Numbers 26: The Second Census of Israel
Read Numbers 26:1-50. for the actual command, as well as the numbering of the people and the findings. Take a census of all the congregation of the children of Israel .... (2) Of both the professing and the true universal Church for the generation that was to possess the land of Canaan.
51 These are those who were numbered of the children of Israel: six hundred and one thousand seven hundred and thirty. 52 Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 53 “To these the land shall be divided as an inheritance, according to the number of names. 54 To a large tribe you shall give a larger inheritance, and to a small tribe you shall give a smaller inheritance. Each shall be given its inheritance according to those who were numbered of them. 55 But the land shall be divided by lot; they shall inherit according to the names of the tribes of their fathers. 56 According to the lot their inheritance shall be divided between the larger and the smaller.”
51-56- ””Six hundred thousand and a thousand seven hundred and thirty.—The sum total exhibits a decrease of 1,820, as compared with the census taken at Sinai thirty-eight years previously. On this decrease Bishop Wordsworth observes as follows:—'When the Israelites were suffering persecution in Egypt they ‘multiplied exceedingly’ (Exodus 1:7; Exodus 1:20); but after their deliverance from Egypt they rebelled against God, and ‘He consumed their days in vanity, and their years in trouble’ (Psalms 78:33). . . . Here there is comfort and warning to the Church and every soul in it—comfort in time of affliction, and warning in days of prosperity.'
Unto these the land shall be divided . . . —The general apportionment of the land, as regarded the relative position of each tribe, was to be decided by lot, which was commonly looked upon as the determination of God Himself, and in this instance was undoubtedly so. The extent of territory was to be determined by the number of names—i.e., of persons—in each tribe, and each inheritance was to bear the name of the ancestor of the tribe. Rashi says that the names of the twelve tribes were written on twelve scrolls of parchment, and twelve borders, or limits of land, on twelve others, and that they were mixed together in an urn." (Ellicott's Commentary)
57-62 ”The families of the Levites are here numbered by themselves, because they were not to have a distinct share of the land, whence it is that they are not so distinctly and exactly mentioned as the other tribes, but confusedly and imperfectly, some of them being wholly omitted here. See Exodus 6:Twenty and three thousand; one thousand more than they were Numbers 3:39. The reason of which different way of numbering, see on Numbers 3:15." (Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible)
63-65 ”The chapter closes with a testimony to the faithfulness of God. All but Caleb and Joshua had died in the wilderness, as He had promised. God had preserved the nation and would bring her into the land as He had guaranteed the patriarchs. Nevertheless He had judged the unbelieving generation. This chapter looks backward over the past 38 years and forward to entrance into Canaan." (Notes of Dr. Thomas Constable)
I sometimes forget this key ingredient. "Here lies the great practical secret. The word of God mixed with faith. Precious mixture! the only thing that can really profit any one. We may hear a great deal; we may talk a great deal; we may profess a great deal; but we may rest assured that the measure of real spiritual power — power to surmount difficulties — power to overcome the world — power to get on — power to possess ourselves of all that God has bestowed upon us — the measure of this power is simply the measure in which God's word is mixed with faith. That word is settled for ever in Heaven; and if it is fixed in our hearts, by faith, there is a divine link connecting us with heaven and all that belongs to it; and, in proportion as our hearts are thus livingly linked with heaven and the Christ who is there, shall we be practically separated from this present world, and lifted above its influence. Faith takes possession of all that God has given. It enters into that within the veil; it endures as seeing Him who is invisible; it occupies itself with the unseen and eternal, not with the seen and the temporal. Men think possession sure; faith knows nothing sure but God and His word. Faith takes God's word and locks it up in the very innermost chamber of the heart, and there it remains as hid treasure — the only thing that deserves to be called treasure. The happy possessor of this treasure is rendered thoroughly independent of the world. He may be poor as regards the riches of this perishing scene; but if only he is rich in faith, he is the possessor of untold wealth — 'durable riches and righteousness' — 'the unsearchable riches of Christ.'
Reader, these are not the pencillings of fancy — the mere visions of the imagination. No; they are substantial verities — divine realities, which you may now enjoy in all their preciousness. If you will only take God at His word — only believe what He says because he says it — for this is faith — then verily you have this treasure, which renders its possessor entirely Independent of this scene where men live only by the sight of their eyes. The men of this world speak of 'the positive' and 'the real,' meaning thereby what they can see and experience; in other words, the things of time and sense — the tangible — the palpable. Faith knows nothing positive, nothing real, but the word of the living God.
Now it was the lack of this blessed faith that kept Israel out of Canaan, and caused six hundred thousand carcasses to fall in the wilderness. And it is the lack of this faith that keeps thousands of God's people in bondage and darkness, when they ought to be walking in liberty and light — that keeps them in depression and gloom, when they ought to be walking in the joy and strength of God's full salvation — that keeps them in fear of judgement, when they ought to be walking in the hope of glory — that keeps them in doubt as to whether they shall escape the sword of the destroyer in Egypt, when they ought to be feasting on the old corn of the land of Canaan.
Oh! that God's people would consider these things in the secret of His presence and in the light of His word! Then indeed they would better know and more fully appreciate the fair inheritance which faith finds in the eternal word of God — they would more clearly apprehend the things which are freely given to us of God in the Son of His love. May the Lord send out His light and His truth, and lead His people into the fullness of their portion in Christ, so that they may take their true place, and yield a true testimony for Him, while waiting for His glorious advent."
(C. H. Mackintosh's Notes on the Pentateuch)