I Chronicles 27:23
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David did not count the men aged twenty or under, because the LORD had said that He would make Israel as numerous as the stars of the sky.
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
But David took not the number of them from twenty years old and under,.... Only those that were twenty years and upwards; but, according to Cornelius Bertram (k), he numbered them that were under twenty, though but sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, or nineteen years of age, provided they were of robust bodies, and of a tall stature, and able to bear arms; which he takes to be the sin of David, in numbering the people, being contrary to the law of God; yet though he had ordered them to be numbered, and they were, yet he would not take them and put them into the account of his chronicles, as in the next verse, that his sin might not be known, see Sa2 24:9. because the Lord had said, he would increase Israel like to the stars in the heavens; which are not to be numbered, and therefore David sinned in attempting to number the people. (k) Lucubrat. Franktall, c. 2.
Open source ↗In this chapter we have the civil list, including the military, I. The twelve captains for every separate month of the year (Ch1 27:1-15). II. The princes of the several tribes (Ch1 27:16-24). III. The officers of the court (Ch1 27:25-34).
Open source ↗Cross-references
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And the LORD took him outside and said, “Now look to the heavens and count the stars, if you are able.” Then He told him, “So shall your offspring be.”
and on the first day of the second month they assembled the whole congregation and recorded their ancestry by clans and families, counting one by one the names of those twenty years of age or older,
And so from one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.