Numbers 1:46

_SO WERE ALL THOSE THAT WERE NUMBERED OF THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL, BY THE HOUSE OF THEIR FATHERS, FROM TWENTY YEARS OLD AND UPWARD, ALL THAT WERE ABLE TO GO FORTH TO WAR IN ISRAEL;_ Six hundred thousand ... What an astonishing increase! And yet this enumeration was restricted to men from 20 years old and upward. Including women, children, and old men, together with the Levites, the whole population of Israel, on the ordinary principles of computation, amounted to about 2,400,000. According to a calculation made on the basis of this census, which gave this extraordinary result of 603,550 men capable of bearing arms, each married man among the Israelites must have had a family of forty-two children. But if the Israelites had confined themselves each to single wife, such a high figure is inexplicable. It became possible only by admitting that among the Hebrews polygamy was tolerated and exte...

44-46 We have here the sum total. How much was required to maintain all these in the wilderness! They were all provided for by God every day. When we observe the faithfulness of God, however unlikely the performance of his promise may appear, we may take courage as to those which yet remain to be fulfilled to the church of God....

Verse Numbers 1:46. _ALL THEY THAT WERE NUMBERED WERE SIX HUNDRED THOUSAND_ _AND THREE THOUSAND AND FIVE HUNDRED AND FIFTY._] What an astonishing increase from _seventy_ souls that went down into Egypt, Genesis 46:27, about 215 years before, where latterly they had endured the greatest hardships! But God's promise cannot fail (Genesis 16:5;) and who can resist his will, and bring to naught his counsel? That a comparative view may be easily taken of the state of the tribes, I shall produce them here from the first census mentioned in the first chapter of this book, in their _decreasing_ proportion, beginning with the _greatest_ and proceeding to the _least_; and in the second cen...

The enrollment, being taken principally for military purposes (compare Numbers 1:3, Numbers 1:20), would naturally be arranged by hundreds, fifties, etc. (cf. 2Ki 1:9, 2 Kings 1:11, 2 Kings 1:13). In eleven tribes the number enrolled consists of complete hundreds. The difference, in this respect, observable in the case of the tribe of Gad here Numbers 1:25, and of the tribe of Reuben at the later census Numbers 26:7, is prob

EXPOSITION THE CENSUS TAKEN (Numbers 1:17-4). NUMBERS 1:17 THESE MEN. Designated by direct command of God; yet probably the same, or some of the same, selected by Moses for obvious personal and social reasons a short time before (Exodus 18:25). NUMBERS 1:18 ON THE FIRST DAY OF THE SECOND MONTH. The natural meaning is that the census was completed in one day. If so, the "census papers," the pedigrees and family lists, must have been ready beforehand. Notice had in fact

EVEN ALL THEY THAT WERE NUMBERED,.... Of whom an account was taken, and their names set down in a book or register: were 603,550; which was exactly the number of them, when taken about seven months before this, when they were assessed for defraying the expenses of the tabernacle, Exodus 38:26; so that it should seem not one person had died during that time; for though there were three that died a violent death in that compass of time, yet two of them were of the tribe of Levi, not now numbered; and the other was not an Israelite by the father's side; see Leviticus 10:1; but it is not very probable, among such a vast number of people, that not one above twenty years of age should die in that time: some therefore are of opinion, that the tribe of Levi was numbered before, though not now; and that there was s

ANALYSIS AND ANNOTATIONS I. THE PREPARATION FOR THE JOURNEY 1. The People Numbered CHAPTER 1 _ 1. The command to number (Numbers 1:1)_ 2. The appointed helpers for the work (Numbers 1:5) 3. The congregation assembled (Numbers 1:17) 4. The twelve tribes numbered (Numbers 1:20) 5. The Levites separated unto the tabernacle service (Numbers 1:47) It was exactly one month after the erection of the tabernacle that the Lord gave the commandment to Moses to number the people. This is seen by comparing

NUMBERS 1:1 (from P, which is used uninterruptedly as far as Numbers 10:28). THE NUMBERING OF THE SECULAR TRIBES. The date of this census is about eleven months after the arrival at Mt. Sinai (Exodus 19:1), and exactly a month after the erection of the Tabernacle (Exodus 40:17). The numbering, which was to proceed by _families_ (_i.e._ by clans) and by _father_-'_ s houses_ (_i.e._ by families), was to embrace all men over twenty (who might be thought capable of bearing arms). In the undertaking, Moses and Aaron were to be assisted by a representative of each of the tribes. Since the method by which a large propo

ALL THEY. The number in Exodus 12:37 is not "exaggerated", as the number here had increased since then; moreover, the numbers here coincide with the numbers of the half-shekels, which had been contributed by them in Exodus 30:14 with Exodus 38:25; Exodus 38:26, before the tabernacle was set up. Compare Exodus 38:25 with Exodus 40:17....

The numbers ascertained by the census. There can be no doubt that the numbers given in chs. 1 3 and 26 are purely artificial. Gray (_Numbers_, pp. 10 15) shews that (1) they are impossible, (2) when compared with each other they yield absurd results, (3) they are inconsistent with numbers given in Hebrew literature earlier than P. (1) The number of male Israelites of fighting age is put at 603,550, which appears in round numbers as 600,000 in Numbers 11:21; Exodus 12:37. But the fighting men could form hardly more than a quarter of the whole; so that the population would reach a total of some 2¼ millions. The present population of the Sinaitic peninsula is estimated at from 4,000 to 6,000, and a body of over 2 million people could not find subsistence even if dispersed all over the peninsula.