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1Yahweh spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the Tent of Meeting, on the first day of the second month, in the second year after they had come out of the land of Egypt, saying, 2“Take a census of all the congregation of the children of Israel, by their families, by their fathers’ houses, according to the number of the names, every male, one by one, 3from twenty years old and upward, all who are able to go out to war in Israel. You and Aaron shall count them by their divisions. 4With you there shall be a man of every tribe, each one head of his fathers’ house. 5These are the names of the men who shall stand with you:

Of Reuben: Elizur the son of Shedeur.

6Of Simeon: Shelumiel the son of Zurishaddai.

7Of Judah: Nahshon the son of Amminadab.

8Of Issachar: Nethanel the son of Zuar.

9Of Zebulun: Eliab the son of Helon.

10Of the children of Joseph: of Ephraim: Elishama the son of Ammihud; of Manasseh: Gamaliel the son of Pedahzur.

11Of Benjamin: Abidan the son of Gideoni.

12Of Dan: Ahiezer the son of Ammishaddai.

13Of Asher: Pagiel the son of Ochran.

14Of Gad: Eliasaph the son of Deuel.

15Of Naphtali: Ahira the son of Enan.”

16These are those who were called of the congregation, the princes of the tribes of their fathers; they were the heads of the thousands of Israel. 17Moses and Aaron took these men who are mentioned by name. 18They assembled all the congregation together on the first day of the second month; and they declared their ancestry by their families, by their fathers’ houses, according to the number of the names, from twenty years old and upward, one by one. 19As Yahweh commanded Moses, so he counted them in the wilderness of Sinai.

20The children of Reuben, Israel’s firstborn, their generations, by their families, by their fathers’ houses, according to the number of the names, one by one, every male from twenty years old and upward, all who were able to go out to war: 21those who were counted of them, of the tribe of Reuben, were forty-six thousand five hundred.

22Of the children of Simeon, their generations, by their families, by their fathers’ houses, those who were counted of it, according to the number of the names, one by one, every male from twenty years old and upward, all who were able to go out to war: 23those who were counted of them, of the tribe of Simeon, were fifty-nine thousand three hundred.

24Of the children of Gad, their generations, by their families, by their fathers’ houses, according to the number of the names, from twenty years old and upward, all who were able to go out to war: 25those who were counted of them, of the tribe of Gad, were forty-five thousand six hundred fifty.

26Of the children of Judah, their generations, by their families, by their fathers’ houses, according to the number of the names, from twenty years old and upward, all who were able to go out to war: 27those who were counted of them, of the tribe of Judah, were seventy-four thousand six hundred.

28Of the children of Issachar, their generations, by their families, by their fathers’ houses, according to the number of the names, from twenty years old and upward, all who were able to go out to war: 29those who were counted of them, of the tribe of Issachar, were fifty-four thousand four hundred.

30Of the children of Zebulun, their generations, by their families, by their fathers’ houses, according to the number of the names, from twenty years old and upward, all who were able to go out to war: 31those who were counted of them, of the tribe of Zebulun, were fifty-seven thousand four hundred.

32Of the children of Joseph: of the children of Ephraim, their generations, by their families, by their fathers’ houses, according to the number of the names, from twenty years old and upward, all who were able to go out to war: 33those who were counted of them, of the tribe of Ephraim, were forty thousand five hundred.

34Of the children of Manasseh, their generations, by their families, by their fathers’ houses, according to the number of the names, from twenty years old and upward, all who were able to go out to war: 35those who were counted of them, of the tribe of Manasseh, were thirty-two thousand two hundred.

36Of the children of Benjamin, their generations, by their families, by their fathers’ houses, according to the number of the names, from twenty years old and upward, all who were able to go out to war: 37those who were counted of them, of the tribe of Benjamin, were thirty-five thousand four hundred.

38Of the children of Dan, their generations, by their families, by their fathers’ houses, according to the number of the names, from twenty years old and upward, all who were able to go out to war: 39those who were counted of them, of the tribe of Dan, were sixty-two thousand seven hundred.

40Of the children of Asher, their generations, by their families, by their fathers’ houses, according to the number of the names, from twenty years old and upward, all who were able to go out to war: 41those who were counted of them, of the tribe of Asher, were forty-one thousand five hundred.

42Of the children of Naphtali, their generations, by their families, by their fathers’ houses, according to the number of the names, from twenty years old and upward, all who were able to go out to war: 43those who were counted of them, of the tribe of Naphtali, were fifty-three thousand four hundred.

44These are those who were counted, whom Moses and Aaron counted, and the twelve men who were princes of Israel, each one for his fathers’ house. 45So all those who were counted of the children of Israel by their fathers’ houses, from twenty years old and upward, all who were able to go out to war in Israel— 46all those who were counted were six hundred three thousand five hundred fifty. 47But the Levites after the tribe of their fathers were not counted among them. 48For Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, 49“Only the tribe of Levi you shall not count, neither shall you take a census of them among the children of Israel; 50but appoint the Levites over the Tabernacle of the Testimony, and over all its furnishings, and over all that belongs to it. They shall carry the tabernacle and all its furnishings; and they shall take care of it, and shall encamp around it. 51When the tabernacle is to move, the Levites shall take it down; and when the tabernacle is to be set up, the Levites shall set it up. The stranger who comes near shall be put to death. 52The children of Israel shall pitch their tents, every man by his own camp, and every man by his own standard, according to their divisions. 53But the Levites shall encamp around the Tabernacle of the Testimony, that there may be no wrath on the congregation of the children of Israel. The Levites shall be responsible for the Tabernacle of the Testimony.”

54Thus the children of Israel did. According to all that Yahweh commanded Moses, so they did.

Place

Bethlehem

Type
City
Location
31.704, 35.207

The Town of Bethlehem

Site Study | Hershel Wayne House | Bethlehem

The town of Bethlehem (House of Bread) lies in the Judean hills about five miles south of Jerusalem. We find the first mention of Bethlehem of Judea in Genesis 35:19 and 48:7.  In Scripture, it is sometimes also called Ephrathah (Mic 5:2). 

This is where Rachel died and was buried according to Genesis 35:19. Her grave now resides in the town of Bethlehem, guarded by the state of Israel. 

The town is also known as the City of David (Luke 2:4), because of his birth there, and also where Samuel anointed David as king (1 Sam 16:4-13). 

Bethlehem takes on special significance because it is to this Judean town that Joseph and Mary traveled to be registered, since Joseph was a descendant of David, under the decree of Caesar Augustus. This is where Jesus was born in fulfillment of Scripture (Luke 2:1-7; Mic 5:2).  Also, Herod sent his soldiers to Bethlehem to have the child Jesus put to death since he viewed him as a rival to his kingdom.

Shepherds in the Fields

Site Study | Hershel Wayne House

About a mile east of Bethlehem, near the village of Beit Sahur is the Greek Orthodox church commemorating the place where the angels appeared to the shepherds. An archaeological survey was conducted at the site in 1972 by Vassilios Tzaferis, who identified evidence that the cave over which the church was built was used as early as the second half of the fourth century A.D. In the cave, he found that the natural rock floor had been leveled, and a mosaic floor was put in. The mosaic floor contained an eight pointed star and equilateral crosses. The presence of crosses means the floor was made before 427, when Emperor Theodosius II forbade this practice.

See also Bethlehem

Bibliography. Finegan, Jack, The Archaeology of the New Testament: The Life of Jesus and the Beginning of the Early Church, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992), 40, 42.

Bethlehem (בֵּ֥ית לָֽחֶם, bēṯ lāḥem)

Site Study | Brian Kvasnica

Bethlehem resides in the hill country of Judah on the ridge route between Jerusalem and Hebron. To the West of Bethlehem is ample agricultural land and to the east is the Judean Desert – good for shepherding--- which descends down to the Dead Sea. It may be that its location with good farming land brought about the name Beit Lechem – “house of bread,” or the name in Arabic related to shepherding, Beit Lacham, “house of meat.” Both traditions of farming and shepherding play an important place here in the Biblical stories: Boaz had a field which Ruth gleaned from (Ruth 2), David tended Jesse’s sheep (1 Sam 17), and was anointed here by Samuel (1 Sam 16). And, shepherds heard the good news about the Messiah’s birth (Luke 2).

Tel Beit Lehem today is mainly covered by the Nativity Square and the Nativity Church but a small portion of the tel on the east side is still bare and was surveyed in 1969 by Gutman and Berman, confirming both Bronze and Iron Age occupation. While tradition points to a well north of the tel where three of David’s mighty men drew water for David after breaking through the Philistine garrison (2 Sam 23:14,16), the only real water sources came from the southeast in the area of “Solomon’s Pools” or “Artas,” likely biblical Etam (2 Chr 11:6; Greek Apan/Aitan).

Not only was Yeshua (Jesus) born in Bethlehem as Micah 5:2 foretold, but Herod murdered the innocents in the area (Matt 2:8, 16) and Hadrian built a sacred grove to Adonis after pounding the messianic Bar Kochva supporters into submission (Jerome, Ep. ad Paul, lviii.3). Jerome, supported by Paula and her daughter Eustochium, came permanently to Bethlehem in AD 382 to study Hebrew and translate the Hebrew Bible into the common language, Latin. His translation remained the foundation for all Western Scriptural reading for 1600 years.

Multiple excavations by Harvey, Vincent and Abel in the early 1900’s and subsequent studies have revealed three main levels of architectural remains of the Church of the Nativity: an early Roman church represented by floor mosaics from Constantine’s era (about AD 325), a Byzantine Church built by Justinian in the sixth century AD which amazingly still stands today, and Crusader restorations in the twelfth-century AD, as seen in the mosaic decoration on the high walls of the nave. The altar of the Church of the Nativity is built upon a large cave structure that was the venerated place of the Yeshua’s birth already from the second century AD (Justin Martyr and the Protoevangelium of James).

Bethlehem (House of Bread)

Site Study | Daniel G Garland

Bethlehem (House of Bread) is a town in the Judean hills about five miles south of Jerusalem.  In Scripture, it is sometimes called Ephrathah (Micah 5:2).  Rachel died and was buried near Bethlehem, according to Genesis 35:19.  It is the town to which Naomi returned with Ruth (Ruth 1:1, 19).  Called the City of David (Luke 2:4) because of his birth there, Bethlehem is also where Samuel anointed David King (1 Sam 16:4-13).  Because both Joseph and Mary descended from David, Bethlehem is the town to which they traveled to register for taxation under the decree of Caesar Augustus, and where Jesus was born in fulfillment of Scripture (Luke 2:1-7; Micah 5:2).  When Herod tried to kill Jesus by ordering the deaths of male infants two years old and under, Bethlehem became the grisly scene for what has been called the massacre of innocents (Matt 2:16-18).  Bethlehem’s location on the road south to Egypt facilitated Mary and Joseph’s escape with Jesus when warned by an angel of the Lord (Matt 2:13-15)—DG.

Person & place data: Theographic Bible Metadata by Robert Rouse (Viz.Bible), CC BY-SA 4.0.