GET READY
The fourth book of the Torah is called “Numbers” because it records two numberings of the Israelites: first as they leave Sinai and then after they arrive at the border of Canaan. The Jewish title translates as “Wilderness” because the book chronicles the forty years in wandering in the desert.
Author
As with the other books of the Torah, most scholars accept Moses as the principal author of Numbers. The book picks up the journey of the Israelites after the “time out” for receiving the Ten Commandments and building the tabernacle, and Moses continues as the central figure in all the events. One passage even says, “Now Moses wrote down the starting points of their journeys at the command of the Lord,” [33:2].
Context
Numbers resumes the narrative of the Israelites travels after the two major events at Mount Sinai. It describes the thirty-eight years they spent in the “wilderness” before they arrived at the east side of the Jordan River, across from the “promised land.” These travels (and travails) lasted from approximately 1444 BCE until 1406 BCE.
The key event in the book is the Israelites’ refusal to trust God and enter Canaan. As they approached the first time Moses sent twelve spies into the land to see what awaited them. When they returned only two spies encouraged the people to invade. The other ten spies reported on the “giants” in the land and said they would not be able to defeat them. God responded to this lack of trust by threatening to kill all the people and start over with Moses and the two trusting spies, but Moses intervened with God and he relented. Instead of immediate death the people would wander in the wilderness until all the doubters had died, and a new generation would enter and take the land.
Numbers records the wandering and the events leading up to the Israelites’ arrival at the Jordan River.
Structure
As I noted above, Numbers is second part of the Israelites’ journey to the land God promised Abraham more than 500 years earlier. Exodus is “Part 1.” The book is primarily a chronological narrative of their travels from Sinai to Moab. It also is the story of their transition from slaves into a nation and their preparation to conquer the people then living in Canaan.
In addition to the people’s refusal to trust God and enter Canaan and the resulting punishment, there are other events in Numbers that are important in Israel’s history:
- Moses conducts the initial census of Israelite fighting men and prepares the people – at God’s direction – for the journey to Canaan, [chapters 1-3].
- God provided manna, quail and water for the people after they complained about their food and pressed Moses to return to Egypt where they at least had “something to eat.” God provided manna – evidently a bread-like food – each morning and instructed the people to gather only enough for their family for that day (and a two-day supply for the Sabbath, so they would not have to “work”). If people attempted to hoard the manna it spoiled overnight, [chapter 11].
- Moses disobeys God and strikes a rock with his staff to get water, rather than speaking to the rock as God had commanded. This led to God forbidding Moses from entering Canaan; he died after viewing the promised land from Moab, [chapter 20].
- Balaam, a priest of Baal, blesses the Israelites in defiance of his protector, King Balak, and prophesies complete defeat for Balak and his allies, [chapters 22-24].
Major Themes
Even though it is primarily a story of the Israelites’ journey in the wilderness, Numbers also presents a picture of God’s character and his covenant with the people. There are three major themes:
- God is holy and his people must also be holy. This includes designating the Levite tribe to be the priests and describing their duties and responsibilities [chapters 3-4, 16-17, 18 and 35], describing Holy days [chapters 15 and 28-29], commandments on holiness and impurity [chapters 5-6, 16-17, 19 and 35] and the Nazarite vow [chapter 6].
- There are consequences to peoples’ actions, whether they are actions in obedience to our covenant with God or actions that break that covenant. This includes instructions on sacrifices and offerings [chapters 15, 17, and 28-29].
- God is determined to carry out his plan for his people and keep his promises to them. God gives instructions for distributing the land among the Israelite tribes [chapters 27, 32 and 34-36].
Numbers affirms, as do the other books of the Pentateuch, that God has a plan and that humans are an integral part of that plan.
Get into the Word:
1. Who is presumed to have written this book? What is the book’s subject? When do the events in Numbers take place? Where?
2. What is the critical event in Numbers? What happened? What did the people do? How did God respond to this situation? What did Moses do? What was the final outcome?
3. How did God feed the people during the exodus? What guidelines did he give regarding the food?
4. What does Numbers tell us about God? What examples does the book give that demonstrate these characteristics? What does the book tell us about sin?
5. What does Numbers tell us about God’s plan for the Israelites? Are there parallels in his plan for the church? What might this tell us about God’s plan for our lives?
NOTES . . .
Dates: Old Testament dates are derived from the known date that Solomon started constructing the temple: 966 BCE. The exodus began 480 years earlier.
Numbers: Some folks question the number of Israelites in the exodus and rely on an ambiguity between the Hebrew words for “thousand” and “army unit,” which means the exodus involved 600 military units, rather than 600,000 men.
The law concerning the jealous husband: Numbers clearly reflects a patriarchal culture. It contains a detailed commandment concerning a jealous husband who suspects his wife has cheated on him but has no proof. The husband must bring his wife, with an offering of barley, to the priest and state his complaint. The priest then questions the wife under oath. When the wife denies any cheating the priest is supposed to mix some dust from the temple floor with water and the paper with the prescribed curses written on it. The priest then speaks the curses and gives the woman the water to drink. If she is guilty of adultery she will get sick and become sterile; if she is innocent nothing will happen to her. In either case nothing happens to the husband, [5:11-31].
12: The people rebel and Moses intercedes — Numbers 14:1-45
GET READY
How do you approach a major project? Are you optimistic that things will go well and you are ready to jump in and get to work? Or do you tend to think about all the things that can go wrong with the project and all the potential hardships you will face?
THE WORD
14 Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night. 2And all the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron; the whole congregation said to them, “Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness! 3Why is the Lord bringing us into this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become booty; would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?” 4So they said to one another, “Let us choose a captain, and go back to Egypt.”
5Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the Israelites. 6And Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes 7and said to all the congregation of the Israelites, “The land that we went through as spies is an exceedingly good land. 8If the Lord is pleased with us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey. 9Only, do not rebel against the Lord; and do not fear the people of the land, for they are no more than bread for us; their protection is removed from them, and the Lord is with us; do not fear them.” 10But the whole congregation threatened to stone them.
Then the glory of the Lord appeared at the tent of meeting to all the Israelites. 11And the Lord said to Moses, “How long will this people despise me? And how long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them? 12I will strike them with pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they.”
13But Moses said to the Lord, “Then the Egyptians will hear of it, for in your might you brought up this people from among them, 14and they will tell the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that you, O Lord, are in the midst of this people; for you, O Lord, are seen face to face, and your cloud stands over them and you go in front of them, in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night. 15Now if you kill this people all at one time, then the nations who have heard about you will say, 16‘It is because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land he swore to give them that he has slaughtered them in the wilderness.’ 17And now, therefore, let the power of the Lord be great in the way that you promised when you spoke, saying,
18 ‘The Lord is slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children to the third and the fourth generation.
19Forgive the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of your steadfast love, just as you have pardoned this people, from Egypt even until now.”
20Then the Lord said, “I do forgive, just as you have asked; 21nevertheless — as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord— 22none of the people who have seen my glory and the signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have tested me these ten times and have not obeyed my voice, 23shall see the land that I swore to give to their ancestors; none of those who despised me shall see it. 24But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me wholeheartedly, I will bring into the land into which he went, and his descendants shall possess it. 25Now, since the Amalekites and the Canaanites live in the valleys, turn tomorrow and set out for the wilderness by the way to the Red Sea.” NRSV
GET INTO THE WORD
1. How do the people react to the negative report from the spies? Who do they blame for this situation? What alternative do they want?
2. How do Moses and Aaron respond to the people? Who else reacts strongly? What do they say to the people? How do they describe the land? How do the people react to their ideas?
3. How does God respond to the Israelites’ rebellion? What does God propose to do to the people? What does he suggest for Moses?
4. How does Moses react to God’s proposal? How does he make his argument to God? What does he say about other peoples’ reactions to killing all the Israelites? Who does he quote in making his argument? How effective is he?
5. What does Moses suggest God do instead? How does God respond to this idea? How is the punishment modified? What will happen to the people? Who is spared from the punishment [see Notes]? Why would they be exempt? How do you suppose Moses felt about this result?
GET PERSONAL
When you ask God for forgiveness, what promises do you rely on? What gives you confidence in these promises? How does God help you understand that he is good for his word?
NOTES . . .
14:6. Tore their clothes— this was a common way to mourn in many ancient cultures [check 2 Sam 3:31]. (Putting ashes in one’s hair was another).
14:8. Flowing with milk and honey— this is more a metaphor than a literal descrip-tion. It means it is a very good land that will provide for the people living there.
14:9. The Lord is with us— people believed that one or more gods protected them and their city or nation in every part of the Middle East at this time; but Joshua and Caleb trust the Lord, who has already defeated Pharaoh, the strongest ruler of the time. Moses will use this belief when he argues with God about the punishment of the Israelites [vv. 13-16].
14:12. I will strike them— God’s initial response is to get rid of the disobedient people and start over with Moses, but Moses intercedes on behalf of his people.
14:15. It is because . . .— Moses’ argument is based in the widespread belief in a god’s patronage of a city or nation: if God kills all the Israelites, other nations will believe he was not powerful enough to complete his promise to give Canaan to his people,
14:18. The Lord is . . .— Moses quotes God’s own words [from the burning bush: Exodus 34:6-7] back to him in arguing for mercy for the Israelites.
14:20. Nevertheless– God agrees to forgive the people and not kill them, but sin has consequences. Because the people did not trust God, they will suffer forty years of wandering in the desert and they will not receive the promised inheritance in Canaan, (they will die in the wilderness as they wished for in verse 2). God further orders the Israelites to leave the area the next day.
14:24. My servant Caleb— He and Joshua were the only two spies to avoid the plague, and the only two adults to actually enter Canaan.
14:25. Set out for the wilderness— after the 10 spies die the people are willing to attack Canaan, ignoring God’s explicit direction to go back to the wilderness – a second act of disobedience almost immediately after seeing the conse-quences of the first. Even though Moses warns them they will fail, they plow ahead . . . and get beat badly.
Memory Verse
The Lord is slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression,[Numbers 14:18].
Lesson 13
Deuteronomy 6: The Great Commandment.
Comment . . .
A lot of folks know the Israelites spent 40 years in the wilderness on their way from Egypt to the “promised land.” But few have ever asked why it took so long.
In truth it took just a little over two years. The first time.
After Sinai, God led the Israelites in a fairly direct route to the east side of Canaan. He then had Moses send a team of 12 Israelite men to spy out the land. When the team returned and reported to the people, only Joshua and Caleb said the land was good and the people should trust God and take the land. All the other men said the land was full of powerful “giants” and the Israelites had no chance to invade and conquer the land.
As this passage shows, the people believed the 10 and started whining, which led to the 40-year wandering. Only Caleb and Joshua walked out of Egypt and into Canaan (even Moses died without entering the promised land, but that’s a different story). The Israelites traded God’s promised life in a land “of milk and honey,” for a life of hardship in the deserts of the Arabian peninsula. This is a dramatic demonstration of what happens when we don’t trust God and follow him.*
There are times when we hold back from Jesus’s invitation to follow him. We’re “too busy” because we focus on all the things we think we have to do. Or we missed or didn’t fully appreciate the things God has already done in our lives. Or we think about all the things that could go wrong if we changed our lives. Or we like the way things are going right now too much.
Jesus said he came so that we could have “life abundantly.” When we don’t follow him, what are we missing? Rich
* In God’s typical both/andstrategy, those 40 years did allow the Israelites to grow from a mob of former slaves who knew only to respond to their masters into a disciplined and strong army ready to conquer Canaan when they finally got back there.
