Numbers 26:4

4 "[Take a census of the community] from {those twenty years old} and above, just as Yahweh commanded Moses." The Israelites who went out from the land of Egypt [were]:

Numbers 26:4 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 26:4

[Take the sum of the people], from twenty years old and upward,
&c.] At the same age at which the sum was taken before, ( Numbers 1:3 ) so that there could not be one that was more than sixty years of age, of all those that went into the land of Canaan, except Joshua and Caleb, and besides some few in the tribe of Levi, which did not come into either of these musters:

and the Lord commanded Moses, and the children of Israel, which went
forth out of the land of Egypt;
as Moses had a command to number the people before, so he had now. The sin of David was, that he numbered the people when he had no command for it; Moses, when he brought the people out of Egypt, had them committed to him by number; and now being about to die, he delivers them up as it were by number again, as Jarchi observes.

Numbers 26:4 In-Context

2 "{Take a census} of the community of the {Israelites} from {those twenty years old} and above, according to {their families}, all who are able to go out to war in Israel."

3 So Moses and Eleazar the priest spoke with them on the desert-plateau of Moab by [the] Jordan [across from] Jericho, saying,

4 "[Take a census of the community] from {those twenty years old} and above, just as Yahweh commanded Moses." The Israelites who went out from the land of Egypt [were]:

5 Reuben, the firstborn of Israel, the descendants of Reuben: [of] Hanoch, the clan of the Hanochites; of Pallu, the clan of the Palluites;

6 of Hezron, the clan of the Hezronites; of Carmi, the clan of the Carmites.

Footnotes

• [a]. Literally "a son of twenty years"