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favours this view, for this verb is not elsewhere used of the legal census of the people, i.e., the numbering and entering of them in the public lists, according to the great families and fathers'-houses. There may therefore be in נדרשׁוּ a hint that it was not a genealogical census which was undertaken, but only a numbering of the heads of households, in order to ascertain the number of scribes and judges to be appointed. There yet remain in this section three things which are somewhat strange: 1. Only 1700 scribes and judges were set over the cis-Jordanic land, inhabited as it was by ten and a half tribes, while 2700 were set over the trans-Jordanic land with its two and a half tribes. 2. Both numbers taken together amount to only 4400 men, while David appointed 6000 Levites to be scribes and judges. 3. The scribes and judges were taken only from two fathers'-houses of the Kohathites, while most of the other Levitical offices were filled by men of all the families of the tribe of Levi. On all these grounds, it is probable that our catalogue of the Levites appointed to be scribes and judges, i.e., for the external business, is imperfect. Division of the Army. Tribal Princes, Administrators of the Domains, and Councillors of State - 1 Chronicles 27
This chapter treats of the organization of the army (1Ch 27:1-15) and the public administration; in 1Ch 27:16-24, the princes of the twelve tribes being enumerated; in 1Ch 27:25-31, the managers of the royal possessions and domains; and in 1Ch 27:32-34, the chief councillors of the king. The information on these points immediately succeeds the arrangement of the service of the Levites, because, as we learn from 1Ch 27:23., David attempted in the last year of his reign to give a more stable form to the political constitution of the kingdom also. In the enumeration of the twelve divisions of the army, with their leaders (1Ch 27:1-15), it is not indeed said when David organized the men capable of bearing arms for the alternating monthly service; but the reference in 1Ch 27:23. of our chapter to the numbering of the people, spoken of in 1 Chron 21, leaves no doubt of the fact that this division of the people stands in intimate connection with that numbering of the people, and that David caused the people to be numbered in order to perfect the military constitution of the