Numbers 2:9
All that were numbered in the camp of Judah were an hundred thousand and fourscore thousand and six thousand and four hundred, throughout their armies. These shall first set forth. All that were numbered in the camp of Judah were an hundred thousand and fourscore thousand and six thousand and four hundred, throughout their armies. These shall first set forth.
The total numbered in Judah's camp was 186,400 throughout its armies, and these were to set out first, at the head of Israel's marching order. The verse forms one part of a prescribed arrangement in which each tribe camped and marched in its assigned order under its own standard. Each standard bore the sign of its father's house, and each tribe was to pitch by its own standard in its appointed place around the tabernacle at a distance from it. In all wilderness travels and rests they were to march in order, every tribe under its own standard when they journeyed.
The times for pitching and journeying were shown by the pillar of cloud resting low over the tabernacle or lifting high above it. When journeying, the ark of the covenant was borne before them. The arrangement was one of perfect and exact order with defined responsibilities, showing order rather than confusion in God's work. Its place in that ordered arrangement helped display God's majesty and holiness, the purity He requires of those who serve Him, and a pattern of order and harmony meant to reveal His character to surrounding nations.
The orderly arrangement was meant to display God as Israel's Governor and to show surrounding nations the dignity of His work. The order is held up as a faithful example and warning for those on whom the ends of the world have come. It warns lest they follow Israel in murmuring against God, lusting after evil things, idolatry, fornication and rebellion, and be overthrown in the wilderness as Israel was.
It proves God has not changed from a God of order, that He is the same in the present dispensation as in the former, as particular now as then. He is not the author of confusion but of peace. He intends present believers to learn lessons of order and organization from what was instituted in the days of Moses for the benefit of Israel.