THIS book is thus entitled, because of the numbers of the
children of Israel, so often mentioned therein, an eminent
accomplishment of God's promise to Abraham, that his seed should be as
the stars of heaven for multitude. It also relates two numberings of
them, one at Mount Sinai, chap. 1. the other, thirty-nine years after.
And there are not three men of the same in the last account that were in
the first. The book is almost equally divided, between histories and
laws intermixed. An abstract of much of this book we have in a few
words, Psalm xcv, 10. Forty years long was I grieved with this generation: and an
application of it to ourselves, Heb. iv, 1. Let us fear lest we come short!