Dr. Colenso, as if anticipating this reply, next appeals to the Book of Numbers: "Besides, we must suppose that the _whole body_ of 600,000 warriors were armed, when they were numbered (_Num._, i. 3.) under Sinai. They possessed arms, surely, at that time, according to the story". Here we join issue with the bishop on two points. First, he insinuates that Moses makes mention somewhere of 600,000 _warriors_. Secondly, he asserts that, _according to the story_, all these warriors _possessed arms_. Now we challenge him to produce a single text from the Pentateuch in which there occurs any mention of 600,000 _warriors_. We are told that the Israelites numbered 600,000 _men_ of twenty years old and upward. But where are these men called _warriors_? And again, where is it said that all _possessed arms_? These are points which certainly demand clear and unmistakable evidence. It would be a fact unparalleled in history that every single man over twenty years of age, in the entire nation, should have been _a soldier fully equipped for war_. Our author tells us, indeed, that _we must suppose_ they were armed; that they _possessed arms, surely_, at that time. But when we look for his proofs, we find nothing but a naked reference to the third verse in the first chapter in Numbers. Let us then look into this passage, and see if it corroborates the assertion of Dr. Colenso. Here is the text as we find it in the English Protestant version, to which we must suppose the bishop to have referred:--"Take ye the sum of all the congregation of the children of Israel * * from twenty years old and upward, all that are able to go forth to war in Israel"--(_Numbers_, i. 2, 3). The people were numbered accordingly by Moses and Aaron, and the result is given to us in the same chapter:--"So were all those that were numbered of the children of Israel * * from twenty years old and upward, all that were able to go forth to war in Israel; even all that were numbered were six hundred thousand and three thousand and five hundred and fifty"--(vv. 45, 46). If we are to rely upon this version, it is clear that Moses does not say there were 600,000 _warriors_, nor 600,000 men _possessed of arms_, nor 600,000 men that _went to war_, but, simply, 600,000 men _fit_ to go to war,--in other words, 600,000 men in the prime of life.