Overview of Numbers
4th book of the BIBLE, Old Testament and Pentateuch
Numbers covers nearly 39 years. 1 to 10 covers 21 days and 10 to 33 covers 38 years
Quoted 2 times in New Testament
Numbers opens some 13 months after the Exodus.
Numbers records the tragic story and consequences of Israel’s unbelief.
What could have been an 11 day journey turned into a 40 year ordeal.
Numbers has more than 80 claims that “the Lord spoke to Moses.”
Because of the rebellion at Kadesh Barnea in accepting the report of 10 of the 12 spies while rejecting the reports of Joshua and Caleb, the generation of the exodus will not be the generation of the conquest.
The mission of the spies lasted 40 days.
God assigned one year of wandering for each day the spies spied out the land. With this time already elapsed since having left Egypt, that added about 38 more years.
Almost nothing is recorded about the transition years after the rebellion at Kadesh Barnea.
Kadesh Barnea was some 150 miles north of Mt. Sinai, and some 50 miles south of Beersheba, the southern gateway to Canaan
Two census are taken in Numbers (1; 26):
The first census was taken in the second month of the second year after the Exodus numbering the first generation of post-Exodus Israelites
The second census was taken in the fortieth year after the Exodus numbering the second generation of post-Exodus Israelites
Both census were taken of Israelite men who were of fighting age (twenty years of age and older)
The large numbers of Israelite adult males created an army of 600,000.