"And Moses and Eleazar the priest spake with them" (דּבּר with the accusative, as in Genesis 37:4). The pronoun refers to "the children of Israel," or more correctly, to the heads of the nation as the representatives of the congregation, who were to carry out the numbering. On the Arboth-Moab, see at Numbers 22:1. Only the leading point in their words is mentioned, viz., "from twenty years old and upwards" (sc., shall ye take the number of the children of Israel), since it was very simple to supply the words "take the sum" from Numbers 26:2.

(Note: This is, at all events, easier and simpler than the alterations of the text which have been suggested for the purpose of removing the difficulty. Knobel proposes to alter וידבּר into ויּדבּר, and לאמר into לפקד: "Moses and Eleazar arranged the children of Israel when they mustered them." But הדבּיר does not mean to arrange, but simply to drive in pairs, to subjugate (Psalm 18:48, and Psalm 47:4), - an expression which, as much be immediately apparent, is altogether inapplicable to the arrangement of the people in families for the purpose of taking a census.),

- The words from "the children of Israel" in Numbers 26:4 onwards form the introduction to the enumeration of the different tribes (Numbers 26:5.), and the verb יהיוּ (were) must be supplied. "And the children of Israel, who went forth out of Egypt, were Reuben," etc.

Numbers 26:9 Parallel Commentaries

earth opened

Numbers 16:2,31-35,38 And they rose up before Moses, with certain of the children of Israel, two hundred and fifty princes of the assembly...

Numbers 27:3 Our father died in the wilderness...

Exodus 16:35 And the children of Israel did eat manna forty years, until they came to a land inhabited; they did eat manna...

Psalm 106:17,18 The earth opened and swallowed up Dathan and covered the company of Abiram...

together. The Samaritan text does not intimate that Korah was swallowed up, but that he was burnt, as appears to have been the fact; and the Psalmist also, only mentions Dathan and Abiram as having been swallowed up. And the earth swallowed them up, what time that company died; and the fire devoured Korah with the

250 men, who became a sign. They became a sign.

Numbers 16:38 The censers of these sinners against their own souls, let them make them broad plates for a covering of the altar...

1 Samuel 2:34 And this shall be a sign to you, that shall come on your two sons, on Hophni and Phinehas; in one day they shall die both of them.

Jeremiah 29:22 And of them shall be taken up a curse by all the captivity of Judah which are in Babylon, saying...

Ezekiel 14:8 And I will set my face against that man, and will make him a sign and a proverb, and I will cut him off from the middle of my people...

1 Corinthians 10:6-10 Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted...

2 Peter 2:6 And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow...

Jude 1:7 Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication...