In Hebrew, Bmidbar means ”in the wilderness,” which is the genuine name of this book. The Greek translators known as it Arithmoi, and in Latin, it was Numeri, because the translators centered on the two census takings at the start and the end from the wanderings. But its fundamentally ”the wilderness wanderings.”

Numbers is really a book about arrested progress. In a way, it never must have happened. It took only 40 hours to obtain Israel out of Egypt – the Passover. But it took 40 years to obtain Egypt out of Israel.