David’s numbering of the people was therefore a military arrangement in order to fix the amount of his standing army. To the general Oriental prejudice against numbering possessions, etc., there was added in the case of the Jews a special objection - a feeling that it would be irreverent to attempt to count what God had promised should be countless.
Related Commentaries of 1 Chronicles 27:23
1 Chronicles 27:23
23 But David took not the number of them from twenty years old and under: because the LORD had said he would increase Israel like to the stars of the heavens.