Numbers 26:57, commentary and pictures

Numbers 26:57 belongs to Israel's second numbering in Numbers 26, which answers to the first numbering at the opening of Numbers in chapter 1 and was taken forty years later at the end of the forty years of wandering in the wilderness. It records the census of the Levites by their families, naming the Gershonites, Kohathites, and Merarites descended from Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. The Levites were scattered among the tribes of Israel rather than receiving a separate tribal territory, serving in priestly duties. The second numbering is set alongside the first so the two can be compared to note differences during the wilderness journey, showing which tribes gained or lost population, with some falling off in number and others increasing, some greatly.

By the time of this numbering, not one man counted in the first numbering remained alive except Caleb and Joshua, for every other person had fallen in the wilderness. That failure came because the people were wicked, with sin in their midst breaking out in open, willful rebellion against God, so that by a solemn oath He excluded them from the promised land and doomed them to die in the wilderness. The second numbering manifests beyond dispute that God's threatened judgments were accomplished and impresses the fact that He will fulfill His threatened judgments.

It 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 and whose tokens of God's favor, presence, and willingness to save cannot be greater than Israel's at the first numbering, yet Israel came short of the land of promise. Its one great lesson is that sin cannot be carried in the heart without inevitable ruin. As part of the Numbers 25 to 27 section, the verse teaches submission to God's will.