OT Battle Casualty Figures

[TK]

And there was war between Abijah and Jeroboam. Abijah set the battle in order with an army of valiant warriors, four hundred thousand choice men. Jeroboam also drew up in battle formation against him with eight hundred thousand choice men, mighty men of valor.
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Then Abijah and his people struck them with a great slaughter; so five hundred thousand choice men of Israel fell slain.
~~From 2 Chronicles 13.

I am pretty ignorant about population possibilities in Judah and Israel back then. But these numbers intuitively don't seem possible, but like I said this is only a gut feeling.

For comparison sake, in the 1st battle for the Marne in WW1, the total combatants was about 2.5 million men. The US took a total of 263k casualties, 81.7k killed. Germany took 256K total casualties; not sure about how many of these were deaths.

The invasion of Normandy involved 1.3 million combatants and there was a total of about 235k casualties on both sides. obviously the number of dead would be somewhat less than this figure.

Further, these battles were fought with modern warfare not swords and slings and arrows.

Is there the possibility that the huge numbers in Chronicles were copied wrong at some point, perhaps a zero added, for example? I am not opposed to the possibility that 500,000 men died in a single battle on one side, but surely they would have had no army left and I am not even sure if Israel could have mustered a 500,000 man army.

I recognize this has probably been discussed here before; of so I cannot recall it.

[dizerner]

Pretty sure there's some textual errors with numbers at times, due to scribal errors. I think I remember seeing this one come up somewhere.

[jaydam]

I've thought about this myself.

But if the number is to be believed, I came to my own conclusion that it could be reasonable. Relative to the more modern and timely medical care and "clean" gunshots that was even available in WWI, the battles in the OT would have had cleaving injuries, impalements with arrows and spears, and the injured not being evacuated quickly, possibly even falling underfoot to be trodden into the dirt by forces fighting on top of them.

In my close quarter combat training, we were told to expect 30% casualties on our side when closely engaged.

Also, just as in modern times, if someone is successfully evacuated, but they succumb to their wounds later, despite treatment, they can still be considered a combat death. What if the same is here? Part of the number of casualties includes those who received wounds, went back, but the wounds festered and ultimately killed the combatant?

We can talk about the lives claimed by the Iraq war, but we include in that number those who came back and still died from war causes.

Ultimately, while I can believe the number, I am more inclined to believe it is incorrect, just because I cannot fathom such death. But I suppose if you are zealous and defending what you believe in... look at how Japan was prepared to defend their homeland down to the last woman and child throwing themselves at invading troops before they finally surrendered.

[TK]

Thanks guys.

I was wondering if there was even enough population to muster an 800,000 man army. That is almost beyond belief. Again I stress maybe not impossible.

The total US armed forces is 1.3 million active duty.

[dwight92070]

2 Samuel 24:9 David had 800,000 valiant men who drew the sword in Israel and 500,000 in Judah, for a total of 1,300,000 men. I think we have to take these numbers to be accurate. I'm not sure why we wouldn't.

Dwight

[dwight92070]

I am certainly not a history expert, but under David and Solomon, I can imagine that Israel was the most powerful nation on the planet. So, in the time frame you are referring to, which was after David and Solomon, the numbers were still large but not as large as what they had.

Dwight

[morbo3000]

IVP Old Testament commentary says:

The total of 1.3 million fighting men has seemed high to the archaeologists who study population density. Estimates of the population of the land at the time of David run between three and nine hundred thousand. While granting that the methods by which such estimates are arrived at can be contested, it must also be remembered that the word translated “thousands” in the text may also mean divisions made up of much fewer than a thousand.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Singalphile]

I don't remember specifics, but I heard an evangelical * Christian college professor/PhD (I think it was Preston Sprinkle) say that there's some evidence that these numbers were often symbolic.

* I don't think "evangelical" means much anymore. The point is, he wasn't "liberal".

[steve7150]

I think we have to take these numbers to be accurate. I'm not sure why we wouldn't.





I think around the black plague about 1350AD the world population was about 400 million so at that time 1000BC the world population maybe was 100 million at best. So Israel a tiny country I doubt could have had a grand total of more then 1 million at best which includes women and children so likely the numbers are not literally accurate.
BTW due to the black plague many people lost faith in the Catholic Church because it had no answers which made it easier for the Reformation to happen. Also many serfs were able to bargain for better wages and conditions because of labor shortages which may have helped the birth of capitalism.