Today, I am reading and commenting on  Numbers 22-24.

When Balak’s messengers give Balaam the message that they will pay him handsomely to curse the Israelites, Balaam asks them to spend the night while he consults with God as to what he should do.  God tells Balaam that he must not curse the Israelites.  So, Balaam sends the messengers on their way.  When Balak sends them back, Balaam tells them he can do nothing beyond what God commands.  So far, so good, but then he tells them to stay the night while he sees what else God will tell him.  Notice how this is rather similar to what he did the first time.  If it were not for the story of the angel and Balaam’s donkey I would not think anything of it.  So, what was going on here?  Balaam knew what God had told him regarding the people Balak wanted him to curse, but he was looking for some wiggle room.  Balaam was looking for some way to give Balak what he wanted so that he could get what he wanted: some of the wealth Balak was offering.  We often face the temptation to do similarly.  God has revealed His will to us on a subject, but we don’t like the answer.  So we ask the question another way, hoping God will give us a different answer.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Numbers 19-21.

Today’s passage starts with the instructions for making and using the water of cleansing.  The description here sounds like the water of cleansing was used ceremonially.  However, depending on how you interpret the amount of ashes used and the amount of water sprinkled, it may have had some antiseptic properties.  From there the passage goes on to describe a series of encounters which the Israelites had with the nations through whose territories they were passing.  First, they sought permission to pass through Edom, but were denied.  The Edomites brought forth their army, and the Israelites turned aside.  Next, a king of Arad attacked the Israelites and took some of them captive.  The Israelites responded by calling on God before going to war against that king and completely wiping out his people. However, they did not settle in any of the lands of that Canaanite king (at least, not at this time).  From there they went on to the border of Moab and the Amorites.  They requested permission to pass through the land of the Amorites, but they denied them, just as the Edomites had.  However, the Amorites were not content with mustering their army as a deterrent to the Israelites.  They attacked them and the Israelites went to war and wiped them out.  Og, the king of Bashan, followed the example of Sihon, the king of the Amorites, and suffered the same fate.

This passage contains three different ways in which nations dealt with the perceived threat of the Israelites marching near them.  The Edomites mustered their army, but as long as the Israelites stayed out of their territory they left them alone.  The king of Arad thought he could profit by raiding the Israelites, but when he did so, they turned on him and destroyed his nation.  Sihon and Og each preemptively attacked the Israelites, seeking to destroy them before they could enter their lands.  Instead the Israelites conquered and settled their lands.  In none of these instances did the Israelites initiate the conflict, and the one case where the hostile nation did not do so either a peaceful resolution was acheived.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Numbers 16-18.

Shortly after the Israelites suffered for rebelling against the Lord by first refusing to enter the land of Canaan and then, after God told them to not do so, attempting invade, a Levite rose up in rebellion against Moses and Aaron.  Korah and some other leaders attempted to start a populist rebellion against Moses.  It appears from Moses’ response that the rebellion was primarily among Levites, with support from prominent Israelites from other tribes.  Whenever I read this passage I always struggle to figure out what Korah got wrong, because, as a general rule, I believe that leaders should have the support of those they lead for the decisions which they make.  However, despite claiming to represent the whole community, it appears that Korah and his associates only had the support of 250 people.  So, Korah’s rebellion appears to have been engineered by a small group of people who thought they could use the discontent over God’s rejection of them going into Canaan to overthrow Moses.  They claimed that the whole community was holy and thus could hear the word of God and implied that they had the support of the whole community to remove Moses from his leadership role.  But they failed to consult God, or to actually gain the support of the majority.  If you believe that the leaders of God’s people are mistaken, there are several steps you must take.  The first is to pray to God for His guidance and listen to what He tells you.  Second, speak with the leaders to discover whether they have answers to your objections.  Finally, reach out to people to see if they actually support you over the current leaders.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Numbers 14-15.

When the Israelites reacted to the spies’ report about the land of Canaan by proposing to stone Joshua and Caleb for trying to convince them to go, the glory of God appeared to them and threatened to strike them down.  Moses pleaded with God to forgive them.  God agreed to Moses’ request to forgive the people once more.  However, God also said that none of those who witnessed His signs in Egypt would see the land He had promised their ancestors (except for Caleb and Joshua).  So, while God will forgive our sins, we may still suffer their consequences.  Because they repeatedly disobeyed God and sinned against Him, He denied them the blessing which He had promised to their ancestors.  In the same way, while God will forgive our sins, we forfeit some of the blessings He intended for us when we sin.

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

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

Back in Exodus chapter 12 it mentioned that when the Israelites left Egypt many other people went with them.  Here it calls those non-Israelites who accompanied them “rabble”.  I believe that the writer was referring to those who accompanied the Israelites, but had not yet integrated themselves into any of the tribes more than a year after leaving Egypt.  This “rabble” stirred up the Israelites to demand some sort of food other than manna.   Rather than turn to God and ask Him for meat, they began to complain and rebel because they did not have meat.  In turn Moses complained to God about the people complaining to him.  In particular, Moses complained about being overwhelmed by the demands the people were putting on him.  So, God tells Moses to select 70 elders upon whom God will pour His Spirit and that He will provide them with meat.  Moses asked where he was going to get meat for 600,000 men.  To which God replied, “Is the Lord’s arm too short?”  Moses then appointed 70 elders upon whom God poured out His Spirit and God provided the Israelites with so much quail that they became sick.  So, whatever trials you face, remember, the Lord’s arm is not too short to reach out and solve them for you.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Numbers 8-10.

After the ordination of Aaron and his sons as priests, God had Moses consecrate the Levites into service to God in place of the firstborn males of the rest of Israel (thus cementing their status as intermediaries between the rest of Israel and God).  Once that was done, it was time to celebrate the Passover.  So, the Israelites did so.  However, some of the Israelites were unable to celebrate the Passover because they were ceremonially unclean.  However, they wanted to celebrate Passover and asked Moses what they should do.  We can learn an important lesson from their enthusiasm for worshiping God and celebrating what He had done for them.  Finally, after those who were unable to celebrate the Sabbath at Mount Sinai at its appointed time were able to celebrate it according to the instructions God gave for such circumstances, the Israelites set out from Mount Sinai.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Numbers 5-6.

Today’s passage covers the vow of the Nazirite.  Every time I have read it in the past I felt like I was missing something.  The passage tells us that if anyone wants to make a vow of dedication to the Lord as a Nazirite they needed to follow the rules laid out here, but it does not tell us any more about what it means to take such a vow.  However, as I read it today I realized that the purpose of taking the Nazirite vow was to publicly declare that you were dedicating yourself to God.  So, you would dedicate yourself to spend a period of time to work on some task in service to God.  For the length of time you had chosen to work on that task you would follow the rules of the Nazirite. Then when the time was over you would follow the rules given for ending your vow.  Other reasons for taking the vow might be as a form of penance for some action which you regret, or as a show of changing your life.  I think the modern Christian Church would do well to have a better understanding of Nazirite vows.  The Apostle Paul took a Nazirite vow twice after his conversion.

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

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

Having completed the census of the men twenty years and older of the rest of the tribes of Israel, God commanded Moses to take a census of the Levites.  However, this census was to be of the males one month old or older.  Once that was done, God commanded that Moses count all of the firstborn sons of all of Israel.  According to the count there were 22,000 Levite males a month or older and there were 22,273 firstborn males in all of Israel.  Since God had saved the Israelites from the loss of their firstborn in the plague which led to them being able to leave Egypt, He counted the firstborn as His.  He took the Levites as His in place of the firstborn sons.  This is a place where once again the account runs counter to the idea that this was written later.  I would think that if this account was not based on an actual event that the counts of total Levite males and total firstborn males would have matched up exactly to “reveal” God’s great power in so arranging things.  Once arrangements had been made to redeem the firstborn sons of Israel one month old or older who were in excess of the number of Levite males one month old or older, God commanded Moses to count all of the Levite men between the ages of thirty and fifty.  These were the men who would be serving to maintain the tabernacle and its furnishings.  I think this provides us with a model we should seek to emulate.  While we should not exclude those older, or younger, than that thirty to fifty age range, we should seek for the bulk of the work of the Church to be done by those in that age range.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Numbers 1-2.

Today’s passage, and the Book of Numbers begins with God commanding Moses to take a census of the fighting men of the Israelites.   Moses did as God commanded and counted them by the tribe to which they belonged.  However, the Levites were not counted in this census, meaning that the Israelite army was composed of twelve units (one for each tribe counted in the census).  Once the census was completed Moses arranged the Israelite camp around the newly constructed tabernacle.  By setting up this default arrangement, less administrative work was needed each time they moved to a new place as each of the tribes knew where they should go relative to where the tabernacle was set up.  Once again the Levites are left out of this arrangement.  Now, one could easily dismiss this, since the Levites were camped around the tabernacle itself.  However, I think we should notice that this “twelve and one” arrangement resembles that of Jesus with His Twelve Apostles.  There are two things I want to say about this.  First, I believe that Jesus chose Twelve Apostles in order to mimic this arrangement.  Second, there is significance in the “twelve and one” arrangement beyond just the parallel between the Tribes of Israel and Jesus with the Twelve.  I am not quite sure of what it is, but we should pay attention to its appearance in the Bible.

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