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Come and study the Holy Scriptures with us as Fr. Stephen DeYoung teaches verse-by-verse on the podcast, The Whole Counsel of God. Fr. Stephen holds a Ph.D. in Biblical Studies, and is an Orthodox priest serving at Archangel Gabriel Orthodox Church in Lafayette, Louisiana.

Chapter 26 Now it came to pass after the plague that the Lord spoke to Moses and Eliezer, the son of Aaron the priest, saying, Take a census of all the congregation of the sons of Israel from 20 years old and above by their father's houses, all able to go to war in Israel. Anybody having deja vu flashbacks? I know it's been a while. Some of you weren't here. But back at the beginning of the Book of Numbers, we had a census. Remember? of all the tribes. And I said, there's going to be another census when we get toward the end. Here we are. There's another census. Why do we need another census? Well, remember, 40 years has passed between these censuses. Anyway, has passed, right? So we had the first census was the generation that came out of Egypt. and then remember they all had to die off in the wilderness because of their faithlessness right and then it's their children's generation 40 years later who are going to get to go into the land of Canaan and right now here we're toward the end of the book we're getting ready to go in the land of Canaan so we're doing a census now of the new generation right of this generation and why is it the men of that certain age remember as we've talked about we are long before the period where anybody has a standing army right you don't have standing armies they're really hard to feed really hard to and so if you're a superpower at this point in the world like egypt then you have people who are military commanders and generals and that kind of thing who are sort of war advisors to the pharaoh who that's their whole job but in terms of your fighting forces you just call up all the men able-bodied men of a certain age before you go to war right so you say and there were certain periods of the year we've actually we actually saw this a couple times in genesis where it talked about the time coming for war there'll be more of that later you're like wait the season for war what are you and that was because you're calling up all the farmers you're calling up all the farm labor so you didn't go to war during the planting season or the harvest season because you needed those people you had to feed your nation right so you needed the labor there so they go to war after the harvest was done because then you have several months before planting begins you can go and take all those people call them out make war do whatever you're going to do take whatever territory you're going to take and then send them back for planting so as weird as it sounds and it's not that people

cooperated it's just you'd be destroying your own country right people would starve because none of the crops would get harvested if you tried to go to war in some other time of year right like everybody kind of had to so there was just a season where wars happened right every year If they were going to happen, they happened. It's like hurricane season, right? We've got to be on the lookout for hurricanes. They had to be on the lookout for foreign invasions, right? Because they might try and come and take some territory. But yeah, so if you're talking about Israel, you don't have those generals and commanders even, right? You don't have those structures in place. So it's purely all the men of that age going to get called up. We've talked before about how the fact that they don't even really have weapons, the way we think of them, that they were literally mostly using farm implements or things that could be easily made, right? You could take a long stick and sharpen the end of it and call it a spear, right? Like there are things that are pretty easily made. But most of them are using what are called sickle swords where they would take sickles used for farming and just kind of bang them out and straighten them a little. That's where the whole thing in Isaiah comes from where it talks about people beating their swords into plowshares is how it's translated in english famously but the idea is they're just going to turn them all back into farming implements because we're not going to make war anymore at this time we're probably it's going the other way right you're getting called up you don't have any armor you don't have any weapons so just whatever you have right you try and make a weapon out of it because how well you do with that will determine whether you come home and this is why war at this time in history Thank you. is pretty ugly and horrific it's just a bunch of men all piled on top of each other trying to beat

each other to death essentially with crude implements until they break well so sort of

because of that right you you didn't get the same kind of injuries right like if you're hitting each other with clubs right like a lot of people are going to come back with concussions and you know and some people are going to get killed and some people are going to get broken limbs that never heal right and that kind of thing but you're not getting limbs blown off you're not getting the same kind of casualty level until you start getting some more military innovation the Assyrians and then even more each step is more so right Alexander the Great once you get to the Romans the Romans have basically a war machine and they are just literally going and massacring whole villages of people and stuff but even then they're doing it with like swords it's like up close and personal hacking people to pieces it's still super brutal but yeah These wars had lower casualty rates from that. Actually, a lot of the casualties in these kind of wars happened due to things like disease and malnutrition and stuff along the way. Because you got huge groups of people hiking on foot to get places and then to get back and going to foreign areas. So you had a lot of disease and infection and things like that. And you had a lot of people who just ended up debilitated. they had a bad you know that because their arm would never heal right or their shoulder or their leg and there was no they didn't have the sort of medical science to deal with that you were just debilitated but so uh that's why the census is of that right because they're getting ready to go into canaan and they know there's gonna be a there's gonna be some fights coming spoilers for the book of Joshua, right? They've already had a couple that we've seen, but there's going to be some big fights coming. And so we're going to now number the new generation. So get ready for the raw excitement. If you remember back when we did the first census and I read it, the beauty of repetition and rhythm. Here it comes again. So Moses and Eliezer the priest spoke with them in the airboat of Moab by the Jordan, across from Jericho, saying, take a census from 20 years old and above in the manner the Lord commanded Moses. Now the sons of Israel who came out of Egypt were Reuben, the firstborn of Israel. The sons of Reuben were Enoch and the tribe of the Enochites, Paliu and the tribe of the Paliuites, Hezron and the tribe of the Hezronites, Carmi and the tribe of the Carmeites. These are the tribes of Reuben, and their census was 43,730. Now the son of Paliu was Eliab. The sons of Eliab were Nemuel, Dathan, and Abiram.

These were the ones chosen by the congregation to form a coalition against Moses and Aaron in the company of Korah in their revolt against the Lord, and the earth opened its mouth, swallowed them, and Korah in the death of his company when fire devoured 250 men and they became a sign, but the sons of Korah did not die. Okay, so that's a little bit of history. We already read that story, right? And about that some of the sons of Korah survived. They'll show up again when we get to the book of Psalms here in a couple of years. We will revisit them then. But so remember when it's talking about sons, it's not being literal in the sense that like reuben was not alive when they came out of egypt nor were his sons nor were his grandchildren they were in egypt for several centuries so this is talking about so reuben is the tribe like the big tribe and then the people described as the sons of reuben those are the clans those are the big clans and the names are the clan heads and then the sons of those clan names are the big extended families within those clans and then there's all the people right within each of those units so you've got big extended families groups of those make up clans groups of those clans make up the tribes that's how this is structured and there's going to be 12 of these because manassas

and Ephraim are both from Joseph, but Levi doesn't get counted for this because the Levites are priests and don't do military service, right? If you remember from last time. The other note, before we get into the fun, repetitious reading, is that, remember, we're getting these thousands of people, and it seems like these huge numbers, and you may be thinking, like, that's literally impossible for a camp that size to be, like, moving through the wilderness and stuff, the desert. And you are correct. These numbers are not exact. So thousand is used just to mean big number or company. It does not literally mean 1000 people. 1000 means big group. And this is true not just in the ancient Near East. This is true throughout the ancient world. The Roman military a centurion was in charge of how many people anybody know 82 yes that is actually correct 82 you say century well that's 100 it's 100 men and that you will see that in the roman records he was in charge of 100 but 100 was actually 82 people it was just rounded off right it was just rounded off so these are rounded off numbers so what it actually says is right 43,730 is 43,700s and then 30 but those thousands may have been 892 people those hundreds may have been 82 people or 102 people and 30 was probably about 30 but so this isn't uh super strictly accurate right numbering okay verse 12 the sons of Simeon and the tribe of the sons of Simeon were Nemuel and the tribe of the Nemuelites and Jamin and the tribe of the Jaminites and Jachin and the tribe of the Jachinites and Zerah and the tribe of the Zerites and Shaul and the tribe of the Shaulites. These are the tribes of the Simeonites and their census was 22,200. All the same things I just said still apply. So now I'm going to move quickly. The sons of Judah were Aaron and Onan, But Aaron Onan died in the land of Canaan. After these, Judah's sons, according to their tribes, right? So those are, here, Aaron Onan, remember, are actual people. We read about them in Genesis. Those two people died. And so what this is telling us is there was no later tribe named after them because they didn't have any descendants, right?

So there's no tribe or clan or anything related to them. After these, so after these, meaning the ones who did have clans, after these, Judah's sons, according to their tribes, were Shelah and the tribe of the Shelahites, and Perez and the tribe of the Perizzites, and Zerah, the tribe of the Zerahites. Now the sons of Perez were Hezron and the tribe of the Hezronites, and Hamul and the tribe of the Hamulites. These are the tribes of Judah, according to their census, 76,500. The sons of Issachar, according to their tribes, were Tola and the tribe of the Tolaites, and Pua and the tribe of the Puaites, and Jashub and the tribe of the Jashubites, and Shimron and the tribe of the Shimronites. These are the tribes of Issachar from their census 64,300. And we just keep rolling on. Sons of Zebulun, according to their tribes, were Sered and the tribe of the Seredites and Elon, not the one you're thinking of, and the tribe of the Elonites and Jalil and the tribe of the Jalilites, these are the tribes of Zebulun from their census 60,500. The sons of Gad, according to their tribes, were Zephon and the tribe of the Zephanites and Hagi and the tribe of the Haggaites and Shuni and the tribe of the Shunaites and Osni and the tribe of the Osniites, and Adi and the tribe of the Adiites, and Erod and the tribe of the Erudites, and Areli and the tribe of the Aralites. These are the tribes of the sons of Gad from their census 40,500. Sons of Asher, according to their tribes, were Jimna and the tribe of the Jimnites, Jesul and the tribe of the Jesuites, and Bariah and the tribe of the Bariahites, and Heber in the tribe of the Heberites and Malkiel in the tribe of the Malkielites. Now the name of Asherah daughter was sarah uh so she doesn't have a tribe or a clan named after her but the reason she's mentioned is not just like oh hey by the way he also had a daughter it's that there are people descended from her who are considered part of the tribe even though they're not part of one of the clans just mentioned, right? So there are some other folks, right? These are the tribes of Asher from their census, 53,400. The sons of Joseph, according to their tribes, were Manasseh and Ephraim. The son of Manasseh was Mekir and the tribe of the Mekirites, and Mekir begot Gilead, and by Gilead, the tribe of the Gileadites. Now these are the sons of Gilead, Jezer and the tribe of the Jezerites and Helech and the family of the Helikites

and Asriel and the tribe of the Asrealites and Shechem and the tribe of the Shechemites and Shemida and the tribe of the Shemidaites and Hefer and the tribe of the Heferites. Now Zelophehad, the son of Hefer, had no sons but daughters And the names of the daughters of Zelophehad were Mala, Noah, Hogla, Milcah, and Tirzah. These are the tribes of Manasseh from their census, 52,700. So same thing with the daughters there. All of these are great biblical names. If you're looking for, yeah, if you want to name your kid Jezer, I do not recommend naming your daughter Hogla. She will grow up to murder you if you name her Hogla. Yeah, heifer, also not great. Also not a great thing to name your daughter. So I might, if you'd come to me with that at a baptism, I might change it on you just for your sake. But some of it, I mean, Jesus, come on. Yeah. Verse 39. Now these are the sons of Ephraim, Shuthala, and the tribe of the Shuthalites, Shuthalites, and Tehan and the tribe of the Tehanites. Now these are the sons of Shuthala. Iran and the tribe of the Aranites. These are the tribes of the sons of Ephraim from their census 32,500. These tribes are the sons of Joseph, according to their tribes. The sons of Benjamin, according to their tribes, were Bela and the tribe of the Belaites and Ashbel, the tribe of the Ashbelites, and Ahiram and the family of the Ahiramites, and Shufam and the tribe of the Shufamites. now the sons of bella were ard and naaman ard and the tribe of the ardites and naaman and the tribe of the naamanites these are the sons of benjamin according to their tribes from their census 45 600 this is the son of dan according to his tribe shuhan and the tribe of the shuhanites shuhamites this is the tribe of dan according to shuham's tribe the entire tribe of the shuhamites from their census was 64,400. So this is one of the interesting things about Dan. You may have heard me say before, the Danites are mostly not even Semitic. The Danites are actually one of the Sea Peoples who kind of get adopted into Israel. And there are several ways that this is telegraphed. You may be wondering, why are they after Benjamin? Dan was older than Benjamin. Benjamin was the youngest son of Jacob, of Israel. Well, because according to Genesis, Dan, like some of these other tribes that we're about to read, were his children through concubines, not through his wives. Right, so there's already kind of a tip-off in Genesis that Dan is not, shall we say, a legitimate son, right, of Jacob.

we also have this thing here notice where there's only one clan tribe of dan is made up of one clan just one big clan and that's another tip off that this is a group who's been kind of for the most part adopted adopted in there are lots of individuals who we've seen and continue to see were adopted in right but this is a whole group that's been adopted in and there's these various tip-offs. And we're going to learn a lot of other bad things about Dan as we go. They're never going to be very good Israelites. They're going to continue with a lot of their pagan Sea Peoples. By Sea Peoples, I mean they're Greek. Well, in this case, they're the people who Homer calls the Danae. They're the same group. They also have one of the biggest numbers. Yeah, of military age people. Yeah, yeah. Gee, why would a group of people... of sea people have a large military populace right because they're mainly a military unit and that's probably part of how they were adopted in is because the sea peoples who came it's not like families migrating they came and attacked egypt and then ended up settling along the coast of the lofon like the philistines and so they needed wives to be blood right they probably had a few women with them but like this is mostly men this is mostly military so they would have intermarried with local people right and so that's probably part of how this sort of adoption took place right uh it and again the concept of ethnicity is a new one right so it didn't matter that phineas and a danite looked like really different physically right that wasn't the issue They didn't have our concept of ethnicity. Levi wasn't. Yeah, we skipped Levi. Yeah, Levi should have been between Simeon and Judah in terms of birth order, but was skipped because they don't do military service. Back to it. The sons of Naphtali, according to their tribes, were Jazeel in the tribe of the Jazeelites and Guni in the tribe of the Guniites. Wouldn't it be great to be a Guniite? You probably also should not name your son Goonie. That would probably not go well for him. And Jezer, the tribe of the Jezerites and Shillam and the family of the Shillamites. These are the tribes of Naphtali and their census, 45,400. This is the census of the sons of Israel, 601,730. Yes, so 600,000, you're going, wait, what? It's not an error.

again, we talked about round numbers, right? Then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, to these, the land shall be divided as an inheritance based on the number of names. 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 based on its census, but the land shall be divided by lot. They shall inherit according to the names of the tribes of their fathers. By allotment, their inheritance shall be divided between them larger and smaller. So this is the main purpose of this. So it's being set out here now in the Torah is the idea that based on the number of people, each person, basically each family, right, is going to get the same size plot of land that's going to be theirs. It's going to belong to their family from God, that little piece to that family. and where that is right that's the decided by lot part right and that's to make it quote-unquote fair right somebody's like man my land's you know like desert right my land like you know right so that's right we're going to do a fair way of deciding it that's going to belong to that family and then this is going to be the basis for the year of jubilee right that supposedly and They never do this, but we already read it. Supposedly, they were supposed to, in the 50th year, all the land would go back to the families that originally had it, right? So if you were a really good businessman and a wheeler dealer and your neighbor was not so smart or bright or was lazy or whatever, you might end up owning half his land, okay? But that wouldn't last forever. When the 50th year came up, it would go back to where it was. so your son and his son would start out on the same level so this was to make sure that there would be no generational poverty right so if you were lazy or not very bright or just made really bad decisions right you might suffer for it right and your immediate family might suffer for it for a period of time while you were the head of the family but then that you would not then pass on that poverty to the next generation, they would get a new start. They could make better decisions. They could work more diligently, right? They could do better. That was God's intent. That's the system God sets up in the Torah. As we know, that's not how things work out, right? But this was entirely equal based on number. Everyone got the same start, but they also were just given the land. They had to plant. They had to harvest. So they have to do the work and invest the time and the work and the effort into that. But they all started out, and each generation would have

if they had followed what God sent out, an equal plane. They all get an equal share. So that's the real reason why we needed this sense. us, right? It's not like, oh, we don't have enough people. We're not going to be able to win the war, right? God's already covered that. He's going to fight for them. They could bring five guys and they'd still win, right? The point is we're going to give every family, right? Their equal share, their equal starting point. And we're going to see, by the way, that according to the Torah, this isn't just true of Israel. This is true of everybody on earth. Well, when we get into the beginning of deuteronomy we're going to see that with israel's neighbors but the idea is that and saint paul's going to appeal to this in act 17 that god actually gives each nation and each person in each nation right that every human essentially god gives a share is entitled to a share of what god has created they can squander that and they can be lazy they could etc etc they can suffer the consequences of that but it's god's intent that that not be a generational thing period right that everyone have an equal right opportunity and then of course that it's up to you right what you do with it with what god has given you right and then what you do with god has given you should determine right what goes forward and as we've said before israel strays super far from this they never do the sabbath year let alone the jubilee never happens and as we said before in the New Testament, by the time you get to Christ's ministry, the high priest family and the other Sadducees own 70% of the land in Judea that isn't owned by the Romans, right? That anyone owns. 70% of it is owned by, another big chunk is Herod, right? But it's not owned by any of the people. And that the high priest family had done that on purpose, that they had used the temple tax to in debt the people and then seize their land and essentially employ them at low wages to work the land that god had given them in the first place to be their own right so even in israel and judea this doesn't let alone other nations it doesn't even approximate what god right intended But that is seen by the Torah as a basic injustice when that happens. Now the sons of Levi, so now we get to Levi, right? Because we're done with that, right? The Levites also, remember, are not going to get land because they're going to be surrounding the tabernacle and then later the temple. They're going to be living there. They're not going to be farming. They're going to be serving as priests and doing these things. And they're going to eat from the offerings that get brought by everyone else.

That's where they're going to get their food and upkeep. And the sons of Levi, according to their tribes, were Gershon and the tribe of the Gershonites, and Kohath and the tribe of the Kohathites, and Merari and the tribe of the Merariites. These are the tribes of the sons of Levi, the tribe of the Libniites, the tribe of the Hebronites, the tribe of the Koraites, and the tribe of the Mushites. you don't see Mushi. Mushi would be great. Now Kohat begot Amram. The name of Amram's wife was Jacobed, the daughter of Levi, who was born to Levi in Egypt. And to Amram, she bore Aaron and Moses and their sister Miriam. So that's where Moses fits in, in terms of the tribes and clans of Levi. To Aaron were born Nadab and Abihu, Eliezer and Ithamar. But Nadab and Abihu died when they offered strange fire before the Lord in the Sinai desert. Now based on their census, they numbered 23,000, every male from a month old and above. For a census was not taken of them among the other sons of Israel because there was no allotment given to them among the sons of Israel. They don't serve the military. They don't get a land allotment. So they counted. So military age is irrelevant, right? So they just count all the males, period. This is the census of Moses and Eleazar the priest who numbered the sons of Israel in Erebote of Moab by the Jordan across from Jericho. But among these, there was not a man numbered by Moses and Aaron the priest when they took a census of the sons of Israel in the Sinai desert. Meaning, right, those guys who they counted before are all gone and now now does that mean every single human no no not just that remember military age so some of these people were alive at that time but they were kids right and feasibly there might be a few like moses himself there might be a few very elderly people banging around still at this point in time Thank you.

right, who were counted last time. But they're not counted this time because they're too old now, right? They're not going to be around too much longer. For the Lord said to them, they shall surely die in the desert. So there was not left a man of them except Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua, the son of Nun. Right, remember they were the two spies who were faithful. And just while we're on the whole ethnic diversity thing, remember that Caleb is not only a Canaanite, he's a Kenizzite. He's from one of the groups that Israel's going to destroy, one of the groups that Israel's going to wipe out. But guess what? They're not going to kill Caleb. Why are they not going to kill Caleb? Because Caleb is now an elder of the tribe of Judah. He's not only joined, yes, he ceased being a Kenizzite. He's now a member of the tribe of judah he is a son of judah he is as far as they are concerned descended from the person judah right so this is why i say our modern concept of ethnicity is not here right and not only is he a member of the tribe of judah and considered to be descended from judah he's an elder in the tribe of judah meaning he's the head of one of the clans right his family is now part of the tribe of Judah, so he's literally considered one of the sons of Judah in this kind of numbering, even though he's no biological relation.

Yeah. Does that kind of make me think about the idea of being grafted in, you know, like the new covenant, that kind of thing? The way you were talking about that and how they viewed it kind of reminded me, is that some way connected, the way

Yes, it's essentially the same. Yeah. That the When you look at the origin of Israel, so there is this meme in a lot of evangelical circles and Protestant circles in general, which is that sometimes they even say salvation, which is crazy to me. but at least the covenant or the people of God was quote unquote ethnic in the old Testament. And then in the new Testament, well, now it's based on quote unquote belief, right? Like that's their meaning. And before we even get to the faith and belief part, right, which is what people usually argue about, it was never ethnic in the, in the way we think of it. Right. So, yes, there was a nation, Israel, that was a nation for a brief period of time, right, that it was actually called Israel. I mean, we're talking about a couple centuries, like America's been around longer, right? But there was, you know, a massive people, but they were ethnically diverse, right? And especially here at the start, you see that, right? This is a group of people from all different ethnic backgrounds who are gathered together. And they're made sons of these patriarchal figures by being brought into the people, which is a ritual thing. The men are circumcised and they eat the Passover, so they're Israelites. That's what it takes to be an Israelite. They don't know what DNA is. There's no biological thing. They're not making family trees to decide if you're Jewish. You're circumcised, you eat the Passover. But it doesn't stop there. We're going to see all the way through, right? You know, David's great-grandma is a Moabite, Ruth, right? All through, there are going to be people of different ethnic, right, who are brought in and who become part of, yeah, Rahab's going to become part of the tribe of Judah, right? And there's going to be Deuteronomy is going to lay out processes for that with women, because since women aren't circumcised, right, it's going to lay out processes for women coming into Israel. What do they do ritually since they're not doing the circumcision part? They do eat the Passover, right? Men, women, and children all eat the Passover, but children eat the Passover. Anyway, sorry. Yeah, you see what I did there. But, right, so there's processes for that. Yeah. So I'm trying to emphasize that. And so what happens with the church, right? So the church is Israel. It's the same group, right? It's just there's another big grafting in that begins, right? But a big grafting in is how it all started. And little grafting in's have been continuous all the way through.

So there's not really a disjunction there or as much of one as certain groups and certain folks would like to see it is probably a good place to end for this evening before we get into some more

inheritance stuff. So, yeah, next time we'll pick up at the beginning of chapter 27. Thank you,

everybody. Listen next time as Father Stephen DeYoung continues his study of the scriptures on the whole counsel of God. Father Stephen's email address is wholecouncil at ancientfaith.com. That's wholecouncil at ancientfaith.com.

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