` September 2010 (UTC)  One of my major concerns has been to prevent this whole section (and not just the ``numbers`` part of it) from expanding out of all proportion. this might lie behind many of my edits. If you feel the various explanations of ``eleph`` and of the gematria/numerology distinction needs more detail, the answer might be to move it down to a footnote. (Yes, you're right of course, the explanation of the very precise figure in Numbers is a gematria, and the explanation of the rounded figure in Exodus is a numerology, and they're two different things).  Frankly, I don't like the entire section. I'd like to replace it with a new approach reviewing some of the major contemporary scholarship. There's a lot of interesting work out there, and this obsession with bible-as-history gets us heading in the wrong direction - as Carol Meyers says (not sure we actually quote her, but she wrote an important recent commentary on Exodus).   12:22, 8`