And his host, and those that were numbered of them, were forty and one thousand and five hundred.
This verse belongs to God's specified, ordered arrangement for Israel's encampment and marching, recording one tribe's numbered host within that divinely commanded order. Each tribe was assigned its place beneath its own standard, bearing the sign of its father's house, to pitch at a distance around the tabernacle after it was erected in exactly the position commanded, and to march in order tribe by tribe under its own standard when traveling. The tabernacle itself was made to be taken apart and carried in all their journeyings, the time to pitch and abide or to journey again being shown by the cloud of glory resting low over the tabernacle or lifting high above it, and when the people journeyed the ark of the covenant was borne before them.
The numbered host in the verse is forty-one thousand five hundred. That host is Gad's numbered host, while those who identified it otherwise held it to be Asher's camp and strength, numbering men. The arrangement assigned each person a specific work. Its order and harmony were to show the surrounding nations that the Lord governed Israel. Its order and harmony were also meant to impress people with God's majesty and holiness, the purity He requires of those who serve Him, and the character He desires His people to show.
The counting and arranging of the tribes in an orderly company for the journeys is an example of God's care for discipline and coordination. The perfect organization and special order was instituted for the children of Israel in the days of Moses for their benefit. The faithful record of deliverance and perfect order together with murmuring against Moses and against God, transgressions, rebellions, punishments, and carcasses strewn in the wilderness because of unwillingness to submit to God's wise arrangements is held up as a warning, lest those on whom the ends of the world are come follow that example of disobedience and fall like them. God has not changed from a God of order but is the same in the present dispensation as in the former, as particular now as then, and designs that lessons of order and organization be learned from the perfect order instituted for the children of Israel.
This verse belongs to God's specified, ordered arrangement for Israel's encampment and marching, recording one tribe's numbered host within that divinely commanded order. Each tribe was assigned its place beneath its own standard, bearing the sign of its father's house, to pitch at a distance around the tabernacle after it was erected in exactly the position commanded, and to march in order tribe by tribe under its own standard when traveling. The tabernacle itself was made to be taken apart and carried in all their journeyings, the time to pitch and abide or to journey again being shown by the cloud of glory resting low over the tabernacle or lifting high above it, and when the people journeyed the ark of the covenant was borne before them.
The numbered host in the verse is forty-one thousand five hundred. That host is Gad's numbered host, while those who identified it otherwise held it to be Asher's camp and strength, numbering men. The arrangement assigned each person a specific work. Its order and harmony were to show the surrounding nations that the Lord governed Israel. Its order and harmony were also meant to impress people with God's majesty and holiness, the purity He requires of those who serve Him, and the character He desires His people to show.
The counting and arranging of the tribes in an orderly company for the journeys is an example of God's care for discipline and coordination. The perfect organization and special order was instituted for the children of Israel in the days of Moses for their benefit. The faithful record of deliverance and perfect order together with murmuring against Moses and against God, transgressions, rebellions, punishments, and carcasses strewn in the wilderness because of unwillingness to submit to God's wise arrangements is held up as a warning, lest those on whom the ends of the world are come follow that example of disobedience and fall like them. God has not changed from a God of order but is the same in the present dispensation as in the former, as particular now as then, and designs that lessons of order and organization be learned from the perfect order instituted for the children of Israel.