Numbers 1

The name, "Numbers" is from [@Arithmoi], the designation of the book in the Septuagint (LXX) translation, apparently given because of the census reports in Numbers 1 and Numbers 26. "The Hebrew name is [~Bemidbar], meaning `wilderness' from the appearance of the word in the first verse,"[1] which appears to us to be a far more suitable name, since the subject matter of Numbers is concerned principally with what happened to the Israelites "in the wilderness."

The arbitrary and artificial manner in which this portion of the Book of Moses has been separated from other portions of it should not obscure the fact that Moses wrote one book, not five, and that what is called the Book of Numbers, or the Fourth Book of Moses, is actually part and parcel with the whole. It carries the unmistakable imprimatur of the times, the authorship, and the personality of Moses, the great lawgiver of Israel. This very first chapter presents an array of repetitions which were characteristic of the writings of the period in the mid-second millennium B.C., utterly unlike the literature of the ages following that period. (See a fuller discussion of this in the chapter introduction of Exodus 35 in this series of commentaries.)

Note the verbatim repetition fifteen times of these words: "By their generations, by their families, and by their fathers' houses, according to the number of the names, by their polls, every male from twenty years old and upward, all that were able to go forth to war."

This formula was given by God in His instructions to Moses and Aaron, by Moses and Aaron in their instructions to the people, and was repeated in the instance of each of the twelve tribes, and also in the summary of what was done. Due to this, we have elected to present the information contained in these chapters, by chart, or diagram, rather than by the repetitious prose that marks these chapters.