At the beginning of Parashat Pinhas is the second Divine command to count Bnei Yisrael (the first at beginning of Bemidbar).)  This event has far more importance than just counting the people. It becomes the name for the book: the Sages' name for the book of Bemidbar  is"The Book of Counting" - the Sages – see it as the essence of the book.

We examin various suggested reasons for God's command to count Bnei Yisrael, and we note that the second counting has a major difference in the reasons for counting from that of the first census: we find military vs. inheritance to explain the disparities.