God, as we have seen in our progress through the Bible, plans everything for His people. Here He is seen appointing the place for each, while resting in camp around the Tabernacle, the place of His presence, and the order of their going, and naming their leaders. Nothing was left for them but to obey. So it is with the Christian.
Four groups of three tribes each encircled the Tabernacle, but when two groups are named, the order is stopped in order to tell of that simple, plain looking (outwardly) enclosure and those who were entrusted with its care. Then the record goes on, leaving us with the thought of the precious, inspiring word of Matthew 18:2020For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. (Matthew 18:20).
The numbers given are of the men who should be able to fight the enemy when he would appear. Satan is our enemy, and he will not be long in coming against us. As these early Old Testament books, as we have before noticed, are full of “types,” and shadows pointing onward to our own, and still later time, so we see in the two divisions of the Israelites here, the two characters the Christian is to have. He is a fighting maxi, for he is on a journey through what he soon finds to be the place where Satan dwells; and he is a Levite, too, privileged to draw near to God, away from war, to serve. Him in being occupied with what belongs to Him.
We shall, if we go on through this book, read more of both the fighting men, and the servants of God.