A Handbook for Pilgrims

The LORD spoke to Moses in the Tent of Meeting in the Desert of Sinai on the first day of the second month of the second year after the Israelites came out of Egypt. He said, “Take a census of the whole Israelite community by their clans and families listing every man by name, one by one…twenty years old or more who are able to serve in the army.”

Numbers 1:1-3

 The impossible had become possible. The Israelites escaped the tyranny of Egypt, crossed the Red Sea on dry land, feasted on manna and quail, were refreshed by water from a rock, and received the Ten Commandments along with instructions on how to live in God’s favor. And all this in thirteen months. They were at the brink of the Promised Land, ready to roll.

So why would the LORD ask Moses to not only number the fighting men of Israel but list them by name? Think what a lengthy process a census would have been in those days. But God knew the road ahead and that His people needed to be ready for the battles to be fought. Remember, He’s the one with that “I AM” clarity we want to focus on.

Vernon J. McGee writes, the book of Numbers is a book of: “walking, wandering, working, warring, witnessing, and worshiping. It is a handbook for pilgrims…a roadmap for the wilderness of this world” (blueletterbible.org). The Israelites were in that wilderness. So are we. There are battles to be fought on our horizons.   

As Thomas Constable, in his Sonic Light commentary says, “life as His people in the wilderness of this world means: a walk of simple faith and of constant conflict.”

So what did they need to know? What do we need to know to walk in simple faith in the conflicts we encounter? We need to know the value of the people around us. We need to take a count of those we can count on. We need to trust the resources we have on hand. The godly in my family, the leaders in my church, my Bible study girlfriends, the word of God—these I can count on.

Numbers starts us on God’s path with His handbook for the ages.

Nancy P

All Scripture quotations are from the NIV Translation 1973, 1978, 1984, unless otherwise noted.