Numbers 26:5
Reuben, the eldest son of Israel: the children of Reuben; Hanoch, of whom cometh the family of the Hanochites: of Pallu, the family of the Palluites: Reuben, the eldest son of Israel: the children of Reuben; Hanoch, of whom cometh the family of the Hanochites: of Pallu, the family of the Palluites:
Numbers 26:5 opens the second numbering by naming Reuben as Israel's eldest son and listing his Hanochite and Palluite families. It keeps the same tribal order found in Numbers 1-3 and gives the definite number of men of a certain age in those families of Reuben. The numbering belongs to Israel's second census taken at the close of forty years of wandering in the plains of Moab. It came thirty-eight years after the census at Sinai and just before entry into Canaan, answering the first numbering at the opening of the book.
It is to be compared with the first numbering in Numbers 1, taken forty years earlier, to note how the tribes differed after forty years. The comparison shows which tribes gained and which lost numbers during the wilderness journey, with some prospering greatly while others declined and some falling off in number while others increased. In Reuben's case the comparison shows a fall from 46,500 to 43,730, a decrease of 2,770.
The second numbering shows that of those counted the first time none save Caleb and Joshua were alive to witness it, for every other person had fallen in the wilderness. This makes manifest beyond dispute that God fulfilled his threatened judgment, with not one man who rebelled against God remaining alive. The cause was wickedness breaking out in open, wanton rebellion against the God of Heaven, so that by solemn oath He excluded the rebels from the land and doomed them to die in the wilderness for their sin.
It thereby impresses that God will fulfill His threatened judgments. It warns those upon whom the ends of the world are come, whose hopes of entering the kingdom of God and tokens of favor and presence cannot be stronger than Israel's at the first numbering, that sin carried in the heart inevitably brings ruin and can likewise cause them to come short of the promise. The census Moses took at the Lord's command, exemplified by this verse, was not sinful, unlike David's later census, because it had divine authorization. Together with various laws and ordinances around it, the passage forms part of a diversified reading that contains valuable instruction and is of both interest and profit.