1. So the Hebrews went out of Egypt8, while the Egyptians wept, and repented that they had treated them so hardly9. - Now they took their journey by Letopolis10, a place at that time deserted11, but where Babylon was built afterwards, when Cambyses laid Egypt waste: but as they went away hastily, on the third day12 they came to a place called Beelzephon, on the Red Sea; and when they had no food out of the land, because it was a desert, they eat of loaves kneaded of flour, only warmed by a gentle heat13; and this food they made use of for thirty days; for what they brought with them out of Egypt would not suffice them any longer time; and this only while they dispensed it to each person, to use so much only as would serve for necessity, but not for satiety14. Whence it is that, in memory of the want we were then in, we keep a feast for eight days15, which is called the feast of unleavened bread. Now the entire multitude of those that went out, including the women and children, was not easy to be numbered, but those that were of an age fit for war, were six hundred thousand (Exodus 12:37).

2. They left Egypt in the month Xanthicus, on the fifteenth day of the lunar month; four hundred and thirty years after our forefather Abraham came into Canaan, but two hundred and fifteen years only after Jacob removed into Egypt.1 (28) It was the eightieth year of the age of Moses, and of that of Aaron three more. They also carried out the bones of Joseph2 with them, as he had charged his sons to do.3

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FOOTNOTES

8 Josephus omits mention of the mixed multitude that joined the Israelites in their exodus from Egypt (Exod. 12:38).

9 That Jews, according to Josephus, are not prejudiced against gentiles is clear from the fact that he differentiates between Pharaoh and the Egyptians, carefully noting, in an extra-biblical addition here, that when the Israelites departed from Egypt the Egyptians lamented and regretted the harsh treatment that they had inflicted on the Israelites.

10 The city of Leto, Letopolis, has been identified as Usim, ten miles north of Old Cairo and about ten miles south of Heliopolis, where Jacob and his family settled ( Ant. 2.188). Josephus identifies it with Sukkoth (Exod. 12:37), which is identified with Thukke in Egyptian inscriptions.

11 Josephus here indicates that the route of the exodus was more to the south.

12 This corresponds to Moses’ proposal to Pharaoh during the fourth plague to allow the Israelites to go on a three days’ journey into the wilderness in order to sacrifice to God. Artapanus ( ap. Eus., Pr. Ev. 9.27.34) also, in an extra-biblical addition, says that the Israelites came to the Sea of Reeds in three days. Goudoever (1961) calls attention to the Samaritan Marqah’s Commentary on Exodus, which states that the Israelites arrived at the Sea of Reeds in three days but that they actually crossed it on the second feast (that is, on the seventh day of Passover); but the Samaritan Asatir asserts that they crossed it three days after their departure from Egypt.

13 Josephus does not give the Bible’s explanation (Exod. 12:39) for the short period of baking, namely that the Israelites had been thrust out of Egypt and did not have enough time to prepare any provisions for themselves. He is apparently troubled by the fact that Moses had told the Israelites (Exod. 12:3-28) to prepare for their departure (Ant. 2.311).

14 This statement is Josephus’ addition, presumably based on the fact that a month after they had left Egypt the Israelites complained about their hunger to Moses and Aaron (Exod. 16:1-3).

15 According to the Torah (Exod. 12:18-19, Lev. 23:6, Num. 28:17), the Passover is to be observed for seven days; and Josephus himself elsewhere says so ( Ant. 3.249). Here he is apparently referring to the fact that in the Diaspora the holiday, like the other pilgrimage festivals, was observed for an extra day. Philo, however, though he is living in the Diaspora, gives the length of the holiday as seven days ( De Specialibus Legibus 2.28.156).

1 This would appear to contradict Josephus’ earlier statement ( Ant. 2.204) that the Israelites endured hardships in Egypt for 400 years. Josephus is apparently following Demetrius ( ap. Eus., Pr. Ev. 9.21.18) in dividing the 430 years into two equal parts. The figure of 215 years is also found in the eighth-century Pirqei de-Rabbi Eliezer (48), where the first-century Rabbi Joḥanan ben Zakkai is quoted as saying that the Israelites were in Egypt for 210 years, that 5 years before Jacob arrived Manaaseh and Ephraim were born to Joseph and were counted among the children of Israel, and that God reduced the 430 years that the Israelites were supposed to have spent in Egypt to 215 years for the sake of the merit of the forefathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The Samaritan midrash, Memar Marqah, attributed to the third- or fourth-century theologian Marqah but compiled over the next few centuries, states that half of the 430 years were spent in Canaan and the other half, presumably 215 years, in Egypt. See Heinemann (1971:24-25). Actually, as Heinemann (1971:26) notes, since Joseph was 39 years old at the time when Jacob came to Egypt and died at the age of 110, of the 210 years from Jacob’s descent to the Exodus ( Bib. Ant. 9.3, Seder Olam Rabbah 3 [ed. Ratner, p. 14]), no more than 140 years were years of actual bondage.

2 One notable exception to Josephus’ general downgrading of the role of Aaron is to be seen in the fact that whereas in the Bible it is Moses alone who is mentioned as taking the bones of Joseph with him (Exod. 13:19), in accordance with the latter’s request (Gen. 50:25), Josephus here declares that both Moses and Aaron brought the bones with them. Inasmuch as attending to the dead and to their wishes is regarded as particularly meritorious (see Rabinowitz [1971:8: 442-46]), this deed brings great credit to Aaron. One problem is that priests are not permitted to have contact with the dead, except for their nearest relatives (Lev. 21:1-4; Ant. 3.277); and the high priest is not even permitted this. One may, therefore, ask how Aaron, the first high priest, can be presented here as having contact with the dead. The explanation may be that Aaron at this point had not yet been consecrated as high priest.

3 According to Exod. 13:19 (cf. Gen. 50:25), Joseph had caused the children of Israel to swear that they would carry his bones to Canaan.