1 And the LORD spake unto Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the tabernacle of the congregation, on the first day of the second month, in the second year after they were come out of the land of Egypt, saying,
In this excerpt from my commentary hyperlinks became disabled in the paste.
This is Zif / Iyar of the second year or 25 months after leaving Egypt. If Mt. Sinai is in the traditional location in the southern Sinai Peninsula, then they have traveled about 150 miles from Goshen; an average of 6 miles per month or 182 feet per day. If Mt. Sinai is in Arabia as recent archeological evidence suggests and as we are told in Ga 1:17, and 4:24-25; then they have traveled about 250 miles averaging about 10 miles / month or about 2 city blocks per day. This means that they must have spent a great deal of time encamped in one place.
Nu 1:45-46 tells us that there were 603,550 men above 20 years old and able to go to war. Though they are not mentioned, there must have been a large number of men too old to fight.
Even if those males under twenty or too old to fight were only 30% of the male population, there would be at least 862,000 men exclusive of the tribe of Levy. Even if the tribe of Levy were a very small tribe, the smallest tribe, other than Levi were 32,000; so Levi probably numbered at least 20,000 men of fighting age and 28,000 total males. That would mean that the male descendants of Israel numbered at least 890,000.
Numbers 4:3 tells us that men over 50 were too old to fight. Since men at that time probably lived to more than 100 years old (See note at Ex 1:7), this is a very conservative estimate. Since we know from Ex 1:22 that for a period of time the male babies were killed, it is almost certain that the females outnumbered the males. That means that there were more than 1.8 million descendants of Israel camped at Sinai. Exodus 12:38 tells us that a “mixed multitude” of non-Israelite people were with them. So there were over 2 million people camped at Sinai. (This is a very conservative estimate. There were more likely over 2.5 million people)
Ex 24:18 tells us that Moses was on the mountain for 40 days before the golden calf; and Ex 34:28 tells us that Moses was on the mountain for 40 days after the golden calf.
In addition, the Tabernacle was constructed after Moses came down the second time. So more than 2 million people camped at Sinai at least 3 months.
To put the problems of having that many people in one place over an extended time in perspective: two million people could be expected to pass enough solid waste each day to fill 5 football stadiums 45 feet deep; and enough urine in a month to cover 1 square mile to a depth of 35 inches; and this does not count the animals’ contribution to the mess.
Exodus 12:38 also tells us that there were flocks and herds and very much cattle with them.
Obviously, they exceeded the carrying capacity of the land for both food and sanitation. God had to provide food and sanitation for all those people and animals; for He was certainly able to do so. People left to their own resources would have been a logistical nightmare and quite impossible.
Effluent estimates are based on Philadelphia Dept of Sanitation estimates of effluent processing. Philadelphia has somewhat less than 2 million people.
(See note at Ex 1:7.) {Return to: Ex 12:2 }