IN THIS chapter we read that God told Moses to number the people again, — all that were able to go to war, twenty years old and upward. And Moses and Eleazar counted the men of war in the plains of Jordan near Jericho. They also counted the Levites, all that were more than a month old.
Forty years before they had been numbered, after they left Egypt and began their wilderness journey. Now there was not one left of those who had been numbered at the beginning — except Joshua and Caleb. All that generation died, according to the word of the Lord, because they despised the pleasant land.
But His government goes on in our lives just the same. Like the two rails of the railway, His grace and government run on together, side by side. This ought to be a sobering thought to our minds. We read of some here, like Dathan and Abiram, who were “famous in the congregation,” but they did not escape the government of God, for He is “no respecter of persons.”
It is a solemn as well as a blessed thing to have to do with the living God, and how needful it is for us to have low thoughts of ourselves, to be constantly before Him in self-judgment. May the Lord keep us with our eyes upon Himself, our blessed Object in heaven and find in His Word guidance and comfort for our wilderness journey.
God makes special mention here of Korah and his company, “when they strove against the Lord: and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up together, with Korah, when that company died, what time the fire devoured the two hundred and fifty men:... notwithstanding the children of Korah died not.” vv. 10,11.
Here we have one of those wonderful instances of the precious grace of God triumphing in the midst of the most solemn scenes of judgment. “The children of Korah” were spared. Their father was the ringleader and organizer in that rebellion which brought down fearful judgment from God. But the same hand that dealt the awful blow, when the earth opened her mouth and the guilty rebels went down alive into the pit, reached out and saved the children from destruction. How precious to see the honored place these very children or descendants of Korah have in Israel’s history for they took part in “the service of song,” and a number of Psalms are inscribed. “To the sons of Korah.” What grace they have to sing about! Well might they praise the Lord! And we who know a more wonderful deliverance and salvation, what grace we have to sing about, unto Him who has redeemed us by the blood of His own dear Son, to Him, “the God of all grace.”
This numbering of the people again tells of God’s love and personal interest in each one of His own. That love was unchanged in spite of all His people’s failures during those forty years in the wilderness. “Having loved His own which were in the world He loved them unto the end”, so we read in John 13:1. May we enter into and enjoy His love more, dear young Christian, during this “little while” we wait for Him.
ML-06/23/1974