Joab replied, “May the Lord multiply the number of his people a hundred times over!(A) My lord the king, aren’t they all my lord’s servants? Why does my lord want to do this? Why should he bring guilt on Israel?”

Yet the king’s order prevailed over Joab. So Joab left and traveled throughout Israel and then returned to Jerusalem. Joab gave the total troop registration to David. In all Israel there were one million one hundred thousand armed men[a] and in Judah itself four hundred seventy thousand armed men.

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Footnotes

  1. 21:5 Lit men drawing the sword

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