Today, I am reading and commenting on Numbers 7.

I have a Youtube video of me reading the Scripture passage and my comments. Please check it out and let me know your thoughts.

Also, here is the link for my Patreon page

I know I have written about this before, but it is one of the most important parts of today’s passage: Each tribe, in the person of the chief of the tribe, made the same contribution to the consecration of the tabernacle.  This was to ensure that the tribes all understood that they had equal standing before God.  None of the tribes could claim that God was more their god, than He was of any of the other tribes.  That was important in the cultures of that day because the various gods were both regional and ethnic.  The gods of Egypt were the gods of the Nile River valley, but they were also the gods of the Egyptian people.  While they were in Egypt, the Israelites had been expected to worship to gods of Egypt, but they were also to understand that the Egyptian people were favored by their gods over the Hebrews, even if the Hebrews conducted the same rituals and sacrifices to them.  It was made clear here that none of the tribes of Israel were favored by God over the others.

I don’t think I have written about this before, but I do think about it every time I read this passage.  Why didn’t the writer just say list the offering given by every chief once and then say that each chief gave the same thing?  It should be obvious that there were reasons for listing who each of the chiefs were, but did the writer have to repeat the offerings for each one?  The answer that question is, yes, he needed to repeat the offerings for each one.  Once again that was necessary to show that each gave the same amount in order to show that all of the tribes were equal before God.  In addition, it gives a greater sense of the solemnity with which the Israelites approached the dedication of the altar.

My final point today is about the last verse in today’s passage.  There we are told that when the Lord spoke to Moses in the tabernacle he heard the voice speaking from above the mercy seat on the ark of the covenant (note that the word here translated as “ark” means “box”), from between the two cherubim.  I had mentioned back when we covered the design of the ark that it resembles both the thrones of gods set up in Egyptian temples upon which the Egyptian priests set up their idols each day, and the portable throne which Ramses took with him to war (and archeologists believe it likely that each Pharaoh of this time period did similarly).  Pharaoh would have sat on the seat of their throne and spoken to their people when they held court.  Pharaoh’s portable throne was intended to communicate that he was one of the gods, and that when he spoke from the throne, it was a god speaking to the people.  God spoke from the similar place above the ark of the covenant to tell the people of Israel that the Egyptians were trying to claim His power and authority and that they were to never place someone or something else in that place.  I find it interesting that despite the people of Israel at several times throughout their history setting up other gods in place of God, they never placed another god on the mercy seat.

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