Numbers 26:12, commentary and pictures

Numbers 26:12 belongs to Israel's second numbering in Numbers 26, taken in the plains of Moab thirty-eight years after the census at Sinai, at the end of the forty years of wandering and shortly before entering Canaan after the wilderness journey. It lists the families descended from Simeon: of Nemuel the Nemuelites, of Jamin the Jaminites, and of Jachin the Jachinites. The census gives the number of men of the specified age in each tribe.

Comparing this census with the earlier count in Numbers 1 shows how the tribes changed between the beginning and end of the wandering, showing which tribes gained or lost members, how some fell off and others increased, with some increasing greatly while others declined. Simeon had fallen from 59,300 to 22,200, a loss of 37,100, or nearly two-thirds of the tribe. Not one man numbered the first time was alive to witness this second numbering except Caleb and Joshua, for every other person had fallen in the wilderness, which makes manifest that not one of those who rebelled remained alive and shows beyond dispute that God fulfills his threatened judgments.

The failure came simply because the people were wicked, with sin in their midst breaking out in open, wanton rebellion against God, so that by a solemn oath he excluded them from the land and doomed them to die in the wilderness. The second numbering is full of instruction to the people upon whom the ends of the world are come, whose hopes of entering the kingdom of God cannot be stronger than Israel's hopes at the first numbering and who cannot have greater tokens of his favor, presence, and willingness to save, yet Israel came short of the land of promise, teaching that sin cannot be carried in the heart without bringing ruin. The second numbering stands together with various laws and ordinances containing valuable instruction, making a diversified reading of interest and profit.

The census Moses took at the Lord's command was not itself sinful; David's later census was wrong because he took it without the Lord's consent and trusted in the size of his forces.