I have found the most repetitious book of the Bible, and it is Numbers 2. In Numbers 1, the twelve tribes of Israel are to take a census of men of fighting age. Each tribe has a person named to do the count, and then they list the count of each tribe. The most populous tribe had 74,600 adult men. If one person could write a name every ten seconds, it would take almost nine days straight to count.

But that’s besides the point. Note that only adult men who can fight are counted. Not women, not children, not slaves. Total count is 603,550. Add in each man’s wife (or wives), and children, and slaves, and you have a few million people wandering the desert. Plus their goats. That’s an enormous city back then. Where did their sewage go? Did the goats eat the manna, too?

I guess the Lord provided.

In Numbers 2, it repeats, almost word for word, the count of people in each tribe, but this time, it tells us where they should assemble. Thirty four verses of nothing. This has to get better.

Tomorrow: Numbers 3-4.