Wednesday Bible Study- by the numbers

This week we are in Numbers 3:16, but before we start, I want to clear up some misunderstanding.




These Wednesday messages are building a backstage "metastory" that I myself don't completely understand.  Sometimes it might seem like just a bunch of bunny trails, but God has a goal.  What I have seen is that each post has one of two goals:

1- To prove beyond any doubt that Jesus is the Son of God, and the only way to heaven.

2- To show the many amazing ways that God keeps His promises, even when we don't quite see them.




This week is going to be one of those #2 posts.  The verse, with a little lead in:

Num 3:15  Number the sons of Levi according to their fathers' house, by their families. You shall number them, every male from a month old and upward. 
Num 3:16  And Moses numbered them according to the word of Jehovah, as he was commanded. 

So our setting is just after the Israelites got to the desert, and got the Law from Sinai.  God has already ordered the numbering of the other 11 tribes, and now will number Levi.  But there is a big difference in the two censuses.  The other tribes were counted by men ready to serve in battle.  Levi, called by God to the priesthood, would not be numbered that way, but by ALL males from the age of 2 up, because they were excepted from war duty by being the Priesthood.  And logically, you might think that gives you a bigger number for Levi.  But forgive me a moment for being statistical, but let's look at that assertion.

Judah- 74,600
Dan- 62,700
Simeon- 59,300
Zebulun- 57,400
Issachar- 54,400
Napthali- 53,400
Reuben- 46,500
Gad- 45,600
Asher- 41,500
*Ephraim- 40,500
Benjamin- 35,400
*Manasseh- 32,200

Now, the * indicates that these were the tribes of the Sons of Joseph, split up on their own because Levi is removed from the main sequence.  It might also be of note that these three at the bottom represent the direct lineage of Rachel, but we won't be going down that road just yet.  So then, if those are the totals of just men of fighting age, then Levi should be pretty big in comparison, as their census included children and old men as well, right?

Levi- 22,000.

Why the big difference?  Oh, there IS a reason, but we have to skip ahead in time- to the second census, taken before at last entering Canaan.  Again, forgive the statistics, but there is some very important evidence there...

Judah- 76,500, +1,900
Dan- 64,400, +1,700
Simeon- 22,200, DOWN -37,100
Zebulun- 60,500, + 3,100
Issachar- 64,300, + 9,900
Napthali- 45,400, down -8,000
Reuben- 43,730, down -2,270
Gad- 40,500, down -5,100
Asher- 53,400, + 11,900
Ephraim- 32,500, down -8,000
Benjamin- 45,600, + 10,200
Manasseh- 52,700, +20,700

Levi, done the other way- 23,000, up 1,000.

Now I realize there are other threads one can pull from this- why the big increases in Asher and Manasseh, why the drop in Ephraim, which we saw two weeks ago was to become a greater nation than his brother.  And they would be a bit difficult to follow up on, as the next two times a count was taken- once by David, once by Solomon- only counted the total warriors and didn't subdivide by tribe.  But I want to focus on how Simeon lost 37% of his number over the time period- because that not only ties to Levi, but has a very definite explanation.


When you go back into Genesis and look at the story of the sons of Jacob, you find the story of their sister Dinah, and how she was defiled by a lad from Shechem.  This lad wanted to marry her, and was willing to make things right with her brothers.  So he and his father negotiated a deal with Simeon and Levi (who were full brothers to Dinah through Leah), wherein the entirety of the city would get circumcised.  When they did, though, Simeon and Levi (apparently mainly Simeon) killed the men.

This story leads through a handful of apocryphal tales of Simeon being mightier than most, even to the point where it took an Egyptian platoon to subdue Simeon when Joseph later ordered him held hostage against the bringing of Jacob to Egypt.  But, these are neither here nor there.  What we need to know stays biblical, and takes us to the blessings handed out by the dying Jacob in Egypt, where he pays his boys back for all the crap they thought they had done right under his nose:

Gen 49:5  Simeon and Levi are brothers; tools of violence are their weapons. 

Gen 49:6  Oh my soul, do not come into their secret. Let not my honor be united with their assembly. For in their anger they killed a man, and in their self-will they hamstrung a bull. 

Gen 49:7  Let their anger be cursed, for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel. I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel. 

And divide and scatter is just what God did. But while the Levites got their scattering by being named the Priesthood, which cut their numbers relative to the rest and gave them no home of their own in the dividing of Canaan, Simeon had a much more traumatic way there.

I undertook to see just what happened to Israel between the two censuses- and there were two great kill-offs whose numbers were mentioned in the Bible.  The one came right after the rebellion of Korah, Dathan, and Abihram.  You might remember Dathan from The Ten Commandments as the little ...er, man, who was the thorn in the side of Charleton Heston until the ground swallowed them up.  That is Biblical fact.  What you might not know was that there was a group of Israelites- never identified- that then rebelled the next day because "Moses had killed the 'people of God'"  And because they rebelled, a plague swept the rebels, killing 14,000 before Moses made it right with God.

The second came after the famous story of Balaam.  You all remember he was the guy with the talking donkey- but what you might not remember was that his first mission- as a prophet for hire, paid to curse Israel- failed when God made him bless them.  But his second idea was to have his boss Balaak, king of Moab, send Moabite women to seduce and corrupt them.  That a bunch of Israelites fell for it was born out in another plague, which was only stopped when Eliazar ran through with a spear the guy that started the corruption.  That man was a Simeonite named Zimri.  But before he was killed, another 22,000 had died.  

Simeon's census dropped 37,100.  14,000 in one plague plus 22,000 in the other makes 38,000.  Drop explained.

In fact, it wasn't over for Simeon.  As it turns, they wouldn't get their own part of Canaan, either:

Jos 19:9  The inheritance of the sons of Simeon was out of the portion of the sons of Judah. For the part of the sons of Judah was too much for them; therefore the sons of Simeon had their inheritance within their inheritance. 

Simeon had went from the third-biggest tribe to being so small that they got stuck with Judah's leftovers.  Some sources say the tribe was altogether extincted, but since the later censuses don't subdivide, there's no way to know- unless you fly out to Revelation chapter 7.  There you see the list of the tribes of Israel to be sealed by the angel in the last days- and Simeon and Levi do make the list.

Ephraim and Dan do not, and I want to spend just a moment on why.

Ephraim (the tribe from which Joshua came) and Judah (from whom came Caleb), would come to be the dominant tribes, and when the nation was split after Solomon's death, it was split into Judah and Ephraim (thus fulfilling Jacob's prophecy from two weeks ago).  But, Ephraim quickly turned to idolatry- and look who helped:

1 Kings 12:26 Jeroboam thought to himself, “The kingdom will now likely revert to the house of David. 27 If these people go up to offer sacrifices at the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem, they will again give their allegiance to their lord, Rehoboam king of Judah. They will kill me and return to King Rehoboam.”

28 After seeking advice, the king made two golden calves. He said to the people, “It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Here are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.” 29 One he set up in Bethel, and the other in Dan. 30 And this thing became a sin; the people came to worship the one at Bethel and went as far as Dan to worship the other.[b]

In Bethel- which was by then in Ephramite territory- and one in Dan.  So here we learn TWO rules;  One, as I said above, God will keep His promises- but there is a requirement on our part.  And two- if you turn against Him, He WON'T forget.