Numbers 1, 2, 3

Amazing as it may seem, the Israelites have been in the desert for just two years. Hang in there, Moses! Only 38 more years to go!

The Lord tells Moses to gather together every male twenty years old and older who is eligible to go to war. Moses enlists the heads of each tribe of Israel to help with the census. He needs the help too, because each tribe has more than thirty-two thousand men who fit the bill--and some have more than sixty thousand. When everyone is accounted for, there are a total of 603,550 men eligible to defend Israel.

It's time to think of the enormous number of people who fled from bondage in Egypt and are now strolling around the desert. The over half a million number above represents just the men over twenty who are eligible for military duty. It doesn't include women, children, those too old to serve, twenty-year-old men with flat feet or poor eyesight, conscientious objectors, or anyone deemed unfit to serve. That's a hell of a lot of people eating sky bread and pigeons. It's also a hell of a lot of poo to dispose of every day.

Yet there is one group of Israelite that gets off easy: the Levites, makers of the first denim pants. As a group they are exempted from active duty to serve as glorified carnies, erecting the tabernacle whenever the Israelites make camp and breaking it down when they move on. Their lives now basically revolve around the tabernacle: they have to camp near it and defend it, killing any stranger who comes near, a scenario you'd think doesn't come up very often considering they're in a desert.

The Lord then details military formations when camp is made. On the east side of camp, 186,400 soldiers will settle; on the south side, 151,450; on the west side, 108,100; and on the north side, 157,600. The Levites camp in the middle, so that the tabernacle is protected on all sides. Why is anyone's guess. Considering God can light any on fire anyone who comes near the tabernacle whenever He wants too, the hundred-thousand-plus men on each side of the glorified tent is redundant. 

God lets Moses in on his reasoning for exempting the Levites from active duty and making them guardians of the tabernacle: "I have taken the Levites from among the children of Israel instead of all the firstborn that openeth the matrix among the children of Israel: therefore the Levites shall be mine;

Because all the firstborn are mine; for on the day that I smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt I hallowed unto me all the firstborn in Israel, both man and beast: mine shall they be."

The best part of that quote is the innovative use of the word "matrix." I swear, the only synonym for vagina I will ever use again is "matrix." As in, "Stop being such a matrix," and "I want to put my penis in your matrix."

God then specifies which Levite families are responsible for which parts of the tabernacle and which direction their personal tents must face.

The Gershon family, who will pitch their tents facing west, is responsible for the meeting tent and its covering, the entrance door, and all the curtains and their cords. The Kohath family will sit to the south and tend to the ark, the table, the candlesticks, the altars, the vessels, and "the hanging," whatever that is. Bringing up the rear is the north-facing Merari clan, who get the boards, the bars, the pillars, the sockets, and the vessels of the tabernacle; they also get the pillars, sockets, pins, and cords of the court around the tabernacle. 

In case you are keeping count, the numbered members of the Levites--defined, for some reason, as any male over one month old, is 22,300. Presumably, the month-old babies don't have many responsibilities.

Moses and Aaron and his remaining sons get the east all to themselves because they love a good sunrise.

There's one more thing God wants Aaron to do: collect five shekels apiece from the 22,273 firstborn Levite males one month old or older and give the money over to Aaron and his boys. No word on where a one month old will get his pudgy hands on five shekels or when Moses will get paid for leading his people to the promised Land, which, as I've said, is surely just around the corner, I'm certain of it.