Setting up camp

What you believe is important. Many throughout history have put their trust in the wrong place. Some have believed the world to be flat, the sun revolved around the earth or even that human beings evolved from pond scum. However, many believe in an almighty Creator who carefully and skillfully designed not only human beings, but all the cosmos we see around us.

Many believe the bible to be the inspired word of a holy, omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent Creator/ Designer who is the “I Am”. The entire bible speaks of Jesus Christ; every book, chapter and verse somehow points to God’s One and Only Son whom became our salvation at the cross. Jesus became the Lamb of the final Passover and paid a debt no man could ever begin to pay. So, when I study the Old Testament, I’m amazed over and over again at how God inspired the writers of the bible to describe details about the coming future Messiah, Jesus Christ.

Numbers begins with a detailed numeric list of all able bodied men, twenty years and above, who could be counted as part of Israel’s army. These family clans are known as “The twelve tribes of Israel”, direct descendants of Jacob, Isaac and Abraham. Jacob’s first wife, Leah, had six sons, Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar and Zebulun. Jacob’s second wife, Rachel, had Joseph and Benjamin. Rachel’s maidservant, Bilhah, had Dan and Naphtali. Leah’s maidservant, Zilpah, had Gad and Asher. In chapter one, we are given the exact number of fighting men to be 603,550. Extrapolating for both older and younger men, women and children there could have been as many as two million people.

The tribe of Levi was an exception and would not be numbered or go to war, but be set apart to serve God at the tabernacle. In chapter two, we read about how these two million plus people were to set up and take down camp. The Tabernacle was to be set up first at the very center of camp. God always wants to be at the center of our lives. By setting up the Tabernacle at the center of camp, God’s presence would dwell in and be the central focal point of all Israel. God instructed the nation to camp beside the standard of their father’s house. These banners flown as flags held an image that was representative of each family clan.

Immediately, around the four compass points of the rectangular shaped Tabernacle, were camped the sons of Levi. Then in Numbers 2:3 it states “On the east side, toward the rising of the sun, those of the standard of the forces of Judah shall camp according to their armies.” What is interesting is that Israel’s future kings, and especially Jesus Christ, would come from the tribe of Judah which faced the rising sun. The word picture of a rising sun is the closest object in our immediate universe that even comes close to describing the glory of our Lord. Three family clans camped together and were located per each compass point of east, south, west and north. God choose one clan’s standard to represent the entire group of three that were camped on each side of the Tabernacle. To the east was Judah’s emblem of a Lion; to the south was Ruben’s emblem of a Man; to the west was Ephraim’s emblem of an Ox and to the north Dan’s emblem of an Eagle.

It’s interesting to note that the directions of southeast, southwest, northeast and northwest were not to be camped in and set apart for common use. If you take the time to draw everything to scale using the numbers provided in chapter one then what you discover is that the nation of Israel was camping in the shape of a cross. The four emblems of a lion, a man, an ox and an eagle are also found in the book of Ezekiel 1:10-12 describing the four living creatures’ four faces. Some scholars suggest that the four gospels represent Jesus as the Messiah or Lion in the gospel of Matthew, the servant or ox in the gospel of Mark, a man in the Gospel of Luke and as a God or an eagle in the gospel of John.

The book of Revelation 5:4-5 depicts a future scene “So I wept much, because no one was found worthy to open and read the scroll, or to look at it. But one of the elders said to me, ‘Do not weep. Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has prevailed to open the scroll and to loose its seven seals’”. One day we will all rejoice and witness Jesus Christ coming back for us, in all His glory, as The Lion from the tribe of Judah!