Matthew Henry on Numbers 1:44-46
We have here the sum total at the foot of the account; they were in all 600,000 fighting men, and 3550 over. Some think that when this was their number some months before (Exo 38:26) the Levites were reckoned with them, but now that tribe was separated for the service of God, yet so many more had by this time attained to the age of twenty years as that still they were the same number, to show that whatever we part with for the honour and service of God it shall certainly be made up to us one way of other. Now we see what a vast body of men they were. Let us consider, 1. How much went to maintain all these (besides twice as many more, no question, of women and children, sick and aged, and the…
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all they that were numbered were six hundred thousand, &c.--What an astonishing increase from seventy-five persons who went down to Egypt about two hundred fifteen years before [see on Gen 46:8], and who were subjected to the greatest privations and hardships! And yet this enumeration was restricted to men from twenty years and upwards [Num 1:3]. Including women, children, and old men, together with the Levites, the whole population of Israel, on the ordinary principles of computation, amounted to about 2,400,000.
John Gill on Numbers 1:46
Even all they that were numbered,.... Of whom an account was taken, and their names set down in a book or register: were 603,550; which was exactly the number of them, when taken about seven months before this, when they were assessed for defraying the expenses of the tabernacle, Exodus 38:26; so that it should seem not one person had died during that time; for though there were three that died a violent death in that compass of time, yet two of them were of the tribe of Levi, not now numbered; and the other was not an Israelite by the father's side; see Leviticus 10:1; but it is not very probable, among such a vast number of people, that not one above twenty years of age should die in that…
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