twenty and foure thousand] Of these, twenty and three thousand died by the immediate hand of God, and those are reckoned to twenty three thousand who fell in one day, 1 Corinthians 10:8. but besides these, there was execution done upon others, vers. 4, 5. which might make up another thousand; and though it be said, that 24. thousand died of the Plague, the word rendered Plague, by the best Interpreters of the Originall, may be read stroke, there dyed of that stroke of Divine justice (for all was either of Gods bidding or his doing) twenty foure thousand; the lesser number taken away by mans hand cast into the greater number, and so making up the totall of twenty foure thousand, there is rather a subordination then a contradiction, for the lesser number is contained in the greater.