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The Contradiction Desk
Claimed Bible contradictions, stated the way they circulate, each with one diagnosis and the evidence for it: the Hebrew, the Greek, the manuscripts.
Four hundred and thirty years from when?
Exodus says Israel lived in Egypt 430 years. Paul says the law came 430 years after the promise to Abraham. The Greek and Samaritan texts of Exodus count Canaan too.
Galatians 3:17, in every translation this tool compares.
The real question: are Paul and Exodus counting from the same starting point? The plaque says the shop has been on this street for a hundred years, and the founder's diary says a hundred years since he first sold anything. Same number, or two different clocks?
Exodus 12:40 says the people of Israel lived in Egypt 430 years. Galatians 3:17 says the law came 430 years after God's covenant with Abraham. Abraham lived long before Israel went down to Egypt, so both figures cannot be right. MacArthur's own chronology puts the law 645 years after the first promise to Abraham.
The CSB's textual note on Exodus 12:40 says the Septuagint and the Samaritan Pentateuch add and in Canaan. The ESV Study Bible says Paul is apparently following the Septuagint of Exodus 12:40, which counts the dwelling in Egypt and in Canaan as 430 years and so runs from Abraham to the exodus. On that reading Paul's figure and the Greek Exodus agree, and the tension is with the Hebrew text.
And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect.
The Skeptic's Annotated Bible files this differently: under "How long was the Egyptian Captivity?" it puts Exodus 12:40 and Galatians 3:17 together on the 430 side, against the 400 years of Genesis 15:13 and Acts 7:6. The version given here, Paul against Exodus, is stated as it circulates. At full strength: the Hebrew says 430 years in Egypt alone, Paul says 430 from Abraham, and one of them is off by centuries.
The ESV Study Bible gives a second explanation: Paul counts not from the first promise but from its last affirmation to Jacob before he went down to Egypt (Genesis 46:3-4), and so relies on the Hebrew. MacArthur takes that route and dates the last reaffirmation 430 years before the law.
The same study Bible offers both a textual and a chronological answer. Ranking the variant as the primary diagnosis is a judgement made here, because it accounts for Paul's starting point without a second step; the ESV Study Bible presents it first but does not rank the two. The 400 years of Genesis 15:13 is a separate question about round numbers.
Not a claim that Paul miscounted. On either explanation, his figure has a source.
- CSB Study Bible, textual note and note on Exodus 12:40-41
- ESV Study Bible, note on Galatians 3:17
- The MacArthur Study Bible (ESV), note on Galatians 3:17
- The Skeptic's Annotated Bible, How long was the Egyptian Captivity?, https://skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/captivity.html
- King James Version, Exodus 12:40 and Galatians 3:17
