Numbers 2:3
And on the east side toward the rising of the sun shall they of the standard of the camp of Judah pitch throughout their armies: and Nahshon the son of Amminadab shall be captain of the children of Judah. And on the east side toward the rising of the sun shall they of the standard of the camp of Judah pitch throughout their armies: and Nahshon the son of Amminadab shall be captain of the children of Judah.
After deliverance from Egypt God gave a perfect, detailed, special order for encampment and travel, in which each tribe had its own standard in its assigned place and camped and marched under it, so that the camp was ordered and not confused. Within that order Judah's standard was on the east side toward the rising of the sun, with Nahshon the son of Amminadab as captain of the children of Judah. Every tribe's standard bore the sign of its father's house, and every tribe was to pitch by its own standard and to march under its own standard, and when the journey rested the tabernacle was erected in the center with the tribes pitching their tents around it at a distance, each in just the position commanded, with Judah on the east, and they kept that same tribal order when they traveled.
The arrangement shows that Israel's movements were directed by God rather than left to individual choice, illustrating the order and specific responsibilities God required, with each person having an appointed work to carry out faithfully. The ordered arrangement was meant to impress Israel and surrounding nations with God's majesty and holiness, to show that the Lord governed Israel, to display the purity He requires of those who serve Him and the character He desires His people to show, and to keep His work from appearing inferior or belittled, since people judge by appearances. The same principle applies to religious work now: its arrangements should be carefully made in order so conduct gives others a worthy impression of God and represents Him rightly.
That faithful picture of organization, together with Israel's murmuring, rebellion, transgression, punishment, and carcasses strewn in the wilderness for unwillingness to submit to God's wise arrangements, is held up as a warning lest those upon whom the ends of the world are come follow their example of disobedience and lust after evil things and fall like them. God has not changed from a God of order, being the same in the present dispensation as in the former, not the author of confusion but of peace and as particular now as then. He designs that lessons of order and organization be learned from the perfect order instituted in the days of Moses for the benefit of Israel.