The journey begins
Exodus & Wilderness · Reviewed · BSB
Content revision: 48adccf8c730163c · Editorial review: 2026-09-23
Date: c. 1446 BC · Year 1, first month, day 15. Dated from 1 Kings 6:1, which places the Exodus 480 years before Solomon began the temple (c. 966 BC). Many scholars instead date the Exodus to about 1260 BC.
After the Passover, the Israelites leave Egypt. The story begins with deliverance: a people set free, learning to trust the God who leads them.
Numbers 33:3 dates the departure to the fifteenth day of the first month, after Passover. This stop marks the departure locality, not the size or boundaries of the population.
Primary Scripture
12:31 Then Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron by night and said, “Get up, leave my people, both you and the Israelites! Go, worship the LORD as you have requested.
12:32 Take your flocks and herds as well, just as you have said, and depart! And bless me also.”
12:33 And in order to send them out of the land quickly, the Egyptians urged the people on. “For otherwise,” they said, “we are all going to die!”
12:34 So the people took their dough before it was leavened, carrying it on their shoulders in kneading bowls wrapped in clothing.
12:35 Furthermore, the Israelites acted on Moses’ word and asked the Egyptians for articles of silver and gold, and for clothing.
12:36 And the LORD gave the people such favor in the sight of the Egyptians that they granted their request. In this way they plundered the Egyptians.
12:37 The Israelites journeyed from Rameses to Succoth with about 600,000 men on foot, besides women and children.
12:38 And a mixed multitude also went up with them, along with great droves of livestock, both flocks and herds.
12:39 Since their dough had no leaven, the people baked what they had brought out of Egypt into unleavened loaves. For when they had been driven out of Egypt, they could not delay and had not prepared any provisions for themselves.
12:40 Now the duration of the Israelites’ stay in Egypt was 430 years.
12:41 At the end of the 430 years, to the very day, all the LORD’s divisions went out of the land of Egypt.
12:42 Because the LORD kept a vigil that night to bring them out of the land of Egypt, this same night is to be a vigil to the LORD, to be observed by all the Israelites for the generations to come.
33:3 On the fifteenth day of the first month, on the day after the Passover, the Israelites set out from Rameses. They marched out defiantly in full view of all the Egyptians,
33:4 who were burying all their firstborn, whom the LORD had struck down among them; for the LORD had executed judgment against their gods.
33:5 The Israelites set out from Rameses and camped at Succoth.
Related Scripture
Direct recollection: Deuteronomy 6 recalls deliverance from slavery; 16 connects Passover with remembering the departure. Neither identifies a modern departure site.
Deuteronomy 6:20–23 · recollection
Deuteronomy 16:1–3 · recollection
Location evidence
Qantir is a proposed identification of biblical Rameses. The point identifies a candidate site, not the extent of the Israelite population.
Event map marker: Proposed site; [longitude, latitude] = [31.834217, 30.79937]. This is a teaching marker, not an exact event venue.
Rameses: Proposed site. Coordinates [longitude, latitude]: [31.834217, 30.79937]. Classification source: editorial.
OpenBible · site identifications
OpenBible · site identifications
For the class
Why does Moses keep returning to the memory of leaving Egypt?
Interpretation and reuse
Narrative order is a reading arrangement, not a proven chronology. Dates retain their stated uncertainty. An identified locality does not establish the exact venue or prove an event. Region extents and routes are illustrative, not surveyed boundaries or ancient roads. Draft material has not completed editorial review.
Record source: editorial (src/data/journey.ts)
Place coordinates from OpenBible.info Bible Geocoding Data, CC BY 4.0.
Teaching stops, summaries and regional extents are original editorial content of this atlas.
Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain. https://berean.bible/licensing.htm