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

Today, I am reading and commenting on Numbers 34-36.

Having resolved the issue of where the tribes of Reuben and Gad (and half of the tribe of Manasseh) would settle, Moses laid out the boundaries of the land which the rest would conquer when they crossed the Jordan River.  Then, Moses lays out an interesting idea, the cities of refuge.  There are actually two aspects to what Moses lays out here.  First, Moses declares that someone who murders anyone must be put to death by the victim’s nearest living relative.  However, he then specifies an “escape” for someone who accidentally kills someone.  They can flee to one of the cities of refuge.  Then the community will conduct a trial to determine if the death was truly accidental or not.  If the community agrees that the death was accidental, the slayer must remain in the city of refuge until the current high priest dies, after which they may return to their home.  If the “avenger” (the victim’s nearest kin) discovers them outside of the city of refuge in the meantime, the avenger may kill them.  As part of this Moses lays out circumstances which distinguish deliberate from accidental killing.  I want to note that Moses declares that if you hit someone with an object held in your hand and they die, that death counts as murder, not an accident, no matter what your intentions were. 

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on Numbers 25-26.

Shortly after the failure of Balak’s attempt to get Balaam to curse the Israelites, Moabite women began having sex with Israelite men and inviting them to take part in the sacrifices to Baal-Peor.  This resulted in a plague among the Israelites, likely a sexually transmitted disease.   While Moses was discussing with the leaders of Israel how to address this issue, a man brought a Midianite woman to his tent, in front of the gathered people, to have sex with her.  Aaron’s grandson, Phinehas, grabbed a spear and killed both the man and the woman, ending the practice.  I want to point out how sexual desire, and sexual immorality, was used to seduce Israelite men into idolatry, resulting in disease being spread among the Israelites.  There are good reasons for the limitations of sexual behavior to marriage, both for our spiritual and physical health.

There are a couple of interesting points here.  First, “peor” was both the name of the mountain the Moabites primarily worshiped at and the Hebrew word for “open”.  The literal translation of Baal-Peor would be “Lord of the Hole” (or something similar).  Another one is that many commentators struggle to explain why the focus of the passage goes from Moabites to Middianites, more or less in the middle.  It was Balak, king of Moab who tried to have Balaam curse the Israelites and it was Moabite women who initially seduced Israelite men into worshiping Baal-Peor.  However, God instructed the Israelites to attack and destroy the Midianites.  Well, Moses had spent time among Midianites and had married one, which suggests that the Israelites would have perceived the Midianites as fellow worshipers of God.  Another point worth noting is that before Balak sent for Balaam he gathered the elders of the Midianites for consultation.

Expanding on why the Israelites attacked and attempted to destroy the Midianites here gets a little involved.  Consider the idea I keep referring back to that there were other people besides the Israelites who were familiar with the creation story they followed.  The Midianites were one of those people, being descended from Abraham.  So, it may have been the Midianites who convinced the Israelites that the worship of Baal-Peor was just another variant of worshiping God.  Related to that is the fact that in the languages spoken by the others in the region, Baal and El had similar meanings.  El is a word which was used from time to time in the Bible to refer to God.  My point in all of this is that the Israelites likely felt more betrayed by the actions of the Midianites to seduce them into idol worship than the same actions by the Moabites.  The Midianites had the background and understanding to KNOW that the worship of Baal-Peor was incompatible with the worship of God, while the Moabites may have genuinely believed them to be interchangeable.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on Numbers 22-24.

When Balak’s messengers first came to Balaam, he consulted God and was told that he could not curse the Israelites because God had blessed them.  When Balak’s second set of messengers arrived, Balaam went to God again and God told him to go with them.  Yet, the account tells us that God was angry with Balaam for going.  God’s answer the first time was definitive.  The people whom Balak wanted cursed had been blessed by God.  Balak was not seeking a way to live in peace with the people of Israel, he was seeking a way to destroy them.  When God has made it clear that something is outside of His will we should not seek to find a way around that.

I want to circle back to the idea I wrote about earlier in the year that Abraham was part of a tradition which passed on the stories which came from Noah.  There are several theories about where Balaam came from, but the sources which make the most sense to me put it not far from Haran, the city where Abraham’s father died.  This suggests to me that Balaam was part of a tradition which passed down some of the same stories which we find in Genesis.  Balaam is yet more evidence that the Israelites were not the only people worshiping God.  Throughout the Old Testament we see hints and signs of those who followed similar teachings to the Israelites.  Hints and signs which suggest that the practices and stories of the Bible may have influenced the cultures and religions around the Israelites rather than the other way around as many secular scholars suggest.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on Numbers 14-15.

I did not touch on the scouts who went into the Promised Land in yesterday’s passage. Two of the scouts, Joshua and Caleb, focused on the riches and goodness of the land. The other ten focused on the problems that the people would face in trying to take the land. One can easily learn the wrong lesson here. The fault of the ten was NOT that they saw difficulties. The problem was that they saw, and reported on, these difficulties as being insurmountable. They focused on why the people of Israel would not be able to possess the land. The people responded to their discouraging report and refused to listen to Caleb and Joshua. The same people who witnessed God’s action to obtain their exodus from Egypt, who had seen God part the Red Sea, were unwilling to trust that He would overcome these obstacles. How often do we do the same thing? Despite the miracles which God has worked in our lives in the past, we often fail to put our faith in Him going forward. It is OK to see the obstacles in the path to following God’s will, but we must not let those obstacles discourage us.

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

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

A year after the Israelites had left Egypt, Moses organized them.  I suspect that the organization had begun before this, but that at this point was far enough along to formalize it.  The first step recorded here was appointing leaders over each of the tribes.  Followed by a census of all of the fighting men of the twelve tribes.  Once the count had been obtained, Moses formalized where each tribe would camp relative to the Tabernacle and where they would march when the people moved on.

It seems likely to me that the leaders of each of the tribes emerged over the course of the time they were camped at Mt. Sinai.   The same would likely have been true of where the tribes camped relative to the Tabernacle.  Over the course of the time they were camped at Mt Sinai, the people would have become more organized.  We could certainly debate the degree to which this organization was top down (God to Moses to the people) vs bottom up (the people organizing themselves and acknowledging certain people as leaders).  I suspect it was a bit of both, with some of the later rebellions against Moses being led by people who had gotten followers during this process but who were not part of the formalized leadership which emerged here.