Commentaire sur Les Nombres 26:62

כי לא התפקדו בתוך בני ישראל FOR THEY WERE NOT NUMBERED AMONGST THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL, that they should also be numbered from twenty years old and upwards. What was the reason that they were not numbered from twenty years old? כי לא נתן להם נחלה BECAUSE NO INHERITANCE WAS TO BE GIVEN THEM, while those who were counted from twenty years old were persons who were recipients of an inheritance, as it is said, (v. 54) “to everyone shall his inheritance be given according to those that were numbered of them”, (consequently the Levites had to form a different group for the census).

ויהיו פקודיהם שלשה ועשרים אלף כל זכר מבן חדש ומעלה, “and the number of enrolled ones comprising all those from one month and up was 23,000.” I have explained on Numbers 4,49 why the Levites were counted from one month and up.

To have been counted from the age of twenty. Rashi wishes to answer the question: It is written, “They were not counted among Bnei Yisroel.” Yet they were counted! He answers that they were not counted from the age of twenty years like Yisroel, rather from the age of one.

שלשה ועשרים אלף, “twenty three thousand.” According to Bamidbar Rabbah 5,1 the Levites who carried the Holy Ark suffered losses in their numbers due to flashes of lightning emanating from that Ark from time to time.[This editor presumes that what is implied it is that not all the Levites all the time when engaged in that task had their minds on their holy task as they should have had. Or, seeing that the Levites had been counted not from the age of 20, but from the age of only one month, a number might have succumbed to sickness before they were strong enough. The number of adult Israelites involved in the census had hardly changed.

Since no inheritance was given to them. Re’m writes: The matter requires investigation. Surely above in Parshas Bamidbar (1:49) it is written “However, the tribe of Levi [you shall not count]…” and there Rashi gives two reasons: One is that “The King’s Legion is worthy [of being counted separately],” and another is that “The Holy One, Blessed Is He, foresaw with His Holy Spirit that a decree would arise [against all those who were counted]…” [However, we may ask] what is Rashi’s source for those two reasons? Surely here the Torah writes the reason why they were not counted among Bnei Yisroel. Perhaps the answer is that the reason given by the Torah is to explain why they were counted from the age of one month and above and not from the age of twenty years and above, as it is written, “From one month and older; they were not counted among Bnei Yisroel” [meaning that they were not counted] from age of twenty and older. However, the reason said by the Rabbis was to explain why they were not counted among Bnei Yisroel, rather than why each one was counted separately. Accordingly, the verse [in Bamidbar] was necessary to instruct one not to count the tribe of Levi among the tribes of Yisroel. However I do not know how it would be possible to count them together, since one was [counted] from the age of one month and older, and the other from the age of twenty years and older. Thus the matter requires investigation. It appears to me that the Rabbis were answering the question: The count of Bnei Yisroel was not in the order of birth [of the progenitors of each tribe], rather in order of their banners. Therefore, the Torah should have counted the tribe of Levi after [counting the tribes under] the [first] two banners to travel. So why were they counted separately? For this Rashi gives two reasons.