Earl Lockhart writes me the following note:

      Paul, speaking of the law, says it came 430 years after the promise given to Abraham (Gal. 3:16, 17). Ex. 12:40 has these words: "Now the sojourning of the children of Israel which they sojourned in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years." How do you reconcile the two statements?

      Paul quoted from the Greek translation of the Old Testament (the Septuagint), which was then in use among all the Jews except some few learned men in Palestine who could read Hebrew. This translation reads in Ex. 12:40, "The sojourning of the children of Israel, which they sojourned in Egypt and in Canaan, was four hundred and thirty years." If this translation was correct, Paul's statement was exact; but whether it was or not, if he had given any different figures, every one of his readers acquainted with the passage in Exodus would have charged him with making a mistake. If the figures in the translation were incorrect, Paul might still have used them; for his argument is that, as the law came after the promise had been made, it could not invalidate the promise; and this is true, whether it came 430 years later, or 1,030.

      If Bro. Lockhart were to complain to me that a graduate of our college had done some disgraceful thing and [465] should hold the college responsible for it, I might reply that it was done ten years after he left college. He might answer, Yes, it was fifteen years after he left; but, if so, he would not be invalidating my defense, but only making it more forcible. So, if we say that the Greek translation is wrong, that the real time between the law and the promise was 645 years, Paul's argument is not invalidated, but strengthened.

      If any one still demands why Paul accepted a wrong rendering in the Greek translation, I answer that we must first determine whether it is a wrong rendering. It is true that our present Hebrew copies make the sojourn in Egypt alone 430 years, and as the promise to Abraham was first made 215 years before Israel went into Egypt, the time from the promise to law was 645 years; but who knows whether the Hebrew text at the time the Greek version was made did not read as that version represents it, and that the words "and in Canaan" have been since dropped out by copyists? This question in textual criticism has to be settled before we can say that Paul accepted an incorrect rendering. It is highly probable, too, that Paul had never read Hebrew in Exodus, and that he quoted it as many English scholars now quote passages in the old English version which are not correctly translated. It is sometimes better to do this than to stop and correct the rendering, though it should never be done when one's argument is dependent upon the incorrect rendering.

[SEBC 465-466]