Torah Portion: Numbers 1:1-4:20

Bamidbar (‘In the wilderness’)

Bamidbar, ‘In the wilderness’, is an appropriate name for what we know as Numbers, as well as this Torah portion, since the book describes the Lord leading His people for 40 years in the wilderness. It was a time when the Lord refined Israel and instilled in them – individually and collectively - a sense of His order and plan.

God’s Holy Order

Moses was commanded to take a census of the whole community, ordered in clans and families. Within those, every man able to serve in the army was listed by name, one by one: a total of 603,550. With the women and children, this was a vast number to camp and move through the desert. Order was vital.

The tabernacle, the place of God’s presence, was in the heart of the camp with its own intricate order for construction and use. The Levites were set apart for duties in the tabernacle and so were counted separately and in a different way. They were allocated places nearest the tabernacle, then around them each of the other tribes had its place to camp and its turn to move, each under its own banner.

The Levites were placed closest to the tabernacle because they were to be responsible for caring for it. This was also a protection against others approaching too close to the Holy presence and losing their lives. The tabernacle was a holy place, filled with God’s presence. And yet, Paul reminds us that God, who made the world and everything in it, does not live in man-made temples. As believers in Yeshua, we live and move and have our being in God as we, corporately and individually, are His temple, with His Holy Spirit dwelling within us.

How much more, then, ought we to allow God to order and arrange our own lives in a manner that pleases Him! And while following the Lord’s direction for ourselves, we should also seek His order for the nations around us, whose set times and locations are determined in Heaven (Acts 17:24-28).

The Blessing of Abundance

As we read the numbers contained in these chapters, we are also reminded of how the Lord had been blessing His people since He promised Abraham that his descendants would be as the stars in the heavens (Gen 15:5). When Jacob entered Egypt, 70 of his direct descendants settled there (Gen 46:26-27). After 430 years they had multiplied to be a threat to the Egyptians, resulting in their oppression. But this did not stop their growth; it was about 600,000 men who left with their families.

There are different estimates for the world Jewish population today but it may be about 15 million, still lower than before the Holocaust. Hosea looked ahead to even greater numbers in the time when the people of Judah and Israel will be reunited, when the Israelites will be like the sand on the seashore which cannot be measured or counted (Hos 1:10-11).

Surely these abundant numbers also hint at the inclusion of Gentiles in God’s people through faith in Yeshua, growing the commonwealth of Israel into “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages” (Rev 7:9).

Since we are of this multitude, this abundant number of children born of the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit, staying within His order as we walk in the way that He has prepared for us (Gal 5:25; Eph 2:10).

Author: Catharine Pakington