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

Some see great significance in the borders of Israel as laid out here by Moses, and I will not say that they are mistaken.  However, I have never been able to see it that way.  On the other hand, I find significance in the way in which Moses instructed them to divide up the land.  Moses laid out a procedure to ensure that the division was fair, and was seen by everyone as fair.  The land was to be divided up by lot (I have always assumed that they used the Urim and Thummim) by Eleazar and Joshua with a witness from the leadership of each tribe.  I am sometimes surprised how often we see examples in the Bible which demonstrate that decisions must not only be seen to be made with integrity, but must be made so that everyone can tell that they were made with integrity.  I want to reiterate.  It is just as important that people perceive that leadership makes decisions with integrity as it is that leadership make those decisions with integrity.  If people perceive that leaders made a decision with impropriety it does not matter if the leaders had actually made the decision without any impropriety.

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