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About this book

Jubilees

About this book

Jacob and His Family Travel to Egypt

Chapter 44

1 And Israel took his journey from his house in Hebron on the new moon of the third month, and he went on the way of the Well of the Oath, and he offered a sacrifice to the God of his father Isaac on the seventh of this month. 2 And Jacob remembered the dream that he had seen at Bethel, and he feared to go down into Egypt.⁠ 3 And while he was thinking of sending word to Joseph to come to him, and that he would not go down, he remained there seven days, in case he might see a vision as to whether he should remain or go down. 4 And he celebrated the harvest festival of the first-fruits with old grain, for in all the land of Canaan there was not a handful of seed [in the land], for the famine was over all the wild animals and cattle and birds, and also over man. 5 And on the sixteenth the Lord appeared to him, and said to him, 'Jacob, Jacob'; and he said, 'Here I am.' And He said to him: 'I am the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham and Isaac; do not fear to go down into Egypt, for I will make of you a great nation there. 6 I will go down with you, and I will bring you up (again), and in this land you shall be buried, and Joseph shall put his hands upon your eyes. 7 Do not fear; go down into Egypt.' And his sons rose up, and his grandsons, and they placed their father and their possessions upon wagons. 8 And Israel rose up from the Well of the Oath on the sixteenth of this third month, and he went to the land of Egypt. 9 And Israel sent Judah ahead of him to his son Joseph to examine the Land of Goshen, for Joseph had told his brothers that they should come and live there so that they might be near him. 10 And this was the finest (land) in the land of Egypt, and near to him, for all (of them) and also for the cattle.

The Family Who Went to Egypt

11 And these are the names of the sons of Jacob who went into Egypt with Jacob their father. 12 Reuben, the Firstborn of Israel; and these are the names of his sons: Enoch, and Pallu, and Hezron and Carmi — five. 13 Simeon and his sons; and these are the names of his sons: Jemuel, and Jamin, and Ohad, and Jachin, and Zohar, and Shaul, the son of the Zephathite woman — seven. 14 Levi and his sons; and these are the names of his sons: Gershon, and Kohath, and Merari — four. 15 Judah and his sons; and these are the names of his sons: Shelah, and Perez, and Zerah — four. 16 Issachar and his sons; and these are the names of his sons: Tola, and Puah, and Jashub, and Shimron — five. 17 Zebulun and his sons; and these are the names of his sons: Sered, and Elon, and Jahleel — four. 18 And these are the sons of Jacob and their sons whom Leah bore to Jacob in Mesopotamia, six, and their one sister, Dinah and all the people of the sons of Leah, and their sons, who went with Jacob their father into Egypt, were twenty-nine, and Jacob their father being with them, they were thirty. 19 And the sons of Zilpah, Leah's female servant, the wife of Jacob, who bore to Jacob Gad and Asher. 20 And these are the names of their sons who went with him into Egypt. The sons of Gad: Ziphion, and Haggi, and Shuni, and Ezbon, and Eri, and Areli, and Arodi — eight. 21 And the sons of Asher: Imnah, and Ishvah, and Ishvi, and Beriah, and Serah, their one sister — six. 22 All the people were fourteen, and all those of Leah were forty-four. 23 And the sons of Rachel, the wife of Jacob: Joseph and Benjamin. 24 And there were born to Joseph in Egypt before his father came into Egypt, those whom Asenath, daughter of Potiphar, priest of Heliopolis bore to him, Manasseh, and Ephraim — three. 25 And the sons of Benjamin: Bela and Becher and Ashbel, Gera, and Naaman, and Ehi, and Rosh, and Muppim, and Huppim, and Ard — eleven. 26 And all the people of Rachel were fourteen. 27 And the sons of Bilhah, the female servant of Rachel, the wife of Jacob, whom she bore to Jacob, were Dan and Naphtali. 28 And these are the names of their sons who went with them into Egypt. And the sons of Dan were Hushim, and Samon, and Asudi, and 'Ijaka, and Salomon — six. 29 And they died the year in which they entered into Egypt, and there was left to Dan Hushim alone. 30 And these are the names of the sons of Naphtali: Jahziel, and Guni and Jezer, and Shallum, and 'Iv. 31 And 'Iv, who was born after the years of famine, died in Egypt. 32 And all the people of Rachel were twenty-six. 33 And all the people of Jacob which went into Egypt were seventy people.⁠ These are his children and his children's children, in all seventy, but five died in Egypt before Joseph, and had no children. 34 And in the land of Canaan two sons of Judah died, Er and Onan, and they had no children, and the children of Israel buried those who perished, and they were counted among the seventy nations.⁠

Texts in conversation

Compare Genesis 46:27 and LXX Genesis 46:27 and Jubilees 44:33

Hebrew Bible · Septuagint · Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions

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Summary

The Hebrew version of Genesis says Jacob's household in Egypt had seventy people, while the Greek Septuagint translation follows a different tradition that says seventy-five. Jubilees addresses the difference, counting seventy and noting five who died.

Passages

Genesis 46:27

Hebrew Bible
26 All the direct descendants of Jacob who went to Egypt with him were sixty-six in number. (This number does not include the wives of Jacob’s sons.) 27 Counting the two sons of Joseph who were born to him in Egypt, all the people of the household of Jacob who were in Egypt numbered seventy. 28 Jacob sent Judah before him to Joseph to accompany him to Goshen. So they came to the land of Goshen.
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Genesis

LXX Genesis 46:27

Septuagint
26 And all the souls that came with Jacob into Egypt, who were his own descendants, besides the wives of the sons of Jacob, even all the souls were sixty-six. 27 And the sons of Joseph, who were born to him in the land of Egypt, were nine souls; all the souls of the house of Jacob who came with Joseph into Egypt, were seventy-five souls. 28 And he sent Judah before him to Joseph, to meet him at Heroonpolis, into the land of Rameses.
300–201 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in LXX Genesis

Jubilees 44:33

Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions
30 And these are the names of the sons of Naphtali: Jahziel, and Guni and Jezer, and Shallum, and 'Iv. 31 And 'Iv, who was born after the years of famine, died in Egypt. 32 And all the people of Rachel were twenty-six. 33 And all the people of Jacob which went into Egypt were seventy people. These are his children and his children's children, in all seventy, but five died in Egypt before Joseph, and had no children. 34 And in the land of Canaan two sons of Judah died, Er and Onan, and they had no children, and the children of Israel buried those who perished, and they were counted among the seventy nations.
170–125 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Jubilees

References

... The text of Jubilees likewise offers some confusing numbers. The writer reaches the total of seventy by adding up the sums he has supplied throughout the list. In their simplest form they are: Leah thirty (including Jacob), Zilpah fourteen (the total for Leah is forty-four), Rachel fourteen, and Bilhah twelve (the total for Rachel is twenty-six); all told, they are seventy. However, the writer then takes up the cases of five individuals who died in Egypt: Dan's four extra sons (Samon, Asudi, Iyaka, Salomon) and Naphtali's fifth son Ev. The names belong in the total of seventy for the entire list, so the author is not excluding them from it. He had already reported that those four sons of Dan died the year they entered Egypt, so they legitimately belong among those who entered with Jacob. ...
James C. VanderKam, Jubilees 2: A Commentary on the Book of Jubilees Chapters 22-50 (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2018), 1100–1102.
... Seventy souls are numbered in Genesis 46:27; Exodus 1:5; and Deuteronomy 10:22. Stephen follows the Septuagint with his numbering, which has the number 75 in the first two passages.—In Jubilees 44:33, the two numbers are harmonized: “All the souls (of the children) of Jacob who went into Egypt were 70. And these are now his children and the children of his children, all together they were 70; but there were five who died in Egypt before they married, and they had no children.”—In the rabbinic literature, there are many attempts to reconcile the numbers 66 and 70 in Genesis 46:26 and 27. ...
Hermann L. Strack and Paul Billerbeck, A Commentary on the New Testament from the Talmud and Midrash, Volume 2: Mark through Acts (Bellingham, WA: Lexham, 2022), 1283.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Genesis 46:27 and LXX Genesis 46:27 and Jubilees 44:33

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