Population Numbers
The Old Testament book of Numbers
gets its English name from a census that was taken of the Israelites in chapter
1 and another that was taken in chapter 26—essentially at the beginning and the
end of their sojourn in the wilderness. The census had a military purpose,
because it was only of males “from twenty years old and upward, everyone in
Israel able to go to war” (Numbers 1:3). It did not include the tribe of Levi,
whose men were precluded from military service. In each census there were over
600,000 men of fighting age (Numbers 1:44; 26:51).
This is an extraordinarily high
number, and it suggests a population of Israelites of over two million.
However, it appears to be an exaggeration made by someone long after Moses’s
time. The biblical evidence is contradictory, making us choose between
narratives. But a population that large cannot be reconciled with what the
Bible tells us clearly in later passages. A common theme in the Conquest
accounts is that the Israelites were a small people, outnumbered by the other nations
in the land of Canaan, which were “larger and mightier” (Deuteronomy 9:1;
4:37038; 7:1; 11:23). As a result, every aspect of their departure from Egypt
and their establishment in Canaan would require divine intervention, something
that would not be needed with a potential fighting force of 600,000 men. In addition,
scholars estimate that Canaan’s total population before Israel’s arrival was
fewer than 200,000 people.
Israel’s first battle in Canaan
was at Jericho, a small walled town which required a mighty act of God to
subdue it (Joshua 6). The next battle was against Ai, an even smaller town,
which Joshua took with strategy, not by means of a greater force (Joshua 8).
And throughout the rest of the Conquest narrative, it was God who would defeat
Israel’s enemies, showing that Israel did not have sufficient manpower to do it
on its own. After the Conquest, the book of Judges tells us that small communities
of Israelites were scattered among the communities of non-Israelites that
remained in Canaan. This is also what we see in the archaeological record. None
of this allows for Isreal to be a particularly large group of people.
We do not know why or how the
numbers became as expansive as they are now. Nor do we know how many Israelites
there really were who left Egypt. The account in Numbers 26 lists by name
seventy families among the tribes of Israel, which may preserve an accurate historical
memory. If each of those families contained a hundred people or even somewhat more,
for example, we would have a number that fits better with what we know of
Israel’s later history. (Kerry M. Muhlestein, “The Exodus,” in A Bible
Reader’s History of the Ancient World, ed. Kent P. Jackson [Jerusalem
Center for Near Eastern Studies, Brigham Young University, 2016], 126, emphasis
added)
On population numbers in the Book of Mormon, see Stephen Smoot’s articles:
Why
the Book of Mormon’s Battle Numbers Don’t Add Up (And Why That’s Evidence for
its Authenticity)
A
Postscript on Book of Mormon Battle Numbers
See also:
Joshua
Berman on Unrealistic Battle Numbers in the Book of Chronicles