Camp

During their journeys across the wilderness, the twelve tribes formed encampments at the different places where they halted (Ex. 16:13; Num. 2:3). The diagram here given shows the position of the different tribes and the form of the encampment during the wanderings, according to Num. 1:53; 2:2-31; 3:29, 35, 38; 10:13-28. The area of the camp would be in all about 3 square miles. After the Hebrews entered Palestine, the camps then spoken of were exclusively warlike (Josh. 11:5, 7; Judg. 5:19, 21; 7:1; 1 Sam. 29:1; 30:9, etc.).

or ENCAMPMENT, of the Israelites. The whole body of the people, consisting of six hundred thousand fighting men, beside women and children, was disposed under four battalions, so placed as to enclose the tabernacle, in the form of a square, and each under one general standard. (See _Armies_.) There were forty-one encampments, from their first in the month of March, at Rameses, in the land of Goshen, in Egypt, and in the wilderness, until they reached the land of Canaan. They are thus enumerated in Numbers xxxiii:-- 1. Rameses 2. Succoth 3. Etham, on the edge of the wilderness 4. Pihahiroth 5. Marah 6. Elim 7. By the Red Sea 8. Wilderness of Sin 9. Dophkah 10. Alush 11. Rephidim 12. Wilderness of Sinai 13. Kibroth-hattaavah 14. Hazeroth 15. Rithmah 16. Rimmon-parez 17. Libnah 18. Rissah 19. Kehelatha 20. Shapher 21. Haradah 22. Makheloth 23. Tahath 24. Tarah 25. Mithcah 26. Hashmonah 27. Moseroth 28. Bene-jaakan 29. Hor-hagidgad 30. Jotbathah 31. Ebronah 32. Ebion-gaber 33. Kadesh 34. Mount Hor 35. Zalmonah 36. Punon 37. Oboth 38. Ije-abarim 39. Dibon-gad 40. Almon-diblathaim 41. Mountains of Abarim In the second year after their exodus from Egypt they were numbered; and upon an exact poll, the number of their males amounted to six hundred and three thousand, five hundred and fifty, from twenty years old and upward, Num. i, ii. This vast mass of people, encamped in beautiful order, must have presented a most impressive spectacle. That it failed not to produce effect upon the richly endowed and poetic mind of Balaam, appears from Num. xxiv, 2; “And Balaam lifted up his eyes and he saw Israel abiding in his tents according to their tribes; and the Spirit of God came upon him, and he took up his parable and said, How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel! As the valleys are they spread forth, as gardens by the river side, as the trees of lign aloes which the Lord hath planted, and as cedar trees beside waters.” Grandeur, order, beauty, and freshness, were the ideas at once suggested to the mind of this unfaithful prophet, and called forth his unwilling admiration. Perhaps we may consider this spectacle as a type of the order, beauty, and glory of the true “church in the wilderness,” in those happy days when God “shall not behold iniquity in Jacob, nor perverseness in Israel;” when it shall be said, “The Lord his God is with him, and the shout of a king is among them.”