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.

    This passage starts out by laying out the boundaries of the land which will be Israel’s. The land inside these boundaries was to be divided up among the remaining tribes, since the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh had already received land in the territory which Israel had conquered east of the Jordan River. The wording leaves some question as to whether the land controlled by Reuben, Gad and half of Manasseh was permanently promised to Israel or not.

    This passage also discusses the cities of refuge which the people of Israel were to set up. The concept was that those who had accidentally killed someone could flee there for protection against the victim’s relatives. As part of those instructions it gives us some baseline things to determine if the killing was an accident or not. If the killer struck the victim with an object, the crime is not considered to have been in an accident. If the killer was known to hate the victim, the crime is not considered an accident. The passage then gives several examples of what would constitute an accidental killing. However, even if the community judges that the killing was accidental, the killer does not get off without any punishment. In the case of an accidental death, the killer must stay in the city of refuge to which he fled until the high priest in office when he was tried dies.

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 32-33.

    We often forget that when the Israelites crossed the Jordan to attack Jericho they controlled the land that is now the country of Jordan. They continued to control that land up through the time of Solomon. When the tribes of Reuben and Gad requested this land east of the Jordan as their share in the Promised Land, misunderstanding immediately ensued. We see this sort of misunderstanding repeated several times throughout the Old Testament. Moses immediately assumed that they wished this land because they feared the peoples on the other side of the Jordan, just as the previous generation had when he first tried to lead them into the Promised Land. The two tribes quickly asserted that they had no intention of not joining the other tribes in the conquest of the lands west of the Jordan. They merely wished to set up their families and flocks in defensible positions in the land east of the Jordan because it was ideally suited for them. The tribes of Reuben and Gad were not offended by Moses’ assumption. They understood that human nature is such that all too often Moses’ assumption would have been correct. By spelling out in advance what was expected they laid the groundwork for resolving future misunderstandings.

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 30-31.

    Having established that Joshua would be his successor, Moses ordered the Israelites to attack the Midianites from whom the women who seduced the Israelite men into idolatry had come. The fact that Balaam is listed as having been killed as part of this war lends support to the idea that he was not from near the Euphrates but was instead somewhat local. Of further interest is that the Midianite women started seducing Israelite men to worship Baal after Balaam had failed to curse the Israelites on behalf of the Moabite king. The final thing of note is that the Midianites were descended from Abraham through one of his sons by Keturah, whom he married after the death of Sarah.

    The fact that Midianites were also descendants of Abraham explains how Moses’ father-in-law came to worship God and how Balaam came to his knowledge of God (assuming that Balaam was from nearby and a Midianite). It also provides further explanation for why archaeology shows so many similarities between the worship practices of the Israelites and their neighbors. The presence of the Midianites, the Ishmaelites, and the Edomites, as well as the descendants of Keturah’s other sons would have meant that there were a lot of people influenced by Abraham’s worship of God.

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 27-29.

    When Moses realized that he would not be leading the Children of Israel much longer he asked God to appoint someone to take his place. Moses’ chosen successor was Joshua, who had been Moses’ assistant since shortly after the Israelites left Egypt. Joshua is first mentioned as Moses’ assistant at Mt. Sinai, but the context there indicates that he had already been Moses’ assistant before that. Now the interesting thing is that God splits Moses’ duties between Joshua and Eleazar, Aaron’s son and successor as High Priest. Joshua was to be the leader of the people, but when God’s guidance was needed he was to have Eleazar consult God. Moses did the latter himself. This split created checks and balances which limited the likelihood of abuse of power. There is an important lesson here. Moses had been training Joshua as his successor for the entire time the people of Israel were in the wilderness. Yet he still asked for God’s guidance in selecting his successor. Moses both planned for succession and asked for God’s guidance on implementing it when the time came to do so.

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.

    Reading this passage again today, I realized that the men who had sexual relations with Moabite and Midianite women did not consider it to be anybody’s business but their own what they did. Since the women they were have sex with were not Israelites they did not think the Israelite community had any say in their behavior toward them. This attitude is reflected in the behavior of the man who brought a Midianite woman to his tent in front of the gathering of the people, despite Moses having called out such behaviors. We are accountable to our community for our behavior, even if the “victims” of our bad behavior are outside of our community. That wording does not adequately convey the lesson from this passage. Phinehas’ actions seem rather harsh, yet 24,000 people among the Israelites died from the plague spread because of men behaving the same as the man whom Phinehas killed. I do not advocate that we follow Phinehas’ example, but we need to hold our fellow believers accountable, and allow our fellow believers to hold us accountable, for being faithful to God’s commands.

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.

    There are two theories about where Balaam was from. The first is that he was from somewhere near the Euphrates (the NLT says exactly that, but there is significant ambiguity about the correct translation of the original Hebrew). If that was the case, he would likely have come from the same area as Abraham’s family, which would suggest he was part of the same religious tradition which eventually resulted in Judaism. The problem with Balaam being from near the Euphrates is that it would have taken several days to weeks for Balak’s messengers to get to him and several weeks for him to return with them. The other possibility is that Balaam was from an area a day or two’s journey north of where the Israelites encountered him. There is a certain logic to this closer location. In addition, there was an archaeological discovery of a wall “painted” with sayings from a “Book of Balaam” on a wall of a house in a town which would fit this alternate origin for Balaam. The only problem is that the wall is from several centuries after this story (and thus might have been something created because of this story). In this latter case, we discover one of several biblical indications that some of the people in the area worshiped the same God as the Israelites.

    No matter where Balaam was from there is a theme going throughout the message he gave in response to Balak’s prompting. This theme develops through the messages which Balaam gives to Balak. In the first message Balaam says, “how can I curse those whom God has not cursed? How can I condemn those whom the Lord has not condemned?” We should give careful thought to these two questions considering that Jesus died to bring redemption to everyone. Let us not curse nor condemn those whom Jesus has called our neighbor. In his second message, Balaam tells us that God does not lie, nor does He change His mind. No curse can touch those whom God has named His own, no magic has any power against them. I could go on and follow how this theme develops in the next two messages, but I need to wrap this up. However, I wanted to remind myself and you that we should live by something Balaam said in this passage: “I can do only what the Lord tells me” That is a basic principle which should guide us day in and day out.

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 19-21.

    I never really thought about it before, but I noticed today that both Aaron and Moses died on a mountain away from everyone but a couple of witnesses. The significance of this is that neither was buried in a place which could become a shrine where people could go to worship. If Aaron had died and been buried in a location which was known to the people of Israel, his grave would have become a shrine where at least some of the people of Israel would have gone to worship. We have numerous examples throughout history where the graves of prominent religious figures became objects of worship in and of themselves. Here God ensured that that did not happen with Aaron’s grave.
    In today’s passage the Israelites approached the lands of four nations. Three of those nations they completely wiped out, the fourth they backtracked and took a different route. There was one key difference between that one and the other three. The king of Edom mustered his army and took up a defensive position while telling the Israelites that he would not allow them to cross his territory. The other three all initiated attacks against the Israelites.

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 16-18.

    Sometime shortly after the defeat the Israelites suffered when they tried to enter the Promised Land after initially refusing to do so, several prominent men formed a group to replace Moses. This appears to have been a response to Moses’ decision (as directed by God) to lead the people back into the wilderness. The story of this rebellion has always troubled me because the rebels basic argument is one which resonates with me; shouldn’t the leader be answerable to the people? I do believe that the leaders of the Church should be accountable to the members. On the other hand, we need to carefully seek God’s guidance before we seek to remove those whom He has placed in a leadership position.

    That brings us to the reason this group thought that Moses should be replaced. They felt that he had failed to fulfill his promises to the people. Leaving aside the failure of the people to do their part, this is a good starting point for replacing a leader. However, it is an insufficient basis for putting oneself forward as the replacement. These rebels failed to lay out their own alternative course of action to the one chosen by Moses. Further some of the leaders of the rebellion refused to come before God and the people to make their case for leadership change. Which brings us to how Moses dealt with this challenge to his leadership. He laid the matter before God for God to make His will clear about who should lead the people.

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 11-13.

    Shortly after leaving Mt Sinai the people of Israel began lamenting the fact that they no longer had access to all of the good food which was available in Egypt. As I was reading today I realized that this event occurred as the result of a build up of unresolved complaints, most, if not all, of which were extremely minor, even to the people making them. Despite having set up people to judge in “legal” disputes among the people, Moses was still the go-to guy for spiritual counseling. That is not quite the right way to express that, because it makes it seem like something the priests could address, but it was not the sort of things you would go to a priest about. The people knew that these issues were too small to bring to Moses, but it left them with ever increasing frustration that finally blew up. As a result, God told Moses to select 70 men upon whom God would pour out His Spirit so that they could take some of this burden off of him.

    In addition to telling Moses to select 70 men, God told him that He would send them meat to provide variety to their diet, so much that they would become sick from it. When looked at the way I laid out in the previous paragraph, God’s response seems harsh. However, the frustrations the people of Israel were feeling were their own fault. They had failed to seek out someone to help them deal with their complaints, complaints which they knew were minor. There are really two sides to this. If we are the leaders of a group of people, we need to put into place systems to allow people to vent their discontent and frustration, systems which make them feel like their concerns have been heard and will be addressed (an important part of making people feel like their concerns will be addressed is for their concerns to actually be addressed). On the other hand, if we are members of a group (and we all are), we need to find people to whom we can present our discontent and frustration, people who can see that they get addressed.