Moses summarizes the descent into Egypt with a number: seventy persons in total from Jacob's line, with Joseph already in Egypt when the others arrived. Seventy carries a rounded completeness in Hebrew thought — the same number appears in the Table of Nations in Genesis 10, suggesting a symbolic fullness of humanity. But Moses is not just counting heads; he is measuring a beginning. What enters Egypt as a household of seventy will exit as a nation too numerous to count. Acts 7:14 preserves a variant tradition of seventy-five, drawing on the Greek Septuagint's wider count of Joseph's extended family, showing the early church read this passage as a foundational point of origin. The verse quietly sets up the explosive multiplication that follows: God's covenant promise to Abraham in Genesis 15:5 — descendants as numerous as the stars — is about to visibly accelerate.

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