We ended yesterday's study with this: "The people registered their ancestry by their clans and families, and the men twenty years old or more were listed by name, one by one, as the Lord commanded Moses. And so he counted them in the Desert of Sinai." (Numbers 1:18b-19)
We pick up this morning with verse 20 and as we go along we'll see what a large number of people the Lord brought out of Egypt. In modern times we often find skeptics trying to downplay the enormous crowd of people whom the Lord rescued from slavery and sustained in the desert for so many years, but when we finish the first chapter of Numbers we will clearly see that at this time in Israel's history she had 603,550 men of fighting age and condition. Since the count doesn't include women or children or any of the foreigners who left Egypt with the Israelites (Exodus 12:38 tells us that many other people went out of Egypt with them.), it's estimated that the number of people the Lord is taking care of in the wilderness is around 2,000,000. If the Lord can provide for 2,000,000 people in the desert, plus all their livestock, we have no reason to doubt that He can take care of your needs and my needs today.
You'll recall that the Lord gave Jacob the new name of "Israel" in Genesis 32. From that point on we sometimes see the names "Jacob" and "Israel" used interchangeably and that's what we find in our study today when our text begins telling us how many fighting men were counted from each tribe that descended from Jacob. We'll be looking at the number from four of the tribes today and then tomorrow we will see how many fighting men were in the remaining tribes.
"From the descendants of Reuben the firstborn son of Israel: All the men twenty years old or more who were able to serve in the army were listed by name, one by one, according to the records of their clans and families. The number from the tribe of Reuben was 46,500." (Numbers 1:20-21) After about forty years pass, a second census of this type will be taken and at that time the fighting men of the tribe of Reuben will number 43,730. The second census will be a count of the second generation of the Israelites who came out of Egypt. This census will be conducted prior to Israel's entrance into the promised land, for the first generation will not be allowed to enter the promised land due to their rebellion in the wilderness. We will be studying all this material in great detail as we move through Numbers.
"From the descendants of Simeon: All the men twenty years old or more who were able to serve in the army were counted and listed by name, one by one, according to the records of their clans and families. The number from the tribe of Simeon was 59,300." (Numbers 1:22-23) In the second census the fighting men of the tribe of Simeon will only total out at 22,200.
"From the descendants of Gad: All the men twenty years old or more who were able to serve in the army were listed by name, according to the records of their clans and families. The number from the tribe of Gad was 45,650." (Numbers 1:24-25) We find these men numbering 40,500 in the second census.
"From the descendants of Judah: All the men twenty years old or more who were able to serve in the army were listed by name, according to the records of their families. The number from the tribe of Judah was 74,600." (Numbers 1:26-27) In the second census we'll find that the fighting men of the tribe of Judah have increased in number; the total of soldiers will be 76,500.
Judah is the tribe of Israel from which all her rightful kings must come, from David on down to the Messiah. The first king of Israel, Saul of the tribe of Benjamin, will be elected by the people for the wrong reasons and in the long run he will be a curse to the people and not a blessing. But during Saul's reign the Lord will choose a man who has a true heart for Him and for the people, and He will instruct the prophet Samuel to anoint David of Bethlehem, the son of Jesse, of the tribe of Judah, as king. No man who is not from the tribe of Judah and is not a direct descendant of King David has any right to the throne of Israel, as the patriarch Jacob prophetically foresaw when he blessed each of his sons and said of Judah: "The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until He to whom it belongs shall come and the obedience of the nations shall be His." (Genesis 49:10) Jacob is speaking of the Messiah, the One who holds the title of "Son of David", the One to whom the throne and the kingdom are promised forever.
The Lord promised David a kingdom that has no end. (2 Samuel 7:16) The Lord revealed to the prophet Isaiah that He would accomplish this promise by placing on the throne of Israel the One whose government and peace lasts forever. (Isaiah 9:7) How can one king's government last forever? How can one man bestow peace on earth forever? By being both Lord and King, and God intends to fulfill His promise to David by placing on David's throne the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will reign over not only Israel but all the nations forever.
No comments:
Post a Comment