Of Shupham, the family of the Shuphamites: of Hupham, the family of the Huphamites.
Numbers 26:39 belongs to Israel's second numbering, taken at the end and close of the forty years of wandering, forty years and nearly forty years after the first numbering in Numbers 1, shortly before the people entered Canaan. In that second census the verse records the families of Shupham and Hupham, naming and listing the Shuphamites and the Huphamites. Those families of Shupham and Hupham were among the descendants of Benjamin.
The second numbering is to be compared with the first numbering in Numbers 1 to note the differences among the tribes and how their numbers changed. That comparison shows how some tribes fell off and declined and lost while others increased greatly and gained. The numbering showed that the wilderness generation had died in the wilderness under God's judgment for rebellion, with not one man counted in the first numbering still alive except Caleb and Joshua. Every other person had fallen in the wilderness, so that none counted in the first numbering lived to witness the second numbering except those two.
The second numbering shows that God fulfills His threatened judgments, for the people were wicked and sin was in their midst breaking out in open, wanton rebellion against God. By solemn oath He therefore excluded them from the land and doomed them to die in the wilderness. The census belongs to a numbering Moses took at the Lord's command, and unlike David's census, this commanded numbering brought no trouble. Its reading together with the various laws and ordinances that accompany it gives valuable instruction and is of interest and profit though diversified.
Numbers 26:39 belongs to Israel's second numbering, taken at the end and close of the forty years of wandering, forty years and nearly forty years after the first numbering in Numbers 1, shortly before the people entered Canaan. In that second census the verse records the families of Shupham and Hupham, naming and listing the Shuphamites and the Huphamites. Those families of Shupham and Hupham were among the descendants of Benjamin.
The second numbering is to be compared with the first numbering in Numbers 1 to note the differences among the tribes and how their numbers changed. That comparison shows how some tribes fell off and declined and lost while others increased greatly and gained. The numbering showed that the wilderness generation had died in the wilderness under God's judgment for rebellion, with not one man counted in the first numbering still alive except Caleb and Joshua. Every other person had fallen in the wilderness, so that none counted in the first numbering lived to witness the second numbering except those two.
The second numbering shows that God fulfills His threatened judgments, for the people were wicked and sin was in their midst breaking out in open, wanton rebellion against God. By solemn oath He therefore excluded them from the land and doomed them to die in the wilderness. The census belongs to a numbering Moses took at the Lord's command, and unlike David's census, this commanded numbering brought no trouble. Its reading together with the various laws and ordinances that accompany it gives valuable instruction and is of interest and profit though diversified.