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#90.
Concluding features (Numb. 26: - 36:).
pp. 186 - 190
We have now considered the teaching of the Book of Numbers up to the end of
chapter 25: From this point to the end of the Book, we have eleven more chapters. Had
our intention in this series been a study of each book as it stands, we should have dealt
next with the structures and analysis of the remaining chapters. This work had been
partly done, but upon weighing the matter over, and considering the teaching of these
remaining chapters in the light of the title, "Fundamentals of dispensational truth", we
have decided to replace this detailed study by the briefest of summaries. Su much of the
ground is retraced in these chapters, the new matter being largely connected with the
re-adjustment of the people in view of the entry into the land, and the summary will be
sufficient to lead on to the study of the fifth book of Moses, that of Deuteronomy.
Numb. 26: is occupied with the numbering of the people. This is the third census.
The three occasions on which a census was taken are as follows:--
(1) Before the building of the tabernacle (Exod. 30: 11; 38: 25). This provided
silver for the work of the tabernacle.
(2) At the opening of the Book of Numbers, in the wilderness of Sinai (Numb. 1:).
(3) The third numbering is recorded here in Numb. 26: The record is followed by
this solemn comment:--
"These are they that were numbered by Moses and Eleazar the priest, who
numbered the children of Israel in the plains of Moab by Jordan near Jericho. But
among these was not a man whom Moses and Aaron the priest numbered, when they
numbered the children of Israel in the wilderness of Sinai. For the Lord had said of
them, They shall surely die in the wilderness. And there was not left a man of them
save Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua, the son of Nun" (Numb. 26: 63-65).
Even Moses is not spared. He, too, must suffer loss, because of his failure to sanctify
the Lord at Meribah:--
"And the Lord said unto Moses, Get thee up into this mount Abarim, and see the land
which I have given unto the children of Israel. And when thou hast seen it, thou also
shalt be gathered unto thy people, as Aaron thy brother was gathered. For ye rebelled
against My commandment in the desert of Zin, in the strife of the congregation, to
sanctify Me at the water before their eyes" (Numb. 27: 12-14).
With these solemn words we may compare the witness of the apostle Paul:--
"Lest by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be disqualified
. . . . . All our fathers were under the cloud . . . . . all . . . . . all . . . . . all . . . . . all, but with
many of them God was not well pleased . . . . . Let him that thinketh he standeth, take
heed lest he fall" (I Cor. 9: 24 - 10: 12).
"Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief . . . . . So we
see that they could not enter in because of unbelief. Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise
being left us . . . . . any of you should seem to come short of it" (Heb. 3: 7 - 4: 1).
"This one thing I do, forgetting . . . . . reaching forth . . . . . I press toward the mark for
the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 3: 13, 14).