Numbers 3:40-43

CENSUS OF THE FIRSTBORN MALES OF THE ISRAELITES, Numbers 3:40-43.

We have already hinted that the firstborn intended in this enumeration could not be the firstborn of every age, from the babe a month old up to the grandfathers and great-grandfathers. The difficulties of this broad interpretation, as suggested by Keil, are insuperable. The census of the males from the twentieth year upward would show a male population of over a million. Divide this sum by the number of firstborn, and there would be only one firstborn to forty or forty-five males, and, consequently, every father must have begotten, or still have had, from thirty-nine to forty-four sons; whereas the ordinary proportion of firstborn sons to the whole male population is one to four. By an examination of Exodus 13:2; Exodus 13:11, and the following verses, we find nothing inconsistent with that interpretation which makes the requirement to sanctify the firstborn wholly prospective and not retrospective.