396 
fessor Rawlinson on this point : they are substantially the same as those of 
Dr. Payne Smith. 
u Now here, before we can form any judgment, two things have to be 
determined : What was the number of the Israelites when they entered 
Egypt ? What was the duration of their stay there ? — What was their 
number when they entered Egypt ? We are commonly told, seventy souls. 
Now, no doubt these words occur in Scripture, ‘All the souls of the house 
of Jacob which came into Egypt were three score and ten.’ But when we 
come to look into details, we find first that the seventy souls of J acob’s 
descendants comprise only ten women, the married daughters and grand- 
daughters of Jacob not being mentioned (who yet, we are told, followed the 
migrations of the tribes) and no account being taken of the wives of his sons 
and grandsons. Supplying these omissions, we have for the family of J acob 
as it entered Egypt 267, instead of the number seventy— or nearly four 
times the ordinary estimate. The children of Israel entered Egypt with 
their households or retainers.* What the size of a patriarchal household 
was we may gather from the history of Abraham, who had 318 trained ser- 
vants born in his house capable of active military service. It has been well 
observed that ‘ we should scarcely find so many in a clan of 3,000 souls.’ 
Jacob’s retainers were likely to have been more numerous, rather than less 
numerous, than those of Abraham, and the conclusions of Kurtz that they 
amounted to several thousands is therefore perfectly reasonable. It appears 
to me quite probable that the tribe which took possession of Goshen on the 
invitation of Joseph and Pharaoh, was a body of five or six thousand 
persons. 
“ Next, as to the duration of the sojourn in Egypt, the Hebrew text lays 
it down very positively that it was 430 years. The best manuscripts of the 
Septuagint agree. There was a tradition among the later Jews which 
brought down the term to 215 years ; but this tradition cannot reasonably 
be set against the plain words of Exodus, and consequently we must take 
430 years as the duration of the sojourn. 
“ Is it, then, or is it not conceivable that under the circumstances of the 
time and place a tribe or clan of 5,000 persons may have increased in 430 
years to one of one or two millions,” &c., &c.f 
If, then, Jacob’s family was thus large, the incorporations numerous, and the 
period was 430 years, which Professor Rawlinson maintains, and not the 
, shorter period, then there is no difficulty in supposing that the lineal de- 
scendants of Jacob increased to about 80,000, and the others to a much larger 
* number. At the same time let me say that Professor Rawlinson is quite 
of opinion that the numbers mentioned at the Exodus are maintainable, 
but allows that there are some difficulties in the way. He says : — 
u If the difficulties of the multiplication, as stated, of the exit from Egypt, 
the march, the passage of the Red Sea, and the sojourn in the wilderness 
were all allowed to be as great as represented, it would be enough to reply 
* The word tath, translated “ little ones,” means households. The Sep- 
tuagist translates it by oUia or avyykvua , Gen. xlvi. 5. 
t Professor Rawlinson’s lecture, delivered at St. George’s Hall, 1871 ; 
be ing one of the Christian Evidence series. Hodder & Stoughton. 
