Joab gave up the sum of the counting of the people to the king: and there were in Israel eight hundred thousand valiant men who drew the sword; and the men of Judah were five hundred thousand men.
World English Bible
2 Samuel 24:9
This verse is examined in more than one Scripture Analysis section. Each lens is shown on its own terms, in the section's own words; GEBible reaches no verdict of its own.
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WEB World English Bible Public Domain ✓ - Modern English
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- F35 Family 35 New Testament Wilbur Pickering's Byzantine-priority New Testament, with text-critical commentary notes · CC BY-SA 4.0
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- KJV King James Version Public Domain
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Examined in Scripture Analysis
Science (1)
Historical claims about the natural world, weighed against the scientific record.
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A tribal nation in 1000 BCE mustered 1.3 million fighting men for a military census.
History/Archaeology · 2 Samuel 24:9
The historical record: A muster of 1.3 million fighting men implies a total population several times that figure. · 2 documented · 1 debated
Contradictions (1)
Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.
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How many valiant men drew the sword in Israel and Judah as counted by Joab?
2 Samuel 24:9 gives the census totals as 800,000 for Israel and 500,000 for Judah. 1 Chronicles 21:5 gives the same census as 1,100,000 for Israel and 470,000 for Judah.
Critical scholarship: Leans toward a genuine contradiction.
More on this question
The proposed answers and sources for each reading are on the question page.
Each section sets the viewpoints side by side; you weigh the evidence. Here, "critical scholarship" means academic study, not a value judgment. How this is built →
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"2 Samuel 24:9 — Scripture Analysis" GEBible, https://gebible.app/analysis/verse/2-samuel/24/9?version=WEB (retrieved 26 August 2026).