Counted Again After the Plague
“And it came to pass after the plague, that the LORD spake unto Moses and unto Eleazar the son of Aaron the priest, saying, Take the sum of all the congregation of the children of Israel, from twenty years old and upward, throughout their fathers’ house, all that are able to go to war in Israel.”Numbers 26:1–2 (KJV)
Numbers 25 ends in disaster. Israel joined itself to Baal-peor, and a plague went through the camp. If any generation deserved to be written off, it was this one.
Then Numbers 26 opens: “And it came to pass after the plague, that the LORD spake unto Moses and unto Eleazar the son of Aaron the priest, saying, Take the sum of all the congregation of the children of Israel.” God counted them again.
He didn’t swap them for a different people. He counted the new generation on the edge of the promised land, by name and by family. The chapter ends noting that of the old generation “there was not left a man of them, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun.” Judgment was real. So was faithfulness.
Paul says it about God’s people still: “If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself.” After your worst season, God doesn’t cross you off. He counts you again.
Read it yourself
Read Numbers 26:1–4 and 26:63–65. Who were the only two men counted in both numberings?
After a season of failure, do you expect God to count you in or count you out?
Faithful God, thank you that after the plague you counted your people again. Thank you that you abide faithful even when I don’t. Amen.