Exodus 1:5Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Consequently, we cling to worldly possessions, neglecting the greater truths and the desire for what is truly beneficial, which would naturally keep us closer to God’s grace. As a result, having distanced ourselves from that which sustains our goodness and our connection with the Divine, we find ourselves without the true Lord managing our blessings. Instead, having strayed from the sacred land and the life devoted to God, we have entered into a realm of shame and absurdity, essentially surrendering ourselves to the dominion of darkness. We mirror those who left Canaan for Egypt, becoming subjected to Pharaoh and the Egyptians, who, by yielding to evil and embodying depravity, reflect the image of Satan and his minions, whom they misguidedly revered as gods, turning away from righteous thoughts and succumbing to the shadows of ignorance.

To clarify, the Israelites descended from Jacob who went to Egypt with him numbered no more than sixty-six souls; however, if we include Jacob himself, along with Joseph and his two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, the total lineage would amount to seventy individuals. Yet, the author of the Acts of the Apostles, the divinely honored Luke, as well as the first martyr, Saint Stephen, in his address to the people of Judea, referenced five additional individuals to supplement this total of seventy who journeyed with Jacob to Egypt, aligning with the translation of the Scriptures by the divinely inspired Seventy Interpreters. Blessed Jerome noted that this interpretation included three of Joseph's grandchildren as part of Jacob's lineage, consisting of one from Manasseh and two from Ephraim, born from Manasseh. They also accounted for two great-grandchildren, one linked to the son of Manasseh and the other to Ephraim.

The addition of these five individuals did not affect the core tenets of faith; thus, the interpreters of the Hebrew Bible regarded this inclusion as insignificant, ensuring that the veracity of Sacred Scripture remained intact. The Holy Spirit, through Moses, intended to convey the omnipotence of the loving Lord, who multiplied Jacob’s descendants from a small group to hundreds of thousands. When Saint Luke mentions the seventy-five souls in the context of Stephen’s sermon, he deviated from the Hebrew text in favor of the Seventy Interpreters’ version; Blessed Jerome proposes this as the rationale. Saint Luke, aiming to chronicle the Apostolic efforts and achievements in spreading the message of Christ for posterity, had no need to insert anything in his narrative that contradicted the translation widely recognized among foreign nations. Furthermore, the ancient nature of this translation drew more attention than the accounts of the Acts of the Apostles, which the holy Evangelist Luke penned many years later and which was ultimately embraced by the Christian Church as one of the sacred texts inspired by God.

The entire household of Jacob—his wives, children, grandchildren, and possessions, including livestock and servants—migrated as one unit. Such an extensive understanding of "house" is substantiated by the book of Genesis, which emphasizes that "his sons and his sons' sons, and all his seed, his daughters and his daughters' daughters, came into Egypt with Jacob, and that they took their cattle and all their goods with them" (Gen. XLVI:6-7). Genesis also provides a detailed list of the members of Jacob's family who accompanied him into Egypt. Nevertheless, one must question the implication of them traveling with Jacob. Did they all journey with him personally? The answer is no, as Joseph had already settled in Egypt well before Jacob's migration. Additionally, some family members mentioned, including the children of Joseph—Ephraim and Manasseh (Gen. XLVI:27)—and the grandchildren from Judah and Benjamin, were born in Egypt. Therefore, when it states that those listed came with Jacob, it means that some accompanied him personally, while others were born either to him or Joseph during their lifetimes.

In total, there were said to be seventy-five souls that came from Jacob, referring to seventy-five members from his line who entered Egypt. However, the Hebrew text in Exodus, as well as in Genesis (XLVI:27) and Deuteronomy (X:22), records the figure as 70 souls, differing from the 75 found in the Greek and Slavonic versions of the Bible. This discrepancy resulted from Greek translators adding five individuals—Joseph's grandchildren—identified later in Numbers (XXVI:3) and in 1 Chronicles (VII:14), acknowledging Joseph’s crucial role in the migration narrative. The number 75 is reiterated in Stephen's address to the Hellenistic Jews, who were familiar with the Greek text (Acts VII:14).

In essence, the 75 represents the significant ancestors of Jacob's lineage. If we consider that this figure does not account for the wives and daughters of Jacob's sons, nor the servants, then the true number of those who settled in Egypt with Jacob, and those born there during his and Joseph's lifetimes, is indeed much greater.