Military Preparations in the Wilderness
Now YHWH 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 departed from the land of Egypt.
He said: “Take a census of the entire Israelite community by their clans and families, counting the name of every individual male” (Numbers 1:1-2).
“Numbers” sounds perhaps like an accountant’s paradise and torturous for everyone else. The book’s reputation has likely suffered as a result, which is unfortunate. We have much to gain from an understanding of the Book of Numbers.
“Numbers” is so named from the Greek name for the book; in Hebrew, the book is named for its first real noun: bemidbar, “in the wilderness”, which proves a much more accurate and appropriate title. Whereas we will continue to speak of it as the Book of Numbers, we should remember throughout how it is the book about Israel in the wilderness.
The Book of Numbers is the fourth book of the Torah, or Pentateuch, and was composed and framed to fit within that greater narrative. No author was explicitly identified; tradition throughout the rest of Scripture associated it with Moses himself. While there might well be later inspired editorial explanations and framing, we will consider the majority of the substance to have come from Moses.
The Book of Numbers described preparations and events which remained part of the greater story of Israel wandering in the wilderness. The “wilderness” is appropriately translated as desert by the New English Translation (NET): the whole swath of land east of Egypt and south of Canaan was harsh and intemperate desert. Numbers 1:1-10:10 represented the conclusion of the year Israel spent at Mount Sinai, described throughout Exodus 19:1-40:38 and Leviticus 1:1-27:34 as well. If we take literally and seriously the years presented in Exodus 12:41-42 and 1 Kings 6:1, these events would have taken place around 1450 BCE. Many interpreters and scholars feel more historically comfortable dating these events to around 1250 BCE. The events of Numbers 10:11-17:13 would have taken place in the days and weeks immediately following Israel’s departure from Sinai. No explicit transition is made, but it would seem the forty years of wandering transpired around this time in the narrative; by Numbers 20:1-36:13, the events described seem to take place not long before Moses rehearsed Deuteronomy and Israel then crossed over the Jordan as described in Joshua. Thus these latter events would have taken place around 1410 BCE (1210 BCE?), and Moses would have composed his account of these events around this time.
Thus the Book of Numbers was written to describe the final preparations and departure of Israel from Mount Sinai and their continued wilderness wanderings, featuring the faithlessness of the people, how God condemned almost all of them to die in the wilderness, and ultimately how the people end up at the Jordan River in the land of Moab opposite Jericho.
The Book of Numbers was thus named on account of the many numerical lists in the text, and it begins with one such list: the census which YHWH commanded of the Israelites in Numbers 1:1-54.
If we would properly understand this census and its meaning, we must first do some forgetting. Yes, we know how God will soon condemn that whole generation to die in the wilderness for their persistent faithlessness; yet such a condemnation has not yet taken place when we consider Israel in the wilderness in Numbers 1:1-2:34. At this point in the narrative, God’s purposes remained as they had been in Egypt: He would deliver the Israelites out of Egyptian slavery with a strong hand; He would lead them to the mountain on which He had spoken to Moses, to Horeb in Sinai; and then He would lead them into the land of Canaan as He had promised their ancestors.
To this end YHWH commissioned the census of Israel, made evident in who was being counted and why. YHWH commanded Moses to count “all the males twenty years old or older who could serve in the army” (Numbers 1:1-3ff). God was therefore not simply interested in getting an idea of how many Israelites existed at this time; the military census was only taken as a prelude to preparation for military activity. Thus David would be censured and Israel punished for the census he commanded in 2 Samuel 24:1-25: David was preparing for some kind of war which YHWH had not authorized. Yet here YHWH was preparing Israel for the conquest of Canaan.
YHWH did not expect Moses and Aaron to do this themselves; God even identified the head man of each of the tribes of Israel to help facilitate and execute the census (Numbers 1:4-16). The record of the number of men twenty and over who could participate in war was then provided: 46,500 Reubenites, 59,300 Simeonites, 45,650 Gadites, 74,600 Judahites, 54,400 Issacharites, 57,400 Zebulunites, 40,500 Ephraimites, 32,200 Manassites, 35,400 Benjaminites, 62,700 Danites, 41,500 Asherites, 53,400 Naphtalites, for a total of 603,550 men who could serve in the military (Numbers 1:17-46). The Levites, as dedicated to the service of YHWH, were not counted as part of this military census; they were to remain dedicated to the service of the Tabernacle and would camp around it (Numbers 1:47-54).
YHWH then made provision for the proper order and organization of the camp of the Israelites. What kind of order or organization of the Israelites existed before Sinai was left unrevealed; but from here on out Israel would be traveling with the Ark of the Covenant and all of the furnishings of the Tabernacle, and YHWH intended to emphasize how it would be YHWH and His presence which would protect the Israelites and lead them into the battle. To this end, each tribe would camp by itself; to the east of the Tabernacle, and the front of the Israelite host, would be Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun (Numbers 2:1-9). Reuben, Simeon, and Gad would camp to the south of the Tabernacle and would follow after Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun (Numbers 2:10-16). The Levites would camp around the Tabernacle and would travel in the middle of the Israelite host (Numbers 2:17). Ephraim, Manasseh, and Benjamin would camp to the east of the Tabernacle and would follow the Levites (Numbers 2:18-24). Dan, Asher, and Naphtali would camp to the north of the Tabernacle and would represent the rear of the Israelite host (Numbers 2:25-34).
Many have tried to work out various schemes or frameworks to explain why which tribe was associated with which direction, or why some were prioritized over others. Dan, Asher, and Naphtali would end up obtaining land in the northernmost part of Israel, but so would Issachar and Zebulun; Judah and Simeon would end up at the south, and thus such a scheme falls apart. The tribal associations of the four quadrants thus remain opaque to us. We can make good sense of Judah, Reuben, and Ephraim as prominent as the heads of their various divisions: Reuben was the firstborn of Jacob, and Jacob had promised Judah and Ephraim rule and prominence; perhaps as the firstborn of the slave wives Dan was thus reckoned as also worthy of its prominence.
We can make a few observations about the numbers themselves. At this time it would seem Judah was the most populous tribe (74,600), with Manasseh as the least populous (32,200). These numbers would change during the wilderness wanderings, as the military census taken forty years later would attest (cf. Numbers 26:1-65).
Yet what seems most obvious about the military census is its sheer size. According to the text as we understand it, there were 603,500 men over twenty but able to serve in war. Such would not include men under twenty, all the women, and men who were disabled or in advanced age. Such would mean the total number of Israelites would likely exceed two million people!
It proves challenging to reconcile those numbers with the reality on the ground as we understand it at this point in the Bronze Age of the ancient Near East, as well as with the textual tradition as preserved in Deuteronomy. Ancient authors (in)famously inflated the numbers in armies; consider the accounts of the Persian Wars with the Greeks. It would seem Ramses II was able to field an army of around 100,000 in the early thirteenth century BCE; scholars believe the huge army with which Xerxes invaded Greece in 480 BCE featured 300,000 soldiers at most. It is estimated the whole population of Egypt, notable as one of the most fertile and populous of the ancient Near Eastern societies, would have been between 4 and 5 million people around 1400 BCE; it would be very difficult to imagine the population of Canaan at this time even approaching anywhere near one million. Why this proves challenging can be seen in Deuteronomy 7:1, in which Moses declared the seven nations of Canaan as being more numerous and powerful than the Israelites.
YHWH certainly could have managed such a huge population, providing for them and supplying them in the wilderness; but an army of 603,500 would have been by far the largest in the ancient Near Eastern world at this time, and would make a mockery of Deuteronomy 7:1.
Some scholars suggest the numbers were presented to demonstrate how successfully Israel had grown in population during their Egyptian sojourn, and do not attempt to resolve any tension between these numbers and what Moses declared in Deuteronomy 7:1. Some have suggested the word which would later become “thousands” in Hebrew, ‘eleph, originally meant a type of military unit; in this type of computation the army’s numbers would be decimated and no more than about 60,000, which would still be a very robust army.
Thus we do well to hold lightly to the specific numbers in the military censuses of Israel in the wilderness; we can trust Israel had grown significantly from the 70 people of Jacob’s family who began the sojourn over four hundred years earlier, and would have provided a sufficient base to populate the land of Canaan during and after the conquest, but not so large and vast as to be able to trust in their numerical strength alone, and remained completely and thoroughly dependent on YHWH and His strength for any confidence in victory.
In this way YHWH prepared Israel for what He intended as the upcoming conflict: they would soon leave Sinai, and were thus organized and prepared to go on the march which would eventually lead to Canaan and the conquest. It would all eventually take place, yet not as originally intended. May we learn from the people of God who came before us so we might well glorify God in Christ through the Spirit!
Ethan R. Longhenry
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