Today, I am reading and commenting on Numbers 16-18.

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The Bible does not tell us how long it was after Aaron and Miriam had challenged Moses’ leadership until Korah’s rebellion, but it still shows us how slow we as humans are to learn.  I find Korah’s accusation of Moses, and the claim he made about what he stood for strange.  Korah claims to be speaking on behalf of all of the people, on behalf of the “common man”.  Korah says that all should be equal before God, that Moses should not claim special status to speak on behalf of God.  Yet, Korah’s key followers were chiefs over others.  It seems that Korah was really just trying to change who was at the top of the power structure, not change the whole structure.  I also find the willingness of Korah’s 250 followers to burn incense before the Lord interesting.  It looks to me like they did what Aaron’s oldest son’s did by burning incense before the Lord with “strange” fire.  The results for these 250 men was the same as it was for Nadab and Abihu, Aaron’s sons.  The day after God put down Korah’s rebellion against Moses, the people gathered to complain against him for killing the members of Korah’s rebellion.  On both of these occasions, God told Moses and Aaron to separate themselves from the people of the congregation.  Yet on both occasions, Moses and Aaron interceded with God for the people.  Despite the people listening to Korah, and despite them blaming Moses and Aaron for God killing Korah and his core followers, Moses and Aaron interceded for the people.  Moses sent Aaron among the people with his incense censer to burn incense and block the plague from spreading.

As I read this passage, I can’t help but think there is part of this story which is missing.  For example, Korah begins his rebellion by telling Moses that he had gone too far.  Yet, there is nothing in the account leading up to this which looks like the trigger for Korah saying that.  I sometimes speculate about what happened just before this, but the passage does not make it clear and doing so would distract from something I see in this passage which is important.  Despite the people supporting the rebellion against them, Moses and Aaron interceded with God for them, twice.  This is what good leaders look like.  They did not call down God’s vengeance on these “ungrateful people.”  Instead, they took action to minimize the consequences of the people’s rebellion.  Korah claimed to speak on behalf of the “common man”, but he used them as props in his quest for power.  Korah used the people to try and shield himself from the consequences of his rebellion.  Moses and Aaron, on the other hand, attempted to shield the people from the consequences of Korah’s rebellion, despite the support which the people had given Korah.  A true leader of God’s people will seek to shield those whom he leads from the consequences of their mistakes.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Numbers 11-13.

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We often notice the failure of the Israelites to believe that God can and will provide for their needs, despite the many miracles He had already done for them.  However, we often overlook that Moses failed to fully trust God to be able to do as He promised.  In today’s passage, when God told Moses that the Israelites would eat meat for an entire month to the point that they became sick of it, Moses essentially responded by saying that was not possible.  Do we respond like Moses?  Does God need to say to us “Is My hand shortened?”  Will we trust God’s promises?

Intermixed with the above God also instructed Moses to appoint seventy elders to take some of the burden of interceding between the people and God.  For today, the part of that account that I want to focus on is how Moses responded when Joshua wanted Moses to stop the two elders who had not joined him and the other elders in front of the tabernacle from receiving God’s Spirit.  Moses’ response was that he wished that the Lord would put His Spirit upon all of His people.  This is something God has now fulfilled.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Numbers 8-10.

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Once again I have discovered that recording reading the passage really increases what I see in the passage.  The first thing that I never noticed is that, considering the numbers involved, the laying on of hands described in this passage for setting aside the Levites as special to the Lord in place of the firstborn is more complicated than we might imagine.  First, all of the Israelites were to assemble before the tent of meeting and lay their hands on the Levites.  If we assume that the assembly was only the men counted in the census at the beginning of the Book of Numbers, that would be over 600,000 men who needed to lay their hands on somewhere between 8,580 Levites (the number of Levite men between the ages of 30 and 50) and 22,000 Levites (the number of Levite males a month old and up).  Whatever the exact numbers having that many people lay hands on the Levites would have been complicated.  Then, once that part was done, the Levites gathered needed to lay their hands on the heads of the bulls about to be sacrificed.  Once again, something which would have been complicated to accomplish.  However this was executed, it required dedication on the part of all involved.  I see this whole effort to set aside the Levites from the rest of the people of Israel as special to God foreshadows the way in which Jesus was set aside from the rest of mankind as special to God, something which is symbolized by Jesus with His twelve apostles.

I also find it interesting that God told Moses that the Levites shall do service of the tent of meeting (the tabernacle) from the age of 25 to the age of 50.  Yet when God had Moses count the Levites available for service a short time earlier, He had Moses count the Levites from the age of 30 to 50.  I am not sure of the reason for this difference, but I would propose that perhaps those between the ages of 25 and 30 were in a kind of apprenticeship program, learning to be responsible.  Finally, I want to touch on the “retirement” age of the Levites.  At the age of 50 they were to withdraw from the service.  From that time on, they were to keep guard over the tabernacle and the Levites doing the work, but not do any of the work.  I am not sure how we should interpret this for work in the Church today, or even if we should seek to apply it, but I do think there are lessons for us in this.  I just don’t know what they are.

There is a lot more in this passage worth thinking about.  It talks about those who were unable to partake in the Passover at its appointed time and their desire to do so.  It talks about the cloud of the Lord’s presence and the way it guided the people of Israel.  It talks about the trumpets which were used to signal the people of Israel.  It talks about Moses convincing his in-laws to accompany the people of Israel.  I was not going to write about any of that, but I want to comment on Hobab’s relationship to Moses.  Here it tells us that Hobab was the son of Reuel.  It can also be read to say that Hobab was Moses’ father-in-law.  However, at other places it tells us that Reuel was Moses’ father-in-law.  The way the ESV translates this allows one to interpret this as saying either the Hobab was Moses’ father-in-law, or that he was the son of Moses’ father-in-law (the English sentence in the ESV can mean either).  From what I have seen over the years, this is consistent with the Hebrew.  The Ancient Hebrew word translated father-in-law is only different from the Ancient Hebrew word for brother-in-law by the vowels and Ancient Hebrew writing had no way to denote vowels.  So, the Hebrew of this passage would have been ambiguous as to whether Hobab was Moses’ father-in-law or his brother-in-law.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Numbers 5-6.

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The law for cases of jealousy never really seemed that important until the last few years when I started to see it used as an example of how terrible God’s laws in the Old Testament are.  However, if you believe that God does miracles, that God does intervene in the world, this law is not so terrible.  If you believe that God gave this law and that He does intervene in this world, then you believe that He will ensure that wives who are not guilty of cheating on their husbands will be free of any suffering (other than the terrible taste of the “water of bitterness”) from this test.  Even if you do not believe that God gave this law, or that He intervenes miraculously in this world, if you think this through you will realize that it is not as terrible as it seems at first.  Consider how a woman ends up taking this “test”.  It happens because a spirit of jealousy has come upon her husband and he is convinced that she is cheating on him.  Think about the things which men have done to their wives or girlfriends because they are convinced, often without cause, that they were cheating on them.  Further, think about the number of people who thought they were justified in doing that because the woman was “cheating on them” (sometimes when there was no evidence of the cheating).

Now, let’s look at this law.  We think it’s terrible because of the results it says happens to a woman who is guilty of adultery, but let’s actually look at what is done.  The priest takes clean water (while there is more to holy water in this context than being clean, being clean is one of the pre-requisites) and puts some dust from the ground into it, then he writes the curse in a book and washes the ink off of the book into the water he placed dust from the ground in.  Also, let’s take a look at where he got the dust to put into the water.  The dust comes from the floor of the tabernacle…everybody who enters into the tabernacle needed to be ritually clean…and that meant that they were likely to be actually clean, and that they were at a low risk of carrying a disease.  Now, when I look at what went into the “water of bitterness”, it seems that, without divine intervention, the overwhelming majority of people who drank it would suffer no consequences.  So, with this law in place, a man who believes that his wife is cheating on him, but has no proof, can bring her to the priest in order for this test to be applied, or he can just remain silent.  If she suffers no harm, he must conclude that he was mistaken.  If he does not bring her before the priest for this test, he cannot justify assaulting her, or killing her, for cheating on him (unless he has the specific evidence specified for determining adultery in other laws, and then he needs to follow what those laws specify).

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Numbers 3-4.

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I like that the ESV translates that Nadab and Abihu, sons of Aaron, died because they offered “unauthorized” fire before the Lord.  I am used to translations which say that it was “strange” fire.  They died because they burned incense before God before God had given them instructions about how to do this.  I mentioned yesterday, and a once or twice previously, that I find the separation out of the Levites from the other tribes of Israel in a twelve and one relationship which is similar to that of Jesus and His Twelve Apostles interesting.   We see a little more of that parallel in today’s passage.  The Levites were taken by God to redeem the firstborn of the rest of Israel in a way which foreshadows the way in which Jesus redeemed all of mankind.

I want to say that I wish I had begun recording my Bible reading sooner.  Reading it out loud for the recording really helps me understand the passage better.  I find myself noticing things which I usually glossed over as I read the passage silently. For example, I never really noticed the way in which the furnishings and utensils of the tabernacle were protected before being moved when the Israelites struck camp.  I still do not fully understand the covering, but reading it today for the first time, I realized that the furniture and utensils were covered to protect them from the elements when the Israelites moved camp.  I also was able to visualize for the first time the way in which Aaron and his sons would have had to move around the tabernacle covering the furnishings (Ark, altars, Table of Presence, etc.) and their utensils in preparation for the Levites to carry them as the Israelites moved camp.  One last point worth noting: only those Levites between the ages of thirty and fifty were considered to be able to do service in the job of transporting and serving in the tabernacle.  While I do not believe we should limit ourselves to those in that age range, I do believe that is where we should look for those who do most of the tasks in the Church.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Numbers 1-2.

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I find it difficult to find meaning in this passage.  That is, I struggle to understand why I should read it.  Why is it here?  What is God’s purpose for this passage?  One thing we learn from this passage is how Moses structured the people of Israel to go to war.  The way Moses set up the camp by creating four three tribe units suggests that they probably went into battle with each of the three tribes in a unit supporting each other.  Another thing I see in this passage is that scholars are likely to be able to use the names of the listed leaders to make connections supporting the factual aspects of the Exodus (or not, as the case may be).  I think I remember hearing a scholar say that the names listed here bear a closer resemblance to Egyptian names than to Canaanite names for the time period.  As I look for some “message” in this passage, I noticed that the tribes of Reuben and Gad were part of the same three tribe unit.  Reuben and Gad were the two tribes which chose to settle east of the Jordan River when the Israelites entered the Promised Land.  If their being in the same tribal unit explains why they chose to settle together east of the Jordan, it leaves one wondering why the tribe of Simeon did not join them instead of half of the tribe of Manasseh.  The final thing I see here is the way it counted Manasseh and Ephraim as part of the twelve tribes while separating the tribe of Levi out.  God clearly raised up Ephraim and Manasseh as “full” tribes in order to make the count twelve when Levi is counted separately, but I do not truly understand why.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.