Numbers 36

Remember the women who were concerned about their inheritance? They're back. They stand to inherit land, but the tribal leaders are concerned because if the women marry someone outside their tribe, the tribal land size might change.

So, a new law. Women who stand to inherit land must marry within their own tribe. This will prevent the size of the tribal lands from changing. However, it won't stop the original lots of land by clan from changing.

Thus ends Numbers. Numbers was about numbers. Two censuses, plus numerous scourges that left thousands of Israelites dead.

From Numbers, we get a sense of the size of the Israelites. If there were 600,000 men aged 20 or more, then we might estimate their total size to be 1 or 2 million. If we take these numbers at face value, then I think we see several things:

1. Why the Egyptians feared them. They are a mass of people.

2. They really are the blessed children of God. They went from 60 people to 1-2 million in 400 or so years. This gives them an explosive population growth rate. At that trend, they'll take over the world.