Numbers 26:4 - Exposition

Take the sum of the people. These words are not in the text, but axe borrowed from Numbers 26:2 . Nothing is set down in the original but the brief instruction given to the census-takers—"from twenty years old and upward, as on the former occasion." And the children of Israel which went forth out of the land of Egypt. This is the punctuation of the Targums and most of the versions. The Septuagint, however, detaches these words from the previous sentence and makes them a general heading for the catalogue which follows. It may be objected to this that the people now numbered did not come out of Egypt, a full half having been born in the wilderness, but see on Numbers 23:22 ; Numbers 24:8 .