The chapter reminds us that God takes note of each one “individually” (Num 1:2, 18, 20, 22).
We read that “in the second year after they had come out of the land of Egypt” (Num 1:1) the Lord told them to start counting all the men “from twenty years old and above—all who are able to go to war.” What they had considered to be tribes, He now says to “number them by their armies” (v 3). Why? Because the Lord knew what lay ahead for them. The Jewish people have been in a long war that continues to this day and will not stop until Jesus, their Messiah-King, wins total victory at the battle of Armageddon. In a similar way, when the Church was in its infancy, Paul described “the whole armor of God” (Eph 6:13) that Christians must wear, not “against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (v 12). So, in the case of Israel, Moses and Aaron began the massive task. The Lord instructed them to take one leader from each tribe, whose names are recorded in Numbers 1:5-15, to aid in the task. So they started, beginning with Reuben, Jacob’s oldest son, and continuing until all twelve tribes were counted. In total, “all who were numbered of the children of Israel, by their fathers’ houses, from twenty years old and above, all who were able to go to war in Israel…were six hundred and three thousand, five hundred and fifty” (vv 45-46). What an amazing increase! Recall that “All the persons of the house of Jacob who went to Egypt were seventy” (Gen 46:27) a few hundred years before! In spite of Pharaoh’s attempts to destroy them, God’s promises cannot fail. Had He not said, “I will make your descendants multiply as the stars of heaven” (Gen 26:4)? And so, as with all His promises, this one was coming true!