This week we are reading Parashat Bemidbar, so … let’s do the numbers.
That’s right, there's a reason this book is called the book of Numbers. Chapter one of the book is full of the numbers that make up the census of the Israelites, and all of those numbers are repeated again in chapter two, when we're told how the tribes are supposed to camp and organize themselves for travel and potential military action.
Chapters three and four give the numbers of various groups of the Levites. You won't see them all at the end of this week’s reading, because chapter 4 continues in Parashat Naso. But chapter three does have the numbers of the Israelite firstborn, whose job as acolytes — assistants to the priests — is being taken from them and given to the Levites.
Chapter seven of Numbers has all kinds of numbers: paragraphs full of the amounts of the various offerings brought for the inauguration of the Tabernacle, one paragraph per tribal leader, and then a 13th paragraph where each of the numbers in those 12 equal paragraphs of offerings is multiplied by 12, and we are given those totals too. Then in Numbers 26 there's still another census of the Israelites.
So it might seem as if “Numbers” is a very good name for the book of Numbers, and indeed there is a Jewish tradition of calling the book ספר הפקודים sefer ha-pequdim, which more or less translates into “the book of Numbers.” In fact, however, this is a case where the standard Jewish name of the book, Bemidbar, is a better name. Even though there are those six or seven different groups of numbers in the book, that's still a rather limited chunk of the book.
What really happens in terms of plot is quite significant. The book starts in the second month of the second year after the exodus and takes the Israelites all the way to the east bank of the Jordan River, where Moses is going to recite the book of Deuteronomy to them and then die. That means that 39 years of travel through the desert is covered in this book, and Bemidbar means “in the desert” — really a much better name.
That doesn't usually happen. Vayiqra, the Hebrew name of the book of Leviticus, means “and he called,” which doesn't tell you a whole lot about what's in that book, while “Leviticus” certainly tells you that there's lots of levitical and priestly stuff going on. How about Shemot (“Names”) for the book of Exodus or Devarim (“Words”) for Deuteronomy? They are just not descriptive.
“Numbers” is not a bad name for the current book, but it's not a great name. Bemidbar (“in the desert”) is pretty good, but there could be an even better name for the book and what I'm about to show you will tell you what it is.
Num 1:6–15 has a long list of tribal leaders who are going to assist Moses and Aaron in taking the census. Each tribe will have its own tribal leader there to make sure that the count is accurate and they get their full representation. Then the tribes are listed again in the rest of chapter one, a second time, as the census actually occurs. In chapter two, those census totals are listed again when we're told how the tribes are to encamp around the Tabernacle and to march when the Tabernacle moves, and the tribes are listed for a third time.
Numbers 7, with all those 12 paragraphs of offerings and the 13th paragraph summing them all up — why are there 12 paragraphs? Because each of the 12 tribes has a leader who is going to bring an offering. Even though they bring them on different days and in a certain order they're each going to bring exactly the same offering, and each tribe, with its leader, gets specific mention.
In Numbers 10, the tribes start out to march, the Israelites begin to actually move through the desert, and each tribe is listed just as it had been in chapter two, so we know that the way they were camped in that chapter is, as that chapter told us it would be, the way they would move through the desert.
Numbers 13 has the famous story about the spies. Again, there's one spy from each tribe, and each spy is named in association with the tribe he represents. Numbers 26, another description of a census, of course counts each tribe and mentions them all by name. Finally, towards the end of the book, when the Israelites are going to cross into the land of Israel in just a few days and the land is going to be apportioned to them, it will be apportioned by tribe. So Numbers 34 lists the chieftains of each tribe, who are going to be part of the blue ribbon commission that will make sure the land is apportioned fairly. That makes eight (count ‘em) complete lists of the tribes:
Num 1:6–15, the tribal leaders who will assist Moses and Aaron in the census
Num 1:20–46, census of the tribes
Num 2:3–31, encampment of the tribes (listing their totals again!)
Numbers 7, each of the 12 tribal leaders brings an offering
Num 10:13–27, the tribes set out as described in ch. 2
Num 13:4–15, the spies: one from each tribe
Numbers 26, another census
Num 34:19–28. the chieftains from each tribe who will apportion the land
There are two more episodes that don't list each tribe but only make sense in a system where Israel is organized by tribes. Numbers 32 tells the story in which the tribe of Gad and the tribe of Reuben and half of the tribe of Manasseh tell Moses that there is fabulous grazing land on the east side of the Jordan, and request that this grazing land be given to them as their portion, requiring a whole arrangement of how those 2½ tribes can help the other 9½ tribes conquer the land of Israel.
Finally, in Numbers 36 the episode of Zelophehad’s daughters describes the second episode in a dispute over inheritance law that first occurred in chapter 27. In that chapter, you might think of the dispute as an issue of women's rights, but Numbers 36 asks what's going to happen if Zelophehad’s daughters are allowed to inherit their father's land and then marry someone from another tribe. The land would pass to another tribe and away from the tribe of their father, the tribe of Manasseh.
That makes two more episodes, taking us all the way to the end of the book, that are about the tribes. In case you are wondering, there is no mention of the tribes in Genesis — obviously, since there are no tribes yet, just the brothers after whom the tribes will eventually be named. Our tribes, though — the Numbers tribes — eliminate Levi and Joseph, turning the Levites into a separate group who are not treated as one of the 12 tribes, and replacing Joseph with tribes named after two of his sons, so there will still be 12.
Jacob’s 12 sons are listed in the first paragraph of the book of Exodus, but there is no mention of the tribes in that book; none whatsoever in Leviticus, and none in Deuteronomy until you get to Deuteronomy 27, where in vv. 11–13 Moses tells the Israelites that six of the tribes are supposed to stand on Mount Gerizim for the blessing and six of the tribes are supposed to stand on Mount Ebal for the curses — but these are the sons of Jacob once more, with Levi and Joseph instead of Ephraim and Manasseh.
Finally, in Deuteronomy 33, we have the blessing of Moses, where Moses poetically and prophetically gives each tribe a kind of Chinese fortune cookie. Simeon is missing, but most of the tribes are there, including Levi and Joseph, with Ephraim and Manasseh included in Joseph’s portion.
So what's the best name for the book of Numbers? “Numbers” is not bad; “In the Desert” (Bemidbar) is even better; but really the best name for the book would be “The Book of Tribes.” This book is the story of the tribes, the book that is organized with tribes in mind, a book that is less about the people of Israel than it is about 12 tribes that comprise the people of Israel. We call it the book of Numbers, but it should really be called “The Book of Tribes.”