We have here the sum total at the foot of the account; they were in all
600,000 fighting men, and 3550 over. Some think that when this was
their number some months before (Exod. xxxviii. 26) the Levites were
reckoned with them, but now that tribe was separated for the service of
God, yet so many more had by this time attained to the age of twenty
years as that still they were the same number, to show that whatever we
part with for the honour and service of God it shall certainly be made
up to us one way of other. Now we see what a vast body of men they
were. Let us consider, 1. How much went to maintain all these (besides
twice as many more, no question, of women and children, sick and aged,
and the mixed multitude) for forty years together in the wilderness;
and they were all at God's finding every day, having their food from
the dew of heaven, and not from the fatness of the earth. O what a
great and good housekeeper is our God, that has such numbers depending
on him and receiving from him every day! 2. What work sin makes with a
people; within forty years most of them would indeed have died of
course for the common sin of mankind; for, when sin entered into the
world, death came with it, and how great are the desolations which it
makes in the earth! But, for the particular sin of unbelief and
murmuring, all those that were now numbered, except two, laid their
bones under their iniquity, and perished in the wilderness. 3. What a
great multitude God's spiritual Israel will amount to at last; though
at one time, and in one place, they seem to be but a little flock, yet
when they come all together they shall be a great multitude,
innumerable, Rev. vii. 9. And, though the church's beginning be small,
its latter end shall greatly increase. A little one shall become a
thousand.