Kommentar zu Bamidbar 1:46

ויהיו כל הפקודים, “the grand total of all the men thus mustered, etc.” Nachmanides, in searching for a reason why the Torah had to tell us the total again, seeing it had already told us the number of men that were counted in each tribe, claims that this is the manner in which kings conduct themselves when they take a census of their subjects. However, he admits that he does not know why G’d commanded Moses to do so. He speculates that possibly the Torah wanted the people to reflect on the fact that a family who had numbered only 70 souls and children included, had grown within the relatively short period of 211 years to comprise at least two and a half million souls when allowing for the people under 20 and all the women. It is also possible that the Torah did proceed here in the manner human kings proceed before going into battle, counting totals in addition to the number and composition of each army group. After all, when the Jewish people left Mount Sinai they were poised to begin the conquest of the land of their forefathers, and if they had not insisted on spying out the land (something that consumed 40 days) they would most likely have found themselves at war within a few days of their departure, Moses himself described the distance to the boundary of that land as only 11 days’ march (Deuteronomy 1,2) Moses, when inviting his father-in-law to join the people had told him that they were about to depart for their ultimate destination. (Numbers 10,29) It was necessary for both Moses and the princes to know the numbers of each tribe and army group in order to be able to account for each soldier after the campaign, and to determine if there had been any casualties and how many there had been. Although, in the event there were none, Judaism, i.e. the Torah, does not base its calculations on supernatural miracles occurring.