Crossing the Red Sea

[oldhermit]

well actually the number who went INTO Egypt were probably about 5000. you are overlooking their 'households' (servants and slaves). Abraham had around 1500 in his household (318 fighting men). It is of course impossible to work out what number they would grow to. We do not know how long all the male children were killed. We do not know what illnesses they suffered. We do not know how many died doing the building work (undoubtedly a good number). So any calculation is pure guesswork.

"And Joseph sent and summoned Jacob his father and all his kindred, seventy-five persons in all." Acts 7:14

When Pharaoh took his army to fight the Hittites around that time they consisted of 20,000 men. And the comparison here was only being made in the delta, and was probably an exaggeration. It need not have meant say more than 30,000 men if that.



have you got a nought wrong lol? but it could mean 600 sub-clans or military units (eleph). Eleph (thousand) has a number of meanings, including 'family', 'military unit' and so on..



true but it says 46 'lph and 500. That could mean 46 captains and 500 men or even 46 captains and 5 smaller military units (a 'hundred' being a military unit). As you say no one writes like the Holy Spirit.



OR 59 captains and 300 men? I will not go through them all. Hebrew numbers are notoriously tricky.

Of the people of Gad,... were 45,650. (0r 45 captains and 650 men)

Of the people of Judah,...were 74,600. (Or 74 captains and 600 men)
Of the people of Issachar,...were 54,400. (0r 54 captains and 400 men)
Of the people of Zebulun,...were 57,400. (or 57 captains and 400 men.)
Of the people of Joseph, namely, of the people of Ephraim,...were 40,500. (or 40 captains and 500 men)
Of the people of Manasseh,...were 32,200. (or 32 captains and 200 men)
Of the people of Benjamin,...were 35,400. (or 35 captains and 400 men)
Of the people of Dan,...were 62,700. (or 62 captains and 700 men)
Of the people of Asher,...were 41,500 (or 41 captains and 500 men)
Of the people of Naphtali,...were 53,400. (or 53 captains and 400 men)

T

If we understood how Israel used numbers we could be more certain. But we don't. Notice how the 'hundreds' are all in round numbers. It may well be that 'a hundred' is a military unit.




The only problem with your theory is that in the Hebrew the numbers may not read as you cite them. It would only be true if eleph mean 1000, and not a sub-clan or a military unit.

I won't be wasting anymore time with you. You have absolutely no regard for what any text of scripture tells you.

 

[valiant]

"And Joseph sent and summoned Jacob his father and all his kindred, seventy-five persons in all." Acts 7:14

which of course disagrees with the Hebrew text. See Genesis 46.8-27 where it is seventy. But are you suggesting they went without their families? And Exodus 1.1-6 makes clear they went with their households. Stephen was only giving heads of families from the Septuagint.

Incidentally two of the seventy were not yet born at the time. Just check it out. The number 70 was artificial.

I won't be wasting anymore time with you. You have absolutely no regard for what any text of scripture tells you.

It seems to me as though it is you who is ignoring what is inconvenient to you

 

[Bowhunter2394]

#'s Aside, the Deliverance of the Israelites at the Red Sea, out of the mouth of the lion(pharaoh), was a Supernatural Act of God , that could not be Explained Naturally.. indeed!

The LORD is a Man of War: the LORD is His Name. Exodus 15!

 

[Dan_473]

I appreciate what you said, but I did see a flaw. You assume the number was closer to 18,000 (than 3 million), because 18,000 fought that first battle. I think you're seeing a portion of the bigger number. 600,000 +/- men left Egypt. They ranged from 20 years old to at least 120 years old. (They lived longer back then.) And that was only the men.

I'm going with old guys didn't fight. Disabled didn't fight. The uncoordinated didn't fight. (If you often trip on your own foot, it's probably not a good idea to be carrying a sword.) The guys who would puke if they cut their pinky probably didn't fight. (If you puke at the sight of blood, it's probably a good idea not to go out to stab someone with a sword too.) If they were sick or weak, they didn't fight. Cowards wouldn't fight. What was left out of those 600,000 +/- men who left Egypt that day was the 18,000 men who could and would fight.

The 600,000ish was a real number. The 18,000ish was a subset of that real number and was also a real number.

the 18,000 was a number I remember (or misremember) from a commentary... I thought it had to do with how hebrew numbers are used...

I thought the 600,000 was males aged 20 to 60... does it say that in numbers?

well, 18,000 able-bodied courageous out of 600,000 seems to too small, but yes, possible...

 

[Dan_473]

Try drowning a horse in a foot of water. For that matter, try drowning a man in a foot of water. Neither is giving in that easily.

I took it to mean that if the water was held back to a depth of one foot over an area of 10 or 100 square miles, when it was released it would rush back with such force that people/horses would be knocked unconscious, and perish in the resulting mud and shallow water...

would that count as drowning to the hebrew mind? I don't know...

 

[Dan_473]

Okay, am I correct in assuming that you are questioning how I arrived at the figure of 3,000,000 people, plus or minus?

well, I'm questioning how many people crossed the red sea... a figure of 3,000,000 seems odd in light of other wilderness stories...

I assume the folks who use that number base it on 600,000 fighting men, which is about 3,000,000 with families added...

 

[Bowhunter2394]

The More I look at this, that pathway THE ISRAELITES took on the Seabed of the Red Sea was a NARROW PATH.. the #'s of people, the Narrow Path, un explainable to the natural man, But Supernaturally yes. the Miracle of God....... the Dry Sea Bed... the Dry Gound.. Narrow... Narrow is the Way, that leads to Eternal Life, Broad is the Way that Leads to destruction.. its just my .02 but it makes sense... would love to Visit that area someday.. indeed.. that area and the area the was once Sodom and Gomorrah.. wow..

 

[Dan_473]

(the following quote was addressed to valiant)

You've conjectured dry land doesn't mean dry land.

I think a related question would be how dry dry ground is? I grew up in a desert area, now live in NE usa... ground is much wetter here... should I call both dry ground?

 

[Dan_473]

I suspect you are talking about the fact that 'lph can mean a thousand, a sub-clan, or a chieftain. Thus 600 'lph of men could mean 600 sub-clans. Taking a sub-clan as thirty adult men that would mean 18000 men.

that must be it... thanks!

 

[oldhermit]

well, I'm questioning how many people crossed the red sea... a figure of 3,000,000 seems odd in light of other wilderness stories...

I assume the folks who use that number base it on 600,000 fighting men, which is about 3,000,000 with families added...

The numbering of the people in Numbers chapter is only one year, giver or take a month or two, after they left Egypt. Like I said, I am not mathematician but first one would have to calculate the predicted expansion rate of twelve or thirteen families over the course of 430 years. We know from Exodus one that 80 years before leaving Egypt, they already outnumbered the Egyptian population to such a degree that in the mind of Pharaoh, they posed a security threat to Egypt. How large of a population would it require to produce 603,550 men of this specific age bracket fit enough to go to war? One would have to calculate the ratio possibilities at the minimum of a one to one ratio of man to woman and then a minimum of a two to one ratio of adults to children; and this is just the Israelite population. This says nothing of the great multitude of foreign slaves and the descendents of Jacob's servant class that went with them. The numbers are rather staggering. 3,000,000 is a very conservative number. If you will tell me which other wilderness stories you fell such a number represents a problem perhaps we can look at them. Incidentally, do not be taken in by the notion that the numbers are representative of a smaller group. I have examined a couple dozen translations on this and not one translation represents this as anything but a literal number including two different Jewish translations. If Valiant's assertion is true and "'lph can mean a thousand, a sub-clan, or a chieftain. Thus 600 'lph of men could mean 600 sub-clans. Taking a sub-clan as thirty adult men that would mean 18000 men," then why would this not at least show up in the Jewish translations. One would think they would how to represent their own number sets.

 

[valiant]

If Valiant's assertion is true and "'lph can mean a thousand, a sub-clan, or a chieftain. Thus 600 'lph of men could mean 600 sub-clans. Taking a sub-clan as thirty adult men that would mean 18000 men," then why would this not at least show up in the Jewish translations. One would think they would how to represent their own number sets.

Because they came over a thousand years afterwards. By then the early use of numbers was forgotten. A lot happens in a thousand years.

Incidentally I was explaining to Dan the grounds on which he had heard what he had. I am not saying there were only 18000 men. I think there were considerably more.

But if 600,000 men had invaded Canaan they would have swamped it, not struggled to maintain their position. Jericho had about 2000 inhabitants. Most of the others had about 5-6000 or less. Even Megiddo had only a 60,000 population and that was looked on as huge. What chance would they have stood against 600,000 men?

 

[MarcR]

Ancient Hebrew only had consonants (well almost). Thus 'lph can be pronounced eleph or ahleph. eleph means 'a thousand, (larger) family/sub-clan'. Ahleph means captain. So 600 eleph could mean six hundred thousand of men or it could mean 600 sub-clans of men. In the latter case the total number would depend on the size of a sub-clan. /QUOTE]


When considering the numeric value of the consonants, 'א' has the numeric value of 1.

'ר' has the value of 200 and 'ת' has the value of 400; so 1,000 would be written as תתר .

The census in Numbers chapter 1 uses the word אֶ֖לֶף , which is the name of the letter 'א' and which, in the context of a census, is always translated as thousand.

 

[oldhermit]

When considering the numeric value of the consonants, 'א' has the numeric value of 1.

'ר' has the value of 200 and 'ת' has the value of 400; so 1,000 would be written as תתר .

The census in Numbers chapter 1 uses the word אֶ֖לֶף , which is the name of the letter 'א' and which, in the context of a census, is always translated as thousand.

Since I know absolutely nothing about the Hebrew language can you break this down for me?

 

[valiant]

Ancient Hebrew only had consonants (well almost). Thus 'lph can be pronounced eleph or ahleph. eleph means 'a thousand, (larger) family/sub-clan'. Ahleph means captain. So 600 eleph could mean six hundred thousand of men or it could mean 600 sub-clans of men. In the latter case the total number would depend on the size of a sub-clan. /QUOTE]


When considering the numeric value of the consonants, 'א' has the numeric value of 1.

'ר' has the value of 200 and 'ת' has the value of 400; so 1,000 would be written as תתר .

The census in Numbers chapter 1 uses the word אֶ֖לֶף , which is the name of the letter 'א' and which, in the context of a census, is always translated as thousand.

letters for numbers were a comparatively recent invention in terms of Jewish history so that can be discounted. eleph = family, sub=clan came first. It is questionable when it came to mean a thousand. Possibly not til the time of David.

Take the incident when the ark returned to Israel from the philistines. 50,070 is a ridiculous figure in a country village which would not be well populated and why should they all suffer because a few men opened the ark? . but 50 chiefs and 70 men makes good sense.

 

[Jason0047]

Consider the circumstances of this event. There are most probably in the neighborhood of 3,000,000 people and the sea is at this point about 1000' in depth. What application of physics could possibly explain the parting of the Red Sea as it is described in Exodus 14?

BTW, this is not about which site is the supposed correct place of the crossing so please do not go there.

If you have not seen this video, I would highly recommend watching it.

[VIDEO=youtube;8tgsEXQ_lkU]http://youtu.be/8tgsEXQ_lkU[/VIDEO]

 

[oldhermit]

If you have not seen this video, I would highly recommend watching it.

[VIDEO=youtube;8tgsEXQ_lkU]http://youtu.be/8tgsEXQ_lkU[/VIDEO]

I don't know if I have seen that exact one but, I have seen others like it and it does not match the biblical account of the rout taken out of Egypt.

 

[Jason0047]

I don't know if I have seen that exact one but, I have seen others like it and it does not match the biblical account of the rout taken out of Egypt.

There are many evidences that point to the fact that it is the gulf aqaba is the Red Sea crossing and jabal al lawz is Mount Sinai.

 

[Jason0047]

If you believe these sites disagree with the Biblical account, then what verses do you think refutes such locations? From what I have seen, there is a silly amount of evidence for both of them. So for me, it is not even a question or doubt in my mind.

 

[Jeff_56]

remember that the enemy very actively has deceived and will continue to deceive the whole world,
until
yahshua returns with victory and freedom for those who are waiting for Him.

i.e. the whole world, has been and will continue to
be
deceived by all manner of false evidence, false but great looking credentials, even miracles, and

the whole world will serve/ worship demons like the rcc members have for 2000 years without repentance
and
without being willing to repent
and
they will torture , imprison, persecute, and exec ute those who stand for the TRUTH (just like the rcc has for 2000 years)
and
they will torture, imprison, force to war, persecute, and exec ute anyone they want to when and where they can (like the rcc has done for 2000 years)...

and no evidence published will be (nor should be) trustworthy ......

i.e. trust yahweh (GOD) only , and yahshua (yahweh's salvation), and be free of all the complete deceptions of the

rcc catholic deceptions , doctrines, demonic practices, and evil lives,
and all the errors in the world, be free from them

as yahweh (GOD) permits by grace through faith in JESUS.... simply....

 

[Bowhunter2394]

Biblical account is from Goshen to Succoth to Etham where they camped... the route would of been the East side of the modern day Gulf of Suez , the way of the Wilderness of the Red Sea.... Etham a place they encamped... they were shut in to the North and West by Mts. no way out..and the Red Sea to the East and Pharaohs army closing in on them.. shut in as God called it.. this near or in the vicinity the Tower of Migdol.. God brought them to that pLace..for He knew Pharaoh would say in his heart, ''the Wilderness hath shut them in'' and for landmarks and geography it was perfect... God knew what He was doing. indeed