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1 Samuel 6 · a question people ask

How many men died at Beth Shemesh?

In the text

The WEB reads, "he struck fifty thousand seventy of the men" (6:19). In the Hebrew the words come in this order: seventy man, fifty thousand man, with ish, man, after each number and no and between them. English Bibles render it differently: some give seventy, and some fifty thousand and seventy. This chapter doesn't choose a figure. What the verse says plainly is the reason, "because they had looked into the LORD’s ark", and what followed: "the people mourned, because the LORD had struck the people with a great slaughter" (6:19).

The verses

“He struck of the men of Beth Shemesh, because they had looked into the LORD’s ark, he struck fifty thousand seventy of the men. Then the people mourned, because the LORD had struck the people with a great slaughter.”
1 Samuel 6:19 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of 1 Samuel 6

1 Samuel 6: This holy God

The warning about Pharaoh's hard heart came from the Philistines' own priests (6:6), and in Hebrew glory (6:5) is the noun of the verb for harden (6:6) and the LORD's heavy hand (5:6). And "to stand before the LORD" (6:20) is, in Hebrew, the phrase Deuteronomy uses for the Levites' calling (Deuteronomy 10:8).

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions