Numbers is the English translation of the Greek title of the book Arithmoi, a title no doubt given to it because of the census returns found in chapters 1–4 and 26. The fifth word of the book, bĕmidbar ‘in the wilderness’, constitutes its Hebrew title. This more aptly describes its contents, for it is wholly concerned with the forty years the tribes of Israel spent wandering in the wilderness between Mount Sinai and the plains of Moab. Numbers begins with a series