Bible Commentaries
Numbers 26

Verses 1-65

At this point we begin the third and last movement in the Book of Numbers, that which is devoted to the second numbering of the people and their preparation for taking possession of the land from which they had been excluded for forty years.

We have first the record of historic facts in sequence and all the way an account of how the divine government was insisted upon by the repetition of certain laws with new emphasis and applications. In this particular chapter we have the account of the taking of the census and a record of the families and their numbers.

The record is followed by the account of an instruction given to Moses concerning the division of the land among the tribes, the numbering of the Levites, who possessed no inheritance in the land because they were devoted to the service of God.

An examination of this new census will reveal the omission of many names occurring in the first, while others have taken their place. Thus there is emphasized a marked continuity of purpose, notwithstanding the change of persons.

Two men only of those who long before had come to the same margin of the land were now to pass over into possession. These were Caleb and Joshua, the men who constituted the minority, who saw more than enemies and walled cities because to them the vision of God was unclouded.