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1 Kings 6 · a question people ask

What are the 480 years in 6:1?

In the text

The verse gives a number and where it starts: "In the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel had come out of the land of Egypt" (6:1). 1 Kings doesn't show how the years were counted, and this answer doesn't add them up from other books. What the verse does do is fix the house to two points: the exodus, and "the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel" (6:1). The chapter repeats the second one when the foundation is laid, "in the fourth year, in the month Ziv" (6:37), and Chronicles gives the same year and month: "He began to build in the second day of the second month, in the fourth year of his reign" (2 Chronicles 3:2).

The verses

“In the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel had come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month Ziv, which is the second month, he began to build the LORD’s house.”
1 Kings 6:1 · World English Bible
“The foundation of the LORD’s house was laid in the fourth year, in the month Ziv.”
1 Kings 6:37 · World English Bible
“He began to build in the second day of the second month, in the fourth year of his reign.”
2 Chronicles 3:2 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of 1 Kings 6

1 Kings 6: The LORD's house

In the middle of the building the LORD speaks, between two lines that each say Solomon "built the house and finished it" (6:9, 6:14). His promise, "I will dwell among the children of Israel" (6:13), is word for word, in the WEB and in Hebrew, what he said of the Tent of Meeting (Exodus 29:45), and it comes with an if (6:12).

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions