Ezra 8:2-14

The whole number is fourteen hundred ninety and six, beside the heads of the houses themselves. A goodly company! How sweet is the gospel proclamation, when made successful to win souls unto Christ. Was it not in allusion to this, both in the Jewish and gospel church, that the prophet cried out, The Lord shall make an highway for the remnant of his people, which shall be left from Assyria; like as it was to Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt. Isaiah 11:16.