February 2, 2020: Day 1 – Numbers 1

A simple guide to the book of Numbers doesn’t really exist.  It is a book which describes the passage of the people of  Israel from Mount Sinai, where they received the 10 Commandments, all the way to the border of the promised land.  Within this book we will find census lists, ancestral promises, divine presence and guidance, revelation and human leadership, holy people and holy priests.  I can’t encourage you enough to hang in there as we make our way through this book of the Bible.  It is here where most people lose interest as they are reading the Bible from beginning to end.  Don’t lose interest.  Let’s look at the first chapter.

Do you remember when God got really, really angry with David because he took a census back in II Samuel 24?  Not so here with Moses in the very first chapter of Numbers.  God actually asks Moses to take a census of how  many young men there would be who might be able to do battle for Israel.  So he counted the 12 tribes and came up with a number for each tribe.  The final number comes out to 603,550.  Remember this doesn’t include women and children or the tribe of Levi which was the priestly class.  That is a lot of people for back then!

I love the detail of the last verses which describe the Levites from vs.48 to the end of the chapter.  It describes this priestly class and their roles and their responsibilities and how they were not counted as those who were to go to battle because they had very specific religious duties that they had to fulfill.  Keep this tribe in the front of your mind because we will see them play a primary role a bit later on.