In reading these texts as books, rather than as selected vignettes and parables, we experience a rather different, more historical, more complex story than the excerpts which exist in the popular understanding convey.
Numbers Review
After enumerating the numbers of the different tribes and their basic demographic features, Numbers turns to the employment of those numbers, and not just for the proper proportional sacrifices and offerings to God, or for determining how much food and water might be necessary. Rather, the major use of the census seems to be for the creation of an army.
IGC Publishing 