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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadMatthew Poole Commentary - 2 Samuel 24:9 - 24:9
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Eight hundred thousand.
Object. In 1Ch_21:5, they are numbered 1,100,000.
Answ. The sum here expressed is only of such as were not in the ordinary and settled militia waiting upon the king, which being 24,000 for every month, as is largely related, 1Ch 27, amounts to 288,000, which either with their several commanders, or with the soldiers, placed in several garrisons, might very well make up 300,000. Or 288,000 may pass in such accounts for 300,000; it being frequent in such great sums to neglect a smaller number. But in the Book of the Chronicles, which was to gather up the fragments omitted in the former books, both sorts are put together, and so they amount to 1,100,000.
Five hundred thousand. In 1Ch_21:5, but 470,000.
Answ. Either,
1. They were exactly no more, but are called 500,000 in a round sum, as is usual in Scripture and other authors. Or,
2. The garrison soldiers, and such as were employed in other services about the king, are here included, which are there excluded. Or,
3. They were 300,000 when Joab gave up the number to the king, though presently after that they were but 470,000; 30,000 being slain by the plague in the tribe of Judah; which being David’s own tribe, it was but just and fit it should suffer more than the rest for this sin. And though it be true that Joab gave up the sum before the plague begun, yet the sacred penman of the Book of Chronicles thought fit to make a defalcation of them who had been swept away by the plague, that the judgment of God therein might be observed. Or,
4. There are included here the 30,000 which belonged to the thirty colonels mentioned 2Sa 23, who are excluded 1Ch 21, although it be questionable whether those were all of the tribe of Judah.