Why did the Israelites need a 603,550 man army?

eyeuse2badub

jehober told the Israelites at zechariah 4:6

“This is the word of Jehovah to Ze·rub′ba·bel: ‘“Not by a military force, nor by power, but by my spirit,” says Jehovah of armies"

why in the hell did he have them form a 603,550 man army according to numbers 1st chapter vs 46;

"All the Israelites from 20 years old and up who could serve in the army in Israel were registered by their paternal house, 46 and the total number registered was 603,550."

This subject came up in a casual discussion with my wife on the way home from meeting Sunday. Also I mentioned that if jehober is such a wonderful record keeper and details mean so much to him, doesn't it seem strange that the numbers are all rounded off to the nearest 10. No odd numbers at all?

just saying!

EverApostate

Why did the Israelites need a 603,550 man army?

Why did Solomon have 600 wives and 300 concubines ?

These are all some mindless scribbling, written by nomads, while their cattle were grazing.

VW.org

No need to speculate on this. The entire book of the Bible is rubbish. Have a good day.

James Mixon

Just a little speculation...Numbers 3:42-43 places the number of first born males at 22,273 (only two midwives for all those births Ex. 1:15), but some critics argue that this is a contradiction to the rest of the population figures in Numbers and Exodus.However this surely refers to the number of males born after the exodus not before..22.000 male births is a likely figure given a 603550 army..

venus

zechariah 4:6 actually means "I do not need any physical army of men."

smiddy3

Jehovah was the Almighty God of the Israelites yet in battle many still died ,why ? if God was backing them up ?

And it never went down well with me that they had to hack men women and children to death with a sword .

Even commit genocide.

Can you imagine yourself doing that to another human being ? and not being affected by it ?

And he Jehovah is described as a God of Love ?

Phizzy

I feel that the figure for the Army, along with many other figures, is somewhat overstated as part of the fictional History being written.

The major battles of other significant Nations around this time seemed to have involved only a few thousand men, Israel was just a small group of Tribes.

TheWonderofYou

Here information about a more realistic counting or origin of the numbers.

http://thetorah.com/recounting-the-census-a-military-force-of-5500/

eyeuse2badub

So I continued to kindly ask my wife on the way home from the meeting;

if jehober destroyed the entire Egyptian army at the Red Sea

if jehober sent one angel to slaughter 185,00 Assyrian soldiers in one night

if jehober sent "horses and war chariots of fire all around Elisha" (an angelic army???) and then blinds the eyes of an entire Syrian army so that Elisha-----alone can take them captive

why did the Israelites need 605,550 soldiers? sometin' ain't right

I suppose the big army was just in case jehober got pissed off at the Israelites and decided not to help them!

just saying!

Simon

The major battles of other significant Nations around this time seemed to have involved only a few thousand men, Israel was just a small group of Tribes.

Definitely - Alexander the Great conquered the Persian empire with fewer than 50,000 troops. The infrastructure of the time couldn't support more because they had to be fed and travel etc... The days of massive armies were a long, long way off (even more recent historical battles prior to WW1 & the US war of independence had surprisingly few people compared to what you imagine).

Just like the amount of gold in the temple (more than was even in existence at the time), the writings in the bible are wild exaggerations and tall tales - a small people trying to "big up" themselves with claims of numbers far greater than they really were.

Why did the Israelites need a 603,550 man army?

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