And his host, and those that were numbered of them, were forty thousand and five hundred.
The numbered host of Ephraim's camp was forty thousand and five hundred. The count belongs to Israel's ordered arrangement by tribes under their standards, illustrating the care and discipline required in Israel's movements.
The thorough organization and discipline were given very soon after leaving Egypt for arranging the camp while the people lived in tents, ordering the tribes by their standards around the tabernacle and for marching. Within that order each tribe was numbered and assigned its own standard and appointed place, pitching under its own standard bearing its distinguishing sign and marching in order under its own standard when the ark moved, each required to move in the appointed order. Moses was qualified in special providence to stand at the head of Israel's armies by his training as a mighty warrior and general among the Egyptians. The holy tabernacle and sacred ark were not to be borne indiscriminately by any tribe that chose but in the order God specified, borne in the midst by the Levites with a special family of the Levites designated to bear it, with Moses and Aaron marching just in front of the ark and the sons of Aaron following near them each bearing a trumpet.
God signified when they should pitch in a certain place and when they should journey again by causing the pillar of cloud to rest directly over the tabernacle until they should move, and directions from Moses were signified to the people through the trumpets in special understood sounds that directed their movements accordingly, so that in all their journeying perfect order was required. The carefully directed arrangement, with each person assigned a particular task, was meant to impress the people with God's majesty and holiness and to show the surrounding nations God's character, what He desires of His people, and that the Lord governed Israel, showing that arrangements in God's service should rightly represent Him. The camp while the people lived in tents was ordered, and God does not approve of confusion in His work.
God is a God of order and not of confusion, the author of peace, the same in the present dispensation as in the former and as particular now as then, requiring order now as then. He designs that lessons of order and organization be learned from the perfect order and special organization instituted in the days of Moses. The faithful record of Israel's deliverance, organization, murmuring, rebellion, and punishment, with their carcasses strewn in the wilderness for unwillingness to submit to God's wise arrangements, is hung up as a warning lest those upon whom the ends of the world are come follow their example of disobedience and fall like them.
The numbered host of Ephraim's camp was forty thousand and five hundred. The count belongs to Israel's ordered arrangement by tribes under their standards, illustrating the care and discipline required in Israel's movements.
The thorough organization and discipline were given very soon after leaving Egypt for arranging the camp while the people lived in tents, ordering the tribes by their standards around the tabernacle and for marching. Within that order each tribe was numbered and assigned its own standard and appointed place, pitching under its own standard bearing its distinguishing sign and marching in order under its own standard when the ark moved, each required to move in the appointed order. Moses was qualified in special providence to stand at the head of Israel's armies by his training as a mighty warrior and general among the Egyptians. The holy tabernacle and sacred ark were not to be borne indiscriminately by any tribe that chose but in the order God specified, borne in the midst by the Levites with a special family of the Levites designated to bear it, with Moses and Aaron marching just in front of the ark and the sons of Aaron following near them each bearing a trumpet.
God signified when they should pitch in a certain place and when they should journey again by causing the pillar of cloud to rest directly over the tabernacle until they should move, and directions from Moses were signified to the people through the trumpets in special understood sounds that directed their movements accordingly, so that in all their journeying perfect order was required. The carefully directed arrangement, with each person assigned a particular task, was meant to impress the people with God's majesty and holiness and to show the surrounding nations God's character, what He desires of His people, and that the Lord governed Israel, showing that arrangements in God's service should rightly represent Him. The camp while the people lived in tents was ordered, and God does not approve of confusion in His work.
God is a God of order and not of confusion, the author of peace, the same in the present dispensation as in the former and as particular now as then, requiring order now as then. He designs that lessons of order and organization be learned from the perfect order and special organization instituted in the days of Moses. The faithful record of Israel's deliverance, organization, murmuring, rebellion, and punishment, with their carcasses strewn in the wilderness for unwillingness to submit to God's wise arrangements, is hung up as a warning lest those upon whom the ends of the world are come follow their example of disobedience and fall like them.