In ver. 5 the numbers in Chronicles differ not only from those of the older narrative, but also from the chronicler’s own statistics in chap. xxvii. In this last account the men of war are divided into twelve courses of twenty-four thousand each, making a total of two hundred and eighty-eight thousand; in the book of Samuel Israel numbers eight hundred thousand, and Judah five hundred thousand; but in our passage Israel is increased to eleven hundred thousand, and Judah is reduced to four hundred and seventy thousand. Possibly the statistics in chap. xxvii. are not intended to include all the fighting men, otherwise the figures cannot be harmonised. The discrepancy between our passage and the book of Samuel is perhaps partly explained by the following verse, which is an addition of the chronicler. In the book of Samuel the census is completed, but our additional verse states that Levi and Benjamin were not included in the census. The chronicler understood that the five hundred thousand assigned to Judah in the older narrative were the joint total of Judah and Benjamin; he accordingly reduced the total by thirty thousand, because, according to his view, Benjamin was omitted from the census. The increase in the number of the Israelites is unexpected. The chronicler does not usually overrate the northern tribes. Later on Jeroboam, eighteen years after the disruption, takes the field against Abijah with “eight hundred thousand chosen men,” a phrase that implies a still larger number of fighting men, if all had been mustered. Obviously the rebel king would not be expected to be able to bring into the field as large a force as the entire strength of Israel in the most flourishing days of David. The chronicler’s figures in these two passages are consistent, but the comparison is not an adequate reason for the alteration in the present chapter. Textual corruption is always a possibility in case of numbers, but on the whole this particular change does not admit of a satisfactory explanation. In ver. 7 we have a very striking alteration. According to the book of Samuel, David’s repentance was entirely spontaneous: “David’s heart smote him after that he had numbered the people”(313); but here God smites Israel, and then David’s conscience awakes. In ver. 12 the chronicler makes a slight addition, apparently to gratify his literary taste. In the original narrative the third alternative offered to David had been described simply as “the pestilence,” but in Chronicles the words “the sword of Jehovah” are added in antithesis to “the sword of Thine enemies” in the previous verse.