Numbers 26

2. Take the sum, etc.** From this second census it appears that the nation, which, forty years before, was increasing rapidly, had now been considerably diminished. The change from a settled to a wandering life would not have effected this without those remarkable plagues by which God punished their repeated sins. This decrease, however, was confined to five of the tribes; and in some of them (e.g., Reuben and Simeon) it appears to have been connected with recorded facts in their history.

51. These were the numbered.** See note on Exod. xxxviii. 26.

55 by lot. Whilst the foregoing law apportioned the extent of territory, God now directs that the locality of each family should be decided by an appeal to Him by the lot.

57 the Levites. Some suppose that the tribe of Levi (which was not numbered with the rest at Mount Sinai, but by itself) did not come under the sentence that none of that generation should enter Canaan. Eleazar and Ithamar, and perhaps some others of the Levites, are supposed to have been of that generation, and yet to have entered Canaan: see Josh. xvii. 4; xxiv. 33.