Bible Difficulties (29 page)

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Numbers

How trustworthy are statistical numbers given in the Book of Numbers and in the
Old Testament generally?

Some scholars have questioned the credibility of the numbers recorded in the two censuses of Numbers (chaps. 1-4 and 26). The arid conditions of the Sinai desert would hardly permit the survival of such a large host as 600,000 adult males, plus their wives and children, for a period of forty years. If, therefore, these statistics concerning the number of fighting men connected with each of the Twelve Tribes are to be accepted as having any historical basis whatever, we must then somehow reduce the total to a much smaller number than 2 million people or more and achieve an approximation within the limits of historical likelihood. Writers like G. Mendenhall (JBL 77 [1958]: 52-66), John Bright (
History of Israel
[Philadelphia: Westminster, 1959], p. 144), and R.E.D. Clark (
Journal of the Transactions of the Victoria Institute
87 [1955]: 82ff.) suggest reading the word for "thousand" as merely clan." R.K. Harrison (
Old Testament Introduction
, p.633), despite his generally conservative stance, surrenders the historical accuracy of these figures, suggesting that they have only a relative value as to the comparative size of the various tribes.

The word for "thousand" is the Hebrew
'elep
, which may have some original connection with the word for "bull." Although there is no clear occurrence of
'elep
with the meaning

"family" or "clan" to be found in all the Hebrew Scriptures (so Brown-Driver-Briggs,
Lexicon
, pp. 48-49), yet the related noun
'allup
means "chief", "commander of a thousand troops"; and there are some other passages that could be using the plural
'alapim
in the sense of a subdivision of a tribe (cf. Koehler-Baumgartner,
Lexicon
, p. 57). This is a most tenuous basis on which to erect a theory allowing for reduction; but if in these census chapters of Numbers one could render
'alapim
as "family complex" or "clan," then perhaps the total number of Israelite men-at-arms could be lowered to about 30,000. This would involve a much smaller number of mouths to feed and bodies to sustain during the many years of desert wandering. So goes the argument.

There are some fatal difficulties, however, that render this theory quite untenable. In the first place, 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. Thus the first record given is that of the adult males of the tribe of Reuben (Num. 1:21):
sissah we'arbaìm 'elep wahames me'ot
(lit.,

"six and forty thousand and five hundreds"). This being the case, there is no way that

'elap
in this total figure could have meant 46 clans (or families) and 500. Clearly the figure intended is 46,500. That such was the intention of the Hebrew author is rendered absolutely certain by the total of 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 125

600,000 men on foot." Hence there has been no error in translation, nor any demonstrable garbling in transmission.

The objection that the natural resources of the Sinai desert could never have supported two million people or more for a period of forty years' wandering is absolutely valid. But it completely overlooks what the Pentateuch makes abundantly clear: Israel did not receive its food and drink from the ordinary natural resources of the Sinai terrain. This multitude was said to have been supplied in a miraculous way with manna from the sky and water from the cloven rock, all during the journey through the wilderness. The God who led the Israelites in the pillar of cloud was the one who supplied them with their nourishment by way of a supernatural intervention on their behalf. Apart from this, 30,000 would have perished of hunger and thirst in that wilderness just as quickly as 600,000; and it is quite futile to sidestep the factor of miracle by a mere reduction in numbers.

What we are dealing with here is the possibility of miracle. Miracles are recorded from the first chapter of the Bible to the last. Apart from the supreme miracle of God the Son becoming incarnate as Jesus of Nazareth, there is no gospel to preach or cross of Calvary to believe in. In fact, there is little point in bothering with the Bible at all, for its presuppositions are miraculous from the start to finish. If all these miraculous events never really took place, then the Bible is too untrustworthy to be believed; it is only another sample of human speculation. No valid objection can be raised, therefore, on the ground that a biblical episode is miraculous in nature; and any line of argument or reinterpretation that presupposes the impossibility of miracle is a mere exercise in futility.

The credibility of a Hebrew host in excess of two million souls has been called in question by some authorities on the ground of the remarkably low number of firstborn sons as recorded in Numbers 3:42-43: "So Moses numbered all the first-born among the sons of Israel, just as the LORD had commanded him; and all the first-born males by the number of names from a month old and upward, for their numbered men were 22,273"

(NASB). Quite obviously there must have been a far greater number of firstborn sons in Moses' congregation, numbering as it did over 600,000 men. But this apparent difficulty disappears when the setting of this incident is carefully examined.

It was apparently in the second year of the wilderness journey (cf. Num. 1:1), after the census of the Twelve Tribes and the Tribe of Levi had been completed, that the Lord ordered Moses to number all the firstborn of the non-Levites and determine how many more of them there were than the number of the Levites themselves. The purpose of this was to compute how large a ransom offering should be contributed to the Lord's work, to compensate for the fact that the Levites totaled a little less than 10 percent of the total male population of Israel. Since there were 22,000 Levites (Num. 3:39) but 22,273

firstborn non-Levites (v.43), this meant that an offering of 22,273 times five shekels had to be raised for the excess number of non-Levites. (This is actually the origin of the so-called temple tax, which is still observed by worldwide Jewry today.) 126

Delitzsch (Keil and Delitzsch,
Pentateuch
, 3:9-13) points out that this requirement only applied to those babies born after the start of the Exodus; it was never intended to be retroactive. Well, then, out of a total of 603,550 males, there would within a year or so be a total of about 19,000 new marriages. If some of these allowed for two gestation periods, the probable number of births for male babies would be 22,000 or a few more. This agrees very well with the exact figure given of 22,273.

Another basis for postulating a small population among the Hebrews in Goshen is the record in Exodus 1:15, that two midwives were sufficient to handle all the obstetrical cases within the community. This observation is quite valid. Far more than two midwives would be necessary to care for a population of over two million. But surely this fact would have been just as obvious to an eighth-century B.C. author (like the putative

"Elohist") as it is to us. Two midwives would have hardly been able to care for even 30,000 males plus wives and children. Quite obviously Shiphrah and Puah served as administrative superintendents over the obstetrical guild for the entire Hebrew community. It is hardly conceivable that the entire corps of midwives would have reported personally to the king himself; on the contrary, the king maintained control of their activities through approved overseers. This is quite in keeping with what we know of the highly bureaucratic structure of the ancient Egyptian government. Their documents refer to overseers (the Egyptian term was
imy-r
, "he who is in the mouth" of his employer or overlord) for nearly every craft, profession, or skill known to Egyptian society. They were all responsible to report to and take orders from the government of the district in which they served. This makes the argument based on the small number of midwives completely invalid.

Another difficulty that has been proposed against the credibility of a congregation of over two million is derived from the amount of time necessary for so large a multitude to progress from point to point in their journey as they are said to have done according to the Pentateuchal narrative. How, for example, could such a large horde of people get across the Red Sea (or "Sea of Reeds," as the Hebrew puts it) so quickly as Exodus 14:21-24 seems to suggest? The parching east wind partially dried up the sea bed (after the waters had been miraculously removed to some distance above and below their point of crossing) for an entire night (v.21); and only after that, it would seem, did the Israelites make their way across.

It may have been by the fourth watch (i.e., 3:00 to 6:00 A.M.) of the following day that the Egyptian chariots began their crossing in pursuit of them. This means that the Hebrew host had barely twenty-four hours to make the passage. This would seem to be quite impossible if they had to keep to a paved highway of any sort as they made their advance.

But in this situation there could have been no roads or highways at all (for what point would there be for a street leading into the waters of a sea?); and they had to proceed across directly over unpaved terrain from wherever they happened to be located in their overnight camp. Their maneuver would be just like that of any army advancing to do battle with an enemy host: their front line may have stretched out for two or three miles as they moved together simultaneously, livestock included. Hence there would have been very little time lost through waiting in line. The whole multitude simply moved ahead 127

like one enormous army advancing against an enemy battle line. If this was the way it was done, then there is no time problem to deal with.

The same observation applies to the day-by-day journeys of the Israelites during the forty years' wandering. If they had been packed up close together in one long column when they camped down for the night, then it would have taken several hours for their rearmost detachments to get moving after the journey had began for the vanguard. But we know from Numbers 2:3-31 that they camped down in the formation of a square, with three tribes to the east of the tabernacle, three to the south, three to the west, and three to the north. Thus they were distributed like a huge expeditionary force, with center, two wings, a vanguard, and a rearguard. When armies engaged each other in battle, they did not require much time before they engaged their front lines in hand-to-hand combat. They did not look around for paved roads but simply proceeded across the broken, rough terrain (if they had to) with their ranks carefully preserved in line. There were virtually no paved highways to be found in the Sinai (apart from the King's Highway, perhaps), and such as there were would only be used for wheeled vehicles--of which the Israelites had very few indeed, If, then, they began to move simultaneously after the signal trumpet was blown at the start of the day's march, they could very easily cover ten miles or more without overdriving the young of the livestock. They had no need to wait in line for their turn to move.

Considerable skepticism has been voiced by rationalist scholarship in regard to the historicity of such large armies as are referred to in subsequent periods of Israel's history.

For example, at the Battle of Mareshah (2 Chron. 14:8-12) King Asa of Judah is said to have faced Zerah the Ethiopian with 580,000 troops against the invader's host of 1,000,000. Or again back in David's time the Ten Tribes had 800,000 men at arms and Judah 500,000--which made up a total of 1,300,000 for the standing army and the militia in the early tenth century B.C. King Pekah of Israel slew 120,000 Judean troops in a single engagement and led off 200,000 more as captives, back in the reign of King Ahaz (2 Chron. 28:6-8). Modern scholars tend to cast doubt on these large numbers, feeling that the Chronicler especially was given to frequent exaggeration in his zeal to glorify Israel's past.

In answer to these charges of statistical unreliability, we make the following observations.

1. The ancient author, living within a few hundred years of the events he describes--or else even writing as a contemporary--is far more likely to be in secure possession of the facts than a modern skeptic who is separated from the event by three thousand years or more.

2. Modern criteria of likelihood or unlikelihood, if founded on the assumption that the unusual never happens, are virtually useless. If history teaches us anything, it teaches us that most of the major events of the past took place because the unlikely and unusual actually occurred.

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3. Deductions based on recent observation and experience may lead to completely false results. It is unwarranted to assume from the climatic conditions that have prevailed in the Holy Land since A.D. 500 that the land was never more fertile nor could not have supported a large population in earlier times. The archaeological and geological evidence seems to indicate that the precipitation rates have fluctuated quite markedly since the third millennium B.C. The weather diary kept by Claudius Ptolemaeus in Alexandria, Egypt, during the first century A.D. shows that in his time the summer drought was shorter than at present, with much greater thunderstorm activity and more of the north wind prevalent during the winter than at present (cf. Denis Baly,
Geography of the Bible
.

rev. ed. [New York: Harper, 1974], pp. 66-67). The indications are that dry, hot conditions prevailed from 4500 to 3500 B.C.; cooler, damper weather prevailed from 3500 to 2300; followed by 300 years of drought (as witness Abraham's sojourn in Egypt).