Numbers 1:2 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

This is not the same muster with that Exodus 38:26, as plainly appears, because that was before the building of the tabernacle, which was built and set up on the first day of the first month, Exodus 40:2; but this was after it, to wit, on the first day of the second month, as is said Numbers 1:1. And they were for differing ends; that was to tax them for the charges of the tabernacle, but this was for other ends; partly, that the great number of the people might be known to the praise of God's faithfulness, in making good his promises of multiplying them, and to their own comfort and encouragement; partly, for the better ordering of their camp and march, for they were now beginning their journey; and partly, that this account might be compared with the other in the close of the book, where we read that not one of all this vast number, except Caleb and Joshua, were left alive; which was an evident discovery of the mischievous nature of sin, by which so vast a company were destroyed, and a fair warning to all future generations to take heed of rebelling against the Lord, for which their ancestors had been so dreadfully plagued even to extirpation. It is true, the sums and numbers agree in this and that computation, which is not strange, because there was not much time between the two numberings, and no eminent sin among the people in that interval whereby God was provoked to diminish their numbers. Some conceive, that in that number, Exo 30 Exo 38, the Levites were included, which are here excepted, Numbers 1:47, and that in that interval of time there were grown up as many more men of those years as there were Levites of the same age. Of the children of Israel; so the stranger mixed with them were not numbered. The people were divided into twelve tribes, the tribes into great families, Numbers 26:5; these great families into lesser families, called the houses of their fathers, because they were distinguished one from another by their fathers.