Census - Numbers 1

Numbers chapter 1 is pretty long, 54 verses, but it’s not super content heavy. It is the explanation of the first census which was to count every man age 20 and older. TB said that this census was to start organizing the army, which makes sense, there were millions of people in the desert, they would have had a need to protect themselves against aggressors, plus they knew that in order to secure the promised land for themselves, they were going to have to take it by force and this was them gearing up for that. Each tribe was numbered and had around 35-75,000 men of fighting age, totaling 603,000 men. What’s interesting about this is that with that many military age men, the average estimate of the population of Israel at that time in that place was 2-3 million people. TB notes that the experts say that there was no way that the desert place they were staying in and in which they wandered for 40 years had sufficient resources to sustain that level of population during that time. But TB says that if you are able to believe that the very eternal God of the universe came down in the flesh and sacrificed Himself for all, then it’s well within the possibility that He sustained that population in the desert in a way that doesn’t make sense logically. Indeed we know that God fed the Hebrews manna and quails in the desert for quite some time, so it’s reasonable to think that that type of assistance happened throughout their sojourn there and kept them alive.

There are 12 tribes that were counted, BUT, (and this is a concept I didn’t understand until recently) there are 13 tribes in total because Ephraim and Manasseh were split from Joseph. Jacob had 12 sons, each became a tribe, but then when Jacob adopted Joseph’s two sons, they each became a tribe as well, with one replacing Joseph and one being added. So why 13 tribes? It was because the tribe of Levi was to become the priests and wouldn’t be granted any land of their own. So there would be 12 land holding tribes and one tribe that was dispersed among the population and surrounding the temple (tabernacle) to provide ecclesiastic services. Levi wasn’t counted because they weren’t going to supply any fighters for the army because they were going to take care of the spiritual aspect, the tabernacle, the sacrifices, etc. However, they were to guard the tabernacle to keep it safe and then disperse throughout the camp in a division between the tribes kind of like spokes on a wheel to provide religious services and protect the tabernacle. Guarding the tabernacle makes sense because there are tons of items of gold in there and it might be tempting to go in there are steal the valuables. So they weren’t counted for military service but they were still providing physical protection for the tabernacle and religious services.

The end of chapter 1 goes over the Levites duties toward the tabernacle, they were the ones in charge or taking care of it, setting it up when the move and breaking it down when they leave and carrying the whole thing with them whenever they go somewhere else. I remember back in I think Exodus or whenever the instructions came down on how to build the tabernacle and one of the points TB made was just how heavy everything was. In fact, the altars and boxes and ark of the covenant all had rings attached to them for a reason, to be carried by four men with sticks going through those rings. Imagine just 4 guys carrying objects that weighed literal tons across the desert for miles at a time. Glad it wasn’t my job, that’s all I’m saying.