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. He said: 2“Take a census of the whole Israelite community by their clans and families, listing every man by name, one by one. 3You and Aaron are to number by their divisions all the men in Israel twenty years old or more who are able to serve in the army. 4One man from each tribe, each the head of his family, is to help you. 5These are the names of the men who are to assist you: from Reuben, Elizur son of Shedeur;
6from Simeon, Shelumiel son of Zurishaddai;
7from Judah, Nahshon son of Amminadab;
8from Issachar, Nethanel son of Zuar;
9from Zebulun, Eliab son of Helon;
10from the sons of Joseph:
from Ephraim, Elishama son of Ammihud;
from Manasseh, Gamaliel son of Pedahzur;
11from Benjamin, Abidan son of Gideoni;
12from Dan, Ahiezer son of Ammishaddai;
13from Asher, Pagiel son of Ocran;
14from Gad, Eliasaph son of Deuel;
15from Naphtali, Ahira son of Enan.”
16These were the men appointed from the community, the leaders of their ancestral tribes. They were the heads of the clans of Israel.
17Moses and Aaron took these men whose names had been given, 18and they called the whole community together on the first day of the second month. The people indicated their ancestry by their clans and families, and the men twenty years old or more were listed by name, one by one, 19as the LORD commanded Moses. And so he counted them in the Desert of Sinai:
20From the descendants of Reuben the firstborn son of Israel: All the men twenty years old or more who were able to serve in the army were listed by name, one by one, according to the records of their clans and families. 21The number from the tribe of Reuben was 46,500.
22From the descendants of Simeon:
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. 23The number from the tribe of Simeon was 59,300.
24From the descendants of Gad:
All the men twenty years old or more who were able to serve in the army were listed by name, according to the records of their clans and families. 25The number from the tribe of Gad was 45,650.
26From the descendants of Judah:
All the men twenty years old or more who were able to serve in the army were listed by name, according to the records of their clans and families. 27The number from the tribe of Judah was 74,600.
28From the descendants of Issachar:
All the men twenty years old or more who were able to serve in the army were listed by name, according to the records of their clans and families. 29The number from the tribe of Issachar was 54,400.
30From the descendants of Zebulun:
All the men twenty years old or more who were able to serve in the army were listed by name, according to the records of their clans and families. 31The number from the tribe of Zebulun was 57,400.
32From the sons of Joseph:
From the descendants of Ephraim:
All the men twenty years old or more who were able to serve in the army were listed by name, according to the records of their clans and families. 33The number from the tribe of Ephraim was 40,500.
34From the descendants of Manasseh:
All the men twenty years old or more who were able to serve in the army were listed by name, according to the records of their clans and families. 35The number from the tribe of Manasseh was 32,200.
36From the descendants of Benjamin:
All the men twenty years old or more who were able to serve in the army were listed by name, according to the records of their clans and families. 37The number from the tribe of Benjamin was 35,400.
38From the descendants of Dan:
All the men twenty years old or more who were able to serve in the army were listed by name, according to the records of their clans and families. 39The number from the tribe of Dan was 62,700.
40From the descendants of Asher:
All the men twenty years old or more who were able to serve in the army were listed by name, according to the records of their clans and families. 41The number from the tribe of Asher was 41,500.
42From the descendants of Naphtali:
All the men twenty years old or more who were able to serve in the army were listed by name, according to the records of their clans and families. 43The number from the tribe of Naphtali was 53,400.
44These were the men counted by Moses and Aaron and the twelve leaders of Israel, each one representing his family. 45All the Israelites twenty years old or more who were able to serve in Israel’s army were counted according to their families. 46The total number was 603,550.
47The families of the tribe of Levi, however, were not counted along with the others. 48The LORD had said to Moses: 49“You must not count the tribe of Levi or include them in the census of the other Israelites. 50Instead, appoint the Levites to be in charge of the tabernacle of the Testimony—over all its furnishings and everything belonging to it. They are to carry the tabernacle and all its furnishings; they are to take care of it and encamp around it. 51Whenever the tabernacle is to move, the Levites are to take it down, and whenever the tabernacle is to be set up, the Levites shall do it. Anyone else who goes near it shall be put to death. 52The Israelites are to set up their tents by divisions, each man in his own camp under his own standard. 53The Levites, however, are to set up their tents around the tabernacle of the Testimony so that wrath will not fall on the Israelite community. The Levites are to be responsible for the care of the tabernacle of the Testimony.”
54The Israelites did all this just as the LORD commanded Moses.
Original Meaning
JUST AS LEVITICUS BEGINS with a speech by the Lord to Moses “from the Tent of Meeting” (1:1), Numbers commences with a divine speech “in the Tent of Meeting” (1:1). This verse provides additional information regarding the geographical and chronological setting: “in the Desert of Sinai on the first day of the second month of the second year after the Israelites came out of Egypt.”
Before the Israelites resume their journey, the Lord commands that they take a military census of men twenty years old or more who are to serve as soldiers (1:2–3). This is preliminary to the organization of a “people’s army,” with no upper age limit for retirement, which can exert maximum force to conquer Canaan. Although the census report, with its names, numbers, and repetitions, may not excite the modern reader, the event surely would quicken the pulse of the Israelites because it heralds dramatic events leading to the fulfillment of the Lord’s promise to give them the Promised Land, where at last they will have a permanent home.
The count is accomplished fairly quickly (cf. 1:1; 10:11—less than twenty days; contrast 2 Sam. 24:8) because it is organized like a modern election in that groups (in this case, clans) simultaneously collect their own tallies of names and then hand them over to higher level of supervisors (tribal chiefs and Moses). This mustering of troops (verb pqd + ṣabaʾ Num. 1:3) is similar in terminology and procedures to military censuses elsewhere in the ancient Near East during the second millennium B.C., especially at Mari.1 Later, during the Israelite monarchy, several censuses served basically the same purpose: to assess and organize military human resources (2 Sam. 24:9; 2 Chron. 17:13–18; 25:5 [also from age twenty]; 26:11–13).
As we would expect for a tribal nation, the Numbers 1 census is structured according to hierarchical social groups determined by the patriarchal family tree (1:2). A chieftain representing each tribe (1:3–16)2 assists Moses and Aaron, the high priest. Each tribe constitutes a major army division, within which members of the same “father’s house” belonging to each clan will fight alongside each other.
The high priest’s involvement is appropriate because the Israelites are preparing for holy war, in which they will fight under the Lord’s direction. Priests are to be involved with warfare in several ways. Before each battle the high priest is to encourage the troops that God is with them to give them victory (Deut. 20:2–4). Also through him, undoubtedly by means of the Urim and Thummim in his breastplate, the army can inquire of the Lord for guidance in making military decisions (Judg. 20:27–28). Later in Numbers, Phinehas, son of Eleazar the high priest, goes into battle against the Midianites with some temple utensils and signal trumpets (Num. 31:6).
The fact that Moses promptly implements the census on the same day the Lord gives him the command (1:17–19) conveys the impression that he is eager to get rolling. Verses 20–43 list the total number of potential fighting men from each of the twelve tribes. These numbers range from a high of 74,600 for Judah (v. 27) to a low of 32,200 for Manasseh (v. 35). The grand total is 603,550 (v. 46).
The military census does not include a thirteenth tribe—Levi—because the Levites are not to be part of the regular army. Rather, their job is to guard and take care of the tabernacle. Thus, they are counted separately later on (chs. 3–4). There are thirteen tribes because faithful Joseph, the oldest son of Jacob’s first love Rachel, received a double inheritance when Jacob gave Joseph’s two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, equal status with his own sons (Gen. 48). Because of the uniquely loyal role of the Levites at the time of the golden calf episode, God gave them privileged status as his servants at the sanctuary (Ex. 32:26–29).
Numbers 1 concludes with a simple notice of compliance: “The Israelites did all this just as the LORD commanded Moses” (1:54). This obedience is the initial benchmark for the book of Numbers, but as the book progresses, we will find that on more than one occasion the people do everything but what the Lord commands through Moses.
Bridging Contexts
HOW MANY ISRAELITES were there? According to Exodus 12:37–38, the Israelites who left Egypt were “about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children. Many other people went up with them, as well as large droves of livestock, both flocks and herds” (Ex. 12:37–38). The census of Numbers 1 supplies a more precise figure: In the second year after their departure from Egypt there are 603,550 able-bodied Israelite men who are twenty years of age or more (Num. 1:46). This number does not include any females, males below age twenty, elderly and infirm males, 22,000 male Levites a month old or more (Num. 3:39), or non-Israelites who left Egypt with the Israelites (Ex. 12:38). Another military census at the end of the desert wandering totals 601,730 (Num. 26:51). Adding all these groups according to normal demographic ratios, the total community can hardly have been less than two million and may have been considerably more than that.
Although the beginning of the book of Exodus testifies to explosive Israelite population growth in Egypt, which alarmed Pharaoh to the point that he instituted drastic and brutal measures to slow it down, many scholars do not believe that the Israelite community numbered in the hundreds of thousands or millions by the time it broke away from Egyptian rule. Problems include the length of time it would have taken for that many people to cross the Red Sea; impossible logistics of daily providing food and water for so many people and their cattle in a desert environment, even if it were less arid than in modern times; rugged terrain in the Sinai Peninsula, which would make moving around and camping difficult for a big group; and lack of archaeological support for a population group so large, whether in Egypt, the desert, or Canaan.3
Some have suggested ingenious ways to lower the Israelite population at the time of the Exodus. N. Sarna argues that the high figures accurately reflect the population at the time of the united monarchy, centuries later.4 G. Mendenhall has proposed that in the census reports of Numbers 1 and 26, the Hebrew word ʾelep (“thousand”) carries a technical meaning referring to a military contingent.5 If so, there would have been about six hundred contingents, which could have added up to far fewer than 600,000+ fighting men.6
The solutions of Sarna and Mendenhall contradict the plain sense of the biblical text. In response to Sarna, within the narrative contexts of Exodus and Numbers the 600,000+ men were counted when the Israelites left Egypt and lived in the desert, not during the reign of David. David conducted his own military (not total population) census (2 Sam. 24:9; 1 Chron. 21:5–6). An attempt to transfer the 600,000+ from its context to the time of the united monarchy must inconsistently accept the figures in the book of Numbers but discount the historicity of the census figures in 2 Samuel and 1 Chronicles.7
Another passage to take into account is Judges 20:2: “The leaders of all the people of the tribes of Israel took their places in the assembly of the people of God, four hundred thousand soldiers armed with swords.” This was a voluntary assembly (not a comprehensive census) that convened soon after the conquest of Canaan (cf. 20:28) and did not include the army of Benjamin, which numbered “twenty-six thousand swordsmen from their towns, in addition to seven hundred chosen men from those living in Gibeah” (20:15). B. Scolnic has shown that in this context ʾelep must be “thousand” rather than “military unit” for the narrative to make sense.8
With regard to Mendenhall’s approach, the biblical data do not allow for ʾelep in the census reports to be anything other than the numeral “thousand.” (1) Note how Numbers 1 and 26 follow ʾelep with numeric units down to hundreds and tens.9 For example, “six hundred three thousand [ʾelep] five hundred fifty” (1:46 NRSV; see also 2:32). If Mendenhall were correct, there would be 603 “clans,” but what sense would “five hundred fifty” make? This number is comprehensible only if ʾelep is the higher numeral “thousand.” Others have proposed a clever solution to the problem (in the context of 2:32):
The total in verse 32 would originally have been written 598 military divisions (ʾlp), 5 thousand (ʾlp) and 5 hundred men. But at some point in the transmission of the text the two words were confused and added together to make 603 thousand. If this solution is correct, the size of the Israelite group that left Egypt would have been about 20,000.10
This is attractive because it gets the numbers down to a manageable size, but it is conjecture and does not solve other problems (see below).
(2) In the separate censuses of Levites, there are 22,000 (Num. 3:39) and later 23,000 males a month old or more (26:62).
We are outside the military realm when we speak of Levites, so we cannot be talking about “contingents.” Even if we were, we could not have twenty-two units of zero men. If the figure 22,000 stands as is, it destroys the proportions set up by the “contingent” theory, which has seven hundred thirty men in the largest tribe.11
(3) In 3:43, “the total number of firstborn males a month old or more, listed by name, was 22,273.” What does that mean? Were there military contingents of non-Levite firstborn that included babies? If this is to be read as a straightforward number of firstborn males, how does it affect the idea that the total number of Israelite men, women, and children amounted to about 20,000, or 40,000 for that matter?
(4) In Exodus 38:25–26 the amount of silver gathered through a half shekel tax on each Israelite who was counted (in accordance with 30:12–16) corresponds to that of 603,550 men, taking ʾelep as “thousand.” We know that this census was earlier than that of Numbers 1, where the head count was exactly the same (Num. 1:46), because the silver collected in this way was used for constructing parts of the sanctuary (Ex. 38:27–28). While we do not have enough information to determine the extent to which the Israelites repeated the census process (did the Num. 1 census utilize data from Ex. 38?), it is clear that Exodus 38 and Numbers 1 emphasize different outcomes: silver and soldiers, respectively.
(5) Numbers 31:32–40 counts animals and persons captured in the war against the Midianites. Formatting of numbers is the same as in the census reports of chapters 1 and 26, but here ʾelep obviously cannot refer to a tribal/military subunit of animals.
At least according to the plain sense of the final form of the biblical text, Exodus and Numbers clearly indicate that the number of Israelites is large in order to make a thematic point: God has fulfilled his promise to the patriarchs that they would have a multitude of descendants (Gen. 13:16; 15:5; 16:10, etc.).12 These books also repeatedly acknowledge the practical impossibilities involved in getting them across the Red Sea and keeping them alive in the desert with all their animals. There is no way this could have happened without the miracles recorded in these books. Anyone who does not accept the possibility of miracles must reject the census figures out of hand.13
As to geographic and archaeological problems, until scholars definitively establish the route of the Exodus and desert wandering and fully account for populations of tent-dwellers that leave almost no trace of material remains, there are too many open-ended variables to make a confident comparison with the biblical census figures. Thus, the bottom line is that the problem of Israelite population remains unresolved,14 but this by no means wipes out our ability to grasp the message of the book of Numbers.
Contemporary Significance
FIGHTING AS A FAMILY. According to Numbers 1, the Lord directs that the Israelite army be organized by family units. Thus, each soldier must train and fight alongside his relatives. There are several advantages to this. (1) Soldiers already have experience working with their relatives, so they can concentrate on developing military skills without the added burden of building new relationships with strangers. (2) The tribal social structure provides a ready-made system of military leadership. (3) Most important, soldiers have tremendous incentive to protect their fellow soldiers and effectively cooperate with them. A casualty will not simply be a fellow private first class, sergeant, or lieutenant; he will also be a brother, cousin, or uncle!
Do Christian family members need to fight alongside one another today? In Ephesians 6:10–12, Paul describes a battle “against the spiritual forces of evil” in which each Christian is involved. We need each other’s support as a “family” of believers (Gal. 6:10; cf. 1 Peter 4:17). This “family” encompasses all spiritual “brothers and sisters” (cf. Gal. 3:26–29; 1 Pet. 3:8), including physical family members (e.g., Eph. 5:21–6:4; 1 Pet. 3:1–7). Like the ancient Israelites, we are stronger together as bonded units than if we try to fight alone. If anyone thinks that he or she is as strong spiritually as Samson was physically, remember that as a one man army, solitary Samson made no lasting impact (Judg. 14–16).
In the context of the good fight of faith (1 Tim. 1:18; 6:12), every Christian social unit takes on significance as a kind of “military” unit. Church communities and their subdivisions—spouses, parents, children, and extended family members—are not simply companions and helpers for each other; we are fellow soldiers in a high-stakes battle that is real even if most of it is unseen. Like the Israelites, we fight alongside those who are dear to us and to whom we are precious. We have life-and-death motivation not only to win, but to help each other win, because if they do not, we lose.
When physical or spiritual family members turn on each other, it is civil war, which weakens everyone and makes them easy prey. This is why a crucial step from brokenness to victory is repentance that turns the hearts of family members back to each other (cf. Mal. 4:6). By God’s grace, we must fight evil together as a family.