Today, I am reading and commenting on Numbers 5-6.
I find the vow of the Nazirite interesting and slightly mysterious. The description seems to imply that the reader will already know what the vow is about so only the ritual of the vow need be described. This leads me to wonder if the vow of the Nazirite was just a vow of dedication to God for some set period of time, similar to some of the vows of asceticism taken by many during the Middle Ages. On the other hand, I read hints that it was a type of vow some took about a course of action they would follow. Ultimately, I think that someone vowed to follow the rituals of the Nazirite for some length of time as an effort to get closer to God, even though every time I read this it feels as if there is some thing the writer is referring to but never wrote down.
Today, I am reading and commenting on Numbers 3-4.
In this passage we have a reference back to the first Passover while the Israelites were still in Egypt. The first born sons of the Egyptians all died, while the first born sons of the Israelites were spared. As a result, God claims the first born sons as His. However, it was impractical to separate out the first born sons from all of Israel to be dedicated to serving God. So, God designated the Levites as substitutes for the first born sons of the rest of Israel. Which brings to an interesting thing. The number twelve was important to the Israelites, but Jacob had adopted Joseph’s two sons as his own, substituting the two of them for Joseph, bringing the total number of tribes to thirteen. Now the Levites are set aside to serve God as His chosen tribe, creating something analogous to when Jesus, God’s Chosen One, selected the Twelve Apostles.
When Moses had counted the other tribes, he counted all males 20 years old and older. However, when he counted the Levites he counted all males one month old and older. The difference was the purpose for which they were being counted. The men of the other tribes were being counted to identify who could fight for the people of Israel, while the Levites were being counted to identify who could serve the Lord.
Today, I am reading and commenting on Numbers 1-2.
A few weeks ago, I was looking up some information about the Exodus account. One thing I found was a statement that many historians do not believe the account in Exodus actually happened, certainly not anywhere close to the way it is described in the Bible. One of the reasons they were convinced of this was because the Sinai desert could not support the number of people given in today’s passage. I was curious about whether or not that was true, so I looked up the current population of Sinai. The Sinai Peninsula today has a population of about 600,000 people in total. However, the biblical account does not claim that the Israelites lived off of the land in the Sinai desert. It tells us that God provided the people with manna to live off of. So, the number of people which this passage describes only becomes a barrier to believing in this account if you do not believe in the ability of God to miraculously provide for His people.
God promised the people of Israel blessings if they obeyed His commands and the punishments they would suffer if they failed to obey. Some people read these blessings and conclude that godliness leads to wealth. There is some truth to this, but it misunderstands what this passage promises. First, God’s promise here is for the people of Israel, not everyone. More importantly, these promises are for an entire people, not for individuals. I believe that any large group of people who faithfully follow God’s commands will experience blessings similar to those recorded here, and any such group which violates God’s commands will suffer the punishment. I believe that God built this into the world when He created it. Having said all of that, I believe that choosing to obey God brings joy and choosing to rebel against God will bring pain.
I think the ideas presented with the Sabbath Year and the Year of Jubilee have real lessons for us. The Sabbath Year solves a problem which modern farmers address by crop rotation and leaving fields fallow every so many years. However, academia and mission organizations have adopted the idea of a sabbatical year from this concept. The idea of the Year of Jubilee is to level the economic stratification which happens in society every so many years. The idea being that everyone should have equal chances in life. I do not see any way we could make the idea of the Year of Jubilee work in a non-agrarian society, but we should keep its ideal in mind. Even in this passage there is an exemption made for property within cities. The Year of Jubilee reminds us that we should seek ways to give those who suffer from the bad economic decisions of their parents, or even their own bad economic decisions, a chance for a fresh start.
At the beginning of the passage it discusses the need for priests to maintain both spiritual and physical holiness. The passage then goes on to command that flawed animals are not acceptable offerings to God. Every time I read this I think about what this means when we make offerings to God today by donating to charitable causes. When we make an offering to God it must be perfect not used, not our castoffs. That does not mean that we should not donate such things that still have use to charity. It just means that we should not think of that as an offering to God. If we have clothes which no longer fit us but are still in good repair, it is a good thing to donate it to a thrift store or other charity, but doing so does not qualify as an offering to God.
From time to time someone comes to the conclusion that Christians can benefit from paying closer attention, perhaps even from celebrating the festivals God commanded the Israelites to observe. There is some merit to the idea. Yet in every case I am aware of, they start the discussion with the Festival of First Fruits. Oh, they mention the Sabbath in passing, but they start their discussion with the Festival of First Fruits. However, I think we should pay more attention to that very first of the festivals which God established for the people of Israel. I do not believe it matters whether we celebrate that Festival on Saturday or Sunday. The important thing is that we should gather once a week to celebrate God. Which brings up another point, our Sunday services should be a celebration. They are not an obligation which we grudgingly spend an hour or two fulfilling. No, they should be celebrations which we eagerly look forward to taking part in and regret when they come to an end.
There are a lot of very basic, good life rules in today’s passage.
do not deceive and cheat
do not twist justice to favor the poor or show partiality towards the rich
I think it is worth noting that this command spells out our human tendency to twist justice in favor of the poor when we don’t twist it to gain favor with the rich and that both are wrong.
Do not spread slanderous gossip
help people when they are in danger
do not nurse a grievance, instead confront the person directly whom you believe to have wronged you
All of these represent good rules to follow and are summed up by the one which Jesus listed as the second most important command (which is in this passage): Love your neighbor as yourself.
There are more rules that are worth noting in chapter 19, then I see a kind of transition and a series of rules with a different focus in chapter 20. While the rules in chapter 20 can also be summed up by loving others as you love yourself, I see a somewhat different common thread among them. I am not quite sure how to summarize these rules, but I think they are tied together. Here God forbids sacrificing children, attempting to communicate with the dead, dishonoring your parents, and a laundry list of sexual acts. All of these involve putting yourself and your own pleasure over the best interest of others.
In today’s passage God gave Moses the instructions for the Day of Atonement. The first thought I had about this passage was curiosity about where the “wilderness of Azazel” was. As I suspected, the place being referred to is ambiguous. In fact, some translations say that the goat should be driven into the “wilderness for Azazel”. In fact, there are Jewish legends which say that Azazel was a demon, whom the goat was intended to appease. That would essentially make the goat an offering to a demon, which seems to me to be inconsistent with the commands against idolatry. A little further research on my part revealed that the Hebrew word “azazel” is composed of the Hebrew word for rugged, “azaz”, and a generic word for God, “el”. (note: “el” in the Bible usually, and perhaps always, applies to God, but was used by the people of that area for other gods as well, even in some of their names for their gods). All of which suggests to me that the original writer of this passage would have understood the phrase to mean that the goat would be driven into a rugged wilderness dedicated to God (perhaps so dedicated by its use for this purpose?). I want to add that it is from this passage that we get the term “scapegoat”, which is sometimes misspoken as “escape goat”. Interestingly enough, the “scape” in “scapegoat” is almost certainly a shortening of the word escape. The importance of all of this is that words change meaning over time and Ancient Hebrew was a language which, at least the written form, contained many words whose meanings changed significantly depending on context.
Later in today’s passage, in chapter 18, there are a series of prohibited sexual practices. When Christians refer to these prohibitions as guidelines, some people ask why they do not also follow kosher food rules. There is a relatively simple answer to that question of which most Christians fail to be aware. When the Jerusalem Council, recorded in Acts, sent out a letter instructing Gentile believers on the issue of following Jewish “Law”, they specifically said that Gentile believers only needed to follow three elements of Jewish Law. Those elements were: do not worship idols by taking part in their feasts (eating food offered to idols), do not eat/drink blood, do not commit fornication. These instructions contained here would have been more or less what they were thinking of by fornication.
I write this sometime around now every year, this stretch of passages is one of the reasons I write this blog. If I did not write this blog I would get bogged down reading these and start skimming over the passages, or even skipping days. While I cannot ind anything in this passage today which builds my faith, I still think there is value in reading this passage regularly (in my case, once a year). One of the reasons it is important to read these passages regularly is that people with anti-Christian, or anti-Judaism, biases will often misrepresent what is written here. If we read them regularly we will recognize when someone is doing that.
Today, I am reading and commenting on Leviticus 13.
Now that we have modern medicine and a scientific understanding of how mold and mildew spread, is there anything we have to learn from today’s passage? I will answer that with a definite “Yes.” The passage lays out a definite and deliberate approach to deciding what actions to take when someone or something appears infected. This passage reminds us not to rush to judgement. Instead, examine the facts and patiently wait to see how things develop. If there is a risk of things escalating, isolate in a reversible manner until the situation becomes clear one way or the other.
