The story of the settlement of the national and tribal ancestors in Palestine is interrupted by an account of the southward movement of Jacob (or Israel) and his sons into a district under the immediate influence of the kings of Egypt. After an interval of uncertain duration we find in Exodus a numerous people subjected to rigorous oppression. No longer individual sons of Jacob or Israel, united tribes were led out by Moses and Aaron; and, after a series of incidents extending over forty years, the "children of Israel" invaded the land in which their ancestors had lived. The traditions embodied in the books Exodus-Joshua are considerably later than the apparent date of the events themselves, and amid the diverse and often conflicting data it is possible to recognize distinct groups due to some extent to distinct historical conditions. The story of the "exodus" is that of the religious birth of "Israel," joined by covenant with the national god Yahweh[8] whose aid in times of peril and need proved his supremacy. In Moses (q.v.) was seen the founder of Israel's religion and laws; in Aaron (q.v.) the prototype of the Israelite priesthood. Although it is difficult to determine the true historical kernel, two features are most prominent in the narratives which the post-exilic compiler has incorporated: the revelation of Yahweh, and the movement into Palestine. Yahweh had admittedly been the God of Israel's ancestors, but his name was only now made known (Exod. iii. 13 sqq., vi. 2 seq.), and this conception of a new era in Yahweh's relations with the people is associated with the family of Moses and with small groups from the south of Palestine which reappear in religious movements in later history (see KENITES). Amid a great variety of motives the prominence of Kadesh in south Palestine is to be recognized, but it is uncertain what clans or tribes were at Kadesh, and it is possible that traditions, originally confined to those with whom the new conception of Yahweh is connected, were subsequently adopted by others who came to regard themselves as the worshippers of the only true Yahweh. At all events, two quite distinct views seem to underlie the opening books of the Old Testament. The one associates itself with the ancestors of the Hebrews and has an ethnic character. The other, part of the religious history of "Israel," is essentially bound up with the religious genius of the people, and is partly connected with clans from the south of Palestine whose influence appears in later times. Other factors in the literary growth of the present narratives are not excluded (see further § 8, and EXODUS, THE).[9]