As another commenter pointed out, the “40 years” was more figurative, likely meaning something more like “a generation.”
The reason being, I’ve heard, as they fled Egypt, they were fleeing slavery, the only form of life they had known. For their people to settle successfully, they needed to wander for “40 years/a generation” so that they could know what it was like to live as a free people.
40 seems to have a symbolic meaning: https://www.yeshiva.co/midrash/48664
Got to think maybe that first commandment was overcompensating for something
Supposedly Yahweh was beaten by another God called Chemosh, in his own book!
I know it’s just a meme and the accuracy of ancient history/religious folklore is always going to be questionable anyway, but don’t you think it’s reasonable that an army of orderly and disciplined soldiers would move just a bit faster and more efficiently than a band of refugees?
A bit faster, sure, but at 40 years for some 300 miles, you’re REALLY taking the scenic route.
Well, it’s not like they had anywhere to be. They were just wandering around in the desert for a while.
But Asia Minor ain’t gonna conquer itself!
The Hebrew Storm God of the Desert sitting there like Cheems, while the Macedonian HUMANS find islands and turn them into peninsulas.
Isn’t it already established that it’s very dubious that there ever were any Jewish slaves in Egypt, not to mention the whole exodus nonsense?
