1. Exodus 1:5 (ESV)
  2. Exposition

Who are included among the seventy descendants?

Exodus 1:5 (ESV)

5 All the descendants of Jacob were seventy persons; Joseph was already in Egypt.

The Hebrew literally says, those who went out from Jacob’s loins. This means that seventy persons refers to Jacob’s direct descendants—his sons and daughters, grandsons and great-grandsons—as recounted in Genesis 46:8–27. However, the whole group that entered Egypt was larger than seventy people. It also included Jacob’s other daughters, his sons’ wives and daughters (Genesis 46:7), and possibly servants.1

(Interestingly, the Hebrew word for loins is used for a man’s offspring in only one other case in Scripture: Judges 8:30 tells us that Gideon also had seventy descendants who went out from his loins.)