12:37 The Israelites journeyed from Rameses to Sukkoth. There were about 600,000 men on foot, plus their dependants. 12:38 A mixed multitude also went up with them, and flocks and herds—a very large number of cattle.

To the reader who is inclined to take Old Testament history seriously, the presence of large numbers – particularly in military accounts – presents a significant problem.

What are we to make of

• the standing army of Israel of over half a million (Numbers 1:46; 2:32; 26:51)?
• the 27,000 Aramean soldiers who were killed by a collapsing wall (1 Kings 20:29f)?
• the different accounts given of David’s census in 2 Samuel 24 and 1 Chronicles 21?
• Joseb Basebeth killing 800 men in a single day with a spear (2 Sam 23:8)?
• Solomon’s sacrificing of 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep in one week (2 Chr 7:5)?
• Abijah sending 400,000 men into battle against Jeroboam’s 800,000 men (2 Chr 13:3)?
• 500,000 Israelites dying in a single battle with Judah (2 Chr13:17)?

Jonah David Conner (All That’s Wrong With The Bible) lists a number of such passages and dismisses them with the words:

‘An honest look at many of [these] will demonstrate that the Bible unmistakably makes false claims about history.’

The number of people leaving Egypt at the exodus

According to Exodus 12:37 (NIV) the number of people leaving Egypt at the time of the exodus was ‘about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children.’

Now, I have no interest in domesticating the Biblical text in order to make it easier to believe.  However, this number (which would suggest a total of around 2 million people) seems improbably high, and is worth investigating in order to see if that is what the text actually means.

Many scholars recognise that this is an unrealistic number, inconsistent with the size of Egyptian cities at that time (about 5,000 inhabitants).  The IVP Bible Background Commentary comments on the implausibility of such a situation: if those leaving Egypt totalled around 2 million, then

‘as it traveled, the line of people would stretch for over two hundred miles. Even without animals, children and the elderly, travelers would not expect to make twenty miles a day (though caravans could make twenty to twenty-three). When families and animals move camp, the average would be only six miles per day. Whatever the case, the back of the line would be at least a couple of weeks behind the front of the line. This would create some difficulties in the crossing of the sea which seems to have been accomplished overnight, though certainly some have calculated how it could be done.’ (My emphasis)

Wenham (TOTC on Numbers) identifies the following reasons for regarding the large numbers given in Numbers as problemmatic:

• ‘It is very difficult to imagine so many people surviving in the wilderness of Sinai for forty years.’
• ‘They appear internally inconsistent.’  (Most obviously, the ratio of adult males to first-born males is about 27:1; in other words the average family had about 27 sons!).
• There are other texts ‘which apparently acknowledge that initially there were too few Israelites to occupy the promised land all at once (Exod. 23:29f.; Deut. 7:6f., 21f.).’  Moreover, Deborah was only able to muster 40,000 troops from six tribes (Judges 5:8).
• Then there is the ‘mathematical oddity’ that ‘not only are most of the figures rounded off to the nearest hundred, the hundreds tend to be bunched: 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700 occur but never 000, 100, 800 or 900. This concentration of hundreds between 200 and 700 suggests the totals are not random as might have been expected in a census.’

According to Enns (The Evolution of Adam),

‘There is no positive, direct evidence for Israelite presence in Egypt or a massive departure of 600,000 men (see Ex 12:37–38 and Num 1:46). If one includes women and children, plus others (see Ex 12:38), I estimate that number to be around 2,000,000. It stretches the imagination to think that a group that large, which then spent forty years wandering around the wilderness, would leave Egypt without a trace in either Egyptian literature or the archaeological record.’

In his earlier commentary on Exodus, Enns expressed agnosticism on the issue.

Various explanations have been suggested:-

1. A literal number?

Older commentators tend to be content with the number as it stands.  This was the view of Keil.  Barnes, who agrees that the total number of persons leaving Egypt would be over 2 million, thinks that

‘this is not an excessive population for Goshen, nor does it exceed a reasonable estimate of the increase of the Israelites, including their numerous dependants.’

More recently, the Apologetics Study Bible defends a literal reading of the text, noting that Ex 1:7 states that the Israelites reproduced rapidly.  The same source suggests that if (as seems likely) the Israelites spent 215 years in Egypt, then this was sufficient time for Jacob’s 12 sons to produced the necessary number of offspring.

In the same publication (art. ‘Numbers in the Bible’), Kirk Lowery appeals to miracle:

‘The Bible records the number of men capable of bearing arms at the time of the exodus to be 603,550 (Nm 1:46). From this, it has been calculated that the entire population leaving Egypt would be about two million. Could such a number survive in the wilderness? The answer is no. Neither could a hundredth of that many survive on their own. It required God’s provision because that part of the world would have been simply unable to support large numbers of nomads, especially without modern farming methods and technology. It required God to actively intervene in Israel’s physical history in order for them to leave Egypt and subsequently survive. That is the point of the Exodus narrative.’

Geisler (When Critics Ask) defends a literal interpretation by saying that it is not necessary to conclude from the biblical data that the crossing took place in the space of 24 hours, and by suggesting that God prepared a pathway ‘several miles wide’ for the Israelites to use.  This seems rather desperate line of reasoning, typical of those who are willing to defend their own views on ‘inerrancy’ at all costs.

One Jewish line of reasoning is to take the six verbs used to describe Israelite fucundity in Ex 1:7 and infer that each mother gave birth to sextuplets.

2. A number imported into the text from a later period?

Enns cites the work of Sarna, who thinks that the number is accurate, but that it represents the population of Israel at the time of the united monarchy.  According to Durham, Hyatt proposed a similar theory.  This was also the view of Dillmann and Albright.

3. A symbolic number?

According to this view, the number of 600,000 has been chosen for some (unspecified) symbolic meaning.  Or, perhaps it was used simply as a concrete way of saying ‘many’.  Both of these suggestions are unlikely, however, because the number is given more precisely as 603,550 in Ex 38:26 (cf. Num 1:46).

According to Durham,

‘Beer…proposed that the number “about six hundred thousand” was arrived at by Gematria, the equivalence of the letters of the phrase בני ישׂראל “sons of Israel” with their numerical equivalents. Such an equation yields the number 603,551, remarkably close to the 603,550 of Num 1:46, and even the 601,730 of Num 26:51 and the “about” 600,000 here.’

This suggestion, while ingenious, lacks hard evidence.

With particular reference to the census results given in Numbers, Wenham (TOTC, p73) discusses the proposal of M. Barnouin, according to which the symbolism of the numbers is related to their astronomical significance.  The length of the lunar and solar year were well known, as were the synodic periods of the planets.  So, for example, the number of Benjaminites in Num 1:37 is 100 × 354 days (a short lunar year).

In support of this theory, other texts in the OT use numbers in apparently symbolic ways.  Wenham notes:

*The ages of the antediluvian patriarchs in Genesis may also be related to astronomical periods. Thus Enoch lived 365 years (Gen. 5:23) and Kenan’s age 910 = 10 quarter years (Gen. 5:14).

*Furthermore, one of the promises to Abraham was that his descendants should be as numerous as the stars of heaven (Gen. 15:5).

*Indeed, Scripture frequently refers to the celestial bodies as God’s heavenly host (e.g. Deut. 4:19), while the armies of Israel are his earthly hosts (e.g. Josh. 5:14 and throughout Num. 1).

*The earthly tabernacle was a replica of God’s heavenly dwelling (Exod. 25:9, 40). Both were attended by the armies of the LORD.

*Finally, Genesis 37:9 compares Jacob and his sons (the ancestors of the twelve tribes) to the sun, moon and stars.

These census numbers then affirm the sacred character of Israel. They remind us that God’s promises to Abraham have been fulfilled, and that the holy people of God is called to struggle for him on earth as the stars fight for him in the heavenly places…

Much of the astronomical information was already known in the early second millennium BC, and the song of Deborah, universally recognized to be one of the earliest poems in the Bible, pictures the stars of heaven fighting alongside the armed tribes of Israel (Judg. 5:20). Thus the idea that the army of Israel corresponded to the heavenly host was an old one.

(Bulleting added)

4. Hyperbole?

Another approach understands these large numbers as examples of numerical hyperbole.  The embellishment of numbers (by a factor of ten, a hundred, or even more) was a common practice of the day, and served to glorify the ruling monarch.  The number of captives taken by one king might conveniently be twice the number taken by his predecessor.  Successive stelae commemorating the same victory can boast increasingly high numbers of those killed (in one case, 14,000, 20,500, 25,000, and 29,000).  Then again, account of military victories can be couched in language which is clearly hyperbolic.  So, for example, Tiglath-Pileser I (c. 1115–1077 BCE), wrote, “Like a storm demon I piled up the corpses of their warriors … I built up mounds with the (corpses of) their men-at-arms on mountain ledges (and) with the blood of their warriors I dyed Mount Hirihu red like red wool.”

Turning then to the Old Testament, 1 Samuel 13:2–7 gives an account of a battle with the Philistines, who had mustered 30,000 chariots, 6,000 horsemen and people “like the sand of the seashore for abundance.”  If the latter expression is hyperbolic, which it clearly is, then we might suppose that the numbers might be too.  Then we have the famous statement in 1 Samuel 18:7; 21:11: “Saul has slain his thousands, but David has slain his ten thousands”.  This shows how numbers were used to glory leaders and to make comparisons between them.

R. Allen (“Numbers,” EBC) thinks that the numbers have been rhetorically inflated by a factor of 10, giving a more realistic number of 60,000.  But this suggestion lacks hard evidence.

P.S. It is worth noting that different cultures may view numbers in very different ways.  In our own day, Greenlanders only count up to 12.  After that, they simply say, ‘Many’.

5. A number arrived at by mistranslation?

Some scholars have noted that in Hebrew the same group of letters might be vocalised differently, leading to two different words.  In particular, ʾelep was consistently read as ‘thousand’ when a different vocalisation would have caused it to mean ‘leader’.  In the census in Numbers 1:46, for example, the total of 603,550 might (in the original unpointed consonantal texts) have read ‘600 leaders and 3,550 men’.

This sort of approach has gained considerable support over the years (from W. M. F. Petrie, A. Lucas, R. E. D. Clark, G. E. Mendenhall, J. W. Wenham, H.L. Ellison, J. B. Payne, W. W. Hallo, C. J. Humphreys, D. Merling, G. A. Rendsburg, D. Stuart.  F.F. Bruce, in ‘Answers to Questions’, evidently inclines to this view).

Such scholars suggest that the underlying word (‘eleph‘) has undergone development over the centuries, from ‘tent group’ through ‘tribal division’ to ‘thousand’.  At the battle of Ai, recorded in Joshua 7, the killing of 36 soldiers is regarded as a severe military setback.  But it would hardly be a severe setback if the army were actually 600,000 strong.  In Num. 1:16 and Judg. 6:15 the same word refers to a ‘group’ or ‘clan’.

The theory is, of course somewhat conjectural, and assumes that the scribes who mishandled the vocalisations had a rather poor understanding of their own language.

Bruckner, responding to this theory, points out that Ex 38:26 makes it clear that individual men were counted; but this objection is not conclusive.

Stuart offers a full discussion of the issue, arriving (by a slightly different route) to the same conclusion as that just noted.  This scholar notes the wide variety of meanings of eleph within the pages of Scripture.  If we are to take the NRSV as a guide, then the word can mean:

‘Thousand’ – Exod 18:21; Num 10:36; 31:4; 31:5; Josh 7:3; 1 Sam 23:23.
‘Cattle’ – Deut 7:13; 28:4,18, 51.
‘Clan(s)’ – Josh 22:14; Judg 6:15; 1 Sam 10:19; Isa 60:22; Mic 5:2.
‘Division(s)’ – Num 1:16.
‘Family(ies)’ – Josh 22:21,30.
‘Ox(en)’ – Isa 30:24; Psa 8:7.
‘Tribe(s)’ – Num 10:4.

But the word eleph also occurs in accounts of the way in which the Israelite army was organised in units of size, using words that had often been borrowed from other meanings.  So Deut 1:15 – ‘So I took the leading men of your tribes, wise and respected men, and appointed them to have authority over you—as commanders of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties and of tens and as tribal officials.’

Stuart thinks that the reference is to foot soldiers, who were organised in family groups, or platoons (elephs) of around 12 each, totalling about 7,000 fighting men, and a population (of men, women and children) of about 30,000.

Stuart concludes:

‘Twenty or thirty thousand people is a number that easily can fit into many modern sorts of venues, from small sports stadiums to beaches to public gatherings and rallies, a fact that may help modern readers of the book visualize the entire Israelite contingent, who were often in one place at one time. It is a number that fits the facts of the book of Exodus well. Such a number of Israelites is large enough to require the miraculous provisions of food and water that the book describes; it is small enough for the whole nation to gather encamped around the tabernacle at the various places listed on the Israelite wilderness itinerary. For most occasions of listening to speeches, the men only would have gathered, several thousand or so in number, not too many to hear a speech shouted at them, especially if its words were relayed. Yet several thousand troops were formidable as a fighting force when directed at one place at a time.’

Taking the construction in Num 1:21 as an example,

‘Instead of translating 46 and 5 hundred as “46,500”, it could be translated as “46 contingents, or [i.e., equaling] 500 [men].” Standard concordances list “or” as one of the meanings for a connecting vav, as in Exod. 21:17 “He who curses his mother or his father shall surely be put to death.”’ (Source)

This explanation, although weighty, is not without its own difficulties, however.  For example, Kaiser (Hard Sayings of the Bible) points out that

in Exodus 38:25–26, where a half shekel was to be given for each of the 603,550 warriors above the age of twenty years old, the amount given was 100 talents and 1,775 shekels. There are 3,000 shekels to a talent, therefore 3,000 times 100 equals 300,000, plus 1,775 equals 301,775. Given the fact that each male over twenty was to be valued at a half shekel, 301,775 times 2 equals 603,550, a number matching that of Numbers 1:46, or similar to the number at the end of the march in Numbers 26:51 (601,730 men). Therefore, if the problem is solved at one end as “family units,” it is only made worse elsewhere—in this case in the list of materials for the tabernacle; therefore, 603,550 warriors is the correct number and the nation probably numbered around two million.

The NET translation notes that:

‘Attempts to reduce the number by redefining the word “thousand” to mean clan or tribe or family unit have not been convincing, primarily because of all the tabulations of the tribes in the different books of the Bible that have to be likewise reduced.’

Archer (Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties) finds some ‘fatal difficulties’ with this theory:

1. ‘It always happens that after the number of ‘alapim is cited, it is followed by the number of me’ot (“hundreds”) as the next lower unit; and then it is followed by the decades and digits in descending order.’

2. With reference to the ‘ransom money’ raised from the male population of Israel: ‘According to Exodus 38:25: “100 talents and 1,775 shekels.” Each man was to contribute half a shekel; there were 3000 shekels to the talent. Therefore, 100 talents and 1,775 shekels comes out to exactly 603,550 half-shekels (representing the same number of males, according to Num. 2:32). This total is confirmed by Exodus 12:37: “about 600,000 men on foot.” Hence there has been no error in translation, nor any demonstrable garbling in transmission.’

3. The objection that the resources of the Sinai Desert could not have supported two million people overlooks that fact that the multitude was provided with food (manna) and water (from the rock) in a miraculous way.

According to Num 3:42-43, the number of first-born males was 22,273.  This seems remarkably low, if the total number of males was over 600,000.  But if the seemingly low number applies only to those babies born after the exodus, then the two figures are seen to be compatible.

It is stated in Ex 1:15 that two midwives were sufficient to deal with all the obstetric cases for the Israelite population.  This suggests a population much smaller than 2 million.  But it is reasonable to infer that Shiprah and Puah acted in a supervisory capacity over a much larger guild of midwives.

How could a population as large as 2 million have crossed the Red Sea as quickly as Ex 14:21-24 seems to suggest?

Notwithstanding the difficulties involved with this interpretation, I am inclined to think that it is the most satisfactory of those that have been proposed thus far.

See also: D.M. Fouts, art. ‘Numbers, Large Numbers’ in Dictionary of the Old Testament: Historical Books, IVP, 2005.