Mr. Collins,

In your article “The Missing Simeonites” you stated that in the first census the number of Simeonites was 59,300 and in the second census it was 27,200.

But in Numbers 26:14 is says it was 22,200  These are the families of the Simeonites, twenty and two thousand and two hundred.
Is it 27,200 or 22, 200?

Jeff

MYREPLY

Jeff,

Thank you for pointing out the math typo in my article which mentioned the second census re: the Israelites leaving Egypt in Numbers 26. You are quite correct. I went back and checked my handwritten notes when I first wrote the article years ago and the math mistake resulted from a hand-written “2” that looked like a “7” when I transferred the numbers from that sheet to my computer.  Thanks again for letting me know about the need to correct these “numbers” from the book of Numbers!

The corrected math indicates that even more Simeonites (37,100 instead of 32,100) left the wilderness Israelite encampment than was initially indicated in my article.  It gives the conclusions of my article even more support.

Steve