• | Chris McCann
  • Audio: Length: 27:59
  • Passages covered: Genesis 35:22-26,9,16-19,27-29, Genesis 5:9,10,11, Exodus 6:20, Numbers 26:59, Exodus 6:18,20, Genesis 37:1.

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Genesis 35 Series, Study 30, Verses 22-26

Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #30 in Genesis 35, and we will read Genesis 35:22-26:

Now the sons of Jacob were twelve: The sons of Leah; Reuben, Jacob's firstborn, and Simeon, and Levi, and Judah, and Issachar, and Zebulun: The sons of Rachel; Joseph, and Benjamin: And the sons of Bilhah, Rachel's handmaid; Dan, and Naphtali: And the sons of Zilpah, Leah's handmaid; Gad, and Asher: these are the sons of Jacob, which were born to him in Padanaram.

I will stop reading there.  I have mentioned this a couple of times to give everyone a chance to look into it, and to pray for wisdom regarding the answer.  So what is the question?  What is the problem?  The problem is that we read of these twelve sons of Jacob that were born to various mothers, and then we read in Genesis 35:26:

… these are the sons of Jacob, which were born to him in Padanaram.

Padanaram is Syria.  And in fact, all the sons were born in Syria except Benjamin.  We just saw in this chapter that he was not born in Padanaram.  It says in Genesis 35:9:

And God appeared unto Jacob again, when he came out of Padanaram, and blessed him.

Then a little further down in this chapter, it says in Genesis 35:16-19:

And they journeyed from Bethel; and there was but a little way to come to Ephrath: and Rachel travailed, and she had hard labour. And it came to pass, when she was in hard labour, that the midwife said unto her, Fear not; thou shalt have this son also. And it came to pass, as her soul was in departing, (for she died) that she called his name Benoni: but his father called him Benjamin. And Rachel died, and was buried in the way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem.

We can see very clearly that Jacob had left Padanaram, and according to this account Benjamin was born “a little way to come to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem.” 

Again, it said in Genesis 35:26:

… these are the sons of Jacob, which were born to him in Padanaram.

The most obvious solution to this problem is that Benjamin was conceived in Padanaram.  It must have been just prior to their leaving Syria when they fled from Laban.  The Lord must have blessed Jacob and Rachel in the conception of a child back then, and then they fled.  Then we read all the information about their time in Shechem and all the trouble they had in that city, and then the account of Jacob gathering all their idols and earrings, and the account of Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse, having died.  So these things must have happened within a nine-month period of their leaving Padanaram to the point of Benjamin’s birth.

If that is correct, that actually helps with the dating of these things because we know they came out of Padanaram when Jacob was 100.  He had spent 40 years there, and it was the year 1907 B. C.  And if Benjamin was conceived in the year 1907, it was likely that he was born in 1906 B. C. (Years are counted downward on the Old Testament side of the cross.)  So it would be right within that timeframe, and Jacob was likely 101 when Benjamin was born.  And that seems to solve the problem, and it has to be considered.  Again, that is the most obvious solution.

But when we look at that word “born,” where it says of the sons that they were “born” in Padanaram, it is not a word that is used in regard to conception.  I have not been able to find that to be the case.  It is the same word that we found to be translated as “travailed,” and “midwife,” and “delivered.”  It is a word that identifies with giving birth, or being born.  So that is a problem. 

However, when we look further into this word, we find that this same word is also translated as “begat” or “begot,” if we go back to Genesis 5:9:

And Enos lived ninety years, and begat Cainan:

The word “begat” is the same Hebrew word translated as “born,” and “delivered,” and so forth.

Then it says in Genesis 5:10:

And Enos lived after he begat Cainan eight hundred and fifteen years, and begat sons and daughters:

And this is the same word, and it is found three times in these two verses.  We have learned that when we read that Enos lived ninety years and begat Cainan, it is not as straightforward as it seems to be.  This is how God hid the biblical calendar of history (until it was time to reveal these things).  It appears to say that when Enos was 90 years old, he had a son named Cainan.  But the actual explanation is that when Enos was 90 years old, he begat a son who would later be the progenitor of Cainan; the line that Cainan would come from would start when Enos was 90 years old. 

So just think of it this way.   We read that he begat sons and daughters.  Let us say that Enos had five sons.  The descendant of one of Enos’ sons would result in the eventual birth of Cainan.  So when Enos was 90, that particular son was born, and then he would have sons(s), and maybe there would be another generation of sons after that, and then, finally, Cainan would be born.  And Enos’ other sons were not in that line – they did not produce Cainan.  So that is really what is in view.  When Enos was 90, he had a son (or an offspring) from which Cainan would be born.  The way the Lord laid out the biblical calendar can be seen in the next statement, in Genesis 5:11:

And all the days of Enos were nine hundred and five years: and he died.

You see, Enos was a biblical calendar patriarch from the time of his birth until the time he died.  In other words, for 905 years, God would reckon the calendar of history, the dating of time for that period, according to the lifespan of Enos, just as we read later of Noah wherein God’s calendar dating is then based on the life of Noah.  For example, the flood began “in the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month.”  That is how time was reckoned.  The flood was in Noah’s 600th year.  But when Enos was alive, he was the calendar-reference patriarch.  In his 905th year Enos died, and at that time there was a need for a new calendar-reference patriarch because the calendar could not be tracked according to the life of Enos because he had died.  In Enos’ 905th year, Cainan would have been born. 

Again, the earlier statement that Enos lived ninety years, and begat Cainan was designed by God to throw people off track and to hide the biblical calendar until the proper time at the time of the end when it was necessary to have understanding of the calendar, or else the people of God would not have been able to rightly discern “both time and judgment.”  We would not have known when important things concerning the creation date, the flood date, and many other dates in the Old Testament that would be necessary for the Lord’s people at the end of earth’s history to know and understand.

For example, it was necessary for us to know what God meant when He said, “Be not ignorant of this one thing,” and to not be ignorant is to possess knowledge and understanding: “…a wise man’s heart discerneth both time and judgment.”  The Bible also says, “…and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand.” So when the Bible says, “But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day,” and it says this in the context of the flood and the end of the world, then we would have to know when the flood occurred.  So God revealed the flood date through the biblical calendar of history to be 4990 B. C.  And, again, “one day is…as a thousand years,” and God had said to Noah, “Yet seven days,” and He would bring the flood.  So 7,000 years from 4990 B. C. brings us to the year 2011 A.D., the beginning of Judgment Day on the world.

But getting back to our search to understand how it can be said that Benjamin was included in those born in Padanaram, we have to consider that it means he was begotten there.  But this is a different matter, is it not?  For one thing, it is speaking of men, and, yes, he was born to Jacob, so that would still be in view.  Of course he was born to Rachel, and we will look at another statement having to do with a woman later, but it is a different matter that this word “begat” or “born” is used in regard to Enos when the individual said to be born (Cainan) was not present in the world, and he would not be born for many hundreds of years later.  It goes beyond conception, does it not?  Cainan would not have been conceived for 800+ years from the time that Enos was 905.  So that does seem to allow for the possibility that it means Benjamin was conceived.  He was “begat.”  He existed in Padanaram, but he would come forth on the trip to Ephrath, or Bethlehem.

Let us go to Exodus 6:20:

And Amram took him Jochebed his father's sister to wife; and she bare him Aaron and Moses: and the years of the life of Amram were an hundred and thirty and seven years.

This is telling us of Amram and Jochebed.  Many theologians think that because of the way this is worded that they are the parents of Aaron, Moses, and Miriam.  We can see why they might think that, but we also know that the Bible says, “Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself,” and He is truth, and we know that God hides truth.  Just as He hid the truth in Genesis 5 regarding the relationship of Enos and Cainan (not being a father and his immediate son), so too God has hidden truth here.  If we go to Numbers 26, we find this statement in Numbers 26:59:

And the name of Amram's wife was Jochebed, the daughter of Levi, whom her mother bare to Levi in Egypt: and she bare unto Amram Aaron and Moses, and Miriam their sister.

Again, the word “bare” is the same word translated as “begat,” and although it is very specific in naming these three, keep in mind that we found biblical evidence of a biblical calendar being kept in the same manner as it was in Genesis 5.  That is, “end to end,” as one calendar patriarch’s life would come to an end, life would begin in the same year with the birth of the next assigned calendar patriarch.  For example, when Levi entered Egypt, it can be deduced that he was 60 years old, and therefore he spent 77 years in Egypt because the Bible tells us in Exodus 6:16 that Levi died at age 137.  Let us go there, and read Exodus 6:18:

And the sons of Kohath; Amram, and Izhar, and Hebron, and Uzziel: and the years of the life of Kohath were an hundred thirty and three years.

Then it says in Exodus 6:20:

And Amram took him Jochebed his father's sister to wife; and she bare him Aaron and Moses: and the years of the life of Amram were an hundred and thirty and seven years.

When we put Levi’s 77 years that he spent in Egypt together with Kohath’s lifespan of 133 and Amram’s lifespan of 137, and Aaron’s age at the time of the exodus at 83, it totals 430 years.  And the Bible tells us that this was the exact duration of Israel’s stay in Egypt, which was 430 years to the selfsame day.  That would mean that upon Levi’s death, Kohath was born.  And Kohath’s life was 133 years, and in the year Kohath died, Amram was born.  Concerning Amram, we are told that he took Jochebed his father’s sister to wife, and she bare him Aaron, and Aaron is the oldest sibling, and God ties in with lifespan of Aaron, not Moses.  We would probably expect Moses to be mentioned first because he was the “greater,” in a sense, of the children.  But she bare, or begat, to him Aaron and Moses, as well as Miriam, and Miriam was the older sister of Moses because she followed the ark in which the baby Moses was placed in the river by his mother, and Miriam approached a princess of Egypt who rescued the child, and Miriam offered to find a Hebrew woman to nurse the child for her. 

But this is basically telling us that when Amram married Jochebed, then she begat Aaron, but Aaron was not born as their direct son because that would overlap the biblical calendar.  It was similar to Enos begetting a son, and then later Cainan would be born in that line.  It is the same case here.  Amram and Jochebed had a son; he would marry a woman, and they would then have Aaron, Moses, and Miriam.   They would be the “unnamed couple” that are mentioned in Exodus 2 when baby Moses’ life was in danger due to the Pharaoh’s edict that all the Hebrew male children were to be slain.

So that gives us the basis and justification for our understanding because we must find biblical justification, and we cannot just make the assumption (regarding Benjamin being “born” in Padanaram) that it means “conception.”  But this word translated as “born” definitely has the idea of “begat,” and as we looked closely into the Bible’s understanding of that word, it can mean someone that is in the “line of” an ancestor, and it could be hundreds of years before that individual is actually conceived and born.  So this word can also identify with “conception” in the land of Padanaram, and then the subsequent birth of Benjamin enroute to Bethlehem.

Going back to Genesis 35:27-29:

And Jacob came unto Isaac his father unto Mamre, unto the city of Arbah, which is Hebron, where Abraham and Isaac sojourned. And the days of Isaac were an hundred and fourscore years. And Isaac gave up the ghost, and died, and was gathered unto his people, being old and full of days: and his sons Esau and Jacob buried him.

The way this is worded, it appears it happened right away.  Jacob traveled to see his father, and then his father died at the age of 180, and then Jacob and Esau buried their father.  However, that is not the case.  We know Isaac’s birthyear was 2067 B. C., so we know that he would have been 180 in 1887 B. C.  But remember that we were just talking about how Benjamin was conceived in Padanaram in the year when Jacob was 100 in the year 1907 B. C., and he was most likely born the next year in 1906 B. C.  So we go from 1906 B. C. in verses 26 and 27, and then in verse 29 it is already 1887 B. C.  That is 19 years later!  Keep in mind that God, for His own purposes, is telling us that Isaac died at that age and was gathered unto his people, but there were certainly events that took place from the time that Jacob journeyed to Isaac his father (after Benjamin’s birth and Rachel’s death) until Isaac died.  And we can know this without any question if we turn to Genesis 37:1:

And Jacob dwelt in the land wherein his father was a stranger, in the land of Canaan. These are the generations of Jacob. Joseph, being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his brethren…

So Joseph was 17, and we know that Joseph was born when Jacob was 91, in the year 1916 B. C.  But again, Isaac would not die until 1887 B. C.  Joseph was born in 1916 B. C., and he would be 17 in 1899 B. C., which leaves 12 years until Isaac would die, or 13 years inclusive years.  It is an interesting timespan from this point when Joseph was 17 until the year 1877 B. C., when it was the midst of the famine, and Jacob came before Pharaoh at the age of 130, and all Israel had entered into Egypt under the care and protection of Joseph.  From this point when Joseph was 17 until that year 1877 B. C. is 23 years inclusive.  I thought that was interesting.  And Joseph would be 39 then.  We see both of these numbers appearing often in the Bible.  It was 13 inclusive years from the time Joseph was 17 until Isaac would die, and it is 23 inclusive years until that “dividing point” that we can spiritually relate to the time of the Great Tribulation.

I just wanted to point out that there is a gap in time of 19 years between verses 27-28 and verse 29 when Isaac died.  Lord willing, we will continue our study in the book of Genesis when we get together in our next Bible study.