What Exodus?

Passover is a Jewish yearly celebration commemorating the Israelites’ liberation from slavery in Egypt: their migration from Egypt is commonly termed the ‘Exodus.’ While I was reading the Bible cover to cover the first time decades ago, I noticed a huge numerical discrepancy, which I’d like to share with the reader here. According to the ‘Book of Numbers,’ roughly a year after the Israelites’ liberation, a census was taken of the men over 20 years of age and fit for war: implying an entire nation migrated from Egypt to Israel. In this article I show that this so-called ‘nation’ couldn’t have been more than a sizable band. I shall not cheat: I shall only quote other parts of the Bible itself to show this—biblical contradictions most believers fail to notice.

Book of Numbers

According to the ‘Book of Numbers,’ thirteen months after leaving Egypt, God asked Moses to take a census of the Israelite male population who were more than twenty years of age and fit for war:

“The Lord spake unto Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the tabernacle of the congregation, on the first day of the second month, in the second year after they were come out of the land of Egypt, saying, ‘Take ye the sum of all the congregation of the children of Israel, after their families, by the house of their fathers, with the number of their names, every male by their polls; from twenty years old and upward, all that are able to go forth to war in Israel: thou and Aaron shall number them by their armies.’” (Numbers 1:1–3, KJV, emphasis mine)

Luckily, Numbers also gives, explicitly, the final figure:

“So were all those that were numbered of the children of Israel, by the house of their fathers, from twenty years old and upward, all that were able to go forth to war in Israel; Even all they that were numbered were six hundred thousand and three thousand and five hundred and fifty [603,550].” (Numbers 1:45–46, KJV, emphasis mine)

Now, keep in mind that this number excludes those males under age twenty and those too old or handicapped to fight.

Background

Jacob (whom God renamed ‘Israel’ in Genesis 35:10) together with eleven of his sons, joined Joseph after the latter was sold by his brethren and became famous in Egypt. Levi, one of the twelve sons of Jacob, was Moses’s progenitor.

Book of Exodus

As one can see in the biblical quote just below, according to the ‘Book of Exodus,’ from Jacob (i.e., Israel) to Moses there are only four generations:

“These be the heads of their fathers’ houses: The sons of Reuben the firstborn of Israel; Hanoch, and Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi: these be the families of Reuben. And the sons of Simeon; Jemuel, and Jamin, and Ohad, and Jachin, and Zohar, and Shaul the son of a Canaanitish woman: these are the families of Simeon. And these are the names of the sons of Levi according to their generations; Gershon, and Kohath, and Merari: and the years of the life of Levi were an hundred thirty and seven years. The sons of Gershon; Libni, and Shimi, according to their families. And the sons of Kohath; Amram, and Izhar, and Hebron, and Uzziel: and the years of the life of Kohath were an hundred thirty and three years. And the sons of Merari; Mahali and Mushi: these are the families of Levi according to their generations. And Amram took him Jochebed his father’s sister [aunt] to wife; and she bare him Aaron and Moses: and the years of the life of Amram were an hundred and thirty and seven years.” (Exodus 6:14–20, KJV, emphasis mine)

So, summarizing the italicized names: (1) Jacob (Israel) had Levi, (2) Levi had Kohath, (3) Kohath had Amram, and (4) Amram had Moses. Period!

Note also that Levi himself and Levi’s brothers, Reuben and Simeon, had no more than six male children each. But even if we assume that every male in every generation bore twelve children (i.e., six male and six female), after four generations the Israelite male population (young and old) would only reach about 3,100: 1×12+12×6+12x6x6+12x6x6x6 = 12+72+432+2,592 = 3,108, assuming no males die in the four generations. So now, compare a maximum of 3,108 men with well over 603,550 men. Is my calculation far out or is Numbers exaggerating the Israelites’ population?

Scientific Evidence

In fact, according to the Rational Wiki website, in its article entitled “Evidence for the Exodus,” states that there is no archeological evidence that a great nation spent forty years migrating from Egypt to Israel, such as, a significant number (concentration) of broken pottery or buried corpses, say, strewn along the way there. It has,

“Despite attempts by a number of biblical archeologists—and an even larger number of amateur enthusiasts—over the years, credible direct archeological evidence for the Exodus has yet to be found. … So if there were archeological remains to be found from the Exodus, one would have expected them to be found by now. And yet, thus far there is no trace of the biblical ‘600,000 men on foot, besides children’ plus ‘a mixed crowd … and live stock in great numbers’ (Exodus 12:37–38) who wandered for forty years in the desert.” (https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Evidence_for_the_Exodus, accessed August 13, 2023)

Moreover, there’s absolutely no record (Egyptian or otherwise) of any of the ten plagues that devastated Egypt according Exodus. I suggest reading the whole of the attached article.

Conclusion

If I am right, the Israelite ‘nation’ that was freed from the slavery of Egypt was not a nation at all; but just a sizable band of people—perhaps. I hate to undermine the Jews’ most treasured ‘history,’ but numbers don’t lie. Please note that I am only using information given in their own Bible: to me, it looks like the event was ‘mythologized’ (exaggerated) over time. However, we should not knock down myths altogether. In his book Sapiens, historian and anthropologist, Yuval Noah Harari, makes an excellent observation concerning the importance of myths. He believes that it is myths that keep society-as-a-whole (as opposed to small family groups or packs) under control. He writes,

“If you tried to bunch together thousands of chimpanzees into Tiananmen Square, Wall Street, the Vatican or the headquarters of the United Nations, the result would be pandemonium [chaos]. By contrast, Sapiens [humans] regularly gather by the thousands in such places. Together, they create orderly patterns—such as trade networks, mass celebrations and political institutions—that they could never have created in isolation. The real difference between us and chimpanzees is the mythical glue that binds together large numbers of individuals, families and groups.” (Harari, p. 38)

Yes, but to insist that the Bible is God’s truth ….

References

Harari, Yuval Noah. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. Toronto, ON: McClelland and Stewart, 2014. (ISBN: 9780771038525)

KJV: The Holy Bible: King James Version. Oxford, UK, 1769.

Rational Wiki, “Evidence for the Exodus,” last edited February 16, 2022, https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Evidence_for_the_Exodus.

Author’s Books

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(1) Is God a Reality?—A Scientific Investigation: https://www.iuniverse.com/en/bookstore/bookdetails/740913-Is-God-a-Reality,

(2) Is the Bible Infallible?—A Rational, Scientific, and Historical Evaluation: https://www.iuniverse.com/en/bookstore/bookdetails/792987-is-the-bible-infallible, and

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