pelled to have recourse to Genesis, and especially to
chap. xlix., the more because the whole arrangement of the camp has
evidently its foundation in Genesis, and the key to a whole series of
facts in it can be found only in chap. xlix. If we ask why it is that
the tribes of Issachar and Zebulun are subordinate to Judah; that
Reuben, Simeon, and Gad, that Ephraim and Benjamin, that Dan, Asher,
and Naphtali are encamped by each other; it is in Genesis alone that we
are furnished with the answer.

The position which Reuben occupies specially points to Gen. xlix. As
the first-born, he ought to stand at the head; but here we find him
occupying the second place. In Gen. xlix. Jacob says to him, on account
of his guilt, "Thou shalt not excel;" and "the excellency of dignity,
and the excellency of power," which up to that time he had possessed,
are transferred to Judah. Yet Moses has so much regard to his original
dignity, that he places him immediately after Judah; the utterance of
Jacob did not entitle him to assign to him a lower position.
_Further_,--The reason why Dan stands at the head of the sons of the
maids is explained only in Gen. xlix. 16-18, where Dan is specially
distinguished among them, and where it is specially said of him, "Dan
shall judge his people."

If the blessing of Jacob be the production of a later time, then the
order of the encampment, which rests upon it, must necessarily be so
also; but such an idea will at once be discarded by every man of sound
judgment. Even they who refuse to acknowledge Moses as the author of
the Pentateuch, admit that [Pg 87] those regulations which bear
reference only to the condition of things in the wilderness must have
originated from him.

But exactly the same order which Moses in Num. ii. prescribes for the
encampment and setting forth of the tribes, is found again in chap.
vii., where there is described the offerings which the princes of the
tribes offered at the dedication of the altar. Every prince has here a
day to himself, and here also does Judah occupy the first place: "And
he that offered his offering the first day was Nahshon, the son of
Amminadab, of the tribe of Judah."--If any one should venture to set
down this chapter also, with all its details, as a fabrication of later
times, he would only betray an utter absence of all scientific
judgment.

According to Num. x. 14, Judah led the march when they set forth from
Sinai.

Balaam's prophecies, the gen