Numbers 1-2

Numbers 1-2

After the book of law, the book of Numbers opens up to a census. God had given all of the Israelites a set of commands that He expected them to follow. Now, He wanted them to know how many people there were in the nation, arranged by tribe. Be careful not to think that God needed them to do this for His sake. God, being all knowing, knew how many people were in Israel. This process allowed the Israelites to organize themselves by tribe and obtain an accurate number.

The final tally came to 603,550 men (who could go to war). Now notice that the text says that this was the number of “men.” It could be argued that this “men” could have been a generic term for “people.” However, knowing that in their culture, only the men were the ones who went to war, it actually appears as if this number only accounted for the men in the country (not the women and children). So triple that number (assuming that each man is married with at least one kid), and you will notice that it is actually close to 2 million Israelites at this point. Now think back to the end of Genesis when Joseph brought all of his family down to Egypt. At that point there were only 70 people in the “nation” of Israel. During their time in Egypt, that number grew drastically, and now it is probably close to two million. God had truly blessed His children, fulfilling the promise that He had originally made to Abraham in Genesis 12. Again, recall that God had promised that Abraham would have a great family, later telling him that his descendants would number the stars in the heavens and the grains of sand on the beach. The point was that his descendants would be impossible to number. We know today that that promise was fulfilled through Jesus as well, when the Gentiles were grafted into Israel, thus becoming “descendants” of Abraham. So that promise to Abraham was still not completely fulfilled in the time of Numbers, but you the Israelites had to of been thinking about this promise.

The Levites were not included in this number, so the final number is greater still. God had intended for the Levites to work in the tabernacle, keeping guard over it. This marks the beginnings of the organization of the people. God was not only giving them the Law, by which they were to live, but He was also giving them clear instructions of how and where they were to live. He had a purposeful organizational scheme for their camp, placing three tribes each on the four sides of the tabernacles. Every time that they had to take up camp and move closer to the Promised Land, they also had a specific order in which they were to travel. This complex living scheme might seem pointless to today’s society. Why did it really matter? I think this shows that God is a God of order. He does not do anything without thinking it through, and He does not create chaos. I also think it shows that God expected His people to follow His commands, even the simple ones. Quite simply, God always expects obedience, even when we do not understand why.

Matt