Numbers 26:22
These are the families of Judah according to those that were numbered of them, threescore and sixteen thousand and five hundred. These are the families of Judah according to those that were numbered of them, threescore and sixteen thousand and five hundred.
These are the families of Judah in Israel's second numbering in the plains of Moab just before entering Canaan, taken at the end of the forty years of wandering in the wilderness nearly forty years after leaving Egypt and forty years after the first census, a census ordered by God through Moses. That second numbering was made thirty-eight years after the census at Sinai. It records the families of Judah according to those numbered as 76,500 adult males, the definite number of men of a certain age. It follows the same tribal order as the first numbering in Numbers 1-3, so its 76,500 is to be set against the earlier number for Judah.
The verse is to be compared with the first numbering in Numbers 1 to see how the tribes gained or lost people on the wilderness journey, how some fell off and others increased, some greatly while others declined, highlighting differences among the tribes. Compared with Judah's first numbering of 74,600 soon after coming out of Egypt, Judah increased by 1,900 to 76,500, while the total adult males of Israel stayed nearly unchanged from 603,550 to 601,730. The census shows God's threatened judgment was fulfilled after He by solemn oath excluded that generation from the land and doomed them to die in the wilderness: not one man numbered the first time remained alive except Caleb and Joshua, and not one who had rebelled against God remained alive.
The numbering proves God fulfills His threatened judgments against wickedness, sin, and open, wanton rebellion, and warns those upon whom the ends of the world are come, whose hopes of entering the kingdom and tokens of God's favor, presence, and willingness to save cannot be greater than Israel's at the first numbering, that they too can come short of the promise and that sin carried in the heart will inevitably bring ruin. Taking a census was not sinful in itself, since the wrong in David's census was that he ordered it without the Lord's consent and relied proudly on the size of his forces. The verse is of interest and profit when studied with comparison of the tribes and with the various laws and ordinances around it for valuable instruction in diversified reading, showing that the book includes detailed countings of Israel.