hthah, slew 42,000
Ephriamites; and that the Benjamites slew 40,000 Israelites, after which
the Israelites killed 43,000 Benjamites, all of these being "men
of valor" that "drew the sword." The book of Samuel says that the
Philistines had 30,000 war chariots, and that they slew 30,000 footmen
of Israel. The second book of Chronicles says that Pekah, king of
Israel, slew of Judah in one day 120,000 "sons of valor," and carried
away 200,000 captives; that Abijah's force consisted of 400,000, and
Jeroboam's of 800,000, 500,000 of whom were killed! At the battle of
Waterloo the total number of men killed on our side was 4,172. The
statistics of slaughter in the Bible were clearly developed from the
inner consciousness of the Jewish scribes; and no doubt the same holds
good with respect to the statistics of the flight from Egypt.

This view is corroborated by a singular statement in the third chapter
of Numbers. We are there informed that when the census was taken "All
the first-born males, from a month old and upwards of those that were
numbered, were twenty and two thousand two hundred and three score and
thirteen." Now as there were about 900,000 males altogether, it follows
that every Jewish mother must have had on an average _forty-two sons_,
to say nothing of daughters! Such extraordinary fecundity is unknown to
the rest of the world, except in the reign of romance. The Jews bragged
a great deal about Jehovah, and they appear to have obtained some
compensation by bragging a great deal about themselves.

How did the Jews manage to quit Egypt in one night? There were 600,000
men on foot, besides women and children, not to mention "the mixed
multitude that went up also with them." The entire population must have
numbered more than two millions, and some commentators estimate it at
nearly three. They had to come in from all parts of Goshen to Rameses,
bringing with them the sick and infirm, the very old and the very young.
Among such a large population there could not have been less than two
hundred births a day. Many of the Jewish women, therefore, must have
been just confined. How could they and their new-born children have
started off in such a summary manner? Many more women must have been at
the point of confinement How could these have been hurried off at all?
Yet we are told that not a single person was left behind.

How were the flocks and herds driven out in such haste? There were about
two million sheep and two