"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 reference to Caleb and Joshua in 65 is an additional indication to us of the faithful- ness of God, for He was faithful to those who had been faithful to Him. - 'What were they do- ing all the forty years of wanderings? They were waiting for God's day to come. Like their fellows they had stood on the borders of Canaan and had been aware of the enemies and the costly conflict that has awaited the advancing Israelites. But they had also seen with the eyes of faith the vision of God's land and God's work going into the ever more glorious future. Their hearts responded and consented to the command to go forward, but it could not be be- cause of the refusal of the vast majority of the people. Being part of Israel they had to share Israel's rebuke, but all these years their hearts had neither been lured away by the deceitful- ness of sin nor filled with unworthy fears regarding God's capacity and willingness to bring them to victory in the land (Numbers 13:30). It must have been sore indeed for them to watch the fading away of a whole generation of people to whom such hopeful possibility had been presented, but their hearts remained loyal to God and they still looked in faith for the day of entry to come as God had promised. If ever there was an elect remnant bridging the gap from the past to the future through a derelict present, it was Joshua and Caleb' (G. Philip) 'Them that honour Me', says the Lord, 'I will honour'.