This Part 2 is the continuation and conclusion of “Levites and the Exodus Multitude (1)”. Part 1 should be read first. Little of the background material in (1) will be repeated here in (2).
In Part 1, three questions were posed:
#1. How did the lineage branch of Levi’s son Koháth (Jacob’s grandson), reckoned from that 1 man, become 8,600 male descendants early in the wilderness…after only 4 generations?! Nu.3:27-28 “Of Kohath…the numbering of all the males from one month old and upwards, was 8,600.” That’s an astounding increase in so few generations! cf. 1Ch.6:1-3. The lineage was traced in (1).
Levi and his 3 sons Kohath, Gershón, Merarí and their families moved with Jacob/Israel from the Land of Canáan to Egypt (Ge.46:6, 11) circa/c 1827 BC.
#2. How did the tribe of Levi, grown from his 3 sons, become 22,000 or 22,300 males from age one month and up…during that same period (215 years)?! Nu.3:39 “All the numbered men of the Levites, from a month old and upward, were 22,000.” An astounding increase!
Furthermore, during that same period, the initial 75-85 males (Ge.46:27 Septúagint/LXX) with Jacob & Joseph in Egypt increased to 603,550 non-Levite warriors age 20 and up, early in the wilderness (Nu.1:45-47)! Exiting Egypt, Ex.12:37-38 “The sons of Israel journeyed…600,000 men on foot. And a mixed multitude went with them.” Josephus Antiquities of the Jews 2:15:1 “The entire multitude of those who went out, including the women and children, that were of a fit age for war, were 600,000.” Philo On the Life of Moses 1:27:147 “The men of age to bear arms were more than 600,000 men.”
#3. How did the 75-85 males become 600,000 after only 4 generations?! Another astounding increase in only 215 years! (ref Part 1 for the timeline.) Could near 600,000 be accurate? also see the topics “Chronology: Abraham to the Exodus” and “Israelites Identification”.
Following Jacob’s move into Egypt, Ge.47:27 “Israel settled in the land of Egypt, in the Góshen region, and became very numerous”. Egypt’s Pharaoh said in Ex.1:7-9, “The people of the sons of Israel are more and mightier than we”. ref Ps.105:23-24. Perhaps they really did outnumber the Egyptians!? Ex.1:22 so Pharaoh commanded for all Hebrew male babies to be cast into the Nile River. Ex.2:2-3, 10 when Moses was three months old, his mother placed him in a basket and put him in the Nile. Ac.7:19-21 confirms the infants were put out to die. (Infanticide reduced somewhat the Hebrew population.)
Ex.18:21 Moses, early on the way to the Promised Land, was advised by his father-in-law Jethró to divide all the departees according to thousands of people, or clans.
Yet in Ex.23:29-30 the Lord told Moses that He would drive out the wicked inhabitants of the Land of Canaan little by little, so the Land wouldn’t become desolate and wild animals be too numerous. Apparently the approximately 2 million people (including women & children) coming in from Egypt to replace the wicked occupants wouldn’t fill the Land area. Comparatively, in 2020 AD the population of modern Israel was 8.5 million…6 million more than the total exodus population approaching that Land. Though ‘Hebrews’ had outnumbered Egyptians, the Canaanites outnumbered the exodus population.
Prior to entering the Land, in De.11:23 Moses told the next two generations, “The Lord will drive out all these nations from before you, and you will dispossess nations greater and mightier than you”. In those days, a force of 600,000 men would itself be a great army! But others had greater renown. The combined armies/peoples of the seven “nations” were greater (De.7:1). Nu.13:31 the Israelite spies said, “We can’t attack those people, for they are stronger than we”. So they feared the Land occupants.
In Nu.20:17 & 21:22, it seems unrealistic that 2 million people (including women & children) could’ve traveled on the King’s Highway en masse. Even if they walked on the road plain in ‘rows’ of seventy, the line of people would have stretched for miles!
Nu.3:16-20, Ex.6:16-25 and 1Ch.6:1-4 attest to the same number of few Levite generations, beginning with Levi. There’s no indication that any generations were omitted/skipped. see Part 1.
So, in light of the above passages (and those referenced in Part 1)…were there really 600,000 Israelite warriors, 22,000 Levite and 8,600 Kohathite males early in the wilderness? That many?! It is somewhat disconcerting that to date little or no evidence of a mass exodus totaling 2 million people in the wilderness has been found. Perhaps continued archaeological efforts will unearth more evidence?
Following are three possible explanations for the large population numbers in the exodus/wilderness:
1.) Biblical numbers could’ve been misread or misunderstood by translators. If so, there weren’t really as many as 8,600 Kohathites, 22,000 Levites, plus 600,000 soldiers then. The Hebrew term for thousand is éleph (Strongs h505). Eleph is also translated family in Jg.6:15 KJV. But Jg.6:15 LXX, “Gideon said to Him, ‘My thousand [family KJV] is weakened in Manasseh”. Did eleph really refer to a troop/family (instead of 1,000)? For detailed analyses of this possibility, ref: John W. Wenham Large Numbers in the Old Testament, Colin J. Humphreys The Number of People in the Exodus From Egypt, Jim Snapp The Quest for the Historical Census, Clark Morledge Did An Army of 600,000 Israelites Conquer the Land of Canaan?, David M. Fouts A Defense of the Hyperbolic Interpretation of Numbers in the Old Testament, Ben-Zion Katz Recounting the Census. It’s possible the numbers 600,000, 22,000, 8,600 were mistakes in translation from the ancient Hebrew. However, 2,000 years ago the Jewish historians Josephus & Philo both said the number of exodus soldiers was 600,000.
2.) There were brothers or half-brothers in the generations, not listed by Moses in the Péntateuch. For example, the later 1Ch.23:20 listing of Issiáh as a son of Moses’ uncle Uzziél may indicate that was the case. Ge.5:3-30 said the ancient antediluvians had other unidentified sons & daughters. Abraham had at least 6 additional identified sons not born to Sarah (Ge.25:1-2). Some Bible historians and yeshíva teaching think the large population in the exodus resulted from polygyny. e.g. c 1300 BC, Jg.8:30-32 “Gideon had seventy sons, for he had many wives. His concubine in Shechém also bore him a son, Abimélech. Gideon died at a good old age.” (see “Polygyny – Lawful in God’s Eyes?”.)
3.) There were others besides Israelites in the exodus. Included with the approximately 600,000 fighting men leaving Egypt (Nu.11:21) was a mixed multitude of people. Adding women & children would’ve brought the total to 2,000,000 or so! Nu.1:45-47 “All the numbered men were 603,550. The Levites weren’t numbered among them.” Who all comprised this mixed multitude?
Ex.12:37-38 “A mixed multitude of people went up with them, along with flocks and herds.” Others also left Egypt with biological Israelites. JFB Commentary Ex.12:38 “A great rabble’ (see also Nu 11:4; De 29:11); slaves, persons in the lowest grades of society, partly natives and partly foreigners, bound close to them as companions in misery, and gladly availing themselves of the opportunity to escape.” Ellicott Commentary “Some may have been Egyptians, impressed by the recent miracles; some foreigners held to servitude, like the Israelites, and glad to escape their masters.” LXX NETS “A great mixed crowd went up with them.” So many non-Israelites also left Egypt in the exodus.
Cambridge Bible Note “Non-Israelites of various kinds are meant; e.g. Egyptians who had intermarried with Israelites.” Since Israelite newborn males were thrown into the Nile River, there’d be a surplus of Israelite females to marry Egyptians or others. In Le.24:10, Moses wrote of a man in the camp whose mother was an Israelite but whose father was an Egyptian. So, Egyptian blood was present in Israelites.
The Bible uses patrilineal reckoning from the fathers (not the traditional Jewish matrilineal reckoning from mothers). Nu.1:18 “They registered by ancestry in their families, by their father’s households, according to the number of names.” Not according to the mothers. Philo op.cit. “Among the mixed multitude were those born to Hebrew fathers by Egyptian mothers, who were enrolled as members of their father’s race. And some, also, who had come over to them by reason of the magnitude of the incessant punishments which had been inflicted on their own countrymen [Egyptians].”
Also, we read of intermarriage by Joseph c 1837 BC, 225 years prior to the exodus. Ge.41:45 Pharaoh had given Joseph an Egyptian wife named Asenáth, the daughter of the priest of On (LXX Heliópolis). So Joseph’s sons Ephráim & Manasséh were both half Egyptian (Ge.46:20).
Did Ephraim & Manasseh likewise take Egyptian wives? If so, then Joseph’s grandchildren had mostly Egyptian blood! (Ephraim & Manasseh were first cousins of Kohath, the son of Levi.) Ge.46:27 LXX says Joseph had nine sons. Jacob prophesied that the names of Joseph’s other (half-Egyptian) sons would be attached to the inheritances of Ephraim & Manasseh (Ge.48:5-6). Early in the wilderness, the soldiers of Ephraim & Manasseh numbered 72,700 men (Nu.2:18-21). Although they became two of the twelve tribes of Israel in the Land of Canaan, there was (much) Egyptian blood in their ancestry.
Note: Ge.50:23 Manasseh’s son was Machír. Machir’s son Gilead (Joseph’s great-grandson) was of the same generation as Moses & Aaron. Nun, the father of Joshua, was the same generation as Gilead. Zelophehád (son of Hépher) was Gilead’s grandson. (see 1Ch.7:14-27, Nu.26:28-37, 27:1, Jsh.17:3.)
Ex.30:11-16 Moses was to levy a poll tax on the men of military age. (This became the basis for the later temple tax. cf. Mt.17:24-27.) Ex.38:25-26 “The silver from those of the community who were numbered was 100 talents and 1,775 shekels. A half-shekel a head for those who were numbered from age 20 and up, for 603,550 men.” This half-shekel tax for the tabernacle was taken from all non-Levite soldiers. (A shekel weighed approximately ½ ounce.) Barnes Notes “The talent contained 3,000 shekels.” So 100 talents of silver = 300,000 shekels. Add the 1,775 shekels, and the total = 301,775 shekels. This amount is exactly 603,550 half-shekels (békahs)! It matches the population figure of Nu.1:45-47. The amount of silver taken as tax appears to confirm the number of Israelite/mixed multitude fighting men.
{Sidelight: However, the 1,000,000 talents in 1Ch.22:14 would equal 3 billion shekels (at the rate used in Ex.38:25-26)! But 1½ billion ounces of silver is unrealistic…it would be enough to build Solomon’s temple of solid silver! Also, the 10,000 talents of silver in Est.3:8-9 would equal 30 million shekels! That’s 15 million ounces or nearly 1 million lbs. of silver personally owned by Hamán! An unrealistic amount. It’s likely the weight of the shekel or talent had changed since Moses wrote Exodus.}
Early in the wilderness is Nu.3:39-43. “All the Levites from one month old and upward were 22,000….All the firstborn males from one month old and up were 22,273.” The difference was only 273 males. v.44-45 “The Lord spoke to Moses saying, ‘Take the Levites instead of the firstborn among the sons of Israel.” The firstborn, who had belonged to the Lord (Ex.13:1-2), were redeemed…replaced by the 22,000 Levites.
But Nu.1:46 says there were 603,550 warriors from their tribes, age 20 and up. If only 22,273 out of the more than 603,550 were firstborns…those were huge families! 603,550 ÷ 22,273 = 27. Did each family average more than 27 sons? Add an equal number of daughters, and that’s over 50 children per family! But… most of those 603,550 weren’t ‘purely’ Israelites.
In the wilderness 39 years later is Nu.26:57-62. “These are those who were numbered of the Levites….23,000.” So during 39 years, the number of Levite males increased from an approximate 22,000 to 23,000. That’s an increase of only 1,000 in that generation.
Note: The male Israelites/mixed multitude age 20 and up (born in Egypt) died in the wilderness, except for Joshua & Caleb (Nu.14:27-30). Excluded were Levites (Nu.1:47), males under age 20, and women. Aaron’s grandson Phineás, in the 4th generation of Kohathites after Kohath, was probably born around the time of the exodus. Phineas’ bold intervention in Nu.25:7 didn’t occur until the 40th year of their wanderings. Phineas’ father Eleazár (Aaron’s son), the high priest, even outlived Joshua in the Land (cf. Nu.20:28 & Jsh.24:29-33).
What about past servants among the mixed multitude in the exodus? Going back several generations….
In Ge.12:5, 16, 20:14, Abrám had many servants. Ge.14:14 in Abram’s household (before the birth of Ishmaél) were 318 fighting men. Plus he had other ‘house’ servants and those watching the livestock!
Ellicott Commentary Ge.14:14 “This large number of servants born in his house…added to the older men left to defend and take care of the cattle, proves that Abram was the chieftain of a powerful tribe.” Barnes Notes “Abram had now a company of 318 trained men, born in his own house; which implies a following of more than 1,000 men, women and children.” Pulpit Commentary “The children of his own patriarchal family, neither purchased nor taken in war, 318, implied a household of probably more than 1,000 souls.” Abraham’s household was very large! Ge.17:26-27 all the males were circumcised.
Ge.26:12-14 Isaac’s great substance. Cambridge Bible Ge.26:14 “A large number of slaves and attendants.” Ge.32:5-6 Jacob’s large household. (Ge.34:13-15 indicates they’re circumcised.) Ge.36:7 Jacob and Esau’s property was too great for them to dwell together. Barnes Notes Ge.36:7 “What remained in the hands of Isaac was virtually Jacob’s, though he had not yet entered into formal possession of it.”
Ge.45:9-10 & 46:5-7, 26 “All the direct descendants of Jacob who went to Egypt with him were 66 in number; this does not include the wives of Jacob’s sons.” Gill Exposition Ge.46:7 “No mention is made of servants, though no doubt many came along with him.” James B. Jordan The Moses Connection “Abraham had 318 trained fighting men in his sheikdom. Estimates range up to 3,000 or more for his complete household. These servants multiplied and became those of Isaac and Jacob. It might have been 10,000 people who moved to Goshen.” So…numerous servants also went to Egypt c 1827 BC.
Francis Peloubet Select Notes, v.27, p.319 “Also the servants, ‘Who were reckoned as part of the household, and were admitted to the covenant [of circumcision, Ac.7:8], and recognized as Israelites.”
William R. Harper The Old Testament Student, v.6, p.248 “Jacob took to Egypt the whole body of his servants and retainers. These dependents…were all included in the covenant of circumcision, gradually blended while in Egypt, with the blood-kindred of Jacob, so that all alike were reckoned Israelites.”
Jacob’s entire household, including circumcised descendants and servants, had numbered perhaps 7,000 to 10,000 souls. They too went with Jacob to his son Joseph in Egypt (Ge.47:11-12) c 1827 BC. There they intermarried with Egyptians & other peoples, and “multiplied exceedingly” (Ge.47:27 KJV).
Jacob died 17 years after moving to Egypt (see Part 1 timeline). A great funeral cavalcade, including Egyptian dignitaries, then traveled 300 miles to bury him east of the Jordan River (Ge.50:7-10).
The people multiplied in Egypt (Ex.1:5-9, 12, 20). They became a great mixed nation (De.26:5). The exodus “nation” of ancient Israel/mixed multitude was comprised of a motley group of people, not one pure race. They’d increased to 603,550 soldiers, excluding Levites, early in the wilderness (Nu.1:46).
As for question #3 posed at the beginning: With mixed marriages, the assimilation of servants, concubines to bear children, Egyptians and others who left Egypt in the exodus…the 603,550 number of males early in the wilderness seems feasible.
The apostle Paul wrote in 1Co.10:1-5, “All were baptized into Moses in the cloud and the sea”. The entire mixed multitude, and their children, were symbolically “baptized” in the Reed Sea. They ate the manna in the wilderness. (Nu.11:4 is the last direct reference in the Pentateuch to the mixed group.)
There were 601,730 males 39 years later (Nu.26:51), after those over age 20 had died in the wilderness.
That younger generation of motley peoples (children of the mixed multitude) born during the 40 years in the wilderness, weren’t circumcised. So after crossing the Jordan River, Joshua had all the males circumcised at Gilgál (Jsh.5:2-8). Whatever their ancestry, the 601,730 males all became circumcised! cf. Ge.17:26-27 Abraham’s large household of servants, etc., not of his ancestry, had all become circumcised. (see the topic “Circumcision in the Bible”.)
The children of the circumcised mixed multitude then received tribal territory when Joshua apportioned the Land of Canaan for the tribes of Israel (Jsh.13–19). There, more intermarriage ensued among tribes.
As for questions #2 and #1 about the number of Levites and Kohathites: With past servants and other peoples having been assimilated into Levite and Kohathite households (in Egypt)…it seems feasible the males among them could total approximately 22,000 and 8,600 respectively (Nu.3:27-28, 39).
In the Land of Canaan, the Levites/Kohathites (including Aaronide priests) would live within the various tribal areas (Jsh.21). There, Levites intermarried with those tribes. Samuel was a Kohathite (fostered or ‘adopted’ by the high priest Eli) who lived in Ephraim c 1100 BC (1Sm.1:1, 25-28, 1Ch.6:22, 26-28). When the Lord split the united monarchy (1Ki.12:20-24) in the 900s BC, most Levites joined with Judah & Benjamin as the southern kingdom of Judah…the Jews.
Ro.3:29-30 Paul said that God is the God of both Jews and gentiles, circumcised and uncircumcised. Again, Israel with the mixed multitude were all “baptized” in the Sea, and they all ate the manna (1Co.10:1-3). The Lord didn’t discriminate in that regard. Ga.3:27-29 “There is neither Jew nor Greek…you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you be Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed.”
Today Jewish Christians and gentile Christians are to be as one, all baptized in the name of Jesus.
As was the large ancestral mixture of peoples who exited Egypt, Christians today are a racial mixture. (see “Gentiles in the Bible”.) And our numbers are increasing.
Re.7:9-12 “I looked, and behold, a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, and tribe, people and tongue, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.” A mixed multitude from all nations cries out loudly, “Salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb. Amen.”
The mixed multitude with ancient Israel was a historical type of the great mixed multitude of humanity to whom our God is giving salvation. Praise God!
Bible Topic Exposition 