How Right Is God?

Moses and Aaron were great mathematicians, or at least statisticians. God gave them a monumental job - to "take a census of all the congregation of the sons of Israel ... from twenty years old and upward" (Numbers 1:2-3). So they started counting. Here are their results, listed by tribe.

Reuben - 46,500
Simeon - 59,300
Gad - 45,650
Judah - 74,600
Issachar - 54,400
Zebulun - 57,400
Ephraim - 40,500
Manasseh - 32,200
Benjamin - 35,400
Dan - 62,700
Asher - 41,500
Naphtali - 53,400
Total - 603,550

The Levites were not numbered as men of war (age twenty and up) but as servants of God (from one month and up). This added 22,000, but perhaps only half of them were older than twenty. Using that estimate, the total men of Israel were 614,550. If each of them were married, reasonable in that culture, the total adults were approximately 1,229,200.

This census took place at the beginning of the second year after leaving Egypt. How many of this vast multitude of people actually entered the Promised Land? Two. Just two.

When it came time to enter the land, the people were fearful of the conquest, and they rebelled against God's command. They did not believe His power, and they refused to enter. In response, God declared that none of those twenty or older would be able to enter the land, with the exception of the two men who dared to stand alone in their determination to obey God.

Was God's "prediction" reasonable? Certainly, there was a great likelihood that many of those million people would naturally die during the forty years of wandering that God established. After all, some of those people were probably already eighty or ninety years old, if not older. They wouldn't last another forty years. But a great many of those people were twenty and thirty years old. While one could imagine that some of them might die within forty years, it really seems that deaths of those younger people would be the exception rather than the rule.

What was the life expectancy during this time? Moses died at 120, and Aaron died at 123. Miriam died not too long before Aaron, so she was likely in her 120s as well. This family may have had unusual longevity, but it is reasonable to think they were at or near average. Joshua died at 110, and we know that Caleb reached at least eighty-five (and that was when he started conquering his possession). Even taking 110 as an expected age of death, people who were seventy at the beginning of the wilderness wandering would have had a good likelihood of entering the land.

Logically, statistically, most of those at the younger end of the scale would be expected to survive another forty years and more. Those who were twenty should have made it back with fifty or more years to spare. They would still have been young enough to help conquer the land; Caleb and Joshua did. I'm sure people who study demographics and statistics could come up with figures for how many people of each age group would still be alive after forty years. As educated and reasonable as those predictions would be, they would all be wrong. They wouldn't even be close.

The real result? "But among these [who were ready to enter the land forty years later] 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. For 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" (Numbers 26:64-65).

Only two survived. This is statistically impossible. Out of 1,229,200, only two. Even if one accepts the unlikely outcome of only two surviving, Joshua and Caleb are not the two most likely prospects. They weren't the ones who advanced from nineteen to fifty-nine. Caleb was already forty, and Joshua was probably near the same age. Just before entering the land, it must have been quite remarkable that in that nation of relatively young people, there were three old men: Moses, who at 120 would soon die, Joshua, and Caleb.

Perhaps some of the lingering elderly (or not-so-elderly) thought they were so close that they just might make it. Maybe they would somehow be spared. Maybe they really would get to enter the land. But they didn't. Whether decades or days before the start of the conquest, they all died. Why? Because God is always right. God is right down to the smallest detail. He had said only two, and there were in fact only two.

God always keeps His word. Those 1,229,200 learned that on a very practical level. Just prior to entering the land, God had Joshua number the new nation. There were now 601,730 men aged twenty to sixty, and 23,000 Levites. Using the same estimations as before, this meant a new nation of 1,226,460. This new generation also needed to know that God always kept His Word, so Joshua told them so just before his death.

"Now behold, today I am going the way of all the earth, and you know in all your hearts and in all your souls that not one word of all the good words which the LORD your God spoke concerning you has failed; all have been fulfilled for you, not one of them has failed" (Joshua 23:14).

Yes, God does everything He says He will do. No exceptions. God's Word and His promises can be trusted whole-heartedly, because He fulfills His word even when it is mathematically improbable or statistically impossible. God is entirely and completely right.