he smote: Exodus 19:21; Leviticus 10:1-3; Numbers 4:4-5, Numbers 4:15, Numbers 4:20; Deuteronomy 29:29; 2 Samuel 6:7; 1 Chronicles 13:9-10; Colossians 2:18; 1 Peter 4:17
fifty thousand: As it is very improbable that the village of Beth-shemesh should contain, or be capable of employing, 50,070 men in the fields at wheat harvest, much less that they could all peep into the ark, and from the uncommon manner in which it is expressed in the original, it is generally allowed that there is some corruption in the text, or that some explanatory word is omitted. The Hebrew is shivim ish, chamishim aileph ish:, literally, "seventy men, fifty thousand men." So LXX εβδομηκοντα ανδρας και πεντηκοντα χιλιαδας ανδρων:. Vulgate, septuaginta viros, et quinquaginta millia plebis:. "70 (chief) men, and 50,000 common people." Targum, besabey amma:, "of the elders of the people 70 men, ovekahala:, and in the congregation 50,000 men." But the Syriac, chamsho alphin weshivin gavrin:, "5,000 and 70 men;" with which the Arabic agrees; while Josephus has only εβδομηκοντα:, seventy men; and three reputable manuscripts of Dr. Kennicott's also omit "50,000 men." Some learned men, however, would render, by supplying ξ:, mem:, "70 men; fifty out of a thousand;" which supposes about 1,400 present, and that a twentieth part were slain.