HOW OLD WAS BENJAMIN WHEN HE CAME TO EGYPT? (GENESIS 44:20,22; 46:8,21)

In “The Atheist Papers,” Zehn asks this question. But he is really trying to expose a contradiction. Thus, he states that in the Genesis 44 passages, his brother Judah refers to him as a “a child, a little one, a lad who could not leave his father's side.” But in the list of those who came to Egypt along with their children, he is seen to be “a grown man with children of his own.”

First, we must point out that Zehn has stacked the deck somewhat in the wording he employs above to describe Benjamin in Genesis 44:20. He goes with the somewhat inaccurate King James translation “child, a little one” instead of the more accurate designations used in modern translations: “young or younger son or brother, a boy.”

Carroll R. explains that qatan (“little”), the Hebrew word in 44:20, can refer “to those 'little' in years, the youth.” It can also be translated as “younger” or “youngest” among a group (i.e. of brothers).

The Hebrew word Joseph utilizes in v. 22 is equally ambiguous. Hamilton notes that na'ar “is used to cover a wide range of age-groups, from an unborn child...to a thirty-year-old (Gen 41:12).” However, he says, “There seems to be no case where a na'ar was married.”

The next, and somewhat misleading, statement by Zehn is that he was “a lad who could not leave his father's side.” This could easily be taken to imply that Benjamin was way too young to leave the protection of his father. The truth is just the opposite since it was in consideration of Jacob's health and peace of mind that Judah said that Benjamin could not leave. This was because Jacob had already lost one son, Joseph, from his favorite wife and could not bear to lose the only remaining one.

So although Zehn has certainly gone out of his way to minimize the age of Benjamin at the time of these events, we must admit that whatever his age, it is young enough to cause a problem when one moves to the census of Genesis 46 in which those who “entered Egypt” are enumerated. As Wenham says, “The rest of the Joseph story implies that Benjamin was still quite young when he entered Egypt, and it is therefore unlikely that he then had ten sons of his own [as stated in Genesis 46].”

We have jumped ahead a little now to the problem area which Zehn rightly points out. In Genesis 46 we are given a census of the seventy people who took up Pharaoh's offer to settle in Egypt. There is some uncertainty at this point since the Septuagint version lists 75 instead of 70, a number also quoted later in the New Testament. But that is a textual problem I won't bother to get into now. And then if we try to get the names mentioned to reach 70, it becomes necessary to include Jacob's daughter Dinah in the census.

But beyond those somewhat minor issues, there is a greater problem here, described by Kline:

“Chronological limitations prove that some of the descendants were born in Egypt. Judah's son Perez (cf. 38:29) surely did not the sons Hezron and Hamul (v. 12) before the departure; neither did Benjamin, not yet twenty-five, already have ten descendants including grandsons (v. 21; cf Nu. 26:38ff.).”

But the above is not an insurmountable problem except for those who feel that the only purpose of censuses in the Bible is to convey dry historical information. In fact, there are a number of reasons, theological or otherwise, behind the listings of names in the Old and New Testament. And in some cases, the reason is seen mainly in the number of people enumerated, not necessarily just in the names themselves. As one simple explanation, Payne says that the figure seventy, in particular, could well be a round number.” One must admit that it, along with 40, does seem to pop up a number of times in the Bible.

But there is a little deeper significance to the number 70 in that it is the product of two symbolically “perfect” numbers – seven and ten. Thus, the implication of the inclusion of 70 family members of Jacob coming to Egypt is that it represented the whole of the incipient Jewish nation.

A.P. Ross elaborates on this point: “The predominant part of this section [Genesis 46:8-30] is the listing of seventy names of the family in Egypt, from which the nation of Israel would grow. Seventy is a full number for the foundational family of God's nation. The number corresponds to the seventy nations in the Table of Nations (Gen. 10). In Deuteronomy 32:8-11, Moses explained that the nations' boundaries were established according to the number of the children of Israel.”

So is the Bible lying in stating that seventy descendants entered Egypt? As I earlier stated, we must take into consideration the literary as well as historical purpose behind such genealogies. Kline puts it like this: “Stylistically the conventions of such lists are followed, particularly selectivity to achieve conventional totals, in this case seventy (v. 27; cf. Gn. 10; Ex. 1:5; 24:9).” In this particular case, the author of Genesis added those sons born later to some of the twelve patriarchs in order to achieve the number 70. A New Testament example can be seen in Jesus' genealogy given at the beginning of Matthew's Gospel. In it, it is obvious that some deletions were necessary to achieve groups of 14 names each.

And if you are still concerned that the Bible seems to be trifling with the strict truth, you might consider Wenham's explanation. He says, “It may well be that the editor realized Benjamin's sons were not yet born when he entered Egypt but that he thought it was right to include them, for as Heb. 7:10 puts it, they were 'still in the loins of [their] ancestor.'”