🔢WEB · Numbers 1:29
What does Numbers 1:29 mean?
"those who were counted of them, of the tribe of Issachar, were fifty-four thousand four hundred."
— Numbers 1:29 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
Of the children of Judah, their generations, by their families, by their fathers’ houses, according to the number of the names, from twenty years old and upward, all who were able to go out to war;
those who were counted of them, of the tribe of Judah, were seventy-four thousand six hundred.
Of the children of Issachar, their generations, by their families, by their fathers’ houses, according to the number of the names, from twenty years old and upward, all who were able to go out to war;
those who were counted of them, of the tribe of Issachar, were fifty-four thousand four hundred.
Of the children of Zebulun, their generations, by their families, by their fathers’ houses, according to the number of the names, from twenty years old and upward, all who were able to go out to war;
those who were counted of them, of the tribe of Zebulun, were fifty-seven thousand four hundred.
Of the children of Joseph, of the children of Ephraim, their generations, by their families, by their fathers’ houses, according to the number of the names, from twenty years old and upward, all who were able to go out to war;
Explanation
Numbers 1:29 records a simple statistic: when the tribe of Issachar was counted among the fighting men of Israel, the total came to fifty-four thousand four hundred. On its own, this is a numerical detail within a larger census list, but it carries meaning when understood in its setting.
The book of Numbers opens with the Lord commanding Moses, in the wilderness of Sinai, to take a census of all the men of Israel twenty years old and upward who were able to go to war (Numbers 1:1-3). This took place roughly one year after the exodus from Egypt, as Israel prepared to move from Sinai toward the promised land. Moses, assisted by a leader from each tribe, counted the men tribe by tribe, and Numbers 1:29 gives the result for Issachar specifically, one of the twelve tribes descended from the sons of Jacob. This census served both a practical and organizational purpose: it determined how many men were available for military service and helped structure the camp and march formation described later in the chapter.
Theologically, the census demonstrates God's faithfulness to His covenant promises. Centuries earlier, God had promised Abraham that his descendants would become as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore (Genesis 22:17). The specific, tribe-by-t
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