Chapter 1

As we start, the book is remarkably to-the-point. There is no mucking around, no setting of scenes, no introduction. We skip straight to the action. We are in the Wilderness of Sinai, and in the Tent of Meeting.

A quick note on something that once confused me – the Tent of Meeting isn’t the same thing as the Tabernacle (the mobile temple that the Israelites carried everywhere). The Tent of Meeting was in fact Moses’ personal headquarters. Its name came from the fact that it was where high level meetings took place, both between God and Moses, and between Moses and his staff.

In preparation for heading into the Promised Land, Israel is going to need an army, so God is telling Moses how that’s going to happen. Moses and Aaron are going to conscript every able-bodied male from the age of 20 upwards.

Right away, verses 6 through to 15 tell us the names of divisional commanders (one might call them Generals today), who are each put in charge of the soldiers belonging to their own tribes. Note, by the way, that Joseph’s tribe is subdivided into Manassah and Ephraim. This is significant because it gives us a total of 12 tribes even not counting Levi, which is the tribe set aside for priestly duties.

Verses 17 to 44 lay out the numbers of soldiers in each tribe’s division in excruciating detail. There is a pattern to it – each tribe is named. Then “The men were counted off head by head, every male twenty years and older who was able to fight in the army, registered by clans and families. The tribe of blah numbered blah.”

Finally, verses 45 and 46 caps it off, in the process informing us that there were 603,550 combat-ready soldiers in the army.

Just when we think that the entire chapter is nothing more than a military census, however, we have verses 47-54 which detail the exception, the aforementioned tribe of Levi. The Levites are not to fight in the army; rather, they are to be responsible for the “Dwelling of the Testimony” (Peterson’s term for the Tabernacle). They are to be in charge of its structure and furnishings, and they are to camp around it (with the others camping around THEM as we shall see in future chapters).

The last verse (v54) seems to me important – “The people of Israel did everything that God commanded Moses. They did it all.”

One thing I am always aware of when I read the scriptures is this – what difference does this make to me? Why did God allow us to see this in the Bible?

Well, this chapter’s relevance isn’t all that obvious, and I have to dig a little deeper to work it out (I’m really glad I haven’t been given this text to preach on, by the way).

(Maybe I shouldn’t speak too soon, I might be taunting Murphy given that I haven’t yet seen 2011’s preaching roster!).

The first thing I notice is that we are looking at an enormous population – over half a million soldiers, not counting those who were too young to fight, too old, too Levite or too female. All up, we’d be talking about a total of 2 million people (plus a lot of animals) wandering through the desert. There are those who have pooh-hooed the idea, suggesting that it was impossible.

But the numbers given are realistic. They’re not conveniently round figures; they’re messy figures, (admittedly rounded off to the nearest hundred), showing that some tribes were bigger than others.

If we’re wondering how it was possible to move this many people, there are two keys:

1) The people were HIGHLY organized. And I mean highly. They each knew their place for camping, their officers, their role. The numbers were known, in tribes, clans and families.
2) Tucked away in v54, there’s that nice little verse I mentioned before – they did what God asked them to do. All of it. In other words, these people were obedient and disciplined. That’s critically important – without the obedience and discipline, there’s no way the logistics would work for moving such a mind bogglingly big crowd.

So what for us? Does this verse mean anything to us?

Firstly, it demonstrates the importance of Godly leadership. Moses was commanded to delegate here. Each leader was assigned a particular role. And we can apply this to our own lives and situations – where God grants us a leadership position, passages like this affirm its importance. As leaders, we know God values what we do, and wants it to be done well. As followers, we see our responsibility to support our leaders and to submit to them.

Secondly, it shows us the importance of obedience. As I have said, without it, these people weren’t getting through the desert. For them, the importance of doing as God commands was immediate and obvious. For us it may not be so obvious, but it’s still important for us to listen to God – reading His word, for example! – and to do as He commands.

One last thing – a lot of people (myself included) have struggles with the militaristic God of the Old Testament. But the fact that the Levites are to be separated from the Army seems significant to me. Right away, there is a demonstration of a separation between violence and the worship of God. God doesn’t appear to be a pacifist, of course – He is making it very clear that fighting will become necessary – but He is even now showing that He is not to be worshiped in that way. He’s not a God of War.