Numbers 2:3 - Exposition

On the east. The van, the post of honour. The general direction indeed of their march was northwards, not eastwards; but nothing can obliterate the natural pre-eminence given to the east by the sunrise, the scattering of light upon the earth, the daily symbol of the day-spring from on high. The standard of the camp of Judah. Judah led the way not because he was the greatest in number, for the order of the tribes was not determined by this consideration, but because of his place in prophecy, and as the ancestor of the Messiah ( Genesis 49:10 ). According to Aben Ezra and other Jewish expositors, the device upon the standard of Judah was a young lion, and this agrees with Revelation 5:5 . The same authorities assign to Reuben a man, to Ephraim an ox (cf. Deuteronomy 33:17 ), to Dan an eagle. If it were so, we should find in these banners the origin of the forms of the living creatures in the visions of Ezekiel and St. John ( Ezekiel 1:26 ; Ezekiel 10:1 ; Revelation 4:4-6 ), unless, indeed, the devices on the standards were themselves taken from the symbolic forms of the cherubim in the tabernacle, and these in their turn borrowed from the religious art of Egypt. But the tradition of the Jews is too fluctuating to carry any weight. The Targum of Palestine assigns to Judea the lion, but to Reuben a stag, to Ephraim a young man, and to Dan a basilisk serpent.