Many read the Bible and INSIST that we take every word literally (when it suits their point of view).
I do like to take the Bible as literally as possible, but not to the extreme of trying to apply it like a maths formula where "all" = infinite, and "none" = 0.
This insistence is particularly loud when it comes to extreme words such as "all" or "none".
To prove that the Bible uses such words as we usually do in everyday language, just do a search for scriptures using "all" and it is clear that the word seldom means each and every, with the exclusion of nothing.
Yet the mathematical exegesists will insist that when God says "all" He means "all - with the exclusion of none".
Look at the following scriptures and a natural reading would make it sound ridiculous to insist that "all" means more than "most".
Matthew 2:3 When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.
Was there not one person (even a 2 year old) not troubled?
Matthew 2:4 And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born.
Does this not mean "most"? Will anyone insist that no scribe might have been away or sick?
Matthew 3:5 Then went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judaea, and all the region round about Jordan,
Did every single person of Judaea go to see Jesus? Obviously not.
Likewise do your own search for "none" and other all inclusive words like "always" to see that Bible writers use these words like we do today, and like mankind has always done.
Your point is an accurate one.
All has two basic meanings:
1. All without exception
2. All within a certain distinction or within a certain parameter.
Most certainly we are to take scripture literally where ever and whenever possible, but when phrases are not true to fact, then we encounter God's uses of figures of speech
Jesus used similes, metaphors and hypocatastatis for purposes of comparison. For instance, he used simile "the kingdom of heaven is like a woman who put leaven in some meal"
Matthew 13:33
Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.
the kingdom of heaven is not literally that but is like that. He uses the simile in a parable which is an extended simile.
A metaphor, the field is the world, when he explained a parable
Matthew 13:38
The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one;
An example of hypocatastasis is the use of fox to refer to Herod.
Luke 13:32
And he said unto them, Go ye, and tell that fox, Behold, I cast out devils, and I do cures to day and to morrow, and the third day I shall be perfected.
God uses the figure hyperbole
Judges 7:12 And the Midianites and the Amalekites and all the children of the east lay along in the valley like grasshoppers for multitude; and
their camels were without number, as the sand by the sea side for multitude.
We take scripture literally when possible, but we know God uses figures of speech abundantly in scripture
