Just before leaving Sinai God commands Moses to take a census. Why does He do this? No explicit reason is given. Maybe it is an indication that God takes account of every single person. Certainly this is what Jesus taught, saying even the hairs on our head are counted. There is also a warning here. King David was later rebuked for taking a census, so we just because God commands something on one occasion, does not mean that it becomes a law. Here God even tells Moses who is to help him, with one person from each tribe.
We then get long lists of the numbers of people in each tribe. Note that it is the men over twenty years of age who are counted. This happened before they were supposed to go into the Promised Land, but they refused to do so, as we shall see later. So these people would end up being the people held responsible for not going in.
The Levites are singled out and were not included in the census. Instead there whole life was devoted to taking care of the Tabernacle.
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