When Thou Takest the Sum of the Children of Israel According to Their

"According to their number." The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Moses: Count Israel. He said before Him: My Master, it is written, "And your seed shall be as the dust of the earth" (Genesis 28:14), and it is written, "And I will make your seed as the sand of the sea" (Genesis 32:12), and now You say this? He said to him: If you wish to ascertain their number, take the initial letters of the tribes and you will ascertain their number: resh of Reuben, two hundred thousand; shin of Simeon, three hundred thousand; yod of Judah, yod of Issachar, yod of Joseph, thirty thousand; nun of Naphtali, fifty thousand; zayin of Zebulun, seven thousand; dalet of Dan, four thousand; gimel of Gad, three thousand; bet of Benjamin, two thousand; alef of Asher, one thousand. Behold, five hundred ninety-seven thousand. Those three thousand that remained, they are the ones who were slain over the calf, as it is said: "And the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses, and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men" (Exodus 32:28). Therefore the Holy One, blessed be He, said to Moses: Count them, how many are lacking. Rabbi Menahem in the name of Rabbi Bivai said: A parable of a king who had many sheep, and wolves entered among them and tore them. The king said to the shepherd: Count the sheep, how many are lacking. So too the Holy One, blessed be He, said to Moses: Go count Israel, how many are lacking. In ten places Israel were counted: one at their descent to Egypt, as it is said: "With seventy souls your fathers went down," and so forth (Deuteronomy 10:22); and one at their going up, as it is said: "And the children of Israel journeyed from Rameses," and so forth (Exodus 12:37); and one in the Book of Numbers; one with the spies; and one in the days of Joshua at the dividing of the land; and two in the days of Saul, as it is said: "And he numbered them with lambs" (1 Samuel 15:4), "and he numbered them in Bezek" (1 Samuel 11:8). And why with lambs? When they were rich, they merited, by a lamb. When they were poor through their deeds, by Bezek. And what is Bezek? He took a stone from each and every one of them and counted them by the stones. And one in the days of David, as it is said: "And Joab gave the sum of the number of the people to the king" (2 Samuel 24:9). And one in the days of Ezra: "The whole assembly together, forty thousand" (Ezra 2:64). And one in the time to come, as it is said: "The flocks shall again pass under the hands of him who counts them" (Jeremiah 33:13). And this: "When you take the count." Rabbi Menahema in the name of Rabbi Bivai in the name of Rabbi Hiyya bar Abba in the name of Rabbi Eleazar ben Yaakov: It is written, "And the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea" (Hosea 2:1). Why were they likened to sand? To tell you: just as sand, you make a hollow in it in the evening, and in the morning you find that it has already filled up, so too all the thousands who were lacking in the days of David were filled up in the days of Solomon his son, as it is said: "Judah and Israel were many, as the sand which is by the sea in multitude" (1 Kings 4:20). Rabbi Eliezer in the name of Rabbi Yose ben Zimra said: Whenever Israel were counted for a need, they did not become diminished; and when not for a need, they became diminished. And when were they counted for a need? In the days of Moses. And not for a need? In the days of David. "And they shall give every man a ransom for his soul to the LORD" in the days of Moses, "that there be no plague among them" in the days of David. "This they shall give." Rabbi Meir said: Like a coin of fire the Holy One, blessed be He, brought out from beneath the Throne of Glory and showed it to Moses and said to him: "This they shall give," like this they shall give. "Everyone who passes among those numbered," everyone who passes among those reckoned in the count.