What we call Bamidbar is also called the Book of Numbers. This is on account of the census at the book’s opening and near the end. At the opening census we read: Count the heads of all the community of the Israelites by their clans, by their fathers’ houses…And with you let there be a man from each tribe…(Chapter 1) but at the next census we read: the LORD said to Moses and to Eleazar son of Aaron the priest, saying, “Count the heads of all the community of Israelites (Chapter 26) – tribal representatives don’t help with the second census. ShaDaL says that his father(!) suggested to him that at the first census there may have been people who tried affiliating with a different family and tribal representatives were needed to help keep order.
