Numbers; A Tale of Two Generations

The book of Numbers is a tale of two generations. Numbers began with faithful obedience to all that the Lord commanded. The people were numbered, organized around the Tabernacle, given responsibilities, organized for the march, and they did all this ‘as the LORD commanded Moses’. This is a refrain through the first 10 chapters of Numbers. Chapter 9 says:

Numbers 9:5 And they kept 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 commanded Moses, so the people of Israel did. …18 At the command of the LORD the people of Israel set out, and at the command of the LORD they camped… …20 …and according to the command of the LORD they remained in camp; then according to the command of the LORD they set out. … 23 At the command of the LORD they camped, and at the command of the LORD they set out. They kept the charge of the LORD, at the command of the LORD by Moses.

But on the way, circumstances were not what they had hoped, and grumbling and complaining, even outright rebellion ensued. On the borders of the land God had promised to give to them, their fears loomed larger than the promises of God, and they chose to go their own way. But their plans for self-preservation actually brought death. That generation died in the wilderness, but God promised that their children would enter in.

After Miriam and Aaron die (Nu.20), after they ask the Lord to give them victory over Arad; after the fiery serpent incident where they confess their sin and ask Moses to pray for them (Nu.21), after God’s protection from an unseen supernatural attack from the mountains of Moab (Nu.22-24) after the final rebellion of chapter 25 where 24,000 die in a plague, in chapter 26 the next generation is numbered in preparation for entering in. This next generation shows a different character than their parents. In chapter 27, the daughters of Zelophehad, who had no male children, instead of grumbling and complaining about their plight, seek the direction of the Lord through Moses, and they are granted the right to inherit their father’s promised property.

In Numbers 31, the people take vengeance on Midian, and they do not lose a single man in battle. They respond with gratitude and worship, giving a voluntary offering to the Lord. In chapter 32, the tribes of Gad and Reuben desire to settle East of the Jordan, but instead of just seizing what they desire, they also bring their request to Moses, and they comply with his demand that they assist their brothers in conquering the land before they settle in their own inheritance. Chapter 33 rehearses the stages of their journey from Egypt to the borders of the land, and ends with an admonition to faithfully obey the Lord’s command to drive out the inhabitants of the land and eradicate their false worship,

Numbers 33:55 But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those of them whom you let remain shall be as barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall trouble you in the land where you dwell. 56 And I will do to you as I thought to do to them.”

In these closing chapters, the Lord instructs them how to worship and sacrifice in the land (Nu.28-29), how to be people of their word (Nu.30), how to divide the land equitably (Nu.34), how to provide for the Levites, establish cities of refuge and how to avoid polluting the land (Nu.35).

Seeking Wisdom From the Lord

Here in Numbers 36 the issue raised back in chapter 27 by the daughters of Zelophehad is revisited.

Numbers 36:1 The heads of the fathers’ houses of the clan of the people of Gilead the son of Machir, son of Manasseh, from the clans of the people of Joseph, came near and spoke before Moses and before the chiefs, the heads of the fathers’ houses of the people of Israel. 2 They said, “The LORD commanded my lord to give the land for inheritance by lot to the people of Israel, and my lord was commanded by the LORD to give the inheritance of Zelophehad our brother to his daughters. 3 But if they are married to any of the sons of the other tribes of the people of Israel, then their inheritance will be taken from the inheritance of our fathers and added to the inheritance of the tribe into which they marry. So it will be taken away from the lot of our inheritance. 4 And when the jubilee of the people of Israel comes, then their inheritance will be added to the inheritance of the tribe into which they marry, and their inheritance will be taken from the inheritance of the tribe of our fathers.”

Again, instead of grumbling or disobeying the command of the Lord, the heads of the tribe present their concerns to Moses, seeking guidance from the Lord.

In chapter 27, the petition of the daughters of Zelophehad was that their father died in the wilderness and left no sons.

Numbers 27:4 Why should the name of our father be taken away from his clan because he had no son? Give to us a possession among our father’s brothers.”

And the Lord had answered:

Numbers 27:8 And you shall speak to the people of Israel, saying, ‘If a man dies and has no son, then you shall transfer his inheritance to his daughter. 9 And if he has no daughter, then you shall give his inheritance to his brothers. 10 And if he has no brothers, then you shall give his inheritance to his father’s brothers. 11 And if his father has no brothers, then you shall give his inheritance to the nearest kinsman of his clan, and he shall possess it. And it shall be for the people of Israel a statute and rule, as the LORD commanded Moses.’”

Now the concern was that if any of these daughters who inherited land married outside their tribe, the land would be transferred to the tribe into which they married, and the land would be lost to the tribe to which it was originally apportioned.

Knowing the Word; The Year of Jubilee

They mention the Jubilee; they are referring to the instructions for a 50 year celebration given in Leviticus 25. Leviticus 25 gives the seventh year sabbath of rest for the land, and then:

Leviticus 25:8 “You shall count seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the time of the seven weeks of years shall give you forty-nine years. 9 Then you shall sound the loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh month. On the Day of Atonement you shall sound the trumpet throughout all your land. 10 And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his property and each of you shall return to his clan.

In the year of Jubilee, any people who had sold themselves out of poverty would be released to return to their tribe, and any land that was sold would return to the tribe to whom it was allotted. These people knew the scriptures they had received, and they were considering the implications. Land that was sold would return to the family it was apportioned to, but land transferred through marriage would become the property of the tribe which the landowning daughter married into, thus permanently transferring land from one tribe to another.

Faith; Trusting God to Do what he Promised

Notice, their concern was rooted in faith; they had heard God’s word, and they intended to obey. Their concern was based on a number of assumptions; they assumed their families in Manasseh would go across the Jordan with the other tribes. They assumed they would be victorious over ‘the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than you’ (Dt.7:1). They assumed they would return safely to their land east of the Jordan. None of these issues about inheritance rights would be issues if they did not conquer the land; there would be no inheritance to protect.

By the way, this reference to the Jubilee is interesting, because we have no record that Israel ever observed the Jubilee; outside of Leviticus 25 and 27, this is the only other time the Jubilee was even mentioned. When the Lord sent them into captivity in Babylon for 70 years, it was:

2 Chronicles 36:21 to fulfill the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths. All the days that it lay desolate it kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years.

We have no record of Israel ever keeping the Sabbath year rest for the land, let alone the 50^th year Jubilee.

But here, outside the land, they were walking forward in faith, believing that God would do what he said he would do and give them the land, and by faith they were asking what the implications would be of daughters inheriting land if they were to marry outside their tribe.

Women’s Rights and Marrying Within the Tribe

Numbers 36:5 And Moses commanded the people of Israel according to the word of the LORD, saying, “The tribe of the people of Joseph is right. 6 This is what the LORD commands concerning the daughters of Zelophehad: ‘Let them marry whom they think best, only they shall marry within the clan of the tribe of their father. 7 The inheritance of the people of Israel shall not be transferred from one tribe to another, for every one of the people of Israel shall hold on to the inheritance of the tribe of his fathers. 8 And every daughter who possesses an inheritance in any tribe of the people of Israel shall be wife to one of the clan of the tribe of her father, so that every one of the people of Israel may possess the inheritance of his fathers. 9 So no inheritance shall be transferred from one tribe to another, for each of the tribes of the people of Israel shall hold on to its own inheritance.’”

The Lord hears their concern, and his answer affirms his promise of perpetual land holdings for each tribe.

We may think of Old Testament times as a primitive time where women were treated more like property than persons, without rights and without choice; but this passage paints a different picture. These women gained audience with the leader of the entire nation, and received a word from the Lord in answer to their request, affirming their right, and the rights of future women, to inherit land in the absence of a male heir. Notice, their request was not self-serving; it was really not about them. It was about preserving their father’s name in the tribe. In this passage, while the rights of the tribes are upheld by them marrying within their tribe, they are free to marry ‘whom they think best’. We could draw out the New Testament analogy, where Paul says:

1 Corinthians 7:39 A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord.

For a follower of Jesus, we are free to marry whom we will, but only within the tribe; only to a fellow believer.

Walking In Obedience

Numbers 36:10 The daughters of Zelophehad did as the LORD commanded Moses, 11 for Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Noah, the daughters of Zelophehad, were married to sons of their father’s brothers. 12 They were married into the clans of the people of Manasseh the son of Joseph, and their inheritance remained in the tribe of their father’s clan.

This next generation is walking in obedience to the words of the Lord. The book began on a hopeful note, with the repeated refrain:

Numbers 1:54 Thus did the people of Israel; they did according to all that the LORD commanded Moses.

But this quickly degenerated into grumbling, complaining, doubting, disobedience and death. Here again we end on a hopeful note, this next generation walking in faith, even these women ‘did as the LORD commanded Moses’. The book ends leaving us cautious but hopeful; serious warnings are given for disobedience, but there are signs of faith in this next generation.

Conclusion: Poised to Enter In

Numbers 36:13 These are the commandments and the rules that the LORD commanded through Moses to the people of Israel in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho.

Numbers ends with God’s people in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho. This is anchored in geography and history; this is a real place, this was a real time, these were real people with a real responsibility. Moses would die as the Lord foretold. This leaves us with questions; Will they continue in obedience? For how long? Or will they fall into the patters of their fathers and begin to grumble and complain? Following the leadership of Yeshua, the people would cross the Jordan river at flood season in faith. They would conquer the fortified city of Jericho in faith. As long as they walked in childlike faith and humble dependence on the Lord, God would give them the victory. God would give them his land to possess.

Written For Us

Romans 15:4 For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

Numbers was written for our instruction; both as a warning and a promise; there remains a rest for the people of God; will we enter his rest? (Heb.4:1) Will we take hold of the promises of God by faith? Or will we allow the cares of this world to distract us, to miss out on the one thing that really matters?

Galatians 5:7 You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth?

Jesus said in John 3:

John 3:14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. 16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 ​Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

Will you believe in the only Son of God? Will you enter in?

***

Pastor Rodney Zedicher ~ Ephraim Church of the Bible ~ www.ephraimbible.org

God’s people are on the border of his promised land. This next generation is being prepared to enter in, to possess the land that God promised to give to them. God is giving them instructions on how to live in and enjoy his land. In chapter 33, after remembering the wilderness journey and the lessons learned thus far, God instructs them to drive out the inhabitants of the land and eradicate any trace of their idolatrous worship, lest they ‘be as barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides’, and you adopt their abominable practices and YHWH would punish you the same way he threatened judgment on the current inhabitants for their sins (33:55-56). In chapter 34, God described the limits of the land and gave instructions for dividing the land equitably among the tribes.

Land for Levites; Promise of Possession

Here in chapter 35, he instructs them on generosity and justice.

Numbers 35:1 The LORD spoke to Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho, saying, 2 “Command the people of Israel to give to the Levites some of the inheritance of their possession as cities for them to dwell in. And you shall give to the Levites pasturelands around the cities. 3 The cities shall be theirs to dwell in, and their pasturelands shall be for their cattle and for their livestock and for all their beasts. 4 The pasturelands of the cities, which you shall give to the Levites, shall reach from the wall of the city outward a thousand cubits all around. 5 And you shall measure, outside the city, on the east side two thousand cubits, and on the south side two thousand cubits, and on the west side two thousand cubits, and on the north side two thousand cubits, the city being in the middle. This shall belong to them as pastureland for their cities. 6 “The cities that you give to the Levites shall be the six cities of refuge, where you shall permit the manslayer to flee, and in addition to them you shall give forty-two cities. 7 All the cities that you give to the Levites shall be forty-eight, with their pasturelands. 8 And as for the cities that you shall give from the possession of the people of Israel, from the larger tribes you shall take many, and from the smaller tribes you shall take few; each, in proportion to the inheritance that it inherits, shall give of its cities to the Levites.”

‘Give to the Levites some of the inheritance of their possession’. God is giving you the land. Plan to honor God with what he gives to you before you even receive it. When he gives you the land, give some of what he has given you to care for the Lord’s servants. Remember the Levites were a tribe without an inheritance in the land. Jacob, when he blessed his sons, cursed Simeon and Levi’s anger, and said they would be divided in Jacob and scattered in Israel (Gn.49:5-7). But because the sons of Levi defended the holiness of YHWH in Exodus 32 after the gold calf idolatry,

Exodus 32:29 And Moses said, “Today you have been ordained for the service of the LORD, each one at the cost of his son and of his brother, so that he might bestow a blessing upon you this day.”

So this curse of being scattered among the tribes was turned into a blessing; they belonged to the Lord;

Numbers 8:16 For they are wholly given to me from among the people of Israel. Instead of all who open the womb, the firstborn of all the people of Israel, I have taken them for myself. …18 and I have taken the Levites instead of all the firstborn among the people of Israel. 19 And I have given the Levites as a gift to Aaron and his sons from among the people of Israel, to do the service for the people of Israel at the tent of meeting and to make atonement for the people of Israel, that there may be no plague among the people of Israel when the people of Israel come near the sanctuary.”

Levi did not have an inheritance among the people; the Lord was their inheritance. But the Lord arranged for the people to provided places for them to live. They were to be given 48 cities scattered among the tribes, and they were to be scattered like salt among Israel, preserving holiness, teaching the people how to worship.

They were to be given pastureland surrounding each of their cities, but this would not be sufficient to sustain them; they were sustained by the tithes of the people.

Numbers 18:21 “To the Levites I have given every tithe in Israel for an inheritance, in return for their service that they do, their service in the tent of meeting, 22 so that the people of Israel do not come near the tent of meeting, lest they bear sin and die.

[map] These 48 cities were distributed to the Levites in Joshua 21. Six of these cities, designated as cities of refuge for the manslayer to flee were assigned in Joshua 20; we learn more on what these cities of refuge were in the rest of the chapter. The 23,000 Levites numbered in the second census (Nu.26), with their families were to be scattered among Israel, cared for by the generosity of his people. The Lord takes care of his servants.

Cities of Refuge

Numbers 35:9 And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 10 “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you cross the Jordan into the land of Canaan, 11 then you shall select cities to be cities of refuge for you, that the manslayer who kills any person without intent may flee there. 12 The cities shall be for you a refuge from the avenger, that the manslayer may not die until he stands before the congregation for judgment. 13 And the cities that you give shall be your six cities of refuge. 14 You shall give three cities beyond the Jordan, and three cities in the land of Canaan, to be cities of refuge. 15 These six cities shall be for refuge for the people of Israel, and for the stranger and for the sojourner among them, that anyone who kills any person without intent may flee there.

There are several protections established in this text. Cities of refuge were established to protect those guilty of manslaughter but not murder. The distinction is intent; was this an accidental death, or was the offender out to injure or kill his victim?

There was protection for the offender until he could stand trial before the congregation. These cities were to be scattered throughout the land to make them readily accessible for anyone anywhere in the land to seek protection there.

There is equal protection for the stranger or sojourner as for the citizen. God’s people were to extend hospitality to the stranger, to the resident alien; they were to extend the same standards of justice to foreigners as to citizens.

Murder and the Image of God

Numbers 35:16 “But if he struck him down with an iron object, so that he died, he is a murderer. The murderer shall be put to death. 17 And if he struck him down with a stone tool that could cause death, and he died, he is a murderer. The murderer shall be put to death. 18 Or if he struck him down with a wooden tool that could cause death, and he died, he is a murderer. The murderer shall be put to death. 19 The avenger of blood shall himself put the murderer to death; when he meets him, he shall put him to death. 20 And if he pushed him out of hatred or hurled something at him, lying in wait, so that he died, 21 or in enmity struck him down with his hand, so that he died, then he who struck the blow shall be put to death. He is a murderer. The avenger of blood shall put the murderer to death when he meets him.

Seven times in this section it is repeated ‘the murderer shall be put to death’; put the murderer to death. There is no refuge for the one who willfully intentionally took the life of another.

Man was created in the image of God, to rule under him, to reflect his character to the rest of creation. When Cain slew his brother Abel,

Genesis 4:10 And the LORD said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground.

After the flood, when God put the fear of man into animals, and gave to Noah every living thing as food, he said:

Genesis 9:5 And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. 6 “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.

God instituted the death penalty for murderers because ultimately murder of God’s image-bearer is an affront against God himself.

Avenger and Redeemer

In Israel, the ‘go’el’ was commissioned to pursue justice for his relative. If a relative was killed, the nearest kinsman was to pursue the murderer and put him to death.

The ‘go’el’ was to defend the rights of the one who could not stand up for himself. This took two main shapes; in this chapter, the ‘go’el‘ is to pursue justice for a murdered relative. In Leviticus 25 they had the right and responsibility to buy back family land that had been sold by a relative in need, and they had the responsibility to buy back a relative who had indebted himself to a master. In those contexts this word is translated ‘redeemer’ or ‘kinsman redeemer’. We see this role of redeemer played out by Boaz in the story of Ruth and Naomi.

The Lord often refers to himself as a Redeemer, one who stands up for the one who cannot stand up for himself. Proverbs 23 warns:

Proverbs 23:10 ​Do not move an ancient landmark or enter the fields of the fatherless, 11 for their Redeemer is strong; he will plead their cause against you.

The Lord is the ultimate the ‘go’el’; and he fulfills both sides; both justice and mercy. ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay’ says the Lord (Dt.32:34-43; Rom.12:19).

Isaiah 43:1 But now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.

Jeremiah 31:11 ​For the LORD has ransomed Jacob and has redeemed him from hands too strong for him.

Protection (and Atonement) for the Manslayer

The murderer was to be put to death, but the manslayer, the one who killed accidentally, without intent to harm was to be protected from the avenger of blood.

Numbers 35:22 “But if he pushed him suddenly without enmity, or hurled anything on him without lying in wait 23 or used a stone that could cause death, and without seeing him dropped it on him, so that he died, though he was not his enemy and did not seek his harm, 24 then the congregation shall judge between the manslayer and the avenger of blood, in accordance with these rules. 25 And the congregation shall rescue the manslayer from the hand of the avenger of blood, and the congregation shall restore him to his city of refuge to which he had fled, and he shall live in it until the death of the high priest who was anointed with the holy oil. 26 But if the manslayer shall at any time go beyond the boundaries of his city of refuge to which he fled, 27 and the avenger of blood finds him outside the boundaries of his city of refuge, and the avenger of blood kills the manslayer, he shall not be guilty of blood. 28 For he must remain in his city of refuge until the death of the high priest, but after the death of the high priest the manslayer may return to the land of his possession.

There is protection for the manslayer from the ‘go’el’, the avenger of blood; but there is also restriction. He is to be confined to the city of refuge. To leave the city is to put himself outside the protection provided.

He is to remain in that city until death of the high priest. Unintentional killing still shed innocent blood, and must be atoned for. But unlike the murderer whose own blood must atone for his sin, the manslayer is released by the death of the high priest, the anointed one.

Just Protections

The rest of the chapter puts in place more protections to maintain justice.

Numbers 35:29 And these things shall be for a statute and rule for you throughout your generations in all your dwelling places. 30 “If anyone kills a person, the murderer shall be put to death on the evidence of witnesses. But no person shall be put to death on the testimony of one witness. 31 Moreover, you shall accept no ransom for the life of a murderer, who is guilty of death, but he shall be put to death. 32 And you shall accept no ransom for him who has fled to his city of refuge, that he may return to dwell in the land before the death of the high priest. 33 You shall not pollute the land in which you live, for blood pollutes the land, and no atonement can be made for the land for the blood that is shed in it, except by the blood of the one who shed it. 34 You shall not defile the land in which you live, in the midst of which I dwell, for I the LORD dwell in the midst of the people of Israel.”

The testimony of only one witness was insufficient to secure the death penalty, to prevent an individual from abusing the system to have an enemy killed. There was to be no reduction of the penalty either for murderer or manslayer; they may not buy their way out of the consequences of their actions. Blood is a powerful substance. It can cleanse, and it can pollute. Unjustly shed blood pollutes the land, and only the blood of the murderer can cleanse the land. They are entering the land not primarily to have a comfortable place to live, but so that God will once again dwell in the midst of his people. We were made for fellowship with God, and we must not jeopardize that gift of fellowship in any way by doing things which pollute or defile.

The Wages of Sin is Death

Now I’m not going to ask for a show of hands of how many of us this chapter directly applies to; how many of us are guilty of murder or manslaughter? But if I did, I believe every one of our hands should go up. Jesus told us in Matthew 5:

Matthew 5:21 “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ 22 But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.

Again in Matthew 15 Jesus says:

Matthew 15:18 But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. 20 ​These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone.”

Murder is a heart issue before it is ever an action. Anger, insults, hatred are heart issues, and according to Jesus these heart issues defile us. John summarizes Jesus’ teaching:

1 John 3:14 …Whoever does not love abides in death. 15 Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

All of us have sinned, and the wages of sin is death. There is no asylum for the one who has hated his brother in his heart. The only cleansing for shed blood is the blood of the one who shed it. But Jesus, our great High Priest ‘bore our sins in his body on the tree’ (1Pet.2.24); ‘he made him to be sin who knew no sin’ (2Cor.5:21);

Isaiah 53:5 ​But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; … 6 ​…the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. … 8 …he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people?

He took the place of this murderer.

Luke 23:18 But they all cried out together, “Away with this man, and release to us Barabbas”— 19 a man who had been thrown into prison for an insurrection started in the city and for murder. …25 He released the man who had been thrown into prison for insurrection and murder, for whom they asked, but he delivered Jesus over to their will.

Jesus is my ‘go’el’; he paid my price with his own precious blood.

1 Peter 1:18 knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.

Titus 2:13 …our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, 14 who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

O sinner, flee to Jesus for refuge!

Psalm 57:1 Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me, for in you my soul takes refuge; in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge, till the storms of destruction pass by.

***

Pastor Rodney Zedicher ~ Ephraim Church of the Bible ~ www.ephraimbible.org

The Promised Land

The people of God are camped on the plains of Moab, across the Jordan from the land God promised to give them.

Numbers 34:1 The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Command the people of Israel, and say to them, When you enter the land of Canaan (this is the land that shall fall to you for an inheritance, the land of Canaan as defined by its borders),

YHWH says ‘when you enter the land’; ‘when’, not ‘if’. ‘this is the land that shall fall to you for an inheritance’; not ‘might’, ‘shall’. God’s promises are sure. We have heard this repeatedly…

Numbers 13:2 “Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the people of Israel. …

Even after the ten spies brought an evil report and discouraged the people, God referred back to his promise;

Numbers 14:22 none of the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have put me to the test these ten times and have not obeyed my voice, 23 shall see the land that I swore to give to their fathers. And none of those who despised me shall see it. 24 But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me fully, I will bring into the land into which he went, and his descendants shall possess it.

Numbers 14:30 not one shall come into the land where I swore that I would make you dwell, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun. 31 But your little ones, who you said would become a prey, I will bring in, and they shall know the land that you have rejected.

The very next chapter after their rebellion, God says:

Numbers 15:2 “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you come into the land you are to inhabit, which I am giving you,

Numbers 15:18 “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you come into the land to which I bring you

Numbers 20:12 …the land that I have given them.”

Numbers 20:24 “…the land that I have given to the people of Israel, …

Numbers 27:12 …see the land that I have given to the people of Israel.

Numbers 33:53 And you shall take possession of the land and settle in it, for I have given the land to you to possess it.

God made it abundantly clear that he was giving this land to his people.

Borders of the Land [map]

Numbers 34:1 The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Command the people of Israel, and say to them, When you enter the land of Canaan (this is the land that shall fall to you for an inheritance, the land of Canaan as defined by its borders),

Numbers 34:3 your south side shall be from the wilderness of Zin alongside Edom, and your southern border shall run from the end of the Salt Sea on the east. 4 And your border shall turn south of the ascent of Akrabbim, and cross to Zin, and its limit shall be south of Kadesh-barnea. Then it shall go on to Hazar-addar, and pass along to Azmon. 5 And the border shall turn from Azmon to the Brook of Egypt, and its limit shall be at the sea.

6 “For the western border, you shall have the Great Sea and its coast. This shall be your western border.

7 “This shall be your northern border: from the Great Sea you shall draw a line to Mount Hor. 8 From Mount Hor you shall draw a line to Lebo-hamath, and the limit of the border shall be at Zedad. 9 Then the border shall extend to Ziphron, and its limit shall be at Hazar-enan. This shall be your northern border.

10 “You shall draw a line for your eastern border from Hazar-enan to Shepham. 11 And the border shall go down from Shepham to Riblah on the east side of Ain. And the border shall go down and reach to the shoulder of the Sea of Chinnereth on the east. 12 And the border shall go down to the Jordan, and its limit shall be at the Salt Sea. This shall be your land as defined by its borders all around.”

This is a real place. This is a land defined by borders. It is a land with definition, with boundaries. Already in their journeys, they were told:

Deuteronomy 2:5 Do not contend with them [Edom], for I will not give you any of their land, no, not so much as for the sole of the foot to tread on, because I have given Mount Seir to Esau as a possession.

Deuteronomy 2:9 And the LORD said to me, ‘Do not harass Moab or contend with them in battle, for I will not give you any of their land for a possession, because I have given Ar to the people of Lot for a possession.’

Deuteronomy 2:19 And when you approach the territory of the people of Ammon, do not harass them or contend with them, for I will not give you any of the land of the people of Ammon as a possession, because I have given it to the sons of Lot for a possession.’

God is the God of all the earth. He gives his land to whom he chooses. Back in Genesis 12:

Genesis 12:7 Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” …

In Genesis 15,

Genesis 15:7 And he said to him, “I am the LORD who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.”

And about Abram’s descendants;

Genesis 15:18 On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, 19 the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, 20 the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, 21 the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.”

But he told him that before this happened, his descendants would be afflicted as slaves in a land not their own for 400 years (Gen.15:13).

An Eviction Notice (and a Warning)

And he told them why:

Genesis 15:16 And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”

God gives his land to whom he chooses. He is abundantly patient, but he is also just, ‘when the iniquity of the Amorites is complete’, he is free to evict them and entrust the land to other tenants as he desires.

At the end of chapter 33, YHWH instructed:

Numbers 33:51 “…When you pass over the Jordan into the land of Canaan, 52 then you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you and destroy all their figured stones and destroy all their metal images and demolish all their high places. 53 And you shall take possession of the land and settle in it, for I have given the land to you to possess it.

Drive out all the inhabitants. Cleanse the land of every bit of their idolatrous worship. Take possession. He gives more specifics in Leviticus as to why the inhabitants are to be utterly eradicated:

Leviticus 18:3 You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you lived, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you. You shall not walk in their statutes.

And he lists different forms of immorality; sins of incest, adultery, child sacrifice (burning children to the false god Molech), homosexual acts, bestiality, and he says:

Leviticus 18:24 “Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean, 25 and the land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. 26 But you shall keep my statutes and my rules and do none of these abominations,… 27 (for the people of the land, who were before you, did all of these abominations, so that the land became unclean), 28 lest the land vomit you out when you make it unclean, as it vomited out the nation that was before you.

He warned them in Exodus 23 that the deeper issue is spiritual adultery:

Exodus 23:14 (for you shall worship no other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God), 15 lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and when they whore after their gods and sacrifice to their gods and you are invited, you eat of his sacrifice, 16 and you take of their daughters for your sons, and their daughters whore after their gods and make your sons whore after their gods.

God entered into a covenant relationship with his people, and many of the obvious sins are symptoms of a deeper heart issue, unfaithfulness to the Lord. We must never make peace with sin of any kind.

Thorns and the Curse

He warns:

Numbers 33:55 But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those of them whom you let remain shall be as barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall trouble you in the land where you dwell. 56 And I will do to you as I thought to do to them.”

This sounds unpleasant, doesn’t it? But this is exactly what his people did through the times of the judges and the kings, until he exiled his people from his land. Joshua reiterates this warning:

Joshua 23:11 Be very careful, therefore, to love the LORD your God. 12 For if you turn back and cling to the remnant of these nations remaining among you and make marriages with them, so that you associate with them and they with you, 13 know for certain that the LORD your God will no longer drive out these nations before you, but they shall be a snare and a trap for you, a whip on your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from off this good ground that the LORD your God has given you.

The issue is the first command; ‘love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength’ (Dt.6:5; Mk.12:30). Fix your eyes on Jesus to displace all unholy loves.

Thorns are part of God’s curse on mankind for our disobedience in his garden (Gen.3:17-19). But even with the curse, there is hope; there will be an ultimate conflict between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman; ‘he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel’ (Gen.3:15)

Matthew 27:26 Then he released for them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, delivered him to be crucified. …28 And they stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, 29 and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head and put a reed in his right hand. And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” 30 And they spit on him and took the reed and struck him on the head. 31 And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes on him and led him away to crucify him.

John 19:33 But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. 34 But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water.

Jesus suffered the consequences of our disobedience for us

Galatians 3:13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—

This is good news for us!

1 Corinthians 6:9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

What were you? Unrighteous? All have sinned and fallen short. What flavor of unrighteous were you? Whatever you are, you can be cleansed, made holy, declared righteous in Jesus, transformed, made new.

Beware of Settling for Less

The Lord is inviting his people to enter in. Beware the danger of compromise. Beware the danger of settling for less that what God promises. Already two and a half tribes opted out of crossing in to possess the land God promised to give them.

Numbers 34:13 Moses commanded the people of Israel, saying, “This is the land that you shall inherit by lot, which the LORD has commanded to give to the nine tribes and to the half-tribe. 14 For the tribe of the people of Reuben by fathers’ houses and the tribe of the people of Gad by their fathers’ houses have received their inheritance, and also the half-tribe of Manasseh. 15 The two tribes and the half-tribe have received their inheritance beyond the Jordan east of Jericho, toward the sunrise.”

Don’t be content to settle outside.

Enter His Rest

In the remainder of this chapter, God names the men who will be responsible under Joshua to divide the land between the remaining tribes.

Numbers 34:16 The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 17 “These are the names of the men who shall divide the land to you for inheritance: Eleazar the priest and Joshua the son of Nun. 18 You shall take one chief from every tribe to divide the land for inheritance. 19 These are the names of the men: Of the tribe of Judah, Caleb the son of Jephunneh. 20 Of the tribe of the people of Simeon, Shemuel the son of Ammihud. 21 Of the tribe of Benjamin, Elidad the son of Chislon. 22 Of the tribe of the people of Dan a chief, Bukki the son of Jogli. 23 Of the people of Joseph:

of the tribe of the people of Manasseh a chief, Hanniel the son of Ephod. 24 And of the tribe of the people of Ephraim a chief, Kemuel the son of Shiphtan. 25 Of the tribe of the people of Zebulun a chief, Elizaphan the son of Parnach. 26 Of the tribe of the people of Issachar a chief, Paltiel the son of Azzan.27 And of the tribe of the people of Asher a chief, Ahihud the son of Shelomi. 28 Of the tribe of the people of Naphtali a chief, Pedahel the son of Ammihud. 29 These are the men whom the LORD commanded to divide the inheritance for the people of Israel in the land of Canaan.”

This is the seventh list of leaders given in Numbers (chs. 1; 2; 7; 10; 13; 26; 34). Not one of the leaders listed in chapters 1, 2, 7 and 10 would enter the land. Of the spies listed in chapter 13, only Caleb and Joshua would enter in. After the disobedience of chapter 25 and the cleansing of the camp, the census of the next generation in chapter 26 would enter in. Those leaders of this seventh group would have the responsibility of apportioning the Lord’s inheritance to his people.

God’s people had been delivered from slavery, they were given God’s sure promises, but they were not yet in possession of the land.

David in Psalm 95 recounts those of that earlier generation,

Psalm 95:10 …a people who go astray in their heart, and they have not known my ways.” 11 Therefore I swore in my wrath, “They shall not enter my rest.”

The author of Hebrews picks up on this and warns against failing to enter into God’s promised rest.

Hebrews 3:12 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. 13 But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. 14 For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. …18 And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? 19 So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.

Take care to believe. Unbelief prevented them from entering in. An unbelieving heart will lead you to fall away, to be deceived by the false promises of sin. He goes on in chapter 4:

Hebrews 4:1 Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. 2 For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened. 3 For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said, “As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest,’” although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. 4 For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.”

God’s word of promise is good news. But it must be received by faith, or it will do you no good. You must take God at his word and receive his promise; enter in to possess the inheritance he purchased for you.

***

Pastor Rodney Zedicher ~ Ephraim Church of the Bible ~ www.ephraimbible.org

The Discipline of Remembering

We are getting close to the end of Numbers. Moses will die with the disobedient generation outside the land, but their children will enter in. Here in Numbers 33 Moses writes a recap of their journey thus far, in the form of a military itinerary.

Numbers 33:1 These are the stages of the people of Israel, when they went out of the land of Egypt by their companies under the leadership of Moses and Aaron. 2 Moses wrote down their starting places, stage by stage, by command of the LORD, and these are their stages according to their starting places.

This is one of only a few places where we are explicitly told that Moses wrote this. What an amazing gift we have been given, the written word of God. A reliable written record is a treasure. We may not understand everything that was written, or why it was written, but writing is a way to pass down and preserve a record accurately, so that future generations can continue to study and learn and make new discoveries. Many places in the Bible have been (re)discovered or identified in my lifetime, and many more (including the majority of this list) are not yet established with certainty.

But here, shortly before his death which the Lord had predicted, like Peter, he wrote a record, ‘so that after my departure you may be able at any time to recall these things’ (2Pet.1:13-15).

A long list of place-names doesn’t mean much to us, because we weren’t there. But we have been journeying with them through the text of the book of Numbers, so we have been given enough to get a taste of what this meant to them.

The Exodus [Exodus 2-14]

Numbers 33:3 They set out from Rameses in the first month, on the fifteenth day of the first month. On the day after the Passover, the people of Israel went out triumphantly in the sight of all the Egyptians, 4 while the Egyptians were burying all their firstborn, whom the LORD had struck down among them. On their gods also the LORD executed judgments.

YHWH had instructed Moses:

Exodus 4:22 Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the LORD, Israel is my firstborn son, 23 and I say to you, “Let my son go that he may serve me.” If you refuse to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son.’”

Remember the plagues against Egypt, where God repeatedly warned and proved himself supreme over all the false gods of Egypt by ten mighty acts of judgment (Ex.12:12)?

Remember the Passover, when each Hebrew family was to sacrifice a lamb, and paint its blood on their doorpost, so that God’s judgment would ‘pass over’ them (Ex.12:13)? ‘Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed’ (1Cor.5:7).

Remember the fifteenth day of the first month, the day after the Passover, when Israel went out triumphantly, having plundered the Egyptians (Ex.12:35-36)?

Numbers 33:5 So the people of Israel set out from Rameses and camped at Succoth [means booths, temporary dwellings]. 6 And they set out from Succoth and camped at Etham, which is on the edge of the wilderness. 7 And they set out from Etham and turned back to Pi-hahiroth [mouth of the gorges], which is east of Baal-zephon [Baal of the north], and they camped before Migdol [tower].

Remember God instructing his people to turn back to Pi-hahiroth, camping at Migdol by the sea (Ex.14:2-4), where they were trapped with no human way out, closed in with mountains on either side, Pharaoh’s army pursuing them, and their backs against the impassible sea?

Remember the people’s desperation (Ex.14:9-12), and Moses’ answer:

Exodus 14:13 And Moses said to the people, “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. 14 The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.”

Remember God’s parting the Red Sea, so his people could cross on dry land (Ex.14:21-22)? Remember Pharaoh’s army pursuing them, and the waters returning to destroy his enemies, so they would never pursue them again? (Ex.14:26-28) Remember Moses’ song by the sea (Ex.15:1-21), rejoicing in the salvation of YHWH?

Numbers 33:8 And they set out from before Hahiroth and passed through the midst of the sea into the wilderness, and they went a three days’ journey in the wilderness of Etham and camped at Marah.

Peoples’ Grumbling; God’s Provision [Exodus 15-17] (2 months)

Remember Marah in the wilderness of Shur (Ex.15:22-26), where the waters were bitter (Marah means ‘bitter’), where the people grumbled against the Lord, where God enabled Moses to make the bitter waters sweet, where God tested them and promised that if they would listen diligently, he would heal them?

Remember Elim, (Ex.15:27) the oasis in the desert? (Elim means ‘place of trees’)

Numbers 33:9 And they set out from Marah and came to Elim; at Elim there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees, and they camped there. 10 And they set out from Elim and camped by the Red Sea. 11 And they set out from the Red Sea and camped in the wilderness of Sin.

It was the wilderness of Sin, (Ex.16) a month after the people left Egypt where the people grumbled because of their hunger, where the Lord began to rain bread from heaven on them to provide for their daily need.

John 6:33 For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” …35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.

Numbers 33:12 And they set out from the wilderness of Sin and camped at Dophkah. 13 And they set out from Dophkah and camped at Alush. 14 And they set out from Alush and camped at Rephidim, where there was no water for the people to drink. 15 And they set out from Rephidim and camped in the wilderness of Sinai.

Remember Rephidim, (Ex.17:1-7) where there was no water to drink, and the people brought a legal argument against Moses, questioning his motives, questioning his ability to lead? Moses was afraid for his life. Remember Horeb, where YHWH stood before Moses on the rock and invited Moses to strike the rock, and living water poured out, meeting the complaining people’s needs? ‘The spiritual rock that followed them …was Christ’ (1Cor.10:4).

Remember also at Rephidim, (Ex.17:8-16) where the people were first attacked by the Amalekites? Remember Joshua fighting the battle while Moses prayed for them on the hill above? Remember that as long as he lifted his hands, Israel prevailed, but when he lowered his hands, Amalek prevailed? Remember Aaron and Hur coming alongside the weary Moses, supporting him and holding up his hands, until the Lord gave Israel the victory?

The Wilderness of Sinai [Exodus 19 – Numbers 10] (11 months)

Remember the wilderness of Sinai, when they came to Mount Sinai, where God met them in cloud and fire and thick darkness, where he gave them his covenant to take them to be his people and to be their God (Ex.6:9)? Where he wrote the covenant with his own finger on stone tablets (Ex.31:18), the covenant which they broke before they had even received the signed copy? Remember the golden calf, when 3,000 men died because of their unfaithfulness (Ex.32:28)? Remember God threatening to wipe out the entire people, and Moses interceding, and God again promising to be with them to be their God (Ex.32:10)? The second half of Exodus, all of Leviticus, and the first 10 chapters of Numbers all take place in this year camped at Sinai, where they built the tabernacle. All this took place at Sinai, but Mount Sinai itself is not even explicitly mentioned in this passage.

Sinai to Kadesh; [Numbers 11-20] (11 days journey; ~11 months?)

Numbers 33:16 And they set out from the wilderness of Sinai and camped at Kibroth-hattaavah.

Remember Kibroth-hattaavah, the graves of craving (Nu.11:1-35)? Where Israel complained against the Lord that they did not have any meat to eat, and they loathed his provision of bread from heaven? Remember God promised to give them what they craved, and they would eat it for a whole month until it came out their nostrils? The anger of the Lord was kindled against the people and he struck them down with a very great plague, and they buried the people who had the craving. Remember Moses (Nu.11:10-30) was so overwhelmed from carrying the burden of the people that he wanted to die, and the Lord put his Spirit on 70 men to share the burden of leadership?

This place, Kibroth-hattaavah, like so many places on this list, was not a place on a map with a name before Israel came; rather it was so named because of Israel’s experience when they camped there. Kibroth-hattaavah means ‘graves of craving’, a reminder of the lusts of the people, and the danger of ungrateful hearts.

Numbers 33:17 And they set out from Kibroth-hattaavah and camped at Hazeroth.

Remember Hazeroth, (Nu.12) where Miriam and Aaron challenge Moses’ authority, and Miriam was struck with leprosy and put outside the camp 7 days for purification? The end of Numbers 12 says the people left Hazeroth and camped in the wilderness of Paran.

The next 17 places on this list are otherwise unknown, likely sites moving north from Jebel Musa at the bottom of the Sinai peninsula, up through the rugged mountainous eastern Sinai. Rithmah, Rimmon-perez, Libnah, Rissah, Kehelathah, Mount Shepher, Haradah, Makheloth, Tahath, Terah, Mithkahm, Hashmonah, Moseroth, Bene-jaakan, Hor-haggidgad, Jotbathah, Abronah.

These places have not been located, primarily because they were temporary campsites, not permanent dwellings, and apparently Israel adhered to a ‘leave no trace’ style of camping.

Ezion-Geber is on the north end of the gulf of Aqaba.

Kadesh [Numbers 13-20] (38 years)

Numbers 33:36 And they set out from Ezion-geber and camped in the wilderness of Zin (that is, Kadesh).

The camp in the wilderness of Zin is specified to be Kadesh. Kadesh means ‘holy’ or ‘set apart’. It is from Kadesh that the 12 spies are sent out to survey the land from Lebo-hamath in the north to Hebron in the south, but ten of the twelve bring back an evil report of the land and discourage the hearts of the people. Ruled by fear, the people wail and grumble against Moses and Aaron, long for the days of slavery in Egypt, and seek to appoint a leader to take them back to Egypt. The Lord again threatens to wipe them out, but Moses intercedes, and only the 10 spies die before the Lord, and the rest of that generation except Caleb and Joshua are sentenced to die in the wilderness. The next 38 years revolve around Kadesh, where Israel is defeated in battle (Nu.14:39-45), where a sabbath breaker is executed (Nu.15:32-36), where Korah and 250 Levites seek the priesthood and were consumed by fire, and Dathan and Abiram reject the leadership of Moses and the earth opened up and swallowed them (Nu.16), where Miriam dies (Nu.20:1), where the people again take up a dispute against Moses and Aaron over lack of water, and this time Aaron and Moses disobey the Lord and fail to uphold him as holy; they berate the people and strike the rock when they were told to speak to the rock and God would give them water, and Aaron and Moses are sentenced to die outside the land. 38 wasted years because of their unbelief.

Numbers 33:37 And they set out from Kadesh and camped at Mount Hor, on the edge of the land of Edom. 38 And Aaron the priest went up Mount Hor at the command of the LORD and died there, in the fortieth year after the people of Israel had come out of the land of Egypt, on the first day of the fifth month. 39 And Aaron was 123 years old when he died on Mount Hor.

The people mourn for Aaron thirty days (Nu.20:29). Moses and Aaron go up Mount Hor, and Moses and Eleazar, Aaron’s son come down the mountain, Eleazar taking the place of his father as high priest of the nation.

Kadesh to Moab; Victories Over Enemies [Numbers 21-31]

Numbers 33:40 And the Canaanite, the king of Arad, who lived in the Negeb in the land of Canaan, heard of the coming of the people of Israel.

Numbers 21:1-3 tells us that Arad attacked Israel, but YHWH gave Israel the victory and they devoted them to destruction, so the place was named Hormah.

Numbers 33:41 And they set out from Mount Hor and camped at Zalmonah. 42 And they set out from Zalmonah and camped at Punon. 43 And they set out from Punon and camped at Oboth.

Numbers 21:4-9 tells us that because Edom would not grant them passage, they traveled the long route around Edom by way of the Red Sea, probably south toward Ezion-geber and then back north around Edom. It was in this detour that the people spoke against God and against Moses; ‘no food, no water, and we loathe this worthless food’. The Lord sent fiery serpents and Moses lifted up a serpent on a pole, so that whoever looked at the serpent would live.

John 3:14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

Numbers 33:44 And they set out from Oboth and camped at Iye-abarim, in the territory of Moab. 45 And they set out from Iyim and camped at Dibon-gad. 46 And they set out from Dibon-gad and camped at Almon-diblathaim. 47 And they set out from Almon-diblathaim and camped in the mountains of Abarim, before Nebo. 48 And they set out from the mountains of Abarim and camped in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho; 49 they camped by the Jordan from Beth-jeshimoth as far as Abel-shittim in the plains of Moab.

This is the march of the next generation to the borders of the promised land. They defeat Sihon king of the Amorites, and Og king of Bashan (Nu.21:21-35). It is on the plains of Moab where Balaam attempts to curse Israel from the mountains, but the Lord puts a word of blessing in his mouth instead (Nu.22-24). It is on the plains of Shittim where the Midianites seduced Israel to immorality and idolatry, and 24,000 died in the plague (Nu.25). But the new generation in numbered in chapter 26, vengeance is taken on Midian in chapter 31, and the people are preparing to cross the Jordan under Joshua’s leadership.

Encouragement and Warning

There are a lot of lessons to learn from remembering, both the blessings of believing and the defeat of unbelief. This is both an encouragement and a warning.

Numbers 33:50 And the LORD spoke to Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho, saying, 51 “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you pass over the Jordan into the land of Canaan, 52 then you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you and destroy all their figured stones and destroy all their metal images and demolish all their high places. 53 And you shall take possession of the land and settle in it, for I have given the land to you to possess it. 54 You shall inherit the land by lot according to your clans. To a large tribe you shall give a large inheritance, and to a small tribe you shall give a small inheritance. Wherever the lot falls for anyone, that shall be his. According to the tribes of your fathers you shall inherit. 55 But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those of them whom you let remain shall be as barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall trouble you in the land where you dwell. 56 And I will do to you as I thought to do to them.”

Remember. Remember the bondage of unbelief and disobedience. Remember there is freedom and victory through faith in Jesus!

Romans 15:4 For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

***

Pastor Rodney Zedicher ~ Ephraim Church of the Bible ~ www.ephraimbible.org

The book of Numbers begins by numbering the fighting men who came out of Egypt. In chapters 13-14 that generation rebelled against the Lord and rejected his land, and the consequences of their unbelief was death. That generation would die in the wilderness, but their children, whom they feared would become a prey, would enter in (Nu.14:31). Here we are 40 years later, again on the border of the land, that rebellious generation having died in the wilderness, the next generation’s fighting men now numbered, poised to enter in. Preparations are being made, God’s instructions for life in the land; God’s provision of new leadership, provision of sacrifices and grain and wine for their offerings, the requirements of integrity in speech, and purification from that which defiles.

The Lust of The Eyes

In Numbers 32, another threat to God’s promise arises:

Numbers 32:1 Now the people of Reuben and the people of Gad had a very great number of livestock. And they saw the land of Jazer and the land of Gilead, and behold, the place was a place for livestock. 2 So the people of Gad and the people of Reuben came and said to Moses and to Eleazar the priest and to the chiefs of the congregation, 3 “Ataroth, Dibon, Jazer, Nimrah, Heshbon, Elealeh, Sebam, Nebo, and Beon, 4 the land that the LORD struck down before the congregation of Israel, is a land for livestock, and your servants have livestock.” 5 And they said, “If we have found favor in your sight, let this land be given to your servants for a possession. Do not take us across the Jordan.”

Because of their unbelief, failing to uphold the Lord as holy, Moses and Aaron were forbidden to cross the Jordan and enter the land (Dt.3:25,27). The promises to give his people this land date back over 600 years to the time of Abraham. Now, two of the tribes, making up almost 14% of Israel’s fighting force, ask to opt out of the conquest.

Notice what they say; They saw the land …and behold, the place was a place for livestock. This sounds familiar. There was another time great herds and suitable pastureland became an issue; and much of the language is similar. About this same land, also over 600 years earlier, in Genesis 13,

Genesis 13:10 And Lot lifted up his eyes and saw that the Jordan Valley was well watered everywhere like the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt, in the direction of Zoar. (This was before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.) 11 So Lot chose for himself all the Jordan Valley, and Lot journeyed east. Thus they separated from each other. 12 Abram settled in the land of Canaan, while Lot settled among the cities of the valley and moved his tent as far as Sodom.

Two comparisons are made; this land is ‘like the garden of the Lord’, where our first parents saw and took for themselves that which was outside the boundaries;

Genesis 3:6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.

It is also ‘like the land of Egypt’, the place of slavery that the Lord delivered his people from, slavery they often longed to return to.

This was the land of the Ammonites and Moabites, descendants of Lot’s incestuous relations after God’s destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen.19). Just as Lot ‘chose for himself all the Jordan Valley, these two tribes chose for themselves the land that they desired. ‘Let this land be given to your servants for a possession.’ And their final words are telling ‘Do not take us across the Jordan.’

A Strong Exhortation / Expositional Preaching

Moses, himself excluded from the land through his own sin, gives them a fiery rebuke and a warning:

Numbers 32:6 But Moses said to the people of Gad and to the people of Reuben, “Shall your brothers go to the war while you sit here? 7 Why will you discourage the heart of the people of Israel from going over into the land that the LORD has given them? 8 Your fathers did this, when I sent them from Kadesh-barnea to see the land. 9 For when they went up to the Valley of Eshcol and saw the land, they discouraged the heart of the people of Israel from going into the land that the LORD had given them. 10 And the LORD’s anger was kindled on that day, and he swore, saying, 11 ‘Surely none of the men who came up out of Egypt, from twenty years old and upward, shall see the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, because they have not wholly followed me, 12 none except Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite and Joshua the son of Nun, for they have wholly followed the LORD.’ 13 And the LORD’s anger was kindled against Israel, and he made them wander in the wilderness forty years, until all the generation that had done evil in the sight of the LORD was gone. 14 And behold, you have risen in your fathers’ place, a brood of sinful men, to increase still more the fierce anger of the LORD against Israel! 15 For if you turn away from following him, he will again abandon them in the wilderness, and you will destroy all this people.”

Moses starts by highlighting the selfishness of their request; all the tribes together fought to secure the land you now want for your own, and you want to settle down and leave them to conquer the land without your help?

Then he addresses the danger of this decision to the morale of the army; ‘Why do you discourage the heart of the people of Israel?’ This decision to opt out and settle outside the land will be contagious. This comes on the heels of a major victory, where the Midianites were defeated and not a man was lost in battle. Now 84,230 men want to hang up their weapons and quit before the real battle begins. This would be a dangerously demoralizing move.

He reminds them that this is ‘the land that the LORD has given them’. God’s gifts are meant to be received. It is nothing less than an insult to God to decline his gift and request something else instead. And he gives them a lesson from history. Rather than learning from the failures of the past, you are repeating them. Your fathers discouraged the hearts of the people from entering in to the good land the Lord was giving them. The result? YHWH’s anger was kindled. That entire generation who came out of Egypt, numbered at the beginning of this book, 603,548 men, died in the wilderness.

God had given his word, he had made a promise, he swore to give that land to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Unbelief is not taking God at his word; they failed to walk in a way that showed they were believing what he said. That earlier generation was controlled by fear; there were giants in the land; they would be devoured. Their children would become giant food. This generation seems simply to prefer something else, something outside the promises of God.

The issue was wholly following the Lord. Their fathers were excluded from the promises because they did not wholly follow the Lord. Only two men, men they should have held as heroes, Caleb and Joshua, were men who wholly followed the Lord.

The Lord’s anger was kindled by their failure to wholly follow him, their contagious unbelief in God. Now these two tribes ‘have risen in your fathers’ place, a brood of sinful men, to increase still more the fierce anger of YHWH against Israel!’

My sin never affects only me. Moses was not only afraid that they would bring God’s judgment down on their own heads; he was afraid they would bring the fierce anger of YHWH against all of Israel because they were a people, and what one did brought guilt into the camp. A little leaven leavens the whole lump (1Cor.5:6). “For if you turn away from following him, he will again abandon them in the wilderness, and you will destroy all this people.”

Moses gave them a strong warning, but it was a warning, meant to open their eyes to the danger of what they proposed, and to turn them away from the error of their ways.

A Modified Proposal; (Repentance or Persistence?)

Reuben and Gad modified their proposal;

Numbers 32:16 Then they came near to him and said, “We will build sheepfolds here for our livestock, and cities for our little ones, 17 but we will take up arms, ready to go before the people of Israel, until we have brought them to their place. And our little ones shall live in the fortified cities because of the inhabitants of the land. 18 We will not return to our homes until each of the people of Israel has gained his inheritance. 19 For we will not inherit with them on the other side of the Jordan and beyond, because our inheritance has come to us on this side of the Jordan to the east.”

The mention of ‘little ones’ in light of the danger of ‘the inhabitants of the land’ reminds us of the first generation who were afraid that they would enter the land, only ‘to fall by the sword; our wives and our little ones will become a prey’ (Nu.14:3). Now these ‘little ones’, the next generation of fighting men the Lord promised to give the land, are seeking to settle for less than God’s promises.

But rather than not crossing the Jordan; letting their ‘brothers go to the war while you sit here’, they promise to take up arms and go before the people, to lead the charge, until each of their brothers had gained his inheritance. They reiterate that they want to inherit the land east of the Jordan, outside the land.

They are bargaining. We are not sure what their motive is. Is this rooted in repentance, a recognition that what Moses has warned of was true? Did they feel remorse for wishing to stay behind while their brothers go to the war? Did they recognize the terrible danger of discouraging the people? Were they willing to wholly follow the Lord? Or were they simply determined to have what they desired, and willing to make concessions in order to get it? We aren’t told, in fact we are left with Moses wondering about their sincerity.

If / Then / If Not, Be Sure Your Sin Will Find You Out

Moses answers with an if.

Numbers 32:20 So Moses said to them, “If you will do this, if you will take up arms to go before the LORD for the war, 21 and every armed man of you will pass over the Jordan before the LORD, until he has driven out his enemies from before him 22 and the land is subdued before the LORD; then after that you shall return and be free of obligation to the LORD and to Israel, and this land shall be your possession before the LORD.

23 But if you will not do so, behold, you have sinned against the LORD, and be sure your sin will find you out. 24 Build cities for your little ones and folds for your sheep, and do what you have promised.”

Moses can’t see their hearts. He accepts their proposal, but with an ‘if,’ and a warning, and a call to be men of their word. If you do what you say you will do, then you will have fulfilled your obligation and you may take your possession east of the Jordan.

In his language, he issues a reminder that victory belongs to the Lord (Pr.21:31). Reuben and Gad offer to lead the armies, but they must not begin to think that the success belongs to them. It is the Lord who will drive out his enemies, and the land will be subdued before YHWH.

He issues a warning; ‘but if you will not do so, behold, you have sinned against YHWH, and be sure your sin will find you out.’ Moses can’t see their hearts, but YHWH God knows. He is calling them to search their own hearts, and know that any sin against God, however hidden, will eventually catch up with them. Sin here is personified; like the Lord’s word of warning to Cain, ‘sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you’ (Gen.4:7).

This is taking the shape of a contractual agreement, a covenant. The terms are clearly stated; if / then; if not / then. Do what you have promised. In verses 25-27 Gad and Reuben agree to the terms Moses has laid out. In verses 28-30, this covenant that has been hammered out primarily between Moses and the leaders of Gad and Reuben is made public.

Numbers 32:28 So Moses gave command concerning them to Eleazar the priest and to Joshua the son of Nun and to the heads of the fathers’ houses of the tribes of the people of Israel. 29 And Moses said to them, “If the people of Gad and the people of Reuben, every man who is armed to battle before the LORD, will pass with you over the Jordan and the land shall be subdued before you, then you shall give them the land of Gilead for a possession. 30 However, if they will not pass over with you armed, they shall have possessions among you in the land of Canaan.”

This holds them accountable. This is important, because Moses will not be there to determine if they keep their word. It will be on the next generation of leaders, on Joshua and on Eleazar the high priest and the heads of the tribes to hold them to their word. Again in verses 31-32, this time publicly, the people of Gad and Reuben agree to the terms and give their word.

Moses rehearses this covenant in Deuteronomy 3. In Joshua 1, after Moses has died, Joshua reminds them of their word and they affirm their commitment. We see in Joshua 4:12 that ‘the sons of Reuben and the sons of Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh passed over armed before the people of Israel, as Moses had told them.’

The rest of this passage specifies what land is allotted to whom. In their original proposal nine cities are named; here the total comes up to 14; eight for Gad, six for Reuben. Gad built Dibon, Ataroth, Aroer, Atroth-shophan, Jazer, Jogbehah, Beth-nimrah and Beth-haran. Reuben built Heshbon, Elealeh, Kiriathaim, Nebo, and Baal-meon (those names were changed from being named after false gods), and Sibmah. These are real places; most of them have been identified.

Part of the tribe of Manasseh is included in this proposal for the first time in verse 33.

Numbers 32:39 And the sons of Machir the son of Manasseh went to Gilead and captured it, and dispossessed the Amorites who were in it. 40 And Moses gave Gilead to Machir the son of Manasseh, and he settled in it. 41 And Jair the son of Manasseh went and captured their villages, and called them Havvoth-jair. 42 And Nobah went and captured Kenath and its villages, and called it Nobah, after his own name.

In Numbers 27 we met Machir son of Manasseh’s great grandson Zelophehad, who had only daughters, and those daughters successfully petitioned for inheritance rights. We will see them again in chapter 36. Here we learn that their inheritance would lie east of the Jordan in Gilead.

Somewhere around eight years later, in Joshua 22

Joshua 22:1 At that time Joshua summoned the Reubenites and the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh, 2 and said to them, “You have kept all that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded you and have obeyed my voice in all that I have commanded you. 3 You have not forsaken your brothers these many days, down to this day, but have been careful to keep the charge of the LORD your God. 4 And now the LORD your God has given rest to your brothers, as he promised them. Therefore turn and go to your tents in the land where your possession lies, which Moses the servant of the LORD gave you on the other side of the Jordan. 5 Only be very careful to observe the commandment and the law that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded you, to love the LORD your God, and to walk in all his ways and to keep his commandments and to cling to him and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.” 6 So Joshua blessed them and sent them away, and they went to their tents.

Motives; Search My Heart O God

Was this a good thing or a bad thing? They settled on the other side of the Jordan, and that created its own problems and dangers. Our actions, our choices have consequences. The Lord had given them the victory over Sihon and Og in Numbers 21, and this proposal increased the total territory of Israel. These tribes answered Moses’ objections, and he conceded. And they proved true to their word. And yet even Joshua warns them, charges them to love and cling to YHWH your God. The answer is not always clear cut, black or white. Many times there are mixed motives. We need to hear straightforward rebuke, we need to be willing to heed warnings, to be willing to search our own hearts. But remember, our hearts are deceitful (Jer.17:9); we don’t always even understand our own true motives. There is wisdom in praying with David:

Psalm 139:23 Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! 24 And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!

Are you wholly following the LORD, clinging to him as your only hope? Are you clinging only to Jesus?

***

Pastor Rodney Zedicher ~ Ephraim Church of the Bible ~ www.ephraimbible.org

Spiritual Warfare

The Christian life is war. We are in a spiritual battle. And the stakes are high.

John 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. …

1 Peter 5:8 Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

Ephesians 6:11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

We are in Numbers 31. This is an account of war. War is never pleasant, but sometimes it is necessary. God’s people are poised to enter the land God promised to give to them.

Numbers 31:1 The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Avenge the people of Israel on the Midianites. Afterward you shall be gathered to your people.” 3 So 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. 4 You shall send a thousand from each of the tribes of Israel to the war.” 5 So there were provided, out of the thousands of Israel, a thousand from each tribe, twelve thousand armed for war. 6 And Moses sent them to the war, a thousand from each tribe, together with Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest, with the vessels of the sanctuary and the trumpets for the alarm in his hand.

This is to be Moses’ final battle. Afterward (which we find out means after he communicates to them the contents of the book of Deuteronomy) he will be gathered to his people. Because he did not treat the Lord as holy in the Meribah-Kadesh incident, he is not allowed to enter the earthly promised land; rather he will be gathered to his people, to Abraham’s bosom, to await the final resurrection of the saints.

God’s people are to ‘execute YHWH’s vengeance on Midian’. God’s people, with God’s visible presence enthroned in the midst of their camp as their commander in chief, directing the Lord’s army, are to execute God’s vengeance on his enemy.

Phinehas, son of the priest Eleazar, is to direct the battle with the holy articles, namely the silver trumpets from chapter 10.

Only a representative 12,000 out of the 601,730 numbered in chapter 26 are to engage in this battle, just under 2% of Israel’s fighting force. The Lord can save by many or by few (1Sam.14:6).

Balaam’s Involvement

Numbers 31:7 They warred against Midian, as the LORD commanded Moses, and killed every male. 8 They killed the kings of Midian with the rest of their slain, Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur, and Reba, the five kings of Midian. And they also killed Balaam the son of Beor with the sword. 9 And the people of Israel took captive the women of Midian and their little ones, and they took as plunder all their cattle, their flocks, and all their goods. 10 All their cities in the places where they lived, and all their encampments, they burned with fire, 11 and took all the spoil and all the plunder, both of man and of beast. 12 Then they brought the captives and the plunder and the spoil to Moses, and to Eleazar the priest, and to the congregation of the people of Israel, at the camp on the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho.

Remember Balaam son of Beor? Balaam was the pagan sorcerer hired by the king of Moab and the elders of Midian to curse Israel. After 3 failed attempts to curse them, in which God spoke a blessing over them through him instead,

Numbers 24:10 And Balak’s anger was kindled against Balaam, and he struck his hands together. And Balak said to Balaam, “I called you to curse my enemies, and behold, you have blessed them these three times. 11 Therefore now flee to your own place. I said, ‘I will certainly honor you,’ but the LORD has held you back from honor.”

After one final unsolicited prophetic word from the Lord over what Israel would do to Moab and its allies in the latter days,

Numbers 24:25 Then Balaam rose and went back to his place. And Balak also went his way.

I thought we had seen the last of Balaam in that chapter, but here he is killed along with the five kings of Midian. What is he doing here? This will become clear in a moment.

Balaam’s Advice

Numbers 31:13 Moses and Eleazar the priest and all the chiefs of the congregation went to meet them outside the camp. 14 And Moses was angry with the officers of the army, the commanders of thousands and the commanders of hundreds, who had come from service in the war. 15 Moses said to them, “Have you let all the women live? 16 Behold, these, on Balaam’s advice, caused the people of Israel to act treacherously against the LORD in the incident of Peor, and so the plague came among the congregation of the LORD. 17 Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man by lying with him. 18 But all the young girls who have not known man by lying with him keep alive for yourselves. 19 Encamp outside the camp seven days. Whoever of you has killed any person and whoever has touched any slain, purify yourselves and your captives on the third day and on the seventh day. 20 You shall purify every garment, every article of skin, all work of goats’ hair, and every article of wood.”

Here we find out that Balaam’s advice was behind the seduction of Israel to immorality and the worship of false gods in chapter 25 that caused a plague in which 24,000 Israelites died (25:9). The sorcerer for hire was prevented from cursing the ones that God had blessed, but it appears that he pursued a different means of attacking Israel, and it worked. At one point Balaam expressed his desire to ‘die the death of the righteous, and let my end be like his’ (Nu.23:10), but he chose a different path. What Israel did is described as treachery against the Lord; covenant unfaithfulness, breaking covenant vows to take God alone to be their God and to be his people; it was not only sexual immorality, it was spiritual adultery.

The consequence of adultery under the law was death, and God had already executed vengeance on the 24,000 men of Israel who indulged in this false worship and immorality. Now the women would be held accountable for their actions. Judgment began with the house of God (1Pet.4:17-18), but God’s justice is not be satisfied until everyone involved is held accountable for their sins.
Genocide? Or Holy War?

This is hard for us to swallow; God commanding his people to kill every man, woman and child. What do we do with this?

First, Israel was a theocracy, with God seated on his throne in the middle of the camp, directing his armies. God’s people had been attacked, seduced into unfaithfulness, and in chapter 25, the are held responsible for their sin. This chapter is ‘the LORD’s vengeance on Midian’ for what they did to his people. God is God, and God was doing what was necessary to secure the purity of his chosen people and bring about all his promises, ultimately that the promised One would be born, the Seed of the woman, descended from David, born of a virgin. We may not understand why, but God’s ways our higher (not lower) than ours (Is.55:9). God reveals himself as ‘merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, …forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty’ (Ex.34:6-7); we may never understand why he does all that he does, but we can trust his character.

God is not telling us today as followers of Jesus to do this. On this side of the cross and resurrection, we are commanded to love our enemies, to pray for those who persecute us (Mt.5:44).

Our War With Sin

This gives us a picture of our battle against sin; we are to be ruthless in our battle with sin, and that primarily applies to the sin within; Jesus told us that if our own eye or hand causes us to sin, tear it out, cut it off (Mt.5:28-30). We are to crucify the flesh with its passions and desires (Gal.5:24). Our battle against our own sin is to be merciless.

The other thing we can say is that our sense of justice rises up in outrage at innocent people being harmed, and this is right. But we need to remember who we are, and that our perspective is not always accurate. The Bible says ‘all have sinned.’ ‘None is righteous, no not one’ (Rom.3:10,23). According to this there are no innocent people. God is just, and will not let the guilty go unpunished. Even if in our opinion we are better than the other guy, we are guilty before God. But in Jesus (and this is the good news!), God has made a way for sinners like us to be forgiven, cleansed, made new, counted righteous by faith in the finished work of Jesus.

Exposure to Death Defiles; Requires Purification

This is serious, this is sobering, death is defiling; even the death of those who deserve to die. There ought to be grief over everything that has gone wrong in God’s good world. All everyone and everything who had come in contact with death are to go through the purification process described in Numbers 19 with the water for purification. Death contaminates. We are to ‘snatch some from the fire, …hating even the garment stained by the flesh’ and to ‘keep watch on ourselves, lest we too be tempted’ (Jude:22-25; Gal.6:1).

Fire destroys. Fire also purifies.

Numbers 31:21 Then Eleazar the priest said to the men in the army who had gone to battle: “This is the statute of the law that the LORD has commanded Moses: 22 only the gold, the silver, the bronze, the iron, the tin, and the lead, 23 everything that can stand the fire, you shall pass through the fire, and it shall be clean. Nevertheless, it shall also be purified with the water for impurity. And whatever cannot stand the fire, you shall pass through the water. 24 You must wash your clothes on the seventh day, and you shall be clean. And afterward you may come into the camp.”

Peter tells us:

1 Peter 1:6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Everyone and everything that will be brought into the camp, into proximity to the Lord and his tent must be purified.

Plunder Divided

Numbers 31:25 The LORD said to Moses, 26 “Take the count of the plunder that was taken, both of man and of beast, you and Eleazar the priest and the heads of the fathers’ houses of the congregation, 27 and divide the plunder into two parts between the warriors who went out to battle and all the congregation. 28 And levy for the LORD a tribute from the men of war who went out to battle, one out of five hundred, of the people and of the oxen and of the donkeys and of the flocks. 29 Take it from their half and give it to Eleazar the priest as a contribution to the LORD. 30 And from the people of Israel’s half you shall take one drawn out of every fifty, of the people, of the oxen, of the donkeys, and of the flocks, of all the cattle, and give them to the Levites who keep guard over the tabernacle of the LORD.” 31 And Moses and Eleazar the priest did as the LORD commanded Moses.

In most cultures plunder was considered the wage of the warriors who went to battle, and they may give to their gods whatever they chose. But in Israel, that which was given to them by God was to be divided between the warriors who went out to battle, and those who were required to stay behind, and a percentage given for the sustenance of the priests and the Levites.

Numbers 31:32 Now the plunder remaining of the spoil that the army took was 675,000 sheep, 33 72,000 cattle, 34 61,000 donkeys, 35 and 32,000 persons in all, women who had not known man by lying with him.

Half of this was divided between the 12,000 men who went out to battle. Half was dispersed among the 589,730 who stayed behind. Of the warrior’s portion one out of 500 (or 2 tenths of one percent) was given to the Lord; out of the remainder of the people’s portion, one out of 50 (or 2 percent) was given to the Levites.

If we connect this with the cumulative numbers of lambs and bulls offered in the yearly sacrifices in chapters 29-30, we see that what God gave them from the plunder of the Midianites was far beyond what was required of them for their sacrifices. Less than 2 tenths of one percent of the total plunder would cover the 1,093 lambs and 113 bulls that the Lord required of them each year. To put it another way, this one war provided over 600 years worth of the regular sacrifices. That which God requires of us, he also provides.

Generosity Inspired by God’s Protection; Debt vs. Relationship

Numbers 31:48 Then the officers who were over the thousands of the army, the commanders of thousands and the commanders of hundreds, came near to Moses 49 and said to Moses, “Your servants have counted the men of war who are under our command, and there is not a man missing from us. 50 And we have brought the LORD’s offering, what each man found, articles of gold, armlets and bracelets, signet rings, earrings, and beads, to make atonement for ourselves before the LORD.” 51 And Moses and Eleazar the priest received from them the gold, all crafted articles. 52 And all the gold of the contribution that they presented to the LORD, from the commanders of thousands and the commanders of hundreds, was 16,750 shekels. 53 (The men in the army had each taken plunder for himself.) 54 And Moses and Eleazar the priest received the gold from the commanders of thousands and of hundreds, and brought it into the tent of meeting, as a memorial for the people of Israel before the LORD.

God’s gracious protection over his people in this battle, where this small force of 12,000 men gained such a victory without even one casualty led their hearts to overflow with generosity. In Exodus 30, God instructed his people that if they number the people, each man is to give a ransom to God for his life. David in 2 Samuel 24 (cf. 1Chr.21) chose to number the people and brought a plague on the nation. God’s people belong to God and only God gets to count his own stuff. David as king was acting as if the people under his authority belonged to him. But on this occasion this was an act of worship; the commanders were amazed that out of their small fighting force, not one man was lost in battle. The fighting men made a voluntary offering of the spoils to God totaling 16,750 shekels. The command in Exodus 30 was one half shekel per person. For the 12,000 fighting men, this would have totaled 6,000 shekels; they gladly gave 10,750 shekels above and beyond the minimum required. God’s abundant grace stirred up a response of willing generosity in his people, and they gave 279% of what they were obligated to give.

This next generation was beginning to walk in obedience to all that God commanded, to walk in joyful relationship with him.

Romans 12:10 Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.

My wife and I have a relationship with the Internal Revenue Service. My natural tendency is to do the minimum I’m obligated to do. When we pay our taxes, it has never gone through my mind or heart to increase the amount I pay just because I appreciate them so much. And I’ll use my wife in this illustration because she’s the generous one in our relationship, and I still have a lot to learn from her. But I don’t think its ever crossed her mind either. Our relationship with the IRS is one of debt and obligation. But with people we know, we love, our family, friends, she often doesn’t even keep track; it’s her joy to give. God makes demands on us, because God is God. But God is abundantly generous toward us, God desires a relationship with us, not merely of duty or obligation, but of knowing and being known. He invites us into relationship.

What is your relationship with the Lord? Is it obligation? Or the delight of knowing and being known?

***

Pastor Rodney Zedicher ~ Ephraim Church of the Bible ~ www.ephraimbible.org

In Numbers 13, the people are at the border of the land. They send in spies, the majority of whom bring back a bad report of the land, inciting fear in the people. In Numbers 14 they reject God’s promises and refuse to enter in; God decrees judgment on that generation, but promises the next generation will enter in. The people presumptuously go to battle, attempting to take the land in their own strength, contrary to God’s instructions, and they are defeated before their enemy.

In Numbers 15, God addresses that next generation:

Numbers 15:1 The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you come into the land you are to inhabit, which I am giving you, 3 and you offer to the LORD from the herd or from the flock a food offering or a burnt offering or a sacrifice, to fulfill a vow or as a freewill offering or at your appointed feasts, to make a pleasing aroma to the LORD, 4 then he who brings his offering shall offer to the LORD a grain offering of a tenth of an ephah of fine flour, mixed with a quarter of a hin of oil; 5 and you shall offer with the burnt offering, or for the sacrifice, a quarter of a hin of wine for the drink offering for each lamb.

For a ram the flour is doubled and the oil and wine increased from ¼ to 1/3. For a bull, the flour is tripled, and the oil and wine is increased to ½ hin.

Now this next generation is camped at the border of the land, their parents having fallen in the wilderness. In chapter 31, in preparation for entrance to the land, Israel will wipe out the Midianites, who led them to sin.

In chapter 28 and 29, God summarized the all the livestock, grain, oil and wine that would be required for the daily, weekly, and monthly sacrifices, and for the annual feast days; if I did the math right, the annual totals come out to: 113 bulls, 37 rams, 1,093 lambs, and 19 goats, together with 753 gallons of fine flour, 342 gallons of oil and 342 gallons of wine or strong drink. This was a promise of the bounty of the land and the provision God would supply to make these lavish feasts and offerings possible. Numbers 29 closes with these words:

Numbers 29:39 “These you shall offer to the LORD at your appointed feasts, in addition to your vow offerings and your freewill offerings, for your burnt offerings, and for your grain offerings, and for your drink offerings, and for your peace offerings.” 40 ​So Moses told the people of Israel everything just as the LORD had commanded Moses.

So the sacrifices listed in Numbers 28 and 29 were the minimum required sacrifices, not including other more voluntary types of offerings like those to fulfill a vow, the freewill offerings, burnt offerings, grain offerings, drink offerings, and peace offerings.

Chapter 30 puts some parameters around vow offerings, specifically under what circumstances and by whom a vow can be annulled.

Sacrifices are costly; David said of the offerings he offered at the purchase of the temple mount “No, but I will buy them for the full price. I will not take for the LORD what is yours, nor offer burnt offerings that cost me nothing.” (1Chr.21:24).

In today’s market, just to get a ballpark idea of what we are talking about, a bull values somewhere around $6,000; a ram around $500; and a lamb around $200. If those numbers are right, the amount of livestock listed for a year of the base required offerings would be just shy of a million dollars ($915.100).

Vows could come in many different shapes and sizes. Jacob (Gen.28) promised God a tenth of everything if God would protect him and bring him home safely. Jephthah (Jud.11) promised to sacrifice whatever came out of his house if God would grant victory in battle. Hannah (1Sam.1) promised to give her child to the service of God if God would give her a child. The Nazirite vow in Numbers 6 was a dedication of self to the service of God for a period of time, during which certain things were given up and a higher level of separation was required. When Israel was under attack from the Canaanites in Numbers 21, they vowed to give those cities to the Lord as an offering if God would give them victory.

Do Not Break Your Word

Deuteronomy 23 says:

Deuteronomy 23:21 “If you make a vow to the LORD your God, you shall not delay fulfilling it, for the LORD your God will surely require it of you, and you will be guilty of sin. 22 But if you refrain from vowing, you will not be guilty of sin. 23 You shall be careful to do what has passed your lips, for you have voluntarily vowed to the LORD your God what you have promised with your mouth.

Vows to God are a big deal. Vows are serious, not to be entered into lightly, and cannot be broken without incurring guilt.

Numbers 29 concludes the list of regular offerings with a mention of additional offerings that can be offered, including vow offerings. Numbers 30 specifically addresses these vows.

Numbers 30:1 Moses spoke to the heads of the tribes of the people of Israel, saying, “This is what the LORD has commanded. 2 If a man vows a vow to the LORD, or swears an oath to bind himself by a pledge, he shall not break his word. He shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth.

God’s people are not to break their word. Say what you will do, and do what you say.

Numbers 30:3 “If a woman vows a vow to the LORD and binds herself by a pledge, while within her father’s house in her youth, 4 and her father hears of her vow and of her pledge by which she has bound herself and says nothing to her, then all her vows shall stand, and every pledge by which she has bound herself shall stand. 5 But if her father opposes her on the day that he hears of it, no vow of hers, no pledge by which she has bound herself shall stand. And the LORD will forgive her, because her father opposed her.

The rest of this chapter deals with vows that can be revoked by a person in authority. We are to honor father and mother. Children are under the authority and protection of parents. And a father has the authority to revoke the vows or pledges of a daughter in his house. This is a protection against coercion; a young woman pressured into pledging something is protected by her father’s authority. A vow that is considered unreasonable, that has the potential of harming the daughter or the family is voidable by the father.

Here’s the idea. One of my daughters could ask me to co-sign on a loan, and I would have the option to consider the terms of that loan, and if I am able and willing to meet the conditions. I have the option to sign or not, and to legally bind myself or not. It would not be right for my daughter to take out a loan in my name without my permission. This is protection for me, because my daughter could not vow to give someone my ox (or in today’s terms my automobile) without my consent. This is protection for her, because if she owns an ox (or a car), she would need my permission while in my house to give it away.

Numbers 30:6 “If she marries a husband, while under her vows or any thoughtless utterance of her lips by which she has bound herself, 7 and her husband hears of it and says nothing to her on the day that he hears, then her vows shall stand, and her pledges by which she has bound herself shall stand. 8 But if, on the day that her husband comes to hear of it, he opposes her, then he makes void her vow that was on her, and the thoughtless utterance of her lips by which she bound herself. And the LORD will forgive her.

If her father allowed her vow, but her fiancee is not willing to take on the debt or responsibility of that vow, he, taking on the responsibility to care for and to protect her, has the right to nullify that vow.

The assumption of this passage is that any breach of faith, any breaking of one’s word incurs guilt and needs to be forgiven. And under these specific circumstances the word of the husband or the word of the father releases the one under their authority from the debt.

Numbers 30:9 (But any vow of a widow or of a divorced woman, anything by which she has bound herself, shall stand against her.)

A woman not under outside authority is bound by her word. She, like the man in verse 2, must keep her word. There is no release from that vow.

Numbers 30:10 And if she vowed in her husband’s house or bound herself by a pledge with an oath, 11 and her husband heard of it and said nothing to her and did not oppose her, then all her vows shall stand, and every pledge by which she bound herself shall stand. 12 But if her husband makes them null and void on the day that he hears them, then whatever proceeds out of her lips concerning her vows or concerning her pledge of herself shall not stand. Her husband has made them void, and the LORD will forgive her. 13 Any vow and any binding oath to afflict herself, her husband may establish, or her husband may make void. 14 But if her husband says nothing to her from day to day, then he establishes all her vows or all her pledges that are upon her. He has established them, because he said nothing to her on the day that he heard of them. 15 But if he makes them null and void after he has heard of them, then he shall bear her iniquity.”

A failure to take action and revoke a vow by implication affirms that vow. A husband cannot hear a vow, say nothing, and then revoke it later. His silence affirms that vow. Healthy communication is good for a marriage. Hannah, unable to have children,

1 Samuel 1:11 And she vowed a vow and said, “O LORD of hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction of your servant and remember me and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a son, then I will give him to the LORD all the days of his life, and no razor shall touch his head.”

That seems like a pretty big deal. Something that husband and wife ought to be on the same page with. ‘By the way, I just gave away our firstborn son.’ ‘Oh, that’s nice dear.’ Do you think maybe we should talk about this first?

Numbers 30:16 These are the statutes that the LORD commanded Moses about a man and his wife and about a father and his daughter while she is in her youth within her father’s house.

Well-Ordered Community

What underlies all these legal provisions is order in the community. Ephesians tells us

Ephesians 5:22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. … 25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,

Ephesians 6:1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), 3 “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” 4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. 5 Bondservants, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ,

Honor God-given authority. Consider one another. Do not abuse God-given authority, but use it wisely to serve and protect those under your care.

Do Not Use Vows to Avoid Responsibility

In Jesus’ day vows to God were being used manipulatively by adult children to avoid supporting and caring for their parents.

Mark 7:6 And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, “‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; 7 in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ 8 You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.” 9 And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! 10 For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ 11 But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, “Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban”’ (that is, given to God)— 12 then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, 13 thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.”

Vows were never meant to be used this way. It is the very opposite of what a vow is meant to be to avoid the responsibility of caring for others and attempt to selfishly accumulate more wealth for self.

Vows and the Character of God

Ecclesiastes says:

Ecclesiastes 5:1 ​Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. To draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they are doing evil. 2 ​Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few.

Ecclesiastes 5:4 When you vow a vow to God, do not delay paying it, for he has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you vow. 5 It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay.

Vows are a big deal because of the character of God. God is a God of truth; what he says, he will do. He never makes a promise he will not keep. Our vows are a big deal because as image bearers of God, we represent him to this world. We are to be men and women of our word because our speech and our conduct ultimately reflects the character of God to a watching world.

We are to be people of our word. Psalm 15 asks:

Psalm 15:1 O LORD, who shall sojourn in your tent? Who shall dwell on your holy hill? 2 He who walks blamelessly and does what is right and speaks truth in his heart; 3 who does not slander with his tongue and does no evil to his neighbor, nor takes up a reproach against his friend; 4 ​in whose eyes a vile person is despised, but who honors those who fear the LORD; who swears to his own hurt and does not change; 5 who does not put out his money at interest and does not take a bribe against the innocent. He who does these things shall never be moved.

Jesus taught his followers to be people of their word.

Matthew 5:33 “Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn’ 34 But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, 35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. 36 And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. 37 Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.

The Heidelberg catechism asks if we are ever allowed to swear or take an oath; it answers “Yes; when the magistrate requires it, or it may be needful otherwise to maintain and promote fidelity and truth, to the glory of God and our neighbor’s good. For such swearing is grounded in God’s Word, and therefore was rightly used by the saints in the Old and New Testaments” (Lord’s day 37).

God is faithful. All the promises of God find their ‘yes’ in Jesus. (2Cor.1:18-22). Jesus testified in John 3:

John 3:33 …that God is true. 34 For he whom God has sent utters the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure. 35 The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand. 36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

Look to Jesus for salvation from the consequences of your sins, and you will live. Look anywhere else and God’s righteous wrath will remain on you.

God himself took an oath. Hebrews 6 tells us:

Hebrews 6:13 For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, …16 For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation. 17 So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, 18 so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. 19 We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, 20 where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

***

Pastor Rodney Zedicher ~ Ephraim Church of the Bible ~ www.ephraimbible.org

God’s Gift of the Land

We have been journeying with Israel through the wilderness in Numbers. Delivered from Egypt, even after rebellion, grace! God dwelling among his people in the Tabernacle; he pitched his tent among them, and was with them throughout their wilderness experience. They came to the borders of the land he promised to give to them, and controlled by fear, they rejected his promises, his grace. They rejected him, his laws, his leaders, and his land. That generation chose to die in the wilderness, but God graciously promised that their children, the next generation, he would bring into the land. Miriam died, Aaron died, Moses will die; but here on the borders of the land, they take a new census, a numbering of this next generation who will receive God’s promises by faith.

Chapters 28 and 29 consist of a list of commands about the sacrifices to be offered at the tabernacle. In the context of the book, this is another confirmation of God’s promises; they would be settled in this land of plenty;

Deuteronomy 6:10 “And when the LORD your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you—with great and good cities that you did not build, 11 and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant— …

This gift of the land would grant them access to the resources necessary to support God’s instructions in these chapters. What God requires, he provides.

It’s All About Me!

God introduces these instructions with these words:

Numbers 28:1 The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Command the people of Israel and say to them, ‘My offering, my food for my food offerings, my pleasing aroma, you shall be careful to offer to me at its appointed time.’

My, my, my, my, me; my offering, my food, my offerings, my pleasing aroma, offer to me. If we are tempted to think that the universe revolves around us, God re-orients our thinking. He tells us ‘this is about me; it’s really all about me’. Throughout the wilderness wanderings, the people attempted to put themselves in the middle of everything; my needs, my wants, my desires, my preferences. They grumbled and complained about God’s good gifts. When we put ourselves at the center, we mess everything up! God graciously re-orients us to that which is truly significant, truly weighty, truly has mass and gravitation around which we were meant to orbit, God himself and his glory.

The opportunity to offer sacrifices to God is a gift. Every good thing we have is a gift, and it is our privilege to give back some of it to God, to remind us to keep our own priorities in line, to keep us orbiting around him as our center. We were made for worship, to ascribe worth to the only one who is truly worthy. And it is in this that we find our joy.

These chapters outline God’s requirements for sacrifices from his people;

28:1-2; It’s All About Me!

28:3-8; Daily (Morning and Evening) [Ex.29:38-46]

28:9-10; Weekly (Sabbath) [Ex.31:12-17; Lev.23:3]

28:11-15; Monthly (New Moon)

Annually:

28:16-25; Passover and Unleavened Bread (7 days) [Lev.23:4-8]

28:26-31; Firstfruits and Feast of Weeks [Lev.23:9-22]

29:1-6; Feast of Trumpets [Lev.23:23-25]

29:7-11; The Day of Atonement [Lev.23:26-32; Lev.16]

29:12-38; The Feast of Booths (Tabernacles; 8 days) [Lev.23:33-43]

29:39-40; Conclusion

There is a rhythm of life to keep the followers of God centered on God. And keep in mind this is not primarily individual (although there’s clearly some applications we can make there); this is corporate; this is a list of sacrifices made by the priests in the tabernacle on behalf of the entire congregation. Based on the arrangement of the camp around God’s tent in Numbers 2 and 3, this is literally central to their lives as a community.

Daily (Morning and Evening) [cf. Ex.29:38-46]

Numbers 28:3 And you shall say to them, This is the food offering that you shall offer to the LORD: two male lambs a year old without blemish, day by day, as a regular offering. 4 The one lamb you shall offer in the morning, and the other lamb you shall offer at twilight; 5 also a tenth of an ephah of fine flour for a grain offering, mixed with a quarter of a hin of beaten oil. 6 It is a regular burnt offering, which was ordained at Mount Sinai for a pleasing aroma, a food offering to the LORD. 7 Its drink offering shall be a quarter of a hin for each lamb. In the Holy Place you shall pour out a drink offering of strong drink to the LORD. 8 The other lamb you shall offer at twilight. Like the grain offering of the morning, and like its drink offering, you shall offer it as a food offering, with a pleasing aroma to the LORD.

This summary of offerings begins with the daily offerings, morning and evening, which were to be kept burning all night long until the morning. As the rest of this passage makes clear, even on days when other offerings were made, they were in addition to this basic daily foundation of sacrifices. In long lists of animals and sacrifices, it’s easy to get lost, so I put together some graphics that I hope will help us track with what’s going on in each of these sacrifices.

This is described as ‘the food offering that you shall offer to YHWH’; and it includes not only meat, but flour and oil and wine, a full meal. But it is made clear that this is not actually sustenance for God; ‘If I were hungry, I would not tell you’ (Ps.50:12). It goes up in smoke, as a pleasing aroma to YHWH. As it were, he smells the sweet savor and is satisfied.

The Wages of Sin, Substitution and God’s Grace

You might be thinking that it’s sad, it might even seem wrong, to think of a cute little lamb being killed and offered as a sacrifice, and that’s part of the point. Leviticus 1 gives instructions on how the burnt offering is to be offered:

Leviticus 1:3 “If his offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he shall offer a male without blemish. He shall bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting, that he may be accepted before the LORD. 4 He shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him.

The purpose of these offerings is made clear; it is ‘that he may be accepted before YHWH’. The wages of sin is death, and when a person would put his hand on the head of the animal, he would be identifying with that animal. That animal is then ‘accepted for him to make atonement for him’. The dying animal experiences the wages of my sin, experiences the death I deserve, in my place. You might think ‘but that’s not fair! The lamb doesn’t deserve to die!’ and again, you would be right. The wages of sin is death, and you deserve to die, but God in his grace made a way for something or someone to take your place, to take the punishment you deserve. When we think of a lamb on the altar, we should be thinking ‘that ought to be me!’

Exodus 29 talks about the offering of these two daily lambs

Exodus 29:42 It shall be a regular burnt offering throughout your generations at the entrance of the tent of meeting before the LORD, where I will meet with you, to speak to you there. 43 There I will meet with the people of Israel, and it shall be sanctified by my glory. 44 I will consecrate the tent of meeting and the altar. Aaron also and his sons I will consecrate to serve me as priests. 45 I will dwell among the people of Israel and will be their God. 46 And they shall know that I am the LORD their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt that I might dwell among them. I am the LORD their God.

The point of the sacrifices is to make a way for sinners like us to have the all holy all glorious God dwell among us, to meet with us, to speak to us. That we might know him, enjoy relationship with him. That can only happen when we are sanctified, consecrated, set apart, cleansed, made holy. And that can only happen by the penalty of sin being taken out of the way through sacrifice.

The morning and evening sacrifices are a reminder that through the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross, through faith in him, we have access to God all day every day. We benefit from reminding ourselves morning and evening of the good news that Jesus took my place so that I can enjoy relationship with him. Charles Spurgeon named his daily devotional (which I recommend) after this, taking time to savor the good news morning and evening.

Weekly; The Sabbath: [cf. Ex.31:12-17; Lev.23:3]

Numbers 28:9 “On the Sabbath day, two male lambs a year old without blemish, and two tenths of an ephah of fine flour for a grain offering, mixed with oil, and its drink offering: 10 this is the burnt offering of every Sabbath, besides the regular burnt offering and its drink offering.

In addition to the daily offering, there is a weekly offering, the Sabbath. It is a reminder of the six days of creation, and the seventh day in which God rested from all his work (Gn.2:2-3). He invites us into his rest. He invites those he set free from the hard labor of slavery into his rest. He invites the weary and heavy laden to enjoy rest with him.

Matthew 11:28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

We see in the New Testament that the resurrection of Jesus changes everything! The primary day for weekly worship as a community of believers shifted from the seventh day to the first day of the week; from rest to new creation; resurrection day!

Monthly (New Moon)

Numbers 28:11 “At the beginnings of your months, you shall offer a burnt offering to the LORD: two bulls from the herd, one ram, seven male lambs a year old without blemish; 12 also three tenths of an ephah of fine flour for a grain offering, mixed with oil, for each bull, and two tenths of fine flour for a grain offering, mixed with oil, for the one ram; 13 and a tenth of fine flour mixed with oil as a grain offering for every lamb; for a burnt offering with a pleasing aroma, a food offering to the LORD. 14 Their drink offerings shall be half a hin of wine for a bull, a third of a hin for a ram, and a quarter of a hin for a lamb. This is the burnt offering of each month throughout the months of the year. 15 Also one male goat for a sin offering to the LORD; it shall be offered besides the regular burnt offering and its drink offering.

The sacrifice on the new moon (the first of the month) was significantly more substantial, with larger and more animals, and the corresponding larger quantities of grain, oil and wine; almost a bushel of flour and 3 gallons of oil and wine. This was a feast fit for a King. At this monthly offering a goat for a sin offering was added, a reminder of our need for forgiveness; we are sinners in need of a substitute. This offering set the standard for the spring feasts.

Annual: Passover and Unleavened Bread (7 days) [Lev.23:4-8]

Numbers 28:16 “On the fourteenth day of the first month is the LORD’s Passover, 17 and on the fifteenth day of this month is a feast. Seven days shall unleavened bread be eaten. 18 On the first day there shall be a holy convocation. You shall not do any ordinary work, 19 but offer a food offering, a burnt offering to the LORD:

The same animals in the same quantities as the monthly offering are listed.

Numbers 28:23 You shall offer these besides the burnt offering of the morning, which is for a regular burnt offering. 24 In the same way you shall offer daily, for seven days, the food of a food offering, with a pleasing aroma to the LORD. It shall be offered besides the regular burnt offering and its drink offering. 25 And on the seventh day you shall have a holy convocation. You shall not do any ordinary work.

Unleavened bread was a seven day feast, celebrating the firstfruits of the barley harvest. The same offerings were repeated each of the seven days, for a total of 14 bulls, 7 rams, 49 lambs and 7 goats, together with over 6 bushels of flour, 21 gallons of oil and 21 gallons of wine. It was on Passover that our Lord was crucified as the fulfillment of the Passover lamb, and he was raised on Sunday during the feast of unleavened bread.

Annual: Firstfruits and Feast of Weeks [Lev.23:9-22]

The feast of weeks was 7 weeks after the day the firstfruits sheaf of the barley harvest was presented to the Lord (Lev.23:15-16), 7 weeks after Resurrection Sunday. It celebrated the firstfruits of the wheat harvest, also on the day after the Sabbath, a Sunday.

Numbers 28:26 “On the day of the firstfruits, when you offer a grain offering of new grain to the LORD at your Feast of Weeks, you shall have a holy convocation. You shall not do any ordinary work, 27 but offer a burnt offering, with a pleasing aroma to the LORD: …

Again this feast requires the same offerings as the monthly New Moon offering.

Numbers 28:31 Besides the regular burnt offering and its grain offering, you shall offer them and their drink offering. See that they are without blemish.

The feast of weeks in Greek was called Pentecost (for the counting of 50 days); the Jews recognized this as the day the Lord came down on Mount Sinai in fire and gave his people his covenant. It was 50 days after the Resurrection that the Spirit was poured out in fire on his apostles, and the New Covenant community was born.

Feast of Trumpets [Lev.23:23-25]

We now jump ahead to the fall feasts, around September / October.

Numbers 29:1 “On the first day of the seventh month you shall have a holy convocation. You shall not do any ordinary work. It is a day for you to blow the trumpets, 2 and you shall offer a burnt offering, for a pleasing aroma to the LORD: …

This feast has similar offerings to the New Moon, except it has one less bull. But being on the first of the month, this is in addition to the regular monthly and daily offerings.

Numbers 29:6 besides the burnt offering of the new moon, and its grain offering, and the regular burnt offering and its grain offering, and their drink offering, according to the rule for them, for a pleasing aroma, a food offering to the LORD.

We are not told much about this feast, except it was a day for blowing trumpets.

The Day of Atonement [Lev.23:26-32; Lev.16]

Numbers 29:7 “On the tenth day of this seventh month you shall have a holy convocation and afflict yourselves. You shall do no work, 8 but you shall offer a burnt offering to the LORD, a pleasing aroma: …

The day of Atonement had the same sacrifices as the Feast of Trumpets

Numbers 29:11 …besides the sin offering of atonement, and the regular burnt offering and its grain offering, and their drink offerings.

But this was a fast rather than a feast, a day of national mourning for sin.

Zechariah 12:10 “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn.

Revelation 1:7 Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen.

The Feast of Booths (Tabernacles) [Lev.23:33-43]

Numbers 29:12 “On the fifteenth day of the seventh month you shall have a holy convocation. You shall not do any ordinary work, and you shall keep a feast to the LORD seven days.

This is the Feast of Booths, the last of the three pilgrim feasts that every man was required to attend. This celebrated the final ingathering of the late crops like grapes and olives. Leviticus 23:39-43 describes the booths or tabernacles they would construct to commemorate their time in the wilderness dwelling in tents. Remember these commands come to them while they are encamped outside the land, poised to enter in. But the focus here is on the sacrifices they would offer:

Numbers 29:13 And you shall offer a burnt offering, a food offering, with a pleasing aroma to the LORD, thirteen bulls from the herd, two rams, fourteen male lambs a year old; they shall be without blemish; 14 and their grain offering of fine flour mixed with oil, three tenths of an ephah for each of the thirteen bulls, two tenths for each of the two rams, 15 and a tenth for each of the fourteen lambs; 16 also one male goat for a sin offering, besides the regular burnt offering, its grain offering and its drink offering.

This feast was a countdown of sorts; it was a seven day feast, and each day one less bull was offered, counting down to a perfect seven bulls on the seventh day. And this feast had a solemn assembly on the first day and on the eighth day, a day of new beginnings.

Numbers 29:35 “On the eighth day you shall have a solemn assembly. You shall not do any ordinary work, 36 but you shall offer a burnt offering, a food offering, with a pleasing aroma to the LORD: …

This eighth day assembly reverted back to the same offerings given on the Feast of Trumpets and the Day of Atonement. This was a climactic celebration, with extravagant sacrifices. It looked back to the wilderness days, with the Lord dwelling in a tent in the middle of their camp; but it also looks forward to a coming day:

Revelation 21:3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.

Conclusion

39 “These you shall offer to the LORD at your appointed feasts, in addition to your vow offerings and your freewill offerings, for your burnt offerings, and for your grain offerings, and for your drink offerings, and for your peace offerings.” 40 ​So Moses told the people of Israel everything just as the LORD had commanded Moses.

Look back, look forward, keep God at the center; fix your eyes on Jesus.

***

Jesus showed us how to keep the feasts as his followers (even after the temple was destroyed and there was no way to offer these required sacrifices); it is in the Lord’s Supper;

Luke 22:15 And he said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. 16 For I tell you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” … 19 And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 20 And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.

1 Corinthians 5:7 Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. 8 Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

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Pastor Rodney Zedicher ~ Ephraim Church of the Bible ~ www.ephraimbible.org

Faith. How do you define faith? What does your faith look like? We’re in Numbers 27. We’ve seen what unbelief looks like. We’ve witnessed grumbling, complaining about God’s good gifts. We’ve seen the people come to the very border of the land God promised to give them, and they respond

Numbers 13:31 …“We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are.” 32 So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out, saying, “The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height. 33 And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.”

We’ve seen the people rebel against God’s authority, going their own way, refusing to be shepherded. We’ve seen a whole generation fall in the wilderness because of their unbelief. We’ve even seen this next generation stray from the Lord to worship other gods, and 24,000 of them died in the plague. The census of Numbers 26 ends this way:

Numbers 26:64 But among these there was not one of those listed by Moses and Aaron the priest, who had listed the people of Israel in the wilderness of Sinai. 65 For the LORD had said of them, “They shall die in the wilderness.” Not one of them was left, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun.

Bold Faith; The Daughters of Zelophehad

But here in Numbers 27 we see a bold example of faith.

Numbers 27:1 Then drew near the daughters of Zelophehad the son of Hepher, son of Gilead, son of Machir, son of Manasseh, from the clans of Manasseh the son of Joseph. The names of his daughters were: Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. 2 And they stood before Moses and before Eleazar the priest and before the chiefs and all the congregation, at the entrance of the tent of meeting, saying, 3 “Our father died in the wilderness. He was not among the company of those who gathered themselves together against the LORD in the company of Korah, but died for his own sin. And he had no sons. 4 Why should the name of our father be taken away from his clan because he had no son? Give to us a possession among our father’s brothers.”

God had promised to give the people the land. The land is currently occupied by giants, in walled cities, greater and stronger than they (Nu.13:28; Dt.9:1-3). They have yet to set foot across the Jordan, into the land. They have battles yet to fight. Much is uncertain. But they are moving forward in faith. God said he would give them the land, that he would drive out its inhabitants before them, so they are taking God at his word and moving forward. These women have a question that is completely irrelevant outside the land. Their question is not based on an ‘if’ but on a ‘when’. When God gives us the land, what does this look like for us? We believe God will do what he promised to do, and when he does, what is our lot in that; what is our inheritance?

This is a great definition of faith; taking God at his word, believing he will do what he has promised. Faith is not quantitative, as if we need more of it; when asked to increase their faith, Jesus told his disciples that with even the smallest amount of faith, nothing is impossible (Lk.17:5-6). Faith does not have power in and of itself, so that if I believe something hard enough, it will come true. No, faith is only as good as the object in which it is placed. Faith in a lie is useless, no matter how firmly you hold it. But faith in God’s promise is as sure as the God who made those promises.

We find this same definition of faith in Romans 4, when Abraham, in spite of his circumstances believed that God would do what he had promised.

Romans 4:20 No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, 21 fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.

Faith gives glory to God because faith is simply depending on God to do what he has said he would do.

We were introduced to these five women in Numbers 26:33, the fifth generation from Manasseh, daughters of Zelophehad who had no sons but only daughters. In a patriarchal society, property rights are passed down through the sons; not because men are better than women, but because there needed to be a way to keep the land inheritance within the tribe to whom it was given. This allowed for marriage outside of one’s tribe, and still maintain the God-given property rights of each tribe. These women make the case that their father had not forfeited his property rights because of joining in overt rebellion against YHWH. These women were making a legal petition for the property rights of their father to not be lost because he had no sons; and they found a hearing before Moses and Eleazar and the chiefs of the tribes at the entrance to the tent of meeting.

Walk in Light of God’s Revealed Word

Moses heard their plea. This is a special circumstance, a circumstance for which there is no law, no word from the Lord, no precedent. God has given his people his word. He has revealed his will. He has given them his law, and he expects them to act in accordance to his word, not to walk contrary to what he has said, and not (like Balaam) to seek another word from the Lord (Nu.22:19), a different answer contrary to what he has already spoken, because ‘God is not a man, …that he should change his mind’ (Nu.23:19).

When we already have God’s will revealed in God’s word written, faith is never seeking a different answer according to our own desires. God expects us to take what we have been given, apply his principles to our circumstances, and walk in his wisdom.

But this is a circumstance to which God has not spoken. Like the case in Numbers 9:8, Moses does not go beyond the word of the Lord and speak on his own. He takes the question to the Lord and waits for his answer. And God gives him more than an answer to this specific question; he sets a precedent and gives instructions that will guide them in similar future decisions.

Numbers 27:5 Moses brought their case before the LORD. 6 And the LORD said to Moses, 7 “The daughters of Zelophehad are right. You shall give them possession of an inheritance among their father’s brothers and transfer the inheritance of their father to them. 8 And you shall speak to the people of Israel, saying, ‘If a man dies and has no son, then you shall transfer his inheritance to his daughter. 9 And if he has no daughter, then you shall give his inheritance to his brothers. 10 And if he has no brothers, then you shall give his inheritance to his father’s brothers. 11 And if his father has no brothers, then you shall give his inheritance to the nearest kinsman of his clan, and he shall possess it. And it shall be for the people of Israel a statute and rule, as the LORD commanded Moses.’”

These daughters of Zelophehad bracket this last section of Numbers as chapter 36 gives further clarification on the implications of this decision on inheritance in the land as the people prepare to enter in. These daughters of Zelophehad set a bold example of faith in the promises of God, trusting him to do what he said he would do, and living in a way that displays their confidence in God. These women setting an example of confident dependence on God stand in stark contrast to the Midianite women who led the people to gratify their own desires and go after other gods.

Unbelief and Its Consequences; Death

The flesh must be put to death (Rom.8:13; Col.3:5).

Numbers 27:12 The LORD said to Moses, “Go up into this mountain of Abarim and see the land that I have given to the people of Israel. 13 When you have seen it, you also shall be gathered to your people, as your brother Aaron was, 14 because you rebelled against my word in the wilderness of Zin when the congregation quarreled, failing to uphold me as holy at the waters before their eyes.” (These are the waters of Meribah of Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin.)

Although Moses was a man of faith, even he stumbled. He acted in unbelief (Nu.20:12). He acted out of anger and frustration, out of pride and selfishness. He and his brother Aaron failed to uphold the Lord as holy in the eyes of the congregation. He acted in disobedience. Disobedience has consequences. He would not set foot in the promised land. Like Abraham before him, he would die in faith having seen it from afar, but not having received the things promised (Heb.11:13).

We see Moses continue to receive God’s word through the end of Numbers, now with Joshua by his side transitioning into leadership. Deuteronomy consists of Moses giving God’s instructions to the people on the plains of Moab before they enter the land, and Deuteronomy ends (32-34) with the account of Moses’ death on Mount Nebo. Moses records in Deuteronomy 3 his petition to the Lord on this occasion to be allowed to enter the land, and the Lord’s refusal. When we fail to walk by faith, there are consequences.

Our Need For a Shepherd

But here Moses’ heart is displayed:

Numbers 27:15 Moses spoke to the LORD, saying, 16 “Let the LORD, the God of the spirits of all flesh, appoint a man over the congregation 17 who shall go out before them and come in before them, who shall lead them out and bring them in, that the congregation of the LORD may not be as sheep that have no shepherd.”

Moses had experience shepherding the flock of another (Ex.3:1). And as frustrating as that often was, he cared for the sheep. His concern was that this people be cared for as they enter into the land without him. Moses did not appoint one of his own sons; he did not select his own successor; he took this need to the Lord. He appealed for one who would go out before the people and come in before them; that is shepherding language, leading to pasture and bringing back to the fold, but more specifically that is military language, (1Sam.8:20; 18:13) one who would lead them out to battle and bring them back safely.

Moses was concerned that God’s people not be hungry, lost and vulnerable, lacking direction and protection, like sheep without a shepherd.
Spirit Filled Joshua (and the Shepherds of Israel)

Numbers 27:18 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. 19 Make him stand before Eleazar the priest and all the congregation, and you shall commission him in their sight. 20 You shall invest him with some of your authority, that all the congregation of the people of Israel may obey. 21 And he shall stand before Eleazar the priest, who shall inquire for him by the judgment of the Urim before the LORD. At his word they shall go out, and at his word they shall come in, both he and all the people of Israel with him, the whole congregation.”

Hoshea, son of Nun, of the tribe of Ephraim (Nu.13:8,16); renamed Joshua, assistant to Moses from his youth (Nu.11:28); who led Israel’s army (Ex.17), who spent time with Moses on the mountain and at the tent of meeting (Ex.24:13; 33:11), who objected that Moses’ authority might be undermined by others prophesying (Nu.11:28), one of only two spies who brought back a good report of the land (Nu.14), who was full of the Spirit, was the Lord’s choice. He was to be given some of Moses’ authority, commissioned publicly. But there was a difference; the Lord spoke to Moses face to face as a man speaks to his friend (Ex.33:11; Dt.34:10); Joshua was to receive direction through the priest who would mediate the Lord’s instructions.

Numbers 27:22 And Moses did as the LORD commanded him. He took Joshua and made him stand before Eleazar the priest and the whole congregation, 23 and he laid his hands on him and commissioned him as the LORD directed through Moses.

Joshua faithfully led the people to victory in the promised land,

Judges 2:7 And the people served the LORD all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great work that the LORD had done for Israel. … 10 And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the LORD or the work that he had done for Israel. 11 And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD and served the Baals. 12 And they abandoned the LORD, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went after other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed down to them. And they provoked the LORD to anger. 13 They abandoned the LORD and served the Baals and the Ashtaroth.

The time of the Judges was a time where ‘Everyone did what was right in his own eyes’ (Jdg.17:6; 21:25). The Lord took David from the sheepfolds to shepherd his people (Ps.78:70-72), but even David fell short. The time of the kings was described this way: ‘I saw all Israel scattered on the mountains, as sheep that have no shepherd.’ (1Ki.22:17). The prophets had scathing rebukes for the shepherds of Israel who fed only themselves (Is.56; Jer.23;25;50; Ez.34; Zech.10)

The Good Shepherd

But already God was pointing beyond Joshua to someone greater; a prophet like Moses, whom the Lord would know face to face, who would speak all his words (Dt.18:15,18; 34:10).

Isaiah prophesied:

Isaiah 40:9 Go on up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good news; lift it up, fear not; say to the cities of Judah, “Behold your God!” 10 ​Behold, the Lord GOD comes with might, and his arm rules for him; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him. 11 ​He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms; he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young.

And to Ezekiel:

Ezekiel 34:15 I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord GOD.

Jesus said in John 10:

John 10:7 So Jesus again said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. 8 All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. 9 I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. 11 ​I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. 13 He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. 14 ​I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, 15 ​just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16 And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.

The greater Yeshua, Jesus of Nazareth;

Psalm 23:1 The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.

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Pastor Rodney Zedicher ~ Ephraim Church of the Bible ~ www.ephraimbible.org

A Tale of Two Generations

God led his people out of slavery, out of Egypt. He brought them to the mountain where he entered into a covenant relationship with them, he took them to be his people, and gave himself to them to be their God. They built him a tent to dwell with them, in the middle of the camp. He led them to his promised land, protecting and providing for them all the way. But they rejected him, his love, his land, his leaders. They broke their covenant with God, so they would die in the wilderness, but God promised that their children, the next generation would enter the land. The book of Numbers began this way:

Numbers 1:1 The LORD spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the tent of meeting, on the first day of the second month, in the second year after they had come out of the land of Egypt, saying, 2 “Take a census of all the congregation of the people of Israel, by clans, by fathers’ houses, according to the number of names, every male, head by head. 3 From twenty years old and upward, all in Israel who are able to go to war, you and Aaron shall list them, company by company. 4 And there shall be with you a man from each tribe, each man being the head of the house of his fathers.

Now here we are, 40 years after leaving Egypt, again on the borders of the land, having been protected by God from spiritual warfare waged against them from the mountains of Moab, having egregiously sinned against God by engaging in immorality with women who led them break the first command of their covenant and go after other gods, after 24,000 of them died in a plague, in Numbers 26 we read:

Numbers 26:1 After the plague, the LORD said to Moses and to Eleazar the son of Aaron, the priest, 2 “Take a census of all the congregation of the people of Israel, from twenty years old and upward, by their fathers’ houses, all in Israel who are able to go to war.” 3 And Moses and Eleazar the priest spoke with them in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho, saying, 4 “Take a census of the people, from twenty years old and upward,” as the LORD commanded Moses. The people of Israel who came out of the land of Egypt were:

Miriam is dead. Aaron the high priest is dead, his son Eleazar now taking his place. Moses is soon to die. This is a census of the next generation; those military age men who under Joshua’s leadership will conquer the land, enter in and posses it. God promised to give them the land, but not without a fight. Already they have defeated the Amorites, Sihon and Og, and possessed their land from the Arnon to the Jabbok, as far as Mount Hermon (Dt.3:8).

The Census; Tribes, Clans and Warnings

In Numbers 1, the head of each tribe was listed, the would-be heroes of Israel, who fell in the wilderness. In that chapter each tribe was numbered with this repetitive formula: ‘…Of the people of [tribe], their generations, by their clans, by their fathers’ houses, those of them who were listed, according to the number of names, head by head, every male from twenty years old and upward, all who were able to go to war: those listed of the tribe of [tribe] were [number].’

Chapter 26 gives us more detail, listing the families by their clans; the formula here is ‘The sons of [tribe] according to their clans: of [son’s name], the clan of the [son’s name]ites; [each clan is listed] …These are the clans of the [tribe]ites, [total number].

Numbers 26 is a review of history; it is a reminder of the failures of the fathers, a warning not to follow in their footsteps. The chapter begins ‘after the plague’, a warning from chapter 25 to flee sexual immorality, to ‘have no other god before me’, a reminder of the 24,000 who died in the plague.

Eleazar the priest is mentioned as son of Aaron, a reminder of Aaron and Moses’ anger and pride in chapter 20, where they forfeited entering the land because of unbelief and a failure to uphold YHWH as holy (Nu.20:12).

The Census

5-11 this census begins with Reuben the firstborn and his sons; Hanoch, Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi; with a focus on Pallu’s son Eliab, and his sons Nemuel, Dathan, and Abiram. Dathan and Abiram (Nu.16) provide another warning as prominent men,

Numbers 26:9 …chosen from the congregation, who contended against Moses and Aaron in the company of Korah, when they contended against the LORD 10 and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up together with Korah, when that company died, when the fire devoured 250 men, and they became a warning. 11 But the sons of Korah did not die.

They rebelled against the God-appointed leadership of Moses and Aaron. Having been entrusted with authority and responsibility, they were not satisfied, but jealous; they wanted more. Korah, a Levite, is listed here because of his association with this rebellion. But sons don’t have to fail the same way their fathers failed. The sons of Korah did not follow in their fathers footsteps, and instead went on to author some of the Psalms we now enjoy.

12-14 Simeon is listed next, with his sons Nemuel, Jamin, Jachin, Zerah, and Shaul.

15-18 Gad is listed with his sons Zephon, Haggi, Shuni, Ozni, Eri, Arod, and Areli

19-22 Judah fathered Er and Onan, who became a warning against wickedness and selfishness toward inheritance rights (Ge.38). We aren’t told what Er did, but he was wicked in the sight of the Lord; what other opinion matters? Er, Onan and Shelah were born of the daughter of Shua a Canaanite. Perez and Zerah were born of his daughter-in-law whom he thought was a prostitute, but all this is overlooked. Perez’ line is traced through Hezron and Hamul. We find out in Ruth that Hezron became the ancestor of David; Matthew (1) and Luke (3) trace the genealogy of Jesus through Judah, Perez, and Hezron.

23-25 lists Issachar as the father of Tola, Puvah, Jashub, and Shimron.

26-27 records Zebulon as father of Sered, Elon, and Jahleel.

28-37 follows the birth order of Joseph’s sons, listing Manasseh first, although Numbers 1 listed Ephraim first according to the Jacob’s blessing in Genesis 48. Manasseh’s lineage is traced through his son Machir, who fathered Gilead, who fathered Iezer, Helek, Asriel, Shechem, Shemida, and Hepher. Hepher fathered Zelophehad, who had no sons but only daughters; Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. These five daughters of Zelophehad, unusual in a list of male descendants, also unique in that they constitute the fifth generation, take center stage in chapters 27 and 36 as they petition Moses for inheritance rights.

35-37 lists Ephraim as the father of Shuthelah, Becher, and Tahan; Shuthelah fathered Eran.

38-41 trace the descendants of Benjamin, Bela, Ashbel, Ahiram, Shephupham, and Hupham; Bela fathered Ard and Naaman.

42-43 tell us that Dan had only one son Shuham, through whom his large tribe descended.

44-47 Asher fathered Imnah, Ishvi, Beriah; Beriah fathered Heber and Malchiel, Asher’s daughter Serah is also mentioned.

48-50 Naphtali concludes the list with his clans Jahzeel, Guni. Jezer, and Shillem.

Here’s a comparison list (slide) to show the changes in the numbers of each tribes; some increased, some decreased (Simeon significantly, possibly because of his part in the Baal-Peor plague in chapter 25).

Numbers 26:51 This was the list of the people of Israel, 601,730.

What is amazing is that in spite of grumbling, disobedience, unfaithfulness, and God’s judgments, including the plague killing 24,000 at Baal-Peor, the overall number of Israelite males dropped by less than 2,000.

Military Men and Inheritance Allotment

The census includes only militarily eligible men age 20 and up, those who could go to war. Life is war, and God was giving Israel a promised land to conquer. The roster of the military would be essential as they began to occupy hostile land.

But this census had another purpose;

Numbers 26:52 The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 53 “Among these the land shall be divided for inheritance according to the number of names. 54 To a large tribe you shall give a large inheritance, and to a small tribe you shall give a small inheritance; every tribe shall be given its inheritance in proportion to its list. 55 But the land shall be divided by lot. According to the names of the tribes of their fathers they shall inherit. 56 Their inheritance shall be divided according to lot between the larger and the smaller.”

The census gave them the information they needed divide the land equitably to accommodate the different sized tribes. The division of the land was ultimately to be done by lot, a way to take it out of the manipulative hands of men and allow God to apportion the land as he willed. Numbers 34 specifies the boundaries of the land, which would be divided in Joshua 13-19.

Levites and the Lord their Inheritance

The tribe of Levi was not to be numbered among the military, as they were assigned a different battle; guarding the sanctity of God’s tent and God’s people. In Numbers 3-4 they were numbered as a substitute for every firstborn male of the other tribes and they were organized around God’s tent and assigned different responsibilities for transporting God’s tent according to their divisions. But the promised land would provide a more permanent home for God’s tent, and eventually the temple, so their duties would be different. They would not inherit land (the Lord was their inheritance); they were to be given cities scattered among the other tribes (48 cities assigned in Joshua 21) to continue to guard the sanctity of God and his people.

The three sons of Levi were Gershon, Kohath and Merari; Gershon fathered the Libnites; Kohath the Hebronites and Korahites; Merari the Mahlites and Mushites.

Numbers 26:58 …And Kohath was the father of Amram. 59 The name of Amram’s wife was Jochebed the daughter of Levi, who was born to Levi in Egypt. And she bore to Amram Aaron and Moses and Miriam their sister. 60 And to Aaron were born Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar. 61 But Nadab and Abihu died when they offered unauthorized fire before the LORD.

There is a focus here on Amram, another son of Kohath, through whom came Aaron, Moses and Miriam, leaders of Israel. And here is another warning; Aaron had four sons. After the climax of Leviticus 9, when the tabernacle was complete and the priests were set apart for service, and the appropriate offerings were presented, God’s glory filled the tabernacle and fire came out from the Lord and consumed the burnt offering. Caught up in the moment, (Lev.10) Nadab and Abihu took each his censer and offered incense before the Lord. But they violated God’s clear instructions; they worshiped in a way that seemed right to them (Prov.14:12; 16:25), they presented their own fire, and fire came out from the Lord and consumed them. We are not free to approach God in any way we see fit. There are not many paths to God. Jesus said the way is wide to destruction; few find the narrow path to life (Mt.7:13-14).

John 14:6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Access to God is exclusively through our Lord Jesus. We cannot clean ourselves up; we must be washed in his blood. We cannot come with our own righteousness; we must come clothed in his.

An Entire Generation Dead by Unbelief

The concluding statement also includes a warning.

Numbers 26:63 These were those listed by Moses and Eleazar the priest, who listed the people of Israel in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho. 64 But among these there was not one of those listed by Moses and Aaron the priest, who had listed the people of Israel in the wilderness of Sinai. 65 For the LORD had said of them, “They shall die in the wilderness.” Not one of them was left, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun.

A son born to parents some 20 years after they left Egypt would now be 20, eligible to be numbered in this census. A 19 year old who was not numbered in the first census would now, 38 years later, be 57. The only men over 57 that remained were Moses, Caleb, and Joshua, and Moses would die before they entered the land. God is faithful to his promises.

Numbers 14:21 But truly, as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD, 22 none of the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have put me to the test these ten times and have not obeyed my voice, 23 shall see the land that I swore to give to their fathers. And none of those who despised me shall see it. 24 But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me fully, I will bring into the land into which he went, and his descendants shall possess it.

28 Say to them, ‘As I live, declares the LORD, what you have said in my hearing I will do to you: 29 your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness, and of all your number, listed in the census from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against me, 30 not one shall come into the land where I swore that I would make you dwell, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun. 31 But your little ones, who you said would become a prey, I will bring in, and they shall know the land that you have rejected. 32 But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness. 33 And your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years and shall suffer for your faithlessness, until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness. 34 According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, a year for each day, you shall bear your iniquity forty years, and you shall know my displeasure.’ 35 I, the LORD, have spoken. Surely this will I do to all this wicked congregation who are gathered together against me: in this wilderness they shall come to a full end, and there they shall die.”

God is faithful to his promises both in judgment on the faithless and in his gracious promises to those who trust him

Conclusion:

God is faithful to all his promises. But he is just and demands holiness of his followers. Flee sexual immorality and idolatry; love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength. Beware anger and pride; always treat the Lord as holy. Be on guard against jealousy, wickedness, selfishness. Approach God in the one and only way he has authorized, through the blood of Jesus Christ his only Son. Enter through the narrow way, the way of utter dependence on the finished work of another.

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Pastor Rodney Zedicher ~ Ephraim Church of the Bible ~ www.ephraimbible.org