What Does Exodus 12:37 Mean?

And the people of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children. The first leg of the Exodus journey, from Rameses (where Israel had been enslaved building the storage city, Exodus 1:11) to Succoth, marks the departure from the site of oppression.

The "six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children" is the census number attached to the Exodus: 600,000 adult males, not counting women, children, or the "mixed multitude" of verse 38. The total departing population has been estimated from this number at one to two million or more, though the Hebrew eleph (thousand) may have multiple interpretive possibilities in genealogical and census contexts.

The departure from Rameses is the geographical fulfillment of Israel's liberation from the specific place of their slavery: the same Rameses that Pharaoh built through Israelite forced labor (Exodus 1:11) is the departure point of the Exodus. The slaves who built the city leave from the city. The journey begins at the place of oppression and moves toward the place of worship: the geographical arc of the Exodus is from labor-for-Pharaoh to service-of-YHWH.

The 600,000 men number has generated interpretive discussion throughout Jewish and Christian scholarship. Some scholars read a scribal or translation tradition that may have used eleph to mean "clan" or "unit" rather than strictly one thousand; others accept the large number as the narrative's claim. Whatever the census interpretation, the narrative's theological point is clear: Israel departing Egypt is a vast multitude, a nation-scale movement, not a small clan's escape. The scale of the departure corresponds to the scale of the plague-sequence that produced it.