Why in Exodus do the people live to impossible ages?

Answer 1

A:The greatest biblical ages are actually found in the Book of Genesis. These ages can be demonstrated to be based on numerology, using the (for the ancients) magic number 17. For example:

1. Abraham lived to 175 (5 X 5 X 7)
2. Isaac lived to 180 (6 X 6 X 5)
3. Jacob lived to 147 (7 X 7 X 3)

• Each lifespan involves a perfect square (5, 6, then 7 in a numeric series),
• the third factor also forms a series (7, 5, 3)
• In each case the sum of the factors is 17

If we look at the lifespan of Abraham's wife, Sarah, we find that Genesis says she lived to 127 years, which is the sum of these consecutive square numbers plus 17 (127 = 52 +62 + 72 + 17).

Joseph, favoured son of Jacob, is sometimes referred to as the fourth patriarch, and his 110 years are simply the sum of these consecutive square numbers (110 = 52 +62 + 72). Joseph's age is also found in the elegant formula, 5x5 + 5x17. Interestingly, the first man in Genesis, Adam, has a life span of 930 years, (= 302 + 30), and the last man in Genesis, Joseph, has a life span of 110 years (= 102 + 10). And Adam's lifespan can also be related to his immediate descendants by another series containing the number 17.

The development of the Exodus tradition probably did not involve numerology in the way that the Genesis traditions did. Instead, periods of time were more likely to be based on numbers that were easy to remember for oral story-telling, a practice that continued down to the traditions of King Solomon.

Moses lived to exactly 120 years, and Joshua to exactly 110 years, mirroring Joseph's biblical age. Only the heroes of the story lived to such long ages. The other people of the Exodus, all two or three million of them, are portrayed without challenge as living much shorter lives, similar to the lifespans of the intended audience for the Book of Exodus. This had to be the case so that everyone who left Egypt would die during the forty years before the Israelites crossed into the Promised Land, as God had promised. If the ages of Moses, Aaron and Joshua are allowed to be typical for the whole group, there would have been a great many who, being less than 70 or 80 years old when they left Egypt, were still alive and well at the time of the biblical conquest of Canaan.