Numbers: Preparing A People To Conquer (XXIV)

A New Census Of The Conquerors (26:1-65)

Neal Pollard

Even as God is thinning out the population of the faithless wanderers, He’s readying the up and coming generation for the daunting task of conquest. The Lord saw it necessary to get Israel to number “whoever is able to go out to war in Israel” (2). “Numbers” refers to this task of counting the people at God’s prompting. 

WHO DID THE NUMBERING (1-4). Eleazar The High Priest was tasked with this duty. Verse one connects this with the foregoing plague (25:9). 

WHO WAS NUMBERED (5-61). The twelve tribes, here called “the sons of Israel” (4b), who came out of Egypt are the subjects of this census. Reading through, there are a couple of notable sidebars.

First, the Reubenites were missing the sons of Eliab (Nemuel, Dathan, and Abiram, who were swallowed up by the earth). The sons of Korah did not die, and they would pen some of the Psalms (9-11). 

Second, the Manassehites included Zelophehad, who had only daughters (including one named Noah). God provided for the unusual, allowing the daughters to have an inheritance (ch. 27; Josh. 17:1-4)(33). 

The total number of the sons of Israel were 601,730. Therefore, the children of Israel continued to have families and grow them while sojourning through the wilderness. They were replacing the tens of thousands of Israelites who died or were struck dead by God for their disobedience. 

HOW THE NUMBERING WAS UTILIZED (52-65). The land would be divided according to the number of names, with larger groups getting more and smaller groups getting less (53-54). The land would also be divided by lot (55-56), with God choosing where each tribe would settle within Canaan. The Levites would not receive a land inheritance in a specific geographical region (62), living in 48 cities throughout the promised land instead of (35:1-8). Only Caleb and Joshua, of their generation, would live to go in and conquer Canaan. 

This day must have been exciting, but also sobering. An entire generation was prevented from conquering because they refused to do what God said. But out of this spiritual refinery, the next generation was more ready to conquer than ever. They did not carry the emotional, spiritual, and social baggage of Egypt, and they had been made ready to accept what God promised.