Names Counted Before the Wilderness Journey

The tabernacle had been raised on the first day of the first month of this same year (Exodus 40:17), so the census comes exactly one month later. Nineteen days after it, on the twentieth of the second month, the cloud lifts and the march begins (10:11). The Hebrew name of the book, Bemidbar, is taken from this verse: “in the wilderness”.

“Take the sum” is literally “lift up the head”, the idiom Joseph used of Pharaoh’s butler and baker in Genesis 40:13 and 40:19. “By their polls” renders gulgolet, a skull or head, the same word that stands behind the Aramaic Golgotha. Every man is counted one head at a time.

“By their armies” is tsava, the word behind “the LORD of hosts”. Twenty was the age at which a man paid the half shekel of Exodus 30:14, so the fighting men and the ransom payers are one and the same group. No upper age is given.

Each tribe sends its own head to stand at the count, so no tribe’s figure rests on the word of an outsider. The phrase “house of his fathers” names the extended family unit between the household and the tribe.

Elizur means “my God is a rock”; Shedeur probably “Shaddai is light”. Reuben’s man comes first as firstborn. Among the fathers’ names in this list, three probably contain Shaddai, the name by which God was known to the patriarchs (Exodus 6:3).

Shelumiel is “God is my peace” or “at peace with God”, and his father’s name Zurishaddai means “my rock is Shaddai”. Simeon’s prince at the disaster of Peor, nearly forty years later, is named as Zimri son of Salu (25:14).

Nahshon was the brother of Elisheba, Aaron’s wife (Exodus 6:23), so Judah’s leader is the high priest’s brother-in-law. Ruth 4:20 places him in the line of David, and Matthew 1:4 in the line of Jesus.

Nethaneel means “God has given”, the same name as the later Nathanael of John’s gospel. His father’s name Zuar means “little one”, one of several names in the list that describe a child rather than make a claim about God.

Eliab, “my God is father”, is a common name: another Eliab, a Reubenite, is the father of Dathan and Abiram (16:1), and David’s eldest brother bears it too. Zebulun’s man is the son of Helon, a name not found again.

Joseph has no leader of his own name; his line is represented by two princes. Elishama, “God has heard”, is named in 1 Chronicles 7:26–27 as the grandfather of Joshua. Gamaliel, “reward of God”, carries the name later borne by the Pharisee teacher of Acts 5:34.

Abidan means “my father is judge”, built on the same root, din, as the name of Dan in the next line, though he leads Benjamin. Gideoni is from the root of Gideon, “hewer” or “cutter down”.

Ahiezer means “my brother is help”, and Ammishaddai “my kinsman is Shaddai”. Dan is the first of the handmaids’ sons to be named in this list, after all the sons of Leah and Rachel.

Pagiel may mean “met by God” or “God’s encounter”. Ocran looks like the Hebrew akar, “to trouble”, the root that gave the valley of Achor its name in Joshua 7:26, though the link is only a likeness of sound.

Eliasaph means “God has added”. His father is Deuel here and again in 7:42 and 10:20, but Reuel in 2:14; the Hebrew letters d and r look so alike that one of the spellings is almost certainly a copying slip.

Ahira and Enan close the list. Enan is built on the word for eye or spring. Naphtali’s place at the end in this list, and again at the end of the tribal offerings of chapter 7, keeps the handmaids’ sons at the back.

“Renowned” is the Hebrew qeri’ey, the “called ones” or “summoned” of the assembly. The same phrase describes the 250 men who side with Korah in 16:2, “famous in the congregation”; a title of honour here becomes a mark of rebellion there.

“Expressed by their names” is literally “pricked out” or “designated by name”, the verb naqav, which in Leviticus 24:11 is used of blaspheming the Name. Here it means to specify: each man is marked out in person.

“Declared their pedigrees” is one Hebrew word, yitchaledu, found only here: “they had themselves registered by birth”. The whole enrolment is done in a single day, the first of the second month, the day the command was given.

Obedience is reported before the numbers, as though the fulfilment matters more than the figures. The same pattern closes the chapter in verse 54 and closes chapter 2.

Reuben is called “Israel’s eldest son” only here in the census, the honorific kept though the birthright had passed to Joseph (1 Chronicles 5:1) after Reuben’s act in Genesis 35:22. “By their generations” is toledot, the word that framed the whole Book of Genesis.

Forty six thousand five hundred. Reuben is the sixth largest of the twelve here and will slip to 43,730 at the second census (26:7), the tribe of Dathan and Abiram having lost men in chapter 16.

Simeon’s entry is the only one to say “those that were numbered of them” twice, once in this heading and once in the total. Jacob had foretold of Simeon and Levi, “I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel” (Genesis 49:7).

At 59,300 Simeon is the third largest tribe. By the second census it is the smallest of all, 22,200 (26:14). That fall of 37,100 is the steepest in the book, and the plague at Peor, where a prince of Simeon sinned openly (25:14), is the likeliest cause.

Gad stands third in the census though born seventh, taking the place Levi held in birth order. The move matches the camp of chapter 2, where Gad is placed on the south with Reuben and Simeon.

Forty five thousand six hundred and fifty. Gad’s is the only tribal total that ends in fifty; every other figure is in round hundreds. The odd fifty is carried into the grand total, 603,550.

Judah is fourth in birth, the son of Leah through whom the sceptre is promised in Genesis 49:10. From here on, in the camp and on the march, Judah leads.

Seventy four thousand six hundred makes Judah the largest tribe, some twelve thousand ahead of Dan. It is also one of the few to grow in the wilderness, reaching 76,500 at the second census (26:22).

Issachar, Leah’s fifth son, was pictured by Jacob as “a strong ass couching down between two burdens” (Genesis 49:14), a tribe of labour on good land. 1 Chronicles 12:32 later credits its men with “understanding of the times”.

Fifty four thousand four hundred. Issachar gains nearly ten thousand by the second census, reaching 64,300 (26:25), the second largest increase after Manasseh.

Zebulun was Leah’s sixth and last son, and Jacob placed him at “an haven of ships” (Genesis 49:13). Zebulun and Issachar are named side by side in almost every list, as they will camp side by side with Judah.

Fifty seven thousand four hundred. Zebulun rises to 60,500 in chapter 26. Its territory in Galilee later includes Nazareth, although the Book of Numbers could not know that.

“Of the children of Joseph, namely, of the children of Ephraim” spells out the arrangement of Genesis 48:5, where Jacob adopted Joseph’s two sons: “as Reuben and Simeon, they shall be mine.” Ephraim, the younger, is named first.

Forty thousand five hundred. Ephraim outnumbers his elder brother here by more than eight thousand, just as Jacob’s crossed hands foretold (Genesis 48:19). At the second census the order reverses and Manasseh is far ahead (26:34, 37).

Manasseh was the firstborn of Joseph, whose name recalls that God had made him forget his hardship (Genesis 41:51). Half the tribe, through Machir and Gilead, will settle east of the Jordan (32:39–42).

At thirty two thousand two hundred, Manasseh is the smallest tribe. Forty years later it numbers 52,700 (26:34), a gain of 20,500, more than any other tribe.

Benjamin, Rachel’s last son, born as she died on the road to Ephrath (Genesis 35:18). Jacob said he would “ravin as a wolf” (49:27), and the tribe later produced Ehud, Saul and, much later, Paul (Philippians 3:5).

Thirty five thousand four hundred. Benjamin is the third smallest tribe here and rises to 45,600 (26:41). In Judges 20 it will be cut down to six hundred men.

Dan, the first son of Rachel’s maid Bilhah, is credited with only one son in the list of Genesis 46:23, Hushim. The tribe descended from one named son is about to become the second largest in Israel.

Sixty two thousand seven hundred makes Dan second only to Judah. It will lead the rear of the march (10:25), the largest division after the vanguard.

Asher, “happy”, was named by Leah when her maid Zilpah bore him (Genesis 30:13). Jacob promised the tribe rich food, “royal dainties” (Genesis 49:20).

Forty one thousand five hundred. Asher grows to 53,400 at the second census, and the prophetess Anna of Luke 2:36 is later named as one of this tribe.

Naphtali’s heading has a small variation: “throughout their generations” where the others read “by their generations”, following a slight change in the Hebrew form. The last entry is not a mechanical copy of the first.

Fifty three thousand four hundred. Naphtali falls to 45,400 by chapter 26. Its land in Galilee became the setting for Isaiah 9:1, “the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali”.

The princes are counted as a group of “twelve men” even though Levi is missing. Joseph’s two sons make up the dozen, so the number twelve survives Levi’s absence.

The qualifications are stated one last time before the total: house of their fathers, age twenty and upward, able to go to war. The repetition makes plain that the sum to follow counts nobody else.

The number, 603,550, matches exactly the count of men who paid the half shekel for the tabernacle in Exodus 38:26. The two reckonings, one for silver and one for war, agree to the last fifty.

“After the tribe of their fathers” means that the Levites were not enrolled by the same pattern of households. They will be counted in chapter 3 on a different basis altogether, from a month old and upward.

The explanation is set as a flashback: “had spoken”. Moses did not decide to leave Levi out; the reason is placed in God’s word before the result is reported.

“Only” (akh) is emphatic: whatever else is counted, not this. The same verb for numbering (paqad) also means to appoint or to visit, so to leave Levi uncounted is to leave it out of the military muster in both senses.

“The tabernacle of testimony” is named for the tablets of the covenant kept inside the ark, the “testimony” of Exodus 25:16. This is the first time Numbers uses the phrase, and the Levites’ tasks are given in three verbs: bear, minister, encamp.

“Setteth forward” (nasa) is literally pulling up tent pegs, the regular word for breaking camp. Dismantling and raising the tabernacle were themselves holy work, and the whole camp moved only as fast as the Levites could pack it.

“Standard” is degel, a banner or ensign marking each company. Chapter 2 will arrange these standards in four divisions around the sanctuary.

“Keep the charge” is shamar mishmeret, the language of standing guard, a watch that is kept. The Levites form a living fence between the sanctuary and the other tribes, and their presence is what keeps wrath off the congregation.

The doubling, “according to all that the LORD commanded Moses, so did they”, is a closing formula found again at 2:34. This chapter began with the LORD speaking and ends with the people doing.