We are seeing the numbers 11, 22, and 44 unfolding as applied to God's relationship with man as an individual, and with mankind from a national viewpoint.

There was famine in the land about 1762 BC, so in 1761 BC, Jacob took his family and their sons (70 people) to Egypt where there was corn in plenty for food. The famine lasted seven years till 1756-55 BC.

Jacob's third son, Levi, had two great great grandsons (born about 1635-4 BC and 1632-31 BC). They were Aaron and Moses.

 If Moses was born in the year 1632 BC, then he was born 420 years after AbraHAm (2052 BC). During Abraham's time, he and his descendants lived in the Egyptian Eastern Delta. Abraham's relationship with the Egyptians was respected as a leader of a group of people with whom the Egyptians regarded as their equals. As illustrated in our earlier charts, it is believed that the Egyptians were desendants from Noah's son Ham, and Ham's son Mizraim. Abraham was regarded as a "resident alien" without a capital city whilst sojourning in Egypt. Abraham, like Jacob many years later, went into Egypt because of famine. He was a wealthy man with servants and possessions, living amicably amongst Canaanites, Perizzites, Philistines and Egyptians, and he negotiated with the Hittites. By the time that Aaron and Moses were born many years later, Abraham's descendants had become slaves under the rule of the Egyptian Pharoahs. God commissioned Moses, with Aaron as his mouthpiece, to rescue the Israel peoples from enslavement, and lead them out of Egypt. This Exodus eventually took place in 1552 BC. The Bible says that Abraham and his descendants had sojourned in Egypt over a period of 430 years (from 1982 BC when Abraham was 70 years of age through to 1552 BC). This chronological reckoning is based purely on my interpretation of biblical information as outlined earlier in this work. Even the "experts" cannot agree on the dates of those ancient days.

While the Israel nation was in captivity in Egypt, the last of God's punishments upon the Egyptians was to slay all their firstborn males because the Pharoah would not let Israel go out of their captivity. In 1552 BC the Israelites were given specific instructions as to what they should do on that night that the Angel of Death passed over so that the Israelite firstborn males would not be slain along with the Egyptian firstborn males. God promised Israel that he would deliver them from bondage by redeeming them.

In order to redeem something, a price is paid. It is a commonly accepted commercial-based practice. God would pay the price for saving or buying these firstborn children of Israel from death among the Egyptian firstborn males. God did deliver his people, and now he owned them. But what did God pay them for that ownership. The people did not pay Him money in order to get them out of slavery, even though they took a lot of the wealth out of Egypt with them when they left.

God's way is not necessarily man's way. The price God paid was to take one male child from the tribe of Levi, for every one male child in the rest of the tribes of Israel, and train those children to be members of His priesthood. One could consider this to be a "fair" price, because the nation paid a price for its deliverance by giving to God young men who would have otherwise been trained up for its army; and God would in return pay a price too, by training these children for the priesthood and civil service of the nation. If the nation loved God, they would want to serve Him. God certainly loved His people and wanted to train them in His law and ways which are perfect. As a result, the nation would receive God's blessing. It was God's Grace to the nation that made the way open for their deliverance and freedom from Egypt. For this freedom, God provided their training, and the nation provided its children to be trained for the priesthood and civil service.

Now we come again to the importance of the number 22. When the census or count of heads was made after the Exodus from Egypt there were

There is an imbalance. God could not fulfil the promise of providing a priesthood on the basis of "one for one". He was 273 children short of the requirement. But God never breaks a promise. He told Moses to collect from the people, five shekels for each of the 273 children in excess, and put the monies into the Treasury of the Temple. This became known as the "shekel of the sanctuary". This number 273 is also interesting. It is equivalent to the arithmetic formula

Five is known as the number of God's Grace towards mankind. Number 55 is the gematria of the word "ADON" or "LORD". The "minus two" demonstrates the falling short of the requirement of God to fulfil His promise. It was not until the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ that God's grace to man was demonstrated in all its fullness and love, when God gave His only Son, who was perfect in every way, to show the way to the resurrection and the life ahead for mankind. The value of "minus two" prefigured God's redemption of man, at that time, yet to be fulfilled in the future through His Son Jesus Christ.

Another interesting number came out of the count of the census after the Exodus. In the tribe of Levi, of the males aged 30 years and upwards, there were 8580 in number.

Here we have the number 22 again, but 390 is regarded as a number referring to "chastisement". Moses erected the tabernacle during the year after the Exodus (1551 BC). The people then became discontent in the wilderness, and angry with God because of their discomfort. God told them that because of their discontent and grumblings, those aged 20 and above would therefore die in the wilderness and not be permitted to enter the land promised to them. It was not until 1512 BC, some 39-40 years after the Exodus from Egypt, that God permitted the nation to cross the river Jordan with Joshua, and enter the Promised Land. That older generation was chastised by God as the number indicates because of their rebellion. Number 13 is the number which represents "rebellion "in bible numerics. When we finally get round to measuring the length of the Tabernacle of Moses in another section, we will see that with the hypothetical "Tabernacle Cubit" length of 22 inches, the joining of the boards to form each side Tabernacle, resulted in the Tabernacle length measuring 660 inches!

By the time the nation did enter the Promised Land, the priestly tribe had increased from 22,000 to 23,000. This can be expressed as 2300 x 10. The number 2300 is given in the prophetic book of Daniel and is most significant in bible prophecies as a number of "cleansing". That number in association with the number 10 indicates that God would not let the people enter the promised land until His cleansing process for the priesthood was perfected.

God made another two covenants with man through Moses. These we refer to as the "Mosaic Covenant" and the "Palestinian Covenant". The Mosaic Covenant was made with Moses as mediator at Sinai after the Israelites were wonderfully saved by God from their Egyptian bondage. God condemns all men as sinners. Exodus chapters 19 and 24 describe this covenant. An offering was made to God, the altar Moses set up was sprinkled with the blood of the sacrificial offering, and the book of the covenant (God's law given to Moses) was read to the people. The laws given to Moses are the first record of written laws given to the people from God. Up to this time in history, it seems that God's relationship with man was through the spoken word via His messengers, angels, or Himself, rather than through "written" word.

When Israel was about to enter the Promised Land, after their 39 years in the wilderness, the Palestinian Covenant was made with them. This secured the final restoration and conversion of the nation (described in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28, 29 and 30). Future blessings, however, were dependent upon national obedience to God's Law.