Scripture Daily

Context No. 753 of 4322 · Numbers

Context · Reflection

Numbers 10:14-20: in context

14First, the standard of the camp of the children of Judah went forward according to their armies. Nahshon the son of Amminadab was over his army. 15Nethanel the son of Zuar was over the army of the tribe of the children of Issachar. 16Eliab the son of Helon was over the army of the tribe of the children of Zebulun. 17The tabernacle was taken down; and the sons of Gershon and the sons of Merari, who bore the tabernacle, went forward. 18The standard of the camp of Reuben went forward according to their armies. Elizur the son of Shedeur was over his army. 19Shelumiel the son of Zurishaddai was over the army of the tribe of the children of Simeon. 20Eliasaph the son of Deuel was over the army of the tribe of the children of Gad.

When Israel finally leaves Sinai after nearly a year, Numbers does not describe a crowd streaming out in every direction. It describes a formation. The trumpets sound, and the tribes move in a fixed order, each under its own standard and its own commander. Judah goes first, led by Nahshon, then Issachar and Zebulun. The tabernacle is taken down, and the Levite clans of Gershon and Merari shoulder it and carry it in the line of march. Then Reuben's standard sets out, with Simeon and Gad behind. Every tribe has a place, and every place has an order.

It is easy to skim as a logistics report, but the shape of it is the message. A whole nation on the move, hundreds of thousands of people, does not lurch forward as a mob; it goes as a body, each part in its assigned position, and at the center of the column travels the dwelling of God, carried on the shoulders of those set apart for it. The journey is not chaos with God somewhere in it. It is an ordered procession with his presence borne in the middle. There is a place for each tribe, and there is a place, the central one, for him.

Israel marched as an ordered body with God's dwelling carried at its center, not out at the edge. In the way my own life is moving, is God's presence at the center of the column, or somewhere off to the side?

Sources