Angela Roskop Erisman, “Numbers,” in The SBL Study Bible, edited by Steven L. McKenzie, Kristin De Troyer, and F. Scott Spencer (HarperOne, 2023), 221.
Reading the book of Numbers can be a frustrating experience. The early Christian theologian Origen famously encouraged those who come to Scripture’s table to “reject it and spit it out” in favor of more palatable fare, such as the book of Genesis, perhaps. Yet if we come to Numbers with the right set of expectations, traversing its complicated landscape can be uniquely rewarding. The dirt is often turned up to reveal human dynamics at both their best and their worst, and its difficult terrain lays bare something of its literary history, revealing how cosmopolitan the scribes were in their knowledge of literature and culture, as well as how highly skilled and creating in marshaling an array of literary sources to craft something new in the service of cultural and political survival.
The Amateur Exegete 
Semi-serious theory: The Septuagint translators done this book dirty by calling it Ἀριθμοί in Greek, giving us Numeri in the Vulgate, and ultimately Numbers in English. Who’s gonna start a book with a dull name like that in a state of constructive enthusiasm? Might as well call it Census Data Tables w/ Explanatory Notes.
Far better to have stuck with the Hebrew בְּמִדְבַּר, In the Wilderness (or Desert, etc.). You could even jazz it up a bit without sacrificing much accuracy. Desert Adventures. Warlords of the Wilderness. Heck, aside from the copyright issues, Wasteland Wars–Episode IV: A New Hope would work. 🤓
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