Numbers 1-2

Around the 1950s and 1960s, Hollywood liked to semi-regularly churn out historical epics, some of which had a Biblical foundation to their story lines or characters. Most of these epics were so-monikered because of their sprawling stories, breathtaking widescreen vistas, grandiloquent musical scores, and scenes with colossal crowds. The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur, Spartacus, and Lawrence of Arabia all feature scenes with innumerable extras. (Cleopatra does too, apparently, but I haven't seen it.) Nowadays, with newfangled CGI technology, filmmakers can create enormous hordes without having to hire thousands of people. While The Lord of the Rings films are particularly impressive in this regard (and do feature their fair share of actual extras), most other modern films with a multitude of CG extras just don't create the same awe-inspiring effect.

In the first few chapters of Numbers (what a name for a book of the Bible), Moses and Co. take a census of all the battle-ready men among the Israelites--and it's a rather gargantuan 603,500. The NIV Study Bible says that extrapolating this number to include women, children, and the elderly would bring the total number of Israelites to two million. That's almost the population of Chicago! Some scholars are dubious that such a large number could move around or camp with any sort of efficiency, leading them to believe that the numbers were either corrupted somewhere along the line or were symbolic rather than mathematical--but the point is that the Israelites make up a rather formidable force, fit for an old-fashioned Hollywood epic. Like maybe The Ten Commandments.

After Moses relays the instructions for the census, Numbers 2:34 says, "So the Israelites did everything the LORD commanded Moses." (1:54 says something similar.) Spoiler alert: This obedience doesn't last. Why? Well, I can make a couple of uninformed suppositions.

1. The Israelites have just heard 27 chapters' worth of laws and provisos read to them, so it's probably fresh in their minds. I know I'm more likely to obey God when I pray and listen to Him or after I read the Bible. If I don't, I tend to place my priority in other matters, straying from God's path for me.

2. Although mustering for battle (as the Israelites are basically doing here) involves intricate planning and effort, it's just preparation. They're getting ready to march into Canaan, but they haven't actually had to commit to any real action yet. I jog three mornings a week, and it would be so easy for me to do all the stretching and the warm-up walk, and then just climb back into bed for another hour. Starting the jog, taking action after all that preparation, takes a good bit more willpower. Maybe the Israelites were OK with doing the easy stuff, but when God told them to actually get off their sandy behinds and conquer Canaan, they balked.

Censuses don't exactly make the most thrilling reading, but even I, with my meager analytical skills, was able to glean a modicum of substance from these two chapters. As a final note, the word "census" always reminds me of the Senses-Taker in Norton Juster's whimsically profound and witty The Phantom Tollbooth.