In the middle of the book twelve spies are sent out to survey the promised land. They return with a majority report that discourages the people from entering the land and results in the forty years of wandering. Not only is the wilderness a hostile place, it is the place where Israel must remain because of its failure to respond to God's purpose. This, then, is the setting of the divinely ordered census. When the Lord commands Moshe to number the people, he is granting him a new perspective on the whole matter.
Human eyes see a dry and fruitless land and a miserable band wandering in it.
The census imposes order and dignity upon this scene. Numbering, like naming, implies mastery, control, a sense of purpose. The information revolution, the great technological accomplishment of the late twentieth century, reflects this same reality. It proceeds by reducing information to a digital code, in effect numbering everything. In the midst of the modern collapse of values and absolute meaning, we have regained a sense of control through numbers.