How many left Egypt

Exodus says 600,000 (rough numbers). So does Numbers. Some modern scholars try to say it can’t be that simple.

Arguments too and fro will be many – but may I note the contribution that Numbers 3 ought to make?

If (for sake of argument), 600,000 left Egypt
Then half of them would come from families that had a girl as the oldest child, and half of them would come from families that had a boy as the oldest child.
So 300,000 Israelites would come from families that had a boy as the oldest child.

Now suppose that Jacob is typical of the day in having 12 children. (I know – he had daughters too, but let’s keep the maths simple).
That means that a twelfth of those 300,000 would be firstborn boys, and the remainder of the 300,000 would be younger siblings in families whose eldest was a boy.

That means there would be 25,000 firstborn males in the crowd that left Egypt.

There were in fact 22,273. (Numbers 3:43).

Given the approximations involved, that’s close enough for me. Certainly the 600,000 is a plausible figure.