The enrollment, being taken primarily for military purposes (compare Numbers 1:3, Numbers 1:20), would naturally be arranged by hundreds…

Those that were numbered of them, [even] of the tribe of Reuben, [were] forty and six thousand and five hundred . 46,500 …

The people were numbered to show God's faithfulness in so increasing the seed of Jacob, so that they might be better trained for the wars and conqu…