NUMBERS 26


Moses Commanded To Take A New Census


1 And it came to pass after the plague [magefah] [Ch 25], that Yahweh spake unto Moses [Moshe] and unto Eleazar the son of Aaron the priest [Ben Aharon HaKohen], saying,


The plague was a punishment for joining Baalpeor

Israel abode in Shittim, and the people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab. And they called the people unto the sacrifices of their gods: and the people did eat, and bowed down to their gods. And Israel joined himself unto Baalpeor: and the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel - Num 25: 1-3.

"those that died in the plague were twenty and four thousand" - 25: 9.

Your eyes have seen what Yahweh did because of Baalpeor: for all the men that followed Baalpeor, Yahweh thy Elohim hath destroyed them from among you. - Deut 4: 3

It is found that whereas the people multiplied rapidly in Egypt, they have decreased in the wilderness wandering... fewer enter the Land than passed through the Red Sea.

...At the Judgment Seat of Christ, there will be a decrease of numbers from those who have passed through the waters of baptism.

Israel was subjected to two baptisms: through the Red Sea (salt water), and through the Jordan (fresh water), answering to the baptism of water and of the spirit through which a believer must pass in order first to see, and then enter the Kingdom (see John 3:3,5). *




2 Take the sum [rosh (census)] of all the congregation of the children of Israel [kol Adat Bnei Yisroel], from 20 years old and upward, throughout their fathers' house [bais avot], all that are able to go to war [yotzei tzava] in Israel [Yisroel].


The first census Num 1: 2

"on the 1st day of the 2nd month, in the 2nd year after they were come out of the land of Egypt"

...each adult must pay the necessary ransom money...*

When thou takest the sum [census] of the children of Israel after their number, then shall they give every man a ransom for his soul unto the Lord, when thou numberest them; that there be no plague among them, when thou numberest them - Ex 30: 12.




...the people were numbered a second time viz., at the end of the forty years' sojourn in the wilderness (Num. 26:2, 63),

... calamities that befel them during the forty years on account of their rebellions, and in the steady action of the hand of God against them to weed out the whole generation that dishonoured Him by refusing to enter the land on receiving the evil report of the spies (Deut. 2:14-15).

What counterpart can there be to this second numbering, if it be not in the second and final adjustment of human affairs that takes place at the close of the thousand years?

...The world is settled upon a divine foundation; it has received the law proceeding from Zion, and in a sense has been the subject of a divine census and declaration of pedigree; but it is not a final settlement. There are murmurings against the prophet like unto Moses, as shown by the need for withholding the rain from disobedient communities (Zech. 14:17).

At the finish, there is a grand revolt and widespread concerted effort to overthrow the government of Christ (Rev. 20:8-9), which evokes the destructive anger of heaven. "Fire descends from God out of heaven and destroys them "like Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. Then ensues the final numbering of the people and settlement of pedigree for ever.

All whose names are not written as the children of Abraham are destroyed; the rest live for ever, and enter upon the state finally figured by the land of promise--the inheritance of the earth, in the peace, prosperity, and perfection of immortality--no more death, and no more increase in population.

Law of Moses Ch 32



52 And Yahweh spake unto Moses [Moshe], saying,

53 Unto these the land shall be divided for an inheritance [allotted for a nachalah] according to the number [ mispar] of names [shmot].

54 To many thou shalt give the more inheritance [To those large of number thou shalt give the larger nachalah] , and to few thou shalt give the less inheritance [smaller nachalah]: to every one shall his inheritance [nachalah] be given according to those that were numbered of him.

55 Notwithstanding the land [HaAretz] shall be divided by lot [goral]: according to the names of the tribes of their fathers [Shmot Mattot of their Avot] they shall inherit.


THE DIVISION OF THE LAND


The Law saw to it that those who occupied the Covenant Land should be under no illusions from the very outset as to the moral obligations of their tenancy, or as to its conditional character. God had promised "I will bring you in unto the land ... and I will give it you for an heritage: I am the Lord". The terms of the promise were significant: "I will give it you". There was no question at all of the nation's possessing a right to it: it was a gift. The Law, in characteristic fashion, employed a variety of devices in order to bring this fact home to the people.

The first of these devices was the method prescribed for the division of the Land immediately it was invaded. It stood to reason that large tribes would need far more territory than much smaller ones. So, on the basis of equity, God decreed to Moses, "To many thou shalt give the more inheritance, and to the few thou shalt give the less inheritance". This was just and proper: the extent of the territory assigned to each tribe had clearly to be determined by its needs.

"To everyone shall his inheritance be given according to those that were numbered of him".

Yet there was to be no question of the powerful seizing the best for themselves, or of human conceptions of justice deciding the actual location of each tribe's inheritance. Hence the rule-

"Notwithstanding the land shall be divided by lot. According to the lot shall the possession thereof be divided between many and few" (Num. 26: 52-56). 

Each tribe had the right and duty to send a representative to supervise the drawing of the lots (Num. 34 : 18), but the actual allocation of the tribal areas was to be the prerogative of God alone. Only He, as Owner of the Land, had the right to decide precisely where each tribe should settle in it.

For the same reason the sub-division of the tribal inheritance had to be conducted according to the same principle. 

"Ye shall divide the land by lot for an inheritance among your families". Once again the actual amount of land allotted to each family was to be in strict proportion to the population to be supported by it; but the actual location of each family's estate within the tribe's inheritance was, like the location of that inheritance itself, to be decided by no one but God. "Every man's inheritance shall be in the place where his lot falleth" (Num. 33 : 54)·

It was in order to maintain this principle as a rule for posterity that a special law was promulgated, forbidding daughters who were their fathers' sole heirs to marry men not of their own tribe,

"that the children of Israel may enjoy every man the inheritance of his fathers. Neither shall the inheritance remove from one tribe to another tribe" (Num. 36: I-9).

Law and Grace Ch 11.



59 And the name of Amram's wife was Jochebed, the daughter of Levi, whom her mother bare to Levi in Egypt: and she bare unto Amram Aaron and Moses, and Miriam their sister.

Scripture Names Doctrinally Applicable to Christ

Jochebed: (Yokhebhedh). Yahweh shall be the glory)

"When Yahweh shall build up Zion, he shall appear in his glory."—(Ps. 102:16.)

The Christadelphian, June 1873