God numbers and arranges His people around His tabernacle
The first thing to be noticed is that God numbers His people exactly, and arranges them, once thus recognized, around His tabernacle: sweet thought, to be thus recognized and placed around God Himself! But here it had no reference to calling by faith, but to families, and households, and tribes. That order was carefully maintained when encamped at rest, or on their march; but it was the order of a nation and its tribes. God dwelt there, but the unity of the body, or of the Spirit-union in any sense-had no place.
Three tribes on each side of the court kept the tabernacle of Jehovah. Levi alone was excepted, in order to be consecrated to the service of God: therefore the tribe of Levi encamped according to their families immediately around the court. Moses, Aaron and the priests were placed opposite the entrance whereby God was approached. The least things in the Word deserve to be noticed. Psalm 80 is entirely opened by the position of the tribes. The spirit of the psalmist asks, in the last days of the desolation of Israel, for God to lead them and to manifest His power as He did when He led them through the wilderness; he asks for the power of His presence on the ark of testimony, as God manifested it when it was said, at the moment when Israel set forward, “Rise up, Jehovah, and let thine enemies be scattered.” Ephraim, Benjamin and Manasseh were the three tribes nearest the ark in the camp of Israel; that is why it is said, in verse 2 of the psalm, “Before Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh.”
In the setting forward of the camp, the order given was that the tabernacle, surrounded by the Levites, should be in the midst of the tribes, as it was when the camp was at rest (ch. 2:17). It was in the midst of them as of an army that was its guard, as the rallying point of worship and approach when the camp was at rest. They kept the charge of the Lord.
In chapter 10 we shall find that another arrangement took place as a matter of fact: of this, in its place.