פרשת במדבר תשי"ז - מנין ישראל

’Take ye the sum of all the congregation of the children of Israel, by their families, by their fathers’houses, according to the number of names, every male, by their polls;

And is this not the opposite of what the Torah commanded (Exodus 30:12), "When you take a census of the Israelite people according to their enrollment, each shall pay the Lord a ransom for himself on being enrolled?" And over there Rashi explains, "When you wish to obtain the sum total of their number, do not take their census by their heads but each of them shall give half a shekel, and you shall count these, and so ascertain their number." And if so, how did it command here to count according to their heads?

... Record (tifkedu) them: The matter of recording, remembering and guarding something - like the words (Genesis 21:1), "And the Lord remembered Sarah" - is the understanding of [pakad] in every place. Even [with a] pikadon (deposit) - it is [called that] because its guarding and supervision is upon [the holder]. And when [God] commanded to count the people of Israel, He said, "tifkod them," in order to hint not to [actually] count them, but rather that they should give a ransom for their lives, a half shekel - and through them, He would oversee and remember the multitude of the people. And it states with David (II Samuel 24:9), "the number of the record of the people," as he knew their number by recording the ransom (the coins). For it appears distant to me that David would not be careful about what Scripture stated (Exodus 30:12), "so there shall not be a plague in recording them." And [even] if David may have erred, why would Joav not make [the count according to] shekels? And since the matter was disgusting to Joav - as he said to him (I Chronicles 21:3), "my lord king, are they not all subjects of my lord; why should my lord require this; why should it be a cause of guilt for Israel” - why did Joab not count them with shekels, so that he not sin? But in my opinion, the [divine] anger against [David] was because he counted them unnecessarily. For he was not going to war and he was not doing anything with them at that time. Rather his whole intention was to gladden his heart, [to ascertain] that he ruled over many people. And that is [the meaning] of Joab's statement (II Samuel 24:3), "May the Lord your God increase the number of the people a hundredfold, while your own eyes see it; but why should my lord king want this?"...

And all of the reports of the Children of Israel, according to houses of their fathers, etc: The verse needed to tell the number of the whole group after it told the [number of the] parts; as Moses and Aaron were commanded to know the report of the [whole] people and to know the number of each tribe, as this is the way of kings to count the people... And it is logical to say further that this was the way of what the monarchy does when it comes to fight a war; as they were now prepared to enter the land and to come to war with the kings of the Amorites who were across the Jordan and with all the other ones; as [Moses] stated, "We are travelling to the place that the Lord said" (Numbers 10:29). And Moses and the leaders needed to know the number of the ones primed for war, as well as the number of each and every tribe. And that which he reports about it [again] on the Plains of Moab is [because] the Torah does not rely on a miracle, such that 'one should chase a thousand.' And this is the reason [that it states], "all that go out in the army from Israel," as the count is for the army of war...