1 Samuel 6:19

[Romans922]

Issue of 50,070 men or 70 men. Some will say 70 because Beth-Shemesh couldn't have had 50,070 men and that some manuscripts don't have the 50,000 word.

What do you do with this? Which do you choose? Even some of the modern translations are different on their approach.

 

[MLCOPE2]

I would stick with the 50,070 because it seems to fit into the context of a "great slaughter" like the "great slaughter" in 4:10 of 30,000 Israelites. That approach just seems, in my opinion, to be more consistent with the idea of a great slaughter that the writer is trying to convey.

 

[Jerusalem Blade]

At the risk of getting a posse after me I want to quote from a man who knows his Bible, even though he is off on doctrine (an IFB) and on having a gracious character. But this is not a bad shot at the problem:

1. Don’t forget that Bethshemesh had “suburbs” (Josh. 21:16).

2. Don’t forget that it is not just “the MEN of Bethshemesh”, but “THE PEOPLE (1 Sam. 6:19).

3. There were hundreds of the former inhabitants of Bethshemesh living there in addition to those from the tribe of Naphtali (Judges 1:33).

4. The area of open country around the city is called Bethshemesh (1 Sam. 6:13)...

5. There are less than one hundred major cities listed on a map of Palestine, at the time of the Judges, from Dan to Beersheba. With 2,000,000 people coming into the land fifty to three hundred years before this event takes place, what is to prevent a large area that includes a major city and its suburbs from having a population of sixty to eighty thousand? Conservatively estimating a total population of 3,000,0000 people (there were over 1,2000,000 males in the army in less than eighty years after this event, see 2 Samuel 24:9!) what is so peculiar about a “tourist attraction” like the Ark of God in a wheat field drawing over 50,000 spectators? If the town of Bethshemesh with its suburbs contained 60,000 people, it would have taken fifty cities that size to account for a population of 3,000,000, and Bethshemesh may well have been three times as large as forty cities in that group...

What if the ARK became a tourist’s attraction exactly like Hitler’s private car or Ringo’s T-shirt or Frank Sinatra’s bow tie or the Vatican manuscript in the Vatican Library? Don’t you know that droves of people would come to Bethshemesh to be “viewers”? Within twenty miles of Bethshemesh are Zanoah, Jarmuth, Gibeah, Zoreah, Kirjath-jearim, Ajalon, Timnah, Libaah, Gedor, Nezib, Chephirah, Gezer, and Ekron. If only one thousand sightseers came from each of these towns there would be 14,000 people in the wheat field (6:14, 15) trying to get a “look-see,” who were not natives of Bethshemesh. God “SMOTE OF THE PEOPLE FIFTY THOUSAND AND THREESCORE AND TEN MEN” (v 19). He did not confine that to the “MEN OF BETHSHEMESH” only.

Still have your doubts? All right then, do the only honest thing that any Christian would do who is half as godly as the [modern version Bible]* professes to be: give God the benefit of a doubt and the [modern version Bible] Board of Editors none of it.

Dr. Peter Ruckman, Problem Texts, pages 171-173.

*[He was referring to the New Scofield]

And no, I don’t follow Ruckman’s textual theories, but then again, how many of you follow Bruce Metzger’s theories? Don’t bust my chops here and I won’t bust yours. Sometimes Ruckman does decent work.

Steve