Numbers 1:18

18 and they assembled the whole community of Israel on that very day. All the people were registered according to their ancestry by their clans and families. The men of Israel who were twenty years old or older were listed one by one,

Numbers 1:18 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 1:18

And they assembled all the congregation together on the first
[day] of the second month
The month Ijar, as the Targum of Jonathan, answering to part of April and May: this was done on the selfsame day the Lord spake unto Moses about this affair, ( Numbers 1:1 ) ; so expeditious were he and Aaron in doing the will of God:

and they declared their pedigrees;
either Moses and Aaron, according to Aben Ezra, who inquired when they were born, because of the computation of twenty years; and then their birth was wrote down, as he says; or rather the people declared their pedigrees, of what tribe, family, and house they were, who their parents, when born, and so, of course, how old they were; Jarchi interprets it, they brought the books of their genealogies, and witnesses to confirm the birth of everyone of them, to show their genealogy according to their tribe; nor is it at all unlikely that every family and house, or master thereof, kept a register of those born to him in it, whereby their age could be ascertained as well as pedigree:

after their famines, by the house of their fathers, according to the
number of their names, from twenty years old and upwards, by their
poll:
that is, every tribe gave an account of the families in it, every family what houses were in it, and every house what number of males were in it, and of what age; and such were numbered who were twenty years old and upward.

Numbers 1:18 In-Context

16 These are the chosen leaders of the community, the leaders of their ancestral tribes, the heads of the clans of Israel.”

17 So Moses and Aaron called together these chosen leaders,

18 and they assembled the whole community of Israel on that very day. All the people were registered according to their ancestry by their clans and families. The men of Israel who were twenty years old or older were listed one by one,

19 just as the LORD had commanded Moses. So Moses recorded their names in the wilderness of Sinai.

20 This is the number of men twenty years old or older who were able to go to war, as their names were listed in the records of their clans and families :

Footnotes

• [a]. Hebrew on the first day of the second month; see 1:1 .