Numbers 26:27
These are the families of the Zebulunites according to those that were numbered of them, threescore thousand and five hundred. These are the families of the Zebulunites according to those that were numbered of them, threescore thousand and five hundred.
The verse belongs to Israel's second numbering in Numbers 26, taken in the wilderness after the wanderings. That numbering was taken at the end and close of the forty years of wandering, forty years after the first numbering in Numbers 1. It was taken nearly forty years after leaving Egypt, just before entering Canaan. It was the census in the plains of Moab, taken thirty-eight years after the census at Sinai.
The verse records the numbered families of the Zebulunites as 60,500 adult males. The second census is to be compared with the first to note the differences among the tribes and to see how their numbers changed during the wilderness journey, whether each tribe gained or lost. Some tribes fell off in number and declined, while others increased, some greatly. Zebulun increased by 3,100 from the 57,400 counted soon after leaving Egypt, while the whole nation changed little, from 603,550 to 601,730 adult males between the two numberings in chapters 1 and 26.
Together with the rest of the chapter the verse shows that, except for Caleb and Joshua, not one man numbered the first time remained alive, but all others had fallen in the wilderness. They had fallen under God's judgment after wickedness and open rebellion, and this proves that God fulfills His threatened judgments, for by solemn oath He excluded that generation from the promised land and doomed them to die in the wilderness. It warns those upon whom the ends of the world are come, whose hopes of entering the kingdom of God and whose tokens of God's favor and presence cannot be stronger than Israel's at the first numbering, that sin cherished in the heart will inevitably bring ruin and shut them out as Israel was shut out of Canaan.