Israelites After Egypt And Before Canaan

How many Israelites left Egypt in the exodus?

Question: "How many Israelites left Egypt in the exodus?" Answer: When the Israelites left Egypt in the exodus, there were “about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children” (Exodus 12:37). The “men on foot” number of 600,000 would have only included able-bodied, military-age men. The people of Israel had been living in Egypt for 430 years (Exodus 12:40). After a lengthy dispute with Pharaoh, during which God brought many plagues on the land of Egypt, Moses led the Israelites away from that land. Scholars believe that the total number of Israelites who left Egypt during the exodus, women and children and old men included, was around 2.4 million people. If we include Egyptians who chose to join the Israelites, the number would be even greater: “Many other people went up with them, and also large droves of livestock, both flocks and herds” (Exodus 12:38). In the second year after the Israelites left Egypt, Moses took a census of the men in Israel able to fight—all the able-bodied men age twenty and above from all the tribes except the Levites. The number of warriors was 603,550 (Numbers 1:45–46). The Levites were not counted because God commanded Moses to exclude them from the census (verse 49). Instead of going to war, the Levites were to stay and guard the tabernacle (verse 53). About 2.4 million Israelites leaving Egypt is a very large multitude, but the number is a reasonable estimate. The ordinary proportion of people fit to go to war in a general population is one in four, and 600,000 x 4 = 2,400,000. We know that, while the Hebrews were in Egypt, they were “fruitful and increased greatly; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them” (Exodus 1:7). In fact, the Hebrews were so numerous that the Pharaoh feared that Egypt would be overwhelmed in the event of a slave uprising (verses 8–10). The original group of Israelites—Jacob’s family who went to Egypt—numbered just seventy people (Genesis 46:27). In 430 years the vigorous and healthy Hebrew race increased to 2.4 million. We have no reason to believe that any of the Israelites stayed behind in Egypt, so we can safely say that 2.4 million is the approximate number of Hebrews who left Egypt in the exodus.

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Question/Answer

The length of time that the Children of Israel lived in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years. — Shemot/Exodus 12:40

I think people like to think the math is fuzzy and unrealistic. How could 70 Jewish people settle in Egypt during Yosef’s time as viceroy, and produce an exodus of 600,000 men plus women and children, which would yield a total number of around 2 million Jews in the Exodus from Egypt? How does 70 become 2 million just like that?

But take a look at China’s population growth rate. Before China’s one child policy was enacted, the population grew from around 540 million in 1949 to 962 million in 1979[1]. That’s almost double in 30 years.

If we use this growth rate calculator here, we’d see accordingly that yielding a population of about 2 million desert Jews from 70 over a period of 430 years is quite feasible.

If you’ve plugged in the numbers with the calculator above, you’ll see, 70 people growing to 2 million over 430 years is a growth rate of 2.38%, with the the population doubling every 29 years. That’s pretty close to China’s population which, unrestricted, had a doubling time of 36 years at a growth rate of 1.9%.

It is therefore highly reasonable that 2 million Jews left Egypt. Especially because the culture of the Egyptian Jewish person of that time was to emulate their ancestral father Yaakov, who had 12 children, and similarly to have many children per family; even today, the Orthodox Jews have continued this tradition and have 4.1 children per family[2]compared to the average American household at 1.9.[3]

In terms of evidence, what do archaeologists expect to find out there in the Sinai Desert? Footprints in the sand get erased quite quickly.

The fact is the numbers make sense! The Torah’s words here are very practical and believable even according to modern standards.

After 40 years in the desert, with the 2.38% growth rate from our calculation above, the Jewish population likely doubled again. So to answer your question, when the Children of Israel entered Canaan to battle the Anakites, they were likely a population of 4 million.

It is no wonder that with all that military training they’d received during their years in the desert, battling Amalek, Sichon and Og, and those massive numbers, even the most feared warriors of the time were no match for the Jewish population. And that’s how they conquered Israel 3,300 years ago.

Footnotes

[1] Total population, CBR, CDR, NIR and TFR of China (1949-2000)

[2] Eight facts about Orthodox Jews from the Pew Research survey

[3] Average number of own children per family U.S. | Statista

How many Israelites entered the promise land?

“The men who came up out of Egypt from 20 years old and up will not see the land of which I have sworn to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, because they have not followed me wholeheartedly” Numbers 32.11

Lacking faith and courage, that generation of Israelites never reached the land of promise. But Joshua and Caleb, together with a new generation, did enter it.

At the end of forty years God miraculously brought them across the flooding Jordan River into the Promised Land, the land of Canaan.

Then, under the leadership of Joshua, the successor of Moses, there began years of warfare for subduing the land. According to the words of faithful Caleb, the son of Jephunneh of the tribe of Judah, at the time of apportioning out the occupied land to the families of Israel, the Israelites were six years in subduing the land and dispossessing its inhabitants. (Joshua 14:1-10)