Numbers 26:47
These are the families of the sons of Asher according to those that were numbered of them; who were fifty and three thousand and four hundred. These are the families of the sons of Asher according to those that were numbered of them; who were fifty and three thousand and four hundred.
This verse belongs to Israel's second numbering in Numbers 26, answering the first numbering in Numbers 1, the second of Israel's two censuses. The second numbering was taken at the end and close of the forty years of wandering, forty years after the first census, just before entering Canaan, nearly forty years after the first numbering taken soon after leaving Egypt. The census on the plains of Moab was taken thirty-eight years after the census at Sinai.
It records that the numbered families of the sons of Asher, the descendants of Asher counted as adult males and men, totaled 53,400. Asher's count was an increase of 11,900 over the 41,500 counted at the first census, while the whole nation changed little from 603,550 to 601,730. Comparison of the two censuses shows how tribal numbers changed during the wilderness journey, with some tribes increasing greatly and others falling off or declining, and shows whether Asher had gained or lost.
The second count came after the generation counted in the first numbering had died in the wilderness, with not one man counted the first time alive to be counted the second time except Caleb and Joshua. The second numbering proves that God carried out and fulfills his threatened judgments against the rebellious generation. Their terrible failure was due to wickedness, with sin in their midst breaking out in open, wanton rebellion against God, so that by solemn oath he excluded that generation from the land and doomed them to die in the wilderness. As the result of Moses' census, the verse is an example of a census taken at God's command, unlike David's census, which was sinful because he conducted it without the Lord's consent.