Notwithstanding the cruel oppression to which they were subjected in Egypt, the Israelites had so increased in numbers that they went out of the house of their bondage a mighty host. Ye are this day as the stars of heaven for multitude (cf.
Genesis 15:5; Genesis 22:17). God had promised to Abraham that his seed should be as the stars of heaven for multitude; and Moses here reminds the people that this promise had been fulfilled. This is hardly to be regarded as the utterance of hyperbole.
When God gave the premise to Abraham it was to the stars as seen by the patriarch, not as actually existing in the immensity of space, that reference was made; and as the number of stars which can be taken in with the naked eye does not exceed 3000, and as Israel at this time numbered more than 600,000, counting only the adult males (Numbers 2:32),—it might be literally said of them that they had been multiplied as the stars of heaven.
The comparison, however, imported nothing more than that their numbers were very great.