“Take a
census of the whole Israelite community by families—all those twenty years old
or more who are able to serve in the army of Israel.” Numbers 26:2
At
this point in Numbers we are forty years after the spy incident. The census was taken to show the people that
the last of the generation had died out and they were now ready to enter the
promised land.
These are the ones counted by
Moses and Eleazar the priest when they counted the Israelites on the plains of
Moab by the Jordan across from Jericho. Not one of them was among those counted by Moses and
Aaron the priest when they counted the Israelites in the Desert of Sinai.
For the Lord had told those Israelites they
would surely die in the wilderness, and not one of them was left except Caleb
son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.
Numbers 26:63-65
The new census
indicated a reboot, starting over fresh, with new people and a new faith.