Dibur_hamatchil for Numbers 1:55

Our sages of blessed memory gave a reason why it provides all the details of the place and date and context of the jewish people before they are counted - in the desert, in the tent of greeting, in the specific year and month. They brought a parable of a king who married a woman and didn't give her a marraige document. He divorced her and didn't tell her the date of the divorce. He did this for the first and second woman when he married them as well. After a while he found a pauper who had worthy parents. He said "this one isn't like the previous women who I married. He wrote her a marraige document and he put in the date of the marriage. In the same vein in Megilat Esther we need precisely the date that Achashveirosh married her (to show us how qualitatively different Esther was from all the other women he had married in the past). The parable can be explained in the following way. When G-d created the world, the whole purpose was for the Jewish people. All the nations meant nothing to him. Therefore when it comes to the creation of the world, or the generation of the flood, or the generation of Babel there is no mention of date or time. It just mentions that 'on this day' in relation to these subjects - they were simply not important to G-d. Again this is comparable to another parable - to a pearl that falls into the sand. We sift through the sand to find the pearl, not because of the sand that surrounds it. Similarly, all the generations where only valuable in that they led to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and this is why Genesis spends so much time talking about their lives and what happened to them. Thus, all the people who led up to the Jewish people are likened to the women who the king married without a marriage document. However, G-d found a pauper - the Jewish people who were poor because they originated in Egypt without Torah and Mitzvot, but had good forbears - Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. G-d therefore said it isn't fitting to make the Jewish nation like the others, but rather to write her a dowry, and to write her a marriage document - the Torah, and to write a date commemorating the event, as it says in the verse "the third month after the Jews had left Egypt"(Exodus 19:1). For this reason our verse mentions time, date and place. The whole purpose of the creation was for the Jewish people. Even though all of this is clear, one needs to SEE and TASTE this statement. It is known that with the giving of the Torah the Israelites achieved perfection, which was lacking to the other nations of the world who refused to receive the Torah. Therefore after they received the Torah, G-d wrote them a marriage document, a date, a dowry, with the making of the tabernacle and an altar which allowed them to atone for their sins. Why then does the Torah write this only now? However the will of G-d in this was even though he had given them the Torah, the Mitzvot and the Mishkan and its vessels, the Jews had not achieved their intended purpose. The whole purpose of the Torah and the Mishkan is for the atonement of sins. However, when G-d gave the Torah he arrived with his heavenly entourage and the 4 encampments of the divine presence. This is reflected in the Talmud where it states that the angels showed love and the encampment of angels camped like the order of the 4 flags which reflect the 4 angels Gabriel, Michael, Noriel and Refael. When the Jewish people saw this, they wanted to cleave to G-d (in the same way as the angels) with these 4 flags, and 4 encampments. In this way, they would achieve the complete connection to G-d and fulfillment of his desire and will. The 4 flags represent the 4 camps of the divine presence and the 4 letters of G-d's name. This is expressed in the verse: כאומרו נרננה בישועתך ובשם אלהינו נדגול ימלא ה' כל משאלותיך. This hints to the notion that just as G-d fulfils the requests of the Jewish people by giving them the flags that they desired from the giving of the Torah, so too G-d will fulfill our desires to stand in times of trouble.