Verse 21. - Forty and six thousand and five hundred. All the numbers (save of Gad only) are in unbroken hundreds. It might have been so arranged by miracle; but such an overruling would have no assignable object, and therefore it is far better to fall back on the obvious and natural explanation that the totals were approximate. If they were simply the poll-tax figures unaltered, it would be natural to suppose that the offerings were made up in fifty-shekel lots, and the offerers divided as nearly as possible into hundreds. For military purposes a certain number of supernumeraries would be convenient. In the one excepted case of Gad a half-hundred appears for some unexplained cause,

1:1-43 The people were numbered to show God's faithfulness in thus increasing the seed of Jacob, that they might be the better trained for the wars and conquest of Canaan, and to ascertain their families in order to the division of the land. It is said of each tribe, that those were numbered who were able to go forth to war; they had wars before them, though now they met with no opposition. Let the believer be prepared to withstand the enemies of his soul, though all may appear to be peace.Those that were numbered of them, even of the tribe of Reuben, were forty and six thousand and five hundred. 46,500 men. See Gill on Numbers 1:20.