A THOUSAND — and also a CLAN or a military unit, and the ambiguity is load-bearing. Gideon protests that 'my ELEF is the poorest in Manasseh' (Judges 6:15), where a numeral makes no sense and a clan does; Saul's tribe is 'the least of the tribes' yet its families are counted by ELEF (1 Samuel 10:19). ⚠️ This is why the exodus figure of 'six hundred ELEF on foot' (Exodus 12:37) is discussed: read as a numeral it means a nation of roughly two million, read as units it means six hundred fighting companies of unstated size. The library reports both — the second is a real feature of the language, not a modern escape hatch — and takes no vote. → first discussed at Exod 12:37