Ezra 2 - 42,360

I was reading Ezra 2 this morning...keeping busy highlighting the names, looking for some useful point, found in verse 24 the smallest family, and in verse 64 the total.

I thought of adding the numbers up, to check the totals like a good CPA, but deferred to goggle search.

Found this article..not sure of the writer's background but seems to have good intentions.

http://brandplucked.webs.com/ezra2neh7.htm

Anyway at least I'm now aware of these controversial passages.

As for other commentators...

Ezr 2:64    The whole congregation together was forty and two thousand three hundredand threescore,

Ezr 2:65    Beside their servants and their maids, of whom there were seven thousand three hundred thirty and seven: and there were among them two hundred singing men and singing women.

J Gill

Ezra 2:64

The whole congregation together was forty and two thousand three hundred and threescore. But the sums before given make no more, with Zerubbabel, and the ten principal men, than 29,829, so that there are more than 12,000 wanting; wherefore, in answer to the question, where are the 12,000? the Jews say in their chronology (a)these are they of the other tribes, who set up the altar on its bases, and gave money to the masons, &c. Ezr 3:1, this was a much larger number than were carried captive; see 2Ki 24:14, but not to be compared with the number that came out of Egypt, Exo12:37. An Arabic writer (b) makes them 50,000, but wrongly.

(a) Seder Olam Rabba, c. 29. p. 86. (b) Abulpharag. Hist. Dynast. Dyn. 5. p. 82.

A Barnes

Ezra 2:64

The sum total is given without any variation by Ezra, by Nehemiah (see the marginal reference), and by Esdras (1 Esdras 5:41), who adds, that in this reckoning only those of twelve years of age and upward were counted.

It is curious that the total 42,360, is so greatly in excess of the items. Ezra’s items make the number 29,818; Nehemiah’s 31,089, Esdras, 33,950. The original document was probably illegible in places, and the writers were forced to make omissions.

M Henry's

Ezra 2:64-70

Here is, I. The sum total of the company that returned out of Babylon. The particular sums before mentioned amount not quite to 30,000 (29,818), so that there were above 12,000 that come out into any of those accounts, who, it is probable, were of the rest of the tribes of Israel, besides Judah and Benjamin, that could not tell of what particular family or city they were, but that they were Israelites, and of what tribe. Now, 1. This was more than double the number that were carried captive into Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar, so that, as in Egypt, the time of their affliction was the time of their increase. 2. These were but few to begin a nation with, and yet, by virtue of the old promise made to their fathers, they multiplied so as before their last destruction by the Romans, about 500 years after, to be a very numerous people. When God says, “Increase and multiply,” a little one shall become a thousand.

Sent from my iPad