How big was the army of the Israelites at the time of Joshua?

Answer 1

The Bible says that the Israelites numbered 600,000 fighting men which, if true, would have been easily the most powerful fighting force in the late Bronze Age. Archaeologists say that the Hebrew nations never reached this combined size until Iron Age II.

Another View:

The biblical stories are no more than that. The 600,000 of military age, with families and slaves would have meant 3 million people and 10 million animals to find food and water for in the Sinai Desert for forty years. It is an absurdity. The skeletons of both people and animals which would litter the countryside are also absent. And how the families of the original flight to Egypt greww from about 70 people to those numbers in another fabrication.

Modern historical opinion rests on it being just a few thousand who returned to Palestine. For that matter, there were several thousand Hebrews employed by the Egyptians as border guards on the border with Nubia, and this move could have been returnees after their contract was over, which was dressed up into the exaggerated story. Difficult to come to any conclusion other than the biblical story is impossible.