Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Kevin W. Woodruff" <cierpke AT prodigy.net>]

>Lacking electronic communications, the word to move would
>have to have been passed down the line. Then the first echelons would have
>started moving, then the second, and so on. By nightfall, MAYBE the last
>echelons would have started to move.


Could that have been the reason for the "pillar of fire?" 

Of course I accept the Exodus account as historical and factual. that would
influence my interpretation. I suppose there's an advantage to accepting the
fact that a deity capable of incapacitating a nation like Egypt can provide
for His chosen people, Israel.


But I think we should move back to the purpose of the list which is the
study of Hebrew language rather than the chronology and historicity of the
events


Kevin 



At 08:18 PM 1/25/2000 +0200, you wrote:
>
>
>Walter Mattfeld wrote:
>
>> I have dated the Exodus with the Hyksos expulsion of the 16th century BCE
>> because it is "the only event in all of Egyptian history" where a large
>> number of Asiatics fled Egypt for Canaan, and who lived in the eastern
>> delta, "matching somewhat" the "historically garbled and fantascized" 
>> Exodus
>> account.
>
>Dear Walter,
>What makes you think that in the real Exodus (assuming there was one), a 
>"large
>number of Asiatcs fled Egypt for Canaan"? Because Exodus and Leviticus give 
>the
>typological number of 600,000 to ishow that God was keeping his promise of
>multiplying the seed of Abraham into a great nation??
>First of all, the 600,000 indicates only the men aged 20-60. Adding women,
>children and the aged, we easily get to 2,000,000. Assuming the Israelites
>marched 10 abreast with a meter between each, the length of the column would
>have been 200 km. If they marched 20 abreast, 100 km. Picture them starting 
>to
>move in the morning. Lacking electronic communications, the word to move 
>would
>have to have been passed down the line. Then the first echelons would have
>started moving, then the second, and so on. By nightfall, MAYBE the last
>echelons would have started to move. And, by then, of course, they would
have to
>stop. And think of the dust, the stink, the pack animals, if any! It would
>really have taken a miracle to feed and give drink to al that horde.
>This might explain very well why it took the Israelites 40 years to cross
Sinai.
>
>I'm being facetious, of course. What I really mean is that the number of
600,000
>men is imaginary, that the real number was nothing like it.
>   Secondly, one can get an idea of the real number of Israelites by what is
>said betwen the lines in the Wilderness narratives. The Israelite camp was
>small, and it was possible to make a circuit of it in a short time (look at 
>the
>story of the Revolt of Korach). Likewise, the Israelites could approach Moses
>personally, meaning he wasn't situated very far from any of them -
certainly not
>100 km.Moses personally conveys his instructions to the Israelites, and 
>judges
>them personally (until his father-in-law gives him a word of advice).
>While still in Egypt, the Israelites made do with two midwives.
>The total impression is of a band of a few hundred, maximum a couple of
>thousand, fleeing, frightened slaves, not a mass "army" of Israelites.
>Sincerely
>--
>Jonathan D. Safren
>Dept. of Biblical Studies
>Beit Berl College
>44905 Beit Berl Post Office
>Israel
>
>
>
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Kevin W. Woodruff, M.Div.
Library Director/Reference Librarian
Professor of New Testament Greek
Cierpke Memorial Library
Tennessee Temple University/Temple Baptist Seminary
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