h igher law a nd m orality of love. Their con tem pt of law


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4 MOSES AN DPHARAOH

an d t ime ma nifested itself also by a willingn ess t o comply with th estate . . . . The usual at t i tude was one of cont empt for th e material

world, which included th e sta te, an d a n out ward complian ce an d in-differen ce. A ph ilosophy calling for a n escape from t ime is n ot likelyto involve itself in th e bat tles of t ime.s

Their denial of the continuing validity of biblical law has ledth em t o deny t he relevance of ear th ly time. By denying biblical law,they thereby foresake the chief tool of dominion our means of usingtime to subdue the earth to the glory of God. The basic idea whichundergirds escapist religion is the denial of the dominion couenant . Th e

escapist religionists believe that the techniques of self-discipline,whet her un der God or a pa rt from God (Buddh ism), offer p ower overonly limited areas of life. They attempt to conserve their power byfocusing their ethical concern on progressively (regressively) nar-rower areas of personal responsibility. The true believer thinks thathe will gain m ore cont rol over h imself an d h is na rr ow environm entby restricting his self-imposed zones of responsibility. His concern isself , from st ar t t o finish; his at tem pt to escap e from r espons ibilities

beyond the narrow confines of self is a program for gaining powerover self. It is a religion of works, of se~-salvation. A man humbleshimself admits that there are l imits to his power, and thereforelimit s t o the r an ge of his responsibilities only to elevat e self to aposition of h ypot h etically God-like spir itu a lity.

Escapist religion proclaims institutional peace peace at any, price . Ezekiel responded t o such an assert ion in t he n am e of God:

u . . . th ey have seduced my people, sa ying, Peace; an d th ere was n o

peace (Ezk . 13: 10a). Pa t rick Hen r ys infla mm at or y wor ds in Ma rchof 1775 Peace, peace but there is no peace4 were taken fromEzekiel and also J eremiah : They have hea led a lso th e hu rt of th eda ugh ter of my people slight ly, saying, Peace, peace; when th ere isno peace ( Je r. 6:14). This rival religion proclaims peace because ithas little interest in the systematic efforts that are always required topu rify ins tit ut ions a s a pr elude to social recons tr uction.

3. Rousas John Rushdoony, Th e One and the Many: Stud iexin the Philosophy of Orderan d Ultzmag (Fairfax, Virginia: Thoburn Press, [1971] 1978), p. 129.

4. Norine Dickson Campbell, Patrick Heny : Patr iot and Statesman (Old Greenwich,Conn ecticut : Devin-Ada ir, 1969), p. 130. The su bst an ce of Hen rys fam ous St .Johns Church speech, which mobilized the Virginia Assembly, was reconstnrctedby a lat er hist orian, William Wirt , but is gener ally considered repr esent at ive. Thiswas Henrys famous Give me liberty or give me death speech, one of the most fa-mous speeches in U.S. history.


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Introduction 5

In short, escapist religion calls for flight from the world, andbecause man is in this world, it calls for ajightfrom humani~. s Its ad-

vocat es ma y hide th eir rea l concern the systema tic aba ndonmentof a world supposedly so corrupt that nothing can be done to over-come widespread cultural evil by appealing to their moral respon-sibility of sharing Christ to the world or building up the Churchra th er t ha n r ebuilding civilizat ion, but t heir u ltima te concern is per-sonal~ight from responsibility. It is a revolt against m a t u r i t y. G

3. Dominion Religion

This is the orthodox faith. It proclaims the sovereignty of God,th e r eliability of th e h istoric creeds, t he necessity of sta nd ing u p forprinciple, an d th e requirem ent th at fait hful men t ak e risks for Godssake. It proclaims that through the exercise of saving faith, andth rough eth ical conform ity to Gods r evealed law, r egener at e m enwill increase the extent of their dominion over the earth. It is areligion of conquest conqu est by grace through ethical action. The goa l iseth ica l con formity to God, but t he resu lts of th is con form ity involvedominion over lawful subordinates, over ethical . rebels , and overnature. This is the message of Deuteronomy 28:1-14. It is also th emessage of Jesus Christ, who walked perfectly in Gods statutes andin Gods Spirit, an d wh o th en wa s gra nt ed tota l power over a ll crea -tion by th e Fat her (Matt . 28:18). I a m not sp eak ing her e of Chr istsdivine nature as the Second Person of the Trinity, who always had

total power; I am speaking of His nature as perfect man, who earned total power through ethical conformity to God and through Hisdeath and resurrection.

Dominion religion recognizes the relationship between righteous-ness an d authorzty,between covenantal faithfulness and c o v e n a n t a lblessings. Those who are faithful in little things are given more. Thisis th e m ean ing of Chr ists pa ra ble of the ta lents (Mat t. 25:14-30).The process of dominion is a function ofprogressiue sanctification, both

personal-individual and institutional (family, church, business,school, civil government, etc.: Deut. 28:1-14).

5. R . J . Rushdoony, T he Fltghtfrom H u m a n i ~ A S tudy of th e EJect of Neoplatonism onChristianity (Fairfax, Virginia: ~hoburn Press, [1973]1978).

6. R. j. Rushdoony, Revolt A gainst M atu np. A B iblical Psycholo~ of Ma n (~airfax,Virginia: Thoburn Press, 1977).


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,.

6 MOSES AND PHARAOH

Moses vs. Pharaoh

Pick up any commentary on the Book of Exodus. Read its ac-cou n t of t h e firs t fift een ch a pt ers . You will find a lot of discussion of Hebr ew vocabu la r y, Moses t heology, a n d t h e sovereign t y of Godspower. But wha t you will not find is a deta iled discus sion of Egypt .You will not fin d a n a n a lysis of t h e th eology an d cultu re of t h e soci-ety which placed the Hebrews under bondage. You will not find adiscussion of th e rela tionsh ip between Egypt s t h eology a n d Egypt seconomic and political institutions.

These are remarkable omissions. It is not that commentatorshave no knowledge about Egypt. Rather, it is that they have failed tounderstand the theological and political issues that were inherent inthis confrontation. Sufficient information is available to construct atleast an outline of Egyptian society. While Egyptology is a highly

- specialized and linguistically rigorous field of study, there are num-erous scholarly summaries of the religion and social institutions of Egypt. I am no specialist in th is field, an d I ha ve no immedia te a c-

cess to a large university library of books and manuscripts relating toEgypt, but interlibrary loans and normal intelligence are sufficientt o open t h e closed book of a t leas t t h e ba re es sen t ials of Egypt ianthought and culture. The bare essentials are sufficient to enableanyone to draw some simple conclusions concerning the differencesbetween th e gods of Egypt a nd th e ,God of the Israelites. Further-more, it is not that difficult to make other comparisons: socialism vs.market freedom, bureaucracy vs. decent ra lized decision-ma king,

the omniscient State vs. limited civil government, static society vs.future-oriented society, stagnation vs. growth. Yet the commen-ta tors, as far as I ha ve been able to deter mine, have systemat icallyrefused to discuss such issues. They have been blind to the all-encompa ssing na tu re of th e confronta tion. To a gr eat extent , this isbecause they have been blind to the implications of biblical religionfor both social th eory a nd inst itu tions.

ChronologyThere are other topics that need to be discussed. One of the most

important is the problem of chronology. Commentaries can be foundthat do attempt to deal with this issue, but I have yet to find onewhich openly faces the overwhelming difficulties posed by the almostu n iversa l accept a n ce of t h e con vent ion a l ch r onology of Egypt . Wh a t


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Introduction 7

readers are not told is that Egyptians did not believe in chronology. Thehistorical records which modern (and even classical Greek) histor-ians have used to reconstruct Egypts chronology are woefully defi-cient., The Egyptians simply did not take seriously their own history.They did not believe in the importance of linear time. The recordsthey left reflect their lack of concern. A century ago, historianGeorge Rawlinson began his chapter on Egyptian chronology withth is stat ement : It is a pat ent fact, and one th at is beginn ing to ob-tain general recognition, that the chronological element in earlyEgyptian hist ory is in a st at e of alm ost h opeless obscurity?7 He wasincorrect, however, concerning the coming general recognition of the problem. Only the most scholarly and detailed monographs onEgypt both er to war n r eaders a bout th e problem.

There are several kinds of chronological documents, includingthe actual monuments. The chronological value of these varioussources of information is, however, in every case slight. The greatdefect of these monuments is their incompleteness. The Egyptiansh a d n o era . Th ey drew out n o ch r on ological schem es. They car ed fornoth ing but to know how long each incar na te god, hu ma n or bovine,

ha d cond escended t o ta rr y on t he ea rt h. They record ed car efully th elength of the life of each Apis bull, and the length of the reign of eachking; but they neglected to take note of the intervals between oneApis bull an d an oth er, an d omit ted t o distingu ish t he sole reign of amona rch from his joint r eign with oth ers .s

Readers are also not informed of the fact that virtually all chron- .olo,gies of the ancient Near East and pre-classical Greece are con-stricted on the assumption that the- conventional chronology of

Egypt is th e legitima te st an dar d. Wha t modern scholar s believe isthe proper chronology of Egypt is then imposed on the chronologies of allother civilizations of th e ancient N ear East, including the biblical chronol-ogy of the Hebrews. Thus, when the Bible says explicitly that theExodu s t ook place 480 year s before Solomon began to cons tr uct t hetemple (I Kings 6:1), historians interpret this information within thef ramework OF the hypothetical E&ptian chronological scheme.When they even admit that the pharaohs of the supposed dynastic

era of the fifteenth century before Christ were extremely powerfulkings men like Thutmose III whose mummies still exist,9 they

7. George Rawlinson, A Hi$toy of Egypt, 2 vols.(New Yor k: Alden, 1886), II, p. 1.8. Ibid, , II, p. 2.9. Photographs of the mummies of Thutmose III and Amenhotep II appear in

Donovan Courville, Th e Exodus Problem and Its Ramjt icat ions,2 VOIS . (Loma Linda,California: Challenge Books, 1971), I, p. 37.


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8 MOSES AND PH ARAOH

ar e t empt ed t o ignore t hese difficult ies, or even t o ignore die clearteaching of the Bible. Many of them date the Exodus much later.

They a llow a hypoth etical chr onology of Egypt to dicta te th eir int er-pretation of Scripture. This is not the way that Christian scholarshipis supposed t o bk conducted.

In the early 1950s, I m m a n u e l Velikovsky, a genius (or fraud, hiscritics say) began to publish a series of studies that reconstructed(am ong oth er th ings) the chr onologies of th e a ncient world. Velikov-sky began his r econs tr uction with a discussion of an an cient E gypt-ian docum ent , long overlooked by historian s, which cont ain s r efer-

ences to a series of catastrophes that look remarkably similar to thosedescribed in ear ly cha pt ers of th e Book of Exodu s.Then, in 1971, an amateur historian named Donovan Courvil le

pu blished a book wh ich wa s ba sed in pa r t on Velikovskys wor k, butwhich wen t far beyond it. Courvilles book has been systematicallyignored by Egyptologis ts an d Chr istian scholars a like. I kn ow of onecase where a seminary professor absolutely refused to discuss thebook with his students, either publicly or privately, when asked

about it. Why the hostility? Because Courvilles book, like Velikov-skys books, offers a frontal assault on the reigning presuppositions of historians regarding the reliabili ty of Egyptian records and thereliability of the conclusions based on them. In Courvilles cas e, th eaffront is worse: he is saying that Christian specialists in the field of an cient history h ave accepted t he t estimony of hu ma nist (Darwin-ian) scholar s a nd hu ma nist (Egyptian ) records in pr eference to th eclear testimony of the Bible. Conservative scholars resent the impli-

cation that they have compromised their scholarship in order to seek recognition from (or avoid confrontation with) the conventional,dominant humanist academic community. Thus, I have seen nocommentary on the Book of Exodus which refers to (let alone pro-motes) either Velikovsky or Courvil le, nor do the standard Christianencyclopedias.

This comm ent ar y is th e exception. For th is reason, it r epresen tsa br eak with pr evailing scholar ship concern ing th e circum sta nces of

the Exodus . I t may be incorrec t , but i t i s incorrec t in newways ways that do not begin with the presupposition that conven-tiona l hum an ist hist orical scholar ship is bindin g, or t he pr esupp osi-tion that the biblical account of history is inferior to the Egyptianrecord . My position is clear : it is better to ma ke m ista kes with in a nintellectual framework which is governed by the presupposition of


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Introduction 9

the Bibles infallibility than it is to make mistakes that are governedby the presupposition that Darwinian scholarship is the eternal

standard of truth.

Confrontat ion

The first fifteen chapters of the Book of Exodus deal with the con-frontation between God and Egypt. This confrontation was com-prehensive. It involved a dispute between two radically differentworldviews. It involved a wa r bet ween t he God of th e Hebr ews an da false god called Pharaoh. Every aspect of civilization was at stake..

It was n ot mer ely a war over t heology as su ch. It was a war overtheolo~ as l$e. This comm enta ry brings into th e open several ar eas of confronta tion t ha t pr evious ly ha ve not been discussed. These su bor-dinate areas of confrontation were inescapably linked to the mainconfrontation between God and Pharaoh. Amazingly, the terms of even this primary confrontation are seldom discussed.

It is m y cont ention t ha t essent ially the sa me confront at ion h ascont inu ed from t he beginn ing, mea nin g from th e gard en of Eden . It

has manifested itself in many ways, but the essential question neverchanges: Who is God? Secondarily, what is the relationship between God and His creation? The answers given by the rulers of Egypt were essen-t ially the same answer proposed to man by Satan: ye shall be asgods (Genl - 3: 5), Becau se t he modern world h as come t o a similart heological con clusion th a t , in t h e absen ce of a n y ot h er God, ma nmust be the only reliable candidate the modern world has come tosimilar social and economic conclusions. The rise of totalitarian bu-

rea ucracies in t he t wentieth cent ur y can an d should be discussed inrelation to the rise of a humanistic variation of Egyptian theology. Itis not th at hu ma nists ha ve adopted E gypts polyth eism (th oughmodern relativism sounds suspiciously like polytheism), but ratherth at th ey ha ve, as Dar winian s (or worse), adopted E gypts t heologyof t h e continui~ of bein g, with th e Stat e, as t he most powerful repre-sentative of collective mankind, serving as the primary agency of social or gan izat ion .

The r ema ining cha pt ers in th e Book of Exodus describe th e con-tinuation of this same confrontation with Egypt. In this case, how-ever, the depa rt ing slaves of th e now-sma sh ed Egyptian civilizat ionreplaced their former rulers as the defenders of the old order. Goddealt with them in very similar ways, though with greater mercy, asa result of Moses prayer on behalf of the integrity of Gods name and


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10 MOSES AND PHARAOH

Gods promises (Ex. 32:9-14; Num. 14:13-16).It should not surprise us, therefore, that there are sti l l many,

ma ny Chr istian defenders of th at sam e old stat ist order in our wil-derness wanderings (especially in the barren wastes of the collegeand seminary classroom) slaves who have not recognized the free-dom which God has offered to His people through the establishing of His revealed law-order. When men sit as slaves for too long at thetable of the Satanists, hoping for a few crumbs (or academic degrees)to fall from their table, they find it difficult to imagine that it is th eenemies of God wh o are supposed to sit at the tableof the rightious,begging

for scraps until the day of judgment provides them with no furtheropport un ities for repen ta nce (Mat t. 15:22-28). Let us not forget th atit was a Canaanite woman, not a ruler of Israel, who first articulatedt his pr inciple of biblica l govern men t. Isr a els leader s were sit tin g atth e ta ble of th e Reman s, begging. Some t hin gs ha vent cha nged.

Conclusion

Thr ee an d a ha lf millenn ia a go, Moses was comm an ded by Godto confront th e Ph ar aoh. The r esult was t he E xodus, th e ar chetypehist orical event in t he life of Isr ael, the event to which t he pr oph ets

- appealed again an d a gain in t heir confront at ions with th e rebelliousHebr ews of t heir da y. This sa me confront a t ion goes on in every era ,and the contemporary prophet must be equally willing to confrontthe pharaohs of his day with the same theological distinctions: sover-eign God or s overeign m a n, Gods r evelat ion or ma n s r evela t ion ,biblical society or the bureaucratic State, Gods law or chaos.Choose this day whom ye will serve. Serve God or perish.


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1

POPULATION GROWTH:TOOL OF DOMINION

And a ll the souls th at cam e out of the loins ofJacobwere seuen~ souls : forJosephwas in E ~ p t alreaqjiAndJoseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation. And the child ren of Lrraelwere fruit ful, an d in creased a b u n d a n t ~ ,and m ultiplied, an d waxed exceedin g migh~; and the land wasjilled with them (Ex. 1:5-7).

The words relating to growth are repeated in verse 7: fruitful, in-creased (teemed), multiplied, waxed (numerous), with exceedingstrength, strongly, and filled a seven-fold representation. 1 Bible-believing commentators have seldom focused much attention onthese verses, possibly because they are so difficult to explain bymea ns of th eir usu al a ssum ption, n am ely, tha t only 70 people origi-nally descended into Egypt. How could it be that 70 people and theirspouses multiplied to 600,000 men, plus women and children, by the

time of the E xodu s (Ex. 12:37)? A pr obable explan at ion is th is one:the 70 were not the only source of the original population base.Presumably, they brought with them many household servants who had been circum cised and who were therefore counted as part of the cove-na nt population. W e do not k now for cert a in h ow ma ny of t hese cir-cumcised household servants came, but it must have been in the

t h o u s a n d s .We should a lso bear in m ind t ha t 70 is a significan t nu mber in

Script ur e, in t erm s of age, chr onology, an d a lso in t erm s of immber-ing people. In Gen esis 10, 70 peoples of ma nkind a re list ed, 14 from

1. U. Cassuto, A Cornrner t taV on theBook ;fl?xodus,tran s. Israel Abrahams (Jerusa-lem: Magn es P ress , Hebrew Universit y, [1951] 1974), p. 9. He says th at th e sevenexpressions for increase are used in this verse, a number indicative of perfection. . . .

11


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J a p h e t h , 30 from Ham, and 26 from Shem.z At the feast of taber-nacles in the seventh month, beginning on the fifteenth day, the

priests were to begin a week of sacrifices. For seven days, a descend-ing n um ber of bullocks were to be sacrificed: 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, an d 7,for a tota l of 70 bullocks. Then , on th e eight h da y (th e beginn ing of the next week), one final bullock was to be sacrificed (Num. 29:12-36).Presumably, these were sacrifices for all the nations of the world, plusIsr ael. Ther e were 70 elders in I sr ael a t t he t ime of Gods confirm at ion

of the covenant at Sinai (Ex. 24:1). God at one point took His Spiritfrom Moses a nd gave it to th e 70 elders (Num. 11:16).Also, when th eIsraelites defeated Adoni-Bezek after the death of Joshua, he confessedthat he had slain 70 kings (Judges 1:7), presumably a number refer-rin g symbolically to th e whole world, Sevent y men were sen t out byJ esus t o evan gelize sout her n Isra el (Luke 10:1, 17).s In Chr ists da y,there were 70 members of the Sanhedrin, plus the President. 4 So thenumber 70 meant for the Hebrews something like a whole popula-tion, although this does not deny the validity of 70 as the number of linea l heirs wh o cam e down int o Egypt.

The growth of th e Hebrew populat ion h as to be cons idered a re-markable expansion. How long did it t ak e? This question ha s alsobaffled Bible-believing commentators. When did the Exodus occur?When did Jacobs family enter Egypt? Were the Israelites in Egypt afull 430 years? Donovan Courville, the Seventh Day Adventistschola r , ha s ca lled th is chr on ology qu est ion t h e Exodu s pr oblem .s

2. Fred erick Louis Godet, Commentayon th e Gospel of Luk e, 2 vols. (Gra nd Rapids,Michigan: Zondervan, [1887]), II, p. 17.Godet discusses the problem of 70 vs. 72,which occurs in this estimation, and also in the differing New Testament referencesto the 70 or 72 sent out by J esus (Luke 10:1).

3. Some ma nu scripts r ead 72. Godet a rgues t ha t 70 is the corr ect reading: idem.4. Alfred E ders heim , T he L #e and Tim es of Jesw the Messiah, 2 vols. (Gran d Rap-

ids, Michigan: Eerdmans, [1886]), II, p. 554. Cf. Sanhedrim, in McClintock andStrong, Cyclopazdia of Biblical, Theologkal,and Ecclesiastical Literature (New York: I - Iar-per & Bros., 1894), IX, p. 342.

5. Donovan A. Courville, Th e Exodu s Problem and It s Ramijcat ions (Loma Linda,Californ ia: Cha llenge Books , 1971), 2 volumes. Courvilles origina l insight concern -ing t he n eed for a recon st ru ction of Egypt s chr on ology cam e from Immanue lVelikovskys study, Ages in Chao~(Gar den City, New York : Doubleda y, 1952), which

present s t he case a gainst th e t ra ditiona l chr onologies of th e a ncient world. Velikov-sky identified the Hyksos rulers (shepherd kings) of Egypt as the invadingAmelek-ites. He argued that modern scholars have inserted a 500-700 year period into all thehistories of the ancient world (since all are based on Egypts supposed chronology), aperiod which must be eliminated. Velikovsky wrote that we still do not know whichof the t wo histories, Egyptian or I sra elite, mu st be rea djusted (p. 338). Courvillesbook shows that it is modern scholarships version of Egypts chronology which isdefective, not the chronology of the Old Testament. See Appendix A: The Recon-st ru ction of Egypts Chr onology,


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Popu lation Growth : Tool o J D o m i n i o n 13

The Problem of Chronology

Exodu s 12:40 rea ds a s follows in t he King J ames Vers ion : Now

the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was fourhu ndred an d thir ty years. Fact number one: a sojourn of 430 years.The Sama ri tan P e n t a t e u c h an d th e Septua gint (the Greek tra nsla-tion of th e Old Testa men t da tin g from th e second centu ry B. c. ) both,say Egypt a nd Canaan ,G rather than just Egypt , which indicatesth e likely solut ion to th e Exodu s pr oblem.

We can see the nature of the problem in Stephens testimony, justprior t o his m ar tyr dom. It in cludes t his st at emen t: And God spoke

on t his wise [in th is way], Tha t h is seed should sojour n in a str an geland; and that they should bring them into bondage, and entreatth em evil fou r hundr ed year s (Act s 7:6). Fact n um ber tw o: bondage of 400 years. This was also the period promised by God to Abraham:Know of a su rety th at th y seed shall be a str an ger in a land t ha t isnot th eir s, and sh all serve them; an d th ey sha ll afflict t hem four hu n-dred years; And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I

judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance(Gen. 15:13-14). Fact number three: deliverance in the fourth genera-tion. But in t he four th genera tion th ey sha ll come h ither aga in: forthe iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full (Gen. 15:16). Did Godmean the fourth generation of captives? If the period of bondage was430 years, h ow could only four genera tions ha ve filled up th e ent ireperiod assigned to them?

Paul provides additional crucial information: Now to Abraham

an d his seed were th e promises made. . . . And t his I say, tha t t hecovenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law,which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, thatit should make the promise of none effect (Gal. 3 :16a, 17), Fact n u m b er fou r : 430 years from the covenant to the Exodus. This furthercomplicates the problem: the entire period, from Abraham to the Exodus,was 430 years a period which encompassed Isaacs life, Jacobs,J oseph in E gypt, th e ar rival of th e broth ers a nd th eir fam ilies, the

years of pr osperity a nd popu lat ion gr owth in t he lan d of Goshen inEgypt, Moses birth , his depar tu re a t a ge 40, his 40 year s in th ewilderness, an d th e Exodu s itself. Pau ls lan gua ge is u na mbiguous .What , then, ar e we to ma ke of th e oth er t hr ee accoun ts?

6. Note in th e New International Vision (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan,1978), p. 83.


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14 MOSES AND P HARAOH

The Patriarchal Era: 215 Years

The best place to begin to unravel this problem is with the chron-

ology of Abrahams family. We are told that he was called out of Ha ra n when h e was 75 year s old (Gen. 12:4). Isaa c was born 25 year slater, when Abraham was a hundred (Gen. 21:5). Jacob and Esauwere born 60 year s lat er, when Isa ac was 60 years old (Gen. 25:26).Fin ally, J acob died at age 130 in Egypt (Gen. 47:9). Th er efore, fromAbra ha ms ent ra nce int o a foreign lan d un til th e Isra elites descentinto Egypt, about 215 year s elapsed (25 + 60 + 130). If we ass um e th atthe establishment of the covenant took place in the first year or so of

Abra ha ms sojour n in Can aa n, with 25 year s in between th e covenan t(Gen . 15) an d th e birt h of Isaa c (Gen. 21), then we can begin to makesense of the data. God said that Abrahams heirs would be in bondagefor 400 year s, while Pau l said it was 430 years from t he covenant to th e

Exodus. If we subtract 25 from 430 from the covenant to the birth of Isaac, the promised son of the covenant line we get 405 years. Thisis very close t o th e 400 yea r s of th e a fflict ion pr omised in Gen esis15:13-14 an d men tioned by Steph en in Acts 7:6.

We are now arguing about only five years, from the birth of Isaacto the period in which the captivity in Egypt under E ~p tsdomination began. We are told in Genesis 21 that it was only afterIsaac was weaned that I s h m a e l mocked him laughing in theHebrew (VV, 8-9). This can be understood as the beginning of theperiod of Egyptian persecution, for I s h m a e l was h alf Egyptian . 7 I twas the time of Isaacs youth, perhaps about age five. Abraham thenexpelled the Egyptian woman and her son, who t ravel led into th e

wilderness (21: 14). Thus, it was not the bondage period in geograph-ical Egypt that God had in mind, but the entire period of pilgrimage,du rin g which t hey were afflicted by str an gers.

Residence in E ~ p t : 215 Years

The culmination of this period of rootlessness, or life in foreignlands, was the final era of outright bondage in Egypt (Gen. 15:14).Courvilles comments are appropriate, that

the period of affliction began back in the time of Abraham and not with theDescent. Actually, the affliction in Egypt did not begin with the Descent but

7. I am indebted to James Jordan for this insight. If it is incorrect, then we wouldha ve to adopt Courvillesappr oach, namely, to argue th at it seems legitimat e to un-dersta nd t he 400 year s of Gen. 15:13as a rounding off of 405.


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Population Growth: Tool of Dominion 15

only with the rise of the king who knew not Joseph. That the sojournalso began back in the time of Abraham is clear from the statement inHebrews 11:9 which reads:

By faith he [Abraham] sojourned in the land of promise, as in astrange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, theheirs with him of the same promise,

Others of the ancients than Paul thus understood the 430-year sojourn. Thetranslators of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek have added a phrase tomake clear the meaning of Exodus 12:40 as they understood it. The S e p -tuagint reading of the verse is:

The sojourning of the children and of their fathers, which they sojourned in the land of C a n a a r , and in the land of Egypt. . . .

Josephus, as a Hebrew scholar of antiquity, thus understood the verse:

They left Egypt in the month Xanthicus, on the fifteenth day of.thelunar month; four hundred and thirty years after our forefatherAbrah am came int o Cana an , but t wo hu ndred a nd fifteen years onlyafter Jacob removed into Egypt. e

This citation from Courvilles important study indicates that i twas long ago understood that the 430 years of Exodus 12:40 must beinterpret ed in t erms of the entire pilgnm ageexperience, Abraham to Moses.The reference to the children of Israel must be understood as

Hebrews in general, not simply to those born of Jacob. It includesAbrah~m and Isaac. This means that Palest ine was an Egyptianvassal region throughout the Patriarchal era of Exodus 12:40. It alsohelps to explain why Abraham journeyed to Egypt during thefamine (Gen. 12:10). Egypt wa s t he capit al.

On the next page is Courvilles chart of his proposed recon-s t ruc ted chronology of Egypt and Is rae l . g U n d e r s t a n d t h a tCourvilles book is almost unknown in Christian circles, and evenless known in academic circles. His reconstructed chronology is nottaken seriously by archeologists and historians, any more thanVelikovskys chr onology in Ages in Chao~was (or is) ta ken serious ly.

What Courvil le ha s a ccomplished is a brillian t reconst ru ction of Egypts chronology in terms of the 215-215 division. He has pin-point ed th e fam ine a s h aving begun 217 year s before th e Exodu s,

8. Ibid,, 1, p. 140. For Josephus statement, see Anttquitie~of the Jews, Book II, ch.XV, sec. 2, in Josef ihm: Com@eteWorks, William Whiston, translator (Grand Rapids,Michigan: Kregel, 1960), p. 62.

9. Taken from l%e Journal oj Chrzdian Reconstruction, II (Summer 1975), p. 145.


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Correlation of Scriptural Incidents with Egyptian Historyby the Traditional and Reconstructed Chronologies

Incident Traditional Reconstructionor Era Background or Date Background or Date

Noachian Flood

Dispersion

from Babel

Abrahamenters Canaan

Famine of Joseph

Enslavementof Israel

The Exodus

P eriod of the Judges

UnitedMonarchyof Israel

Sacking of SolomonsTemple

Fall of Israel toAssyria

Fall of Judahto Babylon

Not r ecognized as factua l. Theproper background for the im-mediat e post -diluvian per iod isth e Mesolithic period, dat ed c.10,000 B.c. or earlier.

If recognized at all, th e inci-

dent is set far back in the pre-dynastic.

Commonly set in early DynastyXII da ted c. 1900 B.C. Earlierdates are entertained.

No famine inscription datableto the era of Joseph as p laced inthe Hyksos period.

Eighteenth dynasty th eory of Exodus must recognize an earlyking of this dynasty as thepharaoh initiating the enslave-ment. This would be A m e n -hotep I or Thutmose I.

Eighteenth dynasty theorymu st recognize th e positioneither a t t he end of th e reign of Thu tm ose III or ear ly in th ereign of Amenhotep II . Dat e c.1445 B.C.

En compa sses t he per iod of Dy-nasty XVIII from AmenhotepIII, a ll of XIX as currentlycomposed, and the first half of XX. Dates: 1375-1050 B.C.

Backgroun d is in DynastiesXX a nd XXI. Da tes, 1050-930B.C.

Shishak identified as SheshonkI of Dynasty XXII. Date is 926B.C. in fifth year of Rehoboam.

Must be placed in the back-ground of Dynasty XXIII toretain the established date 722-721 B.C.

In Dynasty XXVI. Date c. 606B.C.

The Mesolithic backgr oun d forthe immediate post-diluvianperiod is accepted, Da te c,2300B.C.

Dated 27 years before the unifi-

cation of Egypt under Mena.Date, c. 2125 B.C.

Dat ed very soon a fter th e be-ginning of Dynasty IV; 1875B.C.

Equated with the famine inscrip-tion in t he r eign of Sesotris I of twelfth dynast y. Dated 1662B.C,

Enslavement initiated bySesos-tr is III of Dynas ty XII. Dat e, c.1560 B.C.

The reconst ru ction places theExodus at th e end of th e fiveyear r eign of Koneharis, secondprima ry r uler of Dynasty XIII,bu t 2 6 t kin the Tur in list. Dateis 1446-1445 B.C.

Falls in t he Hyksos period, c,1375-1050 B.C.

Background is in early DynastyXVIII ending n ear th e begin-nin g of the sole r eign of Thut -mose III. Da tes, 1050-930 B.C.

Shishak identified as Thutmose

III of Dynasty XVIII. Date926 B.C.

Falls in t he fifth year of M e r-neptah dated 721 B.C. Synchro-nism indicated by inscription of th is year telling of cat ast ropheto Israel.

In Dynasty XXV, Date c. 606B.C.


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meaning in 1662 B. C.0 He has provided evidence from Egyptian in-scriptions of a famine in this era, and he has even identified the .Pharaoh of this era, Sesostris 1. He thinks that references to a vizierof Sesostr is I, Ment uh otep, refer t o J oseph . 11

His thesis is simple, though complex in its demonstration: theking lists pr esent ed by th e conven tiona l sour ces Man eth os, th eTurin list , the Soth is list are in error when t hey assum e tha t eachkings reign followed another. Actually, Courville demonstrates ,many of these kings were not kings at all, but lower officials whoserule overlapped the reign of the true pharaohs. In short, the conven-tion al h istories of Egypt ha ve overestim at ed t he a ge of Egypt skingdoms because they have relied on afalse assumption, nam ely, tha tthe kin gs on the various lists did not freguent$ have ovmlappingreigns. Thus,among other problems, Courvilles reconstructed chronology solvesthe problem of the conventional dating of the origins of Egyptth ous an ds of year s pr ior t o a Bible-based est ima te of th e dat e of th eNoachian flood. In sh ort , wh a t Courvil le ha s sought to prove is tha tChristian scholars are still in bondage to Egypt. He offers them anint ellectu a l Exodus. An d like t h e slaves of Moses da y, th ey cr y ou tagainst the proposed deliverance. They prefer to remain in bondage.The onions of Egypt Ph. D. degrees, tenured teaching positions,an d intellectu al respecta bility am ong th eir heat hen ma sters stillentice them.

10. Courville, Exodus Problan, I, p. 151.11. Zbzd. ,I, p. 141. George Rawlinson ha s wr itt en of Ment uh otep: This official,

whose tombstone is am ong th e tr easur es of the mu seum of Boulaq ,appears t o haveheld a ra nk in the k ingdom second only to tha t of th e king. He filled a t one and t hesam e t ime t he offices of minister of justice, home secretary, chief commissioner of public works, director of public worship, and perhaps of foreign secretary andminist er of war. [He cites BrugschsHistory ojE g Y / r t/ When he arrived at the gate of the royal residence, all the other great personages who might be present boweddown before him , and did obeisa nce. He wa s judge, fina n cier, gener al, ad -minist ra tor, ar tist . George Rawlinson, History of A nctmt E ~ p t (New York: John B.Alden , 1886), II, p. 83.

The fact that a tombstone exists does not necessarily mean that the bones of Mentuho tepwere still un der it when it was discovered. J osephs bones wer e

removed from Egypt a nd t aken to Israel (Ex. 13:19).It is possible tha t t he Hebrewsdecided to leave the tombstone behind a s a reminder to their former ta skma sters,and that the Egyptians, in the confusion of the Amalekite invasion, subsequent yneglected t o dispose of it. Lat er E gyptian s m ay not h ave rem embered wh o thisofficial really was.

The possibility y exists, of course, t ha t Courville is incorrect concerning theJoseph-Mentuhotep identity.


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Jacobs Heirs

Unquestionably, the growth of the Hebrew population was

rapid. If the sons of Jacob, which included each famil ys circumcisedbondser van ts , cam e down t o Egypt 215 year s before Moses led th eirheirs out of Egypt, then the Hebrews experienced long-term popula-tion growth un equaled in t he r ecords of ma n. Remember, however,that people lived longer in Josephs era. Kohath, Moses grandfather,lived for 133 year s (Ex. 6:18). Levi, Kohat h s fat her , died a t age 137(Ex. 6:16). Moses broth er Aa ron died at age 123 (Num. 33:39).Moses died at age 120 (Deut . 34: 7). Nevert heless, Moses a ckn owl-edged that in his day, normal life spans were down to about 70 years:The days of our years are threescore and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength l abour and sor-row; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away (Ps. 90:10). (Again, thenumber 70 appears, in this case to describe a whole lifetime, ratherthan a whole population. ) Caleb boasted about his strength for ama n of 85 (J osh. 14:10-11), indicat ing th at in h is genera tion life spa nshad shrunk.

These years of long life were reduced after the Exodus. Menseldom survived to age 130. (One exception: Jehoiada, the highpriest, lived to 130: II Chron. 24:15.)12 But if, during the years inEgypt, th ey begat children from a n ear ly age an d cont inued t o bearthem until well into their eighties and nineties, as Jacob had donebefore them, then we can understand how such a tremendous expan-sion of numbers was possible. As I explain below, foreigners in large

numbers covenanted themselves to Hebrew families. It is also possi-ble th at Hebrew men m ar ried Egyptian wives in t he first cent ur y of prosperity, as Joseph had done (Gen. 41:45). This would have greatlyexpan ded t he nu mber of children born int o Hebrew fam ilies, sincethe Hebrew husbands would not have been limited exclusively toHebrew women. A family of five boys and five girls could havebecome a family of 100 Hebrew grandchildren within a generation.Of cou rse, not every fam ily could h ave seen t his h appen, since some

12. Dr. Art hu r C. Custance , a creationist scholar and medical physiologist,ar gues in The Seed of the Woman (Brockville, Ontario, Canada: Doorway, 1980) thatthere are fairly reliable records concerning several dozen long-lived individuals(over 110 years of age), including 32 age 150 or more, and one, Li Chang Yun , whodied in China in 1933 at the startling age of 256. He had survived 23 wives (p. 481).Those who saw him at age 200 test ified tha t h e did not a ppear m uch older th an aman in his fifties.


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Hebrew men would have had to marry Hebrew wives (along withEgyptian wives) in order for the daughters of all the families to haveremained inside the covenant l ines. On the other hand, Egyptianmen might ha ve convert ed to th e fait h, especially du rin g the per iodof Isra els pr eemin en ce in Egypt (e. g., Lev. 24:10). Even a pa rt fr omth e as sum ption of mu ltiple wives (some E gypt ian ), it is obvious th atlong lives, high birth rates, and low death rates could have produceda hu ge populat ion with in t wo cent ur ies.

Household Servants

We should also un dersta nd t ha t t he 70 direct h eirs of J acob de-scribed in Exodus 1:5 were linea l heir s, out of the loins of Jacob . Bu t thetotal number of householdsun der each lineal heir wouldhave been far larg~. Ser-vants who were circumcised were part of the families, and they wouldhave come down to Egypt with the direct lineal heirs. These servantswould h ave pa rt icipated in th e blessings of Goshen , which was th e bestland in E gypt (Gen . 47:6). The P ha ra oh of th e fam ine gave his bestland to Josephs relatives, but this included their entire households. Thesize of the land indicates this: the land needed administration. Phar-aoh even wa nt ed to place his own cat tle un der t he a dministr at ion of m en of activit y am ong t he househ olds (Gen. 47 :6b). He expectedthem to care for the best land of Egypt (Goshen), but this wouldha ve required more tha n 70 men a nd t heir immediate fam ilies.

Therefore, when the households of Israel went into bondageunder a later Pharaoh, the descendants of the servants were countedas the covanan t a l heirs of Jacob. ] 3 They also went into bondage.

When t he E xodus from Egypt freed th e Isra elites, all th ose who hadbeen part of the families of Jacob went free. The multitude thatswar med out of Egypt included th e heirs of th e circum cised servan ts of the70 lineal heirs of Jacob.

How many people actually came down into Egypt during thefamine? It could have been as many as 10,000. One estimate of Abrahams household is 3,000, given his 318 fighting men (Gen.14: 14). 14We are not told how many servants were still under the ad-

13. See Numbers 1:4-18an d 7:2-11 for a n indicat ion t ha t t he pnncesof each t ribewere the physical descenda nt s of th e twelve pat ria rchs. Cf. E. C. Wines , Th e Hebrew

Republic (Uxbridge, Massa chu sett s: Amer ican Pr esbyterian P ress, 1980), pp.99-100. This was originally published in the late nineteenth century as Book II of theCo mmen taVon the Laws of the Ancient Hebrews.

14. Folker Willesen, The Yalid in Hebrew Society: Studia Theologi,a, XII (1958),p. 198.


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20 MOSES AND P HARAOH

ministration of Jacob. It is likely that most of Isaacs servant familieswent with Esau rather than Jacob. But Jacob had recruited servantsdur ing his sta y with Laban (Gen. 32:16), although we do not knowhow many. We do know that Pharaoh wanted his best land to beta ken ca r e of by J acobs family, and h e wou ld ha ve recognized th ecovenantal relationship between the lineal heirs and their servants.The servan ts would h ave been r esponsible a dministra tors becau seth ey were u nd er t he a ut hority of J acobs h eirs. Any r elat ionsh ip be-tween the God of Jacob and his lineal heirs would have included thehousehold servants. Pharaoh, as a king, would have understood thiscovenan ta l pr inciple, especia lly since th e th eology of Egypt a sser tedthe divinity of the Pharaoh. All Egyptians were his servants; anyrelationship between him and the gods of Egypt was therefore also arelationsh ip between t he gods an d th e ,Egypt ian people. 1s It seemssafe to conclud e th at th e 70 househ olds included n on-lineal h eirs.

Exponential Growth

We need to understand the remarkable aspects of compound

growth . If as few as 3,000 cam e int o Egypt in J osephs da y, th en t herate of population growth over the next 215 years was 3.18$70 per an-num in order to reach 2.5 million by the time of the Exodus. Hadth is rat e of increase been m aint ained a fter th eir set tlement of Ca-na an , there would h ave been over 2 billion of th em 215 year s later ,not coun ting t he mixed mu ltitu de (Ex. 12:38) th at went with t hemout of Egypt. Two hundred and seventy five years after -the settle-ment of Canaan, there would have been 13.8 billion, roughly

equivalent to th ree t imes th e, worlds populat ion in 1980. In sh ort ,th ey would h ave spr ead a cross th e face of t h e ear th .

If there were more than 3,000 people in the families of theIsra elites wh o cam e down t o Egypt in J oseph s da y, th en t he r at e of growth was under 3% per annum over the 215-year period in Egypt.A lower ra te of growth would h ave length ened t he t ime necessa ry toreach 13.8 billion people, but the speed of increase would still havebeen st ar tling. If th ere were 10,000 who ent ered E gypt in J osephsday, then to reach 2.5 million people 215 years later, the annual rateof increa se would h ave been 2.6970. Ha d t his low ra te been m ain -

15. This covenan ta lrelat ionsh ip proved to be the undoing of the Egyptia n peopleat the time of the Exodus. Their Pharaohs rebellion against God brought them low,

just as the obedience to God by the Pharaoh of Josephs day brought them the exter-nal blessing of survival.


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Population Growth: Tool of Dominion 21-

tained after their entry into Canaan (assuming no population growthduring the 40 year s in t he wildern ess an d in five year s of fight ing toconquer Canaan), the Hebrews would have multiplied to 620million people 215 years after settling the land, 2.9 billion in 275year s, 5.5 billion in 300 year s, 10 billion in 325 year s, an d 13.8billion in 335 year s. But God told th em t ha t t her e would be no mis-car ria ges or d iseases if th ey obeyed H is law, implying a m ore r ap idra te of populat ion growth th an th ey had experienced in E gypt.

We get some idea of just what kind of growth was implied by a2.6% annual increase when we consider that Solomon began build-ing th e tem ple 480 year s after th e Exodus (I Kings 6:1). Subtr actingthe 40 years in the wilderness and five years spent in conquering thatpar t of Cana an which wa s on t he far side of th e J orda n River (Josh.14:10),16 we get 435 years after the settlement of Canaan. If 2.5million Hebrews began to reproduce when t he lan d was sett led, andthe rate of increase was 2.6% per annum, 435 years later therewould have been 176 billion Hebrews. The land of Israel was about 7million a cres. The popula t ion dens ity by Solomons t ime would ha ve

been 15,143 Hebrews per acre. An acre is a square about 210 feet perside, or 44,000 squa re feet. Obvious ly, eith er th e r at e of popula tionincrease would have fallen well before Solomons day, or else theywould have spread across the face of the earth. Even with a nation of high-rise apar tment h ouses, 176 billion Hebrews would not h avesqueezed into th e land of Isr ael. More t ha n t his: a popula tion of 176billion Hebrews implies that the earth would have been filled wellbefore Solomons da y. It th erefore im plies t ha t th e requ iremen t of

the dominion covenant relating to multiplying and filling the earthwould long s ince ha ve been fu lfilled.

These numbers should lead us to question the whole scenario of compound growth of over 2.5% per annum for many centuries onend. Noth ing like th is ha s ever t ak en place in m an s hist ory. Onlysince the Industrial Revolution in the late eighteenth century hasanything like it taken place in recorded history. We need to examinesome of the statistical relationships before we can make valid conclu-

sions concern ing what ha ppened in t his 215-year per iod.

16. Actually, part of Canaan began to be conquered 38 years after the Exodus(Deut. 2 :14). The first generation of Hebrews had all died by this time (Deut.2:15-16),Seven year s lat er, all of Can aa n was un der Is ra els cont rol, except for t hosepockets of resistance that never were conquered ( Jud , 1:27-2:4).

.


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22 MOSESAND PHARAOH

The 2.5 Million Hebrews

The standard estimation of how many people left Egypt at the

Exodus is 2-2.5 million Hebrews, not counting the mixed multi-tudes. Why is this figure reasonable? The best answer relates to thenu mber of Hebrews a generat ion lat er, after t he deat hs of a ll of t h emem bers of the ad ult Hebr ews who fled, with only t wo exceptions :Joshua and Caleb.

The generation in the wilderness entered Canaan with approx-imat ely the sa me n um ber of men who had left Egypt 40 years earlier.There were 600,000 men who left Egypt (Ex. 12:37), and one yearlater (Num. 1:1), th ere were 603,550 fight ing men (Num. 1:46), plus22,273 Levites (Num. 3:43). The number of adult males was onlyslowly increasing. When the second census was taken before theyentered the land, 40 years later, the population of the tribes haddecreased slightly, to 601,730 (Num 26:51), plus 23,000 Levites(Num. 26:62).

What th is points to is populat ion sta gnat ion. More importa nt , itpoints to at least two generations of stable reproduction: one malechild and one female child per family. Why do I say this? Becausepopulations that are growing experience the after-effects of priorhigh birth rates, even in later periods when the birth rate in the soci-ety falls below th e bar e minim um repr odu ction ra te of 2.1 childrenper woma n. This is wha t m ost Western indust rial na tions a re facingtoday: birth rates below the reproduction rate. Nevertheless, thepopulations are still growing. The reason is that in previous periods,there were higher birth rates, and young women born up to 45 yearsearlier are still in the child-bearing ages. As these women marry andbegin t o ha ve children , the u pwar d cur ve of popu lat ion cont inu es tor ise, alt hough it is slowing down. Wom en m a y be ha ving fewer chil-dren than their mothers did, but there are lots of women still withinor entering the child-bearing ages. It takes decades of below-repro

moses and pharoah

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