Matthew Poole and continuators on Exodus 1:7

7 And the children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly and multiplied , and waxed exceeding mighty , and the land was filled with them.

Here are many words, and some very emphatical, to express their incredible multiplication.

This may relate either to their numbers, which greatly added to their strength, or to their constitution, to note, that their off-spring was strong as well as numerous. Atheistical wits cavil at this story and pretend it impossible that out of seventy persons should come above six hundred thousand men within two hundred and fifteen years. Wherein they betray no less ignorance than impiety. For to say nothing of the extraordinary fruitfulness of the Women in Egypt, who oft bring forth four or five Children at one birth, as Aristot. notes Hist. animal. 7. 4. nor of the long lives of the men of that age, nor of the plurality of Wives then much in use, nor of the singular blessing of God upon the Hebrews in giving them Conceptions and Births without Abortion: All which are but very reasonable suppositions, the probability of it may plainly appear thus; suppose there were▪ only 200 years reckoned, and onely fifty persons who did beget Children, and these begin not to beget before they be twenty years old, and then each of them beget onely three Children. Divide this time now into ten times twenty years. In the first time of 50 come 150. In the second, of 150 come 450. Of them in the third come 1350. Of them in the fourth 4050. Of these in the fifth 12150. Of these in the sixth 36450. Of them in the seventh 109350. Of them in the eighth 328050. Of the[illegible: 1+ letters] in the ninth 984150. And of them in the tenth 2952450. It it be objected, that we read nothing of their great multip[illegible: 1+ letters] tion, till after Iosephs death, which some say was not above 50 years before their going out of Egypt, it may easily be replyed. 1. This is a great mistake, for there were above 140 years between Iosephs death and their going out of Egypt, as may appear thus: It is granted that the Israelites were in Egypt about 210 or 215 years in all. They came not thither till Ioseph was near 40 years old, as is evident by comparing Gen. 41. 46. with Gen. 45. 6. So there rests onely 70 years of Iosephs Life, which are the first part of the time of Israels dwelling in Egypt, and there remain 145 years, being the other part of the 215 years. 2. That the Israelites did multiply much before Iosephs death, though Scripture be silent in it, as it is of many other passages confessedly true, cannot be reasonably doubted. But if there was any defect in the numbers proposed in the first 55 years, it might be abundantly compensated in the 145 years succeeding. And so the computation remains good.

Marginal references: Act. 7. 17.