🔢WEB · Numbers 1:31
What does Numbers 1:31 mean?
"those who were counted of them, of the tribe of Zebulun, were fifty-seven thousand four hundred."
— Numbers 1:31 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
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;
those who were counted of them, of the tribe of Ephraim, were forty thousand five hundred.
Of the children of Manasseh, 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 1:31 records a single statistic from a military census: the tribe of Zebulun contained 57,400 men who were counted as eligible for army service. On its own, this verse is just a number, but it belongs to a larger list in Numbers 1 that records the population of each of Israel's twelve tribes—Reuben, Simeon, Gad, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Ephraim, Manasseh, Benjamin, Dan, Asher, and Naphtali—as Moses conducted a census shortly after Israel left Egypt.
The context is important. Numbers opens roughly one year after the Exodus, with Israel camped at Mount Sinai and preparing to journey toward the Promised Land. God commands Moses, assisted by Aaron and a leader from each tribe, to count "all who are able to go out to war" (Numbers 1:3)—meaning men twenty years old and upward. This was not a general population count but a military muster, organizing the nation into a structured camp and army for the wilderness march and eventual conquest of Canaan. Zebulun was one of the sons of Jacob (through Leah), and by this point his descendants had grown into a substantial tribe, appointing Eliab son of Helon as their representative leader for the census (Numbers 1:9).
Theologically, this list of numbers—tedious as it may seem to modern readers—testifies to God's faith
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