Numbers 1:38 - Exposition

Of the children of Dan. The enormous numerical increase in this tribe is the more remarkable because it is clearly intimated that Dan had but one son, Hushim or Shuham ( Genesis 46:23 ; Numbers 26:42 ). It may, of course, be said that he had other sons not enumerated, but such an assumption is arbitrary and improbable in the face of the family genealogies in chapter 26. If he had any other sons, they did not leave any families behind them. But if the sojourning of the Israelites in Egypt was 430 years, according to the plain statement of Exodus 12:40 , even this increase is quite within possible, and even probable, limits, considering the peculiar circumstances and the known fecundity of the race. For if Hushim, who came into Egypt with his grandfather, had only three sons born to him within the next twenty-five years, and if his descendants doubled themselves every quarter of a century, which is not an uncommon rate of increase under certain circumstances, then his numbers would have fully reached 200,000 by the time of the exodus. Perhaps the most puzzling feature about the increase is the great inequality with which it was spread over the various tribes, a fact of which we cannot even suggest any explanation.