Numbers 26:4

4 "Take a census of the people, from twenty years old and upward," as the Lord commanded Moses. The Israelites, who came out of 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 whole congregation of the Israelites, from twenty years old and upward, by their ancestral houses, everyone in Israel able to go to war."

3 Moses and Eleazar the priest spoke with them in the plains of Moab by the Jordan opposite Jericho, saying,

4 "Take a census of the people, from twenty years old and upward," as the Lord commanded Moses. The Israelites, who came out of 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]. Heb lacks [take a census of the people]: Compare verse 2