1Then it came about after the plague, that the LORD spoke to Moses and to Eleazar the son of Aaron the priest, saying,
2"Take a census of all the congregation of the sons of Israel from twenty years old and upward, by their fathers' households, whoever is able to go out to war in Israel."
64But among these there was not a man of those who were numbered by Moses and Aaron the priest, who numbered the sons of Israel in the wilderness of Sinai.
65For the LORD had said of them, "They shall surely die in the wilderness " And not a man was left of them, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun
One of the frustrating things about reading the Bible is having to figure out how to get through the seemingly endless and boring lists of families sprinkled throughout the Old and New Testaments. It has taken years for me to get to the place that I am willing to take my time to read these lists (with much prayer!). In fact, now that I am familiar with the different names that often reoccur in God's story, I enjoy reading them and even find fresh insights along the way!
The gems I found buried in Numbers 26 this time were several. For example, the two verses above demonstrated God's Sovereign will. He said what He was going to do about the unbelieving first generation out of Egypt and here is the fulfillment of God's words. I find a lot of security in knowing that God does what He says He is going to do, even when it means difficult consequences.
It was also fun to note that there were names of women presented in this male dominated list. God cares about women and they are vital to His family. The role of the man was to lead, protect and provide for their wives and daughters and we will see that when there is no man in the family to do that, God does it for us. He is the husband of the husbandless.