How many people were in Israel at the time of the Exodus?
At the Exodus, Israel’s total population is estimated at three to five million, based on the six hundred and some thousand men of war it fielded, which was only a small percentage of the whole. The fighting men were young single men, probably from age twenty to thirty, normally twenty-six.
Les teaches that when Israel came out of Egypt in the Exodus, the nation could put six hundred and some thousand men of war in the field, and that was just a very small percentage of the total. He points out that from Mount Pisgah, even a high mountain in Moab, Balaam could not see the end of the children of Israel. Les suggests that if you start with six hundred and some thousand young single men between the age of twenty and possibly thirty—normally twenty-six—you would need a population of three to five million to produce that number. Another forty years later, their numbers had not been totally decimated.