February 27th

Today's readings from the One Year Chronological Reading Plan are Numbers 2-3.

Today's passage first continues to describe how the clans were camped and how they travelled.

The tribe of Judah leads the tribes of Issachar and Zebulun - the same tribe God chooses to be the lineage of Jesus Christ.

The tribe of Ephraim leads the tribes of Benjamin and Manasseh - this reminded me of the fact that Israel gave Ephraim the blessing over Manasseh in Genesis 48.

The last two tribal leaders it's more unclear why they were selected. The tribe of Reuben leads the tribes of Gad and Simeon. Perhaps this is because Reuben tried to redeem himself (sleeping with his father's concubine) by bargaining with his brothers in an attempt to save Joseph's life? I'm not sure. And the tribe of Dan leads the tribes of Asher and Naphtali - I'm not sure of the significance here either. Perhaps there is none, I don't know.
Edited to add: after I wrote this I found this commentary which gave further reasons as to how/why God arranged the tribes and tribe leaders this way.

The other thing that struck me about this chapter was what an immense undertaking it would be to pull up camp, travel and set up camp again - with over 2 million people! Wow! There obviously needed to be structure for this to work at all. Our God is a God of order, not chaos, and the camp was set up in such a way as to facilitate the orderliness of millions of people. I think that's just incredible.

And lastly - all the tribes encircled the tabernacle. The nation of Israel revolved around the sanctuary. God was the centre. God was the focus. So should it be within our own hearts and lives!

In chapter 3 there is a census of the Levites, counting every male over one month old. During the last plague of Egypt, every firstborn male Egyptian and every firstborn of their cattle died, but God spared the lives of the Israelites boys and cattle. After this, all Israelite firstborn boys and cattle were dedicated to God - the cattle were sacrificed and the boys were to have served God in the sanctuary (Ex 11:4-13:15). However, after the Israelites worshiped the golden calf, the Levites answered Moses call to come to the Lord's side (Ex 32:25-29), and they now took the place of the firstborn boys, to serve God in the sanctuary.

The census indicated that there were 22,273 firstborn males (perhaps born since the exodus), and there were 22,000 Levites, so the 273 "extra" firstborns had to be redeemed and the money was given to Aaron and his sons.

Tomorrow's readings: Numbers 4-5.