Numbers 1 - 4: Add It Up

"A census?" asks Moses. "Can't we just say there's a lot of us and that we've been out of Egypt for over a year and everyone is getting a little bit impatient to be on our way?"

"No," says God. "I want a census of everyone by family. But I'll cut you some slack... just count the men over 20. And don't bother counting the Levites. They're in charge of taking care of the tabernacle and all my stuff, so I see them more often."

One... two.... three....

It takes a couple of days, but they eventually count 603,550 men. God arranges them in the camp so that everyone has a space of their own under their own family banner, with the tabernacle in the middle. He assigns each of them a place in the procession for when they finally leave for Israel. Aaron and his sons (minus the two that were struck by lightning for burning incense) are to serve as priests.

God calls Moses back over. "Ok, now I want you to list the Levites."

"But I thought we didn't have to count them," Moses complains.

"Oh, you'll count them," says God menacingly. "And just for questioning me, you have to count ALL of the males, ages one months and up."

So they go and count the Levites, and report back that there are exactly 22,000.

"Really? A nice round number like that?" asks God. "What are the chances..."

"Well, you work in mysterious ways," says Aaron.

"That I do," says God. "That I do. Ok, now I want you to go and count all the first born sons in all of Israel, a month or older."

"Oh, seriously?" says Moses. "Why didn't you tell us before? We could have asked that when we did the first head count!"

"I only just thought of it," says God.

They go back through the entire camp and return with a count of 22,273 first born males.

God considers this. "Hey, that's pretty close to the number of Levites. So I'll just take the Levites as my workers, but go collect some silver from the other 273 first born sons to make up the difference and give that to Aaron and his sons. Now I want you to go and count the family of Kohath from the Levite clan. Tell me how many males there are between the ages of 30 and 50."

"Again?" asks Aaron. "We already went through that whole family. If we'd had a questionnaire or something we could have gathered all this information at once."

"I think you'd have figured out by now that I am just winging this," says God. "The Kohath family is going to be in charge of the ark and setting up and taking down and carrying all the most holy things. If they touch the holy things or even look at them they'll die. And alright, while you're at it, count the other families too. The Gershons are going to be in charge of carrying all the curtains and goat skins, and the Merari family is in charge of the bars, pillars, and bases."

Again, Moses and Aaron take a head count and report back with 2,750 Kohathites, 2,630 Gershons, and 3,200 Merari.