And Joab answered, The LORD make his people an hundred times so many more as they [be]: but, my lord the king, [are] they not all my lord's servants? why then doth my lord require this thing? why will he be a cause of (c) trespass to Israel?
(c) It was a thing indifferent and usual to number the people, but because he did it for ambitious reasons, as though his strength stood in his people, God punished him.