If the Israelites were slaves and being oppressed by the Egyptians where did they get all their camping gear & supplies to wander in the wilderness for 40 years ?

by smiddy 45 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  King Solomon

  A fun thing to do if you're remotely mathematical/logical in nature is to calculate how long it would take a single column of 3 mil people, walking 20 abreast, to pass a single point, just to see how long it would take to enter (not even exit) the parted Red Sea... Assume they walked 3 mph (a fast pace), and walked a distance of 3 ft apart (crowded).

  Thats the time needed for the rear of the column to get to the starting point, not even including the time needed to cross the channel....

  That was one long night!!!
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  WTWizard

  That column, even if they were 200 wide and 1 meter apart, would be something like 15 kilometers long. It would take 3 hours to get the whole thing past one point. If they are only 20 wide, it would be 150 km long and take 30 hours to get everyone past the entrance. And, to everyone on the other side, it would be a walking disaster area.

  Why Pharaoh didn't just get ahead and cut them off--everyone walking at 5 km/h, couldn't Pharaoh and a small foot army run at 15 km/h and cut them off? If he could get to the head of the group and slaughter the first few, it would be a big mess for them to clean up. They would then be captured and sent back to Egypt while trying to find a way around the first few. Simply blocking the way, as a football team does when blocking someone from scoring, would do the same thing without even slaughtering anyone.
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  James Brown

  Width and depth of place of crossing. Since Israel crossed the sea in one night, it could hardly be assumed that the waters parted in a narrow channel. Rather, the channel may have been a kilometer or more in width. Though in fairly close marching formation, such a group, along with what wagons they had, their baggage, and their cattle, even when rather closely ranked, would occupy an area of perhaps 8 sq km (3 sq mi) or more. It appears, therefore, that the sea-opening allowed the Israelites to cross on a fairly wide front. If there was about a 1.5-km (1 mi) front, then the depth of the Israelite column would probably be about 5 km (3 mi) or more. If it was about a 2.5-km (1.5 mi) front, the depth might be about 3 km (2 mi) or more. It would take such a column several hours to get into the seabed and travel across it. While they did not go in panic, but maintained their battle formation, they would no doubt move with considerable haste.
  Had it not been for the cloud, the Egyptians would have easily overtaken and slaughtered many. (Ex 15:9) When the Israelites had gone into the sea and the cloud behind them had moved ahead to reveal this fact to the Egyptians, they pursued. Here, again, is emphasized the necessity of considerable breadth and length of dry seabed, for Pharaoh's military force was great. Bent on destruction and recapture of their former slaves, the entire force went well into the seabed. Then, during the morning watch, which ran from about 2:00 to 6:00 a.m., Jehovah looked out from the cloud and began to throw the camp of the Egyptians into confusion, taking the wheels off their chariots.-Ex 14:24.
  The Israelites, by the approaching of morning, got safely across on the eastern shore of the Red Sea. Then Moses was commanded to stretch his hand out so that the waters would come back over the Egyptians. At this "the sea began to come back to its normal condition," and the Egyptians fled from encountering it. This also would indicate that the waters had opened up widely, for a narrow channel would have immediately overwhelmed them. The Egyptians fled from the enclosing walls of water toward the western bank, but the waters kept converging until their depth completely covered all the war chariots and the cavalrymen belonging to Pharaoh's military forces; not so much as one of them was let remain.
  It is obvious that such an overwhelming inundation would be impossible in a marsh. Moreover, in a shallow marsh dead bodies would not wash up on the shore, as actually took place, so that "Israel got to see the Egyptians dead on the seashore."-Ex 14:22-31
  
  
  
  Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_long_did_it_take_the_Israelites_to_cross_the_Red_Sea#ixzz24BxKQgps
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  sir82

  Here's what always blew my mind (apologies in advance for those of delicate constitutions):

  You've got 3 million people wandering around the desert, right?

  In Exodus, it says whenever you've got to, ehrmmm.....relieve yourself of bodily wastes, you've got to walk outside the camp to do so.

  Let's suppose people were really packed tight - a density of 50,000 per square mile.

  3 million divided by 50,000 = 60 square miles of camping Israelites.

  Let's suppose they camped in a roughly circular layout. So the diameter of the circle is about 20 miles.

  What about the poor saps camping in the middle of the circle? Every time you've got to take a dump, it's a 3 hour walk to the outside of the camp, then 3 hours back home.

  You'd spend your whole day either poopin' or walkin' to poop or walking back home from poopin'.

  God forbid you have an "emergency".
• 

  Broken Promises

  And half of them were menstrating once every 4 weeks...
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  minimus

  THIS IS A GREAT THREAD!!!!

  It's a question I always had too.
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  diana netherton

  I always thought it was an odd story...how stupid can 3 million people be to wander for

  40 years? Even without GPS...just saying.
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  undercover

  ...where did they get all their camping gear & supplies to wander in the wilderness for 40 years

  There was a Bass Pro Shop on the outskirts of Egypt... at Egyptian Mills Mall, right off the highway. They could have easily swung through there. And their stock is so large it should have been sufficient to outfit all of em.

  I mean seriously... don't you even try to reason these things out before asking? Geez...
• 

  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  They stopped at Sparlock's Wilderness Magical Supplies Store and Deli.
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  RubaDub

  Gander Mountain

  Rub a Dub