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.

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

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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.

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

Today’s passage contains the provision for the establishment of cities of refuge in Israel once the Israelites conquer the land God had promised to their ancestors.  When we talk about this we often pay limited attention to what it says and think that cities of refuge were a place for anyone who killed another person to flee to avoid being killed in revenge.  However, if we read closely we discover that the cities of refuge were only for people who accidentally killed someone else…and accidentally is defined to exclude circumstances where you should have known there was a significant risk of killing them.  So, if you hit someone with a deadly weapon intending to hurt them, even if you did not mean to kill them, the cities of refuge would not be a refuge.  This passage called for you to be put to death.  Which means that if you accidentally killed someone you could flee to a city of refuge and stay there until the high priest died, or you could stay where you were and risk being killed by your victim’s nearest relative.  In either case, you paid a pretty steep price for taking someone’s life, even though it was completely an accident.  The message here is that every human life is valuable and there is a price to be paid for taking it, even if we didn’t mean to do so.  Take care of where you throw that dangerous object.  Pay attention to what is downrange when you are taking target practice.  Know what’s below when you drop a heavy object off of a building, or other high place.  Otherwise, you may have to pay a heavy price.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on Numbers 30-31.

The passage begins with regulations concerning vows.  I find it interesting that Moses delivers these instructions between when God told the Israelites to treat the Midianites as enemies and when they actually launched their attack on the Midianites associated with Baal-Peor.  The first part is plain and straightforward: if a man makes a vow to the Lord, or takes an oath to do something, he is obligated to keep that oath.  The second part regarding women requires a little more thought.  In order to understand what Moses tells them about women taking oaths we need to be aware of the nature of their society.  In that society a father or husband of a woman would have had the power to prevent a woman from keeping a vow or oath which she made, whether the law allowed for him to do so or not.  The rule which Moses gave here limited that power in a very interesting way.  The rule was that when a woman’s father (if she was not married and thus still under his authority) or her husband (if she was married) had to confirm or nullify any vow or oath she had made as soon as he learned of it.  However, confirming it was the default.  If he did not immediately nullify it, it was confirmed.  If he later prevented her from keeping the vow or oath, it was as if he had failed to keep a vow or oath which he himself had made.  If a woman’s husband learned that she had made a vow or taken an oath and did not immediately forbid her from keeping it, he was obligated to help her keep that vow or oath.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on Numbers 27-29.

I’m not sure where I am going with this, but I find the order of narrative here interesting.  We would not recount the events this way.  So, you understand what I mean I am going to summarize what the writers tell us over the last few and next several chapters.  At the end of chapter 25, we were told that God told the Israelites to treat the Midianites as enemies.  In chapter 26, we were told that Moses and Eleazar, Aaron’s son, conducted a second census of the Israelite men who were 20 years old or older.  So far that makes sense, if you are about to go to war you need to now how many fighting men you have. Then at the end of the census we learn that everyone who had been counted in the first census had died, except for Caleb and Joshua (Moses and Eleazar were alive during that first census, but they were Levites and were not counted).  The census leads to the daughters of Zelophehad bringing up what should happen with their father’s inheritance in the land since he had no sons.  Since the ruling about what should happen with a man’s property if he did not have a son was important, and the incident which led to it being addressed happened here, we would have likely included it here, but we would have made it more parenthetical.   After that Moses asks God to appoint someone to take over leadership of the Israelites since he will soon die.  That also makes sense here, since such a leader should lead the Israelites into battle while Moses is still alive and they are about to enter into battle against the Midianites.  Finally, Moses restates the offerings to be made throughout the year with a bit more detail than in the previous descriptions.

It’s that last bit that we today would have done differently.  In our imagination of the correct way to tell the account, we would have either said something about how Moses gave these other commands before they went into battler.  Or, more likely, we would think that the account of the battle against the Midianites should be explained first.  Then after telling about the battle and its outcome, write that before the battle Moses told them about these sacrifices and festivals.  We might have even chosen to put the details of the census and Joshua being named as Moses’ successor after the battle as well.  All of that is because we view the battle and its outcome as being more important than the other elements of what happened.  The instructions concerning the sacrifices was necessary here and now because the Israelites who were about to go into battle had been too young when they were given the last time to have really paid attention.  We need to recognize that understanding the proper ways to worship God are every bit as important as battles and their aftermaths in understanding what is going on.

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

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

The account given here of the incident involving the Baal of Peor can be confusing.  In particular, at the beginning of the account we are told that Israelite men indulged in sexual immorality with Moabite women and joined them in worshiping the Baal of Peor.  Then at the end of this particular incident we are told that God instructed Moses to treat the Midianites as enemies because they deceived them.  The confusion can be further compounded by the fact that Moses’ father-in-law was a Midianite.  As I explored why that happened the first thing I came across was another fact that might lead to confusion.  It is not clear if the word Peor here is used as a place name, or as a descriptive.  The word Peor means Opening, which means that Baal-Peor means “the Lord of the Opening”.  That meaning is somewhat suggestive considering the nature of Israel’s in here.  Whether or not Peor was a place name it seems likely to me that the worshipers of Baal-Peor took delight in the implications of that meaning.

As I was thinking and writing about the above I was hoping it would draw a connection between the meaning of Baal-Peor and the Moabite/Midianite crossover, but that it is not where I ended up.  Instead, I once again saw the important lesson about how sexual temptation often leads us into idolatry.  Here the Israelites had no intention of worshiping Baal, they just thought they could indulge their lust without compromising their fellowship with their people, the people of God.  We see here that Zimri, the son of a leader in Simeon, thought that he could indulge himself right in front of the people with no concern for consequences.  Many other Israelite men were acting likewise, perhaps a bit more discreetly, but also with the idea that they would suffer no consequences for their actions.  We see the same thing today in so many ways where people of faith think they can sample sins without suffering any consequences.

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

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

In one way, I am somewhat confused by the account of Balaam and his donkey.  The thing which always strikes me as confusing is why God sent an angel to kill him on the way.  Of course, that’s not quite what the passage says, even though we usually read it that way.  It says the God sent an angel to oppose Balaam, then a little later the angel tells Balaam that, if not for his donkey, he would have killed Balaam.  So, three times the donkey saved Balaam’s life by avoiding the angel which was there prepared to kill Balaam, but all Balaam could think about was that the donkey had embarrassed him.  I was going somewhere else when I started writing, but I think this is more important.  Balaam was prepared to kill his donkey, which had been his faithful servant for many years at this point, because it embarrassed him in front of strangers.  We don’t often remember that the incident with the donkey occurred in front of the Moabite officials which Balak had sent to hire Balaam.  So, Balaam beat the donkey three times.  When the donkey was given a voice and asked him why, Balaam answered that he wished he had a sword so that he could kill the donkey.  It never crossed his mind to think about how out of character the donkey’s behavior was and to wonder why it was behaving that way.  We should not allow embarrassment cause us to behave in like manner, but all too often we do.

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