Did the Hebrews spend time in Egypt for 400 or 430 years? (Genesis 15:13 and Acts 7:6).
Let’s read Genesis 15:12-16. “Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, horror and great darkness fell upon him. Then He said to Abram: ‘Know certainly that your descendants will be STRANGERS IN A LAND THAT IS NOT THEIRS, and will serve them, and they will afflict them FOUR HUNDRED YEARS. And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; AFTERWARD THEY SHALL COME OUT with great possessions. Now as for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried at a good old age. But IN THE FOURTH GENERATION THEY SHALL RETURN HERE, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete” (NKJV). Now let’s read Acts 7:5-7, “And God gave him no inheritance in it, not even enough to set his foot on. But even when Abraham had no child, He promised to give it to him for a possession, and to his descendants after him. But God spoke in this way: that HIS DESCENDANTS WOULD DWELL IN A FOREIGN LAND, and that they would bring them into bondage and oppress them FOUR HUNDRED YEARS. ‘And the nation to whom they will be in bondage I will judge,’ said God, ‘and after that they shall come out and serve Me in this place.’”
These two accounts make it crystal-clear that the Hebrews, the “descendants of Abraham,” would spend time in a foreign land for 400 years. We learn from the book of Exodus that this “foreign land” was the nation of Egypt.
In your question you also referred to 430 years. Perhaps you were thinking of what we read in Exodus 12:40-41 which says, “Now the sojourn of the children of Israel who lived in Egypt was FOUR HUNDRED AND THIRTY YEARS. And it came to pass at the end of the FOUR HUNDRED AND THIRTY YEARS—on that very same day—it came to pass that all the armies of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt.” This passage SEEMS to contradict what we just read in Genesis and Acts, so how can we reconcile them? There are two views that are given by commentators which seek to reconcile these passages.
1) The “400 years” are given in “round figures” which correspond with “four generations” (as we read in Genesis 15:16 with 100 years for the average generation). Yet the “430 years” is the exact number of years they lived in Egypt and then they were delivered.
2) The “400 years” were the exact years that they were IN BONDAGE, for their bondage in Egypt is specifically mentioned in Genesis and Acts. Yet after that point in time, Jacob and his sons came to Egypt to live (during the famine) and they lived IN PEACE while there, for as we know Jacob’s son Joseph had been given a position of power under Pharaoh and he was able to allow his family to be treated kindly, and they even PROSPERED for years until their deliverance. See Genesis 46:1-47:11. So, the full number of years was “430 years.”
I will add one more verse in closing. We read in Galatians 3:17, “And this I say, that THE LAW, WHICH WAS FOUR HUNDRED AND THIRTY YEARS LATER, cannot annul the covenant that was confirmed by God in Christ, that it should make the promise of none effect.” These “430 years” obviously coincide with the 430 years in Exodus 12:40-41 so they not only include the years of bondage and the years of peace when Jacob lived in Egypt, but they include the months of sojourn after the Exodus from Egypt that led up to the giving of the Law on Mt. Sinai. (DO) (634.5)