1 Samuel 6:19, did God strike down 50,070 men?
The evidence here preserves both seventy men and 50,070 men at 1 Samuel 6:19, without resolving between them. The Hebrew stacks the figures without “and,” while the Greek supplies it.
The APB text at this verse
The manuscripts, editions, and versions
The committee record at this verse
The APB's translation committee works blind: it is never told it is translating the Bible, never given a book name or a verse number, and it never sees the witnesses above. Since revision 3.5, the places where the manuscripts disagree are decided before translation by three readers, Grok 4.3, GPT-6 Astra, and Claude Fable 5.1, who see the readings and the witnesses by age and class but never a reference or a manuscript name. Whatever was done at this verse was done on the language and the evidence alone, and the record is public.
“Preserved exact numbers and repetition of 'men' to maintain formal equivalence without smoothing.”
The blind committee printed both figures in its translation: “seventy men and fifty thousand men.” Its note says it preserved the exact numbers and the repetition of 'men' “to maintain formal equivalence without smoothing.” The pericope audit verdict was “clean.” This record describes a translation choice to retain the supplied wording, not a decision between the competing witness patterns.
The argument for each reading
If seventy
Reading A is supported here by Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews VI, a history from the 1st century A.D. Its retelling counts seventy men struck down and gives no larger number. That presentation fits a text in which the count ended with seventy, rather than one containing a second figure of fifty thousand. The local consideration supplied in the packet also bears on the question: Beth-shemesh could scarcely have held fifty thousand people. On this reading, the reported death toll is seventy, and the verse’s description of mourning after a great blow remains in place.
If 50,070
Reading B has the support of two listed textual forms. The Masoretic Text reads שבעים איש חמשים אלף איש, preserving seventy men followed by fifty thousand men. Its wording places the numbers beside each other without a joining word, a construction the packet describes as grammatically strained. The Septuagint likewise keeps both figures, reading ἑβδομήκοντα ἄνδρας καὶ πεντήκοντα χιλιάδας ἀνδρῶν, but makes the relationship explicit by supplying “and.” On this reading, the verse reports seventy men and fifty thousand men, despite the numerical and local-scale difficulty noted in the packet.
The remaining uncertainty is whether the larger figure belonged to the form behind the seventy-only retelling, or whether both numbers should stand despite the strained Hebrew construction and the town’s apparent scale. The variant changes the reported number struck down, from seventy to seventy plus fifty thousand. It does not remove the verse’s account of a strike, mourning, or a great blow. No doctrine is settled by this numerical question; doctrines ordinarily rest on many passages.
Common questions
Does 1 Samuel 6:19 say 50,070 men died?
The listed Masoretic Text and Septuagint preserve seventy men plus fifty thousand men. Josephus preserves only seventy. The packet does not resolve which count should be preferred.
Why is the number in 1 Samuel 6:19 disputed?
The Hebrew places the two numbers side by side with no “and,” and the packet says the grammar is strained. The Septuagint supplies “and,” while Josephus has no larger number.
What did the blind committee print at 1 Samuel 6:19?
It printed seventy men and fifty thousand men, preserving the exact numbers and repeated men without smoothing.
Related entries
Witness readings for critical editions are quoted from the SBLGNT apparatus (CC BY 4.0); Hebrew text from the Westminster Leningrad Codex (Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible). Readings of ancient manuscripts and versions are cited as published scholarly fact with their sources linked above. The page does not declare which reading is original.
The registry gives no verdict
The registry does not say which reading is original. Each page lists the witnesses, shows what the committee did with the same text, and leaves the judgment to the reader.