When did the children of Israel enter Canaan?

The sabbatical clock and the Jubilee clock started when the children of Israel entered Canaan.

“And the LORD spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying, 2 ‘Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: “When you come into the land which I give you, then the land shall keep a sabbath to the LORD. 3 Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard, and gather its fruit; 4 but in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a sabbath to the LORD. You shall neither sow your field nor prune your vineyard.’ 8 “And you shall count seven sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times seven years; and the time of the seven sabbaths of years shall be to you forty-nine years. 9 Then you shall cause the trumpet of the Jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement you shall make the trumpet to sound.” Leviticus 25:1-4,8,9.

Several facts will enable us to determine the date God’s people entered Canaan:

1. God’s people entered Canaan 49 years before the first Jubilee. Leviticus 25:1-9.
2. The Exodus was 40 years before God’s people entered Canaan. Numbers 32:13.
3. Jesus died in 31 AD in the middle of the 49-year Jubilee cycle that ran from 6 AD – 55 AD. The Middle of the "seven"
4. Jubilee dates before Christ can be calculated starting in 6AD and repeatedly subtracting 49 years.

Here are the only possible dates for the first Jubilee, for entering Canaan and for the Exodus in this timeframe:

James Ussher and Edwin R. Thiele are the two most widely accepted conservative biblical chronologists. Ussher placed the Exodus in 1491 BC. Thiele placed the Exodus in 1446 BC. Neither of these proposed dates is correct because neither date is on the above list of possible dates for the Exodus. But 1491 BC and 1446 BC are very helpful because they are the earliest and the latest dates for the Exodus proposed by conservative scholars. So these two dates are very useful in providing a range of dates for when the Exodus could have occurred. So when was the Exodus?

The only possible date for the Exodus that lies between 1491 BC and 1446 BC is 1456 BC. Because of the writings of Ussher and Thiele and points 1-4 above we can conclude that the Exodus occurred in 1456 BC. We can also calculate that the children of Israel entered Canaan 40 years later in 1416 BC, and the first Jubilee occurred in 1367 BC.

Read on to find out What are the dates of the 70 Jubilees?