Numbers 26:2

2 "Take a census of the entire assembly of the people of Isra'el twenty years old and over, by their ancestral clans, all who are subject to military service in Isra'el."

Numbers 26:2 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 26:2

Take the sum of all the congregation of the children of Israel,
&c.] Excepting the Levites, who were to be numbered by themselves, and at a different age; this sum was to be taken, that it might appear that all of the old generation that came out of Egypt, of the age at which this sum was taken, were now dead, excepting two, as the Lord had threatened; and partly that as they were now about to enter the land of Canaan, it might be divided to them according to their number; as well as to show the faithfulness of God to his word and promise, that he would multiply and make them fruitful, notwithstanding all their provoking sins and transgressions:

from twenty years old and upwards, throughout their father's house;
all of that age in every tribe, house, and family:

all that are able to go to war in Israel;
for which they must prepare, being about to enter the land of Canaan, and dispossess and drive out the inhabitants of it.

Numbers 26:2 In-Context

1 After the plague, 26 1 ADONAI said to Moshe and El'azar, the son of Aharon the cohen,

2 "Take a census of the entire assembly of the people of Isra'el twenty years old and over, by their ancestral clans, all who are subject to military service in Isra'el."

3 Moshe and El'azar the cohen spoke with them on the plains of Mo'av by the Yarden across from Yericho, explaining,

4 "Those twenty years old and over who came out of the land of Egypt, as ADONAI ordered Moshe and the people of Isra'el."

5 [The census results begin with] Re'uven, the firstborn of Isra'el. The descendants of Re'uven were: of Hanokh, the family of the Hanokhi; of Pallu, the family of the Pallu'i;