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Journey of a Passage

1 Chronicles 21:5–6 and 2 Samuel 24:9

The census totals

2 Samuel 24:9: Israel 800,000 and Judah 500,000. 1 Chronicles 21:5: "all Israel" 1,100,000 and Judah 470,000, with Levi and Benjamin not counted.

Read 1 Chronicles 21:5–6 and 2 Samuel 24:9 in every edition

Manuscript variant: witnesses differ in wording

The family tree

Each row is a language or text tradition. Witnesses in the same row may share ancestry, revise one another, or have an uncertain relationship; the line under each box says which. A solid arrow appears only where direct copying or a documented revised edition is established. Order by date never implies copying. Scroll sideways on a phone.

✓ contains it · ✕ does not · ❝ quotes part of it · ⓘ reports on manuscripts · ▢ pages lost · – no copy survives

  • Same line, through lost copies
  • Translation
Hebrew
  1. 2 Samuel 24:9 (parallel account, Masoretic Text)Samuel
  2. Original ChroniclesComposed c. 4th century BC (debated)
  3. Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)AD 1008Descends, through lost copies, from Original Chronicles
Greek
  1. Septuagint, 1 Paraleipomena (library text: Giguet's French)Translated c. 2nd century BCTranslated from a Hebrew text of Chronicles
Latin
  1. Jerome's Vulgatec. AD 400Translated from Hebrew texts of Jerome's day
English
  1. King James Bible1611Translated from printed Masoretic Hebrew

Every witness, in order

  1. Samuel

    2 Samuel 24:9 (parallel account, Masoretic Text)

    ✓ Contains this passage

    How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Westminster Leningrad Codex, a digital transcription of the Leningrad Codex, quoted here in English.

    in Israel eight hundred thousand valiant men… and the men of Judah were five hundred thousand men

  2. Composed c. 4th century BC (debated)

    Original Chronicles

    – No copy survives

    No original survives; no certain Qumran copy of 1 Chronicles.

  3. Translated c. 2nd century BC

    Septuagint, 1 Paraleipomena (library text: Giguet's French)

    ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from a Hebrew text of Chronicles

    How the site knows this: Known here only through a translation.

    onze cent mille hommes… en Juda… quatre cent soixante-dix mille

    One Greek text (Vaticanus type) via Giguet's French; not checked against a critical Greek edition.

  4. c. AD 400

    Jerome's Vulgate

    ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from Hebrew texts of Jerome's day

    How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Clementine Vulgate (1592 edition).

    mille millia et centum millia… quadringenta septuaginta millia

  5. AD 1008

    Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)

    ✓ Contains this passageDescends, through lost copies, from Original Chronicles

    How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Westminster Leningrad Codex, a digital transcription of the Leningrad Codex.

    אֶלֶף אֲלָפִים וּמֵאָה אֶלֶף… וִיהוּדָה אַרְבַּע מֵאוֹת וְשִׁבְעִים אֶלֶף

    a thousand thousand and a hundred thousand… and Judah four hundred and seventy thousand

  6. 1611

    King James Bible

    ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from printed Masoretic Hebrew

    How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: King James Version (1769 text).

    a thousand thousand and an hundred thousand… four hundred threescore and ten thousand

What changed, and why

Explanations: different categories counted (standing army, reserves); Chronicles' "all Israel" includes Judah; Benjamin and Levi excluded (21:6) explain part of Judah's lower figure; or textual transmission of large numbers. 1 Chronicles 27:24 says the count was never entered in the royal records.

What the evidence shows

Sources

Related lessons

  • The Census and Ornan's Threshing Floor →Satan (or "an adversary") incites David to count Israel. Joab objects but obeys, leaving out Levi and Benjamin. God sends a plague; seventy thousand die. The angel stands between earth and heaven with a drawn sword over Jerusalem. David buys Ornan's threshing floor for six hundred shekels of gold, builds an altar, and fire falls from heaven. "This is the house of the LORD God."