Someone asks, “How Many Israelites Crossed the Red Sea?” Scripture adequately stipulates the number of able-bodied men who crossed the Red Sea, beginning with Exodus 12:37, which reads, “Then the children of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides children” (NKJV; cf. Numbers 11:21). A more precise number of men able to go forth as warriors can be discerned from a census that occurred just over a year following the crossing of the Red Sea. “… for everyone included in the numbering from twenty years old and above, for six hundred and three thousand, five hundred and fifty men” (Exodus 38:26). Not counted in that number were children, wives, the tribe of Levi and the old or infirm.
So all who were numbered of the children of Israel, by their fathers’ houses, from twenty years old and above, all who were able to go to war in Israel — all who were numbered were six hundred and three thousand five hundred and fifty. But the Levites were not numbered among them by their fathers’ tribe; for the Lord had spoken to Moses, saying: “Only the tribe of Levi you shall not number, nor take a census of them among the children of Israel.” (Numbers 1:45-49)
Therefore, the actual number of people crossing the Red Sea in the Exodus from Egypt was several times larger than the round figure of 600,000 by the time women, children, the old, the infirm and the Levites are considered. Most commentators calculate the entire number of persons amounting to approximately 2,000,000 people, and some estimates go as high as about 3,500,000. In addition to this mass of people, they were accompanied by herds of animals, too.
