The First Census: The first major section of the book of Numbers stresses the right ordering of life for the people of God. The people are preparing to leave the Sinai area and move through the wilderness toward Canaan. The community needs to be organized and to arrange its leadership before it can consider specific logistics for departure. While the Priestly tradents drew on various earlier sources, the consensus of scholars is that Numbers 1–10 comes from the Priestly tradition. The Priestly tradents have preserved and shaped this first section of Numbers.

Numbers begins with a census, from which the title of the book derives. The last time the number of the people was noted was at the beginning of Exodus, when seventy went down to Egypt to join Joseph. Numbers recounts the story of the g…