John Calvin Commentary Exodus 13:18

"but God led the people about, by the way of the wilderness by the Red Sea: and the children of Israel went up armed out of the land of Egypt." — Exodus 13:18 (ASV)

The children of Israel went up harnessed. The word חמשים,¹⁴⁸ chemishim, is derived from “Five,” from which some have explained it as meaning that they were furnished with five kinds of arms; but this is too absurd. The Hebrews, because they could conjecture nothing better or more probable, almost unanimously understood it to mean that they were armed under the fifth rib. But from where were so many military breastplates ready for the Israelites?

But I reject such a forced and improbable meaning, and I do not doubt that the word refers to a number, as though Moses had said that they went out in ranks of five. This is because if each individual in so great a multitude had tried to advance, they would have hindered one another. I have therefore seen fit to translate it as dispositi (in ranks). The idea of the Greeks concerning “the fifth generation” is very foreign to the present narrative.

However, in the sense I have proposed, there is nothing obscure or doubtful. For it readily appears that God’s favor is also celebrated in this particular, because He led forth His people in an orderly manner. For although they came out confusedly and hastily, He still restrained them, as it were, under His banner and in companies, so that no disturbance would occur.

¹⁴⁸ חמשים. Fives. The Rabbinical notions here mentioned are thus briefly stated in S M , “Exponitur a Kimchi sic, Et accincti armis in quinta costa. Alii autem sic exponunt, Et accincti quinque armorum generibus.” In speaking of what the Greeks had imagined, C. alludes to the LXX., who entirely depart from the Hebrew, by rendering this clause, πέμπτὟ δὲ γενεᾷ, κ. τ. λ.. “And in the fifth generation, the children of Israel went up,” etc. — W.