"52 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 53 “Among these the land shall be divided for inheritance according to the number of names. 54 To a large tribe you shall give a large inheritance, and to a small tribe you shall give a small inheritance; every tribe shall be given its inheritance in proportion to its list. 55 But the land shall be divided by lot. According to the names of the tribes of their fathers they shall inherit. 56 Their inheritance shall be divided according to lot between the larger and the smaller.”
57 This was the list of the Levites according to their clans: of Gershon, the clan of the Gershonites; of Kohath, the clan of the Kohathites; of Merari, the clan of the Merarites. 58 These are the clans of Levi: the clan of the Libnites, the clan of the Hebronites, the clan of the Mahlites, the clan of the Mushites, the clan of the Korahites. And Kohath was the father of Amram. 59 The name of Amram's wife was Jochebed the daughter of Levi, who was born to Levi in Egypt. And she bore to Amram Aaron and Moses and Miriam their sister. 60 And to Aaron were born Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar. 61 But Nadab and Abihu died when they offered unauthorized fire before the Lord. 62 And those listed were 23,000, every male from a month old and upward. For they were not listed among the people of Israel, because there was no inheritance given to them among the people of Israel.
63 These were those listed by Moses and Eleazar the priest, who listed the people of Israel in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho. 64 But among these there was not one of those listed by Moses and Aaron the priest, who had listed the people of Israel in the wilderness of Sinai. 65 For the Lord had said of them, “They shall die in the wilderness.” Not one of them was left, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun."
Numbers 26:52-65
The main, central lesson of the chapter has to do with the faithfulness of God. He is faithful to His word and His promise. He said that none of that generation of Israel would enter into the Promised Land, because of their sin and unbelief; and none of them did (64, 65). For 38 years, God kept the nation wandering in the wilderness until the generation died off. Then, He proceeded to lead them on and in. This is a solemn consideration, and it serves to complete the biblical picture. The truth is, the biblical idea of divine faithfulness is two-sided, two-edged, and is so in the very nature of the case. It is impossible to have the one without the other. We have already referred to Balaam's words in 23:19, 'Hath He said, and shall He not do it?' There are many occasions on which we could take these words as a source of the most wonderful assurance and comfort. But this story reminds us that there is also a grimness about them that is very terrible. And it is not that God changes, He changes not. The change is in US. It is our attitude to Him, not His to us, that determines whether His faithfulness is a comfort or a terror to us. And nothing can alter this inescapable fact of human existence and experience, because God cannot change His nature. Israel's own history provides a graphic illustration of this truth. The pillar of cloud and fire was one of the great realities of their ongoing experience. To them it was a source of comfort and strength and assurance; but that same pillar was, at the same time, a source of terror to their enemies. This does not mean God was a different God to Israel than to them. He was one and the same God to both: it was they who were different. His love and grace were anathema to them. It was this that was their condemnation.