2 Samuel 24:9 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

In Israel eight hundred thousand. — The numbers here differ greatly from those given in 1 Chronicles 21:5-6; but there is no reason to suppose any corruption of the text in either case. Joab undertook the work unwillingly, and performed it imperfectly. According to 1 Chronicles 21:6 he refused altogether to number Levi and Benjamin; and according to 1 Chronicles 27:24 “he finished not,” and no official record was made of the result; “neither was the number put in the account of the chronicles of king David.” The numbers were, therefore, in part mere estimates. Here Israel is said to be 800,000, in Chronicles 1,100,000; but the latter probably includes an estimate of the omitted tribes of Benjamin and Levi, and perhaps of portions of other tribes. On the other hand, Judah is here 500,000 (a round number like all the rest), and in Chronicles 470,000. The difference is due perhaps to an estimate of the officiating priests and Levities reckoned to Judah. Another supposition is that the regular army of 288,000 (twelve divisions of 24,000 each) is included in Israel in one case and excluded in the other, and that in the same way in regard to Judah “the thirty” may have had command of a special body of 30,000. Possibly in one case the descendants of the old Canaanites were reckoned (since it appears from 2 Chronicles 2:17 that David “had numbered them”), and in the other were excluded. There is no reason to doubt the general reliability of the numbers, which would give a probable total population of five or six millions, or from 415 to 500 to a geographical square mile — a number not at all impossible in so fertile a country. (Robinson’s estimate of the area of the country is about 12,000 geographical square miles.)