Bible chronology is challenged by a divisive error in all modern Bible translations mistiming the Hebrew sojourn of Exodus 12:40 in Egypt as 430 years, suffering a misconstrued 400 of these in Egyptian slavery, herein exposed as founded on failure of translators to regard the context of Ex. 12:40 conditioning the Hebrew meaning of its “sojourn.” The King James version almost alone preserves the correct meaning of Ex. 12:40 fundamental to Moses' religion by chronologically exposing Abraham and not Jacob as Ex. 12:40's chief post-flood covenant propagator and sojourner.
Fig. 1's 430 spring-to-spring (ss) years sojourn of Ex. 12:40, whereby Jacob left Canaan for Egypt in its ss year 215, is proven by its Masoretic Text, wherein the liberty of all 73 of Joseph's Egyptian years counted from the year of Jacob's welcomed entry into Egypt to Joseph's untroubled death refutes the dominant theory of 430 years in Egypt divided into 30 years of Hebrew liberty (disqualifyingly including these 73 years of Joseph), and 400 years of Hebrew slavery misreading Genesis 15:13. Sec. 2.2.3 reveals the Fig. 1 Pharaoh Ahmose (who began the Gen. 15:13 Hebrew affliction), rising to power c. 11 years after Joseph died confirming Ex. 1:6-8, disqualifying this 400 years of Egyptian slavery theory, and confirming the Gen. 15:13 400 years of “servitude and/or humiliation (מצחק)” as having begun at Abraham's Gen. 21:8 105th year feast in honor of Isaac's weaning at age 5, mocked by jealous Ishmael.
Gen. 15:16 specifies the fourth generation of Abraham's sojourners in Egypt (namely “that nation [Egypt], whom they [Abraham's seed] shall serve” (of Gen. 15:14) entered Canaan, whose first generation entered Egypt as Jacob's Gen. 46:27 household of 70 (including Joseph's family of 4). This produced two candidate 4th generations entering Canaan after the Exodus: either Levi-Kohath-Amram-Moses (disqualified because Moses did not enter Canaan), or Kohath-Amram-Aaron-Eleazar, the winners: Levi and Kohath entered Egypt with Jacob, and Eleazar became Israel's first high priest.
Neither the Hebrew, the Greek (LXX), nor the Samaritan Old Testaments explicitly divide the 430 years mentioned in Ex. 12:40-41 into 215-year “halves” anywhere. This division, as shown in Fig. 1, is based only on starting the Ex. 12:40-41 “sojourn” in Abraham's 75th year instead of at Jacob's entry into Egypt at age 131 as based on Appx. A's Gen. 5-11's patriarchal chronogenealogies. This was preserved in Jewish tradition by Josephus as quoted and explained in Sec. 3.3. Until my 2005 repair (Appx. C, chart 11/19) of E. R. Thiele's flawed chronology as matured by May, 2015, despite pretentions to the contrary, there was no absolute Hebrew kings chronology on which its preceding MT chronology unbroken back to the Creation (Appx. A, C, and Fig. 1), was possible. Chronology confirms the MT as the original Hebrew Bible (already archeologically authenticated indistinguishable from its 2nd century BC Dead Sea Scrolls antecedents), back to the start of Joseph's 1661 BC 37th fall-to-fall (ff) year heading its 28 extrabiblical astronomically-based, MT-clarifying synchronisms.
Thus the humbling trial of covenant faith of 430 years without a country from Abraham's 75th-year departure from Haran until the Exodus of Fig. 1, and not from Jacob's entry into Egypt, defined the covenant-driven “sojourn” of Exodus 12:40.
Abraham's son Isaac and grandson Jacob inherited Abraham's covenant of ownership by faith (without moral right of immediate possession) of “the promised land” along with the promise “in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed” for Abraham's sake, and due to Abraham's faithfulness as enforced by his covenant alone. And until Canaanite forfeiture of their land first shown to Abraham and later promised to him and his chosen “seed” after him, Abraham and his “seed” inheriting his covenant would remain countryless sojourners according to his covenant which was their deed to Canaan. This successively inherited deed (not its land) remained Abraham's despite its inheritance by and confirmation to Isaac and Jacob, each of whose older brothers, Ishmael and Esau, regarded Abraham's covenant inheritance as their's by birthright.
Like for Isaac and Jacob starting the 215thcheck - rewrite year of biblically recorded chronology from Abraham's 75th year, at Jacob's entry into Egypt (cf. Fig. 1), the “sojourning” of “the children of Israel” of Exodus 12:40 extended by another 216 years the landless sojourn covenanted by God in Abraham's 75th year to “get thee out of thy country,” in pursuit of the homeland morally owned by the Amorites until their “iniquity is full” (Gen. 15:16), whose moment arrived at the Exodus, completing the 430 years of the Israelites' covenanted landless “sojourn” status, and commencing preparation for the possession of Canaan which included the construction of their Tabernacle. Thus, the inherited covenant of Abraham, Israel's deed to Canaan, determined that the 430 years “sojourn” of Ex. 12:40 of the children of Israel commenced in Abraham's 75th year, and not at the descent of Jacob into Egypt in his 131st year. Thus the inheritors of Abraham's covenanted prize of Canaan had to extend Abraham's covenanted sojourn, as running Abraham's relay race passing the baton of Abraham's covenant, to win it.
Finally, Abraham's covenant promise of Gen. 15:13-16 including 400 years of affliction of his seed “in a land that is not theirs,” was God's answer to Abraham's v. 8 request for a personal sign “whereby shall I know that I shall inherit (Canaan),” like Gideon's fleece (Judges 6:36-40). These 400 years could not have begun after Abraham's lifetime, since their start was shown to Abraham as his grievous sign (Gen. 21:8-13), for him to experience in his 105th year at Ishmael's mocking of God's Messianic “seed of promise”, Isaac. Ishmael's jealousy over his disinheritance as Abraham's firstborn, led to his expulsion from Abraham's family. Yet he was to become a great nation.
The biblical highlight of the Exodus from Egypt was discovered securely dated astronomically, and archeologically, after being located in my biblical chronology of Fig. 1. The date and details of the Exodus emerged from my correction of Edwin R. Thiele's chronology of the Hebrew kings exposing a hidden treasure of historical and chronological detail concealed by the three years too early offset of Thiele's dominant chronology preceding Jotham's fall-to-fall 733/732 BC death in his 16th year. From this development emerged the historical witness of the three biblically mentioned Pharaohs performing key roles in the herein proven 216 years sojourn in Egypt climaxing in its Exodus account: Ahmose I (Exodus 1:8), Thutmose III (Exodus 2:15), and Amenhotep II (Exodus 3-15). The entire 430 years long saga of the Exodus is proven to have begun in Abraham's Gen. 12:1-4 75th year, and climaxed in the Exodus drama starting shortly after midnight on Saturday, Julian 21 April 1443 BC, which ended its 7 days flight from Pharaoh in the safety of the far shore of the Red sea (Aqaba), whose Fig. 5 chronology uniquely exposes the rationale of the Exodus story appearing in the 4th commandment of the Deuteronomy 5:6,12-15 Decalogue.