Commentators point to certain difficulties in the number here given. Seeing that only males above 20 years of age were included (Num. 1:3-43), the total population might be computed at several million. The problem is, how could so many people, with their untold thousands of animals, pass through the narrow valleys of the Sinai Peninsula without stretching out for hundreds of miles, to say nothing of finding even one camping place large enough to accommodate them?

 Some cite Biblical evidence that Israel was relatively small and weak—too few to occupy the land if it were opened to them in one year (Ex. 23:29, 30; Num. 13:28-33; Deut. 1:26-30; 7:7, 17-22).

Others explain that numbers in the Hebrew original may have been confusing. For example, are the numerals for 100 and 1,000 together to be understood as 100 times 1,000 or as 100 plus 1,000? (See Vol. III, p. 123.)

 Some suggest that we may not understand accurately the Hebrew word translated “thousand,” ’lph, or ’eleph. The word ’eleph can also mean “family,” as used in Judges 6:15. In other places it seems to mean “family” or “clan” (1 Sam. 10:19; 23:23; Micah 5:2). Furthermore, ’aluph, a word having the same consonants as ’eleph, but different vowels, means “friend” or “tribal chief.” Some say therefore that the phrase traditionally rendered “six hundred thousand” actually means “six hundred families”; that it is more probable that the 12 families who entered Egypt with Jacob should increase to 600 families in 215 years than that the 69 males (see on Gen. 46:26, 27), should increase to 600,000 men in four generations (Gen. 15:16).

Some have explained that 600,000 men could have resulted from natural increase if every son, like Jacob, had had 12 sons. Against this theoretical solution is the fact that not one of Jacob’s descendants whose sons are recorded had that many sons.

 Another meaning of ’eleph is given as “military unit” (Num. 31:5, 14, etc.). Therefore some say that the Israelite forces consisted of 600 army units, each from a clan or tribal division.

 Ellen G. White’s reference to “more than two million souls” and “millions” who came out of Egypt and died in the wilderness (PP 334, 410) harmonizes with the rendering of the words for 600,000 as translated in the English versions here and in other texts such as ch. 38:25, 26.

Earlier commentators incorrectly identified this, the first halting place of the Israelites after their departure from Rameses, with Pithom. Scholars are now generally agreed that the Hebrew name here given is a transliteration of the Egyptian Tjeku, mentioned in Egyptian documents as a border station. This place has been identified with Tell el-Maskhuta in the eastern part of the Wadi Tumilat, about 32 mi.

southeast of Tanis or Rameses (see above).

 That “Rameses” here is the same city as the “Rameses” of ch. 1:11 can hardly be doubted, since the Hebrew words differ only in their vocalization, which was inserted in the Hebrew Bible about the 7th century of the Christian Era. Rameses was the city for the building of which Israelite slave labor had largely been used. As stated in the comment on ch. 1:11, the name given here is probably a later name for the city of Tanis (Avaris). Two hundred years after the Exodus, Tanis received the name Rameses, bestowed by its great renovator, Ramses II. The ruins of this city are known today under the Arabic name San el-Hagar. It lies in the northeastern Delta, about 27 mi. northwest of the city of El Qantara on the Suez Canal.