This was the list of the people of Israel, 601,730.
51. These are the numbered of the children of Israel. By this sum total, what I have above adverted to is more clearly shewn, that amidst so many losses, and especially after the terrible vengeance which God had recently executed, the race of Abraham was preserved in an incredible manner, so that the fulfillment of the promise might not be brought about only towards a small body of persons.
This is the register of the tribes as they were now enrolled, in the same order that they were numbered in ch. 1. Observe, I. The account that is here kept of the families of each tribe, which must not be understood of such as we call families, those that live in a house together, but such as were the descendants of the several sons...
Commenting on Numbers 26:5-51
But among these there was not a man of them whom Moses and Aaron the priest numbered..... About thirty eight years before this time: this, as Aben Ezra observes, respects the numbering of the Israelites, not of the Levites; for there were some of the tribe of Levi numbered then who were living, as Eleazar, and very probably Ithamar, and perhaps some few more, though...