This final lesson, lesson six, is entitled starting over again. And that is exactly what is going on in our story here. In the book of Numbers Israel has failed miserably. In the 10th and final rebellion that we just saw in chapter 25, last lesson with Baal Peor.
And now it's time to start over again. There's going to be a nuisance. It's in this whole section of material, chapters 26 through 36. This is very, very important because Moses is going to prepare to die and be taken by God and the people are going to prepare to go into the Promised Land under the leadership of Joshua.
There's so many things that happen in these 10 chapters. And unfortunately, most people, when they read the book of Numbers, and there are very few Bible studies in the book of Numbers, very few, but they never really covered this section because all the drama and all the excitement is all in really chapters 11 through 25, where all the rebellions that we discussed over the past three or four lessons, okay? But we don't want to skip this section. There's so much good stuff here, despite the fact that, yeah, we've got more senses going on and more laws and instructions for sacrifices and inheritance for women and all vows, vows of men and women, all these types of things that seem so irrelevant.
They're not. Nothing in Scripture is irrelevant. Everything is very relevant and applicable to our lives and of course to Jesus Christ and the spiritual life. So there's good, good, good typology and lessons to be learned here.
They for no other reason just to continue the story. We want to finish the story of what happens as Moses passes away. And then Joshua takes leadership. We want to see the typology of Joshua himself, even the stuff that you would think is really boring.
Like there's a whole chapter in here that we're going to talk about that lists the various stages and encampments along the way. That's also very spiritual significant. And the vows that women take is also very spiritually significant as it illuminates and highlights the relationship between God and his people and ultimately between Christ and his church. So good stuff that we want to talk about.
So let's get this status report, right? Because we are in a new section of material here. We are at the Plains of Moab. What we've seen from chapters 11 through 25 are these 10 rebellions.
10 rebellions over 40 years. This should have taken just a couple of weeks to get over here to the Plains of Moab at 40 years have gone by because of the rebelliousness, their hard-heartedness, their refusal to trust God, to reject God, to reject the land, to reject the man, all of this stuff, right? So there's actually more rebellions. If you count the various issues that Israel had in between Egypt and Mount Sinai, there are even more rebellions than this.
But numbers presents 10 rebellions because it's a round number of perfection, totality, completion of their hard-heartedness, right? So over these 40 years, the first generation is dead. They've died because they rejected God and rejected the gift of the land with the whole story of the rebellion of the 10 spies who brought an evil report to Israel in chapters 13 and 14. And they say it would have been better for us to die in the wilderness.
And God says, fine, I'm going to give you what you want. So you're going to die in the wilderness, and your children are going to be the ones to inherit the land. He promises them that. And that's kind of really what the theme is going to be going on now in these 10 chapters.
It's preparing that second generation that grew up in the wilderness, or were born in the wilderness God is going to bring them in. So the second generation, those individuals who were younger than 20 years old, in Numbers chapter 1, remember the census was any fighting man that's 20 years old and older, they are numbered, okay? They're included in the census. Anybody younger than that are not included, and the first generation dies.
The second generations are all grown up and ready to take the land. However, the second generation didn't learn so much from the first. They didn't learn from their parents. So the second generation's grave idolatry of Baal Peor in his last chapter, chapter 25, that is the great mortal sin and breaking of God's covenant of the second generation, which is very, very analogous, very similar and has a lot of parallels with the golden calf apostasy and idolatry in Exodus in Exodus chapter 32.
Okay, so we're going to kind of wrap everything up, looking at these parallels and what we would call an inclusion book in verses and book in stories that kind of frame off this entire narrative. So these 10 chapters chapters 26 through 36 are basically Moses giving instructions about different things before he dies. Okay. But in this material would be actually Deuteronomy.
All right, that's the next Bible study, the book of Deuteronomy is Moses giving further instructions beyond what he does here in these 10 chapters. So they're very, very, they do have to hail very well together. Numbers 26 through 36 and the whole book of Deuteronomy, all Moses instructions and final things that he has to do to speak put his house in order before God takes him. Okay.
So that's kind of the status report of where we are now. And so now here we are in chapter 26 through 30, there's a section of material of multiple censuses, preparations to enter the land instructions for inheriting the land of boundary, all this kind of stuff. Okay. So the second census that takes place here in Numbers 26, I already told you would happen in the introductory lesson.
There are two censuses of the various clans. Okay. Chapter one of the first generation and the second generation, their census is here, which called the book of numbers because of the censuses. Now we get it from the Greek translation of the Old Testament, but don't forget the Hebrew title is as much more spiritually evocative.
It's bemied bar. It's in the wilderness. All right. That's why I have entitled this Bible study encountering God in the wilderness.
That is the overarching lesson here for Israel and as well as for us encountering God in the wilderness. But nevertheless, it is called numbers because of the census and here's the second one. What I'd like to do is read verses one through three, one through four and then we'll comment on it. So what begins verse one after the plague and by the way, that is the plague that struck down 24,000 people because of the worship of Baal payor.
So there is a continuity here after a plague that kills tens of thousands of people, right? The Lord says to Moses and to Eliaes, are the son of Aaron, the priest, because again, Aaron has died just a couple chapters back. Eliaes are his son is the new high priest. And God says, take a census of all the congregation in the sons of Israel from 20 years old and upward by their fathers houses, all in Israel who are able to go forth to war.
In Moses and Eliaes are the priest, spoke with them in the plains of Moab by the Jordan that Jericho saying, take a census of the people from 20 years old and upward as the Lord commanded Moses and so on and so forth. So a few things really to kind of highlight here that's really interesting is that none of the individuals numbered here in chapter 26 were in the original census of chapter 1. For the obvious reasons that I've been sharing with you that everybody had died in chapter 1, sorry, everyone in the census of chapter 1 has died and their children were younger than 20 at that time and therefore they weren't numbered. And this is actually very explicit on the flip ahead to chapter verse 64 here.
He says, among these, there was not a man of those numbered by Moses and Aaron the priest who had numbered the sons of Israel and the wilderness at Sinai. For the Lord instead of them, they shall die in the wilderness. There was not left a man of them except Caleb and Joshua at the son of noon. That's really interesting there, which basically means though that the oldest person from that first generation would basically be 60 years older at this point.
So if you were a teenager, let's say you're 17 years old and now you have been punished because of your parents' sense, you are now wandering in the wilderness after all this time and so now you're like, let's say 57, okay? So you could have been a kid, a teenager, a young kid who had grown up in the wilderness and obviously people were born along the way, then that really brings us to the total numbering of everybody 20 years and older. So after the death of that first generation and after all the deaths of various individuals from the second generation due to their hardiness, the rebellions, all the plagues that happened like recently, 24,000 people had died. If you compare the numbers, if you compare chapter one with chapter 26, there really isn't a population boom.
In fact, the numbers dropped a little bit and I've included for you in page five here of your notes, the last page for this lesson. There's a simple chart here where I put down all the tribes, all of the numbers of men of fighting age here, the soldiers essentially, tribe by tribe, comparing chapter one through chapter 26, whether it went up a little bit, down a little bit with the final numbers are, et cetera. The total numbers went from 603,550 in chapter one to 601,730 in chapter 26. They went down just shy of 2,000 people.
That's really interesting. So there's no real population boom. The numbers are very, very similar here. A couple of highlights just out of curiosity is that Judah is still the largest tribe.
He has 76,500 fighting men. By far, at least by, gosh, who would be next? You're looking at the chart. He's a cart, looks like would be next.
Uh, no, that's wrong. Dan would be next. In any case, he's certainly the largest tribe. That is consistent with chapter one.
If you look at Simeon, Simeon diminished the most from 59,000 to 22,000. That's a big difference. And Manasse grew the most from 32 to 52 fighting men. So it's kind of interesting.
But most of everybody here, they're pretty much the same or less. One little note here in terms of Reuben, the very first tribe, mentioning Reuben, it does mention, just to kind of make a connection with what we've studied before, it does mention these characters, Dathan and Abiram. It says in verse nine, these are Dathan and Abiram chosen from the congregation who contended against Moses and Aaron in the company of Korah when they contended against the Lord. And the earth opened up its mouth and swallowed them up together with Korah when that company died when the fire devoured 250 men and they became a warning.
So that is mentioned here. And that goes all the way back to chapter 16 in that rebellion that we just saw. And I believe I had mentioned to you in that lesson, verse 11, it mentions here how the sons of Korah did not die. So Korah is guilty, but his children are not guilty, therefore they did not die.
And then within salvation history, they really become very important in the liturgical worship of the temple. Many Psalms are ascribed to them, attributed to them, and that's kind of interesting there. So the sons of Korah survived, but it does mention here, Dathan and Abiram are from the tribe of Reuben, they're laymen. All right, so that's kind of cool.
And so now the whole chapter 26 is the whole census, tribe by tribe. And just like in chapter one, the reason for the census is the same as before, military and inheritance purposes. These are men that are 20 years older than are able to go forth to war. But also these are all listed here for the numbers of the tribes to see what they're going to inherit.
And so this quote here that I provided for you does a good job giving an overview of this. It says, the census held at the start of the Great Desert Journey in chapters one through four needed to be updated 40 years on with a view to the partition of the land because the previous generation had died in the desert on account of its sin. As I mentioned, that's chapter 13 and 14. This new census is designed to show that God kept the promise he made in Kadesh after that sin.
The promise, namely, that the children of that first generation, they would be the ones to inherit it. So God is faithful to his promise. The quote goes on saying, strictly speaking, it was a military census, like the previous one, and it depicts Eleazar as carrying out the functions previously discharged by Aaron. So these are the two major purposes.
And I kind of entitled this lesson. They're starting over again. They just had their 10th and final rebellion. Everyone in the first generation is dead.
And the plagues have occurred. So now it's time to step back, hit the reset button and figure out where you stand. How many people do we have? Try by a tribe.
How many people do we have total? Et cetera. That's going to be important for battle, but also for the inheritance. You see.
At that point, people ask, well, how did they determine which tribe got which chunk of real estate? You've got all the Palestinian real estate here. It's all the promise land. Who gets what chunk of land?
It turns out it depends on the size of your clan, the size of your tribe, as well as God's will that is determined by a lot. If you go to chapter 26 verse 52, it says, the Lord said in Moses, to these, the land shall be divided for an inheritance according to the number of names. So a large tribe, you shall give a large inheritance to a small tribe, you shall give a small inheritance. Every tribe shall be given its inheritance according to its numbers, but the land shall be divided by a lot.
So lottery basically, the high priest would inquire of God probably with a Riemann Fumim. I would imagine there. And then it would determine where you're going to be, what land you're going to have. It goes on according to the names of the tribes of their fathers, they shall inherit, their inheritance shall be divided according to a lot between the larger and the smaller.
And that's the answer to the question that I get a lot from students is, well, how do they know? Like, why is Judah here and why is Manasseh there? Right? Why is Isakar here and why is Benjamin there?
Well, it's based on the size of your clan, your tribe, and according to lots. Okay? All right. So that is an overview of some highlights of this second major census, but like the first census, the Levites are not included.
If you remember, when we discussed that, the Levites are not going to be going forth to physical war. They are the priestly clan. Okay. So, I'm not sure if you're with Phineas, but I mean, of course, Phineas was the one in chapter 25 who stayed the hand of the Lord because he was the one, if you remember, who impaled in Shishkobab that Israelite man who brought in a Midianite woman, probably a cultic prostitute or something, perhaps into the tabernacle.
He used violence, of course, to stop this horrible, atrocious crime. And we'll talk more about it later, but my big point now is that they were not going to be called out to physical battle, but they are in charge of spiritual battle, spiritual warfare. They are the priestly clan. They must ensure that they are fighting for the proper worship of the people of Israel, regards to tabernacle, the sacrifices and all this stuff.
So, they're going to fight spiritually, but also the Levites do not have an inheritance of the land. We discussed this previously as well. All the rest of the tribes, the 12 tribes, again, if we're going to number it, if you're going to take Joseph's son's monastenned effeream as separate individual tribes, plus Levi that makes 13. So, 12 of those, including monastenned effeream, they inherit the land, but the Levites inherit God himself.
Their portion, their inheritance is greater than the real estate, because the land is always meant to be a sign of heaven. The land is always meant to be a type, a symbol of relationship with God to have rest, Sabbath, covenantal rest with God. Well, the Levites are anticipating that. They are able to have God directly through the service of the liturgy.
Now, that being said, they are going to receive, I believe it's 48 cities later on. Cities are going to be mentioned, they're going to be peppered and scattered throughout the promised land here, because really they're like the Levine. I like to think of the Levites as the salt and the leaven to use words of our Lord. They're supposed to ensure that Israel worships God properly.
So, they're kind of scattered throughout the land. So, they do get little cities, but they don't get massive chunks of real estate like the other people do. Okay? All right.
So, this is all chapter 26. And interestingly enough, a lot of people ask, well, what about the women? Certainly, this is a patriarchal period, absolutely. And God accommodates and tolerates a lot of the behaviors of our ancestors in the faith, if you want to call them that, because they absolutely are ancestors in the faith, God has to tolerate certain things.
It's going to be a big, big point of discussion actually in the book of Deuteronomy, how God has various concessions through Moses for a hard, hard of people. But nevertheless, it is true that men were the ones who inherited, but then there are exceptions. Women did have rights. And so, in chapter 27, verse 1 and following, what you discover is that there is a man who died in the first generation, and he had five daughters.
He had no sons. He has expressly mentioned back in chapter 26, verse 33, a man dies. He has no sons. He has five daughters.
So then the question is to whom shall his inheritance go? He's a lot more than the land. If he has no sons and has only daughters, is he out of luck? Right?
He's going to go to somebody else within the tribe. So, his five daughters approach Moses in chapters 27, verses 1 through 11 and say, hey, give us the inheritance of the land. And Moses acquires of God and God says, absolutely. Give the daughters the inheritance of the land so long as they marry within their tribe.
Because the goal here, the aim is to keep the land within the tribe. That's really, really important to our all of Israel's history, at least leading up to the Babylonian captivity. The inheritance of the land, it belongs to your family, it belongs to your tribe and your sub-clans. Israel was not like we are today.
We hop around all over the place. We move here, there, and everywhere. I've lived in five or six states in my whole life. I've lived in five or six different states.
I've also lived in Europe and Rome studying. So, I move around a lot. And that's very common for a lot of Americans. Not true with the Israelites.
The Israelites received their land from God, and it was meant to stay within the family. Because it kind of shows the permanence of the land and the fidelity of God towards his people. The land is a gift from God and they're meant to always have the land. There's this concept of the eternality of being with God and resting in the land with God.
It's kind of the symbol that's going on there. All right, so this aim, I have a quote here for you on the bottom of page one. This aim of keeping the land within the tribe, this purpose of keeping it together, the quote will say, is furthered by the law, which allows a daughter to inherit when there is no son. Provided, of course, that she marries within her father's tribe.
That was also the idea behind the law concerning the Jubilee back in Leviticus 25. And the Levite law, which will be discussed later, Deuteronomy 25. And the writer, the nearest relative, by the way, that's called the kinsman Redeemer, to acquire land if it had to be sold. All this conspired to maintain a social structure in which everyone shared the great gift God had given his people, which is the land.
So these things that this quote references, the Jubilee, if you remember in the Leviticus Bible study in chapter 25 of Leviticus, you have the great Jubilee every 50 years. All debts would be canceled, the land would return to the original landowner. Slaves would be freed. It was a great tremendous year, every 50 years.
And the purpose of the Jubilee, again, was to return the land to the original recipient. Okay, same thing is true with the Levite law. The Levite law was a law that if a man died without producing a male heir, the concept would be that his next brother in line, whoever is available, would marry his widow and give a son in his name. And the same thing is true with the kinsman Redeemer here.
The nearest relative would have rights, would have dibs of buying the land if someone came on hard times and they needed to sell it. Because you don't want to be selling it to foreigners. That would be awful, right? But even you don't want to sell it to somebody from a different tribe.
You want to keep it within the family. And as the quote says here, the concept here is that the land is this great gift and that God comes with the gift of the land. Really, the concept is you can't separate the land and God. They come together.
All right, so rebel against God is to rebel against the land and vice versa. That's all very typological as we've seen multiple lessons ago. Really, probably every single lesson we talk about this refers to the promise of heaven. And so you can't go to heaven and not have relationship and communion with God and vice versa.
You can't be in a relationship with God and not be in heaven and so on and so forth. All right, so I hope I'm making a clear argument that we're going to come back to this as a matter of fact. At the end of this section, we're going to come back to these daughters of Zolefahad, his name Zolefahad, and it's going to kind of form an inclusio. So hold on to your hat.
We're going to come back to this full circle. All right. Okay, so chapter 26 talks about the the census. Chapter 27 talks about the inheritance for women in these five daughters.
And then now in verses 12 and following, we have the discussion of Joshua being Moses, the successor.