VIII.III.2.  Having thus attempted to describe the general contrast of the Priestly Code and the Jehovist in the Mosaic period, it remains for us to compare the several stories in the two works.  The Exodus from Egypt is everywhere regarded as the commencement of Israelite history.  In the Priestly Code it is made the epoch of an era (Exodus xii. 2), which is afterwards dated from, not only in years but even in months and days.  It is unquestionable that this precise style of dating only came into use among the Hebrews at a very late period. We find in the historical books only one statement of the month in which an event took place (1Kings vi. 38), and in that case the day is not given.  To the prophetic writers dates were of some importance, and the growth of the practice may to some extent be traced with them.  Amos first came forward “two years before the earthquake.” /2/

***************************************** 2.  Agh. xv. 11, 17:  when al-Walid b. al-Mughira was dead, the Arabs dated after his death to the year of the elephant, which thereafter was made an epoch.  According to others they reckoned nine years after the death of Hisham b. al-Mughira, to the time when they built the Caaba, and then they dated from the building of the Caaba.  Comp. the ’Am al Ramada and the ’Am al Ru’af. ******************************************

The most precise date in Isaiah is “the year in which king Uzziah died.”  Numbers of years are first found in Jeremiah, “the thirteenth year of king Josiah,” and a few more instances.  All at once there was a change:  Haggai and Zechariah, prophets who grew up in the Babylonian exile, always give dates, not only the year and month, but the day of the month as well.  In the Priestly Code this precise reckoning, which the Jews obviously learned from the Chaldeans, is in use from the age of Moses onwards.

In the Jehovist the ostensible occasion of the Exodus is a festival which the children of Israel desire to hold in honour of their God in the wilderness.  In the Priestly Code this occasion disappears; there can be no pre-Mosaic festivals.  But with this the reason falls away for which Jehovah kills the firstborn of the Egyptians, He does it because the king of Egypt is keeping from Him the firstborn of the Israelites, which ought to be offered to Him at the festival; for the celebration in question is the sacrificial festival of the first-fruits of cattle in spring.  In the older tradition the festival is the first thing; it explains the circumstances of the Exodus and the time of year at which it took place:  in the later one the relation is reversed—­the killing of the firstborn of the Egyptians leads to the sacrifice of the firstborn of Israel, the Exodus in spring is followed by the festival in spring as its consequence.  The Priestly Code follows this younger tradition, and deviates from the original account still more widely in the view it gives of the passover.  It obliterates completely the connection between the passover and the sacrifice of the firstborn, and represents it not as a giving of thanks to Jehovah for having slain the firstborn of Egypt, but as instituted at the moment of the Exodus to induce Jehovah to spare the firstborn of Israel.  How all this is to be understood and judged of we have discussed more at large in the chapter on the festivals (III.I.1., III.III.1.).