The Numbering of the People the Second Time

TWICE, during the administration of Moses, were the people of Israel numbered. The first time was when they had been in the desert only about one year. Num. 1. The law of God, in awful grandeur, had been proclaimed from the summit of the flaming mount. The tabernacle had been erected, and the ark containing God's law had been carried into its most holy place, and there deposited. The cloud of God's glory had taken possession of this sacred building. The hand of God had given them bread from Heaven every morning. He had smitten the rock and given them water. The Lord of hosts had shown his presence in their midst, and the pillar of cloud by day, and the pillar of fire by night, departed not from their camp.

When, at the close of their first year in the wilderness, things stood thus, and the work to be done on the way seemed almost accomplished, God directed that they should be numbered. Moses performed the commandment of God; and of men able to go forth to war, there was numbered six hundred and three thousand five hundred and fifty. This numbering did not include the tribe of Levi at all, nor did it include any females, nor any that were under twenty years of age. What a vast host of men of war! Over six hundred thousand! Every one of these persons expected to have an inheritance in the land of promise. Every one of them might have had it. They had had such tokens of God's loving-kindness as no other people ever witnessed. Now the Lord took down all their names, and proceeded to marshal their host in the completest order, preparatory to their marching into the land of promise. Everything indicated their speedy entrance into Canaan.

The book of Numbers is very fitly named. It opens with this numbering of the host of Israel. In its twenty-sixth chapter, the host is numbered again. Not one man, save Caleb and Joshua, of all that were numbered the first time, was alive to witness the second numbering. Every other person had fallen in the wilderness. The second numbering of Israel was an event calculated to impress the people with the fact that God will fulfill his threatened judgments.

And why was there so terrible a failure? Simply because the people were wicked. Sin was in their midst. It broke out at last in such open, wanton rebellion against the God of Heaven, that he, by a solemn oath, excluded them from the land, and doomed them to die in the wilderness.

The second numbering of Israel made manifest the fact that not one man of all that had rebelled against God, remained alive. How full of instruction is this subject to the people upon whom the ends of the world are come. Our hopes of entering the kingdom of God cannot be stronger than were those of Israel when by God's direction they were numbered the first time. We cannot have greater tokens of his favor, of his presence, or of his willingness to save, than they had. But with all this, they came short of the land of promise. The second numbering was eminently in place, to show beyond all dispute that God's threatened judgments had been accomplished.

The history of Israel teaches us one great lesson. We cannot carry sin in our hearts. It will inevitably bring us to ruin. They made the trial, and miserably perished. Let us be warned by their example.