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 16-18.

Yesterday I looked at the problem with relying on experts.  Today, we see the opposite problem, rebelling against God’s chosen leaders.  Korah and his allies started from a valid premise: all of God’s people are equal.  But they took it too far.  They used this premise to argue that Moses should not be the leader.  So, where does it become obvious that they have it wrong?  Korah was not arguing that there should not be a leader.  He was arguing that HE should be the leader in Moses’ place.  Further, he was not arguing this on the basis of how he would be better than Moses.  He was arguing that Moses had failed to deliver on his promises.  So, Korah argued that he should be leader because Moses was no better than anyone else and had failed.  Korah did not offer an alternative plan of action, merely dissatisfaction with Moses’ leadership.  Selecting a leader because he is not the other guy always ends badly.

I want to say that both yesterday and today I started out with a clear idea of what I wanted to write and how it would come out.  Neither came out clearly where I planned for them to.

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 14-15.

Ten of the twelve spies who the Israelites sent into the Promised Land to report on it told them that the people of the land were too strong for them.  In fact, when Joshua and Caleb argued that God could and would give them the land, they considered stoning them for it.  Think about that, ten of the twelve “experts” were wrong.  Well, not exactly wrong, just looking at it wrong.  They were right when they said that the people of the land were stronger than the Israelites, but they were not taking God into account.  The people listened to the majority of the “experts”.  Not only did 10 out of the 12 experts agree, one of those who disagreed was a flunky to Moses.  So, there were ten experts who told the people that they were not as strong as the people of the land.  Those ten experts were correct, but they were not telling the whole story. Caleb and Joshua told the people to trust God and not to worry.  The people of Israel failed to compare what the experts told them to their own experience.  Their own experience showed that God could provide when it seemed impossible.  This was only around two years from when God had sent the Plagues on Egypt.  When we listen to the experts let us be sure to measure what they say against our own experience, that will allow us to recognize the ones who get it right, even when they are in the minority (and they usually are in the minority).

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 11-13.

My first reaction to reading the story of the quail was to think, “How often have I been guilty of what the Children of Israel did here?”  It also seemed to me that it is hard to avoid.  When times are hard and life consists of the same thing over and over again, it is just human nature to desire something different.  However, then I realized that the desire for something different was not their sin.  Their sin was in complaining about what God had provided.  They complained because they did not have the luxuries which they had experienced and desired to go back to the terrible situation which they had begged God to rescue them from.  They did not beg God for some variety.  They complained that He had rescued them from a terrible situation because their new life did not include the luxuries of that previous life.  So, their sin here was not the desire for more variety than God was providing them.  It was not even the fact that they were ungrateful for the way in which God had provided for them (although that is also a sin which we should avoid).  No, their sin was complaining that God had not provided them with variety and wishing to be back in the situation from which He had rescued them.  Asking God, even pleading with Him, to relieve the tedium of your life is not a sin, but complaining about the ways in which He has provided for you is.

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.

In the dedication of the Levites described here I continue to see foreshadowing of Jesus.  God set Jesus apart as His similar to the way He had the Israelites set the Levites apart as His.  The Levites were presented to God as a wave offering, whereas Jesus was treated as an offering fully dedicated to God.  Yet, with the Resurrection God returned Jesus to us as if He had been a wave offering.

I have written on this in previous years, but I find the actions of those who realized that they could not celebrate the Passover along with the rest of Israel instructive.  They did not just say to themselves, “Oh well, we can’t celebrate Passover because we had to handle a dead body.”  No, they went to Moses and asked what they could do.  They desperately wished to take part in this celebration of God’s power and of unity with their fellows.  God replied through Moses that not celebrating the Passover was not an option.  Instead, those who, for one reason or another, were legitimately unable to celebrate the Passover at the appointed time were to do so one month later.  In addition, God used this opportunity to remind the people of Israel, and us, that the same rules and regulations should apply to everyone.  The only exception we find to this is one that runs counter to what we as humans so often do: the rulers and leaders sometimes have stricter, more exacting, rules to follow than the common man, not special exemptions to the rules which apply to everyone else.

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 5-6.

Every time I read the regulations for the vow of the Nazirite I feel like there is something left out.  That something is why you would take the vow.  Having read the regulations every year for 8 years now, plus seeing how it was applied on occasion throughout the Old Testament, I have realized that someone would take this vow as a sign of dedication to God.  Usually, they would be dedicating some act, or period of time, in their life to God.  For example, the men the Apostle Paul accompanied to the Temple to fulfill their vow when he was arrested had almost certainly taken a vow of the Nazirite.  And the men who vowed to kill kill him had also probably taken the vow of the Nazirite.  I feel that we have lost something as a society that we no longer dedicate ourselves to God, either for certain periods of time or for an entire lifetime.  There are still those who do so, but they are less common, and even those, for the most part, seem to have less of an understanding of the solemnity of it than those of the past.  I am sure that there exist some who take such vows with the appropriate solemnity, but as a society we have lost the fear of God which normally brings it about.

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 3-4.

I will be perfectly honest, when I read today’s passage I had nothing to write.  So, I went back and read what I wrote last year.  Since I did not want to just reword what I wrote last year, that didn’t help much.  Fortunately, it got me started thinking.  As I mentioned last year, God claimed the Levites as His in place of the firstborn sons of the rest of the Israelites.  Now I find it interesting that the Levites served God in place of the “firstborn male offspring of every Israelite woman.”  Not the firstborn son of every Israelite man.  It did not matter who their father was, or how many other sons he had already had.  What mattered was that they were their mother’s first born son.  We can easily make too much of this, but it tells us something about the value mothers’ place on their children.

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 1-2.

The number of people counted here is used as one of the arguments that the Exodus never happened: such a large group of people would have left archeological records.  If the number of Israelite men, as translated, is accurate, the total number of Israelites who left Egypt would have almost certainly have been over 2 million people, counting women and children.  That would have been about a third of the population of Egypt at the time.  More importantly, the number listed here is inconsistent with the number of first born sons counted a few chapters after this.  However, in the Hebrew the numbers are written out with words, words that have more than one meaning depending on context.  In particular, the word translated as “thousand” has multiple meanings and is translated differently elsewhere in the Bible.  In this case, “thousand” is the most logical translation of the Hebrew word in this context.  So, it may be that the numbers as translated are not the numbers meant by the person who originally wrote this.  As I thought about this, I realized that the Hebrew of the Old Testament was written down over a period of around 1,000 years.  Think about how much the English language has change over the last 1,000 years.  I want to finish with this thought: there is no theological significance to the absolute numbers listed here (although I suspect the relative numbers of each tribe has some theological significance, that is, I believe there is significance from how large each tribe was relative to the other tribes).

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 34-36.

I have always found the idea of the Cities of Refuge interesting.  There are a couple of interesting points.  The Cities of Refuge were not an option for those who intentionally killed someone else.  In fact, there is no distinction between planning out and killing someone and killing someone in the heat of the moment.  Both were capital crimes.  Only when the death was an accident, and clearly an accident, did the one who killed another have the option of fleeing to a city of refuge to live.  Also of interest, not only was the family of the victim free to kill the person who killed another if they caught them outside of a City of Refuge, they were obligated to do so.  There was a price to be paid for taking a human life, even if it was done by accident.  Of course, there was also the requirement of more than one witness before taking that life.  In light of the passage’s encouragement of the family of the victim taking the life of the perpetrator that is worth some thought.  It was not enough that you had seen them commit the crime, you still needed a second witness.  We need to remember that what we see is not always what happened.  Interpreting events in light of what a witness with a different perspective saw may help us better understand the circumstances we wish to resolve.

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 32-33.

The first time the tribes which settled east of the Jordan River were misunderstood was when they requested that land as their inheritance in the Promised Land.  Moses thought the request was because they did not want to have to face the people’s living on the other side of the Jordan.  They quickly made it clear that they were perfectly happy to cross the Jordan to fight with their fellow Israelites, they just did not want to live there.  However, the tribes desiring to settle east of the Jordan did not get defensive and angry.  They understood why Moses would question their motives and quickly acted to reassure him that they were not trying to weasel out of crossing the Jordan.  We should be prepared to follow their example.  When others have acted in bad faith, and others have acted in bad faith, we should not be surprised, or offended, if people question our motives.