Numbers 26

In the second verse we read,—"Take the sum of all the congregation of the children of Israel." We have had that instruction before. God is a God of numbers. He numbereth the stars; and as for those who hold sweet counsel together respecting him and his kingdom, he says,—"They shall be mine in that day when I make up my jewels." "The very hairs of your head are all numbered"—not counted only, but singled out as if each particular hair bore its own number. Whatever will assist the imagination in the direction of recognising the exquisiteness and minuteness of the divine care may be employed in this service of exposition. As we said when the census was first taken, God could have numbered the people himself, but instead of undertaking the work himself he appointed others to carry out his purpose. God is always numbering. He may number to find out who are present, but in numbering to find out who are present he soon comes to know who are absent He knows the total number, but it is not enough for him to know the totality: he must know whether David's place is empty, whether the younger son has gone from the father's house, whether one piece of silver out of ten has been lost, whether one sheep out of a hundred has gone astray. We are all of consequence to the Father, because he does not look upon us through the glory of his majesty but through the solicitude of his fatherhood and his love. Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; it were better for a man that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depths of the sea, than that he should offend—wound the heart of—one of these little ones. So, everywhere we find God concerning himself with individuals, with single families, with solitary lives,—stooping in marvellous condescension, sweeping the house diligently until he find the one piece that was lost. We need this kind of thought in human life: living would be weary work without it. If we do not need the thought every day in the week, we need it twice over some days, and so we make up the average of necessity. The earth needs the sky. Even in the larger world of thought, history, science, it is not enough to have mere facts, measurable as to their magnitude and numerable as to their succession. Even literature has its poetry, its fiction,—its noble imagination. There is a great philosophy in all this. The human heart will not be caged within small bars; if it must be caged, it will be bounded only by the infinity of God. So the hardest mind has its religion; it calls that religion "poetry," "imagination," "fiction"; but it has its larger world. This same thought runs through all time, all life. Even the day has its night of dreams. So, we need the comforting thought that God looks after us, numbers us, and makes a register in which the meanest name is written down with palpable and infinite care.

This chapter reads very much like the other chapter in which the census was first taken. The same great and noble names recur. Who could distinguish between the first chapter of Numbers and the twenty-sixth if they were read in immediate succession? Who would not declare that the chapters are identical? Yet they are not the same. The vision that mistakes them as being identical is a clouded eye; the ear that thinks it hears the same music in the enumeration of the names is an ear not trained to the discrimination of the finer sound: it is a rough ear—a mere highway of sound, not critical, watching, balancing and understanding the minuter tones and the tones that are subdued and so finely-coloured as to seem to be without flush of light. So roughly do we read the Bible, that we imagine that every chapter is like every other chapter. We do not number after God's critical method, but after some rude and coarse way of our own, by which we miss all finest lines, all tenderest suggestion of life and mystic presence. But are there not many names just the same? Yes, the generic names are the same. Still we read, even in the twenty-sixth chapter of Numbers, of Reuben and Simeon, of Judah and Issachar, of Zebulun and Joseph, of Manasseh and Ephraim, of Benjamin and Dan, and Asher and Naphtali. The historic names are the same, but what a going-down in the detail! We must enter into this thought and follow its applications if we would be wise in history: generic names are permanent, but the detail of life is a panorama continually changing. It is so always and everywhere. The world has its great generic and permanent names, and it is not enough to know these and to recite them with thoughtless fluency. Who could not take the statistics of the world in general names? Then we should have the wise and the foolish, the rich and the poor, the faithful and the faithless, the good and the bad. That has been the record of life from the beginning; and yet that is too broadly-lined to be of any real service to us in the estimate of human prayers and human moral quality. What about the detailed numbers, the individual men, the particular households, the children in the crowd? It was in these under-lines that the great changes took place. The bold, leading names remained the same, but they stood up like monumental stones over graves in which thousands of men had been buried. So with regard to our own actions: we speak of them too frequently with generic vagueness: we are wanting in the persistent criticism that will never allow two threads of life to be intertangled, that must have them separated and specifically examined. God will have no roughness of judgment, no bold vagueness, no mere striking of averages; but heart-searching, weighing—not the action: any manufactured scales might weigh a deed. He will have the motive weighed, the invisible force, the subtle, ghostly movement that stirs the soul; not to be found out by human wisdom, but to be seized, detected, examined, estimated, and determined by the living Spirit of the living God. That is how a man's actions, motives, and whole inner life must be weighed and estimated.

The sin of the individual does not destroy the election of the race. Israel is still here, but almost countless thousands of Israelites have sinned and gone to their doom. With all this individual criticism and specific numbering, do not imagine that it lies within the power of any man to stop the purpose or arrest the kingdom of God. There is a consolatory view of all human tumult and change, as well as a view that tries the faith and exhausts the patience of the saint Balaam could not curse Israel, but Israel cursed himself. That is always so. No man outside of us can do us any permanent harm, though his tongue be set on fire of hell and he have the wit of Beelzebub in the invention of evil and malignant accusations. Balaam brought Israel to curse himself. What highest prophet cannot do externally the meanest tempter may do internally and spiritually. Balaam brought Israel into entanglement with the Midianitish women, and in one day four-and-twenty thousand Israelites fell—suicides!—not blasted by an external curse of priest or prophet or magical conjurer, but lapsed in heart, devoted to things forbidden,—self-damned. What wonder if God would have the people renumbered—not only that he might take some account of life but make a solemn registry of death? It is well to number the dead, to tell of what diseases they die, and to have our attention directed to the silent cemetery as well as to the tumultuous city. How stands the kingdom then? The kingdom still stands. Did we suppose that four-and-twenty thousand Israelites all caught in sin and all smitten with a common plague would arrest the kingdom of God? What a mischievous imagination! What a shallow and foolish sophism! The kingdom is decreed, the covenant is made, and none can hinder. We bewilder ourselves by looking at individual sinners, or by fixing our wondering attention upon individual saints or believers, and saying,—What progress can the kingdom of heaven make when prominent Christians are so faulty in character or in spirit? We then talk as foolish people talk. The kingdom of heaven is an everlasting kingdom: it moves on through city and cemetery, up steep hills and down dark valleys, and nothing can arrest its progress. It is not in the power of the individual—let us say again—to stop the upbuilding of the theocracy. We lament that a man here or there should have done wrong,—why, if four-and-twenty thousand men were all to do wrong to-day and die, the kingdom is not touched: the four corners of it stand to the wind and defy the tempest. The counsels of eternity are not exposed to the irregularities of time. God has decreed that man shall bear his image and likeness and shall be beautiful with ineffable comeliness, and Philistine, or Canaanite, or Moabite, cannot keep back the purpose from ultimate fulfilment. We live in a sanctuary; we are bound to an infinite thought. It is pitiful for any Christian man to talk about individual instances of lapse or faithlessness, as though they touched the infinite calm of the mind of God and the infinite integrity of the covenant of Heaven. It is so in all other departments of life—why not so on the largest and noblest scale? The nation may be an honest nation, though a thousand felons may be under lock and key at the very moment when the declaration of the national honesty is made; the nation may be declared to be a healthy country, though ten thousand men be burning with fever at the very moment the declaration of health is made. So the Church of the living Christ, redeemed at an infinite cost, sealed by an infinite love, is still the Lamb's Bride, destined for the heavenly city, though in many instances there may be defalcation, apostasy,—yea, very treason against truth and good. Live in the larger thought; do not allow the mind to be troubled and distressed by individual instances. The kingdom is one, and, like the seamless robe, must be taken in its unity.

Individuals must not trust to ancestral piety. Individual Israelites might have quoted the piety of many who had gone before; but that piety goes for nothing when the individual will is in rebellion against God. No man has any overplus of piety. No man may bequeath his piety to his posterity. A man cannot bequeath his learning,—how can he bequeath his holiness? It does not lie within a testator's power to leave wisdom to any child of his; how, then, can he leave to any child of his character, good standing before the heavens? Nor must the individual trust to the divine covenant in the time of his evil-doing and in his devotion to the Baal of Midian; the covenant will not save him; he cannot break the covenant, for the covenant relates to larger lines, to further issues; and though he be left like a dead dog in the wilderness, the army will go on and the Church will be admitted into heaven. A wondrous conception is this thought that human detail does not interfere with divine purpose; and a marvellous thing it is to fix the mind upon the intention of God to create in the long run a humanity that cannot die. When theology, in its boldest propositions, comes to be restated in the light of the completest research and experience, the mind will be projected to points of issue, and will be enabled to take in such comprehensive views of divine thought and purpose, as shall reconcile, in their vastness and their harmony, things which at present assume the sharpness and the vexatiousness of contradiction. We will look too near the dust. The artist will not allow us to go too near his canvas; but we thrust our very faces into the painting of God;—what wonder if it should appear rough and wanting in the mystery of perspective? Stand back; give God time; let the relations of survey and criticism be wisely adjusted; and when God's processes are complete then say whether he hath done all things well.

A mournful line is this:—"But among these there was not a man of them whom Moses and Aaron the priest numbered, when they numbered the children of Israel in the wilderness of Sinai"—except Caleb and Joshua (Numbers 26:64-65). But there are always two old men left, blessed be God! We need not make a mournful line of it wholly. There are always some left who keep up good traditions, who link us to a noble past, who remind us of altars where men prayed with vehement strength and prevailing persuasiveness. The congregation changes year by year, but new men succeed to vacant places; and yet in every congregation there are old Caleb and Joshua, rich with years and experience; and we say that if two such old men could join hands, they might stretch back a hundred-and-fifty or two hundred years and touch some good man's hand in the centuries dead and gone. Not a man left,—yet Israel was left, more than six hundred thousand strong. True, the census had decreased by some eighteen hundred since it was taken in Sinai; but Israel remained. True, many had gone down through living their days in vanity and spending their nights in the service of the evil one; but Israel, the chosen of God, remained—a mighty host, a great and blessed people. Not a man save two,—but God lives, God remains; Jesus is the same, yesterday, and to-day, and for ever. Preachers die, but the ministry continues; sermons are ended, but the Christian pulpit stands from age to age; congregations change, but the Lord's Gospel has never wanted a hearing people, an attentive host, crying for the word of the Lord. So we have the permanent and the transitory—the eternal God, and the changing host; and yet amid the changing host we have a central quantity: the details change, the great columnar line abides, and none can touch it. "The foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his";—and no false soul can pass the gate and elude the criticism of Omniscience.

Note

Moses laid down the law (Exodus 30:12-13) that whenever the people were numbered, an offering of half a shekel should be made by every man above twenty years of age, by way of atonement or propitiation. A previous law had also ordered that the firstborn of man and of beast should be set apart, as well as the first fruits of agricultural produce; the first to be redeemed, and the rest with one exception offered to God (Exodus 13:12-13; Exodus 22:29).

Many instances of numbering are recorded in the Old Testament. The first was under the express direction of God (Exodus 38:26) in the third or fourth month after the Exodus, during the encampment at Sinai, chiefly for the purpose of raising money for the Tabernacle. The numbers then taken amounted to 603,550 men, which may be presumed to express with greater precision the round numbers of 600,000 who are said to have left Egypt at first (Exodus 12:37).

Again, in the second month of the second year after the Exodus (Numbers 1:2-3). This census was taken for a double purpose: (a) to ascertain the number of fighting men from the age of twenty to fifty. The total number on this occasion, exclusive of the Levites, amounted to 603,550 (Numbers 2:32), Josephus says 603,650; each tribe was numbered, and placed under a special leader, the head of the tribe. (b) To ascertain the amount of the redemption offering due on account of all the firstborn, both of persons and cattle. Accordingly the numbers were taken of all the firstborn malt persons of the whole nation above one month old, including all of the tribe of Levi of the same age. The Levites, whose numbers amounted to 22,000, were taken in lieu of the firstborn males of the rest of Israel, whose numbers were 22,273, and for the surplus of 273 a money payment of 1,365 shekels, or five shekels each, was made to Aaron and his sons (Numbers 3:39, Numbers 3:51).

Another numbering took place thirty-eight years afterwards, previous to the entrance into Canaan, when the total number, excepting the Levites, amounted to 601,730 males, showing a decrease of 1,870. All tribes presented an increase except the following:—Reuben, of 2,770; Simeon, 37,100; Gad, 5,150; Ephraim and Naphtali, 8,000 each. The tribe of Levi had increased by 727 (Numbers 26). The great diminution which took place in the tribe of Simeon may probably be assigned to the plague consequent on the misconduct of Zimri (Calmet, on Numbers 25:9). On the other hand, the chief instances of increase are found in Manasseh, of 20,500; Benjamin, 10,200; Asher, 11,900; and Issachar, 9,900. None were numbered at this census who had been above twenty years of age at the previous one in the second year, excepting Caleb and Joshua (Numbers 26:63, Numbers 26:65).

—Smith's Dictionary of the Bible.

Prayer

Almighty God, let the words of truth sink into our hearts and abide there like roots planted by thine own hand which shall spring up into beauty and strength in days to come. We know the right way in all things; our hearts by thy grace point it out and say to us in plain words, This is the way: walk in it. Yet there is another voice in our hearts which bids us walk another path which seemeth right, but the end whereof is death. So we are sex between these two voices, each of which is strong and clear and full of persuasion; and now we walk the right road, and now the wrong one; now we sing like children going home, and now we bow down the head and cry like prodigals whose sins have blotted out the light. This is our life: it is indeed our own—not some other man's, which we may speak about and feel for, approve or condemn; but it is our own spirit, our very self. We see it, know it, own it, and are lost between conflicting and tremendous emotions. Thou dost know us altogether—the quantities in which we are made, the forces which constitute our energy, all the weak points in our character, all the infirmities of our constitution, all the peculiarities of our circumstances; the very hairs of our head are all numbered. We can, therefore, find rest in the infinity of thy knowledge, and in the infinity of thy compassion. We have no answer; justification we have none. We could plead weakness, temptation, and suddenness of trial; but in all these things we should answer and condemn ourselves without the opening of thy mouth in judgment. Verily, our mercies are more in number than our difficulties; thy Cross is infinitely in excess of our necessity, thou art near to help, if we were but ready to pray. We have all things in God as revealed to us in Christ Jesus his Son, and yet we go hither and thither like men doomed to want, elected to perish under cold, and storm-clouds, and fated to die in darkness for whose gloom there are no words. Thus we belie thee; we falsify thee to ourselves and before men, and we bring the Cross of Christ into disrepute, because having seen it and felt its power, we still talk of our sins as of an unlifted load, we still point to our iniquities as if they had not been dissolved and destroyed by thy forgiveness. Pity our piety; forgive the poverty of our worship, and see in the incertitude of our religious action how pitifully weak we are at the very centre of our being, how wanting in faith, how ungrateful for the promises of God. Still we hover about thy Book as if even yet we might find honey in the flower; still we inquire meekly for the house of God, if haply we may there see an outline of his image and hear some tone of the music of his love. We would hope in these things and because of them—yea, we would multiply them into assurances of thy nearness, goodness, and purpose to save; because we are so near the altar we feel we cannot die. We have brought our mercies to our memory, that we might carry them up into songs of praise, and express our feeling in loud psalms of reverence and adoration. Our bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost Thou hast satisfied our hunger; thou hast drawn water for us when the well was deep, and we had nothing to draw with; thou hast made our bed in our affliction; and as for our friends who are not with us in the body, thou hast so quickened our imagination and our sympathy, that they are with us in soul, and we are in fellowship with them at the throne of grace. Thou hast given us views of life which have abolished death: so now we triumph in solitude and in pain; we know that we are separated by the thinnest of clouds, the flimsiest of veils, from that which is now invisible and eternal. Here we stand; in the strength of this faith we struggle; in the inspiration of this confidence we move onward from day to day, writing what we can of good upon the record whilst the sun lasts, and confident that it is good in Christ Jesus thy Son to fall into the hands of the living God who knows us better than we can know ourselves, whose mercy exceeds our sin and whose great heaven makes our earth look so small. Amen.