3 Joab said to the king, "May the Lord your God increase the number of people a hundred times while the eyes of my master the king can still see it! But why does my master the king want to do this?"
4 But the king’s word overruled Joab and the military commanders. So Joab and the commanders left the king’s presence to take a census of the Israelites.
5 They crossed the Jordan River and began from Aroer and from the town that is in the middle of the valley of Gad, then on to Jazer.
6 They continued to Gilead and on to Kadesh in Hittite territory. They came to Dan and went around to Sidon.
7 They went to the fortress of Tyre and to all the towns of the Hivites and the Canaanites. They went out to Beer-sheba in the arid southern plain of Judah.
8 At the end of nine months and twenty days, after going through the entire country, they came back to Jerusalem.
9 Joab reported to the king the number of the people who had been counted: in Israel there were eight hundred thousand strong men who could handle a sword; in Judah the total was five hundred thousand men.