Numbers 3

CONCLUDING NOTE.

The question now arises, whether in a population exceeding two millions there could have been twenty-two thousand two hundred and seventy-three firstborn sons in the thirteen months since the passover. The proportion of male births to female among the Jews of modern times has been as high as twenty-nine to twenty, or nearly three to two. Assuming that in the month of the emancipation there were thirty-eight thousand marriages, it is not unreasonable to suppose that these would produce the required number of firstborn males, twenty-two thousand two hundred and seventy-three, in thirteen months, reckoning in the fruits of marriages previous to the exodus, which up to that time had been productive of no males. The exode must have given a wonderful impulse to marriage among the Hebrews, suddenly lifted up from crushing oppression and inspired and gladdened by freedom. The reasons for limiting the firstborn to those born after the Egyptian Passover are thus concisely stated in the Speaker’s Bib. Com.: “This seems implied in the very language used: ’Sanctify unto me the firstborn, whatsoever openeth (not hath opened) the womb;’ (Exodus 13:2; Exodus 13:11-12;) by the ground which God is pleased to assign (Numbers 3:13; Numbers 8:17) for making this claim; by the fact that the special duties of the firstborn had reference to a ritual which, at the time of the exodus, had not yet been revealed; and by the inclusion in the command of the firstborn of cattle, which obviously must mean those thereafter born, for we cannot imagine that an inquisition among the flocks and herds was made at the exodus to discover for immediate sacrifice the firstborn already in existence.”

Colenso’s argument in reply, that פשׂר is a noun, ( womb-opener,) simply removes the tense entirely, so that all presumption against the present tense is taken away.

Dr. M. Mahan thus concisely relieves this arithmetical difficulty: “The best way (perhaps) of reconciling the number of the firstborn with that of the male adults, is suggested by the fact that the total number of Levites was twenty-two thousand three hundred, whereas only twenty-two thousand were available as substitutes for the firstborn. What became of the three hundred? It is answered, that they were the firstborn of the Levites, and, consequently, could only redeem themselves, and not their brethren. If so, the firstborn of the Levites since the Passover would be in the proportion of three hundred to twenty-two thousand, or one to seventy-four, of the males ‘from a month old and upward.’ Now supposing that the firstborn of the other tribes meant only those who had been born since the law of redemption had been instituted, we may make the following calculation:

six hundred thousand fighting men would be about one half or one third of the male population of all ages; if we allow one half, the total number would be one million two hundred thousand; if we allow one third, it would be one million eight hundred thousand. Divide these sums respectively by twenty-two thousand, the number of the firstborn, and we get the rate of one to fifty-five in the one case, and one to eighty-one in the other; or, if we take the warriors to be (as is probable) something more than one third, and less than one half, of the whole number of males, we get a closer approximation to the one in seventy-four which has been previously calculated as the proportion of firstborn among the Levites. From this coincidence arises a probability that the firstborn in Numbers 3:43 were only those who had been born since the law of redemption had been given; and that said law was not intended to have a retrospective force.” These hypotheses (which are certainly not more violent than the assumptions of Colenso) would put the twenty-two thousand firstborn and the six hundred thousand warriors in a fairer proportion to one another, and so far would relieve the chief difficulty. See Poole’s Synopsis.