•  When constructing the tabernacle, the gold was a freewill offering, but the silver was a “head tax” specified as “a beka a head.” (Ex 38:26) This equalled a half-shekel for each man numbered in the census, twenty years old and up. That came to 603,550 men, agreeing with the census in Numbers 1:46. This is clearly counting heads and not families.

 •  Though the Hebrew word for “thousands” obviously can also be translated as families or clans in some places, there are other places in Scripture where it must mean “thousands.” For example, two plagues killed 14,700 and 24,000. (Num 16:49 & Num 25:9) After their affair with the golden calf, 23,000 were killed in one day. (1 Cor 10:8) King Solomon had 40,000 stalls for his war horses. (1 Kings 4:26) 42,000 men of Ephraim were slain at the fords of the Jordan. (Jud 12:6)

•  If the two censuses (Num 1 and 26) really did refer to families rather than thousands, the numbers don’t add up right. Num 1:46 should read 598 families with 5550 men and Num 26:51 should read 596 families with 5730 men. But they don’t. In a simple addition of thousands, Num 1 totals 603,550 and Num 26 totals 601,730. The math is correct only if the word means thousands. God can add.

•  Numbers 2 repeats the numbers of the census from chapter 1, except here it speaks of “their army, with their numbered men…” and doesn’t mention families or clans. If their army was really much smaller, it should have said so here.

•   Look at what the Moabite King Balak told Balaam about the Children of Israel: “... a people came out of Egypt; behold, they cover the surface of the land... now come, curse this people for me, since they are too mighty for me...” (Num 22:5-6) Balak was there. He was an eyewitness. And he claims that they covered the surface of the land. 

•  Numerous other places in Scripture also agree with the high census numbers. (Such as Ex 12:37; Num 11:21; Jud 20:15,17,35; and 1 Sam 11:8) If we are really going to make the Israelites nearly two orders of magnitude fewer, there seem to be an awful lot of Scriptures that need “fixing.”

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