Today, I am reading and commenting on  Numbers 11-13.

The first thing I thought about when I read today’s passage is that skeptical historians hold that the Exodus could not have happened as described by the Bible because the Sinai Peninsula could not have supported a group of people as large as the one recorded here and elsewhere in the Bible.  That position relies on the belief that miracles do not happen.  This passage makes it clear that God miraculously provided for the Children of Israel while they were in the wilderness.  However, I want to focus on Moses appointing seventy elders at God’s command.  Previously, Moses’ father-in-law had told him that he needed to delegate some of the task of managing the Israelites to others.  Nevertheless, when we get to this passage, Moses is still taking the full burden on himself, which leads him to beg God to give him help, or to take his life.  In response, God told Moses to bring together seventy elders and leaders of the people and God would pour out His Spirit upon them.  Two of the seventy whom Moses appointed did not come to the meeting of the elders which Moses called.  Nevertheless, God poured His Spirit out on those two when He poured it out on the other sixty-eight.  All seventy began prophesying when God’s Spirit came upon them.  Joshua wanted Moses to stop the two who had not joined the others at the tent of meeting, but Moses refused.  Moses replied that he wished God would pour out His Spirit on all of His people.  We should wish the same today.  Or more precisely, we should wish that off of God’s people accept His Spirit being poured out upon them and into them.  Further than that, I wish that all of the people I know, and even the people I do not know, would accept God’s Spirit.

I want to add a note that I believe there is a connection between Moses choosing seventy elders and Jesus sending out seventy disciples (some manuscripts say seventy-two, but the parallel to here makes me think it was seventy).

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