Prince Contrukos asked Rabbon Yochanan ben Zacchai how, when the
detailed enumeration of the Levites amounted to twenty-two thousand
three hundred (the Gershonites, 7500; the Kohathites, 8600; the
Merarites, 6200, making in all 22,300), the sum total given is only
twenty-two thousand, omitting the three hundred. "Was Moses, your
Rabbi," he asked, "a cheat or a bad calculator?" He answered, "They were
first-borns, and therefore could not be substitutes for the first-born
of Israel."
THE TALMUD, _Bechoroth_, fol. 5, col. 1.