How many came out of the exodus of egypt

That was Setnakhte, founder of the twentieth dynasty. He restored order throughout the country, executed the evildoers, and cleansed the great throne of Egypt. He brought with him a large group of followers who objected to the Egyptian gods and their rituals.

He and his followers took over the country for a time and exploited it economically. Setnakhte then battled this foreigner, removed him from the throne, stripped him of power, and ascended the throne in his place.

I mentioned another document we have, however, which was written soon after the battle for power in Egypt. There it is written that Setnakhte cleansed Egypt of those who had led her in a mistaken direction, who had defrauded her. This plan of bringing mercenaries paid with Egyptian silver and gold failed, and Setnakhte drove them all out of Egypt. If I were to conflate what is written in these two Egyptian sources, the following story of the end of the nineteenth dynasty and the beginning of the twentieth emerges.

Tausert died around BCE, and her death was followed by two years of internal conflict in Egypt, because she did not have any living offspring and therefore no clear heir. Then someone of Canaanite or Syrian origin took over rule in Egypt. This man despised Egyptian rituals and prohibited offerings to the Egyptian gods.

He imported allies from Asia—from somewhere in Syria, Lebanon, or Canaan—whom he paid with silver and gold. Setnakhte, founder of the twentieth dynasty, fought against the foreigner and his Asian allies who had taken over the country, and succeeded in driving them out. Thus, we have three groups of different kinds of sources. We have Manetho, whose story is preserved in Josephus, we have the biblical book of Exodus, and we have Egyptian documents from the twelfth century BCE.

I would argue that the same basic story recurs in all three: A group within Egypt that despises Egyptian ritual brings in reinforcements from abroad, from the region of Canaan and Syria. They come to Egypt and join the local group, but the pharaoh, who remains faithful to the old Egyptian religion, manages to defeat them and drive them out of the country. There is also mention of silver and gold given to the foreigners by Egyptian citizens.

I am not the first to see the analogy between these ancient Egyptian sources and the Bible, particularly between the mention of silver and gold on the Yabe monument and the biblical story about the gold and silver vessels the Egyptians gave the Israelites on the eve of their exodus Exod.

But scholars who have studied this matter in the past thought that the foreigner who took over Egypt and against whom Setnakhte fought was Bay. Moreover, none of them has noted the connection between the story of these events and the story told by Manetho.

Today we know that Bay was executed by Siptah earlier on, so I claim that this struggle for power in Egypt, occurring several years after the deaths of Bay and Siptah, cannot have anything to do with Bay-Joseph but is actually about another figure—namely, Moses.

The Syrian leader who despised Egyptian religion and brought mercenaries over from Syria or Lebanon, mentioned in these sources, is Moses.

This is a span of about 40 years. In my opinion, he was raised and educated, at least for a time, at the Egyptian royal court, under the protection of Tausert.

When Tausert died, he saw himself as the appropriate person to take over the court and ascend the throne of the pharaohs. Psalm , written a few hundred years later, references a Lord that ruled over Israel and a passage compares him to the sun.

You send forth your breath, they are created, And you renew the face of the earth. Ismail believes it is possible that the message from the heretic pharaoh has some connection to the story of Moses and the Exodus, as outlined in the Hebrew Bible. The Bible says that after Moses accepted his dangerous mission to get the Israelites out of Egypt, he confronted the pharaoh.

The pharaoh refused to let his people go until God unleashed a series of unnatural disasters known as the 10 plagues. Jews commemorate this event and the Exodus on Passover.

The Bible says the angel of death swept through Egypt, including the palace. When the pharaoh's son died, he sent for Moses and told him to take his people and go. But then, the pharaoh realized he was losing a huge work force, so he called up his army and chased the Israelites to the Red Sea. Religious historians estimate the Israelite population in Egypt at the time was around two or three million people, but the biblical Exodus route into the Sinai Desert has left no trace other than what the Bible tells us.

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Please donate at: aish. More Questions Previous. Due to limited resources, the Ask the Rabbi service is intended for Jews of little background with nowhere else to turn. People with questions in Jewish law should consult their local rabbi. For genealogy questions try JewishGen. Note also that this is not a homework service! Ask the Aish Rabbi a Question. The Aish Rabbi cannot respond without a valid email. Also Exodus where the men are called gevoriym , or warriors compared to the size of Pharaohs army of chariots Exodus , which brought fear to the Israelites.

How could chariots be considered a threat to , warriors of Israel? Equally puzzling is the fear the Israelites felt at entering the Promised Land where each city probably contained no more than 5, warriors compared to their , Another problem is the simple logistics to supply feed, water and move such a large number. According to the Quartermaster General in the army, it would take 1, tons of food, 4, tons of wood as fuel and 11,, gallons of water each day to supply the basic needs of this group.

Another problem is the location of the Latrine. RSV Deuteronomy ,13 "You shall have a place outside the camp and you shall go out to it; and you shall have a stick with your weapons; and when you sit down outside, you shall dig a hole with it, and turn back and cover up your excrement. A camp of this size would be approximately five miles by five miles square assuming only 1, square feet per family.

One located in the center of the camp would require a hike of 2. Another problem is the estimated population of the nation of Israel compared to the estimated population of Egypt at this time.

It is estimated that the whole population of Egypt at the time of the exodus was between 2 and 5 million. According to the above estimates of the population of Israel, the people of Israel would be greater than the entire population of Egypt. Another problem is the large number of people is not possible with the number of generations available from Levi to the exodus. The average number of children born to the descendants of Yaacov is three to five. If we assume that the twelve children of Yaacov had 5 children, and the generation of Kohath, Amram and Moses each had 5 children, the maximum number of people men, women and children , descended from Yaacov at the time of the exodus, would be approximately 7, The Hebrew text of Exodus states; " about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children ," but the Hebrew text can also be translate as " about six hundred chiefs eleph on foot are the warriors apart from the children " The Hebrew word eleph can mean "thousand" or "chief," compare Strong's s , and We now have a group of warriors that would find the chariots of Pharaoh a formidable army.

If we also assume that each chief head of the family included a wife and 5 children we have about 6, people, which correlate with previous calculation of possible descendants from Levi to the exodus. Translating the word eleph as "chiefs" will also work for the census records found in the book of Numbers. RSV Numbers the number of the tribe of Reuben was forty-six thousand five hundred.