I wrote this down years ago, but I don’t remember the source. I remember it was from someone in military logistics.
It is estimated that Moses left Egypt with two to three million people. With that many people it would require:
1. 1,500 tons of food per day or two freight trains one mile long each day.
2. 4,000 tons of firewood per day.
3. Eleven million gallons of water per day for the basics (drinking and clothing), or a freight train with tank cars 1,800 miles long.
4. To get through the Red Sea in one night they would have to walk 5,000 people abreast.
5. Israel’s camp ground would have to be about 2/3 the size of Rhode Island (or 750 square miles for Israel’s camp).
I thought those were enlightening numbers. Obviously, Moses didn’t go into Egypt with a plan to take care of all the people’s needs. He had enough on his plate to deal with. He was eighty years old when commanded to go into a nation that at one time was looking for his head. Hmm. Not a first choice, and probably a reason for arguing with God the way he did.
Yet, God had a plan. A big plan. He took care of the people in the middle of a desert wilderness as they journeyed to the promised land. Disobedience kept them out of the promised land where it was a much better place to be. The promised land: a permanent residence with houses, land, farms, gardens, cities, a national economy and holidays. The promised land is always better.
God has always been the one who takes care of our needs. He designed creation with this in mind. We have responsibilities of obedience that He has assigned us, but He takes care of us and supplies our needs. Disobedience, on the other hand, leaves us in the wilderness. In the times of stress and persecution, let’s be obedient so we can enter the promise land.
A Journal of Edification and Exhortation 