Numbers 26:63 - Meaning and Application

What stands out in this closing record is the carrying out of God’s sentence against the grumblers (Numbers 14:29). None of those counted from age twenty and up, except Caleb and Joshua, entered Canaan. The Levites were counted differently, either from one month old or from age thirty to fifty, so they are not part of this warning. In this new census, those who took the count no doubt compared it carefully with the earlier one, and they found that only Caleb and Joshua remained from the men numbered at Mount Sinai (Numbers 26:64, Numbers 26:65).

This shows the righteousness of God and his faithfulness to his warnings once he has spoken. He swore in his anger, and he kept his word. It would have been better for all those dead bodies, even if there had been many more, to fall to the ground than for God’s word to fail. Though the younger generation lived among them, and many of the guilty men survived for a long time, even to the last year of the forty, they were still removed before this census was taken. Those whom God has condemned cannot hide by blending into a crowd, and they cannot escape by waiting for time to pass.

It also shows God’s kindness to this people, despite all they had done against him. Though that complaining generation was cut off, God raised up another generation as numerous as they were, so the name of Israel would not disappear. Otherwise, the promised inheritance might have been lost for lack of heirs. The number was a little smaller than it had been at Mount Sinai, but those now counted had this advantage: they were all in the prime of life, between twenty and sixty, ready for service.

During the thirty-eight years of wandering and hardship in the wilderness, they also had time to learn God’s laws and worship. They had no civil or military duties to distract them from holy things, and they had Moses and Aaron to teach them, along with God’s good Spirit (Nehemiah 9:20). This was also a display of God’s truth in keeping the promise he had made to Caleb and Joshua. They were preserved from dying in that common ruin, and they were preserved exactly as God said they would be.

Death’s arrows may fly in the dark, and they may seem to come everywhere at once, but they do not strike at random. Even in the greatest danger, they still hit the target God has set, and no one else. All who are written among the living will have their lives given to them as a prize, even in the most dangerous times. Thousands may fall at their side and ten thousand at their right hand, but they will escape.