NUMBERS, THE BOOK OF, one of the books of the Pentateuch.
In Hebrew it has two titles, "i`tri, and he spoke, which is the first word of the book, and in the desert, which is the fifth word in the first verse, and which applies to the whole book, inasmuch as the events which it records took place in the desert. Its title in the Septuagint is 'Acaktol, Numbers, because it contains the censuses of the people of Israel (chaps. i.-iii., and xxvi).
The first four chapters of this book consist of separate accounts of commands given by God to Moses, while the Israelites were encamped at the foot of Sinai, respecting the census and the classification of the people, and the duties of the priests and Levitee. The succeeding chapters (v.-x. 10) contain various laws, most of which are additions to those before given in the hooks of Exodus and Leviticus ; and the rest of the book is occupied with the narrative of the journeys of the Israelites, from the time of their leaving Sinai to their second arrival at the Jordan, and their encampment in the plains of Moab. The time over which the book extends is from the first day of the second month of the second year after the departure from Egypt, to the first day of the eleventh month of the fortieth year of the same epoch. This part of the hook also contains various enactments, We learn from the last verse of the last chapter that this book was written. by Moses " in the plains of Moab by Jordan near Jericho,"
and consequently just before his death. Vater has attempted to show that it is composed of short narratives written by different persons (vol. iii., p. 452, &c.), and Dc Wette adduces several passages which appear to disagree with each other, and with the parallel passages in the book of Exodus (` Lehrbnch d. Hist. Krit. Einleitnng in d. A. T.') ; but the more carefully the facts and allusions contained in it are examined, the more satisfactorily they confirm the belief that it, as well as the other books of the Pentateuch, was the production of Moses, and its genuineness rests upon the same points of evidence as to its origin and its historical truth as the • other books. Even De Wette admits that parts of it belong to the Mosaical age.
This book is quoted or referred to in the New Testament (compare Numb. xx. 11 with 1 Cor. x. 4, and Numb. xxi. with John iii. 14). The passage in chap. xxiv. 17-19, is generally understood as a pre diction of the Messiah.
(llosenmfiller's Scholia in Vet. Test. ; the Introductions of Eichhorn, Jahn, De Wette, and Horne; Graves's and Vater's Commentaries on the Pentateuch.)