Numbers 33:3’s summary of the Exodus event varies with the account in Exodus 12 on two points.
First, within the Priestly tradition itself there seems to have been a discrepancy on the date assigned to the actual Exodus. Was it the 14th, that is Passover, or the 15th, that is the following day? Indeed this discrepancy may have actually been more of a discrepancy on calculating when day begins.
So while Numbers 33:3 makes it pretty clear that the Israelites left Egypt on the morrow of Passover, on the 15th that is, Exodus 12:14-19 make it just as clear that it was “this day” (Ex 12:14, 12:17), that is the 14th of the month, Passover. This discrepancy is even transferred to the parallel discrepancy concerning the Festival of Unleavened Bread: does it commence on the 14th or the 15th?—treated already in contradictions #113 & #194-197.
Second, while Numbers 33:3 claims that the Israelites left Egypt on the day after the Passover and in full view of the Egyptians (“before the eyes of all Egypt”), the traditions preserved in Exodus 12 recount how the Israelites left during the night, in haste and practically in stealth.
On a rhetorical level the claim made in Numbers 33:3 amounts to hyperbole. But it also serves a theological purpose: now all of Egypt knows who Yahweh is! Remember that theologically speaking the central issue of the Plague narrative, especially in the hands of the Elohist, was “who is Yahweh?” (Ex 5:2). Of course Pharaoh’s seemingly innocuous question gets a response from Yahweh: “And Egypt will know that I am Yahweh when I reach out my hand against Egypt” (Ex 7:5, etc.). And indeed by the end of the 10 plagues, the Pharaoh and all of Egypt know who Yahweh is—the theological purpose and message of this story!
I think it’s worthwhile to cross-reference contradiction #115, since it discusses the time of departure from Egypt. As I pointed out in the comments, Deuteronomy 16:6 contradicts Exodus 12:29-34.
There actually is no contradiction. On the Biblical Civil calendar, they were in the month of Tishrei/ secular. Nisan 15, Exodus 12 is not he beginning of months unto Israel and starts the Redemptive/religious calendar. It wasone year following Moses first encounter at the burning bush.
Irael left Egypt Nisan/Abib 14 ” and the evening and the morning was/is the first day. Genesis 1:5, 8,13…) The passover was to be chosen on the 10th, sacrificed the 14th, first day of passover is the 14th, unleavened bread/Matza on the 15th (lasting 7-dys), with firstfriits offering being the 16th, all in Nisan/Abib.
They left on the 15. The Passover is the 14th and when it was going in to the 15th , they ate the meal then. They weren’t to leave any of it till morning, so they left on the 15th maybe after they plundered the Egyptians 🤷♀️ The Bible says the day after the Passover.
Here’s the link to contradiction #115:
http://contradictionsinthebible.com/morning-or-evening/
On a technical note, the last two times I’ve logged onto the site (from different PCs), I’ve received this message: “SmartScreen Filter helps protect you from unsafe websites that impersonate addresses or content from legitimate websites. You can help SmartScreen filter identify unsafe websites by providing your feedback below.”
Thanks John. I’m not sure what this message is. Studying the Bible is unsafe??? . . . but we all knew that already!?
So the writer of Exodus 12 is reckoning the day from sunrise to sunrise while the writer from Numbers 33:3 is reckoning it from sunset to sunset?
This is one possible solution and may have been the issue here. I know in later Jewish tradition the commencement of the day starts at sunset, but there is no biblical support for this — I think?
Another possibility as alluded to in contradictions #194-197 is that since in later traditions Passover gets assimilated into the Festival of Unleavened Bread, which was initially a 7-day festival commencing on the 15th of Abib, some texts now speak of the Festival beginning on the 14th!
Yes, Feast of Unleavened Bread starts on the 15th, as Yah says that is the day that He led Israel out of Egypt.
Is it true the jews reckoned their calendar by week not on dates? My friend told me the jews start their calendar on sunday as a first day of the week, therefore the 14th day of abib was sunday, is it correct?
Adding to the confusion is Numbers 28:3-8, a passage examined in contradiction #312, which says that the tamid offering should me made twice “daily” (yom), once in the morning and once “at twighlight” (Hebrew: “between the two evenings”). If a “day” starts in the evening, how could the same day be occurring when the second sacrifice was made? And of course there’s the age-old question of how there could be evening and morning without the sun, which you discuss here:
http://contradictionsinthebible.com/genesis-3-the-creation-of-light/
Morning (boquer) and Evening (ereb) are the mixing of the natural light and darkness provided by Yahuah not by the sun. Yah is the ultimate source of light. If you get up early in the morning you will witness there is light long before the sun rises, and light long after the sun sets at certain times of year.
True, as the first watch of the morning is 3am-6am. So depending on the watches throughout the day even if beginning from, the evening and the morning being a day, one would definitely have time for two separate sacrifices.
That is because we live on a flat earth, as Yah says and the sun travels over head. The light still shows because the sun is not far enough away from where we are, but then it does get away far enough and it’s dark.
Maybe there’s a possibility that “between the two evenings” (ben ha‛arbayim) means “between the descending of the sun from its zenith and the sunset” which is our “afternoon” or some period of our afternoon. Exodus 12 seems to distinct sunset (ereb) and “ben ha‛arbayim” (see Ex12:6 and Ex:12:8). Could be different sources though.
This would open a new contradiction however: “Was the passover killed at “ben ha‛arbayim” or at “ereb”? (Exodus 12, Leviticus 13 vs Deuteronomy 16)… But we shouldn’t be surprised with Deuteronomy 16 vs Exodus 12 because as stated in Contradiction #112, the same Deuteronomy 16 also implies that the passover meat should be boiled in water which was explicit forbidden in Exodus 12:9.
Yeshua, the Messiah, was crucified at 9 AM (time of morning sacrifice) and said “it’s finished at 3 PM (the afternoon sacrifice). It matched with the Passover service taking place at the Temple that day. Afterwards as the sun would be setting the Jews would go and eat their lamb. Yeshua and what happens to him is the key!
Proverbs 7:9 is interesting, because it seems to use “twilight,” “evening,” and “night” as synonyms: “in the twilight (nesheph), in the evening (yom ereb), at the time of night and darkness.” Also, Genesis 15:17 associates sundown with darkness: “When the sun had gone down and it was dark, a smoking fire-pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces.” Steven, any additional thoughts about the different ways ancient Israel reckoned the start and end of a day?
Exodus 12:8-10 might suggest that the next day commences in the morning. We are told that all the Passover meat is to be consumed ‘in this night” (lay’lah), which is still the 14th. And then verse 10 makes it clear that none is to remain until the morning (boqer). Likewise Lev 7:15: “And the meat of his peace-offering sacrifice shall be eaten on the (same) day it is offered. He shall not leave any of it until morning (boqer).” So it certainly looks that in these cases “morning” is being used to signal the next day.
The ben ha‛arbayim of Ex 12:6—doesn’t that refer to between sunset and nightfall? I don’t have Propp’s commentary with me. I’m sure he’s written extensively about this. Additionally, it looks like the two evenings are to be understood as still a part of the 14th day! So this then throws us back to the realization that there was some disagreement or confusion about the date, or start of Unleavened Bread, yes?
Yes, and we discussed that in a previous entry:
http://contradictionsinthebible.com/contradictions-passover-and-unleavened-brea/#comment-1320 Also, I should have mentioned some other contradictions regarding Passover: Who killed the firstborn, Yahweh or the Destroyer? Was blood on the doorposts required or not? I wrote a post about this nine years ago: http://bcharchive.org/2/thearchives/showthreadf1d2.html
I think the logic of the story has the death of the firstborn occur during the night and the Israelites leaving soon after. The disagreement is whether that counts as the next day or not. Certainly the two events could not have been twenty-four hours or more apart.
Wow, this is an awsome place. I am very interested in the tanakh and believe every word is the word of God. I just stumbled upon this site and cant wait to go through all these supposed contradictions. I am not sure how this works really. Guess ai will figure it out.
I am in the process of reading the Bible through again. I found it interesting that in Exodus 12:22, Moses instructs the people not to go out the door of their houses until the morning of the 15th. Whatever bread they would have made on the 15th would not have a chance to be leavened if they left on the 15th (Feast of Unleavened Bread). At this point, the Egyptians were practically throwing things to the Israelites to get them to leave their borders (“Take whatever you want.”). According to Deuteronomy 16:1, they left at night, or after the sun went down, so they had less than one day to pack up and leave. Therefore, based on scripture, I have to say that they left on the 15th after the sun set.
Charlene I concur. And according to scripture, days begin in the morning and on a luni-solar calendar, the month beginning with a new moon, the 15th would have been a full moon so they very well could have left in the literal “sight” of the Egyptians, further, it’s not like a huge group of people and flocks departing would have been invisible even with a dark moon.
May I add, if the luni-solar calendar is correct, the 15th would have been the 7th day of the week (7th day Sabbath) and they would not have departed on the Sabbath. I’m referring to the 8th,15th, 22nd, &29th luni-solar calendar.
Unless it is only the daylight hours of sabbath that are set apart and holy… the creation week in Genesis 1 shows us just that. Yahuah worked the 6 days , then came evening and morning showing he worked daylight , rested the night time periods for 6 consecutive 24 hour periods. After this, on the seventh day, he did not work, which sets this day apart from the 6 previous days. He blessed this day. The evening (night) period that followed that day is not mentioned as being set apart . In fact it wasn’t . It was the same as all the rest of the previous 6 nights. Also in Exodus 16 the quail came the evening(sunset or dark) of the 15th(sabbath). This shows that the catching and cleaning and cooking of these birds was an activity allowed that evening but as we know certainly wouldn’t be approved for day time sabbath activity as that is work.
An easy solution to this is that God delivered Israel on the 14th and they left their individual homes in the dark of night, but that Rameses was then the staging ground for their trip. So they didn’t set out from Rameses in full view of the Egyptians till the 15th (as it says in Numbers 33:3). With 600,000 men (Exodus 12:37) plus women and children there could have been easily over 2 million people. Given that they were all following Moses and the pillar of cloud and fire, it seems unreasonable to assume that in one night they all haphazardly filed out of Egypt as individuals from their respective homes without significant organization. Furthermore, it says that their divisions went out armed for battle (Ex. 12:41; 13:18), which implies organization which would have taken time. So viewing Rameses as a staging ground makes sense. I think that the amazing thing is that they were actually able to accomplish that in just one day!
Days begin at dawn according to scripture not evening. The Passover was killed late afternoon (9th hour) of the 14th then eaten in the night of the 14th that followed.
They stayed til morning of the next day which was the 15th as commanded. 600,000+ people finished spoiling the Egyptians which makes sense that it would take quite some time but could not stay the night so they departed the night of the 15th day.
The Passover was killed cooked and eaten in the same 14th day (2 Chronicles 35:11-16). They departed the day following which was the 15th at night (Numbers 33:3-4).