Is 1000 really 1000?

It has been really encouraging to run into many of our church members and hear about their positive experiences in reading through the Bible using The Daily Walk Bible, New Living Translation. One person asked me a question at a recent dinner that I could only partially answer on the spot so I went home and did a little research in my Hebrew class notes from Seminary, and on my computer Bible software, and this is what I found.

The question was: Are the numbers in the Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament) inflated? For example, were there really 600,000 people who crossed the Red Sea (Ex. 12:37)? Or more technically speaking, does the Hebrew word “elep” in Joshua 7:3 and Exodus 12:37 really stand for the decimal number 1000?

By doing a search with Bibleworks (Bible computer software) on this Hebrew word “elep” I found the following:

Some times it is translated: the number 1000 (Josh. 7:3), some times it means cattle or herd, some times it means clans (Josh. 22:14), some times it means division (Num 1:16), some times it means family, some times it means ox(en) (Isa. 30:24) and some times it means tribe(s) (Num 10:4).

My Hebrew Professor, Dr. Doug Stuart, believes that in military contexts like Joshua 7 it stands for a military unit so the word could be better translated as “platoon” rather than as the number 1000. Like a herd with one male ox and a lot of cows, an “elep” could be one leader with a lot of fighting men (platoon). So an “elep” could mean dozens of men (20-50 men) rather than 1000 men.

Consequently, Dr. Stuart suggests only 200-300 men went to fight Ai rather than the NIV's “two or three thousand.” With this in mind, it makes sense why the number of casualties (36) was shocking to Joshua and the elders because this would have been 10-15% of the men who went to fight! This was even more shocking to Joshua because, in reality, there should not have been a single casualty. Joshua was leading a "Holy War" which meant God was doing the fighting for them and thus no one should have died. But, because of Achan's sin men died.

In the case of the Exodus, if we were to define this word in the terms of a "platoon" or a military unit or a subdivision of a tribe then this could greatly reduce the total number of people who crossed the Red Sea. As a result, the numbers could seem larger than they actually were.

In actuality, we don’t know for sure how many men went to fight Ai or how many people crossed the Red Sea. I tend to think that large numbers, especially in circumstances like the Exodus, are believable because remember what God told Abraham in Gen. 15:5. “Look up at the heavens and count the stars—if indeed you can count them … so shall your offspring be.” In the end, what we do know is that these events happened and that God, in his omniscience, knows the actual number and we can rest in that. The reality is we worship an omnipotent God who was able, no matter the size of his people, to fight and win amazing battles and to make sea-beds dry so that a whole nation could cross on dry ground.

May we take comfort in knowing that this same God who did these incredible feats is the God who gave us “the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father” (Rom. 8:15).