The Masoretic Text suggests that fifty thousand and seventy (50,070) men died. On account of the fact that this number would be impossible for such a small town, most modern translations, following the cue of a small number of Hebrew manuscripts, translate only the seventy (70).1 One commentator suggests that it refers to every five men out of a thousand.2
19 And he struck some of the men of Beth-shemesh, because they looked upon the ark of the LORD. He struck seventy men of them, and the people mourned because the LORD had struck the people with a great blow.