If we count up all the numbers in the list from Ezra 2:3–63, we actually reach a different number: 29,818. There are a few reasons why this number might be different. It may exclude women and children; it may be because it only considers the people that came back at the beginning, whereas 42,360 is all the people including some that were not there at the beginning. The most likely reason for the difference is that people from other tribes were also included in the larger number (42,360) and the list (29,818) only refers to those that came back from the tribes of Judah and Benjamin.1
64 The whole assembly together was 42,360,