=2.= _to Joab_] The object being to number “those who drew sword,” the captain of the host was the most suitable person to entrust with the business. _from Beer-sheba even to Dan_] From the extreme south to the extreme north of the land. _Dan_] The modern _Tell el-Kādī_, about forty minutes distance from Bāniās (Paneas), north of Lake Huleh (Waters of Merom). For its original name _Laish_, see Judges xviii. 28. _that I may know_] Either with a view to imposing a tax or to undertaking some fresh great military expedition. ³And Joab said, The LORD make his people an hundred times so many more as they be: but, my lord the king, are they not all my lord’s servants? why doth my lord require this thing? why will he be a cause of guilt unto Israel? =3.= _The LORD make ... are they not all my lord’s servants?_] Counting will not increase their numbers, only Jehovah’s gracious favour can secure that. What more then can David desire than to know, as Joab now assures him, that one and all his subjects are loyal? _why will he be a cause of guilt unto Israel?_] Compare Leviticus iv. 3, “if the anointed priest shall sin so as to bring guilt on the people” (Revised Version). The community is a unit, and the guilt of one falls on all. ⁴Nevertheless the king’s word prevailed against Joab. Wherefore Joab departed, and went throughout all Israel, and came to Jerusalem. =4.= _came to Jerusalem_] In 2 Samuel xxiv. 4‒8 the route is described and the time taken in the numbering is stated, _nine months and twenty days_. ⁵And Joab gave up the sum of the numbering of the people unto David. And all they of Israel were a thousand thousand and an hundred thousand men that drew sword: and Judah was four hundred threescore and ten thousand men that drew sword. =5.= _they of Israel_] Chronicles gives Israel as 1,100,000 and Judah as 470,000; 2 Samuel gives Israel as 800,000 and Judah as 500,000. It is difficult to correlate these figures. There are, however, reasons for thinking that the last part of the verse _and Judah was 470,000_, etc., may be a gloss. If so, then the 200,000 less in Chronicles (1,300,000 in Samuel; 1,100, 000 in Chronicles, where _Israel_ would as so often denote both Israel and Judah) might well be explained as an allowance for the exclusion of Levi and Benjamin (see verse 6). _that drew sword_] All males over twenty years of age; compare Numbers i. 20. ⁶But Levi and Benjamin counted he not among them: for the king’s word was abominable to Joab. =6.= _Levi_] In Numbers i. 49 it is ordained that Levi is not to be numbered among the children of Israel, i.e. treated as liable to military service. The Levites were, however, numbered separately: Numbers iii. 15, xxvi. 57. In 2 Samuel there is nothing to correspond with this verse, Levi and Benjamin being there reckoned in the census. Why the Chronicler excludes Benjamin as well as Levi it is not easy to see.