[Bible Tales] Newsletter – Israel Camping in the Wilderness

Published: Wed, 01/28/26

Updated: Wed, 01/28/26

Hi ,

In this newsletter we examine some practical details of how Israel camped in the wilderness after leaving Egypt.

News

"West to Moora Moora" was published on 19 January 2026 as a sequel to "Beyond the Western Margin". Everyone who placed pre-orders should have received their order by now. If you haven't, please let us know as soon as possible.
God willing, our next newsletter will finish the micro-tale about David.

Camping in the Wilderness

Exodus 40 When everything was ready the Tabernacle was built in the middle of the camp with three tribes on every side. The Tabernacle furniture was put in position. (Sweet Publishing / FreeBibleImages.org https://www.freebibleimages.org/illustrations/moses-tabernacle/ (Slide 30) License: Creative
Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license)

Shrinking tribes

During Israel’s 40 years in the wilderness, the overall population of the nation remained almost unchanged. Some tribes, however, grew larger while others shrank. The most extreme example is the tribe of Simeon, whose number of able-bodied men reduced from 59,300 (the third biggest tribe) to become the smallest tribe with only 22,200 about 38 years later. Naturally, we ask, Why? We’re not told directly, but a few details suggest possible reasons. Shortly before the nation entered the land of Canaan and just before the second census, many Midianite women seduced Israelite men into Baal worship and associated sexual immorality. God sent a plague to punish this double unfaithfulness, killing 24,000 Israelites in the process, probably all men. During a gathering of national repentance, a brazenly unrepentant leader brought a Midianite woman into his tent in full view of the nation. He was executed by Phinehas the priest along with his lover, and God praised Phinehas for his action. The record notes that Zimri, the executed leader, was from the tribe of Simeon.

No connection is made in the text, but leaders normally reflect the people they lead. We don’t know what proportion of the 24,000 dead came from the tribe of Simeon, but it may have been a majority. After all, other leaders had already responded by identifying the ringleaders in their tribe and executing them, but the leadership of Simeon was modelling the very behaviour God condemned.

Overall, Simeon’s numbers reduced by 37,100 over 38 years, and this single event, so close to the end of their travels, may have been the greatest contributor to that decline.

Schematic layout of Israel's camp in the wilderness

Growing tribes

As shown in the diagram above, some other tribes (Manasseh, Benjamin, Asher and Issachar) grew significantly, but no one event causes a significant increase – the growth of families takes years.

Neighbours

For most people living in a tribal area in the wilderness, all their neighbours would have been from their own tribe. However, at the edges of tribal areas, they may have lived quite close to members of other tribes.

One demonstration of this is found in the rebellion against Moses and Aaron reported in Numbers 16. The leaders of the rebellion are listed as Korah, a Levite from the family of the Kohathites, along with Dathan, Abiram and On from the tribe of Reuben. Is it just a coincidence that the Kohathites camped to the south of the tabernacle between the tabernacle and the camp of Reuben? I doubt it.

Korah probably met and befriended some leaders of the tribe of Reuben because he camped near them. Not considering their existing positions of leadership important enough, they formed a conspiracy with 250 other dissatisfied leaders from other tribes. Moses and Aaron were the target of their discontent, the ones they blamed for withholding the positions of importance they deserved.

Now Moses was a humble man who led the nation by following God’s instructions. Yet these men believed Moses was promoting himself and his family, making up all of the communication with God and the commands he had received. In short, they used their own frame of reference to judge him, assuming that he had the same self-centred motivations as they. Sadly, people with a chip on their shoulder have a habit of locating others with the same problem – birds of a feather flock together.

These men confronted Moses with their censure and self-promotion, demanding the right to take on the duties of God’s chosen priests. Moses knew that their pretensions would be fatal and did his best to dissuade them. When they refused to listen, he set up a “competition” where Korah and his followers would approach God the next morning in their own way with their own incense, while Aaron obeyed God’s commands. God would show who he had chosen.

He did. The earth opened up and swallowed Korah, Dathan and Abiram with their tents and families,[1] while the other 250 leaders were consumed by fire that came out from God. The rebels died, but Aaron the obedient priest survived. Not only so, but if Moses and Aaron had not interceded with God, many more would have died.

Be careful how you choose your friends!

“Outside the camp”

A well organised and closely-packed camp surrounding the tabernacle provided comfort and security for Israel, but it also created two contrasting positions: inside the camp and outside the camp.

Inside the camp, God’s laws kept the nation holy. Most of the nation was to be safe inside the camp.

However, God also gave instructions to exclude some things and people from the camp of Israel. The reason? Cleanliness and holiness.

People with “leprosy”[2] were considered unclean and could not enter the camp. It appears that the disease or diseases described as “leprosy” were highly infectious at certain stages, and at these times people with “leprosy” had to live outside the camp.

Toileting also had to be done outside the camp,[3] and God finishes his instructions with an explanation:

“Because the Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp, to deliver you and to give up your enemies before you, therefore your camp must be holy, so that he may not see anything indecent among you and turn away from you.”

Deuteronomy 23:14

Several other reasons are given for the exclusion of people or things from the camp on a temporary or permanent basis.[4]

The concept of being outside the camp is used in the letter to the Hebrews where we are reminded that, just as some sacrifices were burned outside the camp, so Jesus died for us outside the camp – outside Jerusalem. The writer encourages us to take up our cross and follow him, choosing to suffer the reproach he suffered, seeking the city that is to come.[5]

The diagram above is closer to being proportional, but is still schematic. The size of each tribe’s camp (and even the small family groupings of the Levites) would be much larger than the size of the tabernacle courtyard, so if this was a properly scaled map, the tabernacle would be too small to see.

How big was the camp?

We’re not told the physical dimensions of the camp, and if you aren’t interested in numbers and estimates, you might as well stop reading this section now! If you are, read on and see what you think.

In the previous article, we estimated about 600,000 tents in the camp. If each tent was about 10m2 (110 ft2) and we allow a similar area for spacing between tents and providing some paths, that would require 12 km2 (4.6 sq. mi.). A circular camp of that area would be 2.6km (1.6 mi.) in radius.

Note that this gives a population density of almost 300,000 people per square kilometre (780,000 per sq. mi.) which is similar to that of the Ravensbrück concentration camp, about three quarters of the population density of the most crowded slums in the world today and much, much higher (about 40 times higher) than the Gaza strip!

Shape of the camp?

Is there any element of life which allows us to assess whether this camp size would make life difficult or impossible?

There is one aspect of life where God’s laws would make daily life very difficult in a large circular camp: toileting, specifically defecation.

God commanded:

“You shall have a place outside the camp, and you shall go out to it. And you shall have a trowel with your tools, and when you sit down outside, you shall dig a hole with it and turn back and cover up your excrement.”

Deuteronomy 23:12-13

Now if going “outside the camp” meant travelling to the outside of a circular camp, even with the densely packed camp described above, half of the population would have to walk more than 1.4km (1,500 yards) to go to the toilet and retrace their steps to their tent. No doubt this would help to keep the nation fit, but it would be difficult to maintain.

Imagine, however, if each tribe was separate from the others, like separated slices of a cake as shown in the diagram above. In this case, “outside the camp” could include the spokes of open space that separated the tribes and led in towards the centre of the camp. In such a camp configuration the average distance for toileting would be about 400 metres (440 yards), with a maximum of about 700 metres (770 yards) – still substantial, but much more manageable.

I’m sure the arrangement and shape of the camp would have been adjusted in various ways to make this particular restriction – with its resulting health benefits – workable.

Notes

[1] Not all of Korah’s family supported him. Some separated themselves from him and survived (Numbers 26:10-11). Eleven Psalms are declared to be written by the sons of Korah (Psalms 42, 44-49, 84, 85, 87 and 88).
[2] The leprosy described in the Bible causes different symptoms and is thus a different disease or collection of diseases from Hansen’s disease, which we call leprosy. Hansen’s disease is not very infectious – most people exposed to it will not catch the disease.
[3] Deuteronomy 23:12-14
[4] Soldiers who had killed anyone or touched a dead body (Numbers 31:19-24); any man made unclean by a nocturnal emission (Deuteronomy 23:10-11); law-breakers being executed (Leviticus 10:1-5; Numbers 15:32-36); and possibly some foreigners (see Joshua 6:23). Also, some offerings were to be made outside the camp or some parts disposed of outside the camp (Exodus 29:14; Leviticus 8:17, 9:11; Leviticus 4:11-12; Leviticus 4:21; Leviticus 6:11; Leviticus 16:26-28; Numbers 19:2-10; Hebrews 13:11).
[5] Hebrews 13:11-14

Powerpoint slides...

The two diagrams included in this newsletter are also attached in a PowerPoint presentation. The fonts used are embedded, so you should be able to use them without needing to install the freely available Roboto font used.

Feel free to use the slides and diagrams as you choose.

"Do all to the glory of God" (1 Corinthians 10:31)

May the Lord bless you and keep you safe this week.

Mark Morgan

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Visit our blog site: https://www.BibleTales.online
Visit our online store: https://www.BibleStories.online

41 Dimboola Road
Warracknabeal Victoria 3393
AUSTRALIA

Unsubscribe | Change Subscriber Options