Breadcrumb: Head count!

Ex. 12:37 informs us that there were 600,000 men in the Exodus, not counting women and children. To put that in perspective, that's larger than the population of Boston or Washington, D.C., in 2000. (source: demographia) For the Canadians in the audience, that's about the size of Quebec City or Winnipeg. (source: World Gazetteer) Imagine the entire population of one of those cities packing up and moving, all in the course of a single day. Imagine the planning that would be involved in such a venture -- and the ancient Israelites didn't own cell phones! And that's just the men, not even their families! Even assuming there is some exaggeration involved in the 600,000 statistic, the mind boggles.