There is only a month’s time lapse between the end of Exodus and the beginning of Numbers. As the book opens, the Israelites are still at the foot of Mt. Sinai where they received the Ten Commandments, made the covenant with God and established worship in the Tabernacle as described in Exodus and Leviticus. It is now one year and one month since they left Egypt. Having established a covenant relationship with God, which now defines their national identity, they are ready to move forward to occupy the land of God’s promise.
The book of Numbers gets its name from the two censuses that take place in it – one in the beginning and one at the end -, which are an appropriate beginning and end of the story told in this book. It covers forty years of history and takes place in the wilderness of what we now call the Sinai Peninsula and southern Levant.
Just as with the dullest passages of Leviticus, if we can get a blessing from the description of the first census and the organization of the Israelites’ camp, we can appreciate the most challenging passages of the Bible. So what can we get from today’s very dull reading?
Man’s best current scholarship tells us that the Bible grossly exaggerates the numbers of the Exodus; in other words, the Bible lies. If there were 603,550 men of fighting age who left Egypt, not including the Levites (who numbered 22,000), how many people might you guess left Egypt? Three million might be a conservative estimate, if you do the math and if they were as prolific as the comments of the Egyptian midwives implied. The reason so-called scholars believe that number is vastly inflated is because that many people would take forever to get out of Egypt. The column, they claim, would snake all across the Sinai Peninsula when the first of the people were entering the Promised Land.
God’s word states the numbers very clearly – twice. We have a choice to believe God or believe man. No living witness was there to see it, except God. He is honored by our faith. On the other hand, if we don’t believe what He tells us in His word in this one small detail, what else can’t we believe that His word tells us? The choice to believe God or man in this matter carries a lot of importance. What do you choose?
That number also represents God’s faithfulness to His covenant with Abraham and further promises to Abraham and Jacob (Genesis 15:13-16 and Genesis 46:3-4).
That many people traveling, setting up camp, breaking camp and getting into formation would be chaos. Once again, God addressed this basic need with the plan of organization that He laid out here. Organization is good; with that many people it’s necessary. God not only provided food and water for them; He provided a plan for getting them organized. That teaches me that God understands all of our needs and has a way to meet them. What need of yours do you need to trust Him for today?