🔢WEB · Numbers 26:54
What does Numbers 26:54 mean?
"To the more you shall give the more inheritance, and to the fewer you shall give the less inheritance. To everyone according to those who were counted of him shall his inheritance be given."
— Numbers 26:54 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
These are those who were counted of the children of Israel, six hundred one thousand seven hundred thirty.
Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,
“To these the land shall be divided for an inheritance according to the number of names.
To the more you shall give the more inheritance, and to the fewer you shall give the less inheritance. To everyone according to those who were counted of him shall his inheritance be given.
Notwithstanding, the land shall be divided by lot. According to the names of the tribes of their fathers they shall inherit.
According to the lot shall their inheritance be divided between the more and the fewer.”
These are those who were counted of the Levites after their families: of Gershon, the family of the Gershonites; of Kohath, the family of the Kohathites; of Merari, the family of the Merarites.
Explanation
Numbers 26:54 states a simple administrative principle: when the Promised Land was divided among the tribes of Israel, the size of each tribe's territorial inheritance would be proportional to its population. Tribes with more people received a larger portion of land; tribes with fewer people received a smaller portion. The allotment was tied directly to the numbers recorded in the census — "according to those who were counted of him."
This verse comes from the second census recorded in the book of Numbers, taken near the end of Israel's forty years of wandering in the wilderness, just before they were to cross into Canaan. Moses and Eleazar the priest (Aaron's son, since Aaron had died) conducted this count of all the men of fighting age, tribe by tribe. This census was different from the first one in Numbers 1, taken forty years earlier at Sinai. That first generation, apart from Joshua and Caleb, had died in the wilderness due to their unbelief and rebellion at Kadesh (Numbers 14, 26:64-65). This new census counted their children, the generation about to actually en
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