Today, I am reading and commenting on  Numbers 7.

On Monday I mentioned how the Israelite camp was set up “twelve and one”.  That is twelve tribes were arranged at the compass points from the tabernacle with four separate camps of three tribes each while the Levites were camped immediately around the tabernacle.  Today we see that after the consecration of the tabernacle, each of the twelve tribes whose fighting men had been counted brought offerings for the dedication of the tabernacle and for its maintenance.  Once again, we see the Israelites counted as being twelve tribes, plus the Levites.  Each tribe brought  exactly the same offering.  They counted equally within the polity which was Israel, even Ephraim and Manasseh, the tribes of the descendants of Joseph.  Once again we see a division of the Israelites into twelve tribes and one tribe.  I see the way in which Jesus’ inner circle reflects this “twelve and one” structure as being something which Jesus did intentionally.  In many ways, I am also convinced that God arranged the Children of Israel here in this way as a sort of foreshadowing of Jesus with the Twelve Apostles whom He called.  Here, the Levites stood aside from the other twelve tribes as intermediaries between them and God.  Jesus stood apart from the Twelve Apostles, as intermediaries between them (and us, whom they represented in that arrangement) and God.

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