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

As part of his final instructions to the Israelites before his death, Moses laid out the borders of the land they would inherit in Canaan.  He, also, assigned Eleazar and Joshua to assign the portions of that land to the various clans and tribes of the Israelites.  Then, Moses assigned one leader from each of the tribes who had not already been given land east of the Jordan River to assist Eleazar and Joshua.  I find it interesting that this reads to me like the division would take place in the near future, yet Joshua did not undertake this process until well into his time of leadership.  Further, we learn in the Book of Judges that the tribe of Dan did not claim their land until well after Joshua’s death.  I am not quite sure why these two accounts of how the land was divided read so differently.  When I read the Joshua account carefully I am not sure it does not describe the same process as described here, just from a different perspective.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Numbers 32-33.

When I started to read today’s passage my first thought was about how Moses thought that the Reubenites and Gadites were trying to get out of fighting for land west of the Jordan when they asked that the land of the Amorites be made their inheritance.  In the past I thought that Moses had completely misunderstood their intentions.  As I have thought about it longer, I think that the Reubenites and Gadites did think that they might be excused from fighting across the Jordan if they took the land already conquered on its eastern bank.  However, I also think that Moses was mistaken in thinking that they asked for it in order to avoid the fighting.  So, when Moses put the idea of not joining the battles west of the Jordan in the context of failing to follow God’s commands and shirking their responsibility to the rest of the Israelites, they quickly clarified their request.  So, this passage illustrates the importance of making expectations clear.

Having written all of the above, I want to point out something we tend to gloss over about this passage.  The Reubenites and Gadites were the people who requested land east of the Jordan.  Yet, Moses also gave some of that land to the tribe of Manasseh.  No explanation is given for why some of the tribe of Manasseh settled east of the Jordan River, while the rest of that tribe crossed over the Jordan and settled there.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Numbers 30-31.

Reading Moses’ instructions on oaths to the Children of Israel you could think that he was making women second class citizens.  Moses says that if a man takes an oath, he is bound by that oath.  On the other hand, if a woman takes an oath, her father, if she is not yet married, or her husband, if she is married, can negate that oath.  However, that misses an important element of Moses’ instructions here.  First, I want to point out that the woman’s father, or husband, must forbid the oath as soon as he learns of its existence.  If he does not do so immediately, the oath is binding and he must support her in keeping it.  If the woman’s father, or husband, forces her to violate the oath after failing to override it immediately upon learning of it, he bears the consequences of breaking the oath.  It is important to bear in mind that, in that society, a father or husband had the ability to prevent a woman from keeping most of the oaths which she might make.  Further, Moses instructed that  a woman who was widowed or divorced, that is, a woman who had control over her material goods and actions, would be bound by any oath or pledge which they entered into.  So, without Moses’ regulation regarding oaths and pledges taken by women who had yet to marry or who were married, no one would have entered into business dealings with them.  Without Moses’ regulation, a woman could enter into an agreement to provide something in return for goods or services, receive those goods or services, then, when it came time to provide the goods or services which were promised, her father or husband could have just denied her permission to transfer those goods or services to the other party.  Whereas, with Moses’ regulation, all that the person doing business with the woman needed to do was make sure that her father or husband was aware of the agreement.  If they did not cancel the agreement before goods or services were transferred to her, her father or husband was bound to allow her to pay for them.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Numbers 27-29.

When God told Moses that he would shortly die without entering into the Promised Land, Moses’ first response was not to beg God to reconsider.  His first response was to ask God to appoint someone to lead the Children of Israel in his place so that they would not be like sheep without a shepherd.  The first thing which came to me when I read that was what Matthew wrote in chapter nine of his Gospel account.

36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. 38 Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

I am confident that Matthew was making the same connection.  God’s immediate answer to Moses’ request was to have him appoint Joshua, Moses’ disciple, to lead the people.  God split Moses’ responsibilities between Joshua, who handled the military and other secular leadership functions, and Eleazar the priest, who was responsible for the spiritual and religious leadership functions.  However, as Matthew repeatedly pointed out, God’s long term answer to Moses’ request was Jesus of Nazareth, who once again combined all aspects of leadership over God’s people into one man.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Numbers 25-26.

Immediately after Balaam blessed the Israelites rather than curse them on behalf of Balak, the Moabite women began inviting Israelite men to join them in the worship of Baal of Peor.  This worship apparently involved sexual acts, and my reading of this passage leads me to believe that the Israelite men joined the worship of Baal in order to indulge in those sexual acts.  As a result of their worship of Baal of Peor, a plague broke out among the Israelites.  The plague led the Israelites to assemble before the tabernacle to call upon God for forgiveness and healing.  While they were so assembled a man from the tribe of Simeon brought a Midianite woman, to whom he was not married, passed the assembly and into his tent for sex.  This behavior indicated that those who were doing this had a brazen disregard for what others in the community thought of their behavior, or even for the consequences of their behavior for others.  When Aaron’s grandson killed this man and the woman he was dallying with, the passage tells us that the plague ended, but not before it killed 24,000 Israelites.   I had suggested that perhaps the plague which killed the ten unfaithful spies was a sexually transmitted disease.  In this passage I am confident that the plague mentioned was a sexually transmitted disease.

Now, this passage starts by telling us that the Moabite women invited the Israelite men to join their worship of Baal, but the woman who was killed at the end of the incident was a Midianite.  And, God told Moses they should treat the Midianites as enemies because of this incident.  I am unsure how we should interpret this.  However, the biblical references to the Midianites suggest that they were either a nomadic people, or a people who settled in among other peoples in the area, or perhaps both to varying degrees.  If that is correct, perhaps when opposition arose to Israelite men partaking in the worship of Baal Peor they stopped being able to go into Moabite towns to do so, but Midianite women came to them to continue the practice.

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

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

The first thing which struck me today was that Balak did not need to confront the Israelites.  At the time Balak chose to send for Balaam, the Israelites were camped by the Jordan river across from Jericho.  Now, in his defense, he was afraid that such a large group of people would consume all of the available resources, leaving Balak’s people to starve.  As I thought about it some more, I believe that Balak knew the Israelites planned to cross the Jordan, but was afraid that they would strip the land before they did so.  Balak did not know of the power of the God whom the Israelites worshiped and so was unaware that, unlike any other nomadic army in history, the Israelites did not need to live off of the land.

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.

There is a lot I could write about in today’s passage, but I want to think about Moses’ striking the rock.  When the Israelites arrived in the Desert of Zin, there was no water for them there.  Which immediately led the people to once again to protest against Moses’ and Aaron’s leadership.  Moses and Aaron immediately do the right thing and appeal to God.  God tells Moses to speak to the rock in front of all Israel and it will begin providing them with water.  Now, the previous time a situation like this had arisen, God had instructed Moses to strike the rock to get water from it.  So, this time Moses once again strikes the rock, but that was not what God had told him to do.  God had told Moses to just speak to the rock.   The first problem with what Moses did is that he acted like he brought forth water by striking the rock, when it was God who brought forth the water.  By striking the rock, Moses acted as if it was the act of striking the rock which caused it to bring forth water, making his action similar to witchcraft.  God does not perform miracles because we follow the correct ritual.  The second problem with what Moses did was that he did not have enough faith to believe that God would bring forth water from the rock if he only spoke to it.  Both of these are problems common to the human condition.  We all struggle with thinking that if we can just find the correct ritual God will have to do what we want.  And we all struggle with having enough faith to do as God instructs and trusting Him to take care of the rest.

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.

My first thought when reading this was that we had just had the negative consequences of those who refused to follow Moses’ direction and now, here we have some other people challenging his authority?  Then I thought about the repeated times in my lifetime when people have seen an idea fail, badly, and as soon as the dust settles begin advocating for it again.  But that, in and of itself, is not what this passage is about.  So, I decided to look at what was wrong with what Korah and his allies wanted.  Korah claims to be advocating on behalf of the entire people of Israel.  He claims that he wants to establish a system where all of the people are equal before God, as opposed to Moses “lording it” over them.  However, if we look at his group, we see people who have risen to positions of minor power uniting to overthrow Moses in the name of “the people” and seize power for themselves.  We see this pattern repeated time and again throughout history: leaders arise who claim to be opposing the “tyrannical” government on behalf of the people, but really only seek power for themselves.

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.

Today I want to comment on the fact that the ten men who explored the Promised Land but spoke against going into it died of a plague after the Israelites refused to enter the land based on their report.  A straight up reading of the passage suggests that their deaths contributed to the Israelites changing their minds and attempting to invade the land the following morning.  It makes me wonder if there was a connection between what they did while they were exploring the land, their fear of invading the land, and the plague which killed them.  We know from the passage that the last two were connected,. but what about that first one.  From other passages, we know that Joshua was devout in his faith in God.  We know from Caleb’s promotion of the invasion here and his speech when he claimed his part of the land that he also was enthusiastic in his faith in God.  On the other hand, we do not know much about the other ten spies.  So, today when I read about them dying of plague it occurred to me that perhaps they caught the plague by participating in some of the “detestable practices” of the people of the land (I put detestable practices in quotes because that term is used by the Bible to describe the practices of the people living in the land without going into detail).  That led me to wonder if perhaps the reason they testified against invading the land was because of the things they did while exploring the land.

One of the things which I have learned over the years is that many of the most vehement atheists are people who have made lifestyle choices which are condemned by God.  They reject the idea of God rather than admit that they have made bad choices.  In the same way, I wonder if the ten spies who were afraid of invading the Promised Land abandoned their faith in God rather than admit to themselves that they had sinned when they took part in various practices among the people of the land.  Perhaps they had dallied with temple prostitutes, or maybe they had eaten non-kosher foods as part of sacrifices to idols.  Either of those might possibly have given them a disease which led to their death.  My point here is that perhaps the reason these ten men did not have faith that God would help the Israelites overcome the people of the land was because they did not want to admit to themselves that violating His commands was a bad thing to do.

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.

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.