דברי הימים א, פרק כ״ז, פסוק כ״ג

King David’s national census was accompanied by clear boundaries rooted in God's ancient promises to the nation. When dividing the Israelites and the Levites into divisions, David was careful to count only men who were twenty years of age and older. The primary approach among commentators is that he avoided counting anyone younger because of God's promise to multiply the Israelites like the stars of heaven. Just as the stars cannot be fully numbered, it is neither possible nor proper to count the entirety of the nation [רש״י, רלב״ג]. The intentional exclusion of the youth ensured that the exact, total number of the Israelites would remain unknown [מצודת דוד, ביאור שטיינזלץ]. This followed a divine precedent, as even God Himself counted only those aged twenty and older when He commanded a census in the desert [רד״ק].

However, another perspective reveals a much more turbulent chain of events behind this counting. According to this approach, David initially intended to count everyone, including children and young men under the age of twenty, in order to register them for future military service [מלבי״ם]. This plan stood in direct opposition to God's will [רלב״ג]. Joab, the commander of the army, began carrying out the king's orders for a complete census, but he found the task repulsive. He deliberately left the work unfinished, completely omitting entire tribes such as Levi and Benjamin from his count [רד״ק, מלבי״ם]. The very attempt to number the entire population provoked divine anger and triggered a plague among the people. As a result, the original plan was ultimately abandoned, the youth were never counted, and the census remained permanently incomplete [רלב״ג, מלבי״ם].