Numbers 1

Updated
2001-05-26; 14:32:12utc

Part One: The Preparation of the Old Generation to Inherit the Promised Land (1:1-10:10)

I. The Organization of Israel 1:1-4:49

A. Organization of the People 1:1-2:34

The book of Numbers begins with God's revelation of Himself. The opening verse reads: "The LORD spoke to Moses in the Tent of Meeting in the Desert of Sinai on the first day of the second month of the second year after the Israelites came out of Egypt." This is the second book of the Pentateuch in which Israel is found in the desert. The book of Leviticus opened with the words: "The LORD called to Moses and spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting." The Tent of Meeting in Leviticus may not have been the same as the one in Numbers. We suppose that, at the opening of Leviticus, the Tabernacle had not been constructed yet, so the tent mentioned there was probably the one Moses had erected outside the camp.[ 1 ] It seems probable, however, that the tent mentioned in the book of Numbers was the actual Tabernacle in which the ark was placed. God addressed Moses one month after the completion of the Tabernacle, shortly after the first anniversary of the Exodus.

God spoke to Moses in the desert. Deserts were not part of God's original creation. There were no deserts when God finished creating the earth and pronounced it very good.[ 2 ] This desert was the place Moses described as: "the vast and dreadful desert, that thirsty and waterless land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions."[ 3 ] God had never intended man to live in a desert. The desert means death, and death is the wages of sin. Yet, God speaks to man in the desert. Man may have brought death upon himself and upon God's creation, but God does not leave him there; He speaks to man. "He is There and He is Not Silent."[ 4 ]

The fact that God pitched His tent in the desert and spoke to man is typical of all of God's revelation. John says: "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us."[ 5 ] The phrase "made his dwelling" in Greek is eskeénoosen, which is derived from the word skenoo, meaning "to tent or encamp." This world may not be fit to live in for human beings who were created in the image of God, but as we trek through this desert place to the land of God's promise, He treks with us. He has pitched his tent among us, right in the center. As long as He occupies the central place of our life, our pilgrimage will end in glory. "They go from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion."[ 6 ] The opening words of the book of Numbers indicate how relevant its message is for our time.

The first order issued in this book is for a census to be taken of those among the Israelites who are able to serve in the army; that is "all the men in Israel twenty years old or more."

Unger's Bible Dictionary says about this census: "This census was taken for a double purpose: (a) To ascertain the number of fighting men from the age of twenty to fifty. (b) To ascertain the amount of the redemption offering due on account of all the firstborn, both of persons and cattle. The Levites, whose numbers amounted to 22,000, were taken in lieu of the firstborn males of the rest of Israel, whose numbers were 22,273, and for the surplus of 273, a money payment of 1,365 shekels, or five shekels each, was made to Aaron and his sons <3:39,51>. (3) Thirty-eight years afterward, previous to the entrance into Canaan, when the total number, excepting the Levites, amounted to 601,730 males, showing a decrease of 1,870 <26:51>." There is no indication in this text, however, that people over fifty years of age were no longer required to serve in the army.

Evidently, the desert was not Israel's only enemy. The people would be attacked by other nations and they would have to attack other nations. But most of all, behind all human animosity is the power of Satan. The ultimate enemy is the devil. Paul's words are as true today as they were centuries ago: "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."[ 7 ] The life of a child of God is not only threatened by his living conditions, but also by the hatred Satan has instilled in our fellow creatures, who have been made in the image of God, just as we are. Not only do we live in a place that is not fit for us to live in, we live we people with whom it is not fit to live. God counts His children, because He wants them to be aware of this and He does not want us to be defenseless.

As Unger's Bible Dictionary says, the census was not merely for the purpose of conscripting people into the army. It was a rather complicated affair, that served as a call to arms, but also ensured the relationship of the tribe and the individual to the tabernacle and to God Himself. The census did not give people a number, but an identity. It made them know who they were and where they belonged. God did not only count them, but they counted for God. The apostle Paul says: "The man who loves God is known by God."

It is also true that the Kingdom of God does not only consist of men of age twenty and over. There are, probably, more women than men in God's army and, according to Jesus' words, the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to little children. When the disciples tried to keep children away from Jesus, thinking He was too busy to bother with them, He said: "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."[ 8 ] The point of this census, therefore, is not to exclude the weaker sex, or certain age groups, but to emphasize the features of watchfulness and warfare in the Kingdom.

We should also not think that demonstration of power always has to be met with the same kind of power. Although the census was, in a sense a conscription into the army, the battle never belonged to man, but to the Lord. The conquest of Canaan was not made by the power of the Israelite army. The report of the great campaign says: "All these kings and their lands Joshua conquered in one campaign, because the LORD, the God of Israel, fought for Israel."[ 9 ] And Joshua's conclusion at the end of the war was: "You yourselves have seen everything the LORD your God has done to all these nations for your sake; it was the LORD your God who fought for you."[ 10 ] The general principle that procures victory for God's army is, in Zechariah's words: " 'Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,' says the LORD Almighty."[ 11 ] And, finally, Jesus sums up our position in facing the enemy, with the words: "I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves."[ 12 ] So, although the census was partly meant to be a conscription into the army, it did not imply that God wants us to fight the enemy with his own weapons. Paul says: "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."[ 13 ]

The first census is taken under the direction of Moses and Aaron, but the counting of each individual in every tribe is delegated to one person in each tribe, who is responsible to report back to Moses and Aaron. We may suppose that the actual counting was entrusted to people under each of the leaders of the tribes. Vs. 5-15 give the names of the persons responsible in each tribe. The order of the tribes is in the order of the birth of Jacob's sons, first from Leah and then from Rachel. Dan was the son of Bilhah and Asher the son of Zilpah. Gad, again, was Zilpah's son and Naphtali was Bilhah's second son. Very little can be said about the names of these men. Adam Clarke's Commentary remarks about vs. 14, regarding "from Gad, Eliasaph son of Deuel": "This person is called Reuel, <Num. 2:14>. Since the daleth ("d") is very much like the resh ("r") in Hebrew, it was easy to mistake the one for the other. The Septuagint and the Syriac have Reuel in this chapter; and in <Num. 2:14>, the Vulgate, the Samaritan, and the Arabic have Deuel instead of Reuel, with which reading a vast number of MSS. concur and this reading is supported by <Num. 10:20>, we may safely conclude therefore that Dª`uw'eel ..., not Rª`uw'eel ..., was the original reading. See Kennicott. An ancient Jewish rabbi pretends to solve every difficulty by saying that 'Eliasaph was a proselyte. That before he embraced the true faith he was called the son of Reuel, but that after his conversion he was called the son of Deuel.' Since Reuel may be translated the breach of God, and Deuel the knowledge of God, I suppose the rabbi grounded his supposition on the different meanings of the two words." The men were, obviously, recognized as leaders in the tribes by the people, even before being chosen by God. The are called in vs. 16 "the leaders of their ancestral tribes." The KJV calls them: "princes of the tribes of their fathers."

The number of eligible people counted is recorded for each tribe, with the exception of the Levites.

Vs. 46 tells us that the total number was 603,550. Most of these men will have been married and have children, which means that the total number of Israelites must have been close to 3,000,000 or maybe even more. To imagine that such a mass of people would cross the desert and even spend 40 years there, is mind boggling.

The way the count is reported seems redundantly repetitious to our modern mind. With the mention of every tribe the same formula is used: "All the men twenty years old or more who were able to serve in the army were counted and listed by name, one by one, according to the records of their clans and families." The phrase expresses, however, the personal and loving interest the Lord has in every individual. The census is not for the purpose of obtaining accurate statistics, but in order to make soldiers out of men who had never fought a battle in their lives. God wants every persons to become mature and able to defend himself in the strength and power He provides.

Stripped of all repetitions the list looks as follows:

Reuben - 46,500.

Simeon - 59,300.

Gad - 45,650.

Judah - 74,600.

Issachar - 54,400.

Zebulun- 57,400.

Ephraim - 40,500.

Manasseh - 32,200.

Benjamin - 35,400.

Dan - 62,700.

Asher- 41,500.

Naphtali - 53,400.

Total 603,550.

Judah is the largest contributor to the army. Even if we count Ephraim and Manasseh as one tribe as the sons of Joseph, we come only up with a total of 72,700, which is 1,900 less than Judah. We cannot compare this to the tribe of Levi, since none of the Levites were conscripted in the army and in the count of their tribe the age limits are set differently.

In vs. 49-54 God, not only, instructs Moses not to count the Levites in this part of the census, but He also indicates that the Levites will occupy a different position in the placement of the tribes in relation to the tabernacle. The twelve tribes were each assigned a specific place which is specified in the next chapter. The point here is that the Levites are assigned to form a living wall around the tabernacle. They are the only one who are entitled to camp directly around the tent that hold the symbols of God's revelation in this world. We could say that the task of guarding God's revelation was entrusted to them. "Anyone else who goes near it shall be put to death," says vs. 51. This charge of the tabernacle of the Testimony to the Levites included, taking it down when it was to be moved, carrying it and setting it back up and encamp around it.

There is no doubt as to where the center of the Israelite camp is: it is the Tabernacle with the ark of the Covenant. As far as we know, the Israelites were not familiar with electric energy. The presence of the Lord could be compare to a magnetic field of infinitely high voltage. We know that every living being operates on a low voltage. They dynamo of God's presence produces an energy that is life threatening to unprotected human beings. John says about the throne of God, which he sees in the book of Revelation: "From the throne came flashes of lightning, rumblings and peals of thunder."[ 14 ] When we read that other people than the Levites may not come close to the tent "so that wrath will not fall on the Israelite community," it could be taken as the danger of the magnetic field.

We have to remember, at the same time, that what we know as electricity is only an image of the real thing. It is an expression in material substance of a spiritual reality. Just as the light we know is a visible expression of the character of God, of which John says: "God is light; in him there is no darkness at all."[ 15 ] In reality the ark was much more dangerous to human life than the highest electrical charge. The Levites formed a living insulation to protect the people from a divine radiation that would be fatal to the unprotected person. Their consecration did not make them immune; not even the priest or high priest were immune, but with the necessary precautions, they were better equipped than the non-consecrated person. But their lives were continuously in danger. The words "so that he will not die," or "so that they will not incur guilt and die," occur five time in the book of Exodus alone, in connection with the service of the priests and Levites.

[ 1 ] Ex. 33:7

[ 2 ] Gen. 1:31

[ 3 ] Deut. 8:15

[ 4 ] Title of a book by Francis Schaefer.

[ 5 ] John 1:14

[ 6 ] Ps. 84:7

[ 7 ] Eph. 6:12

[ 8 ] Matt. 19:14

[ 9 ] Josh. 10:42

[ 10 ] Josh. 23:3

[ 11 ] Zech. 4:6

[ 12 ] Matt. 10:16

[ 13 ] Rom. 12:21

[ 14 ] Rev. 4:5

[ 15 ] I John 1:5