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Acts 7 follows a tradition seen in Judith 5 and Psalm 105 that emphasizes the famine from Genesis 41 as the reason Israel migrated to Egypt. Knowing the move led to slavery, these later retellings stress that necessity, not choice, drove them there.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Judith 5:10
Deuterocanon
9 Then their God commanded them to depart from the place where they sojourned, and to go into the land of Canaan. They lived there, and prospered with gold and silver, and with exceedingly much cattle. 10 Then they went down into Egypt, for a famine covered all the land of Canaan. They sojourned there until they had grown up. They became a great multitude there, so that one could not count the population of their nation. 11 Then the king of Egypt rose up against them, and dealt subtly with them, and brought them low, making them labor in brick, and made them slaves. 12 They cried to their God, and he struck all the land of Egypt with incurable plagues; so the Egyptians cast them out of their sight.
Date: 100 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Acts 7:11
New Testament
8 Then God gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision, and so he became the father of Isaac and circumcised him when he was eight days old, and Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob of the twelve patriarchs. 9 The patriarchs, because they were jealous of Joseph, sold him into Egypt. But God was with him, 10 and rescued him from all his troubles, and granted him favor and wisdom in the presence of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who made him ruler over Egypt and over all his household. 11 Then a famine occurred throughout Egypt and Canaan, causing great suffering, and our ancestors could not find food. 12 So when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent our ancestors there the first time.
Date: 70–90 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... Jacob exercises a positive leadership role, resulting in the survival and multiplication of the sheep. Since the move to Egypt has dire consequences down the road, several Jewish historical reviews are quick to cite the famine of Genesis 41:56–57 in order to justify the move (Psalm 105:16; Judith 5:10; Acts 7:11). The Animal Apocalypse stands within this tradition, as the sheep go to the land of the wolves “to dwell and to pasture.” ..."
Daniel C. Olson, A New Reading of the Animal Apocalypse of 1 Enoch: “All Nations Shall Be Blessed”, SVTP 24 (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 168.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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