Apparently we are in for a lot of counting in the Book of Numbers. We remain at Mt. Sinai as Numbers begins. How are these folks ever going to reach the land of milk and honey if they keep jogging in place?
God spake unto Moses, instructing him to conduct a census of the men 20 years and older who are able bodied for war. The Book of Numbers then provides a mind-numbing amount of counting in the most excessively verbose manner possible. I'm pretty sure the authors of the bible were paid by the word. The census is done tribe by tribe and excludes the Levites. We have 600,000 able bodied men. Wow! So how would you know which tribe each person belongs to, or does each guy know that his great-grandpa was Reuben, Simeon, etc. on through all the sons of Jacob? How would you get them to group together for the headcount? How would you communicate with everyone what you're trying to do?
I bet you're wondering why the tribe of Levi wasn't counted. It turns out they have special tabernacle duties. They're more special than the special people.
Everyone pitches a tent near the tabernacle. I would guess the entire group is well over a million (maybe even two?) if the able bodied men number 600,000. Also, it's important to God that strangers who near the tabernacle are put to death. How would they get near it? That's a pretty big group to plow through. Why would they want to? How would they even know it's there? And how would you know, if you're in a group of a million+ people, who the strangers are?
Numbers is off to an awful start.
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