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 8-10.

    Following the dedication of Aaron and his sons as priests and the dedication of the Tabernacle, the Children of Israel dedicated all of the males of the tribe of Levi to the service of God (or possibly concurrently). This dedication strengthens the “twelve plus one” nature of the nation of Israel which foreshadows Jesus and His Twelve Disciples. In a manner similar to the way that the Levites were dedicated to God in place of the first born sons of the Children of Israel, Jesus was dedicated to God in place of all of us. There are severe limits to this comparison, but I am convinced that Jesus knowingly chose Twelve Disciples to make this connection.

    The account about those who were unable to celebrate the second Passover has lessons for us. There was a group of men who came to Moses because they were ceremonially unclean from touching a dead body and thus could not celebrate the Passover. They were not looking for a loophole to get out of doing so. Rather they were upset that they could not. So, they were eager to take part in the ritual of Passover. We should be similarly eager to take part in activities of worship. God gave Moses instructions that those who could not take part in the Passover, because they had touched a dead body (such as when someone had died and needed to be buried) or because they were traveling, should celebrate the Passover a month later. However, this only applied to those who had a reason why they could not take part at the normal time. It being inconvenient was not such a reason.