Wilderness journey

Deuteronomy Chapter 2

Moses was of the line of Jacob. His brother Esau had possession of the land around Mount Seir by God’s proclamation. The people, at Moses’ direction, were careful not to “meddle” with Esau’s descendants, though they were glad to buy food and water from them – part of the blessing that ensured they lacked nothing on their 40 years in the wilderness.

Buying water! How many cattle did they have? They need so much water. Maybe sheep would survive better in the desolate country.

Likewise the Moabites, “children of Lot” and other peoples, were respected in their right to the land that the Israelites skirted.

40 years was a very long time to travel the route they took! I read that if they had gone the short way which God told them to take it would have taken 11 days!

I find the number of people on this wilderness journey hard to believe. So I went on a hunt. The following satisfied me – see https://www.jstor.org/stable/1585502

The number of people in the Exodus from Egypt: Decoding mathematically the very large numbers in Numbers I & XXVI

By Colin J. Humphreys

Cambridge, 1998

Published in Vetus Testamentum vol 48(2): 196-213

A mathematical analysis is given of the very large numbers of people at the Exodus from Egypt recorded in the book of Numbers. It is shown that if there were “273 first born Israelites who exceed the number of Levites” (Numbers iii.43), then the total number of Israelite men aged over 20 in the census following the Exodus was about 5,000, not 603,550 as apparently recorded in Numbers. The apparent error in Numbers arises because the ancient Hebrew word ‘lp can mean “thousand’, ‘troop’, or ‘leader’, according to the context. On our interpretation, all the figures in Numbers are internally consistent including the numbers at both censuses, the encampment numbers, etc. In addition we deduce that the number of males in the average Israelite family at the time of the Exodus was 8 or 9, consistent with the concern of the Egyptians that the Israelites had “multiplied greatly” whilst in Egypt (Exodus 1.7). The total number of men, women and children at the Exodus was about 20,000 rather than the figure of over 2 million apparently suggested by the book of Numbers.

 

Joyce Voysey