One month after the tabernacle goes up, the book opens by counting the men who can fight. The Hebrew idiom is not “take a census” but lift the head — each man brought up out of the mass and registered by name. The total is 603,550, a figure no reading has yet reconciled with the Sinai. Then Levi is exempted, posted in a ring around the tent, and a death penalty is set on anyone else who approaches.