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

Today’s passage contains the provision for the establishment of cities of refuge in Israel once the Israelites conquer the land God had promised to their ancestors.  When we talk about this we often pay limited attention to what it says and think that cities of refuge were a place for anyone who killed another person to flee to avoid being killed in revenge.  However, if we read closely we discover that the cities of refuge were only for people who accidentally killed someone else…and accidentally is defined to exclude circumstances where you should have known there was a significant risk of killing them.  So, if you hit someone with a deadly weapon intending to hurt them, even if you did not mean to kill them, the cities of refuge would not be a refuge.  This passage called for you to be put to death.  Which means that if you accidentally killed someone you could flee to a city of refuge and stay there until the high priest died, or you could stay where you were and risk being killed by your victim’s nearest relative.  In either case, you paid a pretty steep price for taking someone’s life, even though it was completely an accident.  The message here is that every human life is valuable and there is a price to be paid for taking it, even if we didn’t mean to do so.  Take care of where you throw that dangerous object.  Pay attention to what is downrange when you are taking target practice.  Know what’s below when you drop a heavy object off of a building, or other high place.  Otherwise, you may have to pay a heavy price.

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.

The passage begins with regulations concerning vows.  I find it interesting that Moses delivers these instructions between when God told the Israelites to treat the Midianites as enemies and when they actually launched their attack on the Midianites associated with Baal-Peor.  The first part is plain and straightforward: if a man makes a vow to the Lord, or takes an oath to do something, he is obligated to keep that oath.  The second part regarding women requires a little more thought.  In order to understand what Moses tells them about women taking oaths we need to be aware of the nature of their society.  In that society a father or husband of a woman would have had the power to prevent a woman from keeping a vow or oath which she made, whether the law allowed for him to do so or not.  The rule which Moses gave here limited that power in a very interesting way.  The rule was that when a woman’s father (if she was not married and thus still under his authority) or her husband (if she was married) had to confirm or nullify any vow or oath she had made as soon as he learned of it.  However, confirming it was the default.  If he did not immediately nullify it, it was confirmed.  If he later prevented her from keeping the vow or oath, it was as if he had failed to keep a vow or oath which he himself had made.  If a woman’s husband learned that she had made a vow or taken an oath and did not immediately forbid her from keeping it, he was obligated to help her keep that vow or oath.

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.

I’m not sure where I am going with this, but I find the order of narrative here interesting.  We would not recount the events this way.  So, you understand what I mean I am going to summarize what the writers tell us over the last few and next several chapters.  At the end of chapter 25, we were told that God told the Israelites to treat the Midianites as enemies.  In chapter 26, we were told that Moses and Eleazar, Aaron’s son, conducted a second census of the Israelite men who were 20 years old or older.  So far that makes sense, if you are about to go to war you need to now how many fighting men you have. Then at the end of the census we learn that everyone who had been counted in the first census had died, except for Caleb and Joshua (Moses and Eleazar were alive during that first census, but they were Levites and were not counted).  The census leads to the daughters of Zelophehad bringing up what should happen with their father’s inheritance in the land since he had no sons.  Since the ruling about what should happen with a man’s property if he did not have a son was important, and the incident which led to it being addressed happened here, we would have likely included it here, but we would have made it more parenthetical.   After that Moses asks God to appoint someone to take over leadership of the Israelites since he will soon die.  That also makes sense here, since such a leader should lead the Israelites into battle while Moses is still alive and they are about to enter into battle against the Midianites.  Finally, Moses restates the offerings to be made throughout the year with a bit more detail than in the previous descriptions.

It’s that last bit that we today would have done differently.  In our imagination of the correct way to tell the account, we would have either said something about how Moses gave these other commands before they went into battler.  Or, more likely, we would think that the account of the battle against the Midianites should be explained first.  Then after telling about the battle and its outcome, write that before the battle Moses told them about these sacrifices and festivals.  We might have even chosen to put the details of the census and Joshua being named as Moses’ successor after the battle as well.  All of that is because we view the battle and its outcome as being more important than the other elements of what happened.  The instructions concerning the sacrifices was necessary here and now because the Israelites who were about to go into battle had been too young when they were given the last time to have really paid attention.  We need to recognize that understanding the proper ways to worship God are every bit as important as battles and their aftermaths in understanding what is going on.

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.

The account given here of the incident involving the Baal of Peor can be confusing.  In particular, at the beginning of the account we are told that Israelite men indulged in sexual immorality with Moabite women and joined them in worshiping the Baal of Peor.  Then at the end of this particular incident we are told that God instructed Moses to treat the Midianites as enemies because they deceived them.  The confusion can be further compounded by the fact that Moses’ father-in-law was a Midianite.  As I explored why that happened the first thing I came across was another fact that might lead to confusion.  It is not clear if the word Peor here is used as a place name, or as a descriptive.  The word Peor means Opening, which means that Baal-Peor means “the Lord of the Opening”.  That meaning is somewhat suggestive considering the nature of Israel’s in here.  Whether or not Peor was a place name it seems likely to me that the worshipers of Baal-Peor took delight in the implications of that meaning.

As I was thinking and writing about the above I was hoping it would draw a connection between the meaning of Baal-Peor and the Moabite/Midianite crossover, but that it is not where I ended up.  Instead, I once again saw the important lesson about how sexual temptation often leads us into idolatry.  Here the Israelites had no intention of worshiping Baal, they just thought they could indulge their lust without compromising their fellowship with their people, the people of God.  We see here that Zimri, the son of a leader in Simeon, thought that he could indulge himself right in front of the people with no concern for consequences.  Many other Israelite men were acting likewise, perhaps a bit more discreetly, but also with the idea that they would suffer no consequences for their actions.  We see the same thing today in so many ways where people of faith think they can sample sins without suffering any consequences.

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.

In one way, I am somewhat confused by the account of Balaam and his donkey.  The thing which always strikes me as confusing is why God sent an angel to kill him on the way.  Of course, that’s not quite what the passage says, even though we usually read it that way.  It says the God sent an angel to oppose Balaam, then a little later the angel tells Balaam that, if not for his donkey, he would have killed Balaam.  So, three times the donkey saved Balaam’s life by avoiding the angel which was there prepared to kill Balaam, but all Balaam could think about was that the donkey had embarrassed him.  I was going somewhere else when I started writing, but I think this is more important.  Balaam was prepared to kill his donkey, which had been his faithful servant for many years at this point, because it embarrassed him in front of strangers.  We don’t often remember that the incident with the donkey occurred in front of the Moabite officials which Balak had sent to hire Balaam.  So, Balaam beat the donkey three times.  When the donkey was given a voice and asked him why, Balaam answered that he wished he had a sword so that he could kill the donkey.  It never crossed his mind to think about how out of character the donkey’s behavior was and to wonder why it was behaving that way.  We should not allow embarrassment cause us to behave in like manner, but all too often we 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 19-21.

I have always found the account of the bronze serpent which Moses made confusing, especially considering that Hezekiah later destroyed it because the Israelites were worshiping it.  However, Jesus suggests that it foreshadows His crucifixion.  Which means we need to look at what this account tells us about our relationship with God.  So, let’s look at the context of this event.  Aaron had died shortly before this and the Israelites were being forced to go around Edom.  By going around Edom it seemed like the goal of the Promised Land was even further away.  They began to feel like they would never get there and they lost their patience with Moses and with God.  They became focused on their hardships rather than with what God had done for them so far.  They stopped thinking about the ways in which God had cared for them and focused on their lack of good things.  In a way, they had forgotten how bad things had been in Egypt and were thinking they would have been better off if they had remained in Egypt.  In fact, they seemed to feel like things could not be worse.  Then things got worse.  The people immediately realized their mistake, repented, and asked Moses to pray for them.  Moses prayed and God told him to make the bronze serpent and put it on a pole.  When people looked  up at it, they were healed from snakebites.  The bronze serpent caused people to look up and think about God rather than continuing to look down and think about their problems.  Let us look up and think abut God, rather than about our problems.

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.

It is not clear how long after the Israelites refused to enter the Promised Land and Moses turned them back into the wilderness that Korah’s rebellion occurred.  Perhaps it occurred immediately after the Israelites defeat, or perhaps it was some time later.  We also do not know what specific instruction from Moses triggered this rebellion, although the words attributed to Korah and to Dathan and Abiram suggest that the rebellion was in response to some instruction from Moses.  Reading this again it almost appears like there were two separate rebellions against Moses at the same time.  The passage lists three leaders of the rebellion, Korah, a Levite, and two Reubenites, Dathan and Abiram.  It also lists that there were 250 other men, who were leaders among the Israelites who followed these three.  However, when I read how this got resolved it reads to me like those 250 men were followers of Korah and as if Dathan and Abiram had  some additional followers of their own.  Moses called for Korah and his followers to come before the Lord and, together with Aaron, present an incense offering, allowing God to decide whose offering to accept.  Moses also summoned Dathan and Abiram to come to this “showdown”, but they refused to do so.   So Moses went to them.  It reads that Moses said that the earth would swallow up the tents and all of those within the encampment of Korah, Dathan and Abiram, and that it did so.  Then fire came out from the Lord and consumed the 250 men offering incense.  That reads to me like there were followers of Dathan and Abiram in addition to the 250 followers of Korah, although I am unsure of that.

The thing I noticed today was the similarity between what happened to Korah’s 250 followers who burned incense and what happened to Aaron’s sons, Nadab and Abihu, when they burned incense before the Lord using coals to light the incense which did not come from the altar.  Presumably, these 250 men would also not have had access to coals from the altar in order to light the incense which they offered.  Of course, one would also presume that they were aware of what had happened to Nadab and Abihu.  Which makes one wonder how they did not suspect that something bad would happen when they burned incense before the Lord.  But it also reminds us that we often fail to learn from the suffering which others have brought upon themselves.  How often o we rebel against those whom God has placed in authority over us?  We often spend time concerned about recognizing when leaders abuse or overstep their authority, but we do not spend enough time looking at whether or not we adequately submit to those whom God has appointed to lead us.

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 heard the reports from the spies, they listened to the ten with negative reports rather than to the two, Caleb and Joshua, who argued that God would give them the land.  The other ten spies argued that the people of the land were too powerful for the Israelites.  Caleb and Joshua did not argue that the other ten were overestimating the people of the land.  Their argument was that they were underestimating God.  The first lesson we learn is that just because the overwhelming majority believe an argument does not make it the right choice.  Ten out of twelve argued, “We can’t attack the people of this land.  They are too strong for us.”  Two argued, “But they are not too powerful for God.”  We must not allow ourselves to make the same mistake that the Israelites made.  We must never believe that our God is not strong enough to overcome the obstacles to what He has promised us.  After all, the Israelites had witnessed what God did to bring them out of Egypt.  They had witnessed what He had done during their time so far in the wilderness, despite their repeated disobedience to Him.  I have seen God’s power, I will believe that He can deal with whatever is between me and that which He promises me.

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