Reply To: The population of the Israelites during Exodus

[Ron Smith, MD]

Small numbers coming out of Egypt seem unlikely from a purely mathematical calculation. The population growth formula is:

x(t) = x0 × (1 + r) t where:

t = time in years

r = rate of growth in percent; I’ll assume 5% per year which would be one new child for them starting out with mostly fairly young individuals; my guess is there were about 30 reproductive couples so that 3 to 5 new babies would be born each year; that equals around 4 to 7%; the US which is a large, mature population (and has a significant population reduction from abortion) is 0.474 %/yr (percent per year) (world rank: 167th) (2019 estimate) according to wolframalpha.com.

x0 = initial population (66 not counting Joseph and his family of 4)

x(t) = 70 × (1 + .05) 430

x(t) = 90,468,343,864.19746

Now this doesn’t take into account varying attrition rates and lifespan decreases, etc., along with other factors, of course, but the number is significantly larger than if “elef” is interpreted as units instead of thousands. From a purely mathematical perspective, I’m not sure that smaller numbers in the Exodus can be supported.

https://calculator.academy/population-growth-calculator/