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

A few days ago, I wrote about the fact that when Moses counted the Levites to determine who was available to work in the care and maintenance of the tabernacle he only counted the men between the ages of thirty and fifty.  In today’s passage. Moses, in accordance with God’s command, purified and set aside the Levites for service to God, particularly in the care and maintenance of the tabernacle.  However, when God gave Moses instruction on who should do the work of the tabernacle, He specified that men of the tribe of Levi should begin doing the work in the tabernacle at the age of twenty-five and retire from actively doing the work at fifty.  Then God told Moses that Levites over the age of fifty could continue to assist their brothers in performing their duties, but they should no longer do the work.  I am not quite sure what is meant by that, but I think it means offering advice on the best way to carry out the duties, helping to resolve conflicts in the course of carrying the work, and training the younger men who were just starting out.  I believe this passage reinforces what I wrote about the Levite census.  It adds two things for our consideration.  Young men should be encouraged to become active in doing the work of the Church when they reach twenty-five years of age, and older men should step back and encourage younger men to take over leadership roles.  Older men should seek to provide advice and training to younger men as those younger men seek to do God’s work.  Again, this does not mean that older men should not do God’s work if no one younger is available, but they should seek out and encourage younger men to do the work…and under no circumstances whatsoever should they allow themselves to be perceived as standing in the way of younger men doing the work.

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.

After completing the census of all males twenty years old and older for the rest of the Israelites, Moses conducted two censuses of the tribe of Levi.  In the first of these censuses Moses counted every male a month old or more.  The result of this census was 22,000, making the tribe of Levi the smallest tribe by a wide margin.  This number worked out for the best because God chose the Levites as redemption for the first-born sons of the rest of Israel.   The first-born sons were God’s because He spared them when He killed all of the first-born sons in Egypt on the first Passover (there is significance in that worth talking about, but it is not what I feel led to write about today).   Upon completing the reconciliation of the number of male Levites with the number of first-born male of all of the Israelites, Moses conducted a second census of the Levites.  This second census was of all of the Levite males between the ages of thirty and fifty.  This second census of the Levites was to count those who would come to serve in the work of the tabernacle.  While I do not believe that we should think that the work of the Church should be done only by those in that age range, we should recognize that the bulk of the work of the Church probably will be done by those in that age range.  Or, perhaps I should say, something is wrong when that age range is not doing the bulk of the work of the Church.

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.

The Book of Numbers begins with the account of the census which Moses took of the Israelites.  The census was a count of the men 20 years old and older, except for the Levites who were excluded from this census.  Interestingly, this passage is one of those places where the Israelites are divided into thirteen groups, twelve plus one.  The tribes of Manasseh and Ephraim are counted along with the other ten tribes, and the tribe of Levi is set aside as separate and different.  A few years ago I was struck by how this “twelve plus one” division of the tribes reflects the twelve plus one nature of Jesus ministry on earth where He traveled around with His twelve Apostles.  I have never reached a conclusion about the meaning of that comparison, just noted it for future reference.

The previous paragraph was meant to be an aside before I got to my main point (which is not any more ground breaking).  I have had a perception about the relative sizes and significance of the tribes of Israel.  For example I always thought that the tribes of Judah and Ephraim were large and important and that the tribes of Dan and Benjamin were small, and not very important.  Yet, when a look at the census results I see that the tribe of Ephraim had only 40,500 men counted, only the tribes of Benjamin and Manasseh had fewer men in this census.  While the tribe of Dan had 62,700 men, second in size only to the tribe of Judah.  Not only that, but the twelve tribes were divided into four camps and one of the tribes was designated as the lead for that camp.  Dan was designated as lead for one of the four camps.  So, not only was the tribe of Dan much larger relative to the other tribes than I thought, it was one of the more important tribes.  None of this is particularly important, but it shows how we need to read the Bible carefully because some of the general impressions we have do not reflect what the Bible actually says.

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

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

Here we have an example of the idea that leaders need to avoid the appearance of impropriety when making an important decision.  In this case, Eleazar and Joshua were to divide the land up among the remaining nine and a half tribes by lot.  However, they were to be assisted by someone from each of the tribes receiving land.  This allowed input from each of the tribes.  Perhaps as importantly, each tribe had a representative present to see that the division was done impartially.  There was one other aspect of the way in which the land was divided which I want to comment on.  The Levites were scattered among the other tribes.  They were to be given towns withing the inheritance given to the other tribes.  The number of towns given from each of the other tribes was to be in proportion to how much land was given to that tribe.  This spread those who were to dedicate their lives to learning and teaching God’s Law throughout 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 30-31.

This passage says that when  a man takes a vow or an oath he must fulfill that oath.  However, if a woman does the same her husband, or father if she is not yet married, may nullify her oath.  This seems rather sexist, until one realizes that this merely codifies something which was already true.  In that culture and society, a woman’s husband, or her father if she is not yet married, controlled all of her assets, so he could accept the benefits and agreement she entered and then claim he did not agree to give up whatever assets she had sworn to exchange for that benefit and decline to do so.  This passage declares that as soon as he learned of the agreement, of the vow or oath the woman had sworn, her husband had to reject it and if he did not do so immediately, the vow or oath was binding upon him.  So, while a man could not make an oath binding his wife, a woman could make an oath which would bind her husband, unless he repudiated it as soon as he learned of it.  Of course the most important thing about this passage is that, whichever way you look at this passage (as giving a woman’s husband veto power over her decisions, or as allowing a woman to bind her husband to her oath’s) it does not apply to those under the New Covenant introduced by Jesus’ death and resurrection.

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.

As a leader, Moses had his shortcomings, but he seemed to learn from his mistakes.  However, there was one mistake which is common to leaders similar to Moses that he did not make.  Moses prepared for a successor.  Joshua had been his aid since before the Israelites arrived at Mount Sinai, possibly going back to before the Israelites left Egypt.   Not only did Moses start training a successor as soon as he began to lead the Israelites, when it came time to pass on his leadership he recognized the value in separating religious and secular leadership.  Part of the commissioning of Joshua as Moses’ successor was the command that Joshua would consult with Eleazar when he needed God’s guidance.  Moses had always sought God’s guidance directly, but Joshua was instructed to consult with the high priest when he needed God’s guidance in leading the people.  By dividing the leadership of the Israelites in this manner, Moses ensured that there would be someone who could hold Joshua accountable.  Every organization needs a mechanism to hold its leadership accountable if it is going to survive for the long term.

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.

I start a new job today and am unsure how that will impact my ability to continue this blog in the short term.  I entries completed about a week in advance at the moment (usually I am about two days in advance).  Hopefully that will give me enough time to figure out how to work out my new schedule to keep this going without interruption.

When Balak’s plan to curse the Israelites failed, the Moabites began seducing the Israelite men into worshiping their god, Baal of Peor.  It is worth noting that it appears that Baal did not refer to an individual deity, but instead to the chief god of a geographical location so that the Baal of Peor was a distinct god from Baal of Eshkalom (although evidence suggests that the worship practices for each were similar if not the same).  This fact may explain why Balak in yesterday’s passage took Balaam to multiple sites in his attempt to have Balaam curse the Israelites, Balak may have thought that the different sites would fall under a different god to whom Balaam could appeal to curse the Israelites.  In any case, the Israelites suffered a plague of some kind which resulted from the sexual immorality which they practiced with Midianite (and perhaps Moabite) women.  The plague ended when Phinehas (Aaron’s grandson) killed a family leader from the tribe of Simeon and the Midianite woman whom he was having sex with practically in front of the assembly mourning the immorality of the Israelites.   I am somewhat confused by the fact that the passage begins by saying that it was Moabite women who led the Israelite men into sexual immorality, but then God tells Moses that the Israelites should treat the Midianites as enemies because they had deceived the Israelites into worshiping Baal of Peor.  I have read several explanations for this transition, but not of them are satisfying.  Another one occurred to me today.  Perhaps, while it was the Moabite women who began using sex to convince Israelite men to take part in the worship of Baal of Peaor, the Midianite women may have been instrumental in convincing the Israelites that Baal of Peor and the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were interchangeable.   There are several places in the Bible where we see indications that the Midianites shared more cultural similarities with the Israelites than other peoples in the area, and that they possessed more knowledge of the God of Abraham than the other peoples as well (Moses’ father-in-law was a Midianite priest of God).

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.

I am starting a new job tomorrow which may make this more difficult to keep up to date.  Fortunately, I am several days ahead, hopefully far enough to give me time to adjust to my new schedule without missing any days for this blog.

The story of Balaam and his donkey has always confused me.  The reason I am confused is that I do not understand why God was angry with Balaam for accompanying Balak’s messengers.  As we read here, when Balak’s first set of messengers arrived Balaam consulted God, and when God told him not to go with them, he sent them on their way.   When the second set of messengers arrived Balaam told them he could do nothing beyond what God commanded him to do, but invited them to spend the night.  This second time God told him to go with Balak’s messengers.  Then, when Balaam set out, God sent an angel with a sword to oppose him.  The standard interpretation is that God intended for the angel to slay Balaam, but the intervention of Balaam’s donkey changed His mind.  Suppose instead that God planned for the donkey to avoid the angel waiting in Balaam’s path.  Perhaps God sent the angel to remind Balaam to only say what God directed him to say.  Interestingly enough, the lesson does not appear to have “stuck”, the way I read the account about the third time Balaam offered sacrifices provided by Balak, he intended to bypass requesting God’s inspiration and was just going to say something which would please Balak, except God intervened and did not give him that option.

I also find Balak’s actions curious.  Despite Balaam telling Balak that he could only speak what God told him to speak, Balak took Balaam to two other locations to curse the Israelites after Balaam blessed them from the first location.  I can think of two possible explanations.  The first being that he thought that perhaps he could trick God into not realizing that it was the Israelites when seen from a different perspective.  The other being that Balak thought that Balaam appealed to local gods in order to curse and that if he took Balaam to another place, Balaam could appeal to a different god in order to curse the Israelites.  Actually, I can think of a third possibility, perhaps Balak thought that if he could take Balaam to the right place, he could curse the Israelites without God knowing what he was doing.  Whatever Balak was thinking, he clearly thought that he could find a way around God’s will.

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