The Call To Number The Tribes and To Prepare for War, excluding Levi (Numbers 1:1-46).
‘And Yahweh spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the tent of meeting, on the first day of the second month, in the second year after they were come out of the land of Egypt, saying,'
From the commencement the book stresses that in it we are dealing with what results from the word of Yahweh given to Moses, spoken in the Tent of Meeting. Thus this heading to the record declares whom the record is about. It then gives place and date. It is a typical heading to a written record from those days, as can be seen by comparison with other written records discovered. Note the immediate reference to the land of Egypt. This is the continuing story of deliverance from Egypt.
Taking place one month after the Dwellingplace had been consecrated, it stresses that the people of Israel are setting out from the wilderness of Sinai, where they have spent a year in their dealings with Yahweh. They had commenced their journey from Egypt in the first month of the first year, and had arrived at the wilderness of Sinai in the third month of the first year (Exodus 19:1). Now in the second month of the second year the army is to be mustered (‘numbered') ready for going forward.
A glance ahead to Numbers 3:1 reveals there a typical closing colophon to a document, whereas this is a typical heading. It would appear therefore that at one stage this record from Numbers 1:1 to Numbers 3:1 originally stood on its own as a record of the military mobilisation and organisation of the troops readied for going forward, a record made at the time. It was then later incorporated into Numbers.