Acts 7:14-15: How Many Went to Egypt?

Our verse says that seventy-five members of Jacob's family went down to Egypt, but upon reading Genesis 46:27, Exodus 1:5 or Deuteronomy 10:22 we are told that only seventy people went down to Egypt, and this smaller number includes Joseph and his children. Which of these texts is correct?

As in the previous chapter, we have here a problem with text. All English versions are translated from the Hebrew Masoretic text of the Old Testament. However, one of the Hebrew texts found at Qumran has seventy-five in Exodus 1:5 (4QEx). The Septuagint (Greek translation) of both Genesis 46:27 and Exodus 1:5 also has the number seventy-five (and omits Jacob and Joseph in the number). The Jewish writer Philo knows about the problem, but does not solve it for us (De Migratione Abrahami 199-200). In other words, Stephen's (or Luke's) Bible probably had the number seventy-five rather than seventy.

When we ask which of these numbers is correct, we notice that counting the names listed in the Old Testament stories we come out with seventy. This appears to be the more firmly established tradition. However, we say that from the point of view of modern textual criticism. Stephen and Luke, assuming that they read the Septuagint, would not have known that Hebrew Scriptures had a different number. It would be like a person reading a King James Bible and not knowing that 1 John 5:7 is based on poor textual authority and so is not found in most modern translations. That person would claim that 1 John 5:7 is in the Bible; the others would just as rightly claim that it is not. A scholar would say that both were right in terms of their own English Bible, but that the original version of 1 John came without that verse.

If Stephen knew the Septuagint (and as a Greek-speaking Jew that was probably true), then he surely said seventy-five. Stephen was honest to his Bible and Luke was honest about what Stephensaid (or perhaps did not even notice the problem for his Bible said the same thing). We see that Stephen was off by five persons. It is not an issue of scriptural accuracy, for neither Stephen nor Luke is teaching about Jacob's genealogy or the size of his family; they are teaching about how God was with Joseph in Egypt and then brought the whole nation out of Egypt. The point is that God deals with Israel outside of the Promised Land.

That is also why in the following verse the speech combines the burial of Joseph at Shechem (Josh 24:32) with the burial of Jacob at Hebron in the cave of Machpelah (Gen 23:17; 49:29-32; 50:13). The point is not accuracy of historical detail (any learned Jew would have known that this was a summary combining two accounts), but God's action and human (especially Jewish) resistance to him. The fact that Shechem was in Samaritan territory may be deliberate, for it places the burial of the patriarchs (and this was quite accurate for Joseph, the one God used) outside of Jewish land and into the territory of the hated Samaritans.

What we have to remember is that in speeches like these the speaker does not intend to give a history lesson. Before he started, he would know good and well that his audience knew the history as well as he did, if not better. What he is trying to do is to make a point from the history. Therefore he can streamline it to fit his purposes. What we have to focus on is the point that the author is making about God (and human resistance) rather than losing our focus through fixating on numbers and chronology.

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All of the texts count only males, for the Hebrews were patrilineal and the purpose of such genealogical texts was to trace the male line. It is also clear that none of the texts give any indication that the numbers are anything other than literal head counts, for no special meaning is attached to either 70 or 75.