| Leaves
from the Tree
1:1 - "Then the LORD spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the tent of meeting, on the first of the second month, in the second year after they had come out of the land of Egypt, saying," The Book of Numbers continues the account of the Lord's purpose for His holy nation, Israel and their journey through the wilderness of Sinai on the way to the Promised Land of Canaan. The name numbers was taken from the Greek translation of the Old Testament and the name of the book in that translation from which we get our word arithmetic. The name was chosen in relationship to the focus of the first few chapters when the Lord commanded for a census to be taken of Israel. The name of the book in the Hebrew Old Testament was taken from the word in verse one, "wilderness." Wilderness is a more fitting name for the book than Numbers because the spiritual importance of the book includes, but goes far beyond the numbering of the people in the census. Many Bible readers have been discouraged from reading through the entire book for fear that the whole book is one long census of 36 chapters. The census is the primary substance of the first four chapters, but the remaining chapters give us the only detailed account of the events of Israel's wilderness journeys. The book is divided into three main sections. The first section covers chapters 1-10 which take place within the first two years of leaving Egypt in the wilderness at Mount Sinai as Moses is organizing by the directions of the Lord, the children of Israel for the journey through the wilderness to follow. The long middle section of the book covers all of their journey through the wilderness for the remaining forty years. The final section of the book brings us through the final stage of their journey to Canaan as Israel came to camp in the plains of Moab just across the Jordan from the Promised Land. Their adventures and misadventures are meant to be more than interesting but distant history for us. The book is filled with pointed lessons for the Christian life as God used Israel and their experiences as object lessons for us of both positive and negative examples of following the Lord. We can learn from both kinds of lessons, and in Israel's time in the wilderness there are more negative examples they set than positive ones. Paul described this teaching, training purpose of their experiences in this passage. "Nevertheless, with most of them God was not well-pleased; for they were laid low in the wilderness. Now these things happened as examples for us, so that we would not crave evil things as they also craved. Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written, "THE PEOPLE SAT DOWN TO EAT AND DRINK, AND STOOD UP TO PLAY." Nor let us act immorally, as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in one day. Nor let us try the Lord, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the serpents. Nor grumble, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come." (I Corinthians 10:5-11). Israel had to learn the hard way, by refusing to listen to God, obey Him and His laws. The hard way to learn is to have to go through the full experience of even the hard lessons of walking with God including the serious consequences of rebellion and disobedience. We are encouraged to gain wisdom by reading their story and avoid their many mistakes. 1:2-4 - "Take a census of all the congregation of the sons of Israel, by their families, by their fathers' households, according to the number of names, every male, head by head from twenty years old and upward, whoever is able to go out to war in Israel, you and Aaron shall number them by their armies. With you, moreover, there shall be a man of each tribe, each one head of his father's household." The Lord ordered a census to be taken of the men of Israel from the age of twenty and above. The census was to establish an order to their journeys and all their future camps. The order established would be according to families, households and tribes. The purpose of the order was military in nature. The Lord wanted to identify among Israel all the men that were capable of going out to war for the Lord and Israel. There are two important principles found in this. First, their journey through the wilderness for these forty years was not going to be a vacation sight seeing trip. By calling for a military count, the Lord was announcing His intention of forming all the adult men of Israel into the army of Israel. It was an army formed by God's command and so was unlike any natural army of the nations around them. This was an army with a fundamentally spiritual identify first and foremost. As an army, they would march through the wilderness and eventually into the Promised Land under the Lord's command. Since it was to be a real army, the men of Israel would live continuously under the command of the Lord. They would march when, where, and how long the Lord commanded, and they would camp when, where and for how long He commanded. It was not a democracy, in which every Israelite was given a vote on their next step. Israel's one job was to keep in step with their heavenly commander. The second important principle revealed by this command to organize the men as armies was that it identified what was waiting ahead for them. This journey had a goal which was to enter the Promised Land. That land was not vacant, however, but was populated by seven nations. Once they arrived there, Israel would not be able to stroll in and occupy the land currently occupied by the Canaanites. The people already living there would not want to give up their land and homes. This was the Lord's early signal to Israel that serious battles await them in the Promised Land. The Lord promised they would inhabit it, but He did not promise that they would do so without a battle. Israel would have to fight and conquer Canaan. This forty year wilderness period was the Lord's extended boot camp for Israel to prepare them for that day. They would be trained in this desert and made ready to fight when the time came. The principle we can draw from this is that the Lord has made many wonderful promises to us like He did to Israel when He promised them the land of Canaan. Many Christians have an unrealistic and entitled perspective of the promises of God as if once He makes a promise, that ends any effort or work on our part. The Lord will choose at times to bless us with things toward which we contributed nothing to remind us that He is our provider. Yet, there are other times when the Lord will make a promise to us, and rather than just dropping the fulfillment of the promise in our lap, He will begin to train us to fight for the gaining of what was promised. Our fight in this sense is always spiritual, but the effort required is no less intense. 1:47-53 - "The Levites, however, were not numbered among them by their fathers' tribe. For the LORD had spoken to Moses, saying, "Only the tribe of Levi you shall not number, nor shall you take their census among the sons of Israel. But you shall appoint the Levites over the tabernacle of the testimony, and over all its furnishings and over all that belongs to it. They shall carry the tabernacle and all its furnishings, and they shall take care of it; they shall also camp around the tabernacle. So when the tabernacle is to set out, the Levites shall take it down; and when the tabernacle encamps, the Levites shall set it up. But the layman who comes near shall be put to death. The sons of Israel shall camp, each man by his own camp, and each man by his own standard, according to their armies. But the Levites shall camp around the tabernacle of the testimony, so that there will be no wrath on the congregation of the sons of Israel. So the Levites shall keep charge of the tabernacle of the testimony." The one tribe that was exempted from the military census was the tribe of Levi. This tribe was set apart from the normal army, and were dedicated to the service of the tabernacle. They were even to camp with their tents arranged around the tabernacle to create a kind of buffer zone between the tabernacle and the rest of the camp of Israel. The Levites in this way served as a kind of royal honor guard for the King's palace, the tabernacle. It was not that the Lord needed their protection however. The idea was just the reverse. The Levites camped around the tabernacle to protect Israel from transgressing its holy boundaries. If the remainder of Israel violated the holiness of the tabernacle, they would incur the judgment of God. The Levites guarded Israel from the Lord's devastating wrath by preserving the appropriate boundaries of holiness around the tabernacle. 2:1-2 - "Now the LORD spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, "The sons of Israel shall camp, each by his own standard, with the banners of their fathers' households; they shall camp around the tent of meeting at a distance." Following the census of the adult battle ready men of Israel in chapter one, the Lord now commands that they be arranged in a specific order for their march through the wilderness. The march ahead of them will not be marked by many battles, but reflects the Lord's purpose in preparing His people in an extended wilderness bootcamp for the future conquest of the Promised Land. Then, they will need to be a prepared army, and not a loose conglomeration of refugees from Egypt. They will camp in a specific arrangement and they will march in a specific arrangement. As the armies of the Lord, they are under the commands of the Lord and their disposition is determined by Him. As the armies of the Lord we should expect them to be organized in a way that represents the Lord's order, wisdom and blessing. God intends for His people to always follow His design of greater order in their lives both individually and corporately. "But all things must be done properly and in an orderly manner." (I Corinthians 14:40). Keep in mind that their camp situation and their marching situation were the equivalent of our home and vocation. Israel was the visible expression of the kingdom of God on earth at that time in history. Because they represented God's kingdom, personal concerns and preferences were not the priority in their life arrangement. Do you suppose that at least some of the 600,000 households in Israel would have chosen a different arrangement for themselves if they were left to make their own choice of where to set their tent in each camp and in what order to march from camp to camp? Certainly others than the tribe of Judah would have chosen to be in the lead of the march. Others would have chosen to camp in a location that might suit their own tastes better. The point of this section and the lesson we are to derive from the Lord's arrangement is that He has His own ideas about where we should live, who we are to remain connected with, and where we go and what we do each day. Our lives are not our own. "For not one of us lives for himself, and not one dies for himself; for if we live, we live for the Lord, or if we die, we die for the Lord; therefore whether we live or die, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that He might be Lord both of the dead and of the living." (Romans 14:7-9). As the redeemed of the Lord it is critical that we recognize that our lives no longer belong to ourselves. Many believers live as though salvation is a favor the Lord did for them so that they can get back to their own plans for their own lives without having to worry about the issue of Hell any more. Salvation means more than a clean personal slate from which we then proceed to live as we want. The Lord's saving us means that from our salvation forward our lives are His to direct as He pleases. Where should I live? I should live where He wants me to live to serve His purposes. My life is His. This is the proper perspective of the redeemed. Anything less is robbing God of what truly belongs to Him. 2:3-9 - "Now those who camp on the east side toward the sunrise shall be of the standard of the camp of Judah, by their armies, and the leader of the sons of Judah: Nahshon the son of Amminadab, and his army, even their numbered men, 74,600. Those who camp next to him shall be the tribe of Issachar, and the leader of the sons of Issachar: Nethanel the son of Zuar, and his army, even their numbered men, 54,400. Then comes the tribe of Zebulun, and the leader of the sons of Zebulun: Eliab the son of Helon, and his army, even his numbered men, 57,400. The total of the numbered men of the camp of Judah: 186,400, by their armies. They shall set out first." We have already seen that there was a purposeful military reason to arrange the camp and march of Israel in this way around the tabernacle of the Lord. However, we should expect, as with all other orderly arrangements of the Lord that here is more than only practical reasons why He did what He did in setting the tribes in this order. The principle that guides the Lord's decisions in such cases is given in the New Testament. "But now God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body, just as He desired." (I Corinthians 12:18). This passage tells us that the Lord places His people where they belong according to His own desires. Since He desired Israel to camp and march in this arrangement we can anticipate that there is some spiritual reason behind the order of the tribes along with the practical reason. One spiritual reason was that the Lord arranged the tribes in an order that fulfilled His purpose as declared by their patriarch Jacob when he blessed his 12 sons which developed into these 12 tribes (Genesis 49). The order in which the tribes are mentioned and placed reflects the blessings as pronounced through Jacob years before. There is another very interesting symbolic element to the arrangement of the tribes around the tabernacle. It would be best if I could show this in a diagram, but I will try to describe it with words instead. In the Lord's orderly arrangement of the tribes the camp and march of Israel was in relationship to the tabernacle in the center. Then three tribes were set on each of the four sides of the tabernacle. Each tribe had a specific number of people fit for battle listed in this chapter. When set together in this arrangement the numbers resulted in this placement of the Lord. The East side had a total of 186,000 men, the West side had a total of 108,000 men, the North side had a total of 157,000 men and the South side had a total of 151, 000 men. If you lay this out in a top view diagram of the camp and marching formation of Israel with the tabernacle at the center the shape that emerges is that of a cross. The North and South sides are roughly equal in numbers and would represent the cross piece. The East side is the longest of the four sides and would correspond to the base of the cross, while the West side is the shortest which would correspond to the top of the cross. The tabernacle where the sacrifice of the lamb of God for the atonement of the people was offered was at the center of this cross shaped formation. Wherever Israel camped their camp formed a cross, and as they marched they marched in a cross formation. The Lord does not say that this was His intention in this order He commanded, but if not, it would be an amazing coincidence. 2:17 - "Then the tent of meeting shall set out with the camp of the Levites in the midst of the camps; just as they camp, so they shall set out, every man in his place by their standards." The arrangement of both the camp of Israel and the march of Israel through the wilderness was to maintain the right relationship of Israel to the house of God, the tabernacle. At all times, the tabernacle was in the center of Israel. As they camped and as they marched, they surrounded the tabernacle of the Lord. There is a clear declaration of the Lord in this relationship between the tribes of Israel and the tabernacle of God. The declaration was that God was always to be at the center of their lives. This was true as a nation and for every tribe, family, household, and individual within the nation. The Lord still wants this exact kind of relationship with His people in the New Covenant. He wants to be at the center of everything we do. If any human being demanded to be at the center of every situation we would identify them as selfish and proud. When the Lord puts Himself at the center of His people, there is nothing inappropriate about doing so. The reason is that first of all, He is perfect and we are not. Second, He is doing us a great favor to be at the center of our lives because if He is not, then some imperfect created thing will be at the center instead of Him. There is no other possible center for our lives that is appropriate. Any attempt to replace the Lord with anything or anyone else results in idolatry and is doomed to ruin our lives. Our lives are designed to be centered around Him alone. 3:1-3 - "Now these are the records of the generations of Aaron and Moses at the time when the LORD spoke with Moses on Mount Sinai. These then are the names of the sons of Aaron: Nadab the firstborn, and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar. These are the names of the sons of Aaron, the anointed priests, whom he ordained to serve as priests. But Nadab and Abihu died before the LORD when they offered strange fire before the LORD in the wilderness of Sinai; and they had no children. So Eleazar and Ithamar served as priests in the lifetime of their father Aaron." Chapter three is concerned with the special role in God's purpose for the tribe of Levi. This one tribe was set apart from the twelve tribes to serve the Lord by caring for all the practical circumstances of the tabernacle. It was among the Levites only that all of the priests that were allowed to come near the Lord and enter His house for service were called. Both Moses and Aaron were descended from the tribe of Levi, and Aaron was appointed as the first high priest. Aaron's four sons were given the roles of Aaron's assistants in the service of the tabernacle. As we saw in the book of Leviticus, shortly after being set apart for the priesthood, Aaron's two oldest sons, Nadab and Abihu, who should have been most respectful of the Lord and responsible toward the special boundaries of the tabernacle, instead foolishly violated those boundaries. They offered incense on the altar of incense inside the tabernacle that was only to be offered by the high priest and only in the way that the Lord had commanded. Their violation was not a light transgression that resulted in a slap on the hand. Even as they were in the midst of their transgression against the Lord's holiness, the Lord cause fire to come out from His presence in the Holy of Holies and Nadab and Abihu were instantly killed by the fire. Their deaths, which were from their own perspective a tragic waste of all of their future service to the Lord, nevertheless were made to serve a greater purpose by the Lord. Their execution by the Lord Himself became a startling lesson on the level of seriousness attached to the holiness of the Lord as represented in the tabernacle. Their deaths became an ongoing object lesson of the cost of disregarding the Lord's boundaries and trampling on His holiness. Their names and their deaths are again mentioned here in this passage to establish an atmosphere of reverent fear of the Lord as an introduction to this chapter which identifies the special calling of the entire tribe of Levites. The lesson applies to us in the New Covenant also. All true believers in Christ are identified as priests in the New Covenant temple of God. We are not Levites, but are called members of a royal priesthood. The physical circumstances of our priesthood service are very different from the Old Testament priesthood service, but the principles still apply. God is still holy, He does not want His holiness violated by disregarding His commands and boundaries as we serve Him now any more than He did in that day. It never ceases to amaze me how many of those who serve the Lord in ministry today ignore or disregard the clear boundaries of the Lord as revealed in His Word. 3:5-9 - "Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, "Bring the tribe of Levi near and set them before Aaron the priest, that they may serve him. They shall perform the duties for him and for the whole congregation before the tent of meeting, to do the service of the tabernacle. They shall also keep all the furnishings of the tent of meeting, along with the duties of the sons of Israel, to do the service of the tabernacle. You shall thus give the Levites to Aaron and to his sons; they are wholly given to him from among the sons of Israel." The Levites were set apart from the other tribes for the Lord. Originally, the Lord had named all the firstborn sons of Israel for His special servants, going back to the night of the first Passover (Exodus 12) when the Lord judged all of Egypt in the death of their firstborn sons. With the failure of the golden calf incident, the Lord named the Levites as a tribe of servants for Himself because they were the one tribe that stood by the side of Moses and the Lord and were willing to do the hard work of executing His judgment upon the rest of the tribes. Now, the Levites are identified in this passage as the servants of Aaron as well as the servants of the Lord. They are named Aaron's servants because of his role as high priest. Aaron represents the Lord Jesus as a symbol of His role as our great High Priest in the New Covenant. We serve Him, and all of our duties in life are given to us through Him. Just as the Levites were "wholly given" to the service of Aaron, we as New Covenant priests are wholly given to the service of Christ Jesus. It is very important that we notice not just that they were given to the high priest's service, but who gave them. It was not the Levites themselves that wholly gave their own service to Aaron! It was the Lord Who wholly gave their service to Aaron. The difference is significant. If the priests gave themselves, then it would mean that they still belonged to themselves and that their service was measured by their own level of commitment. Instead, the Levites belonged to the Lord. They were His. He gave them to serve Aaron, and the measure of their service was that they were obligated to give their all to their service for Aaron. In the same way, we belong to the Lord, not ourselves, and we are obligated to give our all in the service of our high priest. 3:23-26 - "The families of the Gershonites were to camp behind the tabernacle westward, and the leader of the fathers' households of the Gershonites was Eliasaph the son of Lael. Now the duties of the sons of Gershon in the tent of meeting involved the tabernacle and the tent, its covering, and the screen for the doorway of the tent of meeting, and the hangings of the court, and the screen for the doorway of the court which is around the tabernacle and the altar, and its cords, according to all the service concerning them." The Levites were divided into three main groups for purposes of camping, marching, and the work that was assigned to them in relationship to the tabernacle. One group camped to the South of the tabernacle, one camped to the North, and one to the West. The camp of honor nearest the East entrance was reserved for Moses and Aaron. Each group of several thousand Levites was also given specific duties for the tabernacle. The first group, the Gershonites were assigned the actual coverings of the tabernacle, the screens, hangings, and the altar of sacrifice. Each time the Lord led Israel to a new location the Gershonites were to carefully take down all the coverings and hangings and prepare them for transport to the next camp. Their job was to take those items to the next camp and then set everything back in place in the exact order it was in when they broke camp. They were to faithfully do this same job for their entire life! This was no "career path" in which aspiring Levites attempted to climb the ladder of success and move from this job eventually to other "more important" jobs. This job was not a stepping stone to others. They did not choose the job, they were chosen for it. Once chosen, they continued their entire working life in this exact same area of responsibility. The principle here is reflected in the New Testament pattern of the Lord's special purpose for different segments of the body of Christ. "But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills." (I Corinthians 12:11). The Lord does not give the same assignment and spiritual gift to each member of the body. He assigns each a part to play according to His purpose and each is to do the part assigned to him by the Lord. Those spiritual assignments and gifts given to us by the Lord are not things we try for a while to see if we like them, or fulfill until we get bored of them and want to do something else. The assignment is suited for the priest and the priest is suited for the assignment by the Lord's wisdom and design. 4:1-3 - "Then the LORD spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, "Take a census of the descendants of Kohath from among the sons of Levi, by their families, by their fathers' households, from thirty years and upward, even to fifty years old, all who enter the service to do the work in the tent of meeting." Chapter four is the record of another census of the tribe of Levi. In chapter three all the Levites were numbered for the purpose of identifying them as God's chosen replacement for the firstborn sons of all Israel. That census was taken of all the Levites above the age of one month old. This second census is not an unnecessary duplication, but is made for a completely different purpose. This census was to identify all the Levites between the ages of 30 and 50. These ages defined the beginning and end of full time ministry in serving the Lord in the tabernacle. In a later chapter we will see that Levites could begin to serve in a partial capacity as age 25 in what we would call an apprentice or learning and helping position. The earliest age allowed for full service though was age 30. This age was not arbitrary, but chosen for its significance. The age 30 throughout the Bible is the age of prime personal maturity. It is the age that represents when a man has reached his full capacity, not only physically, but in experience and maturity. We have many examples of the age 30 being a key age. Besides it being the age for Levitical service, Joseph became Pharaoh's regent at 30, Saul became king at 30, David became king at 30, John the Baptist began his ministry at 30, and of course Jesus began His ministry at 30 also. 4:4-6 - "This is the work of the descendants of Kohath in the tent of meeting, concerning the most holy things. When the camp sets out, Aaron and his sons shall go in and they shall take down the veil of the screen and cover the ark of the testimony with it; and they shall lay a covering of porpoise skin on it, and shall spread over it a cloth of pure blue, and shall insert its poles." The Kohathites were given a special responsibility to carry the ark of God whenever the Lord led Israel to a new location in their wilderness journey. They were to carry the ark to each new location, but they were not allowed to prepare the ark for transport. That job was only to be done by Aaron and his sons. When it was time to dismantle the tabernacle and move, the first task to accomplish before anything else was that Aaron and his sons were to enter the Holy Place. There they were to take the veil which separated the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies and walking forward holding the veil they were to cover the ark of the covenant with the veil. Then, on top of the veil they also covered the ark with a leather covering. Our translation calls this leather covering "porpoise skin" but there is debate among Bible scholars regarding the translation of the Hebrew word translated porpoise. There are in the nearby Red Sea a type of porpoise, also known as Sea Cows, and it is possible that the Lord intended Israel to use the skins of this animal, but I agree with some Bible scholars that have concluded this was not porpoise skin. Their reasoning is that porpoise was identied among the animals that the Lord categorized as unclean because of their lack of scales. It is doubtful that the Lord would choose to cover the most holy ark with the skin of an unclean animal. It is more likely the leather of one of the clean animals that was used for the covering. 4:15-20 - "When Aaron and his sons have finished covering the holy objects and all the furnishings of the sanctuary, when the camp is to set out, after that the sons of Kohath shall come to carry them, so that they will not touch the holy objects and die. These are the things in the tent of meeting which the sons of Kohath are to carry. The responsibility of Eleazar the son of Aaron the priest is the oil for the light and the fragrant incense and the continual grain offering and the anointing oil--the responsibility of all the tabernacle and of all that is in it, with the sanctuary and its furnishings." Then the LORD spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, "Do not let the tribe of the families of the Kohathites be cut off from among the Levites. But do this to them that they may live and not die when they approach the most holy objects: Aaron and his sons shall go in and assign each of them to his work and to his load; but they shall not go in to see the holy objects even for a moment, or they will die." Though the Kohathites were to carry the ark it was critical that they never did either of two things which the Lord considered a violation of His holiness. These two violations were considered so serious by the Lord that transgressions were met with an instant death penalty from the Lord. The Lord's boundaries for their service were to never touch any of the holy objects of the Lord's house as they transported them, and to never see those objects uncovered. This required Aaron and his sons to take great care to properly cover everything within the house of God before the appropriate Levites were allowed to lift them and carry them. In order to carry items that could not be directly touched, the Lord had ordained a ring and pole system for each of the furnishings of the tabernacle. The Kohathites were allowed to lift the poles bearing the furniture, but never actually touch the furniture. Even entering the tabernacle too soon, before the furniture was properly covered and seeing the furniture directly would result in their deaths. This practical boundary was the way the Lord chose to emphasize in symbol the New Covenant principle that the way into heaven was not yet open (Hebrews 9:8-15). The tabernacle was an earthly representation of heaven. For even a Levite to see or touch the furniture of the tabernacle was effectively saying that they had the right based upon their own righteousness to enter heaven. The reason for the death penalty for any violation of this principle was to declare that those who try to enter heaven apart from Christ deserve only death. This was not an idle threat by the Lord. During a later time in the history of Israel, the ark of the Lord was transported in a way that violated the Lord's commands. During the transport a man reached out an touched the ark with the intent to steady it from falling and for daring to touch the ark he was instantly killed by the Lord (II Samuel 6:1-7). 4:19 - "But do this to them that they may live and not die when they approach the most holy objects: Aaron and his sons shall go in and assign each of them to his work and to his load;" A now familiar theme is once again emphasized here. Every Levitical priest served the Lord according to the work responsibilities that were assigned to him. The assignment was not his choosing. Today, in order to maintain high enlistment numbers for military service it is a common practice for military recruiters to allow the potential recruit to choose their own assignment. This caters to the natural preference we all have to have things our own way, even in our work and calling. God's kingdom follows a different principle. The core principle of Kingdom callings and work is that God is wiser than we are. He sees and knows where we best fit. If we were left to choose for ourselves what our spiritual life assignments would be, most of us would have chosen something that made us comfortable, not what would make us most fruitful. For myself, I had no desire and no plan as a new believer to one day be engaged in church leadership or to become a Bible teacher. Had you suggested those assignments to me I would have laughed at you and then run the other way. The Lord's purpose and assignment for me was His wisdom, not mine. Ask Jonah whether we would always choose what the Lord would choose in handing out Kingdom assignments. Questions from Numbers 3: Question: Numbers 3:1-3 - Nadab and Abihu offered strange fire to God and died. What makes a fire strange? How they will know they are offering it right before the Lord? Answer: The fire Nadab and Abihu offered was strange not because it was some unusually kind of fire, but because it was fire the Lord had not commanded or instructed them to offer. The Lord wanted only the fire He ordained offered within His own house. They violated God's house by offering fire against His command on the Altar of Incense. They disregarded the Lord's instructions regarding who, when and why the incense was to be offered. The lesson for us is that obedience is better than sacrifice. It is not acceptable to serve the Lord according to our own rules and ideas if we are disobeying the Lord in that service. Question: Could you give an example how people ministering today violate Gods clear boundaries? And why don't we see God striking them down, like he did with Nadab, and Abihu? Answer: It is a violation of God's boundaries for those serving God in ministry to be involved in adultery, unbiblical divorce, drug abuse, mixing New Age elements in with Biblical teaching, misuse of ministry funds, homosexuality, drunkenness, and many other things that could be mentioned, yet there are church and even large ministry leaders that commit such violations and continue in "ministry." I cannot explain why God does not strike down more than He does, other than by reference to His great mercy, and long suffering. Question: Numbers 3:4 - "But Nadab and Abihu died before the Lord when they offered strange fire before the Lord in the wilderness of Sinai; and they had no children." In reading this example (again) and a few chapters back the man who was stoned for using the Lord's name in vane, are we as the royal priesthood suppose to support and encourage movies, plays, books, etc. that use the Lord's name in vain by going to them and/or buying/renting them? My thinking is that virtually everything produced in Hollywood can be assumed to be perverse and offensive to God and we the Royal Priesthood should boycott it all. Am I too extreme in my "boycotting" attitude? Answer: I would not fault you for boycotting most of what originates in Hollywood today. Not every movie and TV show takes the name of the Lord in vain, but too many do and we should certainly not be entertained by what insults the holy Name. Each believer and believing family must discern their own standards for how much of the surrounding culture to embrace when it comes to entertainment choices. I personally do not practice a complete boycott and instead attempt to discern and decide on a case by case basis, but any believer who chooses a full boycott has my respect as well as long as they maintain the ability to effectively interact with the culture around them in order to represent the kingdom of God effectively. 5:5-8 - "Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, "Speak to the sons of Israel, 'When a man or woman commits any of the sins of mankind, acting unfaithfully against the LORD, and that person is guilty, then he shall confess his sins which he has committed, and he shall make restitution in full for his wrong and add to it one-fifth of it, and give it to him whom he has wronged. But if the man has no relative to whom restitution may be made for the wrong, the restitution which is made for the wrong must go to the LORD for the priest, besides the ram of atonement, by which atonement is made for him.'" The great concern of this chapter is the spiritual integrity of the camp of Israel because it is the camp of God's holy nation and the Lord Himself dwells in the midst of the camp. The issue of course is that the Lord in His perfect holiness dwells in the midst of a people who are far from perfectly holy. The tabernacle and the many sacrifices the Lord ordained were the Lord's provision for the issue of sin so that as sins were committed by any man or woman of Israel there was a solution close at hand. However, the tabernacle sacrifices were not designed by the Lord to remove from the one who had sinned all responsibility for their sin. The sacrifices properly offered did remove whatever judgment from God they would have received had they not made that sacrifice. The sacrifice did not resolve however the sinner's community responsibility. The Biblical understanding of sin is that it creates consequences in two directions; both vertical and horizontal. The effect of sin was to corrupt both the sinner's relationship with God (vertical) and their relationship with the community (horizontal). Once the appropriate sacrifice was offered for a sin, the vertical relationship with God was restored, but the horizontal relationship with the community still needed to be addressed. In this passage, any of a number of different kinds of sins is addressed but they would all involve sins against other people. Even though the sin committed was against another person, the first concern is that the person had acted "unfaithfully against the Lord." If I murder, commit adultery, steal from you, bear false witness against you, or covet something that belongs to you, I have sinned not only against you, but against the Lord. My first and greatest accountability is always to Him, because ultimately it is His Law and holiness that has been violated. The other element given here to resolve the horizontal responsibility is that the guilty person must confess their sin. The target of their confession is not specified here, but the most likely conclusion is that they should confess first to the Lord in the presence of the priest handling the sacrifice for their sin, and then subsequently to the person against whom they sinned. There is an implication of a subsequent confession to the person that was sinned against because following the confession there is an additional responsibility to make restitution to that person. Without a confession of sin an attempt at restitution would be unclear or even confusing. The restitution requirement was to add 20% of the value of the wrong and pay the person that was hurt in some way by the sin. The value of the transgression was not up to the one that sinned to determine, but was according to the standards established by the Lord in the Law. In any case in which the value was uncertain from the Law the Levitical priest would assign an appropriate value. This requirement of a fully expressed horizontal repentance as carried out in a confession of sin and a monetary restitution insured both the continuing unity of the nation in community relations and served as a highly effective deterrent against future temptations. The confession requirement struck a powerful spiritual blow against the root of pride in the heart of the offender and the restitution at an increased 20% value was costly enough to discourage continued transgressions in the future. As was mentioned in an earlier study, the restitution principle also eliminated the need for a prison system in a constantly traveling community. Any crime that was exceeded the resolution of restitution was dealt with by a quickly carried our death penalty. Anything less than a death penalty offence was addressed in a way that did not create career criminals and a criminal welfare system (prison). 5:11-16 - "Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, "Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, 'If any man's wife goes astray and is unfaithful to him, and a man has intercourse with her and it is hidden from the eyes of her husband and she is undetected, although she has defiled herself, and there is no witness against her and she has not been caught in the act, if a spirit of jealousy comes over him and he is jealous of his wife when she has defiled herself, or if a spirit of jealousy comes over him and he is jealous of his wife when she has not defiled herself, the man shall then bring his wife to the priest, and shall bring as an offering for her one-tenth of an ephah of barley meal; he shall not pour oil on it nor put frankincense on it, for it is a grain offering of jealousy, a grain offering of memorial, a reminder of iniquity. Then the priest shall bring her near and have her stand before the LORD," This law is among the most mysterious laws of the Old Testament. It addressed a problem that might arise in a marriage that is not uncommon in our own generation, or any other. The circumstance covered two possible cases that arose from a rising suspicion in one of the husbands of Israel that their wife had not been faithful to them. The suspicion of adultery without any evidence or tangible reason for that suspicion was addressed by this law. Because marriage was originally designed by the Lord as a sacred covenant between one man and one woman, and established by the one flesh bond formed in their physical union (Genesis 2:21-24), any concern that arose about the faithfulness of one's marriage partner was a very serious matter. However, the penalty under the Law for violating the marriage covenant by adultery was deadly serious. Confirmed adultery was a death penalty sin. The punishment under the Law was death by stoning. Suspicion alone was not sufficient grounds to enact such a severe law. At the same time, the Lord did not completely dismiss the suspicions of unfaithfulness that might arise in one's heart regarding their mate. The Lord identified this growing suspicion by a more spiritual description. He referred to it as a "spirit of jealousy" coming over the husband in this case. The implication of calling it a spirit of jealousy is that the Spirit of God may be the source of this jealousy. If a wife had been unfaithful, the Lord may alert the husband of the wife's wayward actions by stirring within him a sense of her wandering. Of course, there was also the possibility that the husband could be jealous for no good reason even if his wife was perfectly faithful to him. Either way, this jealous spirit would need to be resolved. Unresolved suspicion in a marriage is deadly to the foundation of trust upon which the marriage is based. The Lord made for Israel a special ceremonial ritual to once for all resolve such jealous suspicions. The jealous husband was to bring his wife to the tabernacle and offer a grain offering on her behalf. Then, once the offering was made, she was caused to "stand before the Lord." This occurred in the courtyard of the tabernacle. Neither the woman nor her husband would be allowed to enter the actual tent of the tabernacle, but having made the required offering she would stand between the altar of sacrifice and the door of the tabernacle facing the presence of the Lord in His house. The entire scene was intentionally very intimidating. It evoked the holy fear of the Lord and that both accused and accuser were accountable to Him. It was intended to create in everyone involved an immediate awareness of the direct oversight of the Lord. 5:17-24 - "and the priest shall take holy water in an earthenware vessel; and he shall take some of the dust that is on the floor of the tabernacle and put it into the water. The priest shall then have the woman stand before the LORD and let the hair of the woman's head go loose, and place the grain offering of memorial in her hands, which is the grain offering of jealousy, and in the hand of the priest is to be the water of bitterness that brings a curse. The priest shall have her take an oath and shall say to the woman, "If no man has lain with you and if you have not gone astray into uncleanness, being under the authority of your husband, be immune to this water of bitterness that brings a curse; if you, however, have gone astray, being under the authority of your husband, and if you have defiled yourself and a man other than your husband has had intercourse with you" (then the priest shall have the woman swear with the oath of the curse, and the priest shall say to the woman), "the LORD make you a curse and an oath among your people by the LORD'S making your thigh waste away and your abdomen swell; and this water that brings a curse shall go into your stomach, and make your abdomen swell and your thigh waste away." And the woman shall say, "Amen. Amen." 'The priest shall then write these curses on a scroll, and he shall wash them off into the water of bitterness. Then he shall make the woman drink the water of bitterness that brings a curse, so that the water which brings a curse will go into her and cause bitterness.'" It is this portion of the law of jealousy that is most mysterious. Once the sacrifice was offered and the wife suspected by her husband of unfaithfulness was standing before the Lord, the priest officiating was to carry out a strange ritual. The priest was to take an earthen vessel, which was a symbolic reminder of the spiritual weakness of fallen human beings (II Corinthians 4:7). Then he was to take some of the water from the laver before the entrance of the tabernacle, and some of the dust from the floor of the tabernacle (holy ground). He was to mix the dust of the tabernacle into the water from the laver. Then the priest was to loosen the hair of the woman (a cultural symbol of physical intimacy), and have her take an oath in the presence of the Lord. The oath was a pronouncement by the priest of the blessing of protection in case she was innocent of unfaithfulness, and the curse of the Lord's judgment if she was secretly guilty of being unfaithful to her husband. Then the priest was to write the oath on a scroll. Once he wrote the oath, he was then to wash the words from the scroll into the same water in the earthen vessel. Then, finally, the woman was to drink the water from the earthen vessel that had been either blessed or cursed depending upon her hidden behavior. Some have confused this strange ritual with a magical rite. This was not magical at all. There was no special property in the earthen vessel, the water, or the words washed into the water. It did not actually change into a physically poisonous substance at all. The power of the ritual was not in its physical elements, but in its symbolism, and in the Lord Who was there using this entire process to impact the hearts of those involved about the seriousness of covenant relationship with Him, and covenant marriage with one another. If the woman was innocent of unfaithfulness she would be unaffected by drinking the mixture in the earthen vessel, and her continuing good health was the Lord's confirming testimony for the sake of her suspicious husband and the observing community that she was a virtuous and faithful woman. If, on the other hand, she had been secretly unfaithful in adultery, the mixture she drank would have a profound and immediate impact on her health. She would experience severe physical consequences in the specific areas of her body that were sinfully misused in her adultery. We, of course, have no such recourse in a practical sense today when struggling with rising jealousy in marriage. There is no physical tabernacle or temple for us to go get our concerns resolved. There is no special water mixed with dust to drink. That does not mean that the Lord is not just as concerned for the integrity of marriage today as He was then. Our resolution for events and circumstances that we cannot see or know is with the Lord just like it was for them. I would recommend to any couple struggling with such suspicions to seek out a godly pastor and pray with him for the Lord to bring to the light anything hidden that would threaten the health of the marriage. We can be confident in such cases that the Lord will cause to be revealed in one way or another the truth of the matter. 6:1-5 - "Again the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, "Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, 'When a man or woman makes a special vow, the vow of a Nazirite, to dedicate himself to the LORD, he shall abstain from wine and strong drink; he shall drink no vinegar, whether made from wine or strong drink, nor shall he drink any grape juice nor eat fresh or dried grapes. All the days of his separation he shall not eat anything that is produced by the grape vine, from the seeds even to the skin. All the days of his vow of separation no razor shall pass over his head. He shall be holy until the days are fulfilled for which he separated himself to the LORD; he shall let the locks of hair on his head grow long.'" The first twenty one verses of chapter six are the law of the Nazirite. These laws ordained and regulated the special vows that could be made unto the Lord that resulted in the dedication of the person making the vow. Under the Law, there were other kinds of vows that could be made unto the Lord, but the Nazirite vow was for the setting apart of a person in complete holy dedication to the Lord for the duration of the vow. A Nazirite vow could either be lifelong or it could be for a specified period of time with an end period determined at the time of the vow. In order to gain Nazirite status, the one making the vow was required to offer special sacrifices and to maintain certain personal sacrifices for the duration of the vow. If it was a lifelong Nazirite vow, then those personal sacrifices had to be maintained throughout the life of the Nazirite. The personal sacrifices had both a practical element and a spiritual symbolism attached to them. The Nazirite was to abstain from drinking wine, strong drink, sour wine, or even fresh grape juice or any product of the grape vine. The requirement to abstain from anything produced by the grape vine is often mistaken by some Bible teachers as a comment from the Lord against the "evils" of drinking wine or any other alcohol product. This is a misunderstanding of the purpose of this law. It is true that the Nazirite was forbidden to consume alcohol, but only during the time of his vow. Once the vow was completed, they were free to drink wine and once again use the products of the grapevine. If the point was that the drinking of wine was evil due to alcohol content, the ending of the vow would not change the need to avoid the evil. That interpretation also would not address why even the eating of fresh grapes and grape juice was forbidden for the Nazirite since neither is in any way evil. The point was that the grape vine and all of its products symbolically represented Israel itself. The Lord identifies Israel as His grapevine planted in His vineyard (Isaiah 5:1-7). The abstaining from enjoyment of any of the products of the grape vine was designed to display in the life of the Nazirite a vivid reminder that Israel belonged completely to the Lord. This sacrifice was special unto the Lord because the few that chose to undertake the sacrifice of the vow served as the Lord's message to all of Israel to recognize that they belonged to Yahweh and not to themselves. The second required element for the Nazirite was that they were to never cut any hair upon their head for the duration of the vow. This again pointed symbolically to the Lord as a reminder for all of Israel that observed the Nazirite, that the Lord was the head over Israel. The most famous Old Testament Nazirite by far was Samson. His uncut hair was the source of his superhuman strength, not because it had magical properties, but because the Lord honored his vow and blessed him for special purpose with great strength. His true strength was from the Lord, not from his hair. His hair was only the visible symbol of the blessing of the Lord because of the vow. The ultimate meaning of this special category of those who voluntarily sacrificed and set themselves apart for holiness unto the Lord is found in Christ. He is the fulfillment toward which the Nazirite vow pointed in symbol. This is hinted at by the connection between the Hebrew word for Nazirite and the same word used elsewhere in the Law to identify the crown worn by the high priest as he served in the tabernacle. This connection shows that Christ, Who is our high priest, is also the only One to live a perfectly dedicated life unto the Father's will. Christ was the only person in all of history that ever lived their entire life completely dedicated not to their own will, but to the will of God. Jesus only ever did those things which were pleasing to His Father. He never once sinned. He maintained perfect set apart holiness and righteousness throughout His life. In this perfect dedication to the will of God, we cannot perfectly follow Him, but we are called by Him to follow and learn from Him. His dedication and sacrifice of His life in full commitment to the Father's will is the model and example we are called to follow as His disciples. 6:22-27 - "Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, "Speak to Aaron and to his sons, saying, 'Thus you shall bless the sons of Israel. You shall say to them: The LORD bless you, and keep you; The LORD make His face shine on you, And be gracious to you; The LORD lift up His countenance on you, And give you peace.' "So they shall invoke My name on the sons of Israel, and I then will bless them." This is one of a few special blessings of the Old Covenant. It was a blessing given by the Lord to Moses to give to Aaron and his sons. The blessing was not for their personal enjoyment, but for them to pronounce upon all of the nation. It was a priesthood blessing in which the high priest, or his sons, representing the Lord to Israel was to declare these words over Israel. The declaration of the blessing was far more than just repeating them as an empty form or ritual. These words carried the grace and power of God and when appropriately pronounced over the people caused the things described in the blessing to occur in their lives. Again, this was not because the words were like some magical incantation, but because they represented the Lord's mind and heart for His people. As the priest representing the Lord declared this blessing over the people, the Lord would honor His own blessing and move in His power in the lives of the people to bring about what was declared for them. The blessing was a five fold promise of the Lord toward Israel. He promised to keep them which meant that He would watch over them and protect them physically and spiritually. Keeping Israel included protection from such external dangers as invasion from foreign enemies, and such internal dangers as the tendencies of their own hearts to wander from the Lord. The blessing of the Lord would cause His face to shine upon Israel. This is a figure of speech which meant that He would smile favorably upon them as He looked upon them. This did not mean that no matter how they lived or what they did, that the Lord would always smile at them. It meant that the fullness of the Lord's blessing would transform them as a nation so that they would live lives pleasing to the Lord and that He could in turn smile with satisfaction upon. In order for this transformation to take place in Israel to turn them from their stubborn and rebellious tendencies to obedient and submissive to the Lord, it would be absolutely necessary for Him to "be gracious" to them. For them, just like for us, it is only by the grace of God that we can be changed from the people we are by nature to the people we must become in His eternal purpose. The declaration of the Lord lifting His countenance upon Israel is another figure of speech describing the Lord looking directly at Israel with favorable intent. It refers to Israel becoming the object of the Lord's full attention among the nations of the world. Certainly the Lord pays attention to all the nations and all people, but this indicates the special covenant attention given to the favorite of the Lord's heart. The phrase, the apple of the eye, with which we are more familiar communicates the same general idea. The final blessing is that the Lord would give Israel peace. This is the Hebrew word, shalom. It is a special kind of peace in which all is well in one's life. It starts with true peace being established between the Lord and the one so blessed. It implies no controversies and no issues to resolve between the Lord and the person blessed. This is truly the crown of the five fold blessing. This great blessing of shalom between God and His people was to overflow their lives (Psalm 23:5). Some churches have historically made this blessing a part of their church services in which the pastor will pronounce this blessing over the congregation at the end of the service. This is an appropriate New Covenant application of the blessing, but there is an even greater expression of it than how it us used by some churches. This was the blessing that Aaron as high priest was to pronounce over Israel, the chosen people of God. In the New Covenant, our high priest is Christ and through Him God has blessed us with all of these blessings and even greater. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. (Ephesians 1:3-4). 7:1-3 - "Now on the day that Moses had finished setting up the tabernacle, he anointed it and consecrated it with all its furnishings and the altar and all its utensils; he anointed them and consecrated them also. Then the leaders of Israel, the heads of their fathers' households, made an offering (they were the leaders of the tribes; they were the ones who were over the numbered men). When they brought their offering before the LORD, six covered carts and twelve oxen, a cart for every two of the leaders and an ox for each one, then they presented them before the tabernacle." The time frame of this chapter actually takes us back to Exodus chapter 40 when Moses finished setting up the tabernacle. The events of this chapter occurred following the completion of the tabernacle as part of the dedication ceremonies of the beginning of the tabernacle service. That this event was described here in Numbers, rather than in Exodus shows us that while the events in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers follow a general chronology, the primary purpose of the arrangement of the accounts recorded serve a purpose greater than chronology. They are arranged in a thematic order according to the spiritual purpose of the events, and any events described outside of the chronological order are identified like this one. The focus of this chapter is on the twelve days set aside for the twelve tribes of Israel to bring a dedicatory offering for the care of the tabernacle. The probable reason why this series of offerings was separated from the account in Exodus 40 is that in that chapter the emphasis is on what the Lord had done to cause His tabernacle to be built and how He responded to His house once the construction was finished as He filled the house of the Lord with the shekinah glory cloud of His presence. In this chapter, the emphasis is on the appropriate response of the twelve tribes of Israel to the completion of the Lord's house. Both concerns deserve their own section and so the accounts were intentionally separated in this way. This offering was not a product of a bright idea by any one tribe of Israel, or even all the tribes together. They brought very specific offerings by the Lord's design which both honored Him appropriately as the Lord of the tabernacle, and also met an ongoing practical need for the service of the tabernacle. Since the tabernacle was designed as a movable structure which would accompany Israel throughout their journey through the wilderness and even into the Promised Land, it was necessary to be able to efficiently move the parts of the tabernacle from place to place as they traveled. The core of this offering was the giving of carts with teams of bulls to carry the heavier items of the tabernacle such as the curtains and boards. The exception to the use of the carts for transportation is that the holy furnishings such as the ark of the covenant were not to be transported on a cart, but on the shoulders of the Levites assigned to that task. 7:10-17 - "The leaders offered the dedication offering for the altar when it was anointed, so the leaders offered their offering before the altar. Then the LORD said to Moses, "Let them present their offering, one leader each day, for the dedication of the altar." Now the one who presented his offering on the first day was Nahshon the son of Amminadab, of the tribe of Judah; and his offering was one silver dish whose weight was one hundred and thirty shekels, one silver bowl of seventy shekels, according to the shekel of the sanctuary, both of them full of fine flour mixed with oil for a grain offering; one gold pan of ten shekels, full of incense; one bull, one ram, one male lamb one year old, for a burnt offering; one male goat for a sin offering; and for the sacrifice of peace offerings, two oxen, five rams, five male goats, five male lambs one year old. This was the offering of Nahshon the son of Amminadab." Verses 10-83 is one of the longest sections devoted to a single subject in all of the Bible. It is also a classic example of a section that most Bible readers simply skip over after the first few verses. The section is really twelve repeats of identical offerings made by the twelve appointed leaders of the twelve tribes of Israel on twelve consecutive days. The repetition is commonly questioned as readers wonder why Moses wrote out each day's identical offering rather than listing the offering once and then summarizing that all the tribes gave the same offering. We should expect there to be a good reason for the extended description with the understanding that the Lord inspired Moses (II Timothy 3:16) to write the description in this way in order to emphasize an important spiritual principle for our benefit. The principle illustrated in the twelve identical offerings is the significance of shared support of the house of God by the people of God. Each of the twelve tribes representing all of the people of God gave sacrificially in this offering. No tribe bore a greater load than another. Each tribe was trained in this offering to see the value of the Lord and the house of the Lord and to respond with an appropriate gift in honor of the Lord and support of the tabernacle. This lesson is particularly appropriate for the modern body of Christ to learn and apply. Here are two pertinent statistics regarding modern church member giving to the churches that they support with their financial gifts. First, the average church member gives to their church a grand total of 2% of their yearly income. Of course, the Biblical standard of a tithe (10%) for giving back to the Lord from what He has given to us is significantly higher than 2%. The second telling statistic is commonly mentioned in which approximately 20% of the members of most churches give 80% of the total support of the church, while 80% of the members give about 20% of the support total. These statistics do not reflect the Lord's will for church giving, but they do reflect the fairly consistent patterns even among believers. The low giving numbers from the majority are not in most cases due to the church member's not being able to afford to give, but the different priorities revealed by how they choose to use the resources they have. This passage teaches us that no one tribe was intended to carry the majority of the giving burden for the nation. Each tribe was called to give in a way that reflected their full participation in the support and service of the tabernacle. As the Lord had blessed each one, they were to give in a way that expressed that blessing and the great value they placed upon the Lord's presence in their midst. 7:89 - "Now when Moses went into the tent of meeting to speak with Him, he heard the voice speaking to him from above the mercy seat that was on the ark of the testimony, from between the two cherubim, so He spoke to him." Moses was the one exception the Lord allowed to the rule that applied to all of the nation of Israel. Other than Moses, no one who was not a Levitical priest could even enter the tabernacle, and only the high priest was allowed through the veil into the innermost room in the tabernacle. The Lord allowed Moses into His house just like He had called him into the cloud of His glory on Sinai. The Lord also spoke to Moses from the Holy of Holies. The presence of the Lord would manifest in the Holy of Holies in relationship to the ark of the covenant. The voice of the Lord would speak to Moses from above the mercy seat and from between the two cherubim. Moses did not see a form of the Lord, but it is clear from where the Lord chose for His voice to be located that His presence was just above the ark. The mercy seat, which was the lid of the ark and the cherubim overshadowing it served to portray that the Lord was spiritually seated upon the ark. The ark was a physical representation of the throne of God in heaven. The Lord speaking from between the cherubim is another heavenly image. In heaven, there are the living beings called cherubim which fly around the throne of God continuously proclaiming His holiness and majesty. "and before the throne there was something like a sea of glass, like crystal; and in the center and around the throne, four living creatures full of eyes in front and behind. The first creature was like a lion, and the second creature like a calf, and the third creature had a face like that of a man, and the fourth creature was like a flying eagle. And the four living creatures, each one of them having six wings, are full of eyes around and within; and day and night they do not cease to say, "HOLY, HOLY, HOLY is THE LORD GOD, THE ALMIGHTY, WHO WAS AND WHO IS AND WHO IS TO COME." (Revelation 4:6-8). The symbolic communication in this exchange between the Lord and Moses from the Holy of Holies was that the Lord was enthroned in the midst of His chosen people. Their lives were centered around the throne. It was this above all else that distinguished Israel from the nations. They among all the nations were living out their lives in right relationship to the One upon the throne. 8:1-4 - "Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, "Speak to Aaron and say to him, 'When you mount the lamps, the seven lamps will give light in the front of the lampstand.'" Aaron therefore did so; he mounted its lamps at the front of the lampstand, just as the LORD had commanded Moses. Now this was the workmanship of the lampstand, hammered work of gold; from its base to its flowers it was hammered work; according to the pattern which the LORD had shown Moses, so he made the lampstand." There are some details in focus regarding the lampstand in the tabernacle in this section that we have not previously looked at closely. The first is that Aaron was given by the Lord the sole responsibility to mount the lamps upon the lampstand. We saw in previous lampstand studies that the lampstand (menorah) serves as an image of the church in its mission to be the light of the world (Matthew 5:14-16). The overall lampstand represents the church (Revelation 1:20), while the individual lamps represent the individual believers (Proverbs 20:27). The responsibility to mount the lamps on the lampstand was given only to the high priest in symbolic anticipation of the New Covenant. Each believer in Christ is a spiritual lamp that our high priest, Jesus mounts to the lampstand of the church. "But now God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body, just as He desired." (I Corinthians 12:18). Each of us is assigned by the Lord our own place where we belong in the body of Christ. Our proper place in the church is not determined by our own likes, preferences, agenda, or plans, but by His design and purpose for us. Only the Lord knows that design and so He is the One Who places or mounts us to the church according to that design. The lamps were all to be mounted in a similar way. They were mounted so as to give the most light in the space in front of the lampstand. These lamps were made with a spout on one side where the wick rose from the oil. Whichever direction the spout with the wick was turned would receive more of the light from the wick. The high priest was to be careful when daily trimming the wicks and filling each lamp with oil to replace the lamps on the lampstands so that the spout was aimed to the space in front of the lampstand. This insured that a greater amount of light would fill the tabernacle since the lampstand was the only light source within the tabernacle. More than just providing a general ambient light to the entire tabernacle interior, this arrangement of the lamps directed a greater amount of light on the space in front of the lampstand. The tabernacle was designed in a rectangular shape with the lampstand positioned on the inside of the south long rectangle wall. On the north wall opposite the lampstand was the table of showbread with its twelve loaves of bread arranged on the table. The result was that there was a kind of spotlight effect directed toward the table and the bread of the presence (bread of face). This symbolically indicated that one of the primary spiritual purposes of the church is to shine the light of testimony on the presence of the Lord in our midst. It is emphasized again here, as in the original instructions for its construction that the lampstand was to be made of hammered work of gold. The alternative would be to make a mold of the desired shape and pour liquid gold into the mold and allow it to cool in this shape. a pouring process would have made the lampstand much quicker and easier to construct, but at the cost of the strength and integrity of the structure, and the intricacy in the design attainable only by hammering. The hammering process was of a particular kind still seen today in goldsmiths that gold designs by the old method of hammering. The hammer used was nothing large and heavy like for a carpenter's hammer. Instead, this hammer was accomplished with a finer hammer capable of producing intricate details in the gold by a repeated series of tapping blows to the soft gold. By thousands upon thousands of these tapping blows the goldsmith progressively shaped the lampstand from a single large talent of gold (Exodus 25:39). This construction process pointed to the Lord as the master craftsman of the church, shaping us into the glorious design in His mind by the continuing adjustments He applies to the church through His Word. As we remain malleable under His adjustments by maintaining a spirit always willing to yield to the changes required individually and corporately by His Word we eventually develop under His masterful hand into the finished lampstand capable of shining light as we should. 8:9-11 - "So you shall present the Levites before the tent of meeting. You shall also assemble the whole congregation of the sons of Israel, and present the Levites before the LORD; and the sons of Israel shall lay their hands on the Levites. Aaron then shall present the Levites before the LORD as a wave offering from the sons of Israel, that they may qualify to perform the service of the LORD." The Levites were here set apart for their holy service from the remainder of the nation of Israel. The entire nation participated in the dedication of the Levites through the laying on of hands. In laying hands upon the Levites in this way, the Levites were identified as representing all of Israel in their service to the Lord in the tabernacle. They were ordained first and foremost by the Lord, but it was necessary for all the people to confirm their ordination to service through this laying on of hands. The result was that the Levites were identified as spiritually qualified to perform the service of the Lord. This qualification to serve the Lord in this special leadership position finds a New Testament parallel in the qualifications necessary to serve the Lord in the church of the New Covenant in the role of elder. Just as these qualifications must be met before the Levites could enter the tabernacle to serve the Lord, the elders of the church must qualify to serve the Lord in their leadership position in the church (I Timothy 3:1-7, Titus 1:5-9). Those who serve as elders of the church must first meet the spiritual qualifications identified by the Lord. These qualifications are not optional. They do not represent a shifting standard in which a certain percentage of the qualifications must be met, and the rest don't really matter. Like for the Levites, all of the standards named by the Lord must be in place in the life of the one being qualified for this special service, and those qualifications must be maintained without compromise throughout the duration of their service. 8:21-22 - "The Levites, too, purified themselves from sin and washed their clothes; and Aaron presented them as a wave offering before the LORD. Aaron also made atonement for them to cleanse them. Then after that the Levites went in to perform their service in the tent of meeting before Aaron and before his sons; just as the LORD had commanded Moses concerning the Levites, so they did to them." The Levites were prepared for their service to the Lord by a purification process in which all of their sins were first addressed by the necessary sacrifice. In this, we find a parallel to our lives as New Covenant servants of the Lord. All of our service to the Lord must be preceded by our sins being fully cleansed by the death of Jesus on the cross. Our greatest efforts to serve the Lord apart from the cross are unacceptable to the Lord because of the taint of sin upon all of our actions and even all of our intentions. But the cross cleanses those who believe of all sin and makes us clean for the Lord's service. Then, following the purification of their sins by sacrifice the Levites washed their clothing in the way required by the Law. This washing signified the sanctification we experience when we are saved and then baptized in water. Our lives are set apart unto Him and the washing of the clothing conveys this idea. Clean clothing symbolized righteous behavior that was to characterize a life set apart for the Lord. The third element of the ordination of the Levites for the Lord's service was that they were presented to the Lord as a wave offering. The wave offering normally was performed with an animal that had been sacrificed upon the altar in the courtyard of the tabernacle. Once slain, the priest would take a portion of the body of the animal representing the entire animal and lift it before the Lord. This lifting or waving the animal portion was a visible declaration that the one making the offering belonged to the Lord. Here, the Levites did not offer animal parts to the Lord as a wave offering, but instead offered themselves as a wave offering. They were not slain for this offering, but instead offered themselves as a living sacrifice in all their service that would follow this day. It was a vivid way to declare that from this day forward their life and service were His and not their own. This concept is described as the spiritual responsibility of every Christian in Romans. "Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship." (Romans 12:1) 9:1-5 - "Thus the LORD spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the first month of the second year after they had come out of the land of Egypt, saying, "Now, let the sons of Israel observe the Passover at its appointed time. On the fourteenth day of this month, at twilight, you shall observe it at its appointed time; you shall observe it according to all its statutes and according to all its ordinances." So Moses told the sons of Israel to observe the Passover. They observed the Passover in the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, at twilight, in the wilderness of Sinai; according to all that the LORD had commanded Moses, so the sons of Israel did." This was the Lord's command for Israel to celebrate the Passover for the second time as a nation. The first time was one year before on the night that the Lord brought the tenth and final plague judgment upon Egypt. Israel has now been in the wilderness of Sinai for a full year, and the Lord's command confirms that the Passover was not to be relegated to their past, but was to be honored every year. This was intended to be the second of an annual national holy day celebration that would continue each year in perpetuity. Israel also responded with admirable obedience to this command of the Lord this second year, but sadly, it was the last such obedience by Israel for many years. Israel does not keep the Passover again until the end of their wilderness journey (Joshua 5:10). Like with many other portions of God's Law, the emphasis here is on the specific nature of the required response. The Lord wanted them to hold the Passover on a particular day and month on the calendar. They were to obey all the statutes and ordinances of the Passover law. These included all the details of what was to be served in the meal, who was to eat, what their ceremonial condition was to be, what perspective they were to maintain while they ate it, and even what the focus of the conversation was to be during the meal. In other words, the Lord wanted this done a certain way, and any modifications by Israel to the Lord's pattern would not be viewed by Him as healthy innovations, but rebellious disobedience. The seriousness the Lord attached to the celebration of the Passover and the way Israel responded to it is a helpful model for Christians today. We are not required by the Lord to celebrate this specific feast any longer because Christ is our Passover, having fulfilled on the cross all that the feast portrayed in symbol. The principle of the commands of the Lord and the kind of response to God's commands that He expects of His people very much applies to us. It is a strange thing that many Christians treat the commands of the Lord as though they were spiritual options among which they can pick and choose what to obey and what to disregard. When the Lord commands us to love our enemies, He is not making a helpful suggestion. When He commands us to flee from lust, or to allow no corrupt word to proceed out of our mouth, or to not worry about tomorrow, He expects His disciples to obey Him. 9:9-13 - "Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, "Speak to the sons of Israel, saying, 'If any one of you or of your generations becomes unclean because of a dead person, or is on a distant journey, he may, however, observe the Passover to the LORD. In the second month on the fourteenth day at twilight, they shall observe it; they shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. They shall leave none of it until morning, nor break a bone of it; according to all the statute of the Passover they shall observe it. But the man who is clean and is not on a journey, and yet neglects to observe the Passover, that person shall then be cut off from his people, for he did not present the offering of the LORD at its appointed time. That man will bear his sin." This section leads to an addendum to the Passover law in a sense. It involved the case of a group of men that had been ceremonially defiled from handling the body of a person in the camp. As a result they were not ceremonially clean to participate in the Passover. When they sought out Moses for what they should do in this situation they displayed an excellent example for us. The men did not assume that just because they were unclean that they were free to disregard their own participation in the Passover. They wanted to double check first with the Lord through Moses. When Moses sought the Lord for His ruling in such cases they all discovered that to simply skip the Passover would have been a serious dishonor to the Lord. Since the Passover was a display in symbol of the salvation of the Lord, the person who skipped it, even for one year would be saying by their actions that they did not need the Lord's salvation. The Lord then gave a provision under the Law for anyone rendered temporarily unclean or who was away on a distant journey, that they could celebrate the Passover one month later. That extra month's time was the Lord's gracious allowance of enough time to be restored to a clean condition or return home. However, the Lord was also very clear that this was an exception clause to the Passover requirement and only applied in those exceptional circumstances. If a person was not unclean at the time of the Passover, or away on a distant journey, and they just ignored or disregarded the requirement to participate, then that person would be cut off from the covenant nation. Remember to be cut off was to lose all the rights and privileges of covenant status with the Lord and Israel. A person that had been cut off was living under the judgment of God and had no access to the tabernacle and could not bring a sacrifice to the Lord. It was as though they had been stripped of their identity as an Israelite and became as one of the Gentile nations. The closest parallel in the New Covenant to the Passover in terms of what the Lord has given us to remember our salvation in a similar way is the Lord's Supper. We should bring a similar serious minded perspective to our celebration of the Lord's Supper. Believers who casually skip eating of the Lord's Supper in church, or skip church altogether with such a perspective of it as optional are missing the significance of what it is designed by the Lord to convey to our hearts. 9:15-23 - "Now on the day that the tabernacle was erected the cloud covered the tabernacle, the tent of the testimony, and in the evening it was like the appearance of fire over the tabernacle, until morning. So it was continuously; the cloud would cover it by day, and the appearance of fire by night. Whenever the cloud was lifted from over the tent, afterward the sons of Israel would then set out; and in the place where the cloud settled down, there the sons of Israel would camp. At the command of the LORD the sons of Israel would set out, and at the command of the LORD they would camp; as long as the cloud settled over the tabernacle, they remained camped. Even when the cloud lingered over the tabernacle for many days, the sons of Israel would keep the LORD'S charge and not set out. If sometimes the cloud remained a few days over the tabernacle, according to the command of the LORD they remained camped. Then according to the command of the LORD they set out. If sometimes the cloud remained from evening until morning, when the cloud was lifted in the morning, they would move out; or if it remained in the daytime and at night, whenever the cloud was lifted, they would set out. Whether it was two days or a month or a year that the cloud lingered over the tabernacle, staying above it, the sons of Israel remained camped and did not set out; but when it was lifted, they did set out. At the command of the LORD they camped, and at the command of the LORD they set out; they kept the LORD'S charge, according to the command of the LORD through Moses." This section is an overview of the relationship the Lord maintained with Israel throughout the years of their wilderness journey. It also identifies the relationship that Israel maintained with the Lord. The focal point of the relationship from a physical perspective was the tabernacle, and the visible evidence of the presence of the Lord dwelling in the midst of the camp of Israel by filling the tabernacle in the form of a cloud. The cloud was not the presence of the Lord, but a visible covering of the glory presence of Yahweh. The cloud was absolutely essential because without the cloud, Israel would have been exposed to the full expression of God's glory and no one would have survived seeing His glory directly. This is the same cloud that had first led them as a pillar of cloud out from Egypt. It was the same cloud that had settled upon the summit of Mt. Sinai where Moses met with the Lord when he entered into the cloud. Once the tabernacle was completed, the cloud settled upon the tabernacle and covered it as the Lord signified by doing so that He had moved into the tabernacle as His house. The tabernacle was designed to be moved from location to location throughout their journey. The signal that it was time to move to a new location was that the cloud of the Lord's presence which filled the tabernacle would lift from the tabernacle. When it lifted, the cloud remained visible to all the camp of Israel, but now it was clearly in the sky above the tabernacle. When the cloud lifted, the Levites were supposed to prepare the tabernacle for travel, and all of the camp of Israel was to follow their lead and prepare their own tents for the journey. Once the tabernacle was packed and ready for transport, the cloud would move forward leading Israel through the wilderness. Wherever the cloud would stop, that was their next camping place. Israel's responsibility was simple in this relationship. Their job was to always keep an eye on the cloud of the Lord's presence. Wherever the cloud was, their responsibility was to stay close to the cloud. Now the Lord did not send out invitations when it was time to move. He did not ask Israel whether they were favorably inclined for the next step of their journey. The Lord set the agenda and He alone decided both when and where they would move next. When it was time to move He did not first take a survey to gauge the preferences of the majority of Israel for the next camping spot or even whether they were ready to leave the current one. The Lord would just suddenly lift the cloud and when He did everyone was expected to immediately drop whatever they were doing and pack for the journey. Considering human nature, there was no doubt some irritated and exasperated people at times as the cloud lifted at inconvenient times or settled in places they would not have chosen for themselves. This is at the same time a great summary of our own relationship with the Lord. He is the Lord and we are not. He is in charge of our lives and we are not. He determines where we live, how long we stay, and when it is time to move on. The beauty of the relationship is in the graciousness of the Lord to make His direction clear to us and the simplicity of our responsibility to follow Him. As we stay close to His presence we live under the fullness of the blessing of the Lord. If He moves on and we lag behind, or we move forward when He is still camped we face the harsh reality of wilderness life without His protecting, providing, guiding presence. Questions from Numbers 8: Question: 8:7 - "sprinkle purifying water on them" - is this where the concept of sprinkling "holy" water came from in the Catholic Church? Answer: It is possible that this is the source of what developed later into the Catholic tradition of sprinkling with holy water for baptism. It is certainly an interesting parallel. There is also a similarity to the location of the laver holding the water just outside the entrance of the tabernacle, and the location of the receptacle for the holy water just outside the entrance to the sanctuary in Catholic churches. I can't say for certain that this is where early Catholic leaders came up with the idea for a holy water receptacle though because I am not that familiar with the origins of the many Catholic traditions that have no basis in the New Testament Scriptures. Question: 8:17 - You touched on the connection between the first born sons of Israel and the Levites a few days ago. Does the Lord still consider the first born sons of Israel His? Verse 17 uses the word "is" - does that mean they continue to be in some respect? Answer: The significance of the word "is" in 8:17 is not pointing into the New Covenant, but is emphasizing at that moment the present ownership of the Lord of all the firstborn of Israel. Don't read it as a "is and always will be" statement. To do so would be reading into the text a meaning that is not there and is not intended. The heart of your question though is whether the natural firstborn of natural Israelites still occupy a special place in God's covenant today simply on the basis of having been physically born into that family. The straight answer to that question is a firm no. First, on a practical level it is impossible for anyone to even know with 100% certainty whether they are descended from Israel today because all of the official genealogical records of Israel were destroyed in 70AD in the fire in the temple in Jerusalem. Going even further back than that, the only tribe of the twelve tribes of Israel that is even partially identified today is Judah (Jews) since the other tribes were "lost" and never restored in the conquest of the northern kingdom of Israel by the Assyrians. If 8:17 applied today in the way you are asking it would have to apply to all 12 tribes, not just the Jews. There is one sense however in which we can say that 8:17 has an ongoing application. It is a spiritual application, not a physical one. "He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything." (Colossians 1:18). Christ is identified as the firstborn. He has permanent special covenant status with God the Father. Through Him, we who believe in Him are also given permanent special covenant status with God. "But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven..." (Hebrews 12:22-23). 10:1-5 - "The LORD spoke further to Moses, saying, "Make yourself two trumpets of silver, of hammered work you shall make them; and you shall use them for summoning the congregation and for having the camps set out. When both are blown, all the congregation shall gather themselves to you at the doorway of the tent of meeting. Yet if only one is blown, then the leaders, the heads of the divisions of Israel, shall assemble before you. But when you blow an alarm, the camps that are pitched on the east side shall set out." The Lord gave Moses one final task to accomplish before He led Israel away from the camp at Sinai through the wilderness. He was to have made two silver trumpets. These were not like the ram's horn shofar that was used for other purposes, but these were described by the Jewish historian Josephus as straight tubes just under two feet long with a bell shape at the end. The trumpets were to be used to give additional order to the camp and march of Israel beyond the visible signal of the cloud of the Lord's presence lifting and settling. The lifting of the cloud was the signal to prepare to move, and the movement of the pillar of cloud was the signal to set out on the march following the cloud, but the Lord did not want his people following Him in a loose conglomeration of people moving like a giant clump through the wilderness. Each tribal group of three tribes was given an audible signal to move out in order by blasts from these trumpets. The result was that the nation moved in a very orderly arrangement and from a top down view would appear more like an organized army on the march, than a single mass of people. The trumpets were also blown for gatherings of the people in the camp to call them to the tabernacle, but the sounding of the trumpets for the journey was called an alarm. The traveling blasts of the trumpets were an alarm, not because it signaled an emergency, but because they marched on the alert as an army marches, and not as tourists strolling to see the sights. The trumpets were fashioned in the same hammering process as the lampstand indicating the importance of the construction and purpose of what was made. They were constructed entirely of silver. The symbolic message of silver trumpets is tied to the Biblical concept of redemption. Any time someone was redeemed under the Law, the price of their redemption was measured in silver. The Lord commanded these redemption trumpets blown every time as Israel was setting out in their journey as a continual reminder that all of Israel was the redeemed of the Lord. Any step of progress they made toward the goal of the Promised Land was only because the Lord had redeemed them from slavery in Egypt and made them His own special people. 10:7-10 - "When convening the assembly, however, you shall blow without sounding an alarm. The priestly sons of Aaron, moreover, shall blow the trumpets; and this shall be for you a perpetual statute throughout your generations. When you go to war in your land against the adversary who attacks you, then you shall sound an alarm with the trumpets, that you may be remembered before the LORD your God, and be saved from your enemies. Also in the day of your gladness and in your appointed feasts, and on the first days of your months, you shall blow the trumpets over your burnt offerings, and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings; and they shall be as a reminder of you before your God. I am the LORD your God." These trumpets were to be handed down and blown throughout the generations of Israel. The law of the trumpet was a perpetual statute, which meant that it was in force for as long as the tabernacle, and later temple remained standing. There were two main purposes for blowing the trumpets. One purpose was for organizing the people of Israel for the march as the army of the Lord. The other purpose was within the camp (and much later in Jerusalem) to call the people to the tabernacle / temple to worship. Both types of the sounding of the trumpets represented the call of God. The trumpet did not sound a voluntary note. When the trumpets of redemption sounded the people of God were all expected to respond with 100% obedience. In the same way, the Lord continues to call His people both to war and to worship today. We should not see our response as voluntary any more than they did. When the Lord calls us to battle in order to take our stand as the people of God in spiritual warfare against the schemes of the evil one (Ephesians 6:10-18), we dare not treat it as an optional exercise which we can disregard if it does not suit us to respond. When the Lord calls us to worship Him together with His people (Hebrews 10:24-25), we must not respond according to our own agenda, priorities, or whether we feel inclined to go that particular Sunday. He has redeemed us by the costly sacrifice of His Son. We owe Him a whole hearted response to His call to war and to worship. 10:33-36 - "Thus they set out from the mount of the LORD three days' journey, with the ark of the covenant of the LORD journeying in front of them for the three days, to seek out a resting place for them. The cloud of the LORD was over them by day when they set out from the camp. Then it came about when the ark set out that Moses said, "Rise up, O LORD! And let Your enemies be scattered, And let those who hate You flee before You." When it came to rest, he said, "Return, O LORD, To the myriad thousands of Israel." When the Lord led them from Sinai, they went forward in the order established by the Lord. In the march order of Israel the tribes traveled in four groups of three tribes each. In the center of the march were the Levites with the tabernacle on carts and carrying its holy furnishings on their shoulders. The one exception to the placement of the furnishings was the ark of the covenant. It did not travel in the center of the march, but occupied the first position at the head of the nation. The Levites assigned to bear the ark upon their shoulders marched ahead in front of everyone. This was ordinarily the opposite of how armies marched into battle in the ancient world. Usually, the king that led his armies into battle did so from the safety of a placement in the middle of his army or even at the rear. The reason for this was to not make the king, who was most valuable to his army as its leader vulnerable to the danger of the battle. The king would typically surround himself with his army as a protection for himself in battle. Here, the ark of the covenant, which represented the throne of God in symbol was at the head of the army of Israel. The reversal was intentional and telling. The image portrayed by this positioning was that the Lord did not hide His throne behind the armies of Israel but led them from the front. He did not need their protection, but instead, He placed Himself in front of them as their protection. Any enemy and resistance they would encounter on their journey would have to deal first with the throne of God before the army of Israel that followed Him. We are also blessed to always follow the Lord into battle. Wherever He ordains for us to fight and conquer in His name, He goes first leading us with the authority and power of His throne. As the camp first set out, Moses cried out and established a tradition that accompanied all their future movements. When Moses cried, "Rise up, O Lord! And let Your enemies be scattered, and let those who hate You flee before You." it was at once both a battle cry, and a declaration of praise directed to the Lord for the sake of the hearts of all Israel. Wherever the Lord would lead, the anticipation was that the people waiting ahead on their journey were not inclined to step aside for the Lord and His people. Every step forward Israel took following the Lord toward and eventually into the Promised Land was a step of spiritual warfare. In that warfare, the supreme confidence of Moses was that the Lord Himself was rising up to scatter His enemies and cause those who hated Him to flee before Him. Moses had seen the awesome hand of God in warfare against the so-called gods of Egypt. Moses had seen the power of God displayed in the opening of the Red Sea. He knew that as they moved forward, their security was based not upon themselves, but upon Him. Then, each time they camped wherever the pillar of cloud rested, Moses would cry out, "Return, O LORD, To the myriad thousands of Israel." This was a declaration that each place they camped now became their possession because it was His possession. Each place the Lord led them and established His house with the camp of Israel around Him was a renewal of their covenant relationship. 11:1-3 - "Now the people became like those who complain of adversity in the hearing of the LORD; and when the LORD heard it, His anger was kindled, and the fire of the LORD burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp. The people therefore cried out to Moses, and Moses prayed to the LORD and the fire died out. So the name of that place was called Taberah, because the fire of the LORD burned among them. It does not take long for the hopeful tone of chapter 10 as Israel sets out on their journey to the Promised Land to turn sour. Soon after leaving their camp of nearly a year at the foot of Mt.. Sinai and heading further into the desert wilderness, the nation on the march begin to complain. The reason for the complaint of the people is not detailed for us here, but we can draw a conclusion from the description we are given. They "became like those who complain of adversity." Their complaint arose out of their shared circumstance of adversity. There was no great problem or crisis that caused this complaint. It arose simply out of leaving the comfort of camp and familiar surroundings and having to begin the long and arduous walk to Canaan. They did not specifically direct their complaint to the Lord. It would have been better if they had by praying through their struggles in direct communication to the Lord. Instead, they complained about their circumstances to one another. Even then, they were not sharing their difficulty with one another to seek help and encouragement to trust the Lord from their fellow Israelites. They were only complaining to give vent to their frustrations and it produced no good fruit in those who heard it. The only thing that can come from such complaining is to stir a similar attitude in others, and undermine their own trust in the Lord. It was not just their neighbors that heard the complaints. The Lord heard every complaint as well. He did not respond with compassion and concern to their complaints however. Their complaints kindled the Lord's anger like a fire is kindled. The Lord was angry with them because their complaints really targeted more than their difficult circumstances. Their complaints ultimately were aimed at the Lord Who had brought them into this wilderness. He was responsible for them being here, and they did not like it. Their complaints exposed a serious lack of appreciation for all the Lord had done for them, and showed just how deeply self-centered Israel was. In order for God's great redemptive purpose for His chosen nation of Israel to be fulfilled it was necessary for them to pass through the difficulty of the wilderness on the way to the Promised Land. Israel was not willing to endure some hardship for God's glorious purpose. This is what kindled the anger of the Lord. The consequence of the complaints of Israel was that a fire from the Lord burned the outskirts of the camp. This was a judgment from the Lord, but it was also filled with His grace. Rather than the severe judgment they deserved, there was no loss of life, only a strong warning in the fire that burned the outskirts of the camp of the dangerous nature of their complaints toward Him. Israel should have taken this warning of the burning at Taberah to heart and shut the lid on all temptations to grumble and complain. Tragically, they were not deeply affected by the burning, and shortly after this indulged in an even more serious episode of complaining against the Lord. 11:4-6 - "The rabble who were among them had greedy desires; and also the sons of Israel wept again and said, "Who will give us meat to eat? We remember the fish which we used to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic, but now our appetite is gone. There is nothing at all to look at except this manna." The rabble mentioned in verse 4 were the people that traveled with Israel out of Egypt. They were not Israelites, but a mixture of some of the slaves that had been freed along with Israel in the Ten Plagues, and probably some of the poorer Egyptians also. The rabble were not spiritually healthy and here are identified as being influenced by greedy desires. Of course, they did not keep their greedy desires a secret, but influenced Israel to share their desires. Israel followed the lead of the rabble, and began to voice their complaint about the daily menu provided by the Lord in the wilderness. For a year now Israel and the rabble had been blessed with a miraculous provision from heaven of manna, six days out of each seven. The manna was provided in a perfect amount to meet the need of every man, woman, and child in the wilderness. It was simple food, which we can safely assume was perfectly nutritious. The people were able to prepare and serve in a number of ways to give some variety to their diet. None of that was taken into account by the people so blessed to have this bread from heaven on a daily basis. No doubt, the manna was enjoyable at first as a novelty, a new taste, and much needed provision. But, that appreciation for the manna had long since worn thin in the perspective of Israel and the rabble. After a year of eating manna, the people began to reminisce about their former diet. They remembered the greater menu options of their Egyptian diet including fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as the flavorful garlic and onions, and the fish from the Nile river. In their complaint about their diet, they showed a serious absence of spiritual perspective. They remembered those foods of Egypt of having been available to them "free in Egypt." They were correct in a technical sense, but completely wrong in the big picture. Those foods were provided to Israel free of charge in Egypt because they were slaves in Egypt and their Egyptian masters provided those foods for them for "free." This really meant that the foods of Egypt were not free at all, but the provisions of their miserable slavery. Their hearts should have rejoiced at each day's taste of manna because it was a daily reminder of the miraculous provision of God Who had led them from slavery into freedom. Instead, they quickly forgot the misery of their former slavery and could only remember the meals they ate at the beginning and end of long hard days of slave labor. When they were slaves, they cried out in torment to the Lord to deliver them. Now that He had answered their cry in His compassion and was feeding them daily the bread of freedom, they could only complain about losing their slave's diet. For those who have been saved in the New Covenant by the power and grace of God, learn from the fleshly short-sighted perspective of these complaining Israelites, and be eternally grateful for the provision of the Lord in your new life. There is nothing you enjoyed in your old life before salvation that you should miss to complain about. 11:10-17 - "Now Moses heard the people weeping throughout their families, each man at the doorway of his tent; and the anger of the LORD was kindled greatly, and Moses was displeased. So Moses said to the LORD, "Why have You been so hard on Your servant? And why have I not found favor in Your sight, that You have laid the burden of all this people on me? Was it I who conceived all this people? Was it I who brought them forth, that You should say to me, 'Carry them in your bosom as a nurse carries a nursing infant, to the land which You swore to their fathers'? "Where am I to get meat to give to all this people? For they weep before me, saying, 'Give us meat that we may eat!' "I alone am not able to carry all this people, because it is too burdensome for me. So if You are going to deal thus with me, please kill me at once, if I have found favor in Your sight, and do not let me see my wretchedness." The LORD therefore said to Moses, "Gather for Me seventy men from the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and their officers and bring them to the tent of meeting, and let them take their stand there with you. Then I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take of the Spirit who is upon you, and will put Him upon them; and they shall bear the burden of the people with you, so that you will not bear it all alone." There is a strong statement in this account of the influence of murmuring and complaining on the hearts of others, even the hearts of leaders. Moses was not oblivious to the complaints of the people about their diet of manna. Even though the complaints were not really directed at him, but the Lord, Moses was himself impacted by them. He was weighed down by the poor attitudes of the people and even though he began to struggle with his own attitude, he did the right thing by not voicing his complaint to the people or even his fellow leaders, but to the Lord. Moses approaches the Lord in his struggles, and while he is not a model of immovable faith here, he does cry out to the Lord expects to find the resolution to his problem with the Lord. Moses is not unmoved by the growing dissatisfaction of the people. He cries to the Lord with an inappropriate complaint of his own. "Why have you been so hard on Your servant, and why have I not found favor in Your sight, that You have laid the burden of all this people on me?" The exasperation of Moses with the people is understandable given their selfish, short-sighted complaints, but his frustration with the Lord is misplaced. First, was it true that the Lord had been so hard on him by appointing him to lead Israel? No, it was indeed a hard assignment, but the Lord had not been so hard on him. So hard implies an unfair assignment. Remember this if you are ever in a place of struggling with the Lord's assignment for you in His kingdom service. The Lord's most important assignments are hard because so much is at stake and there will always be spiritual opposition to the will of God. Yet, the Lord has never been, or ever will be so hard on His servants to give them unfair tasks. Moses may have begun his prayer in a complaint mode from the influence of the attitudes of the people, but the real concern of his prayer was a legitimate issue that the Lord received without rebuke and answered immediately with a change in Israel's leadership that would lighten the load on Moses somewhat. Moses pointed out the burden of the nation upon him. No man, other than the Lord Jesus, is capable of carrying the burden of spiritual leadership of God's people without help. The Lord responded to the cry of Moses by implementing a greater degree of shared leadership over Israel. Seventy elders of the nation were marked out (possibly the same seventy that had earlier gone with Moses part way up Sinai and had eaten in the presence of the Lord's glory), in order to share a greater measure of the responsibilities that Moses carried. This was not simply a human appointment to greater leadership, but the Lord would equip these seventy men to function in part as Moses himself. The Lord did so by granting these seventy elders a measure of the Spirit of God that was upon Moses. This confirms for us that Moses was no superman, but was special in ministry because of a special measure of the Spirit upon him. A unique aspect of the Spirit's ministry is also revealed here that applies to our own experience in the New Covenant. The Lord took from the Spirit upon Moses and put the Spirit upon these men. In natural terms we would expect the Spirit upon Moses to now be less or diminished. However, the Spirit is not a thing, or substance of a limited amount. The Spirit of God is as infinite as God Himself. The Spirit's influence upon Moses was just as strong after this as before, while He also now extended His influence in a more powerful way upon these seventy elders. 11:18-20, 31-34 - "Say to the people, 'Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, and you shall eat meat; for you have wept in the ears of the LORD, saying, "Oh that someone would give us meat to eat! For we were well-off in Egypt." Therefore the LORD will give you meat and you shall eat. 'You shall eat, not one day, nor two days, nor five days, nor ten days, nor twenty days, but a whole month, until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you; because you have rejected the LORD who is among you and have wept before Him, saying, "Why did we ever leave Egypt?'" ... "Now there went forth a wind from the LORD and it brought quail from the sea, and let them fall beside the camp, about a day's journey on this side and a day's journey on the other side, all around the camp and about two cubits deep on the surface of the ground. The people spent all day and all night and all the next day, and gathered the quail (he who gathered least gathered ten homers) and they spread them out for themselves all around the camp. While the meat was still between their teeth, before it was chewed, the anger of the LORD was kindled against the people, and the LORD struck the people with a very severe plague. So the name of that place was called Kibroth-hattaavah, because there they buried the people who had been greedy." As the people continued their complaints about their diet, the Lord decided to respond. His response is very interesting and holds as we should expect a serious lesson for us. After a certain amount of complaining about the manna and the lack of the foods of Egypt, the Lord decided to give the people what they were whining about. He announced to them that He was going to provide meat for their diet. But, the provision came with a clear note of displeasure. It was not that the Lord considered their complaint and decided that maybe the people were right after all and that He had been too miserly in His provision of food for them. The new provision of meat was not a gracious provision from the Lord, but His discipline for them in tangible form. Before the meat arrived, the Lord warned Israel through Moses. The Lord was going to provide, not just a day's measure of meat, or a week, but a full month's amount. Moses clued the people in to what this meat would mean when he declared that they would eat it until it came out of their nostrils and they came to loath it. Moses also identified the real issue behind their food complaints. Their complaint was really a rejection of the Lord and His salvation from Egypt. In spite of this powerful word of rebuke from Moses, the people were thrilled when a wind brought so many quail surrounding their camp that each person that went out to gather the quail to eat gathered at least ten homers full (the equivalent of about 60 bushels full). After they gathered the quail and began their feast, suddenly things turned from glee at their good fortune to great sorrow. As soon as they began to eat, the Lord judged the people with a very severe plague. Many of those who were most greedy died in that place. Their grave sites became a permanent warning to all future generations of Israel. The place was named the Graves of Craving. The costly lesson is that those who crave what the Lord has not ordained for their lives may be given what they craved, but the end result is only death. No good thing can come from disregarding what the Lord has provided and lusting for that which the Lord has not. 12:1-3 - "Then Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married (for he had married a Cushite woman); and they said, "Has the LORD indeed spoken only through Moses? Has He not spoken through us as well?" And the LORD heard it. (Now the man Moses was very humble, more than any man who was on the face of the earth.)" In chapter 11, just prior to this incident, there was a costly lesson for the entire nation at the Graves of Craving when the Lord taught all of Israel about His disdain for grumbling and complaining among the people of His holy nation. Yet, in the next recorded incident following the judgment of the Lord upon the grumbling nation we see here that two of the core leaders of the nation have not learned the lesson of the Lord. That these particular leaders spoke against Moses in this way must have been a great test for his heart. Miriam and Aaron were not just important leaders in Israel, they were the natural sister and brother of Moses. He might have expected others to speak against his leadership, but he most likely did not expect those of his own family to speak against him. We are not told in detail how this unhealthy and destructive conversation started between Miriam and Aaron, but we can be sure, that like all conversations, this one started with one of them raising the issue to the other. Whoever started the conversation will bear the greater responsibility for it, but that does not mean that the one who first listened was without sin. The one who chose to initiate an inappropriate conversation aimed at undermining the leadership of Moses was wrong to do so, but the one who first listened without confronting the other and then joining in would bear their own responsibility. We can conclude with probably certainty that this conversation began with Miriam. The two clues that it was her that started the conversation are that she is the one singled out by the Lord for judgment from this, and her name is mentioned before Aaron's in verse one, indicating that it was her that first spoke against Moses, with Aaron being drawn into speaking against him through her. There were two issues with Moses that they discussed. The first issue is what is commonly called a smokescreen. In this context a smokescreen is an issue that does not address the real concern, but is used to cover the real issue in a way that obscures that the person that raised it is doing something wrong. The smokescreen issue was the wife of Moses. They did not like that Moses had married a Cushite woman. Nothing in this passage or others identifies for us exactly why they would have been bothered with him marrying a Cushite woman, but the best explanation is that she was not an Israelite woman. In other words, they were criticizing Moses to each other for having gone outside the covenant people to marry. In the story of that time period of the life of Moses, there is no indication from the Lord that Moses was sinning by marrying her. His life circumstances had taken him out of Egypt where all of the Israelites lived, to forty years in Midian where he married the daughter of Jethro the Midianite. The complaint of Miriam and Aaron presumed an issue of sin with that the Lord had not raised. However, the real heart of the complaint of Miriam and Aaron was not the marriage of Moses but the special calling of Moses. Both Miriam and Aaron were more bothered by a distinction in leadership perception of Moses. Their statement, "Has the LORD indeed spoken only through Moses? Has He not spoken through us as well?" was in essence an accusation that Moses had made himself superior to them in the leadership of the nation and that they were not being given the honor due to them because Moses was withholding it from them. The brief description of the character of Moses that the Lord included at the end of verse three is provided to reveal the true heart attitude of Moses against his accuser's characterization. The only possible explanation if Moses were presenting himself to Israel as the only messenger of the Lord and intentionally pushing Miriam and Aaron into the background would be if Moses was motivated by a heart of pride. The Lord showed that Moses was a truly humble man, rather than a proud man. He had not chosen to become the prophet of God. He had not called himself into this special role. If anything, we saw in the encounter with the Lord at the burning bush that Moses was a reluctant leader who only took the role at God's insistence. For God to identify Moses as more humble than any man on earth, of course, included the comparison to Miriam and Aaron. Their complaint was born out of hearts of pride, as most grumbling about spiritual leadership tends to be. The key phrase is this passage is simple, but critical in its implications. "And the LORD heard it." The Lord heard conversation between Miriam and Aaron. They were not specifically praying. They had not approached the tabernacle to have this conversation. Most likely they had the conversation in private where no one else could hear them. The point is that the Lord is always listening, and paying close attention when the leadership He has appointed is the subject. They should have considered the third person present in the conversation (the Lord) before opening their mouth. 12:4-9 - "Suddenly the LORD said to Moses and Aaron and to Miriam, "You three come out to the tent of meeting." So the three of them came out. Then the LORD came down in a pillar of cloud and stood at the doorway of the tent, and He called Aaron and Miriam. When they had both come forward, He said, "Hear now My words: If there is a prophet among you, I, the LORD, shall make Myself known to him in a vision. I shall speak with him in a dream. "Not so, with My servant Moses, He is faithful in all My household; With him I speak mouth to mouth, Even openly, and not in dark sayings, And he beholds the form of the LORD. Why then were you not afraid To speak against My servant, against Moses?" So the anger of the LORD burned against them and He departed." Up until this point there remained a possibility that Moses was the one wrongly withholding leadership honor from Miriam and Aaron, and that they were right to raise a complaint about him. The Lord made sure that His perspective was clearly understood in this issue they had with Moses. Often, when there are controversial issues in a leadership circumstance, the necessary thing to do is call for a meeting of the leaders. There was a meeting called, but it was not called by Moses, or by Miriam and Aaron. This meeting was called by the Lord. The Lord called all three who were involved to the tent of meeting and then He chose to appear in the form of the pillar of cloud. The Lord wanted all of them to recognize without question that He was personally involved in this meeting. Next, the Lord addressed, not Moses, with whom they had complaints, but Miriam and Aaron who had raised the complaints. When they stepped forward at the command of the Lord, the Lord addressed the real issue with which they were struggling. The Lord did not bring up the smokescreen issue of the wife of Moses. That was not even a consideration in this meeting. Instead the Lord addressed the calling of Moses with a clear comparison of how the Lord had chosen to speak with Moses in contrast of how He would speak to other prophets who would be called to be His messengers. The Lord emphasized that He had given a special privilege to Moses unlike any other prophet. Moses enjoyed a mouth to mouth, face to face relationship with the Lord. Other prophets would receive their communications from the Lord in dreams and visions, but the Lord had invited Moses into the cloud of His glory on Sinai and had revealed more of Himself to Moses than any man in history. In this special relationship, Moses represented the unique relationship Jesus would have with God the Father as His only begotten Son. The Lord fully expected Miriam and Aaron to respect that special status the Lord had granted to Moses. The Lord rebuked them for not having a holy fear of speaking against the Lord's special messenger as they had done. The Lord did not speak this to them in a soft gentle reproof. His anger burned against both of them and He suddenly left the meeting He had called with His last communication to them being this angry rebuke. The response of the Lord to the sin of Miriam and Aaron here shows us that the leaders of God's people are not exempt from the necessary holy fear of respecting the calling and assignments of others in leadership. 12:10-15 - "But when the cloud had withdrawn from over the tent, behold, Miriam was leprous, as white as snow. As Aaron turned toward Miriam, behold, she was leprous. Then Aaron said to Moses, "Oh, my lord, I beg you, do not account this sin to us, in which we have acted foolishly and in which we have sinned. Oh, do not let her be like one dead, whose flesh is half eaten away when he comes from his mother's womb!" Moses cried out to the LORD, saying, "O God, heal her, I pray!" But the LORD said to Moses, "If her father had but spit in her face, would she not bear her shame for seven days? Let her be shut up for seven days outside the camp, and afterward she may be received again." So Miriam was shut up outside the camp for seven days, and the people did not move on until Miriam was received again." How serious was the transgression of Miriam? As soon as the cloud of the Lord's presence withdrew from them, Miriam was white with a leprous condition. This was not a natural development. The Lord caused this to happen to her as His judgment. It was similar to what the Lord had briefly done to the hand of Moses at the burning bush to provide a miraculous demonstration for Pharaoh's court. "The LORD furthermore said to him, "Now put your hand into your bosom." So he put his hand into his bosom, and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous like snow. Then He said, "Put your hand into your bosom again." So he put his hand into his bosom again, and when he took it out of his bosom, behold, it was restored like the rest of his flesh. If they will not believe you or heed the witness of the first sign, they may believe the witness of the last sign." (Exodus 4:6-8). Miriam was inflicted with this condition to show her and anyone that saw her the true nature of complaining against the leadership the Lord had appointed. At the same time, there was mercy and grace of God for her in this development. God did not end her life for what she did, but instead gave her a startling lesson that would last her the rest of her life. The lesson was immediately grasped by Aaron. As soon as he saw the consequence of their shared sin in her flesh, Aaron had a strong change of heart about his actions and cried out in repentance for their sin. He also appealed to Moses to intercede on her behalf with the Lord. The humility of Moses was again demonstrated in him not defending himself, or taking advantage of this situation to rub her misery into their faces. Moses simply did what Aaron had asked of him and cried out to the Lord on behalf of his sister. His prayer was not for God to teach her a lesson, but for God to heal her. The Lord did intend to graciously heal Miriam, but He first wanted her to deeply grasp the enormity of her transgression. The Lord compared her circumstance to a public shame of a father spitting in the face of a daughter. This would only happen under the most extreme circumstances of the daughter shaming the father by her public behavior (Deuteronomy 25:9). In such a case, the daughter that had been scorned in public by her father through spitting would be rendered ceremonially unclean by his spit for seven days. The Lord commanded that Miriam be excluded from the camp of Israel for seven days. This was not petty revenge, but designed to impact Miriam's heart through this seven day exclusion from the camp. When we are disciplined by the Lord, it is never pleasant or easy to endure, but His discipline teaches heart lessons that last far beyond the sin that brought the discipline. Questions from Numbers 11: Question: In Numbers 11:18-20 - Does this passage have to do with gluttony? Answer: No, I don't believe this passage is written to warn us about gluttony in particular. Gluttony has to do with eating too much. The issue for Israel was not that they were eating too much, but that they were complaining about the food that the Lord had provided for them and constantly craving other foods that the Lord had not given them to eat in the wilderness.
13:1-3 - "Then the LORD spoke to Moses saying, "Send out for yourself men so that they may spy out the land of Canaan, which I am going to give to the sons of Israel; you shall send a man from each of their fathers' tribes, every one a leader among them." So Moses sent them from the wilderness of Paran at the command of the LORD, all of them men who were heads of the sons of Israel." As this chapter opens, Israel has traveled from Sinai all the way through the wilderness to an area of Paran, close to the border of the Promised Land. Rather than leading them directly into the Promised Land, the Lord has Israel camp in Paran and first scout ahead. Moses was to send a group of twelve leaders ahead into the land. Each of the twelve tribes would be represented by one leader. The men were to spy out the land of Canaan starting in the south nearest to the camp of Israel and working their way north. They were to evaluate the people of the land; their numbers, their relative military strength, and whether their cities were fortified. They were also to evaluate the land itself and determine whether it was a fruitful and pleasant land. The purpose of their scouting the land was not to help Israel decide whether to enter the land with the intention of conquering it. That plan for Israel to enter the land and possess it while driving out the current inhabitants was long ago determined and declared by the Lord. As far back as the time of Abraham, the Lord had told him that his descendants would return to this land and take possession of it. "Then in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete." (Genesis 15:16). This reconnaissance of Canaan served two purposes in God's plan. The first purpose would give Israel an accurate picture of what was ahead of them, both confirming the descriptions the Lord had given and preparing their hearts for the battle ahead. The second purpose was at this moment hidden from Israel, but known to the Lord. Sending these scouts ahead to bring back their report of the land and its inhabitants would reveal the hearts of all of Israel and show whether they were trusting the Lord and ready to obey His commands, or whether they were leaning more on their natural perspectives. Even in the way the Lord gave this command to Moses to send out the twelve spies, Israel should have been strengthened and encouraged for what lay ahead. The Lord did not tell Moses to send the spies out to determine whether Israel would be able to conquer the land. There was no hint of needing this report of the spies to base a final decision of crossing into Canaan. Instead, the Lord affirmed to Moses and all Israel through him that they should spy out the land "which I am going to give to the sons of Israel." The Lord says once again here that He is going to give the land of Canaan to Israel. This is the promise of God. If the Lord says He is going to give the land, then the issue is not whether He will do what He promised, but whether they will believe what He promised. The Lord does not qualify His promise here. He does not say that He might give them the land, or that He will try to give them the land, but simply that He is going to give it to them. As the story unfolds we will see that the Lord was faithful to His promise and He did give them the land of Canaan. We will also see however, that those who refused to believe what the Lord had promised did not personally ever enjoy what He had promised to the nation. 13:27-31 - "Thus they told him, and said, "We went in to the land where you sent us; and it certainly does flow with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. Nevertheless, the people who live in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large; and moreover, we saw the descendants of Anak there. Amalek is living in the land of the Negev and the Hittites and the Jebusites and the Amorites are living in the hill country, and the Canaanites are living by the sea and by the side of the Jordan." Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, "We should by all means go up and take possession of it, for we will surely overcome it." But the men who had gone up with him said, "We are not able to go up against the people, for they are too strong for us." The twelve scouts returned from their assignment. They had traveled throughout the land for forty days. They brought back to camp with them some of the fruit of the land as a proof of the Lord's assurance that it was a land of abundance. This was the fulfillment of an earlier promise the Lord had made to Israel when He first sent Moses to Egypt to deliver Israel from slavery. "So I said, I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite, to a land flowing with milk and honey." (Exodus 3:17). Now, with this report of the twelve spies all the nation knew that the Lord had done exactly what He had promised. Their hearts should have been encouraged and strengthened to trust the Lord for their next step. Their perspective should have been this; since the Lord had been faithful and powerful to deliver them from Egypt as He said, and carry them through the wilderness as He said, and that Canaan was a land of milk and honey as He said, that He would give them the land as He said. However, the people of the nation did not respond to the report of the twelve scouts with a heart of courage and faith. The people knew better and should have trusted the Lord no matter what report the twelve scouts brought back, but they were already weak in faith due to the debilitating effect of their own grumblings of the previous chapters. Their own grumblings left them vulnerable to the impact of the report of the scouts. The report started well. All the scouts confirmed that the land certainly was a land of milk and honey. As a side point, this description of the land was not intended or to be taken literally. There were not literal rivers of milk and honey in Canaan, but the phrase was descriptive of the nourishing sweetness of a fertile land. The scouts showed the fruit they had carried back to camp as clear proof of the abundance of the land. There was only one problem in the eyes of ten of the twelve scouts. The scouts' report turned in a negative direction when they began to describe the cities of the land and its inhabitants. The cities were identified as very large and fortified. The people were described as strong, and that even the descendants of Anak were seen (a special challenge). The tone of this part of the report was one of hopeless discouragement. These scouts had determined from what they had seen that the land was going to be too difficult for them to conquer. Not all of the scouts agreed with this assessment though. There were two notable exceptions. Caleb and Joshua saw the same land, cities and inhabitants as the other ten scouts and drew a completely different conclusion from their observations. Most likely the twelve scouts had discussed and debated their perspectives on the forty days of their journey, and now when the ten scouts gave their discouraging report, one of them spoke up in an attempt to counteract the negative impact with a strong statement of faith. Caleb "quieted the people" which implies that all of the people were already beginning to at least murmur from the report of the ten scouts. Then Caleb urged everyone that they should without question go up and take the land. He declared with conviction that they would surely accomplish the conquest of the land. This was no empty statement of Caleb whistling in the dark to try and put on a brave face. He really believed in his heart that they should go forward because the Lord had brought them here for this very purpose. His confidence in the Lord far outweighed any concern about the difficulties ahead. The other scouts, with the exception of Joshua, did not share his courage or his faith. When Caleb encouraged the nation to move forward, the other ten spies immediately contradicted him and asserted that Israel would not be able to successfully conquer the land because the people of the land were too strong. Their response revealed that they were not even considering the Lord and His role in all of this. They had already forgotten the implications of the ten plagues in Egypt. They had forgotten the implications of the divided Red Sea, the manna in the wilderness, and the glory of God on Sinai. The horizontal evidence of what they had seen with their natural eyes was blinding the vertical evidence of true spiritual faith in the One that had brought them this far. 13:32-33 - "So they gave out to the sons of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, "The land through which we have gone, in spying it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great size. There also we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak are part of the Nephilim); and we became like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight." The report of the ten scouts is now identified as a "bad report of the land." Their report was not bad due to inaccuracies of facts. They accurately reported the nature of the land, the strength of the cities and the inhabitants. What made their report bad was the conclusion they drew from the facts which they observed. They knew that the Lord had brought them all the way from Egypt to possess this exact land. Who were they to conclude that they could not do so? Their report dishonored the Lord, denied His promise, and discouraged the hearts of His people. In order to emphasize their fear about conquering the land, they described the inhabitants as giants in comparison to themselves. They saw themselves as grasshoppers to be stepped on by the sons of Anak. Some Bible commentators believe that the spies were merely making up a story at this point and grossly exaggerating the truth for impact. I don't believe that this was a gross exaggeration, or else Caleb and Joshua would have disputed the facts of their report since they had seen the same things. Caleb and Joshua do not argue about what they saw in the land, only what it meant and what they should do. The Nephilim are mentioned at this point by the spies. This is a detail that may have pushed the hearts of the nation over the edge into a fearful shrinking back. The Nephilim were the mysterious people from ancient history back before the Flood. "The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown." (Genesis 6:4). Though there is disagreement among Bible teachers in identifying the Nephilim, from my studies in the Bible, church history, and ancient world legends, I am convinced that the Nephilim were a giant and mighty people that were the offspring of the mating of fallen angels and human women. The key verse in Genesis 6:4 identifies that the Nephilim were a problem both before and after the Flood. Rather than develop the details of this issue again here I'll refer you to my explanation on Day 6 of this study covering Genesis chapter 6. Questions from Numbers 12: Question: What IS the right way to handle some sort of perceived weakness or sin within the leadership....or should a person only pray and trust the Lord who sees men's hearts? Answer: It really depends on the nature of the concern. If you believe a leader in the church or Christian ministry is in sin, yes, of course you should pray for them, but your knowledge of their sin would make you responsible to do more than pray. I would pray first, and then approach that leader in private to express my concern about them and the sin they have fallen into. Their response in that situation would determine what more, if anything you should do. If the sinning leader responds with a humble, repentant attitude and takes the necessary steps to stop sinning and make themselves accountable to other leaders then your responsibility may end there. If the leader shows an unwillingness to acknowledge or deal with their sin, then I would seek out another leader in that church to go with you in a second attempt to confront the first leader. After that, the responsibility shifts to the second leader to determine what is to be done depending on how the leader responds. I am not sure without an example what you mean by a "perceived
weakness" in the leader. However, if the issue does not involve
sin, but simply a concern about the leader then the right thing
to do would be to pray first, and then go to that leader to share
your concerns. It would be inappropriate to talk to others either
before or after sharing your concern with the leader, unless you
are seeking counsel from another leader about how to handle your
concern. Gossip, however, is never appropriate in such cases. If
the leader receives your concern, then it was well worth the effort.
If the leader does not seem to receive your concerns, then your
next step is to continue in prayer for them that the Lord will open
their eyes to see what you believe they are missing. 14:1-4 - "Then all the congregation lifted up their voices and cried, and the people wept that night. All the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron; and 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! Why is the LORD bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become plunder; would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?" So they said to one another, "Let us appoint a leader and return to Egypt." The entire nation of Israel lifts their voices in a loud wailing cry over their circumstance. What had stirred them so deeply to despair? This was the fruit of the evil report of the ten spies. They have been rescued by the might hand of God in the Ten Plagues from their slavery in Egypt. They have crossed the Red Sea on dry ground while the power of God held the waters of the sea back on either side of their path. They have been fed with miraculous bread from heaven and quenched with water from the rock. They have seen the glory of God descend upon Sinai with fire, lightning, and earthquake. They have been led by the pillar of cloud and fire from the Red Sea all the way across the Sinai wilderness. Now, as they are camped at the brink of the land to which God promised to bring them, they are despairing because ten men have told them that the inhabitants of the land ahead are stronger than Yahweh Who has done all this and more right in front of their eyes. It is an amazing flaw in human nature that, in spite of the evidence that the Lord virtually piled up in front of them of His power and faithfulness toward them, they were so easily convinced by one challenging report that they were now in a hopeless situation and that the Lord intended only harm for them. Their discouragement and dismay required a target toward which they could release their frustration. They chose Moses and Aaron as the target. Their frustration, caused by their own disbelief, was taken out on Moses and Aaron in another fit of grumbling. Their grumbling against Moses and Aaron was aimed at pinning the blame for their situation on them. They were the logical people to blame because they were the leaders of the nation. It was because of the leadership of Moses and Aaron that they were in this situation. That was actually true. However, it was not true as a problem to complain about, but as an opportunity to trust the Lord Who had brought them this far and Who would bring them the rest of the way. Their grumbling was not limited to a horizontal complaint about their human leaders. The people easily transition from complaining about Moses to complaining about the Lord. Their complaint about the Lord was an evil imagination which drew a completely wrong conclusion based upon their skewed perspective of their circumstance. Their complaint implies that the only reason the Lord brought them up out of Egypt and to this land was so that all of them would be killed by their enemies in Canaan. This conclusion was as wrong as it could possibly be. It assumes that the Lord never had a good purpose for Israel. It assumes that He has only been teasing them through all their journey thus far, and that He never intended to keep His promise and honor His Word. In other words, their conclusion and response in this situation did more than fail to trust God for their own good. They blatantly insulted the character and purpose of God. Compounding their already dangerous reaction, they heap insult upon insult by concluding that they would have been better off if they had died in Egypt or in the wilderness rather than be alive, following the Lord as His holy nation and camped at the verge of the Promised Land! This better off dead perspective and attitude is about as far in their rebellion against the Lord as they will be allowed to go. Their final step of rejecting the Lord's purpose is reflected in their community decision to turn their backs on the Promised Land and to return to Egypt. They decide to choose a new leader in place of Moses and try to recapture the "wonderful life" that they had as slaves in Egypt. Of course, they have completely forgotten how much they hated that life too. They have forgotten how they complained bitterly about the hardships they endured as Pharaoh's slaves. They have also not considered the practical impossibility of actually returning to Egypt. They only made it this far by the miraculous hand of God. How far will they get on the way back to Egypt without the Lord's blessing? What will they eat on the way back to Egypt with no manna? What will they drink with no water from the rock? How will they cross the Red Sea unless the Lord were to divide it for them as He did before? One thing we should learn from their tragic example is that grumbling and complaining never arise from a spiritually clear-minded perspective or a heart that is trusting the Lord. Grumbling is always short sighted and constantly subject to misreading the circumstances and drawing the wrong conclusions about what they mean. 14:6-9 - "Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, of those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes; and they spoke to all the congregation of the sons of Israel, saying, "The land which we passed through to spy out is an exceedingly good land. "If the LORD is pleased with us, then He will bring us into this land and give it to us--a land which flows with milk and honey. Only do not rebel against the LORD; and do not fear the people of the land, for they will be our prey. Their protection has been removed from them, and the LORD is with us; do not fear them." Out of the entire nation of Israel there were only two exceptional individuals (beside Moses and Aaron), who did not join in with the grumbling groundswell of the rebellion of Israel against the Lord. Joshua and Caleb, who were the other two of the twelve spies sent to scout out the Promised Land, saw the exact same things that the ten spies had seen in the land of Canaan. They did not dispute the strength of the inhabitants of Canaan, the fortifications of their cities, or the reality of the battle ahead of them in the land. What set Joshua and Caleb apart from the ten spies, and from the nation which followed the fearful influence of their bad report, was their faith in the Lord. Joshua and Caleb saw the challenge of the giants in the land, but they were convinced from all they had already seen Him do that the Lord was a Giant of a God, far greater than any giant they may face ahead. There was only one issue that needed to be resolved in the eyes of Joshua and Caleb in deciding whether they would move forward and take possession of the land of Canaan. That issue was whether or not the Lord was pleased with them. "If the LORD is pleased with us, then He will bring us into this land and give it to us..." They declared their simple, but essential perspective to the gathered nation in the form of an If-Then statement of faith. If the Lord was pleased with them, then they would surely take the land just as He had said. The implication of their statement was that the only barrier to their conquest of Canaan was the state of the relationship between the Lord and His people, not the relative strength of the Canaanites. They tried to warn the people. They appealed to them to not rebel against the Lord by their unbelief, to not fear the people of the land, but to see them as their prey. They insisted that they were not nearly as fearsome as they looked because the Lord was not protecting them as He would protect Israel. The contrast between the heart perspectives of Joshua and Caleb from the rest of Israel is intentional and instructive for us. Even as believers in Christ, we can respond to the purpose of God for our lives as Joshua and Caleb did by trusting that the Lord is greater than any difficulty or challenge we will ever face in the path He has ordained for us. We can also respond as the rest of Israel did, and conclude that the challenges we face are the evidence of the Lord's failure toward us. Believers who embrace this demonic lie choose the same path Israel chose; imagining that they know better than God whose leadership to follow, what direction leads to true happiness, and what their life is "supposed" to be like. 14:22-25 - "Surely all the men who have seen My glory and My signs which I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness, yet have put Me to the test these ten times and have not listened to My voice, shall by no means see the land which I swore to their fathers, nor shall any of those who spurned Me see it. But My servant Caleb, because he has had a different spirit and has followed Me fully, I will bring into the land which he entered, and his descendants shall take possession of it. Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites live in the valleys; turn tomorrow and set out to the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea." The Lord is known and characterized by His mercy and grace. He is patient, longsuffering, tolerant with our weaknesses, and even our struggles to trust Him. However, He will not forever endure blatant unbelief and insults to His character. He will not put up with continuing refusal's to trust and obey Him forever. At a certain point, which He determines, and not us, He will draw a line and withdraw His mercy and grace. Israel had finally reached that point. They pushed their rebellion to the line marking the difference between God's grace and His judgment. The Lord, Who had previously promised to take Israel into the Promised Land, now swears that this generation of Israel will never enter that land of promise. He declares, that with the two exceptions of Joshua and Caleb, every other Israelite alive that day would die in the wilderness and never experience the fulfillment of the promise made long ago to Abraham. As we consider the judgment of God on Israel in the wilderness, we should not be confused and question why He judged them so severely. Instead, we would be wise to see this judgment from a higher perspective. The mystery is not why God finally judged them, but why He would wait so long, and why He would have shown them so much undeserved mercy, grace, and blessing up until this point. The Lord references the record of their heart's response to Him over the course of the short time of a little over a year since He brought them up out of Egypt. In just over a year's time, Israel has been tested by the Lord in ten circumstances. In each of the ten tests, the Lord had given Israel more than sufficient reasons to trust Him. In each case, they turned on Him and blamed Him, or His chosen representative, Moses. In other words, there was no valid excuse for their faithless complaints, grumbling, and disobedient, dishonoring rebellion. Caleb is named by the Lord as a notable exception among them. His faith and obedience are the proof that their circumstances have not made them this way, or else the circumstance would have made Caleb turn away from the Lord as well. He experienced the same set of challenges in the ten tests, but instead of him testing the Lord in a bitter spirit, he showed that he had a different spirit than the rest of Israel. The Lord is most concerned by who we are, and what we really think about Him in our hearts. As Caleb's example demonstrates, if our heart is trusting the Lord, our heart of true faith will be expressed in faithful obedience to His direction and will, and not our own chosen direction and will. The judgment of the Lord upon the nation will now play out in a new direction for the nation. For the first time, the Lord commands His people to turn their back to Canaan and to set out through the wilderness toward the Red Sea. God's judgment carries an irony in light of their previous grumbling desires. They wanted to return to Egypt and complained that they should have died in the wilderness. The Lord now judges them by their own words and desires. He sends them back to the wilderness when they had gotten so close to the land of promise. He sends them back toward Egypt, even though they will not reach Egypt either. Their unbelief will cause them to die in the wilderness. "And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were not able to enter because of unbelief." (Hebrews 3:18-19). 14:39-45 - "When Moses spoke these words to all the sons of Israel, the people mourned greatly. In the morning, however, they rose up early and went up to the ridge of the hill country, saying, "Here we are; we have indeed sinned, but we will go up to the place which the LORD has promised." But Moses said, "Why then are you transgressing the commandment of the LORD, when it will not succeed? Do not go up, or you will be struck down before your enemies, for the LORD is not among you. For the Amalekites and the Canaanites will be there in front of you, and you will fall by the sword, inasmuch as you have turned back from following the LORD. And the LORD will not be with you." But they went up heedlessly to the ridge of the hill country; neither the ark of the covenant of the LORD nor Moses left the camp. Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived in that hill country came down, and struck them and beat them down as far as Hormah." Once the Lord declares His judgment, the people begin to realize the consequences they have purchased for themselves by rebellion. They "mourned greatly" that night, but it was not the deep heart mourning of true repentance which produces a transformed heart. Instead, their mourning was only the self-indulgent sorrow which strains at the consequences of sin. It's similar to the reaction of a child that is caught in disobedience and punished by spanking. If the pain of the spanking does not reach the child's heart and change their attitude for the better, then they may cry, but not because of a tenderized heart, but only because of the discomfort they have to endure in the punishment. "I now rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance; for you were made sorrowful according to the will of God, so that you might not suffer loss in anything through us. For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death." (II Corinthians 7:9-10). Israel was sorrowful, but not changed. The next day, they proved that they had learned nothing from the previous day's experience. They arise early in the day and trying to convince themselves that they can repair everything that has soured between them and the Lord they announce that they are going to enter the land of Canaan after all. The Lord was no impressed by their apparent change of mind about entering Canaan. Their decision was actually produced by the same stubborn, self-centered hearts that got them into trouble in the first place. This was merely another expression of disobedient rebellion. It's true that the Lord had originally brought them here to enter the land, but the last thing He had commanded on the previous day was for them to turn back to the wilderness. By trying to enter the Promised Land this day they were again disobeying a direct command of the Lord. The Lord would not overlook this rebellion to His command. When they went forward, they did so without the presence of the Lord in the pillar of cloud, without the ark of the covenant, and without the leadership of Moses. Apparently none of those things concerned them greatly, because they continued forward imagining that everything would work out fine because they were going forward. The people learned a terribly costly lesson that day. They suffered a complete defeat at the hands of the Amalekites and Canaanites. It was not because of how strong the people of the land were, but because they presumed to go up and fight without the Lord. The lesson to be learned here is no less important for our lives. If the Lord says, "Go", then trust Him and go. If not, then don't presume that He is saying it just because that is what you desperately want to hear. Our victories are only found when we are following the Lord where He is leading. When we strike out on our own there is only defeat and death on that path. 15:17-21 - "Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, "Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, 'When you enter the land where I bring you, then it shall be, that when you eat of the food of the land, you shall lift up an offering to the LORD. Of the first of your dough you shall lift up a cake as an offering; as the offering of the threshing floor, so you shall lift it up. From the first of your dough you shall give to the LORD an offering throughout your generations." This is another of the laws of the land in which the Lord anticipates eventually bringing Israel into possession of the Promised Land and gives them commands in advance for when they settle there. There are two points we can draw from this kind of law. The first point is the meaning of the actual law, and the second is the spiritual implication of why the Lord chose to give a law forty years in advance of when it could actually be obeyed. This particular law requires an offering be made to the Lord from their dough. Once they entered the land, they would plant crops, harvest them, and grind the grain of the harvest to make dough for bread. Then, before baking the bread they were to take enough of the first portion of the dough to make a cake of bread and set it apart for an offering to the Lord. This offering of the first of their dough is another in a series of first portion offerings commanded in the Law for Israel. They were to set apart the first born of their children, the first born of their herds, the first fruits of their crop, and now the first portion of their dough. Each of these offerings was a tangible expression of real value to demonstrate their faith that the Lord was first in their lives. The offerings were essential to this expression. It was not enough for an Israelite to say the words, "The Lord is first place in my life and He means more to me than anything else in my life!", while failing to give the first portions to Him. The words without the offerings would be empty expressions with no real heart of worship behind them. Our primary expression of the first portion principle today is found in the tithe. The important thing is not just that we give a significant portion of our income to the Lord (10%), but that we give the tithe from the first portion of our income, and not the last, or left over portion. A heart of faith trusts that giving this first portion to honor the Lord will not only meet with the Lord's approval, but that He will cause our remaining 90% to be sufficient to meet our own needs. The deeper implication of this kind of law which pointed forward to the next generation and beyond which would enter the land is that the Law of God is not an evolving document and was not designed by the Lord to have later additions or amendments. The Lord could have waited to reveal the laws of the land until the next generation of Israel which actually entered and possessed the land. However, to do so would have meant that the Lord identify a second prophet as law giver in addition to Moses. Since Moses died in the wilderness and never entered the Promised Land, he would not be present to serve as the Lord's prophet to give any later laws. From the beginning the Lord intended all of His Law, even the laws which could not be obeyed until they later entered Canaan, to be given only through Moses. This fulfills the Lord's purpose for both the Old and New Covenant to have one primary human revealer of His will and purpose. "For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ." (John 1:17). 15:28-31 - "The priest shall make atonement before the LORD for the person who goes astray when he sins unintentionally, making atonement for him that he may be forgiven. You shall have one law for him who does anything unintentionally, for him who is native among the sons of Israel and for the alien who sojourns among them. But the person who does anything defiantly, whether he is native or an alien, that one is blaspheming the LORD; and that person shall be cut off from among his people. Because he has despised the word of the LORD and has broken His commandment, that person shall be completely cut off; his guilt will be on him." There are two categories of sins identified in these two laws. One addresses unintentional sins, and the second addresses defiant sins. The intention behind these categories is to teach the people of God that God is concerned about our behavior whenever we transgress His boundary lines, but that He is also concerned with the heart attitude of the person that sins by crossing those boundary lines. We should be clear that both categories are identified as sin. Breaking God's Law is always a sin, even if I do so inadvertently. I may not know at that moment that I have sinned, nor may anyone else, but any boundaries of God's righteousness and holiness that are crossed is still a sin. I remember counseling a Christian who had not yet learned much of what God had revealed in His Word about our behavior. They were surprised to learn that God considered any sexual relations outside of the marriage covenant to be a sin of either fornication or adultery. They honestly did not know that it was a sin because of the common behavior they saw portrayed in movies, TV, etc. Their ignorance of the sinfulness of that behavior did not make it any less sinful for them to cross those same lines. In our justice system as a society the same principle is expressed in this well known saying; "ignorance of the law is no excuse." The second category is aimed at defiant sins. The word translated defiant literally described a "high handed" sin. This described a serious heart attitude behind the behavior in question. A person that crossed God's boundaries in a high handed way was blatantly, arrogantly disregarding the Law. This was a person that knew what they were doing and chose to cross the line with disregard for the one that drew the line in the first place. We might describe it as "thumbing your nose" at the law. The behavior in both cases was equally serious, but the attitude that produced both transgressions was seriously distinct. The high handed person was hardened in their heart and unwilling to recognize, let alone honor the Lord's authority over their life. In this law, the defiant person is shown no mercy, but was cut off from among the covenant people. His sin was greater than the behavior alone. He had despised the Word of the Lord and had blasphemed the Lord by his proud disregard of the Law of God. 15:32-36 - "Now while the sons of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering wood on the sabbath day. Those who found him gathering wood brought him to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation; and they put him in custody because it had not been declared what should be done to him. Then the LORD said to Moses, "The man shall surely be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp." So all the congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him to death with stones, just as the LORD had commanded Moses." It was no coincidence that Moses wrote the account of this story immediately after declaring the law for those who defiantly break the Law of God. This story is an illustration from the actual history of Israel of the kind of defiant, or heavy handed sin that this law covered. This particular case served as the perfect illustration of the seriousness of Law, because the behavior itself seems at first glance to be fairly light. During this time in the wilderness, one man of Israel was observed gathering wood on the Sabbath. When they found him gathering wood they brought him to Moses and Aaron to deal with him. Moses sought the Lord to determine His will, and the Lord spoke to Moses and commanded that the man be put to death. His execution was to be by stoning in which the entire community of Israel participated by each one taking up a stone to throw together at the man until he was dead. The story may trouble some modern readers with a modern sensitivity to any execution of a death penalty for any reason at all. The man had not murdered anyone. What he did was gather wood. The wood was for building a fire most likely and cooking a meal. A society like ours today, that struggles to even execute murderers, would certainly hesitate to execute someone for gathering wood. What was so serious about his behavior to require a death penalty? Well, the behavior was serious for one simple reason. God forbade any Israelite to work on the Sabbath, or even build a fire to cook on the Sabbath. It was wrong because God told them not to do it. What carried this man's transgression to an even more serious place was that he was gathering wood defiantly. In other words, he knew better. He was not ignorantly, or unintentionally gathering wood. He knew God had forbidden it, and he blatantly chose to do so anyway. Perhaps he thought he was above the law. Perhaps he despised the inconvenience obeying the Sabbath restrictions created for his lifestyle. Perhaps he just wanted a hot meal and did not care about potential consequences of building a fire. Whatever his thoughts, the Lord was observing and made sure that his transgression would not remain hidden. The Lord also insured that Israel would not soon forget the consequence of defiant disregard of His Law. 15:37-40 - "The LORD also spoke to Moses, saying, "Speak to the sons of Israel, and tell them that they shall make for themselves tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and that they shall put on the tassel of each corner a cord of blue. It shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the LORD, so as to do them and not follow after your own heart and your own eyes, after which you played the harlot, so that you may remember to do all My commandments and be holy to your God." This law of the tassel was an accommodation of the Lord in consideration of the weakness of His people. Recognizing the tendency of Israel to forget His boundaries, the Lord ordained that they sew four special tassels with a cord of blue into the corners of their garments. The blue was a reminder of the presence of the Lord as He dwelt in the tabernacle above the ark of the covenant. The ark was covered with blue each time it was moved. There were blue reminders throughout the tabernacle in the garments of the high priest and in the curtains of the tabernacle. Blue was a symbol of the heavenly source of the Law of God. The tassel was designed to be more than decorative. It was to be a redemptive reminder for each Israelite each time they saw it. It was a practical memory device much like when people tie a string around their finger to remind themselves of important things. The whole purpose of the tassel was to keep them from following after their own heart and their own eyes. The implication is that the human heart and eyes can be deceived and become untrustworthy guides for our behavior. The man gathering wood in defiance of the Law on the Sabbath day was following his own heart. He did so to his own destruction. It is a common error in our culture today to think that a person's heart is a faithful guide to always lead them in the right direction. People are often told to listen carefully to their own heart and follow it. There is a popular health food store in this area named Follow Your Heart, which carries some healthy foods, but promotes a New Age perspective in which the heart of each person is the best guide for their life direction. This is even common in Christian circles. That well intended advice fails to recognize that our hearts can be blinded, affected by evil desires, deceived, and hardened. Remember Jeremiah's declaration, "The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?" (Jeremiah 17:9). The Lord never instructs us to follow our own heart, but instead calls us to follow His heart and mind as He has revealed them in His Word. 16:1-4 - "Now Korah the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, with Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, and On the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, took action, and they rose up before Moses, together with some of the sons of Israel, two hundred and fifty leaders of the congregation, chosen in the assembly, men of renown. They assembled together against Moses and Aaron, and said to them, "You have gone far enough, for all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the LORD is in their midst; so why do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the LORD?" When Moses heard this, he fell on his face;" The recent lessons of the death of the ten unbelieving spies, the declaration by the Lord that the current generation would die in the wilderness due to their unbelieving grumbling and complaining, and the ensuing utter defeat at the hands of the Canaanites has been quickly forgotten. Those events should have burned into the hearts and minds of every man, woman and child in Israel the deadly consequences of rebellion. Had the people gained what they should have gained from those events, they would never have responded like they do in this chapter. What this chapter shows is that the people were not taking to heart any of the words and actions of the Lord. For them, these events became like a series of disconnected, unrelated events. The Bible uses terms like dullness of heart to describe their spiritual condition that led them to continue to make the same blunders over and over without any real change or improvement. In this latest rebellion, certain leaders rose up against Moses and Aaron. Korah, Dathan and Abiram were the ringleaders. They were from two different tribes which were assigned different responsibilities in the nation. Korah was from the tribe of Levi and was in the group that was given the special privilege of transporting the ark of the covenant and the other furnishings of the tabernacle from place to place. Dathan and Abiram were from the tribe of Reuben and were not involved in tabernacle service at all. Their complaints were mixed together as they first rose up in rebellion, but as the Lord dealt with each it becomes apparent that they held different concerns. They combined their complaints however, probably for strategic purposes to find strength in numbers and build together a stronger case against Moses and Aaron. They did not simply discuss their complaints among themselves, but before even approaching Moses, they had rallied 250 leaders of the nation to their side. What should strike our hearts before we even consider the substance of their complaint was how wrong their approach really was. It is difficult to discern for those who are serving in leadership whether a complaint is valid and how to respond to it. In this case, the substance of their issues was betrayed by the way they addressed it. If Korah had a legitimate concern for how Moses and Aaron were leading, what should he have done with his concern? The simple answer is that he should have prayed to the Lord first, and if his concern was not resolved in prayer, then he should have approached Moses directly and respectfully spoken his concern to Moses. Instead of going to Moses, Korah and the others went to at least 250 other men to murmur and grumble about Moses! If these were one on one conversations, then Korah sinned 250 times before he ever spoke to Moses. If every member of the body of Christ were committed to this one principle, so many of the issues that grow to divide and destroy churches could be avoided. Please understand, that handling concerns with spiritual leadership in the right way is no guarantee that the leader will receive it in the right way. Leaders can be defensive, proud, stubborn, and unyielding, especially when it is their leadership that is being questioned. I can confirm this as someone who has been in church leadership for nearly 20 now. I have reacted to legitimate concerns at one time or another in all of those wrong ways. The point though, is that the intent of sharing concerns with spiritual leaders should be to help them see what for whatever reason they are not currently seeing. The approach chosen can make a huge difference in how the leader receives the concern. A concern shared in humility, bathed in prayer, and with a heart of concern for the leader and God's kingdom is much more likely to be accepted well than how Korah and Dathan handled this. The summary of their issue with Moses and Aaron was that they were exalting themselves above the assembly of the Lord. If true, it would be a serious issue and one which Moses and Aaron should take to heart. The problem in this case was their accusation was not true. Neither Moses or Aaron had exalted themselves. Yes, they were set in leadership positions that granted them greater access to the tabernacle than other Israelites, but it was the Lord that had exalted them to those positions. Korah's argument was directed at Moses and Aaron, but the real argument was with the Lord for choosing them for those roles, rather than him. Korah's rebellion became an infamous example in the generations that followed of rebellion against legitimate spiritual authority. This reference in Jude compares Korah to the similar actions of those leading rebellions within the early church congregations. "Woe to them! For they have gone the way of Cain, and for pay they have rushed headlong into the error of Balaam, and perished in the rebellion of Korah. These are the men who are hidden reefs in your love feasts when they feast with you without fear, caring for themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted; wild waves of the sea, casting up their own shame like foam; wandering stars, for whom the black darkness has been reserved forever." (Jude 1:11-13). 16:12-14 - "Then Moses sent a summons to Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab; but they said, "We will not come up. "Is it not enough that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey to have us die in the wilderness, but you would also lord it over us? Indeed, you have not brought us into a land flowing with milk and honey, nor have you given us an inheritance of fields and vineyards. Would you put out the eyes of these men? We will not come up!" Korah's issue primarily was born out of his envious desire to be granted the same priesthood honors as Aaron. Dathan and Abiram were more focused on complaints about the leadership of Moses. They saw the prospects of their current circumstances in the wilderness and were comparing that with what could have been. Israel had recently come close to the fulfillment of their hope by camping near enough to the Promised Land to taste the fruits of the land as the 12 scouts returned with samples. Now however, the nation had not moved forward into the land of Canaan and begun to possess it. Instead, they had turned away from the land of milk and honey and had begun to travel back into the fiery wilderness. Dathan and Abiram decided that this circumstance was all the fault of Moses. They insinuated that if he was a better, more effective leader that they would already be in the land of Canaan enjoying its bounty. They accused Moses in this passage of blinding the eyes of everyone else to his failings as the leader. Dathan and Abiram were not speaking the truth in love, or in any other manner. It was not Moses' fault that Israel was not moving forward into Canaan, but actually moving further away into the wilderness. The fault was laid, not by Moses, but by the Lord at the feet of the entire congregation of Israel with the exceptions of Moses, Aaron, Joshua and Caleb. The fault was their own unbelief and disobedience. These men were doing the classic transference of responsibility from themselves to Moses. Because they could not, or rather would not accept their own responsibility for the judgment upon them of an imposed 40 years in the wilderness until they all died, they had to find someone else to blame for their woes. Moses made an easy target as the leader. 16:19-24 - "Thus Korah assembled all the congregation against them at the doorway of the tent of meeting. And the glory of the LORD appeared to all the congregation. Then the LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, "Separate yourselves from among this congregation, that I may consume them instantly." But they fell on their faces and said, "O God, God of the spirits of all flesh, when one man sins, will You be angry with the entire congregation?" Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, "Speak to the congregation, saying, 'Get back from around the dwellings of Korah, Dathan and Abiram.'" Korah's rebellion was now shared by all the congregation which had been swayed by his persuasive words. The agreement of the congregation did not insure the rightness or appropriateness of their actions. Many are under the impression that if enough believers all agree on the same thing that they must be right about whatever they agree on. Here, the entire congregation was wrong and the Lord appeared to everyone to make sure they heard from the only opinion that really matters in such cases; His opinion. It is telling that the Lord did not choose to speak directly to the congregation in this case. Instead, He spoke to them only through Moses. In doing so, the Lord again validated in the eyes of all Israel that Moses was His chosen representative. The message of the Lord was not one of mercy and grace, even though the Lord did end up showing them undeserved mercy. His message was further judgment. This entire generation of Israel was already living under the judgment of God. When He declared they would all die in the wilderness over the next 40 years with none of them ever entering the Promised Land, that was a judgment of God. Now, the Lord declared His intention to remove the mercy of even those 40 years of life in the wilderness when He warned Moses and Aaron to stand aside so that He "may consume them instantly." Moses and Aaron did not take any satisfaction from the Lord's announcement of an immediate death penalty for the whole nation. They fell on their faces before the Lord and cried out for His mercy on behalf of the nation. The Lord relented, and limited the death penalty judgment to only the leaders of the rebellion and their households. Again, as we have seen in earlier examples, this is not meant to teach us that Moses and Aaron are more merciful than the Lord. If God planned to execute the whole nation, nothing said or prayed by Moses and Aaron would have stayed His hand. The Lord handled this in a way that both fully showed what the entire nation really deserved, and at the same time made room through His stirring the hearts of Moses and Aaron for Him to show the depths of His mercy and grace. 16:41-45 - "But on the next day all the congregation of the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron, saying, "You are the ones who have caused the death of the LORD'S people." It came about, however, when the congregation had assembled against Moses and Aaron, that they turned toward the tent of meeting, and behold, the cloud covered it and the glory of the LORD appeared. Then Moses and Aaron came to the front of the tent of meeting, and the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, "Get away from among this congregation, that I may consume them instantly." Then they fell on their faces." The previous day had ended with the awesome and never before seen executions of the leaders of the rebellion. You would think that as every Israelite laid down to sleep that night their hearts would have finally and fully been impacted by the events of the day. You would think that the hard lessons of rebellion would have now been learned. The next day dawned and rather than a people with a new perspective and attitude of holy fear and humble gratitude that they were not themselves consumed as was Korah and the others, all Israel arose with the same ugly and unrepentant hearts that got them in trouble the day before. What do they do together the very next day? They "...grumbled against Moses and Aaron, saying, "You are the ones who have caused the death of the LORD'S people." Some people will only learn the hard way. Their accusation against Moses and Aaron was as empty as the accusations Korah and Dathan had made the day before. Moses did not cause the death of Korah. Moses did not open the earth and cause him to be swallowed up. They even knew better, because they saw with their own eyes that the Lord had appeared and that it was His doing to execute the rebels. The refusal of the people to accept the truth and their insistence to follow the evil example of Korah resulted in over 14,000 of them dying that day in a judgment plague from the Lord. 17:1-5 - "Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, "Speak to the sons of Israel, and get from them a rod for each father's household: twelve rods, from all their leaders according to their fathers' households. You shall write each name on his rod, and write Aaron's name on the rod of Levi; for there is one rod for the head of each of their fathers' households. "You shall then deposit them in the tent of meeting in front of the testimony, where I meet with you. It will come about that the rod of the man whom I choose will sprout. Thus I will lessen from upon Myself the grumblings of the sons of Israel, who are grumbling against you." Following the rebellion in chapter 16 and the questions that were raised by the tribal leaders regarding the calling of Aaron as high priest, the Lord chose to give another convincing miraculous evidence that Aaron was His choice to be high priest. The miracle of the earth opening beneath Korah and the others and swallowing them alive should have been convincing enough. More than that, the Lord had also caused His fire to break out and consume the 250 leaders that had followed the rebellion. Then, the next day after the congregation still complained a third miracle of a judgment plague confirmed where the Lord stood on these issues. Now, in this chapter, the Lord provides a final miraculous proof to eliminate any remaining questions or doubt about the priesthood of Aaron. Keep in mind as you read the degree to which the Lord went to confirm Aaron in the eyes of the people, that Aaron is a type of Christ and represents Him as a symbol. God went to similar and even greater lengths in the three year ministry of Jesus to confirm that Jesus is His only Son. "God also testifying with them, both by signs and wonders and by various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit according to His own will." (Hebrews 2:4). The many miracles God did through Jesus in His public ministry were all repeated confirmations of the unique role of Christ in God's plan. The proof that God gave of the ministry of Aaron in this chapter was provided in a test. Each of the tribal leaders of Israel were to take a rod of wood and write the name of their tribe on the rod. Aaron was to do the same representing the tribe of Levi. Then Moses was to gather all the rods and place them before the ark of the covenant within the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle. The Lord declared that the rod corresponding to the man He had chosen would sprout. Any sprouting at all would be amazing because these were not freshly cut branches, but rods that were long since dead and used as tools be the men that provided them. The Lord's choice of rods as the focal point of the test was not arbitrary. The rod was a well recognized symbol in Israel of authority (Genesis 49:10). As an interesting side note, the Hebrew word translated as rod here is the same word translated as tribe in other passages. The test would show to which man God had granted the authority to approach Him in the tabernacle, and to lead the people with spiritual authority. The Lord also told Moses that this test "...will lessen from upon Myself the grumblings of the sons of Israel, who are grumbling against you." This is a striking statement coming from the Lord, and we should not miss the implications of it. It indicates that the grumblings of the people are in some sense weighing on the Lord, and that this test was designed to lighten that weight. The Lord is using a physical image to convey a spiritual concept. The physical image is of a person being weighed down by the burden of their grumblings, as if each time someone in Israel grumbled against the Lord, or His representatives Moses and Aaron that it was like another burden being added to the weight. This principle is also described in the New Testament. "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption." (Ephesians 4:30). The word grieve in this verse carries the meaning of to weigh down, or make heavy. It referred to the emotional heaviness people experience when they are grieving. The point that should stand out for us, is that our heart attitudes and behavior have an effect upon the Lord. His heart is weighed down when His people grumble, complain, rebel and sin. I know that it is common to think of God as so above us that He is completely unaffected by us. However, He wants us to understand that He has so involved Himself with our lives that He is affected by the way we respond to Him. It is similar to how a parent's heart is lifted by the obedience and good attitude of their child, but burdened by their disobedience and bad attitude. 17:8 - "Now on the next day Moses went into the tent of the testimony; and behold, the rod of Aaron for the house of Levi had sprouted and put forth buds and produced blossoms, and it bore ripe almonds." The next day after the Lord ordered this test, Moses entered the tabernacle and retrieved all of the rods. Every rod was unchanged from the previous day with the exception of Aaron's rod. It had sprouted like a living tree overnight and produced, not only buds and blossoms, but fully ripened almonds. This was a miracle in which the Lord brought this dead rod of wood back to life. On the surface of this test, it served the purpose to distinguish Aaron among all the other leaders of Israel. There were other layers to this miracle beneath the surface. The living rod pointed as a symbol both backward in time to two other notable symbols in God's revelation to His people, and forward in time to the ultimate fulfillment of what all of these symbols represented. Pointing backward in recent history, all of Israel should have noticed the connection to one of the furnishings of the tabernacle of the Lord. The golden lampstand was designed by the Lord to portray within its construction branches of the almond tree. "Three cups shall be shaped like almond blossoms in the one branch, a bulb and a flower, and three cups shaped like almond blossoms in the other branch, a bulb and a flower--so for six branches going out from the lampstand;" (Exodus 25:33). This is not an accidental correspondence. From our study on the lampstand in Exodus 37, we saw that the Lord commanded that branches of the lampstand represent the almond tree as a way of symbolically connecting the first great tree in history (the tree of life) to the plan of salvation fulfilled in Christ. In the same way, Aaron's rod draws that same symbolic connection. The way that the almond tree represents both the original tree of life in the Garden of Eden, and the fulfillment of the plan of salvation is by the symbolism of the almond. The almond was known as the tree of first fruit. Each new season in Israel, the almond tree produces buds, blossoms and fruit before any other tree. Paul connected that first fruit principle with the resurrection of Christ from the dead. "But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep. For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, after that those who are Christ's at His coming," (I Corinthians 15:20-23). The resurrection of Christ identifies Him as the first fruits of the dead because the first fruits were the first portion that pointed to a greater coming harvest. His resurrection is the promise of the future resurrection of all who are saved through faith in Him. Out of the cross of Christ, which is the place of His death, God brought forth the new life of His resurrection. Both the lampstand and the rod of Aaron point back to the tree of life in Eden, but also forward to the cross and resurrection of Christ. His death on the cross and resurrection from the dead is the unique and only source of eternal life that God has provided in this world of death. When the rod of Aaron sprouted with new life and produced almonds, it was identifying the role of the high priest with God's salvation. Christ is the one and only high priest through Whom God has provided salvation to a lost world. There are many throughout history that claim similar authority to Christ, but the test is whether any of them ever rose from the dead! Jesus died, and three days later, rose from the dead; conquering death forever. Buddha died, and is still dead today. Mohammed died and is still dead today. Everyone else that has claimed the special authority that only belongs to Christ has died and none of them have risen from the dead! This is God's test that we can identify with certainty His heavenly high priest and the only source of salvation. I am only going to believe and follow the Man that actually rose from the dead. 17:9-13 - "Moses then brought out all the rods from the presence of the LORD to all the sons of Israel; and they looked, and each man took his rod. But the LORD said to Moses, "Put back the rod of Aaron before the testimony to be kept as a sign against the rebels, that you may put an end to their grumblings against Me, so that they will not die." Thus Moses did; just as the LORD had commanded him, so he did. Then the sons of Israel spoke to Moses, saying, "Behold, we perish, we are dying, we are all dying! Everyone who comes near, who comes near to the tabernacle of the LORD, must die. Are we to perish completely?" Once the rods were returned to their owners each leader of the tribes that had given his rod had a double confirmation of Aaron's special role. The first and obvious confirmation was the new life evident in Aaron's rod. The second confirmation was simply that their rods had not come to life and had produced no buds, blossoms or almonds. What was obvious in this distinction was that it was not simply the environment of being in the tabernacle overnight that caused the new life. All the rods were exposed to the same environment, and only the rod of Aaron sprouted. This indicated the sovereign selection of the Lord of Aaron and not the other leaders. This double confirmation was strong evidence that could be seen by everyone in Israel. Once everyone saw the difference in the rods, they reacted with a strong and sudden realization. They cried out that they were all dying and that everyone that approached the tabernacle of the Lord would die. This is a classic case of an emotionally based overreaction. The people were not dying. The Lord did not bring any further judgment upon them at this point. It was also not true that everyone that came near to the tabernacle died. What was true was that anyone who God had not given the authority to enter the tabernacle, that dared to trespass and enter without permission would die. The overreaction was based upon their earlier rebellion (Numbers 16:1-10) in which they decided that they should all have access to the tabernacle. The lesson here is that when God disciplines us, we are meant to learn the lesson He is teaching, and not add burdens to His lesson that He has not given us. Questions from Number 16: Question: 14:22 - 25 - Is it a coincidence that there were 10 plagues in Egypt and 10 circumstances of testing for the Israelites in the wilderness? Does the number 10 have any significance? Answer: I'm 100% certain that when the Lord uses numbers like he does in this passage that there is significance to it beyond just keeping count. There may be an intentional parallel between the 10 plagues in Egypt and the 10 tests of Israel in the wilderness. Both sets of circumstances involved the Lord dealing with the nations involved based upon their heart response to Him. Yes, all Bible teachers who acknowledge the intentional use of Bible symbolism in some of the numbers of the Bible identify 10 as a significant number. It is the number the Lord chose not only for the Plagues, but also for the summary of His Law in the 10 Commandments. Noah was also the 10th generation from Adam. These examples indicate full sets of God's work or revelation. As the concept relates to the 10 tests, Israel tested God sinfully 10 times in the wilderness before God declared that He was pronouncing a death penalty judgment upon them and taking the Promised Land away from that generation. So, the 10 tests represent the full measure of God's patience, long suffering and graciousness toward that generation. Once they crossed that tenth line, they had reached the final limit and received the judgment they deserved. The Plagues represented repeated opportunities to repent for Egypt before the tenth and final judgment fell. The ten generations from Adam to Noah represented the time the Lord gave to fallen mankind to repent and turn before the final judgment of the Flood fell. 18:1-5 - "So the LORD said to Aaron, "You and your sons and your father's household with you shall bear the guilt in connection with the sanctuary, and you and your sons with you shall bear the guilt in connection with your priesthood. But bring with you also your brothers, the tribe of Levi, the tribe of your father, that they may be joined with you and serve you, while you and your sons with you are before the tent of the testimony. And they shall thus attend to your obligation and the obligation of all the tent, but they shall not come near to the furnishings of the sanctuary and the altar, or both they and you will die. They shall be joined with you and attend to the obligations of the tent of meeting, for all the service of the tent; but an outsider may not come near you. So you shall attend to the obligations of the sanctuary and the obligations of the altar, so that there will no longer be wrath on the sons of Israel. Behold, I Myself have taken your fellow Levites from among the sons of Israel; they are a gift to you, dedicated to the LORD, to perform the service for the tent of meeting. But you and your sons with you shall attend to your priesthood for everything concerning the altar and inside the veil, and you are to perform service. I am giving you the priesthood as a bestowed service, but the outsider who comes near shall be put to death." Chapter 17 ended with a fearful outcry by the congregation, in which they questioned whether anyone would be able to approach the tabernacle and survive the judgment of Yahweh. Their cry was precipitated by the deaths of over 14,000 of their number due to their continuing rebellion. The Lord chooses not to directly answer their implied question of whether anyone would be able to approach Him. Instead, the Lord speaks to Aaron and confirms what He has already revealed. The tabernacle will continue to be a place of death for anyone that dares to approach the Lord when they have not been called. Only the household of Aaron may enter into the tabernacle itself. Only the members of the tribe of Levi may approach to serve the practical needs of the tabernacle service. Before now, if any other Israelite approached where they did not belong, their transgression would bring judgment upon the entire nation. Now, the Lord makes the tribe of Levi responsible to guard the entrance to the tabernacle. The Levites were responsible to preserve the holiness of the tabernacle by allowing access only to those the Lord had ordained. If an outsider came near when they should not, the Levites were charged with the responsibility to execute the trespasser. If the Levites failed to carry out this responsibility and allowed someone access that did not belong in the tabernacle, then instead of the nation suffering the consequences the Levites themselves would be held accountable for neglecting their charge, and they would pay the penalty. The seriousness of this standard is emphasized by it being a life and death level consequence. What is the application of this principle today? There is no longer a physical tabernacle to be guarded from outside trespassers. There is a heavenly tabernacle, which the earthly tabernacle in the wilderness only symbolized. The point is that people are not allowed to simply waltz into heaven like they belong there. There is a very common misconception in our culture about heaven. Many no longer believe in its reality at all, but among those who do, most believe that everyone who dies gets an automatic pass into heaven. That is just not the truth. Heaven is only open for those that the Lord calls. Only those who are in the family of the high priest will be granted access to the heavenly tabernacle. Jesus is the high priest of the New Covenant and only those in His family are welcome there. 18:19 - "All the offerings of the holy gifts, which the sons of Israel offer to the LORD, I have given to you and your sons and your daughters with you, as a perpetual allotment. It is an everlasting covenant of salt before the LORD to you and your descendants with you." The Lord's provision for Aaron, his sons, and his family was identified by the Lord as a perpetual allotment. The family of Aaron was set apart for the entire duration of the Old Covenant to serve the Lord in the tabernacle and temple. They were to refrain from pursuing the normal ways of making a living, and instead receive all of their personal provision from the holy gifts offered to the Lord. Those gifts were given by the Lord, after they were offered, to Aaron. The Lord confirmed the security of His promised provision to Aaron by calling His commitment "an everlasting covenant of salt." The covenant of salt signified an enduring covenant. Salt was commonly used in ancient times as a preservative. Foods were preserved without corruption beyond their normal time by being salted. The Lord applied this imagery to the covenant. A salted covenant was one that would outlast normal agreements that might be broken over time. 18:20-24 - "Then the LORD said to Aaron, "You shall have no inheritance in their land nor own any portion among them; I am your portion and your inheritance among the sons of Israel. To the sons of Levi, behold, I have given all the tithe in Israel for an inheritance, in return for their service which they perform, the service of the tent of meeting. The sons of Israel shall not come near the tent of meeting again, or they will bear sin and die. Only the Levites shall perform the service of the tent of meeting, and they shall bear their iniquity; it shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations, and among the sons of Israel they shall have no inheritance. For the tithe of the sons of Israel, which they offer as an offering to the LORD, I have given to the Levites for an inheritance; therefore I have said concerning them, 'They shall have no inheritance among the sons of Israel.'" The Lord established special guidelines for the lives of all the Levites. They were a tribe that was set apart from normal life work activities, and devoted exclusively to the service of the Lord and His house. They were also set apart from normal life circumstances. The Lord had ordained that each of the tribes of Israel would receive a portion of territory in the Promised Land of Canaan once they entered the land and possessed it. The portion allotted for each tribe was not their own choice. The Lord chose to give specific territories to each tribe. He determined where they would live and how much land they would receive. The families of those tribes were then free to settle within the boundaries of the portion selected by the Lord for them. Wherever each family settled, that portion of land became their inheritance. They were to pass down through each successive generation the same land as an inheritance for their descendants after them. At first glance, the tribe of Levi seems to have been given the short end of the stick in this allotment by the Lord. They would not have any land to pass on to their children throughout their generations. Yet, the Levites were not deprived in this. On the other hand, the Levites received the greater portion, not the lesser portion. Their portion was not a territory of physical land. Their portion was the Lord! Which was greater; land or the Lord? I'll take the Lord over land. In the same way, believers in the Christ will never receive in this present world the fullness of the inheritance and portion that the Lord has ordained for us in Christ. Our inheritance is Him, and its full enjoyment is reserved for us. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you," (I Peter 1:3-4). The one exception to each tribe receiving portions of the Promised Land was the tribe of Levi. The tribe of Levi was given no portion of the land as their inheritance. The Lord did not leave them without provision. The tithes of the other tribes belonged to the Levites for their inheritance. Of course, this meant that the Levites lived in complete dependence on the faithfulness of the other tribes. If all Israel was faithful to give their tithe to the Lord as He had ordained, then the Levites would always have more than enough to live. If the other tribes failed to give the tithe, or only gave a part of the full tithe of 10%, then the Levites would suffer the consequences of the selfishness of their brethren. Paul applies this principle in the New Covenant to those who have been called and set apart by the Lord into full time service in the ministry. "For it is written in the Law of Moses, "YOU SHALL NOT MUZZLE THE OX WHILE HE IS THRESHING." God is not concerned about oxen, is He? Or is He speaking altogether for our sake? Yes, for our sake it was written, because the plowman ought to plow in hope, and the thresher to thresh in hope of sharing the crops. If we sowed spiritual things in you, is it too much if we reap material things from you? If others share the right over you, do we not more? Nevertheless, we did not use this right, but we endure all things so that we will cause no hindrance to the gospel of Christ. Do you not know that those who perform sacred services eat the food of the temple, and those who attend regularly to the altar have their share from the altar? So also the Lord directed those who proclaim the gospel to get their living from the gospel." (I Corinthians 9:9-14). The Lord has designed it so that the support of those who work full time in the ministry of the Gospel is measured by the commitment of all of the people of God to value that work and make full provision for it. As I have mentioned before, the statistics of the giving of those who claim to know and follow the Lord does not reflect this level of commitment on average. The standard the Lord has established is the tithe, or 10% of our income to be returned to Him. The average American church gives 2% of their income. Both the person giving much less than what the Lord has ordained, and those Gospel workers dependent on their giving lose out on the greater blessing of God as a result. 19:1-6 - "Then the LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, "This is the statute of the law which the LORD has commanded, saying, 'Speak to the sons of Israel that they bring you an unblemished red heifer in which is no defect and on which a yoke has never been placed. You shall give it to Eleazar the priest, and it shall be brought outside the camp and be slaughtered in his presence. Next Eleazar the priest shall take some of its blood with his finger and sprinkle some of its blood toward the front of the tent of meeting seven times. Then the heifer shall be burned in his sight; its hide and its flesh and its blood, with its refuse, shall be burned. The priest shall take cedar wood and hyssop and scarlet material and cast it into the midst of the burning heifer.'" This chapter ends the section of Numbers in which the Lord gave additional statutes of His Law. The remainder of the book will return to the narrative of their 40 year journey through the wilderness. The last law given is unique among the laws and stands alone from the other laws for the various sacrifices. It is commonly known as the law of the Red Heifer. It required Aaron's oldest son, Eleazar, who was the main assistant to the high priest to take a special kind of cow outside the camp of Israel for sacrifice. The following required features each convey a symbolic element and together form a layered symbolic sacrifice. All of the symbolism of this sacrifice points forward to Christ just as the many other sacrifices of the Law were designed to do. The heifer had to be unblemished which meant that it could have no physical defects and symbolized the sinless perfection of Christ in His unblemished obedience to God. It had to be a red color in its skin, which was what we would call a reddish brown tint. This color was an external indicator of the core of the sacrifice which was based upon the blood to be shed for the sake of those who offered the heifer. This one heifer was offered not for a single individual or family, but for the sake of the entire nation of God's chosen people. In the same way Christ was offered on the cross for all those whom God has chosen for salvation. The heifer must be one that had never before worn a yoke. The yoke was the wooden harness placed upon the animal to dedicate it to the service of the farmer. God wanted an animal that had never served man, but was entirely dedicated to His service in the sacrifice. Christ testified that He lived to only do the will of His Father, and it was His total commitment to the Father's will that qualified Him alone as the necessary sacrifice for our salvation. The heifer was to be sacrificed in an unusual location. All other sacrifices were offered on the altar in the tabernacle courtyard. The heifer in contrast was to be taken outside of the camp entirely and sacrificed there. Christ was crucified, not within the walls of the city of Jerusalem, but outside the walls. "Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people through His own blood, suffered outside the gate." (Hebrews 13:12). When it was sacrificed, the entire animal was to be burned like a whole burnt offering which showed that in His death on the cross, Jesus withheld nothing and sacrificed everything in His death. An unusual aspect of this sacrifice from the other tabernacle sacrifices was what was to be done with the blood of the sacrifice. Some of the blood of the heifer was to be sprinkled by the priest by dipping his finger in the blood and sprinkling it toward the entrance to the tabernacle seven times. He could only sprinkle it toward the tent because this sacrifice was physically separated from the tent, and was outside the camp. The significance of sprinkling the blood toward the entrance to the tent though was to show that only through the shed blood of Christ was the way into God's house made open to God's people. It was sprinkled seven times to symbolize that Christ's death completely opened the door into God's house. Then, the remainder of the blood was burned along with the sacrifice, which was not done for any of the other sacrifices. The reason why the blood must be burned for this one sacrifice will become apparent in the next passage. The priest was then to add cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet material to the fire of the offering. Cedar was added because the wood was rich in cedar oil and was a known symbol for something incorruptible. Branches of hyssop were used to dip in the blood of the tabernacle sacrifices in order to sprinkle the blood of the sacrifice on the furnishings and the people, and were a symbol of purification. The scarlet red material symbolized a garment stained with shed blood, as the garment of Christ would later be stained with His blood. 19:14-20 - "This is the law when a man dies in a tent: everyone who comes into the tent and everyone who is in the tent shall be unclean for seven days. Every open vessel, which has no covering tied down on it, shall be unclean. Also, anyone who in the open field touches one who has been slain with a sword or who has died naturally, or a human bone or a grave, shall be unclean for seven days. Then for the unclean person they shall take some of the ashes of the burnt purification from sin and flowing water shall be added to them in a vessel. A clean person shall take hyssop and dip it in the water, and sprinkle it on the tent and on all the furnishings and on the persons who were there, and on the one who touched the bone or the one slain or the one dying naturally or the grave. Then the clean person shall sprinkle on the unclean on the third day and on the seventh day; and on the seventh day he shall purify him from uncleanness, and he shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water and shall be clean by evening. But the man who is unclean and does not purify himself from uncleanness, that person shall be cut off from the midst of the assembly, because he has defiled the sanctuary of the LORD; the water for impurity has not been sprinkled on him, he is unclean." The second aspect of the Red Heifer sacrifice was designed to extend the special benefits of the sacrifice beyond the day of the sacrifice itself. Once the Red heifer was slain and burned whole, the ashes created by the burning were to be gathered by a man assisting Eleazar and preserved in a clean place just outside the camp. This container of the ashes of the red heifer was kept for the special cleansing needs of the people of Israel. As we have studied in previous passages, there were various ways in which an Israelite could become ceremonially unclean. When they became unclean, such as through physical contact with a dead body, or someone else that had touched a dead body, they were rendered unclean for seven days. They were also ceremonially contagious for those seven days. Then, at the end of that full week of uncleanness in which they were not allowed to even come inside the camp, the unclean person still had to offer a costly sacrifice with one of the priests in order to be restored to a clean condition. In this provision of the red heifer's ashes, the Lord made a gracious way for the unclean person to be restored to a clean condition. What the person who was unclean could do from this point forward was to go to the deposit of the ashes of the red heifer and take a small portion of the ashes, mix the ashes with water in a container. Then a clean person would take a branch of hyssop and dipping the hyssop in the mixture of ash and water, sprinkle the unclean person with what was now called the water for impurity. As you can imagine, sprinkling a person with water mixed with the ashes of a dead cow would actually make the person more physically unclean. This shows us that the whole point of the cleansing was not physical cleansing, but spiritual cleansing using the physical symbols involved. This provision reveals a critical aspect of the ongoing benefit of the cross in a way that the other sacrifices do not and is the main reason why the Lord added this red heifer sacrifice to the other tabernacle offerings. The cross provides for believers an ongoing provision of mercy and grace beyond the initial cleansing we receive in our salvation. Thank God, that the cross does much more than cleanse us of all our sins up until the first day we believed. If that was all the cross addressed, then we would be cleansed of all our past sins until the day of our salvation, but not any sins we commit beyond that day. While it is true, that as saved believers, we do not sin in the same way that we did before we were saved, we nevertheless are not yet perfect and sinless. We have all sinned since the day of our salvation, and we need the full benefits of the cross to be applied to all our subsequent sins just like we did to all our previous sins. The ash and water mixture to be sprinkled whenever a person became unclean points to the continual, inexhaustible supply of mercy, grace, and cleansing we find in the cross. Each time we sin, we should return to the cross to be freshly sprinkled with the blood of Christ and cleansed by its purifying virtue. "But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation; and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" (Hebrews 9:11-14). "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (I John 1:9). 20:1-5 - "Then the sons of Israel, the whole congregation, came to the wilderness of Zin in the first month; and the people stayed at Kadesh. Now Miriam died there and was buried there. There was no water for the congregation, and they assembled themselves against Moses and Aaron. The people thus contended with Moses and spoke, saying, "If only we had perished when our brothers perished before the LORD! Why then have you brought the LORD'S assembly into this wilderness, for us and our beasts to die here? Why have you made us come up from Egypt, to bring us in to this wretched place? It is not a place of grain or figs or vines or pomegranates, nor is there water to drink." The narrative leaps forward in time as this chapter begins. The children of Israel have now been in the wilderness for forty years since leaving Egypt. The Lord led them once again, as He had done before, to a location in which there was no adequate natural source of drinking water. We are meant to read their story here and the way the people responded to this circumstance, and learn from it. The lesson they have to teach us is based upon a bad example and shows us what not to do in similar circumstances. You and I will never camp in a waterless wilderness with two million others, so our physical circumstances will never be the same. What is similar to what happened to them, and what happens to us is the pattern of the Lord's leading, and the pattern of our response. This development shows us that the Lord has, does, and will lead His people into circumstances that test their faith to the core. The details of faith testing circumstances are different for each person, but the Lord knows our hearts completely, and designs situations that force us to face the same kind of test that Israel faced here. Faith testing circumstances usually involve a certain expectation on our part, and the Lord bringing us into circumstances that do not meet our expectations. The point of the test is to provide us with an opportunity to either trust the Lord or grumble and complain about the circumstance. A heart of trust in this exact same circumstance would have responded quite differently than Israel did here. Trust would have looked at the lack of water and reasoned in a healthy direction. "This lack of water is difficult, but the Lord led us here. He would not have led us here to die of thirst. He always has our best interests at heart. He has proven so many times before that He is faithful to meet our true needs. He showed us years ago at Meribah, that He is able to provide water for the entire nation by giving us water from the rock if necessary. Let's call out to Him in dependence and faith. Surely, He will meet our need now, as He has always done before." Of course, Israel did not think along those lines, let alone respond in this way. When the lack of water came to the forefront, Israel responded in the same rebellious, unbelieving way they had responded forty years before in an almost identical testing circumstance. This was a second opportunity from the Lord for them to correct their previous sin. Instead, this circumstance served only to confirm that this generation of Israel had not really grown at all spiritually in their entire forty year journey. The reason for our life long journey in our walk with the Lord, is that we would learn from every single circumstance through which the Lord leads us. Each new test may stretch us, but that stretching is intended to make room for us to grow more like Jesus. It is the spiritual growth we gain from the tests that make the difficulties of the tests worthwhile. Testing that produces no actual changes in us is wasted. In the end, this forty years in the wilderness did not benefit the generation that lived through it at all with the exceptions of Joshua and Caleb. The response of the people to the test of no water should be familiar to us by now. They once again wrongly identified Moses and Aaron and the cause of this challenge. At the very least, the people should have learned by now that it was the Lord that was leading them through the wilderness, and that Moses and Aaron were only following the Lord's direction. However, because the people are seeing their circumstances with natural, rather than spiritual perspective, their complaints focused on the human leaders as the target of their complaints. Their objection which they voiced is only a repeat of earlier complaints. They again claim it would have been better for them if they had died when their brothers were slain in the judgment of God. Again, this declaration reveals a glaring lack of discernment. Again they insinuate that they have only been brought all this way in order to die here without water. Again they blame Moses for having taken them from Egypt, where, in their short sighted forgetfulness, they imagine their lives were much better than now. Once again they bring up the memory of the foods they ate in Egypt. If there is one lesson every believer must learn to be able to move on into God's full purpose, it is this; our old life of slavery before we were saved is not better than our current life in the Lord, no matter what circumstance may have been more pleasant compared to our present challenges. It boils down to this; it is better to follow the Lord through a wilderness in freedom, than to be enslaved in luxury in Egypt. 20:6-8 - "Then Moses and Aaron came in from the presence of the assembly to the doorway of the tent of meeting and fell on their faces. Then the glory of the LORD appeared to them; and the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, "Take the rod; and you and your brother Aaron assemble the congregation and speak to the rock before their eyes, that it may yield its water. You shall thus bring forth water for them out of the rock and let the congregation and their beasts drink." Moses and Aaron were the target of the complaints of the people, but as they were accused of causing this present difficulty, they responded by doing the best possible thing they could do. They fell on their faces. This indicates that Moses and Aaron turned fully to the Lord and waited for His response. They did not yield to the temptation to react to the pressure from the people by defending themselves. They looked to the Lord, and in doing so demonstrated true humility and provided an example to the people of what they should be doing themselves. The Lord was faithful to meet Moses and Aaron as they looked to Him and waited upon Him. The glory of the Lord appeared to them and the Lord spoke a clear word of direction to Moses in how to handle the crisis. There are two things about the Lord's response that catch my attention here. The first is that the Lord did not even address the grumbling of the people. We have seen in more than one previous situation how the rebellious complaints of the people affected the Lord. We know that how the people spoke this day must have grieved the Lord. In earlier similar confrontations, the Lord had even threatened to bring the nation to a sudden end in judgment. Now, the Lord does not even address them to threaten them. I believe that this is so, because this generation of people has been judged by the Lord as not worth the effort. The Lord's discipline is always purposeful. He disciplines us to change us. When a person refuses to change over a long period of time, then there is no point in further discipline. Their time is now coming to an end. They will all soon be dead, and the Lord will take the next generation into the Promised Land. The second notable thing the Lord did here is that He once again faithfully provided for their need of water. They did not deserve it, yet, the Lord provided for them. The Lord chose to provide water for them in a way that would communicate a deep symbolic message to the generations to follow. The Lord instructed Moses to take the rod (probably Aaron's rod that had sprouted) and assemble everyone before a specific rock. There, Moses was to speak to the rock. We are not told what Moses was to say to the rock, but the result of his speaking to it was that the rock would pour forth water for the nation to drink. Now, this situation was familiar to all of them and was connected to one of the first tests in their journey forty years before. "Then the LORD said to Moses, "Pass before the people and take with you some of the elders of Israel; and take in your hand your staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb; and you shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it, that the people may drink." And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel." (Exodus 17:5-6). In that early test, Moses was commanded to strike the rock with the rod and when he did so, the Lord brought water for the whole nation from the rock. We learned from Paul's teaching that this rock was a type of Christ. "and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and the rock was Christ." (I Corinthians 10:4). Remember, the striking of the rock was a spiritual picture in symbol of the crucifixion of Christ. The water that flowed from the rock that was struck portrayed the pouring out of salvation. 20:9-13 - "So Moses took the rod from before the LORD, just as He had commanded him; and Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly before the rock. And he said to them, "Listen now, you rebels; shall we bring forth water for you out of this rock?" Then Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock twice with his rod; and water came forth abundantly, and the congregation and their beasts drank. But the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, "Because you have not believed Me, to treat Me as holy in the sight of the sons of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them." Those were the waters of Meribah, because the sons of Israel contended with the LORD, and He proved Himself holy among them." There are great similarities between the test forty years previous, and this test. Almost everything in the symbolism of the type of the rock and the water was the same with one key difference. The first time, forty years earlier, the Lord commanded Moses to strike the rock with the rod. Now, in this situation, the Lord commanded Moses to take the rod, but instead of striking the rock with the rod, he was to only speak to the rock. The water would come forth this time without striking the rock a second time. This is no arbitrary change by the Lord in this situation. The change preserved a critical symbolic difference between striking the rock and speaking to the rock. Since striking symbolized Jesus being crucified, it was essential that Moses not strike the rock again as he had done forty years before. If Moses struck the rock again, it would be inadvertently communicating that Jesus must be crucified again for sin in order for the people of God to receive the blessings of salvation. So, the Lord ordered Moses to only speak to the rock to bring forth the continuing blessing of the water. This would picture that once Jesus was crucified, the people of God receive all they need from the rock of salvation by only speaking to the rock in prayer. Moses has through all the forty years of this journey maintained an exemplary record as the leader of God's people. He has been characterized by full obedience toward the Lord and deep humility toward the people. This time, however, Moses cracks under the pressure of the moment. He allows his own frustration with their attitude and actions to overwhelm his better judgment. In his frustration, Moses ignores the command of the Lord and lifted his hand and struck the rock twice. In doing so, he not only disobeyed the Lord, he ruined the type of the rock of our salvation. The Lord did bring forth water from the rock in spite of the sin of Moses, but He was not pleased with Moses at all. The Lord pronounces a judgment upon Moses because of this great failure. The judgment of the Lord is that Moses will join the rest of the rebellious generation and die in the wilderness without leading Israel into the Promised Land. At first glance, this may seem like a steep price to pay for a single failure by Moses after forty years of faithful and obedient service to the Lord. It is a steep price, but a necessary one. The standard of the Lord for Moses is higher than for the rest of the nation. He is the leader, and is held to that higher standard. Moses has seen more of the Lord's glory, heard more of His voice, and been given greater responsibility. The sovereignty of God is also on display here at a more subtle level. It would not fit the greater spiritual purpose of God for Moses to lead Israel into the Promised Land. Moses represents the Law of God. The purpose of the Law of God is to reveal to us our heart's condition apart from grace and convince us that we could never reach the goal of life based upon our own goodness. The Law can never take us into the Promised Land. Instead, the Lord ordained that Joshua (the same Hebrew name as Jesus), rather than Moses will lead Israel where Moses cannot go. Questions From Numbers 20: Question: It says in 19:11 that a man who touches the dead will be unclean. Then only those who are clean can sprinkle on the unclean and the verse goes on. Is it related today that in ministering only clean people spiritually can minister? nswer: Yes, that is a good connection to draw to this principle. All who minister in the New Covenant must be spiritually clean. There are two aspects of the necessary spiritual cleanliness to recognize. The first is that in order to minister in the New Covenant a person must first be truly saved, or born again. They must have experienced the washing of regeneration (Titus 3:5) that takes place in salvation. We might think that this is too obvious to mention, but the reality is that every day some people graduate from Seminary and Bible College and begin to minister in various church leadership positions who have never been born again. The second aspect of being spiritually clean for ministry that
should be considered, is that even some who are born again and in
ministry involve themselves in disqualifying sin. There are more
than a handful of pastors, evangelists, teachers, and others in
ministry that are participating in adultery, fornication, homosexuality,
theft, drunkenness, drug abuse, and other disqualifying sins. Those
who are, should not continue in such ministry positions because
the ministry above all else is meant to represent the Lord both
to the church and the world. It is shameful to portray the Lord
in these ways. 21:1-3 - "When the Canaanite, the king of Arad, who lived in the Negev, heard that Israel was coming by the way of Atharim, then he fought against Israel and took some of them captive. So Israel made a vow to the LORD and said, "If You will indeed deliver this people into my hand, then I will utterly destroy their cities." The LORD heard the voice of Israel and delivered up the Canaanites; then they utterly destroyed them and their cities. Thus the name of the place was called Hormah." This chapter marks the beginning of the conquest of the Promised Land. Israel is still technically outside of Canaan on the far side of the Jordan river, but some of the Canaanite peoples that are under the judgment of God live in these lands. This first encounter with the king of Arad at Hormah was significant because of what happened here the last time Israel was in this place. Hormah was the location of Israel's great defeat forty years earlier (Numbers 14:43-45). The Lord had led Israel this far in preparation for entering the Promised Land. Then, the 10 spies returned with an evil report, and the nation chose to follow their conclusions about Canaan and return to Egypt, rather than Joshua and Caleb's insistence that they should go forward. After the Lord's judgment the people attempted the next day to enter the land, but now against the Lord's command and without the Lord's blessing. The inhabitants of this same region utterly defeated Israel. Now, the Lord has led Israel back to the place of their great fear and worst defeat. The Lord's purpose in bringing them to this same place was to give the nation the opportunity to respond as they should and finish in the right way what was started a generation before. This is the grace of God toward the entire nation, and highlights for us a pattern of how the Lord deals with us in our own spiritual progression. There are certain battles that must be fought and won in the Christian life before we can move forward in the progression of where the Lord is taking us. If we fight and lose, through disobedience, fear, unbelief, etc., we can be confident that the Lord will eventually lead us back to the site of our previous defeat. The keys to the battle are simple; trust and obey. These are lessons we cannot skip as we grow in the Lord. 21:4-9 - "Then they set out from Mount Hor by the way of the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; and the people became impatient because of the journey. The people spoke against God and Moses, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this miserable food." The LORD sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. So the people came to Moses and said, "We have sinned, because we have spoken against the LORD and you; intercede with the LORD, that He may remove the serpents from us." And Moses interceded for the people. Then the LORD said to Moses, "Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a standard; and it shall come about, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he will live." And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on the standard; and it came about, that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived." The victory over the king of Arad at Hormah was a step in the right direction, but was not a signal that Israel had changed in every way for the better. Some old bad habits die hard. Following their victory, they continued toward Canaan by a longer route which allowed them to avoid passing through the land of Edom. The circumstances of the longer route exposed an old shared flaw among the people. As they grew once again impatient on the journey, their fleshly perspective and attitude came spilling out in a renewed complaint against both God and Moses. The complaint is nothing new. It was another empty accusation that they were brought into the wilderness to die. Of course, they also had to add some grumbling about their diet. This time they don't even bother to cloak their complaint with subtlety. They offer up a blatantly contradictory complaint. First they whine that they have no food or water, then in the same breath they complain about the quality of the food the Lord was providing for them. Which was it; that there was no food, or that they did not like the food? The real issue of course was not that there was no food or water. They had enough of both as the Lord continued to provide daily manna for them and water from the rock as needed. Yet, these miraculous gifts from the Lord may as well have been gravel and sand as far as the attitudes of the people were concerned. They described their own reaction to the Lord's provision after forty years on the manna diet. They loathed (hated) it. They called the manna, "this miserable food." The manna was God's gift to them. The Lord has patience far beyond the measure of our own, but even the Lord was not pleased when they chose to call His gift to them a miserable gift. Like the last time they complained, the Lord did not speak to the people about their complaint. After forty years of listening to them complain, He was fed up with it and would deal with it without warning or any verbal effort to influence their attitude. The Lord did not even bother to speak to Moses about what He was about to do. This was different from earlier warnings of judgment. Whenever the Lord warns in advance of a coming judgment it is because He is granting the targets of His judgment the opportunity to repent, change, and avert the necessity of judgment. Here, without warning, the judgment of the Lord is upon them. The judgment is not arbitrary. The Lord sent fiery serpents into the camp to bite the people. The judgment corresponded to their sin. Their complaints against Him were like the poison of a snake's bite to their hearts and minds. This was not just an object lesson though. These snakes were real and the bites they inflicted were real and deadly. The impression was that there were a great number of snakes because the people were not able to protect themselves by killing the snakes or fleeing from them. As people began to die, those still alive suddenly had a spiritual awakening of perspective and a much needed attitude adjustment. They sought out Moses, whom they had just been grumbling about to repent and appealed to him to intercede with the Lord for them. It is a sad, but all too common pattern among the people of God that discipline of hard and threatening life circumstances will bring about the heart changes that were resisted under more pleasant circumstances. The Lord wants us to reach the place where we will trust Him, submit to Him and obey Him whenever He directs us. If we don't, we should expect that like with Israel here, He will design a set of more difficult circumstances until we get the message and yield to Him. Either way the Lord will win the power struggle between ourselves and Him, and the sooner we learn that lesson, the better off we will be. Moses was faithful once again to turn to the Lord on behalf of the people. The Lord spoke to him a very specific direction to alleviate the issue of the serpents for the people. Moses was to make a representation of one of the serpents in bronze and mount it on one of the poles used to raise the tribal standards. He was to lift the bronze serpent in the midst of the people and everyone that looked upon it would survive the real serpent's bite. All who did not look and were bitten would die from the serpent's bite. Remember that the serpent represented their own sin, and the bite of the serpent was simply the consequential judgment of God for their sin. The Lord mercifully provided salvation from the death that their own sin had caused, but there was one and only one way to be saved. Jesus referred to this same incident, in His conversation about salvation with Nicodemus, and applied it to His own mission. "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life." (John 3:14-16). Jesus compared the lifting of the bronze serpent to Himself being lifted up. He was drawing a symbolic comparison to His death in which He was to be lifted up on the cross. There are several salvation parallels. Jesus was lifted up on the cross like the bronze serpent. He bore the sins of the people like the serpent represented the sins of the people. The deadly bite of the snakes is the spiritual equivalent of the judgment that every person in this world is under for their own sin. The way of salvation for Israel was to look at the serpent, while the way of salvation for us is simply to look in faith at Christ crucified for us. All who failed to look at the serpent died from the poisonous bite, and all who do not look to Christ's saving death on the cross will be a fatality of their own sin. In both cases, God's only provision for salvation is in what He caused to be lifted up. 21:34-35 - "But the LORD said to Moses, "Do not fear him, for I have given him into your hand, and all his people and his land; and you shall do to him as you did to Sihon, king of the Amorites, who lived at Heshbon." So they killed him and his sons and all his people, until there was no remnant left him; and they possessed his land." From there, the Lord led them into two more successful battles with the kings of the Amorites and Bashan. The first battle fulfilled a prophecy the Lord spoke to Abraham over 400 years earlier. "Then in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete." (Genesis 15:16). The spiritual principle involved here is important for us to learn as we follow Israel in their conquest of Canaan. It is an issue that has caused some confusion and questions for Bible readers throughout the generations. Israel fought and won battles here with both Sihon, the king of the Amorites, and Og, the king of Bashan. When they won the battles, they did not capture the people of these nations and incorporate them into their own society. They killed, not just the leaders, or the soldiers, but the kings, the sons of the kings, and all their people until there was no remnant left of these nations. For our modern sensibilities this is quite a jolt. Can you imagine if this happened in today's world? CNN would be doing expose' specials for months. Hollywood would be up in arms and making anti-Israelite moves for years to come. There would be questions raised concerning the right of Israel to displace nations that "were there before them", and the outrage over killing all the people would be tremendous. The question we must face and resolve is whether Israel sinned, or did the wrong thing in this. We know Israel sinned many many times in the wilderness, but this was not one of them. In this, Israel obeyed the Lord and carried out His will. It was the Lord Who ordained the destruction of the nations of Bashan and the Amorites. Why would the Lord do such a thing? The direct answer is sin. The Lord had allowed these two nations a specific measure of iniquity, and they had reached their limit. It was time for these nations to be judged with a death penalty from Him. This is no different than the way the Lord judged the entire world in the Flood, and later the sin filled cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. The foundational principle that still applies to every nation today, with the same force that it applied in that day is that the Lord is the Lord over all the nations of this world. Paul said it this way in Acts. "and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God..." (Acts 17:26-27). The implication is that the Lord determines the geographic boundaries of every nation, and He also determines the amount of time in history that each nation will last. He deals with each nation according to His own standards of righteousness. No nation has the right to exist or continue beyond what the Lord determines. Any nation that disregards and disobeys the Lord will eventually face a similar end, and history is littered with the nations that did so and no longer exist. 22:5-9 - "So he sent messengers to Balaam the son of Beor, at Pethor, which is near the River, in the land of the sons of his people, to call him, saying, "Behold, a people came out of Egypt; behold, they cover the surface of the land, and they are living opposite me. Now, therefore, please come, curse this people for me since they are too mighty for me; perhaps I may be able to defeat them and drive them out of the land. For I know that he whom you bless is blessed, and he whom you curse is cursed." So the elders of Moab and the elders of Midian departed with the fees for divination in their hand; and they came to Balaam and repeated Balak's words to him. He said to them, "Spend the night here, and I will bring word back to you as the LORD may speak to me." And the leaders of Moab stayed with Balaam. Then God came to Balaam and said, "Who are these men with you?" The story of Balaam and Balak takes center stage for the next three chapters. It is unusual in a number of ways, but the most obvious is that in the account of the wilderness journey of Israel so far all of the attention has been directly on Israel and Moses as the one chosen by God to reveal His will regarding Israel. Israel is still the primary concern, but neither Balaam or Balak are Israelites. Balak is the king of Moab, and Balaam is a seer who will be used by Yahweh to reveal His will for Israel, but is himself outside of the covenant. Balaam is somewhat a mysterious figure because he is not presented in the story as either fully good or fully bad, but as a mixture of spiritual elements. Even though Balaam himself is a difficult to understand mixture of spiritual motivations, the message the Lord speaks to us through his actions and words is clear and significant. The first thing we should recognize about Balaam is that he had gained a reputation as a seer who was available for hire. Balak's fears toward Israel arriving in proximity to Moab lead him to look for a solution to the problem. He sends messengers to Balaam with a fee to hire Balaam to pronounce a curse upon Israel. The practice of cursing was common in ancient cultures and here, it involved seeking a seer perceived to have great spiritual power or influence to formally declare that bad things would happen to the target of the curse. Balaam does not react with any surprise or outrage at being offered money to do such a thing, indicating that this was probably not the first time he had been hired to pronounce a curse. Balaam instructs the messengers of Balak to stay the night while he seeks the Lord regarding Balak's offer. This tells us that Balaam understood that he had no power to effectively curse Israel without the Lord's involvement. That night, God came to Balaam and initiated a conversation with him in an unusual manner. God asked Balaam, "Who are these men with you?" What should have caught Balaam's attention, but didn't, is that God was asking him a question as if seeking unknown information. God knew who the men were. He knew they were messengers of Balak. He knew that they were there carrying a fee to influence Balaam to curse the people that God identified as His own holy nation. So, why did God ask this question and why did Balaam miss it? God asked the question to catch Balaam's attention and to cause him to reconsider his motives in even asking God about this. It was as though the Lord was saying in His question; I know who Israel is, but who are these people that want you to curse Israel. The Lord's question exposed His low esteem for the messengers of Balak. Balaam missed the implications in the question and proved that even though he was a seer who talked with God, he really was somewhat spiritually dense. 22:12-14 - "God said to Balaam, "Do not go with them; you shall not curse the people, for they are blessed." So Balaam arose in the morning and said to Balak's leaders, "Go back to your land, for the LORD has refused to let me go with you." The leaders of Moab arose and went to Balak and said, "Balaam refused to come with us." Balaam missed God's hint that He did not have regard for the messengers of Balak, so He spelled out his will for Balaam in crystal clear terms. He commanded Balaam to not go with them or curse Israel because they were blessed. Without saying it directly, the Lord indicated that any attempt to curse Israel would meet with His opposition because it was His blessing upon Israel. Balaam did understand this time what the Lord was saying. He responded with an appropriate adjustment. The previous night, Balaam was hoping to be able to go with the messengers and be able to accept the fee of Balak. Now, the Lord's command has changed that plan and Balaam sends the messengers back to Balak with the message that the Lord had refused to let him go with them. This message of Balaam's contains a hint of the seed of his trouble to come. He neglects to say anything about the impossibility of him cursing Israel and leaves open the door for Balak to misunderstand his refusal as a negotiating ploy seeking a greater fee. Balaam did not say that he would not come under any circumstances to curse Israel, only that the Lord would not let him do so. This hints about his lingering desire to do so. The true motive of Balaam is uncovered for us by Peter in this passage. "forsaking the right way, they have gone astray, having followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness;" (II Peter 2:15). 22:15-22 - "Then Balak again sent leaders, more numerous and more distinguished than the former. They came to Balaam and said to him, "Thus says Balak the son of Zippor, 'Let nothing, I beg you, hinder you from coming to me; for I will indeed honor you richly, and I will do whatever you say to me. Please come then, curse this people for me.'" Balaam replied to the servants of Balak, "Though Balak were to give me his house full of silver and gold, I could not do anything, either small or great, contrary to the command of the LORD my God. Now please, you also stay here tonight, and I will find out what else the LORD will speak to me." God came to Balaam at night and said to him, "If the men have come to call you, rise up and go with them; but only the word which I speak to you shall you do." So Balaam arose in the morning, and saddled his donkey and went with the leaders of Moab. But God was angry because he was going, and the angel of the LORD took his stand in the way as an adversary against him. Now he was riding on his donkey and his two servants were with him. Balak plays the negotiation game with Balaam by sending more distinguished messengers with a much greater offer. Not only will Balak raise the amount of Balaam's fee if he will come curse Israel for him, Balak offers to "do whatever you say to me." This is what we might call a blank check offer. Balak is so deeply motivated to have Israel cursed that he offers Balaam whatever price he names to do so. This is the highest offer he can make to Balaam. At first, Balaam seems to handle this great temptation to compromise the command of the Lord in the right way. He responds with a firm answer. He declares that even if Balak were to give him a house full of gold and silver he could not do contrary to the Lord's command. As solid as this response from Balaam is, it is his next statement that reveals where his heart is with this irresistible offer of Balak's. Rather than send the second delegation of messengers back to Balak, Balaam bids them stay the night while he seeks the Lord to see if he can gain permission to accept their offer. This was Balaam's failure point. He had no business asking the messengers to stay. He had no business going back to the Lord to seek His disposition on this issue. The Lord's will was clear. The Lord had made His will known to Balaam in no uncertain terms, and now, as if God had never spoken to him the first time, Balaam was going to ask again. This shows us that Balaam was disregarding what the Lord had already spoken to him, and he did so because he desperately wanted to hear a different answer from God. What is truly surprising in the story is what happens next. God came and spoke to Balaam a second time. This time, the Lord gives Balaam different instructions that effectively contradict one of the previous commands He had given him. Before, God told Balaam not to go with the messengers. Now, He tells him to go with them. The Lord does repeat His warning to not curse Israel, but gives Balaam permission to go. Is the Lord being inconsistent here? Why would He say this to Balaam? This second word from God indicates to us that Balaam has already crossed the line into rebellion toward the Lord and the change in the Lord's command is evidence of the beginning of the Lord's judgment in his life, not that the Lord has changed His mind. When Balaam sets out the next morning, God was angry that he was going, and even sent His angel to block his way as an adversary against him. How serious was Balaam's choice to go? We find out later from the angel of the Lord, that had Balaam's donkey not resisted, that the angel would have slain him. The entire point of this part of the story is that when God speaks, we are to listen and obey, and not presume to seek Him for a different answer. The desire to get a different answer from God only arises from a heart that wants its own way no matter what. God is not like a weak willed parent with uncertain convictions that can be manipulated or convinced to change His boundaries and permissions. I have many times dealt with believers in a counseling circumstance where they clearly understood the will of God for their life issue as they came to understand the Biblical principle that applied in such circumstances, only to see them try to create wiggle room for themselves to find a way around God's boundary. We should understand this about God. He sees right through our transparent desires and attempts to get our own way when our way is at odds with His way. God understands our struggle when His will causes us to have to deny ourselves, and obey Him, and blesses those whose core commitment is to submit to His will once they know what it is. He has no regard, however, for those who know His will and who continue to maneuver their way around it. 22:28-33 - "And the LORD opened the mouth of the donkey, and she said to Balaam, "What have I done to you, that you have struck me these three times?" Then Balaam said to the donkey, "Because you have made a mockery of me! If there had been a sword in my hand, I would have killed you by now." The donkey said to Balaam, "Am I not your donkey on which you have ridden all your life to this day? Have I ever been accustomed to do so to you?" And he said, "No." Then the LORD opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel of the LORD standing in the way with his drawn sword in his hand; and he bowed all the way to the ground. The angel of the LORD said to him, "Why have you struck your donkey these three times? Behold, I have come out as an adversary, because your way was contrary to me. But the donkey saw me and turned aside from me these three times. If she had not turned aside from me, I would surely have killed you just now, and let her live." Some struggle with the idea that a donkey spoke to Balaam. I don't. We are told that the Lord opened the mouth of the donkey. In other words, the donkey speaking had nothing to do with the ability of the donkey. This was a miracle of God. The donkey speaking should not surprise us, because God is able to do whatever He chooses. What should surprise us is the way Balaam responds. He does not seem at all shocked that the donkey spoke. He enters into conversation with the donkey as though they were old friends and had many previous conversations. The only conclusion I can draw from this is that Balaam's response is another indication of how spiritually dense he had suddenly become because of his pursuit of his own sinful desires. Serious sin does have a heart and mind numbing effect upon people. We don't think as clearly in spiritual rebellion as we do in obedience to the Lord. There is a message in the donkey speaking to us as well. It clears up any confusion we might have taken from this story. Because Balaam's flaws are obvious, we might wonder why God would ever choose to speak through such a man as this. In chapter 24, we are going to listen as God speaks a profound and far reaching prophetic word through Balaam. God speaking through the donkey is meant to teach us that God can, and sometimes does choose to speak through imperfect vessels. If God can speak through a donkey, he can speak through Balaam too. We should not assume that a person speaking true words from God means that the messenger is as pure as the message spoken. 23:7-12 - "He took up his discourse and said, "From Aram Balak has brought me, Moab's king from the mountains of the East, 'Come curse Jacob for me, And come, denounce Israel!' How shall I curse whom God has not cursed? And how can I denounce whom the LORD has not denounced? As I see him from the top of the rocks, And I look at him from the hills; Behold, a people who dwells apart, And will not be reckoned among the nations. Who can count the dust of Jacob, Or number the fourth part of Israel? Let me die the death of the upright, And let my end be like his!" Then Balak said to Balaam, "What have you done to me? I took you to curse my enemies, but behold, you have actually blessed them!" He replied, "Must I not be careful to speak what the LORD puts in my mouth?" The Lord has now allowed Balaam to participate in Balak's plan to denounce Israel, but the Lord turns the tables on Balak by placing a much different word in the mouth of Balaam than the one for which Balak hoped and paid. The declarations, "How shall I curse whom God has not cursed? And how can I denounce whom the LORD has not denounced?", are more than Balaam saying that it would be wrong for him to curse Israel while the Lord wants to bless them. It is really a statement of his inability to do so. Balaam is declaring to Balak that it is the Lord Who is in charge in this circumstance, not Balak and not even Balaam. Balak is operating in a classic pagan religious perspective in which the "gods" exist for humans to persuade, manipulate and convince to do what we want them to do. The Lord speaks through Balaam here to set the record straight. He cannot be manipulated by Balak or Balaam whether they offer seven sacrifices on seven altars, or seven thousand. The Lord pursues His own agenda and is not at the beck and call of any human's agenda, no matter how rich, powerful or persuasive they may be. Balaam could curse Israel in theory, but his curse would not carry the desired impact because God has chosen to bless them. Balaam identifies Israel prophetically as a people who dwell apart. This is in reference to the special set apart relationship to which God had called them. Israel is His holy nation. The word holy carries the meaning of being set apart unto God. Israel's basic identity is a nation that dwells apart. That does not mean that they are physically or geographically isolated from the other nations, but that they are different. They dwell apart in the sense that their national standards are the standards established by God's Law. They do not live like any of the other nations of the world around them. The church is called to be a nation that dwells apart in the same sense. We are God's holy nation in the New Covenant (I Peter 2:9). We live in the midst of the nations of the world, but we are to spiritually dwell apart from them. We should not adopt the standards of the culture around us which are constantly changing. Our speech and behavior is to be noticeably different than the world. It is not our similarity to a fallen world that will impress the world, but our distinctions that are meant to draw attention to the God Who has saved us and made us holy. The statement, "Who can count the dust of Jacob...?", is prophetic reminder from the Lord of a promise He made long before to Abraham that Balaam would not have known. "I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth, so that if anyone can number the dust of the earth, then your descendants can also be numbered." (Genesis 13:16). The Lord has fulfilled that promise as Balaam surveys from his high vantage point the extensive camp of Israel. Balaam's discourse ends with his own inspired cry that he might be blessed at the end of his life to the degree that Israel had been blessed by the Lord. We will see that Balaam's own greedy compromise will exclude him from such a blessing as he dies. 23:13-20 - "Then Balak said to him, "Please come with me to another place from where you may see them, although you will only see the extreme end of them and will not see all of them; and curse them for me from there." So he took him to the field of Zophim, to the top of Pisgah, and built seven altars and offered a bull and a ram on each altar. And he said to Balak, "Stand here beside your burnt offering while I myself meet the LORD over there." Then the LORD met Balaam and put a word in his mouth and said, "Return to Balak, and thus you shall speak." He came to him, and behold, he was standing beside his burnt offering, and the leaders of Moab with him. And Balak said to him, "What has the LORD spoken?" Then he took up his discourse and said, "Arise, O Balak, and hear; Give ear to me, O son of Zippor! "God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent; Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good? Behold, I have received a command to bless; When He has blessed, then I cannot revoke it." Balak is none too pleased by Balaam's first discourse. Balak has gone to great trouble and invested considerable time and expense in the hope that Balaam would be able to resolve his fears about Israel. Instead, Balaam's spiritual declaration regarding Israel has compounded the problem by blessing them rather than cursing them. Balak understands the implications of Balaam's blessing upon Israel clearly, but he remains clueless about the even greater implications of the Lord's part in all this. Balak does not realize that it is hopeless to continue to try to persuade God to curse Israel through Balaam. Balak has the "bright" idea to simply change the venue. He reasons that if Balaam were to build the seven altars and offer seven sacrifices upon a different mountain that he might receive a different response. He takes Balaam to another high spot overlooking the camp of Israel, but one from which Balaam would "only see the extreme end of them and will not see all of them." The idea behind this decision was that Balak was reasoning that Balaam did not curse Israel because he saw too much of Israel's great numbers and that he was overwhelmed by the site and was fearful to curse such a great nation. Balak now hopes that if Balaam only sees the extreme end of the camp of Israel he will not be intimidated and will gain the courage to pronounce the curse he desperately desires. Again, Balak is only seeing this circumstance from a horizontal, fleshly perspective. The issue was not Balaam being intimidated by Israel's numbers, but that he was being intimidated by the Lord. The Lord puts His word in Balaam's mouth a second time. This time the message is more pointed and is aimed directly at Balak. The Lord addresses Balak in a way that calls for his full attention. The declaration about the Lord that follows is a classic text declaring one of the characteristics of the Lord's nature. "God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent; Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?" Balak was approaching the Lord through Balaam as though He were a man that could be bribed or manipulated. Balak had dishonored the Lord by assuming that He was motivated in the same ways that Balak himself was. It was time for Balak to learn that God's character was radically different than his own. Lesson number one; God is not a fallen human being with the character flaws that all people share. Lesson number two; God does not lie. Lesson number three: God is consistent and constant in holding to His principles unlike humans who bend the rules to suit themselves. Lesson number four; God keeps His word. 23:21-26 - "He has not observed misfortune in Jacob; Nor has He seen trouble in Israel; The LORD his God is with him, And the shout of a king is among them. God brings them out of Egypt, He is for them like the horns of the wild ox. For there is no omen against Jacob, Nor is there any divination against Israel; At the proper time it shall be said to Jacob And to Israel, what God has done! Behold, a people rises like a lioness, And as a lion it lifts itself; It will not lie down until it devours the prey, And drinks the blood of the slain." Then Balak said to Balaam, "Do not curse them at all nor bless them at all!" But Balaam replied to Balak, "Did I not tell you, 'Whatever the LORD speaks, that I must do'?" The Lord's prophetic discourse through Balaam continues shifts here from Himself to Israel and His purpose for Israel. Balak's plan to stop Israel is going to go down in flames because Israel has one thing going for it that Moab and Balak don't. Yahweh is with Israel. He has led Israel up from Egypt. Yahweh is in the midst of the camp of Israel and as long as He is with them, there is the shout of a king in their camp. That shout is the bold confidence of a nation that knows that their king is greater than all opposition they will face. Yahweh fights for Israel with the power of a wild ox that cannot be stopped. No omen or divination by Balaam or any other magician or sorcerer that Balak may hire next will be of any use against this nation which is blessed by Yahweh. Israel will devour its enemies like a lion devours its prey. In other words; Balak does not stand a chance. At this point, Balak cries out to Balaam to stop speaking. Twice now, Balak has sought a curse against Israel, and twice now the Lord has caused Balaam to instead pronounce an even greater blessing upon His chosen people. There is a lesson here that we should take to heart and from which we should be encouraged. The church is the chosen people of God in the New Covenant. God has called us to go where we are not wanted. As we go in obedience to the Lord there will inevitably be opposition stirred up around us. Those who oppose the purpose of God will seek to curse us and hinder us, but no matter how great the opposition of the world, the Lord's blessing upon us is greater still. "You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world." (I John 4:4).
24:5-9 - "How fair are your tents, O Jacob, Your dwellings, O Israel! Like valleys that stretch out, Like gardens beside the river, Like aloes planted by the LORD, Like cedars beside the waters. Water will flow from his buckets, And his seed will be by many waters, And his king shall be higher than Agag, And his kingdom shall be exalted. God brings him out of Egypt, He is for him like the horns of the wild ox. He will devour the nations who are his adversaries, And will crush their bones in pieces, And shatter them with his arrows. He couches, he lies down as a lion, And as a lion, who dares rouse him? Blessed is everyone who blesses you, And cursed is everyone who curses you." Balak wants Balaam to try a third time to change the message from the Lord by taking him to a third location and once again offering seven sacrifices on seven altars. The Lord gives Balaam a response for Balak a third time also, but this time the Lord's response comes with even greater emphasis. Balaam is overwhelmed in a trance like state as the Spirit of God comes upon him and causes him to fall to the ground with his spiritual perspective opened to see in a vision what the Lord has planned for Israel in the future. The Lord's descriptions of Israel are not meant to be taken literally here, but is prophetic poetic language describing the degree of the blessing of the Lord that will rest upon His holy nation. Israel will be like a garden. The very first environment the Lord chose for man was the Garden of Eden. This picture of Israel like a garden is a reminder that, for those who live in right relationship with the Lord, He will cause their lives to flourish like a well watered garden. Israel is compared then to cedar trees growing beside the water. Cedars were considered the best and strongest trees for building. Cedar wood was the best wood for great construction projects due to its strength, durability, and invulnerability to insect damage. Cedar wood was chosen for that reason in building both the Temple and the palace of the king in Israel's later history. Water flowing from his buckets pictures a culture free from the ravages of drought and abundant in their harvests. Israel's seed being by many waters indicates the fruitful growth of the population and the geographic expansion filling all the boundaries of the Promised Land. The king of Israel being higher than Agag is a double pointed image. First, at this point in Israel's history, there was no king over Israel. The first king was Saul and he actually defeated a king named Agag in battle. This prophecy anticipates that future battle and its predetermined outcome. The Lord was declaring to Balak that his attempts to thwart the establishment of Israel in the land were doomed to fail. The Lord has brought Israel up from Egypt, it is the Lord that fights for Israel with the strength of a wild ox, and it is the Lord that will cause Israel to devour all its adversaries like a lion devours its prey. The declaration of the primary covenant blessing upon Israel hearkens back to God's original promise to Abraham. "Blessed is everyone who blesses you, And cursed is everyone who curses you." The Lord had said this to Abraham when He first called him into covenant relationship with Him. "And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed." (Genesis 12:3). The real story of the conquest of the Promised Land to come will not be a story of Israel's greater numbers, weaponry or strategy, but a story of the greater blessing of God upon the nation. Each nation that chooses to bless Israel will be blessed. Each nation that curses them will themselves be cursed. The implications were personal for Balak. He has just hired Balaam to try to curse Israel three times. What should he anticipate for himself and his nation is response from the Lord? Balak and Moab will be cursed for having tried to curse Israel. 24:17-19 - "I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near; A star shall come forth from Jacob, A scepter shall rise from Israel, And shall crush through the forehead of Moab, And tear down all the sons of Sheth. Edom shall be a possession, Seir, its enemies, also will be a possession, While Israel performs valiantly. One from Jacob shall have dominion, And will destroy the remnant from the city." This is Balaam's second visionary prophecy from the heights of Peor. After the first prophecy, Balak responded in great anger by clapping his hands, not in applause, but in rage that Balaam had done the opposite of what he had paid him to do and pronounced a greater blessing upon Israel rather than curse. Balaam then is given another prophetic word by the Lord which identifies the contrasting futures of the kingdoms of Israel and Moab. Balak's future prospects are not favorable. The nation of Moab has only judgment coming in their future. Balaam describes a coming king of Israel who will rise like a bright star in the night sky. That king will wield his scepter (a rod symbolizing the authority of the kingdom) like a weapon of war. The king of Israel will crush through the forehead of Moab with his scepter. This somewhat gruesome picture is meant to drive home in vivid imagery the complete dominion of Israel over Moab in the future. Moab will not be the only nation in the region over which Israel will extend its dominion. Edom and Seir will similarly become the possession of Israel. This prophecy is what we can call a layered prophecy. It addresses both a distant and far distant future development. The distant development finds its fulfillment in the future King David. When David consolidates the kingdom he will finally defeat all the surrounding nations that remain enemies of Israel. The Lord will establish David's dominion and give him and Israel under him peace on every side. The second, deeper layer of this prophecy stretches far beyond David into the future for fulfillment. One of the titles given to the messiah of Israel was the Son of David. This described the common belief that the messiah would come and once again establish the kingdom as David had done, making Israel the ascendant nation in the world. Jesus was identified as the true Son of David. He is the Messiah, or God's chosen and anointed One. When Jesus came, he did not return national Israel to prominence by defeating the Romans in battle as many expected. Jesus fulfilled God's plan of salvation and established His kingdom, but it was a spiritual kingdom rather than a natural kingdom. Here is the testimony of Jesus about His kingdom when He was being examined by Pilate. "Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm." Therefore Pilate said to Him, "So You are a king?" Jesus answered, "You say correctly that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice." (John 18:36-37). When Jesus ascended back to heaven, He was named by God the Father the King of kings and the Lord of lords. He was given dominion over all the earth including authority over every nation on earth and every person on earth. He is the true star that came forth from Jacob and He is the One Who holds the scepter of authority with which He exercises His dominion. "And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth." (Matthew 28:18).
PARENTAL ALERT—some of the following subject matter involves mature themes. Please review with discernment before sharing with your children. 25:1-3 - "While Israel remained at Shittim, the people began to play the harlot with the daughters of Moab. For they invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. So Israel joined themselves to Baal of Peor, and the LORD was angry against Israel. Israel arrives and camps in Shittim, fresh from their recent victories over the kings, Og and Sihon. It was as they were camped in this region that the attempts of Balak to have Balaam curse Israel took place from three different high ground spots where they could view the camp of Israel. At the end of the third attempt, Balak finally realized that he could not convince Balaam to pronounce a curse against his enemy Israel. Even though neither Balak nor Balaam is named in this section, we should not conclude that they no longer play a part in the story. What happens next for Israel is as bad for them as if they were truly cursed. While at Shittim, the daughters of Moab enter the story. We are meant to understand that these daughters of Moab were the young women of the Moabite nation under Balak's leadership. These young Moabite women approach the men of Israel and invite them to join them for their religious feast. The Moabites were devoted to a few gods, one of which was the fertility god, Baal. At this feast, sacrifices were offered up to Baal, everyone participating ate a meal dedicated to Baal, and bowed down to the statue of Baal in his honor. Something that is not detailed here, but verified by archeological evidence, is that Baal worship included what was known as cultic prostitution. An essential part of the story of Baal was the sexual relations that he had with his goddess wife, which produced the fertility that the worshippers of Baal desired for their own lives. It was the common practice for the worshippers to role play the actions of Baal and his wife during the height of the ceremony. Young women who were dedicated to Baal's service offered themselves to the men who came to worship Baal in exchange for the sacrifices they brought to Baal. The men of Israel were invited to participate in this. Many of the men of Israel willingly went to the feast, bowed to Baal, and joined with the female servants of Baal in sexual "worship" of Baal. This was not an accidental development by the Moabites. It was not that they at first attempted to curse Israel, and then later decided to make friends with Israel. This was a purposeful and strategic effort to undermine Israel's strength by luring the men of Israel into the worship of their god, using an appeal to Israel's natural lust. Moab did not just stumble on this plan. An explanation of what happened behind the scenes is given to us later in Numbers. "Behold, these caused the sons of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to trespass against the LORD in the matter of Peor, so the plague was among the congregation of the LORD." (Numbers 31:16). The young Moabite women dedicated to Baal were sent to the camp of Israel through the counsel of Balaam. Apparently what happened was that Balak had refused to pay Balaam the large fee he had promised him for cursing Israel because Balaam had refused to curse them. Balaam still wanted the fee, and he conceived a way to get paid without cursing Israel. He counseled Moab to send their dedicated young women to lure the men of Israel into a compromising worship of Baal. Balaam probably anticipated that the Lord would respond with judgment to Israel's sin, and he was right about that. Moab's attack on Israel succeeded when the kings of the Amorites and Bashan had failed. Those attempts failed because they tried to defeat Israel in a direct military attack while they were under the protection of the Lord. Moab's attack succeeded because they undermined the relationship between Israel and the Lord in which the Lord responded with judgment. We can learn an important lesson about the nature of spiritual warfare and Satan's schemes from this circumstance. As long as we remain in right relationship with the Lord and walk in obedience to Him, there is nothing the enemy can do to directly harm us. He knows this and his schemes often are aimed at more subtle attempts, not to directly attack us, but to undermine our own holiness by appealing to our own natural desires in tempting us to sin against the Lord. Satan does not need to assault us if he can lure us into spiritual, moral, or ethical compromise. 25:8-13 - "When Phinehas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he arose from the midst of the congregation and took a spear in his hand, and he went after the man of Israel into the tent and pierced both of them through, the man of Israel and the woman, through the body. So the plague on the sons of Israel was checked. Those who died by the plague were 24,000. Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, "Phinehas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has turned away My wrath from the sons of Israel in that he was jealous with My jealousy among them, so that I did not destroy the sons of Israel in My jealousy. "Therefore say, 'Behold, I give him My covenant of peace; and it shall be for him and his descendants after him, a covenant of a perpetual priesthood, because he was jealous for his God and made atonement for the sons of Israel.'" When Israel sinned with Baal, the Lord responded with a strong pronouncement of judgment. The Lord ordered the public execution of the leaders of the people. The text does not specify which, or how many leaders were to be executed, but most likely it was all of the leaders that had gone to participate in the idolatrous worship of Baal. Moses was to take these leaders and slay them "in broad daylight", which emphasizes they were to be executed in an open and public way. The purpose would be to give Israel a vivid reminder of the cost of idolatry and adultery as required under the Law of God. At this point, the leaders alone were to be executed. The costly lesson to be learned from those leaders was that even greater than the sin of idolatry and adultery is the sin of a person that leads others to commit those sins by their influence. Those men had been appointed to the responsibility of leadership in God's holy nation in order for them to lead and influence Israel into greater faithfulness to the Lord and His Law. Instead, they led Israel into greater sinful violation of the Law. Now they would pay the ultimate price for abusing their leadership. Before the capital punishment could be carried out, a new development in the camp greatly increased both the sin and the consequence. As bad as the sin of participating in the worship of Baal had been, the one factor that minimized the judgment upon the rest was that it all took place far from the camp of Israel. The men of Israel left the camp to go to the feast of Baal. The Lord had warned Israel many times to not defile the camp of the Lord and the tabernacle of God by bringing defilement into the camp. Now, before the judgment upon the leaders was executed, another leader from the tribe of Simeon brought one of the young women into the camp and to his family tent. The inference is that while this deadly serious business was being conducted elsewhere in the camp between the Lord, Moses and the offending leaders, this man took this woman of Midian into his tent to have sexual relations with her. It was clear by his actions that this leader of Israel had no shame and no respect for the Lord. It was at this time that a plague of judgment from the Lord broke out among the people of Israel in response to the severe defilement of the camp. Before it was stopped, 24,000 Israelites died from the plague. Phinehas, a grandson of Aaron and one of the priests of the Lord, saw them enter the tent and taking a spear he entered the tent and slew both the man and the woman by piercing them through. The actions of Phinehas were not considered murder, but were rather immediately commended by the Lord. When Phinehas killed them, the Lord immediately stopped the plague and called attention to the actions of Phinehas. The Lord identified that he had turned aside the wrath of God from the people. Ordinarily, the only way to stop a judgment like this would be by the offering of an atoning sacrifice. The implication was that the Lord accepted the death of the man as he was slain by the priest of the Lord in place of the animal sacrifice. What the Lord wanted Israel to understand about the actions of Phinehas in particular was that he had represented the Lord in this. The Lord had betrothed Israel to Himself as a husband betroths a bride. The covenant commitment that Israel was to keep was to remain faithful to the Lord alone, and to never commit adultery with any other god. When Israel had sinned with Baal, and then this one leader had compounded that sin by bringing into the camp of the Lord, the Lord responded with godly jealousy. Phinehas acted on behalf of the Lord as a righteously jealous husband. In doing so, Phinehas acted in the image and likeness of God. This was the Lord's intent for all of Israel all along and He sets Phinehas forward here as an example for Israel to remember for all the generations to follow. The Lord extended the impact of the object lesson by rewarding Phinehas and his sons with a covenant of peace between the Lord and his household and a perpetual priesthood in which the high priest would be chosen from the house of Phinehas on into future generations. 26:9-10 - "The sons of Eliab: Nemuel and Dathan and Abiram. These are the Dathan and Abiram who were called by the congregation, who contended against Moses and against Aaron in the company of Korah, when they contended against the LORD, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up along with Korah, when that company died, when the fire devoured 250 men, so that they became a warning." Dathan and Abiram are already dead by the time of the events of this chapter. Their names are mentioned as important reminders of the lesson the Lord taught to all of Israel through them. It was not what we would call a positive lesson, but a lesson of the severe judgment of the Lord in response to their rebellion against Moses and the Lord. The Lord inspires Moses to mention their names again here so that no one will forget what their deaths meant and how the Lord dealt with them. It is a common failing of human nature that events that are in the past tend to be easily forgotten, especially unpleasant events that we would prefer not to remember. As difficult as the remembrance of the execution of Dathan and Abiram was for the people, the Lord did not hesitate to remind the nation of this uncomfortable event. The passage mentions that the circumstances of the deaths of Dathan, Abiram, Korah and the other 250 leaders was such that "they became a warning." The Hebrew word translated as "warning" is the same word used for the standards raised by the tribes to mark each tribe's identity as they marched from place to place in the wilderness. Each standard consisted of a long pole and a flag with a symbol representing each tribe. This passage literally describes that the deaths of the rebels as God opened the earth and caused them to be swallowed alive into the earth were flags. How were their deaths flags? The passage does not mean that a literal flag was made for this event, but that God's miraculous execution of these rebels served as a permanent warning reminder for all future generations that the Lord will not tolerate such rebellion among His people. 26:14 - "These are the families of the Simeonites, 22,200." The focus of this chapter is the second national census of Israel in the wilderness years. It is from the numbering of the people in the census of this chapter and the census from chapter one that the name of the book of Numbers was given. The census in chapter one was taken forty years earlier as Israel first entered the wilderness. This census is taken now at the end of the forty year wilderness journey as a prelude to their entry into the Promised Land. The men of each tribe who are twenty years old and above and able to go to war are counted in order to establish the count for planning the conquest of Canaan and then the settlement of the land to follow. Overall, even though the forty years in the wilderness was a difficult journey and an extended time of testing for the nation, their numbers remained surprisingly constant. Israel began the forty years with about 603,500 men above the age of 20 total. Now, forty years later the number was at 601,700. The total men of the nation had diminished by only 2000 through the forty years. Some of the tribes increased in numbers in the wilderness as the Lord blessed them. A few tribes lost numbers due to their role in specific rebellions and sins. The tribe with the greatest loss by far was Simeon. Here at the end of the journey Simeon's count was 22,200. A comparison with their count from forty years prior shows how much they had lost. "their numbered men of the tribe of Simeon were 59,300." (Numbers 1:23). Simeon lost over 37,000 men during these years. The event in the last chapter, in which one of the leaders of the tribe of Simeon defiled the camp of Israel with one of the daughters of Midian and 24,000 lost their lives as a result explains how the tribe of Simeon suffered such a severe loss during these years. The principle we can learn from this is that the Lord deals with His people on different levels. On one level He deals with the entire nation as if it were one person in covenant with Him. The entire nation of Israel enjoyed the blessings of the Lord together and suffered under the discipline of the Lord together. At the same time, the Lord clearly, as this passage demonstrates, dealt individually with each of the twelve tribes. Some tribes were more blessed throughout these testing years, and some were judged more than the others depending on what each tribe deserved. Then, on a third level, the Lord dealt with individual families within the nation and tribes such as His dealings with the family of Aaron, Caleb, or Dathan as they deserved. Finally, the Lord also dealt with individuals and caused them to be blessed as they trusted the Lord and obeyed Him (Joshua and Caleb) or judged them as they rebelled and disobeyed. 26:52-56 - "Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, "Among these the land shall be divided for an inheritance according to the number of names. To the larger group you shall increase their inheritance, and to the smaller group you shall diminish their inheritance; each shall be given their inheritance according to those who were numbered of them. But the land shall be divided by lot. They shall receive their inheritance according to the names of the tribes of their fathers. According to the selection by lot, their inheritance shall be divided between the larger and the smaller groups." Anticipating the time in the near future when Israel would finally cross the river Jordan and conquer the Promised Land, the Lord identifies here how they were to divide the land for settlement. Israel will not be free to settle anywhere they chose or prefer. The Lord is not going to have Joshua ask each tribe where they want to settle. Instead, the portion of territory in Canaan that each tribe will be given will be appointed for them by the Lord. There are two overlapping principles that will guide the settlement of the land. The Lord establishes the rules for the settlement and each tribe will be held accountable to submit to this plan. The first principle is that each tribe will be assigned a specific geographic territory by the casting of lots. We do not know the details of how the lots were cast for this division of the land, but most likely there were twelve symbols chosen with the name of one tribe written on one side of each which were then cast upon the ground. All the symbols that landed with the name down would be eliminated until one name remained for each territory. This method of determining the home and future of all the tribes of Israel and their families may at first glance seem primitive and arbitrary. The Bible presents it instead as simple and profound. The simplicity of the selection method would eliminate all controversy, debate, and possible political manipulation of the territory allocations. By casting lots, the role of the Lord was given center stage. The casting of lots was not subject to chance, but was an expression of God's sovereignty over even the physics of which lot ended face up and which lots ended up face down as they were cast. “The lot is cast into the lap, But its every decision is from the LORD.” (Proverbs 16:33). Acceptance of the cast lot as he determining factor in the lives of the tribes of Israel required faith that God was really in charge of the details of how the lots landed. The second principle involved was the Lord's determination of the size of each assigned tribal territory depending upon the size of the tribe at the settlement. The area of the settlement was determined by lots, but the size of the assigned territories was established by the relative numbers of the tribes. A tribe of 76,000 men would receive a portion of land in Canaan more than three times larger than a tribe of 22,000 men. This allotment of the size of the land was a just and equitable distribution and reflected the Lord's intention that every family in Israel have their own parcel of land as an economic foundation upon which to a family inheritance. 26:63-65 - "These are those who were numbered by Moses and Eleazar the priest, who numbered the sons of Israel in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho. But among these there was not a man of those who were numbered by Moses and Aaron the priest, who numbered the sons of Israel in the wilderness of Sinai. For the LORD had said of them, "They shall surely die in the wilderness." And not a man was left of them, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun." The Lord directs the attention of Israel forward to where He is still taking them. The wilderness years are finally drawing to a close. The first generation of men over the age 20 to enter the wilderness forty years earlier have all died by this point with the exceptions of Caleb, Joshua and Moses. The Lord had declared His judgment against the men of that generation and so it has come to pass exactly as He said. The point is direct and important to emphasize. The Lord may delay His judgment because of His great patience, but He is faithful to eventually fulfill His word. He is as faithful to His promises of judgment as He is to His promises of blessing. He is true to His word, and will never let something previously declared slip away through forgetfulness or disinterest. This is what the Lord had spoken, forty years before and this is what the new generation of Israel lived to see fulfilled. "The LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, "How long shall I bear with this evil congregation who are grumbling against Me? I have heard the complaints of the sons of Israel, which they are making against Me. Say to them, 'As I live,' says the LORD, 'just as you have spoken in My hearing, so I will surely do to you; your corpses will fall in this wilderness, even all your numbered men, according to your complete number from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against Me. Surely you shall not come into the land in which I swore to settle you, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun.'" (Numbers 14:26-30). 27:3-7 - ""Our father died in the wilderness, yet he was not among the company of those who gathered themselves together against the LORD in the company of Korah; but he died in his own sin, and he had no sons. Why should the name of our father be withdrawn from among his family because he had no son? Give us a possession among our father's brothers." So Moses brought their case before the LORD. Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, "The daughters of Zelophehad are right in their statements. You shall surely give them a hereditary possession among their father's brothers, and you shall transfer the inheritance of their father to them." This account fills in the details from its mention in chapter 26. Zelophehad died without any sons. His five daughters approached Moses and made a respectful and wise appeal regarding the inheritance rights. They distinguished their father from the rebellion of Korah. Apparently all inheritance rights were lost in the families that perished in that rebellion. The daughters do not paint their father as exemplary, but offer a realistic portrait of his spiritual condition. He (and they) refused to join the rebellion of Korah, but he did die in the wilderness for his own sin of following the unbelieving example of the ten spies who returned with a bad report of the Promised Land. Their appeal is wise, because while that sin was significant, the entire nation with the exception of Joshua and Caleb had participated in that sin and retained their family inheritance rights. They asked Moses to grant them full inheritance rights in the absence of any brothers for the purpose of continuing their father's name. Moses sought the Lord and received the Lord's command to honor their appeal. This event is recorded for our benefit and we can learn a couple of important principles from it. The first principle is that inheritance rights in God's holy nation were not divided equally among all children in the family. We saw this expressed earlier in the double portion of the inheritance usually given to the first born son. In our society today, because there is no framework in our law for recognizing God's standards, the law of inheritance is purely based upon perceived human equality without any spiritual purpose driving the decisions of inheritance. Therefore, an inheritance today is divided equally among all the children in the absence of any will. In Israel, there was a purpose why the daughters of the family were normally excluded from the inheritance. As strange as it may at first seem to our culturally conditioned ears, the Lord established this pattern for a good and wise purpose. In Israel, the sons of the family were given the inheritance, and the firstborn was given the double portion because they were to become the heads of their respective families. In spite of modern hesitation to acknowledge men as the head of the household, the Bible is unashamed to identify this as God's design and intended pattern. Any daughter born into the family that remained unmarried did not need an inheritance because she remained a family member and the male head of the family was responsible to provide for her all of her life. Any daughter that grew up and married, as most did, was given a valuable dowry to take with her into her marriage. She was not given an inheritance because her marriage transferred her family membership into her husband's family. This all practically foreshadowed the deeper spiritual picture of us being identified as the Bride of Christ and being transferred from the family of Adam to the family of Jesus in our salvation and sharing in our heavenly husband's eternal inheritance. The exception in this case was that there were no sons to become the new head of the family at the death of their father. Without this exception provision, this family would have lost its identity as the inheritance was transferred to the nearest male relative who had his own family. The Lord intended the identity of each family in Israel to be preserved and this case provided the opportunity to emphasize that. The remaining question is why the Lord did not originally include this law in the laws of the covenant given to Moses on Sinai. The Lord certainly knew in advance that this circumstance would develop. The appeal of the five daughters did not remind God to cover an issue He had forgotten or overlooked. The answer is that the Lord intended His Law to contain both core statutes which were declared on Sinai, and case laws which were added in the remaining years of the wilderness journey before Moses died. The Lord could have given the case laws as hypothetical cases, but He chose to wait until an actual case occurred corresponding to that law in order to make the point of the law more effective in the sight of Israel. 27:12-17 - "Then the LORD said to Moses, "Go up to this mountain of Abarim, and see the land which I have given to the sons of Israel. When you have seen it, you too will be gathered to your people, as Aaron your brother was; for in the wilderness of Zin, during the strife of the congregation, you rebelled against My command to treat Me as holy before their eyes at the water." (These are the waters of Meribah of Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin.) Then Moses spoke to the LORD, saying, "May the LORD, the God of the spirits of all flesh, appoint a man over the congregation, who will go out and come in before them, and who will lead them out and bring them in, so that the congregation of the LORD will not be like sheep which have no shepherd." This exchange between the Lord and Moses is easily one of the most poignant of all their recorded conversations. The Lord directs Moses to walk to the top of a nearby mountain. From there, Moses will be allowed to see the Promised Land. However, once he has seen it, he will die. The impending death of Moses is the fulfillment of the previously announced judgment of the Lord upon him. In the incident where the Lord commanded Moses to speak to the rock which represented Christ so that water would come forth for the people, Moses had instead struck the rock twice. In doing so, Moses had done more than make an innocent mistake. He has violated a type of the cross of Christ in such a way as to portray that Christ would have to die twice in order for the people of God to receive the blessing of salvation. The Lord judged Moses for this violation by prohibiting him from entering the Promised Land and ordaining that he would die in the wilderness. The time has come for the fulfillment of that judgment. Moses does not actually die in this chapter, but this announcement identifies that he has reached his own personal final days. Along with the judgment of the Lord, Moses also receives great mercy here. First, it is a mercy from God to know in advance the timing of your own death. Moses was given advance notice and would not be surprised by what was to come. The announcement also allowed Moses to make any necessary arrangements for after he was gone. That the Lord also allowed Moses to see the Promised Land from the mountain was a personal reward for his forty years of otherwise faithful service. Moses would be assured by this glimpse of the Promised Land that God's purpose for Israel to enter and possess the land would be fulfilled and that his efforts to lead Israel out of Egypt would not be ultimately wasted in the wilderness. This again emphasizes just how much God is in charge of our lives. Some people live as though their lives are their own and they are in charge of how long they will live, while some people see live as a series of purely random events and the end being as accidental as everything else in their lives. The truth is that neither reflects the role the Lord plays in our lives. He is sovereign over our lives and determines the number of our days and the moment our heart will stop beating. The death of Moses would not be the conclusion of a slow and natural deterioration. Moses would walk up this mountain, see the Promised Land as God intended, and when his final obedience to the Lord was complete, Moses would simply die. Even though the timing and circumstance of his death was a judgment from God, Moses remained in right relationship with the Lord and he could obey this final command with the deep confidence of a man of faith who trusting his soul to His trustworthy God. The response of Moses to this ordinarily unsettling news of the nearness of his own death reveals just how much Moses had spiritually grown over the forty years wilderness journey. The journey began with a hesitant and resistant Moses protesting the Lord's call at the burning bush. Now, at the end, there is no further protest remaining in the heart of Moses. His only response was not concerned with himself at all. Moses raises an issue, but it was for the sake of Israel and not himself. Moses is concerned about Israel, with all their failings and weaknesses, being left like sheep without a shepherd. Moses appeals to the Lord to provide a leader for the nation that will be able to effectively lead them. The request of Moses does not dishonor the Lord and His continuing commitment to lead Israel, but rather, recognizes the key role that leaders play in the life of the congregation of the Lord. The right man, with the right character, prepared by the Lord in the right way is a critical factor in whether the people of God end up where they belong. 27:18-21 - "So the LORD said to Moses, "Take Joshua the son of Nun, a man in whom is the Spirit, and lay your hand on him; and have him stand before Eleazar the priest and before all the congregation, and commission him in their sight. "You shall put some of your authority on him, in order that all the congregation of the sons of Israel may obey him. Moreover, he shall stand before Eleazar the priest, who shall inquire for him by the judgment of the Urim before the LORD. At his command they shall go out and at his command they shall come in, both he and the sons of Israel with him, even all the congregation." The Lord's choice to replace Moses as the leader of Israel was Joshua. He had been well prepared for this calling. Throughout the wilderness years Joshua had served both as the personal assistant of Moses and the captain that led the army of Israel into battle. Joshua had spent the necessary time in spiritual preparation by remaining often at the tent of meeting. He was a man in whom the Spirit of God was present. His strong faith in the incident of the 12 spies was evident. He and Caleb also were the only two Israelites alive that had personally scouted out the Promised Land. His experience in leading the army would be important in the many battles of conquest ahead of them in the Promised Land. All of these factors made Joshua the best choice to replace Moses. Yet, in spite of these factors, Joshua would not be fully equipped to lead God's holy nation until he received a special endowment from the Lord through Moses. The Lord commanded Moses to lay hands upon Joshua and impart some of his authority to him in the sight of the nation. It is significant that Joshua was not given the full authority of Moses, but only some of it. Two points are established in this. First, that Joshua was given a portion of the Lord's authority to lead. In other words, Joshua represented the Lord in his role as leader. This was not political, but spiritual. He did not receive this authority by election of the people, but by appointment of the Lord. It showed that his ultimate accountability was to the Lord for how he led the people of God. Second, Joshua was only qualified to lead as he received an impartation of some of the same authority the Lord had given to Moses. Joshua did not receive his authority to lead directly from the Lord, but indirectly through the laying on of the hands of Moses. The reason for this was the special role of Moses which extended beyond the span of his life and affected all the generations of the Old Covenant. Moses was the Law giver. As such, all future leaders of the nation derived their authority from Moses. No valid leader of Israel would ever be appointed to lead apart from Moses, or by implication, apart from the Law of God. Every leader was subject to the Law. Joshua would never be free to lead however he desired. He would always be required to lead the people within the boundaries already established by the Law. In the same way, all leaders in the church of Christ today, lead with a derived authority. Our authority derives from Christ. We have no authority apart from Him. It is His church and we are required to lead His church according to His revealed will, ways, and purpose for the church as written in His Word. Many "leaders" in the church ignore this principle, but they do so to their own shame and the detriment of the church. 28:1-2 - "Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 'Command the sons of Israel and say to them, 'You shall be careful to present My offering, My food for My offerings by fire, of a soothing aroma to Me, at their appointed time.'" There is another occurrence of what theologians refer to as anthropomorphism is these verses. The term means to give something that is not human the characteristics of a human for communication purposes. The theology principle that forms the foundation of anthropomorphism as it occurs in cases like this one, where God is described as having human qualities, is that God is not human. Of course, since this was written, Jesus incarnated as a human being, so now we can properly say that the Son of God is human. However, we are meant to understand before we even read these verses that God is not human in his nature. He is divine rather than human. Humanity derives its nature from divinity in the sense that man was originally created to bear the image and likeness of God in a way that no other created thing could. The fall of man into sin has affected the purity of the expression of God's image in all humans though. Therefore, even though God in some cases compares Himself to humans, or uses human characteristics to describe Himself, we are meant to always remember that He does not share any of the fallen human characteristics that we all possess. The human comparison God made in these verses is the description of the offerings as food. God refers to these offerings as "My food". So, we are supposed to gain a point of understanding from this phrasing that the Lord intentionally chose, while at the same time avoiding reading fallen human connections into what it means. The fallen aspect of food as all humans experience it, is that because of the fall we need food and must eat it in order to survive. Food is a daily reminder to our hearts that we are weak and needy, and incapable of surviving independent of the food that God provides for us. This is not the comparison God wants us to draw to Him when He calls the sacrifices His food. He does not need the sacrifices. He actually did not even physically eat them when they were offered in the tabernacle. It is not that God was hungry and waiting at the tabernacle for his servants to bring him breakfast and dinner to eat so that He would have strength to continue for the next day. It is important when we interpret the meaning of this passage that we avoid reading any sense of need or dependence into it. However, God chose to describe these sacrifices as His food for a reason. There is another aspect of food that existed before the fall as God placed man in the Garden of Eden and appointed the fruit of all the trees of the garden for him as his food. This other purpose for food was not to meet a need or to sustain life. God created food to be satisfying. God designed food to have tastes and scents that were experienced by the person eating the food and which made the food appetizing. It is this purpose of food that fits the comparison of the sacrifices to food for God. This emphasis is made again by the reference to the food producing a soothing aroma as it was offered in the fire on the altar. The whole point was not that God needed the sacrifice to sustain His life, but that He desired the sacrifices for the satisfaction they provided. What gave the sacrifices a satisfying taste and aroma was the spiritual meaning of the sacrifice. The sacrifices portrayed the death of Christ on the cross. God the Father looked at, tasted, and smelled the aroma of Christ's sacrifice (using human terms) and was deeply satisfied by it. 28:3-4 - "You shall say to them, 'This is the offering by fire which you shall offer to the LORD: two male lambs one year old without defect as a continual burnt offering every day. 'You shall offer the one lamb in the morning and the other lamb you shall offer at twilight;'" This chapter and the next return to a focus on the sacrifices required by the Lord and the feasts of the Lord. While the various sacrifices have previously been covered in detail, the sacrifices in chapter 28 fulfill a different requirement. The sacrifices ordained in Leviticus established the requirements for the individual Israelite in order for them to maintain a right relationship with the Lord in the covenant. They also covered the sacrifices the Levitical priests were required to offer in order to be consecrated for tabernacle service and to maintain their ceremonial purity so that they could maintain their service uninterrupted by defilement. Here, in this chapter the focus shifts from individual Israelites and priests to the nation of Israel as a whole. The Lord maintained a relationship with both the individual Israelites and with the nation as a whole under the covenant. In the national relationship the entire nation is treated as a single corporate individual. Just like it is necessary for individual people to take steps to maintain right relationship between themselves and the Lord, it was necessary for the nation as a whole to do so also. One of the essentials of that national relationship with the Lord was for the nation to offer regular sacrifices for itself. The requirement here for national sacrifices was that the priests were to offer before the Lord on behalf of the nation a male lamb every morning of every day. Then every evening another male lamb was offered for the nation. On special days such as the feat days these sacrifices were offered in addition to the sacrifices ordained for those feast days. The result was that there was never a day in the tabernacle in which the altar was empty or unused. Every single day from this point forward for all of the history of Israel there was a lamb offered every morning and every evening. What are we to draw from this for our own relationship with the Lord? There are two points of application for the believer in the New Covenant even though Christ has already died on the cross and all animal sacrifices lost there value from then on. The first aspect that we should see from this is the prevalence of sin in our lives. Sacrifices had to be offered every day and even twice a day. The symbolic communication is that every day there is an issue with sin to be dealt with, and that if it is dealt with in the morning, it would not last until the next day because another sacrifice was required in the evening. The more we grow in the Lord, the more our hearts grow in awareness of the many ways we daily fall short of God's standard of perfection in our thoughts, our words and our actions. I need the benefits of the cross of Christ applied to my heart every day of my life and throughout each day. The second point of application for the believer today is in worship. These sacrifices did address the negative aspect of sin, but they also expressed as the sacrifice was made, a heart of worship in continual restoration to right relationship with the Lord based upon the sacrifice. The Lord was training the hearts of the nation in this requirement that He desired much more from them on a daily basis that just a payment for their sins. He wanted them to stop daily and remember Him, acknowledge Him, appreciate Him, praise Him, and worship Him for His great mercy and grace as represented in the sacrifice. The Lord desires such a response from each of us on a daily basis also. 29:1 - "Now in the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall also have a holy convocation; you shall do no laborious work. It will be to you a day for blowing trumpets." The holy days ordained for the seventh month of the ceremonial calendar are covered again in this chapter. Three of the seven Feasts of Lord occur in the seventh month. This first feast of the month was what became known as the Feast of Trumpets. These days are also described in Leviticus 23. All three Feasts are identified as a "holy convocation." The term designated these days in the yearly calendar of Israel as special days that were to be set apart for holy purpose. All the people of Israel were commanded to do not laborious work on those days. This was a similar requirement as the requirement to abstain from all work on the weekly sabbath, but the restriction on work was lighter for these days than the sabbath. No laborious work meant that work which was ordinarily done for one's livelihood was not allowed. It would be similar to what we call a day off from work. The sabbath day required a stricter abstinence from work including things like building a fire or cooking. They were convocations in that it was required all of Israel to gather together for the events of these days. Later, when the Promised Land was conquered and settled, these events would be held in Jerusalem and all the tribes of Israel were to leave their homes and travel to Jerusalem to participate in these events. These three events became a highlight of the year for most Israelites and the remainder of the year was planned around the importance of attending these feasts. However, even for the people that did not want to leave their homes each year and travel to Jerusalem, there was no allowance for them to remain at home. It was not a holy suggestion from the Lord to attend these feasts. The feasts were commanded and full national participation was required. One of the marks of whether our lives truly belong to the Lord or to ourselves is whether we acknowledge and submit to His right to rule over our personal calendar and schedule. It was to Israel's advantage to participate in these feasts because of the special blessing of the Lord that He connected to them, but they also served as tests of obedience for each family in Israel. Some lived close to Jerusalem and attendance was no great sacrifice, but some lived far from Jerusalem and obedient participation cost something in time and expense. In our generation we have a similar test to pass on a regular basis. "not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some" (Hebrews 10:25). The Lord calls all believers into consistent church participation for His purpose. The numbers of people who claim to be Christian and choose to ignore the Lord's call to participate regularly in church is higher than you might imagine. Over 40% of the population of the USA identifies itself as "born again." I think it is safe to say that far less than 40% of the population attends church with any kind of regularity. In fact, the Barna Group, which does religious polling discovered recently that in the last ten years the numbers of those claiming to be born again have risen while at the same time the numbers of those who attend church regularly have fallen. The issue boils down to our heart's perspective of our relationship with the Lord. Do we see Him as our Savior and Lord? In other words, having saved us, does He now have the right to require that we arrange our personal schedules to fit His plan for our lives? 29:7 - "Then on the tenth day of this seventh month you shall have a holy convocation, and you shall humble yourselves; you shall not do any work." The second feast began on the tenth day of the month. This feast included the single most important day of the year for all Israel. It was the feast of Yom Kippur or Day of Atonement. Remember, this was the day that the unblemished male lamb was slain and its blood was taken by the high priest through the curtain separating the Holy Place room in the tabernacle from the Holy of Holies, or the inner room of the tabernacle. No one except the high priest was allowed to even enter the Holy of Holies where the ark of the covenant was positioned. Even the high priest only entered that room on this one day of each year. Once inside the curtain, the high priest was to sprinkle the blood of the lamb upon the golden lid covering the ark of the covenant. Once sprinkled, that lid was transformed in spiritual terms from a judgment seat to a mercy seat. It was called a seat, because the ark of the covenant symbolized the throne of God in heaven. God's presence in the Shekinah glory cloud would appear above the mercy seat, indicating that God was enthroned in the midst of the camp of Israel, and later in the midst of the holy city of Jerusalem. All of the sacrifices commanded in the Law of God point in one aspect or another to the sacrifice of Christ upon the cross, but this day more fully represented the plan of salvation than any other sacrifice. 29:12-17 - "Then on the fifteenth day of the seventh month you shall have a holy convocation; you shall do no laborious work, and you shall observe a feast to the LORD for seven days. You shall present a burnt offering, an offering by fire as a soothing aroma to the LORD: thirteen bulls, two rams, fourteen male lambs one year old, which are without defect; and their grain offering, fine flour mixed with oil: three-tenths of an ephah for each of the thirteen bulls, two-tenths for each of the two rams, and a tenth for each of the fourteen lambs; and one male goat for a sin offering, besides the continual burnt offering, its grain offering and its drink offering. Then on the second day: twelve bulls, two rams, fourteen male lambs one year old without defect;" The third feast of the seventh month was the Feast of Tabernacles, or Booths in which all Israel was to construct temporary shelters for themselves and live in them for the week of the feast. This practice was a vivid practical reminder of the deliverance of the Lord when He rescued them from slavery in Egypt and caused them to live in tents for the 40 years of the wilderness journey. An interesting feature of this feast that was not described in our previous study of the feast in Leviticus 23 was the requirement of the bulls to be offered to the Lord on each day of the feast. Bulls were the most expensive of all the sacrifices. For this feast a specific number of bulls were to be offered by the Levitical priests to the Lord on behalf of the nation each day of the feast. On the first day of the feast thirteen bulls were to be offered. On the second day twelve bulls were to be offered. Each of the seven days the number of bulls offered was diminished by one until on the seventh day seven bulls were sacrificed. This countdown of sacrificial bulls ended on that last day with a perfect ceremonial symmetry of seven bulls offered on the seventh day of the feast in the seventh month of the year. There is one final detail of this unusual count of the sacrifices that is worth noting. If the total of all the bulls offered for the feast is added together, the count is seventy bulls sacrificed in the duration of the feast. The number 70 is not insignificant as a symbol in relationship to this feast. In early Israelite tradition, the total number of the nations of the world identified from Genesis 10-11 is 70. I believe these seventy bulls correspond to the 70 nations of the world around Israel. The Feast of Booths was to remind Israel that the Lord had saved Israel as a nation out of the nations of the world and set them as His holy nation apart from the nations of the world. They were not set apart to escape from the nations, but to be established as God's holy nation in the midst of all the other nations. Israel's great calling was to represent the Lord and His Law to all the nations of the world. This sacrifice of the 70 bulls was meant to remind Israel of the Lord's holy calling. 30:1-2 - "Then Moses spoke to the heads of the tribes of the sons of Israel, saying, "This is the word which the LORD has commanded. If a man makes a vow to the LORD, or takes an oath to bind himself with a binding obligation, he shall not violate his word; he shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth." All of chapter 30 is dedicated to the practice of making vows to the Lord and the resulting obligation to keep the vows we have taken. Vowing involved what we could describe as a sacred promise. It was a promise made in the context of covenant relationship with the Lord. The promise is made by a person in the covenant to the Lord of the covenant. The vow might involve a promise to do certain things for the Lord in the future, give a certain amount to the Lord as an offering, or to abstain from certain normally allowable activities as a sacrificial offering to the Lord. It is important to know that the Lord never commanded His people to make vows to Him. He often warned them to seriously consider their decision before making any vow. While the Lord did not command or require His people to make vows, He did require them to fulfill the vows they chose to make unto Him. These laws of vowing were aimed at establishing God's standards of righteousness whenever a vow was made. The commandment of the Lord in these verses is that when a man makes a vow to the Lord, "he shall not violate his word; he shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth." This law holds all men who make vows accountable to honor their vow once it is made. There were no "takebacks" when making a vow. It was not allowed to make a vow, and then later reconsider and choose to back out of the obligation imposed by the vow. Once made, all vows must be kept. All reconsideration must be done before uttering the vow in the presence of the Lord. In holding His people accountable in this way, the Lord was training them in spiritual integrity. We have a saying in our culture, "a man's word is his bond." It means that when a man gives his word, his character should always follow through and fulfill his own word previously given. This principle applies in this situation because the Lord was using vows to train the hearts of His people. However, vows rise to a higher level than even the giving of one's word. Giving one's word is what we call a promise. It is not right or honorable to break a promise given, but it does not bear the consequences that breaking a vow bears. The primary difference between a vow and a promise is that promises are primarily horizontal while vows are primarily vertical. We make promises to one another, but all vows are made with a conscious awareness of God's presence as the One Who will hold the maker of the vow accountable to fulfill his vow. God will also bring consequences upon the head of the one who makes a vow and then later breaks it or fails to fulfill it. This element of the Lord's presence in the vow and His commitment to hold the vow taker accountable creates a special sense of obligation far beyond even the normal obligation of a promise. These two passages highlight the significance the Lord attaches to vows. "When you make a vow to God, do not be late in paying it; for He takes no delight in fools. Pay what you vow!" (Ecclesiastes 5:4). "When you make a vow to the LORD your God, you shall not delay to pay it, for it would be sin in you, and the LORD your God will surely require it of you. However, if you refrain from vowing, it would not be sin in you. You shall be careful to perform what goes out from your lips, just as you have voluntarily vowed to the LORD your God, what you have promised." (Deuteronomy 23:21-23). There are two terms in these passages that the Lord attaches to those that make vows and do not keep them. Failure to keep a vow is not simply a mistake, but a sin. The person that does not keep his vow to the Lord is identified as belonging among the category of fools. It is important to recognize that there remains an application of the obligation of vowing in our culture today. We do not typically vow as often or for as many situations as the people of Bible times did, but there is one circumstance where our culture continues to make a vow unto the Lord. In wedding ceremonies, the culmination point of the ceremony is the vows the groom and bribe make to one another. Even though the vow is spoken to one another, the vow in a wedding is truly a vow unto the Lord. That is the reason why wedding ceremonies are performed in churches and by ordained ministers. Civil service marriages intentionally attempt to eliminate the spiritual element from the ceremony by removing it from church and having a government official perform the ceremony rather than an ordained representative of the Lord. The concept behind the vow in a spiritual wedding ceremony is that when the groom and bride vow their faithfulness to each other, they do so in the presence of the Lord and He holds them accountable to their vow for the rest of their lives. This is why breaking a marriage vow is so much more serious than popular culture is comfortable to acknowledge. 30:3-9 - "Also if a woman makes a vow to the LORD, and binds herself by an obligation in her father's house in her youth, and her father hears her vow and her obligation by which she has bound herself, and her father says nothing to her, then all her vows shall stand and every obligation by which she has bound herself shall stand. But if her father should forbid her on the day he hears of it, none of her vows or her obligations by which she has bound herself shall stand; and the LORD will forgive her because her father had forbidden her. However, if she should marry while under her vows or the rash statement of her lips by which she has bound herself, and her husband hears of it and says nothing to her on the day he hears it, then her vows shall stand and her obligations by which she has bound herself shall stand. But if on the day her husband hears of it, he forbids her, then he shall annul her vow which she is under and the rash statement of her lips by which she has bound herself; and the LORD will forgive her. But the vow of a widow or of a divorced woman, everything by which she has bound herself, shall stand against her." The remainder of the chapter is concerned with the special circumstances created when a woman makes a vow unto the Lord. The first principle that should not be overlooked from this section is the strong affirmation of the spiritual relationship that women had with the Lord even under the Old Covenant. It should not need to be defended, but the role of women in the Bible is often attacked as oppressive by those looking to build a case against the Bible by comparing its teachings with the commonly accepted patterns of modern culture. It is true that the Bible and modern culture clash on many points including the role of women and those who believe the Bible to be God's Word need not ashamed of those differences. Whenever a difference between the Bible and current cultural practices or preferences is identified, we can be confident that it is not the Bible which suffers from the comparison. However, it is simply a cheap shot to characterize the Bible as anti-woman, or chauvinistic. This chapter demonstrates that covenant women had their own relationship with the Lord and that He both honored their intention to enter into vows unto Him, and held them accountable for their vows just like He did with the men who vowed. There is a second important spiritual principle revealed in this section that had a modifying impact on the law of the vow when either a young unmarried woman, or a married woman made a vow unto the Lord. The principle is that of the order of spiritual authority that God ordained for every household in the covenant. That order of authority identified the father as bearing spiritual authority from the Lord over his unmarried daughter, and the husband as bearing spiritual authority over his wife. The authority in both cases was granted by the Lord, from Whom all valid authority ultimately originates, to the man He ordained in the family setting to represent Him. The role of father and husband did not create their own self generated authority, but received it from the Lord. They were given authority in the family for the good of the family. In other words, the authority they were given was not for them to use for their own selfish desires, but to exercise in dependence upon the Lord for the wise guidance and protection of the family. The special circumstance created by a vow made by an unmarried daughter or wife was that they might have vowed things to the Lord that they might not have the authority to fulfill. The Lord honors the true authority He had ordained for the father and husband by granting to them the right to override the vow of their daughter or wife. This is the one exception to the obligation of the vow. However, even in such cases, there was a specific time limit on the right to override the vow given. The father or husband could set aside the vow of their daughter or wife only when they first heard of the vow. If, when they first learned of the vow, they decided that the vow was not wise or good to fulfill (in other words they deemed it to be a rash vow that should never have been made), then the Lord allowed them to declare the vow null and void. The significance of the father's / husband's authority is emphasized by the refusal of the Lord to insist that the daughter / wife keep the vow no matter what. The Lord would not ignore the authority of the one He ordained to exercise authority in the family in such difficult decisions. This provision was a special protection the Lord built into the law of the vow for the sake of the women affected by this guideline. 31:1-8 - "Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, "Take full vengeance for the sons of Israel on the Midianites; afterward you will be gathered to your people." Moses spoke to the people, saying, "Arm men from among you for the war, that they may go against Midian to execute the LORD'S vengeance on Midian. A thousand from each tribe of all the tribes of Israel you shall send to the war." So there were furnished from the thousands of Israel, a thousand from each tribe, twelve thousand armed for war. Moses sent them, a thousand from each tribe, to the war, and Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest, to the war with them, and the holy vessels and the trumpets for the alarm in his hand. So they made war against Midian, just as the LORD had commanded Moses, and they killed every male. They killed the kings of Midian along with the rest of their slain: Evi and Rekem and Zur and Hur and Reba, the five kings of Midian; they also killed Balaam the son of Beor with the sword." The Lord commanded Israel through Moses to go to war against Midian. The war was identified by the Lord as a war of vengeance. However, when Moses announced the war to Israel, he declared that it was a war of the Lord's vengeance. The reason for vengeance against Midian was for their refusal to allow Israel to pass peacefully through their territory and their participation in undermining the moral purity of many of the men of God's holy nation through the incident of Baal at Peor. Remember, Balaam had been not been allowed by the Lord to curse Israel, and in his greedy desire to earn the promised fee from Balak he had instead concocted the plan for the women of Midian to tempt the men of Israel to compromise by participating in the illicit rites celebrated for Baal. The Lord had at that time dealt severely with the men who participated and thousands of them died under the judgment of God. Now the Lord showed in this attack upon Midian that they did not get off scot free for their sin of defiling his holy nation in that way. What the Lord did was to judge His own people first, and then judge the worshippers of Baal after He had dealt with His own people. This follows a pattern of how the Lord deals with sin in judgment even to this day. When both the believers and unbelievers are engaged in the same serious sins, the Lord will deal first with His own people. Then, after His people have received their own punishment and turned from their sin, the Lord will then deal with the unbelievers. It reveals that the Lord holds His own people to a higher standard of accountability than the world of unbelievers. "For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?" (I Peter 4:17). This battle was not simply another in a long list of natural battles in the history of human warfare. It was one of the first of a continuing series of battles in what can only properly be identified as a holy war. In our own generation, the term holy war has been captured and misapplied primarily by the Muslim world in their term Jihad, which means holy war. It is misapplied because no war ever waged by Muslims has ever been truly holy. That is simply because the Muslims do not represent the One true God, Yahweh. Instead they represent a false god, Allah, and there wars are no more holy than the Midianites who fought on behalf of Baal. On the other hand, in our modern, highly sensitive western culture, there is a tendency to label all wars under any circumstances as bad and wrong. For them, no war in history can be considered a holy war because by definition they consider all war to be unholy. What actually makes a war holy from a Biblical perspective? One factor alone determines whether a war is holy. If the Lord commands the war to be fought, then it is holy. Since the Lord is holy, when He commanded a war to be fought by His holy nation, then that war was holy. In this case, Israel was not fighting to take vengeance for themselves as so many wars in history have been. They fought for this one reason; "...to execute the LORD'S vengeance on Midian." Israel was simply the sword of the Lord chosen by Him to execute His vengeance upon Midian. This was the Lord's judgment and the results of the war were the consequences the Lord ordained for the wicked Midianites. This battle also brought a tragic end to the story of Balaam. It was not by accident that Balaam was among those who lost their lives in this battle. This was also the Lord's death penalty judgment upon Balaam. We have seen that Balaam was a mysterious mixture of a man. He had a relationship with the Lord, yet was not part of God's covenant people. Nevertheless, the Lord chose to speak through him with at least one significant prophetic word that stretched into the distant future and identified the coming of the future Messiah. Balaam's role as God's chosen spokesman in that one prophecy did not give Balaam a free pass regarding his own sins however. Like with Israel, the principle is that "...from everyone who has been given much, much will be required..." (Luke 12:48). Balaam compromised whatever relationship he had with the Lord by causing the spiritual and moral downfall of thousands of Israelites, resulting in their own death. God judged Balaam deserving of death for his actions. He remains forever a symbol, not of faithful obedience to the Lord, but of deadly compromise because of the love of money. "...having followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness;" (II Peter 2:15). 31:12-18 - "They brought the captives and the prey and the spoil to Moses, and to Eleazar the priest and to the congregation of the sons of Israel, to the camp at the plains of Moab, which are by the Jordan opposite Jericho. Moses and Eleazar the priest and all the leaders of the congregation went out to meet them outside the camp. Moses was angry with the officers of the army, the captains of thousands and the captains of hundreds, who had come from service in the war. And Moses said to them, "Have you spared all the women? Behold, these caused the sons of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to trespass against the LORD in the matter of Peor, so the plague was among the congregation of the LORD. Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man intimately. But all the girls who have not known man intimately, spare for yourselves.'" Following the victory, the army of Israel returned to camp with the captive women and children of Midian. They had already slain all the men of Midian before returning. When they arrived at camp they were probably expecting to be welcomed with celebration as heroes. Instead they were met by an angry Moses and his stinging rebuke. The warriors had made the decision to spare the women and children with the plan to make the women their own wives and to adopt all the children as their own or to make them slaves to serve them. Moses had to remind them of something they had apparently already forgotten. It was these same women that had been the cause of the sinful failure in sexual compromise of thousands of their now dead fellow Israelites. The Lord would not welcome these women that had so defiled His holy nation into the covenant. The Lord pronounced the death penalty upon all of them. In addition He commanded the execution of the male children, sparing only the young females that had never been with a man. The execution of the remainder of the males is striking and difficult to swallow due to our modern sensibilities. The bottom line is that the Lord had ordained the end of this nation of people. They would not slowly fade off the stage of history, but would come to a sudden end due to their own serious sins against the Lord. The execution of the males insured that the nation would not continue past this generation. The young women and girls would be incorporated into the covenant nation of Israel as wives eventually. I know that many struggle with passages such as this one. The objections usually raised are that the Lord is too harsh or mean to have ordered such a thing. However, it is necessary to resolve that objection Biblically, or else run the risk of questioning in the heart the goodness and righteousness of the Lord. The issue boils down to this: the Lord was either righteous or unrighteous to have ordered this execution. He would be unrighteous under this guideline. If the people executed did not deserve death and the Lord commanded their death anyway, then He would be unrighteous to do so. The truth is that Midian as a nation deserved death for their many and repeated violations of God's holy standards and the true mystery is not that the Lord called for their execution, but why He shows such restraint and patience to a sinful and rebellious world. The issue is no different than the one that was revealed in the great Flood of Noah's time. In the Flood, the Lord judged the entire world as deserving the death penalty and executed that penalty Himself through the waters of the Flood. Men, women and children all alike lost their lives in the waters of the Flood. The Lord was righteous to do so in spite of the protests of an entire world. 31:26-27 - "You and Eleazar the priest and the heads of the fathers' households of the congregation take a count of the booty that was captured, both of man and of animal; and divide the booty between the warriors who went out to battle and all the congregation." As a result of the battle, the victorious Israelite army carried off a tremendous amount of booty, or what is also called the spoils of war. All of the gold, silver, flocks and herds of the conquered Midianites now became the possession of Israel. Through this means, by God's ordination, one nation was judged and reduced to nothing while another nation was enriched in preparation for His great purpose for them. Normally, in the ancient world, when one nation defeated another, the spoils became the property of the victorious king with some shared among the warriors who fought for him. In this case the parallel is important. The Lord was the King of Israel and they won their victory over Midian only because of His blessing. All of the booty actually belonged to the Lord. As the King, it was the Lord's right to distribute the booty however it pleased Him to do so. The Lord chose to allow the warriors who fought and prevailed in the battle to enjoy the lion's share of the spoils. He also commanded that they count it all and distribute a portion of the spoil and share it with the entire congregation, the Levites, and the priests. In commanding this sharing of the spoils of war, the Lord established the perspective in Israel that the entire nation was involved in the warfare and all together either would suffer in defeat, or enjoy the fruits of victory. In the same way, the church is engaged in an ongoing spiritual warfare. The Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20) of the church is a call to battle. The battle is spiritual as the gospel is established at great sacrifice by those called to carry it to those living in spiritual darkness. The Lord promises special rewards for those who fight on the front lines in what we call missionary work. Yet, the reward that awaits on the final day is not the exclusive enjoyment of those who are missionaries. The church which supports with finances, and prays for those missionaries will share in the fruits of their gospel victories as we divide the spoils on that final day. 32:1-9 - "Now the sons of Reuben and the sons of Gad had an exceedingly large number of livestock. So when they saw the land of Jazer and the land of Gilead, that it was indeed a place suitable for livestock, the sons of Gad and the sons of Reuben came and spoke to Moses and to Eleazar the priest and to the leaders of the congregation, saying, "Ataroth, Dibon, Jazer, Nimrah, Heshbon, Elealeh, Sebam, Nebo and Beon, the land which the LORD conquered before the congregation of Israel, is a land for livestock, and your servants have livestock." They said, "If we have found favor in your sight, let this land be given to your servants as a possession; do not take us across the Jordan. But Moses said to the sons of Gad and to the sons of Reuben, "Shall your brothers go to war while you yourselves sit here? Now why are you discouraging the sons of Israel from crossing over into the land which the LORD has given them? This is what your fathers did when I sent them from Kadesh-barnea to see the land. For when they went up to the valley of Eshcol and saw the land, they discouraged the sons of Israel so that they did not go into the land which the LORD had given them." After a difficult forty year journey through the wilderness, Israel has been led by the Lord to the threshold of the Promised Land. They are finally on the verge of entering into the fulfillment of the hope that they have held ever since they left Egypt a generation before. The last time they were in this place years before, the entire nation with the exception of just a few cried out to turn around and return to Egypt. The Lord pronounced a death penalty judgment upon that entire first generation who refused to believe Him and obey Him. Now, the second generation, the grown children of that first generation, are given their own opportunity to follow the Lord where their parents were not willing to follow Him. The expectation is that all of them would be anxious to cross the river Jordan, enter the Promised Land, and leave the wilderness experience permanently behind them. Yet, there is an unexpected and potentially deadly development among the tribes of Israel here at this critical juncture. The circumstance that brought this crisis to the surface was different than the many tests in the wilderness. There in the wilderness, the spiritual failures of Israel were the result of the hardships of the wilderness experience regarding food, water and living situation as the Lord led them into circumstances of need to expose their tendency to grumble and complain. Here, there was no hardship, but rather a problem caused by their own prosperity. The tribes of Rueben and Gad had been blessed with "an exceedingly large number of livestock." Because their flocks were so great, those tribes became concerned about adequate pasture land where they would settle. The land where the nation was currently camped, which is often called the Trans-Jordan because it is just across the Jordan river, was a fertile land ideal for grazing herds and flocks. It was primarily green valleys and rolling hills and was a pleasant contrast to the harsh environment of the Sinai wilderness. After forty years in that hard wilderness, this land of Jazer and Gilead seemed to the tribal leaders of Reuben and Gad to be an ideal location for them to permanently settle. In their perspective, the Promised Land could not possibly be better than this for them, and if they settled across the Jordan in the Promised Land they would have to divide the land among the other tribes of Israel. Their natural concern was that they would be stuck with some portion of the Promised Land that was less than ideal for livestock. They put two and two together and drew the conclusion that the beautiful land they could see was better than the promise of a land that they had not yet seen and might not be as good. The leaders of the two tribes approached Moses and Eleazar, the high priest and made an appeal to be allowed to stay and settle here outside the Promised Land. On a purely natural level their appeal was respectful and handled in an appropriate way. What they were asking made a certain sense. One of the practical, unspoken results if their appeal was granted is that the other ten tribes would ultimately benefit by gaining the extra territory in the Promised Land that Rueben and Gad would have otherwise occupied. The land they wanted was good grazing land. So, their request made a lot of sense and we might expect that Moses would be inclined to grant their request in an effort to make sure everyone received just what they wanted at the end of their journey. The response of Moses was strong and probably caught the leaders of Rueben and Gad off guard. Moses did not see their request as a good thing at any level. He was not concerned about the natural advantages of this location for the two tribes. Moses was only concerned about one thing, the one thing that occupied all of his heart's attention was the one factor that Reuben and Gad had ignored in their own considerations. The issue for Moses boiled down to this; how would the two tribes settling here affect the Lord's purpose for all of Israel as a whole. What Moses understood, and Reuben and Gad had completely missed was that the Lord had not delivered twelve individual tribes out of Egypt. The Lord had delivered a people that He had called and formed into one unified nation. The Lord had clearly announced from the beginning that His purpose was to rescue Israel from Egypt, lead them and sustain them through the wilderness, and then lead them as a nation into the Promised Land where they would first conquer and then settle that land together. The request of the two tribes revealed that their hearts were more concerned for themselves than they were for the Lord's purpose or for the nation. Their request exposed a me first perspective that was at the core of what the Lord had worked for forty years to change in them. Not only was their request concerned only with themselves, they did not take account of how their request would impact the hearts of the other ten tribes. The people of God are called into a covenant community relationship with one another which is gives us the great benefit of the encouragement and strength of our committed fellowship, but which also makes us vulnerable to the discouragement of disunity and selfish choices and actions among one another. Moses recognized that the other ten tribes would be discouraged by two tribes splitting off from the nation and not participating in the conquest and settlement of the Promised Land. The greater of these two factors was the conquest. The contributions of Rueben and Gad were more critical for the battles ahead against the Canaanite inhabitants than they were for the settlement to follow. The adjustment of Rueben and Gad, once rebuked by Moses, was deemed sufficient by the Lord. Their offer was for the warriors of their tribes to go with the rest of Israel and fight for the land along side the other tribes. The Lord allowed them to settle in the Trans-Jordan. They settled this territory outside the Promised Land and ended up with a good life because of their faithfulness to honor their promise to participate in the conquest of Canaan. There is a lesson for us here from their example. Reuben and Gad chose good over best. Where they settled was a good place. Where they should have settled was better. The point is that the Lord's choice for them was better than what they chose for themselves. Christians who choose what seems best to them over what they know the Lord has said or chosen for them are making the same choice as Reuben and Gad. 32:10-12 - "So the LORD'S anger burned in that day, and He swore, saying, 'None of the men who came up from Egypt, from twenty years old and upward, shall see the land which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob; for they did not follow Me fully, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite and Joshua the son of Nun, for they have followed the LORD fully.'" Moses reminds Reuben and Gad here of the judgment that the previous generation received for their unbelief and disobedience. That earlier generation's relationship with the Lord is characterized by a single simple description. They did not follow the Lord fully. Caleb and Joshua are pointed out again as the exceptional examples of men from that first generation that did follow the Lord fully. Joshua and Caleb pleased the Lord and were blessed and honored by Him for following Him fully. The entire rest of the first generation died in the wilderness under the judgment of God because they did not follow Him fully. That tells us how critically important it is in the Lord's perspective to not just follow Him but follow Him fully. Just in the USA today the majority of people identify themselves as Christians and in that sense would be considered followers of the Lord. How many of that majority of the nation's population would the Lord say are following Him fully? I'm certain that the number is far smaller. When the Lord Jesus first called His disciples, He said these simple words to them, "Follow Me." Do you think He meant that they should follow Him part way, or as long as where He led them met with their approval? Following the Lord fully is not a special calling only for a super spiritual few Christians. It is what the Lord calls every true believer to do in ongoing response to Him. 32:23 - "But if you will not do so, behold, you have sinned against the LORD, and be sure your sin will find you out." This was a word of warning issued by Moses on behalf of the Lord to Reuben and Gad. They had made the commitment to leave their families in the Trans-Jordan region and to cross over Jordan with Israel and fight with the other tribes in the conquest of the Promised Land. This warning by Moses was intended to alert them to the consequences they would encounter if they failed to honor their commitment. It has, since this day that Moses first spoke it, become an often used statement in church history. It is important for us to understand its implications for our own lives. The principle is that the Lord attaches consequences to sin. Consequences don't just happen, but the Lord causes them to occur. One of the more confusing elements of the sin-consequence pattern is that the Lord determines the timing of the consequence and the consequence for a particular sin is not necessarily, and often not immediately after the sin. People often miss the spiritual connection between sin and the consequences produced by their sin because of the time delay between the sin and the consequence. If the full consequence of every sin was experienced immediately after sinning people would see the connection much more readily, but the delay between sin and consequence is also an expression of God's mercy and grace in our lives. The truth of this warning still applies. Sin will bring an appropriate consequence. Your sin will find you out. This means that there is no way to hide from the consequences. Countless sins are committed under the cloak of darkness or secrecy because the one committing the sin has convinced themselves that they will get away with crossing God's boundary lines of righteousness without having to suffer any consequence. No one ultimately gets away with anything. God sees it all and God ordains the necessary consequence for it all. Even for those who are hiding from God, their deserved consequence will track them down and find them out in due time. 33:1-3 - "These are the journeys of the sons of Israel, by which they came out from the land of Egypt by their armies, under the leadership of Moses and Aaron. Moses recorded their starting places according to their journeys by the command of the LORD, and these are their journeys according to their starting places. They journeyed from Rameses in the first month, on the fifteenth day of the first month; on the next day after the Passover the sons of Israel started out boldly in the sight of all the Egyptians," Verses 1-49 are a detailed list of the camping places of Israel throughout their forty year journey in the wilderness. The list is given at this point because now Israel has reached the end of the wilderness years. The forty year judgment of the Lord upon Israel because they refused to believe Him and obey Him at the incident of the 12 spies is now behind them. This list serves an important overall purpose even if we are not familiar by name with each camping spot in the list. These 49 verses are a testimony of the seriousness of the judgment of God, the real consequences of rebellion against the Lord, and the faithfulness of God to His own promise and to His people in spite of themselves. Israel deserved to be left in Egypt. They deserved to never make it through the wilderness. Nevertheless, the lord had promised Abraham that He would bring his descendants out of Egypt and back to this land. The Lord kept His promise. He always does. 33:50-52 - "Then the LORD spoke to Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan opposite Jericho, saying, "Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, 'When you cross over the Jordan into the land of Canaan, then you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their figured stones, and destroy all their molten images and demolish all their high places;" This is the Lord's commission to the nation of Israel as they entered the land of Canaan. It provided a specific focus for their conquest of Canaan. It required more than a strictly military victory over the Canaanites. The Lord commanded them to conquer and drive out the inhabitants of the land, but also to destroy all elements of their religious practices. Israel was to destroy their stone idols, their metal images, and the locations these were found in the high places of the land. This requirement of the conquest of Canaan makes this a spiritual war, not just a physical war. The coming war with the Canaanite nations would be a demonstration for all the nations of the world of the superiority of Yahweh to all the gods worshipped by the Canaanites. In the exodus from Egypt we saw in our studies that the Lord demonstrated His superiority to every major god worshipped by Egypt from the sun god Ra, to Pharaoh who was worshipped as a living god by the Egyptians. Egypt attributed their power and prosperity as a nation to the superiority of their gods. In spite of the far greater strength of Egypt from a military and physical standpoint to the weakness of the Israelite slaves, Egypt was not able to stop Israel from leaving. The one God Israel worshipped overwhelmed all the many gods of Egypt and proved for all to see his superiority of each of them in the Ten Plagues. Now, Israel was to enter Canaan and attack the heart of what the Canaanites most leaned on. If Baal and the other Canaanite gods were real and powerful, then they would surely be able to stop the Israelites from destroying the idols and images dedicated to their honor and protect the sacred places established throughout Canaan for their followers to worship them. If, however, Israel marched into Canaan and systematically destroyed all the idols and images of Baal, and demolished the high places where the people gathered to worship them, then it would be exposed for everyone to see that Baal and the other gods of Canaan were false gods. This requirement of the Lord for Israel to demolish the religious expression of the Canaanites is one that flies in the face of our modern cultural sensitivities. If these events were happening today there would be a huge outcry from many protesting the actions of Israel. The destruction of the idols, images, and locations of their religion would be decried as the loss of valuable historical and cultural artifacts. People would want the statues and images placed on display in a museum rather than for them to be destroyed. Others would insist that the principle of the freedom of religion would require that they remain undisturbed and the Canaanites be allowed to worship whatever they wanted however they wanted. Apparently the Lord is not as concerned with freedom of religion if that freedom leads to the worship of false gods. 33:55-56 - "But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then it shall come about that those whom you let remain of them will become as pricks in your eyes and as thorns in your sides, and they will trouble you in the land in which you live. And as I plan to do to them, so I will do to you." The Lord gives Israel a warning as they are poised to enter the land. The warning implies that the command of the Lord to drive out the inhabitants of the land was given for their own good. Ignoring this command to any degree will create an ongoing consequence that will trouble Israel into future generations. This warning by the Lord was not a theoretical problem, but a real one which Israel would experience. The Lord warned them because He knew that Israel would receive His command and only carry it out in part. Their partial obedience would also be a partial disobedience. That disobedience would produce the consequence described in these verses. Any Canaanites not driven out would become for future generations of Israel like pricks in their eyes and thorns in their sides. We still use this saying today that originated from the Lord's warning to Israel. A thorn in the side is not life threatening, but is a serious irritation that stays with a person and hinders them from experiencing full enjoyment of their life. We will see when Joshua leads Israel into Canaan that in some locations all of the Canaanites were driven out. In others, the inhabitants were allowed to remain. In the generations to follow in the book of Judges and beyond, we will discover the ways in which the Canaanite influence which remains is a seed of future spiritual compromise and rebellion against the Lord for Israel. The Lord further warns Israel here that the final consequence of their disobedience in this is that the Lord will one day be forced to deal with rebellious Israel like He was dealing with rebellious Canaan. The deeper lesson in this applies today. "Do not be deceived: "Bad company corrupts good morals." (I Corinthians 15:33). The lesson is in the subtle and dangerous influence of spiritual corruption and rebellion. Israel left some Canaanites because it suited them to do so. Some they left because it seemed too difficult to drive them out. Others they left because Israel thought they could make the Canaanites serve them. In either case, Israel believed that they would be able to avoid being influenced for the worse by the remaining Canaanites, and that they would be more of an influence upon them. The Lord knew better. The Lord ordered them all to be driven out because He knew Israel would not be able to resist soaking in the influence of the Canaanites. Of course, the Lord was right. Israel later attempted to blend religious elements of the worship of Canaan with the ways of worshipping Yahweh. The Lord hates this kind of unholy mixture of truth with error. Eventually, that mixture of religions led many in Israel into full blown worship of Baal, with the worship of Yahweh only a memory. The Lord calls us as His people to worship Him exclusively. He wants all of our mind, heart, and soul. Anything we attempt to worship alongside the Lord will eventually take first place in our hearts if we do not destroy that idol. 34:1-7 - "Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, "Command the sons of Israel and say to them, 'When you enter the land of Canaan, this is the land that shall fall to you as an inheritance, even the land of Canaan according to its borders. Your southern sector shall extend from the wilderness of Zin along the side of Edom, and your southern border shall extend from the end of the Salt Sea eastward. Then your border shall turn direction from the south to the ascent of Akrabbim and continue to Zin, and its termination shall be to the south of Kadesh-barnea; and it shall reach Hazaraddar and continue to Azmon. The border shall turn direction from Azmon to the brook of Egypt, and its termination shall be at the sea. As for the western border, you shall have the Great Sea, that is, its coastline; this shall be your west border. And this shall be your north border: you shall draw your border line from the Great Sea to Mount Hor.'" In this chapter, the Lord describes in detail for the first time the exact dimensions of the future territory He had ordained for Israel to possess as the Promised Land. It is impossible today to draw an exact map of the borders of the land because some of the markers God gave to Moses no longer exist and there is no historical record to identify where those markers were located. However, we are still able to clearly identify enough of the boundary markers to approximate the size and location of the intended borders of Israel. The first thing to notice is that the Lord revealed the borders of the land to Moses and directed Moses to "Command the sons of Israel..." In other words, the revealed borders were not optional extras in God's plan for His holy nation of Israel. Israel was commanded to enter these territories and take possession of them to the full extent of the boundary lines that the Lord spoke to Moses. In each territory there were current inhabitants occupying that land, but Israel was to drive out those inhabitants and in doing so, they were representing the holiness of God as He was executing His judgment upon those nations through Israel. Failure to conquer the land to the full extent of the revealed boundaries would not just hurt Israel, but would disobediently fail to carry out the judgment of God to its necessary extent. The reason why the Lord commanded, rather than suggested that Israel take possession of these lands is that left to themselves, Israel would follow the inclinations of human nature. They would tend to conquer that which seemed less painful to conquer and inevitably balk at finishing the task when the difficulty of the conquest became too great. The end result would be Israel settling for less than the fullness of God's purpose for them. As the history of the conquest of the Promised Land unfolds from this point we will see whether Israel fully obeyed the Lord in this command. Israel does conquer Canaan and take possession of the land from here. However, they never, in all their history as a nation completed the conquest and possession of the full extent of the territories marked out in this command of the Lord. For instance, on the western boundary, the Lord had commanded Israel to take possession of all of the land to the Great Sea, which is the Mediterranean Sea. Throughout the history of Israel, from this point until the reign of King David, which is hundreds of years into the future from this time, Israel never conquered the land all the way to the Great Sea. That territory in the southwest region was the kingdom of the Philistines. Because that region was left unconquered, the Philistines became to Israel exactly what the Lord had warned Israel they would become; pricks in their eyes and thorns in their sides. Finally, under David's reign as king of Israel the Philistines were conquered, but even then, they were allowed to remain in their territory, only under the rule of Israel. So, throughout the Old Testament this territory was never fully possessed in obedience to this command of the Lord given here through Moses. The lesson remains in the lives of believers today. The Lord gives to every believer specific commands which create territory for us to conquer in our lives. The Lord has given us commands in the areas of our finances, our relationships, our commitment to church, our prayer life, our Bible reading, our personal holiness, our service in the kingdom, our family, our work, etc. Some areas in our lives are easier to conquer than others. Others require a concerted and determined exercise of faith and an unwavering commitment to obedience. The test for us, like for Israel is in whether we will, like Caleb, fully follow the Lord, or whether we will settle for a smaller portion of conquered land than the Lord had intended for us. 34:16-19 - "Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 'These are the names of the men who shall apportion the land to you for inheritance: Eleazar the priest and Joshua the son of Nun. You shall take one leader of every tribe to apportion the land for inheritance. These are the names of the men: of the tribe of Judah, Caleb the son of Jephunneh.'" When the time would come, following the battles ahead, for Israel to take possession of the land, the portions for each tribe were assigned by the Lord through His appointed leaders. Moses would not participate in apportioning the land because he would die before they reached that juncture. The Lord identified Joshua and Eleazar as the co-leaders of the division of the land. Joshua was the man chosen by God to replace Moses as the primary leader of the nation. Eleazar was now the high priest who had replaced his father Aaron. In addition, the Lord named one tribal leader from each of the nine and one half tribes that would possess Canaan. The other two and one half tribes had asked to settle outside the Canaan on the other side of the Jordan River as we have seen. The Lord handles the distribution of the land among the tribes with His great wisdom. Joshua and Eleazar are good and trustworthy leaders of the nation, but there was a wise reason why the Lord did not have those two men divide the land by themselves. The Lord chose one representative leader from each tribe involved in order to give those tribes the assurance that their concerns were properly represented as the land was being divided and apportioned to each tribe. Joshua was trustworthy, but he was from one particular tribe and by selecting one leader from each tribe, the Lord protected Joshua from any false accusations of showing favoritism toward his own tribe in the distribution of territories. 35:7-15 - "All the cities which you shall give to the Levites shall be forty-eight cities, together with their pasture lands. As for the cities which you shall give from the possession of the sons of Israel, you shall take more from the larger and you shall take less from the smaller; each shall give some of his cities to the Levites in proportion to his possession which he inherits." Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, "Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, 'When you cross the Jordan into the land of Canaan, then you shall select for yourselves cities to be your cities of refuge, that the manslayer who has killed any person unintentionally may flee there. The cities shall be to you as a refuge from the avenger, so that the manslayer will not die until he stands before the congregation for trial. The cities which you are to give shall be your six cities of refuge. You shall give three cities across the Jordan and three cities in the land of Canaan; they are to be cities of refuge. These six cities shall be for refuge for the sons of Israel, and for the alien and for the sojourner among them; that anyone who kills a person unintentionally may flee there." Once Israel entered the Promised Land, conquered the Canaanite nations, and began to take possession of the land, they were to make a special provision for the Levites among them. Remember that the Levites were the one tribe of Israel set aside for special service to the Lord in His holy things of the tabernacle and its furnishings. The other tribes were each to be given a portion of territory as their permanent inheritance, but the Levites were not given any territory because the Lord Himself was to be their inheritance. The Lord did make provision for the Levites practical needs however in this law to set aside the Levitical cities. The Lord commanded a total of 48 cities to be given to the Levites. They would not actually own these 48 cities, but each Levite family was to be given a home in one of these 48 cities. The 48 cities were to be donated by the tribes of Israel from their own territory assigned to their tribe by Joshua and Eleazar. In addition to homes in these cities, a designated space immediately surrounding the city was to be set apart for the flocks owned by the Levites to graze. The donation of the Levitical cities was to be equitable for all the tribes. No tribe was to bear a greater burden than the others. The tribes with a greater amount of land in their territory were to give more of the 48 cities and the tribes with a smaller portion of land were to give a smaller number of cities. The Lord was displaying in this law that the responsibility to support the set apart servants of the Lord was to be shared by the entire holy nation of Israel. This provision called all the tribes to share the responsibility to support the Lord's servants financially, but it also provided an equal benefit for each tribe spiritually. The Lord's plan for the Levitical cities was a two way plan. The Levites would benefit by having their practical needs met without overburdening any one tribe. Each tribe would benefit by sprinkling all the Levites among all twelve tribes of Israel. This distribution of the Levites would insure a strong holy presence among all the tribes of Israel. The entire nation of Israel was called to be a holy nation set apart for God's service (Exodus 19:6), but the Levites were the chosen symbols of that holy calling. Having Levitical cities dedicated to the servants of the Lord in each tribal territory in Israel was a strong reminder of the Lord's great purpose for His nation once the tribes all settled in their own inheritance. Of the 48 Levitical cities, six of them were set apart for an additional purpose. Six of the 48 cities were designated cities of refuge. Three of these cities of refuge were to be located in Canaan, and three were on the east side of the Jordan River in the Trans-Jordan territory settled by the two and a half tribes. The location of the six refuge cities provided an accessible location from any city in Israel. The purpose of these cities of refuge was to provide a place of asylum for a person that had killed another person. The person to be granted asylum in these cities was one who had unintentionally killed another person. The reason they needed a place of refuge was because of the cultural practice known as the avenger of blood. If a person of one family was killed, then the nearest male blood relative became responsible for carrying out justice toward the killer of their relation, even if the killer fled to another place. The avenger of blood was responsible to follow them until justice was done. This was not a revenge killing, and the name avenger actually can be translated as redeemer of blood. The goal was justice, not revenge. If it were for the purpose of revenge, then the cities of refuge would not provide asylum. When the person unintentionally killed someone they were allowed to flee to the nearest city of refuge. The boundaries of those cities must be honored by the avenger of blood. The unintentional killer would then settle in that city and live there for as long as the present high priest over Israel remained alive. The death of the high priest signaled a new era for the nation and the unintentional killer was allowed to return to his original home at that point. If the killer left the city of refuge before the death of the high priest however, then they forfeited their right of asylum and the avenger of blood was justified in killing them for the death of their relation. 35:16-24 - "But if he struck him down with an iron object, so that he died, he is a murderer; the murderer shall surely be put to death. If he struck him down with a stone in the hand, by which he will die, and as a result he died, he is a murderer; the murderer shall surely be put to death. Or if he struck him with a wooden object in the hand, by which he might die, and as a result he died, he is a murderer; the murderer shall surely be put to death. The blood avenger himself shall put the murderer to death; he shall put him to death when he meets him. If he pushed him of hatred, or threw something at him lying in wait and as a result he died, or if he struck him down with his hand in enmity, and as a result he died, the one who struck him shall surely be put to death, he is a murderer; the blood avenger shall put the murderer to death when he meets him. But if he pushed him suddenly without enmity, or threw something at him without lying in wait, or with any deadly object of stone, and without seeing it dropped on him so that he died, while he was not his enemy nor seeking his injury, then the congregation shall judge between the slayer and the blood avenger according to these ordinances." This standard described in this section clarified the guidelines for determining the asylum status of any killer that fled to the cities of refuge. Once the killer arrived in one of those cities the people of that city were responsible to determine the nature of the case. If it was determined that the person was a murderer, then they would be executed as a murderer. If they were determined to be an unintentional killer then the city was to provide safe asylum for them. This emphasized once again the critical difference in the Law of God between murder and killing. Murder is identified as always wicked and was punishable by an immediate death penalty. There was no allowance of further appeal for a convicted murderer. The death penalty was to be carried out in such cases in all six cities of refuge. God's justice for the welfare of the entire nation was thus represented and preserved. If it was determined that the person had not murdered, but had unintentionally killed, then their actions were considered to be not worthy of punishment. Various scenarios are described in this section in order to aid the people of the cities of refuge in discerning whether a murder or unintentional killing had taken place in each case. If it was previously known that there was enmity between the two people involved that was a major factor weighing toward a conviction of murder. We describe that in our justice system today as establishing motive. If they were discovered with a stone, a wood implement, or other deadly item in their hand then the judgment was that their intent was to murder the person that died. This is what we describe as evidence of a murder weapon. In other words, the standards involved here are righteous standards of judgment designed to establish the truth of what actually occurred. Our society rightly continues to apply the standards established by these principles today. 35:30 - "If anyone kills a person, the murderer shall be put to death at the evidence of witnesses, but no person shall be put to death on the testimony of one witness." In either case, the appropriate standard for the conviction of murder which led in every case to an immediate death penalty was a minimum number of eyewitnesses. In the ancient world, in many societies, the standard in such cases was a single eyewitness. The Lord did not allow a murder conviction on the basis of a single eyewitness. The reason for this was to prevent the abuse of the justice system as a way of giving false testimony by a single person in order to remove a person they wanted executed. The minimum standard is not specified here, but it is in other passages of the Law. The standard was a minimum two or three witnesses. This standard did allow some actual murderers to escape immediate punishment when only a single witness was present, but the Lord would Himself intervene in such cases to maintain the integrity of His Law and the purity of His holy nation. The safeguard this standard provided confirms the Lord's priority to establish the certainty of His justice. 36:1-3 - "And the heads of the fathers' households of the family of the sons of Gilead, the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh, of the families of the sons of Joseph, came near and spoke before Moses and before the leaders, the heads of the fathers' households of the sons of Israel, and they said, "The LORD commanded my lord to give the land by lot to the sons of Israel as an inheritance, and my lord was commanded by the LORD to give the inheritance of Zelophehad our brother to his daughters. But if they marry one of the sons of the other tribes of the sons of Israel, their inheritance will be withdrawn from the inheritance of our fathers and will be added to the inheritance of the tribe to which they belong; thus it will be withdrawn from our allotted inheritance." Earlier in Numbers we studied the special provision the Lord made for the daughters of Zelophedad (Numbers 27:1-8). Their father had died without producing any sons to receive the family inheritance. They had appealed to the Lord through Moses to be given the inheritance rights as daughters. Remember, normally, only the sons of the family received the inheritance since they were the heads of their households and the leaders of the family for the next generation. In this case, the Lord received their appeal and made provision under the law for the daughters to receive the inheritance when there were no sons to receive the inheritance. The Lord made this provision in order to preserve His long range purpose for each family in Israel. In this way their father's name would be perpetuated as a continuing family rather than the inheritance rights being transferred to the nearest male relative. Now, in this passage, it is not the daughters of Zelophedad that approached Moses, but the leaders of the tribe of Manasseh. They came to Moses to appeal to the Lord regarding the inheritance given to the daughters of Zelophedad. They were not asking for the inheritance to be removed from them, but they were concerned about losing that inheritance. While the inheritance did not personally benefit these men in any way, they were concerned on behalf of the entire tribe of Manasseh. Each tribe was to be given its own total portion of the Promised Land once Israel conquered Canaan. The territory given to each tribe was the Lord's ordained portion and was assigned by the Lord as a total distribution to the tribe. Then, the tribal leaders were responsible to divide up the territory appointed for each tribe among each family within that tribe. Those families were responsible to settle on the specific portion given to them and maintain that portion of land as an inheritance for future generations of their family. These leaders of Manasseh were concerned because of the unique circumstance of the daughters of Zelophedad, and the potential loss of inheritance lands for their tribe. Because the daughters of Zelophedad were women and not yet married, their current situation would change when they did marry. Once married, whatever possessions they owned at the time of their marriage would become the property of their new husbands. Since they were each given inheritance rights for land given by lot to the tribe of Manasseh, the tribal leaders were concerned to lose that land to another tribe. If the daughters of Zelophedad married an Israelite man from another tribe than Manasseh, then their portion of Manasseh land would be legally transferred to the ownership of a member of another tribe and Manasseh as a tribe would lose out in the long run by having their allotted land in Canaan reduced. The appeal of the tribal leaders may at first seem self interested, but what they asked directed attention to an issue that could undermine the Lord's original purpose in assigning specific territories for each tribe. The Lord intended each tribe to maintain its own identity and to settle and maintain its own portion of Canaan. 36:5-10 - "Then Moses commanded the sons of Israel according to the word of the LORD, saying, "The tribe of the sons of Joseph are right in their statements. This is what the LORD has commanded concerning the daughters of Zelophehad, saying, 'Let them marry whom they wish; only they must marry within the family of the tribe of their father.' Thus no inheritance of the sons of Israel shall be transferred from tribe to tribe, for the sons of Israel shall each hold to the inheritance of the tribe of his fathers. Every daughter who comes into possession of an inheritance of any tribe of the sons of Israel shall be wife to one of the family of the tribe of her father, so that the sons of Israel each may possess the inheritance of his fathers. Thus no inheritance shall be transferred from one tribe to another tribe, for the tribes of the sons of Israel shall each hold to his own inheritance." Just as the LORD had commanded Moses, so the daughters of Zelophehad did:" The Lord received the appeal of the leaders of Manasseh and gave one more law to provide the necessary balance to the earlier law granting the daughters inheritance rights. As described in that study, the Lord does not add this law as a neglected oversight. The Lord chose to wait until this issue arose to give this specific law. The example of the circumstance of the daughters of Zelophedad becomes then a model for future generations to observe and apply. The new law leaves the inheritance rights with the daughters. The Lord did not invalidate His own earlier decision, but this new law modified the down-line implications of the earlier law. The Lord agreed with the leaders of Manasseh that the inheritance lands belonging to Zelophedad should remain with the tribe of Manasseh throughout the future generations. If the daughters married men from other tribes there would be no way to avoid a transfer of the inheritance to their husband's tribe of origin. The Lord's solution was wise, and preserved the inheritance for Manasseh while at the same time granting the daughters what had been promised to them. The requirement of this new law called the daughters to remain within a limited boundary in their marriage prospects. They would be free to marry anyone they wanted, only they must choose a man from the tribe of Manasseh to marry. That way, their lands would always remain as part of the larger territory assigned by the Lord to Manasseh. This solution was agreeable to all concerned and the daughters of Zelophedad honored the boundaries of the Lord and each married husbands from the tribe of Manasseh. The larger issue highlighted by their circumstance has an application in a New Covenant context. Tribal lands and inheritance rights are no longer a concern in the New Covenant when making a choice in marriage, but the spiritual principle displayed in this law does apply. The real issue revealed in the circumstance of these daughters is that the Lord had the right to determine the boundaries for them of who to marry and who not to marry. We live in a society today in which most people, even many who consider themselves Christians feel that it is their own choice who to marry. The Lord does not agree. He has placed a similar boundary upon the lives of every believer in identifying who is and who is not available for a believer to marry. "A wife is bound as long as her husband lives; but if her husband is dead, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord." (I Corinthians 7:39). The wording in this passage in Corinthians is very similar to the wording in the law from Numbers. "Let them marry whom they wish; only they must marry within the family of the tribe of their father." The similarity is in an announcement of freedom of choice in marriage that is limited by a specific boundary of the Lord's choosing. We are free to choose, but our choices are limited to the group that the Lord approves. In the Old Testament example they were free to marry any man as long as he was from the tribe of Manasseh. In the Corinthian passage the believers were free to marry anyone they chose as long as they chose from among other believers. To ignore this boundary would be to dishonor and disobey the Lord. In limiting believers to only marrying other believers, the Lord is not limiting the potential for our greater good and happiness but protecting us and directing us for our greater good and happiness. |
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