We’ve just finished studying the SECOND census of Israel contained in the Book of Numbers.
The first census of Israel was taken soon after Israel left Egypt.
What’s interesting is that in both of these censuses, the Levites were considered as an entirely separate group.
A totally separate census was conducted for them apart from the 12 Tribes of Israel.
The census taken for the regular 12 Tribes and the one taken for the Levites were also different in another very significant way.
I’m referring to the AGES of the men who were counted.
For the census taken for the regular 12 tribes of Israel, only the men who were considered of fighting age were counted.
So we’re talking about men somewhere between 20 to 50 years old.
For the Levite census however, the count began for babies one month and older with no upper limit.
This doesn’t mean that babies who were younger than one month were not considered as human beings.
It only means that until a male had been circumcised on the 8th day per the Abrahamic Covenant and had survived for at least a month, he wasn’t considered a full-fledged member of Israel.
This way of thinking was connected to the high infant mortality rate that existed in those days.
It’s important to understand the difference in purpose between the first census taken 40 years earlier and this new census in Numbers 26 that we’ve just finished studying.
The purpose of the first census was to establish the following two key entities within Israel:
The military and the Priesthood (of Levites)
The purpose for the second census was to determine how much land each tribe would receive once they entered the Promised Land.
Now there is another often overlooked reason why this second census in Numbers 26 was taken.
As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, at this stage in Biblical history, Israel had experienced a near 100% population turnover.
Here’s the thing.
The Lord had commanded that not one person who was of the age of accountability when they left Egypt would be allowed into the Promised Land.
The only exceptions were Joshua and Caleb and that was because of their faithfulness.
Again the reason for this severe judgement was because of Israel’s rebellion at KADESH when the people allowed themselves to be swayed by the negative report of 10 of the 12 scouts who reconnoitered the land of Canaan.
This is a good reminder that the majority can often be WRONG!!!
So this is the other often overlooked reason why this second census here in Numbers 26 was conducted: to make sure to the very person, God’s decree on this matter would be strictly enforced.
There’s an important lesson here.
No one gets into God’s Kingdom minus His permission and no one who should be in His Kingdom will be overlooked.
And as we’ll find out later on in our studies of Scripture, those who were already residing in God’s Kingdom who shouldn’t have been there had to leave or they were to be exterminated.
There was to be no illegal immigration into God’s Kingdom.
We also saw that the overall structure of Israel had changed as some tribes grew in size while others shrunk.
The Tribe of Simeon at this point in time was less than half of the size it was when it left Egypt.
This was prophecy in the making as Jacob on his deathbed pronounced a curse on both Simeon and Levi before he breathed his last breath.
I’m well aware that it is the census portions of Scripture that are usually considered to be the most tedious to read.
But understand there’s a reason why the individual clans and their leaders are specifically spelled out.
It’s to record who belonged to which clan and then which clan belonged to which tribe.
These family connections were everything when it came to partitioning out the land.
First Moses would partition a piece of Canaanite real estate to each tribal leader and then the tribal leader would partition out the land among the clans of his tribe.
Of course, as has always been the way of things and human nature, politics and greed always reared their ugly heads.
The larger and more powerful clans usually received not only more land but land that was considered “superior” in terms of location and being more fertile etcetera while the smaller and weaker clans got what was considered “inferior” real estate.
Okay, so to finally, finally conclude Numbers chapter 26, just understand that the purpose of this census was mainly all about the land inheritance Israel was about to receive.
And as we will see in Numbers chapter 27, even the laws of succession governing land inheritance were not always so simple and black-and-white.
NEXT TIME WE BEGIN NUMBERS CHAPTER 27
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