Today, I am reading and commenting on Numbers 3-4.

The Book of Numbers is called that because it begins with the men of Israel being numbered, with a census of the men of Israel.  The first two chapters details the number of men of military age from the twelve tribes, aside from the tribe of Levi.  Then in chapters three and four it recounts the numbering of the men of Levi.  Actually, there are two separate counts of the men of Levi.  The first such count is all of the males a month old and older.  In addition to counting the males of Levi, they counted the first born males from every tribe who was a month or older.  The purpose of this count was to remind the Israelites that the first born males of Egypt died on the night of the first Passover, while those of the Israelites were spared.  Because of that, God claimed the firstborn males as His.  However, God allowed the Levites to redeem the males of the other tribes.  Which once again foreshadows what Jesus would do.  First, as I wrote about yesterday, we had the division of the people of Israel into twelve and one.  Then we have the Levites being claimed by God to redeem the firstborn males of all of the rest of Israel.  The Levites redeeming the firstborn of all of Israel, foreshadows Jesus redeeming all of mankind.

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