The book of Numbers is known in the Hebrew Old Testament as “Bedmidbar” which means “in the desert”. We get the name “Numbers” because of the the two censuses that are recorded in the book. Most of the book however describes Israels experience in the desert.
Basically this book is a sequel to the book of Exodus, and at this point the people have spent about a year camped at Mount Sinai, it was during this year that God establishes His covenant which we studied last week in depth in the book of Leviticus.
Todays reading is God preparing the generation which is called the Exodus generation because this was the generation that came out of Egypt, to go and take the promised land. The census was to document all the Israelite men who were eligible to go to war.
