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In the Exagoge, a retelling of the Exodus as a Greek tragedy, an Egyptian survivor says Pharaoh's army numbered a million men. In Jubilees, the same number of Egyptians drown at the sea, a thousand men for each Israelite baby thrown into the Nile.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Jubilees 48:14
Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions
13 And I stood between the Egyptians and Israel, and we delivered Israel out of his hand, and out of the hand of his people, and the Lord brought them through the midst of the sea as if it were dry land. 14 And all the peoples whom he brought to pursue after Israel, the Lord our God cast them into the midst of the sea, into the depths of the abyss beneath the children of Israel, even as the people of Egypt had cast their children into the river. He took vengeance on 1,000,000 of them, and one thousand strong and energetic men were destroyed on account of one suckling of the children of your people which they had thrown into the river.
Exagoge 203
Ezekiel the Tragedian
Pseudepigrapha, Wisdom and Poetry
193 When King Pharaoh set out from his palace 194 with this vast crowd of countless soldiers, 195 with cavalry and four-horse chariots, 196 in tight ranks in front and on each flank, 197 the army in battle array was terrifying to see. 198 The infantry held the center in a deep phalanx, 199 with gaps for the chariots to drive through. 200 On the right wing and on the left were stationed 201 the best of all the Egyptian cavalry. 202 When I asked how many men were in our army, 203 there were a million brave, well-armed men. 204 The Hebrews, when our army overtook them, 205 were lying in groups along the shore 206 beside the Red Sea, worn out from their labor; 207 others, with their wives, 208 were busy feeding their little children, 209 loaded down with flocks and herds and household goods.
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Notes and References
“... The Jubilees passage even supplies numbers: one million Egyptian men suffered a watery death in repayment for one thousand Israelite infants drowned in the Nile. The rate was one thousand to one. A similar notion appears in Wis 18:5 but without the specificity of Jubilees: “When they had resolved to kill the infants of your holy ones, / and one child had been abandoned and rescued, / you in punishment took away a multitude of their children; / and you destroyed them altogether by a mighty flood.” ...”
VanderKam, James C.
Jubilees 2: A Commentary on the Book of Jubilees Chapters 22-50
(p. 1161) Fortress Press, 2018
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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