The whole congregation together was forty and two thousand three hundred and threescore. Ezra's numbers, as given in detail (verses 3-60), produce when added together a total of only 29,818; Nehemiah's items (Nehemiah 7:8-62) give a total of 31,089; those of the apocryphal Esdras a total of 33,950.
The three authorities agree, however, in their summation, all alike declaring that the actual number of those who returned with Zerubbabel was 42,360. Esdras adds that children under twelve years of age are not included.
If this were so, the entire number must have exceeded 50,000—an enormous body of persons to transport a distance of above a thousand miles, according to Western experience, but one which will not surprise those acquainted with the East.
In the East caravans of from ten to twenty thousand souls often traverse huge distances without serious mishap, and migrations frequently take place on a much grander scale. In the year 1771, 50,000 families of Torgouths, reckoned to number 300,000 souls, arrived on the frontiers of China, after a journey of 10,000 leagues through a most difficult country, and were given lands in the Chinese empire.
They were followed in the next year by 180,000 Eleuths and others, who had accomplished a similar distance. Jenghis Khan is said to have forced 100,000 artisans and craftsmen to emigrate in a body from Khiva into Mongolia.
The transplantation of entire nations was an established practice among the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Persians.