the 144,00 is obviously a rhetorical number...God did not create the human race so that 144,000 could be saved....talk about a waste of time and effort!!!!
Err, so then, what else in the Bible is rhetorical?
Also, just so we’re clear, it does not say that only 144,000 people are saved.
It seems pretty solid to me. Naming off the tribes is being specific, as if to make a point that it is a real number.
God did not create the human race so that 144,000 could be saved.
Hmmmm . . how do I put this diplomatically? No, that is not the total number out of all humanity "since the beginning". Those are the ones left in the last days after the judgements on earth. The survivors of the seal judgements and the wars and the plagues.