Month: February 2023

Week 9  Deuteronomy 1-3

For one thing the bible is a book of history. It’s also a book of other things – legal and moral codes & prophetic content with current and future events & artistic/musical/poetic material & religious regulations & like that. But quite a bit of history.
The first three chapters of Deuteronomy are a kind of abbreviated Reminder History. Moses is retelling events from the Hebrew past. I remember a couple of years ago wondering why Moses omitted so many key events. The Exodus. Mount Sinai. The 10 Commandments. The Sea of Reeds. Manna. The Golden Calf. Nadab & Abihu.
It finally occurred to me this year that Moses was only going back 40 years – not all the way back. Just back as far as the (disastrous) Twelve Spies story and what happened since then. So it’s a very selective Reminder History with Moses mentioning The Spies & the Wilderness Years & Sihon & Og (plus a couple of other things). So I learned something. But I wonder about Korah Dathan and Abiram. And Balaam. I thought they were pretty important but they’re not even mentioned.
I wonder why Moses chose what he did and didn’t choose what he didn’t. I wonder about his selection criteria. Wonder if I’ll figure it out. Wonder if it matters very much.

Note: end of February reading report: 156 chapters in Moses + 60 psalms = 216 chapters. That’s ~18% of the bible read in ~17% of the year. So…I’m staying ahead. That’s better than lagging (no knowing what’s up ahead).

Week 8  Numbers 22-24

Balaam is the enigmatic shaman who ghosts into the book of Numbers and then ghosts back out again. Mystery Man or not I’m glad to find his little gem-of-a-story here in the middle of censuses & regulations & travelogues.
On the surface it looks like Balaam was the Lord’s Man of the Hour. The Lord communicated directly with him and then Balaam relayed four specific messages from the Lord to king Balak. He looks quite a bit like an real OT prophet. He comes. He speaks the Lord’s message. He leaves. Seven chapters later I find out about the real Balaam.
Israel had a battle with the five kings of Midian. They killed all five and in the process: they also killed Balaam son of Beor. It turns out that this wasn’t a case of poor-Balaam – a good guy caught in the crossfire. Balaam was executed because the Midianites had followed Balaam’s advice and caused the people of Israel to rebel against the Lord at Mount Peor.
Reading this is a bit of a shock. Balaam seemed like an okay-guy. But it turns out that he conspired with Balak – gave him advice on how to poison Israel.
I’ve had to read 210 verses before I find this sequel. The main story seemed to end with Balaam going home in the last verse of Numbers 24. But that wasn’t the end and I’d been left with a completely wrong impression.

Note: quotes from Numbers 31:8 16 (NLT)

Week 8  Numbers 21

If there’s an ordered list somewhere where someone ranks all the chapters of the bible from Most Subject Diversity (top) to Most Uniformity (bottom) I figure chapter 21 would be near the top. It ricochets all over the place – almost like the writer just jammed together a bunch of ideas he wasn’t sure where else to include. Not exactly a dog’s breakfast…but lots of diversity:
The account of King Arad
The bronze serpent
Wilderness campsites
A reference to The Book of the Wars of the Lord
The verse of a song
Sihon’s defeat
Og’s defeat
A short proverb
I wondered about the quotation from The Book of the Wars of the Lord. It said: the town of Waheb in the area of Suphah, and the ravines; and the Arnon River and its ravines, which extend as far as the settlement of Ar on the border of Moab. The writer had already said the tribes had trekked out of the Sinai Peninsula as far north as the Arnon River: the Arnon is the boundary line between the Moabites and the Ammonites – then added the quote.
I look at a map. The Arnon River is east of the Dead Sea – Moab to the south. Ammon north.
But I don’t find out anything about The Book of the Wars of the Lord. Looks like maybe it’s a lost book. One item from the Number’s bibliography. But now gone forever.

Note: quotes from Numbers 21:14-15 31 (NLT)

Week 7  Numbers 10

This chapter gives travelling instructions to the tribes. When they break camp Judah-Issachar-Zebulun are to leave first followed by Reuben-Simeon-Gad then Ephraim-Manasseh-Benjamin and finally Dan-Asher-Naphtali.
All the equipment & gear & furnishings of the Tabernacle have to be moved too and allowance is made for that – Gershon & Merari were responsible for transporting the structural & framing pieces of the Tabernacle…the Kohath family had the more delicate operation of moving the actual furnishings (which were treated with kid-gloves).
That meant when the priests were added-in the order of departure was Judah-Issachar-Zebulun & Gershon-Merari & Reuben-Simeon-Gad & Kohath & Ephraim-Manasseh-Benjamin & Dan-Asher-Naphtali.
I remember that travelling directions were given in Numbers 2 as well so I flip back to compare. The Judah-Issachar-Zebulun Reuben-Simeon-Gad Ephraim-Manasseh-Benjamin and Dan-Asher-Naphtali groupings are exactly the same. But in chapter 2 Gershon Merari & Kohath aren’t even mentioned. They’re named as a unit – the Levites – and positioned right in the middle of the pack: Judah-Issachar-Zebulun Reuben-Simeon-Gad THE LEVITES Ephraim-Manasseh-Benjamin & Dan-Asher-Naphtali.
Personally I wish there was just one list. Or else I wish the two lists were at least identical since now I’m stuck wondering about the discrepancy.
I guess chapter 2 could be considered a Rough Guide tipping off the twelve tribes about the basic sequence and with the Levites added in the centre. Chapter 10 then fine-tunes the instructions more precisely.
The difference doesn’t seem like a flat-out contradiction to me. But it’s a discrepancy I wish wasn’t there.

Week 7  Numbers 9

One of the Bible Reader’s Rules I’ve learned is: You Will Have Questions.
Questions can be managed by a) just forgetting about them and moving on or b) trying to make a best-guess.
So anyway I was wondering about the miraculous cloud hovering over the Tabernacle. It was a pretty obvious material signal that the Lord was right there in the camp. It also served the double-purpose of being a guidance-system for the tribes…signaling when to pack up and then pointing out where to go.
There might have been an Officially Designated Watcher assigned to keep-an-eye on the cloud. But I guess there would have also been any number of regular people who woke up asking: “do I have to get ready to leave today?” If I had lived in the camp I’d go out every morning and look over at the Tabernacle to see if the cloud was showing any signs of movement and so tipping me off about how to plan my day. Maybe hoping today was a travelling day. But maybe not.
The writer said that: if the cloud remained over the Tabernacle for a long time, the Israelites stayed for a long time but on the other hand sometimes the cloud stayed only overnight and moved on the next morning.
But in spite of that day-to-day uncertainty the camp seemed to show some flexibility and willingness to do whatever the Lord told them.

Note: quotes from Numbers 9: 19 21 23 (NLT)

Week 6  Numbers 7

There are 89-verses in chapter seven and they describe the offerings that each of the twelve tribes brought to the Lord. They were expensive and elaborate gifts: silver bowls of flour, a gold bowl of incense, animals for sacrifice: bulls rams lambs goats oxen and rams. It takes five verses and ~92 words just to describe the gift that Judah brought.
Then it describes Issachar’s gift – flour incense bulls rams lambs goats oxen and rams. It takes five verses and ~92 words to describe the gift. It’s not only similar to Judah’s gift. It’s the exact same gift.
Then Zebulun’s gift is described in five verses with the exact same ~92 words as Judah’s and Issachar’s.
Ditto for Reuben Simeon Gad and like that…
I figure the writer could have just listed the twelve tribal leaders and then added something like: “and they each brought the same gift of…(then plug in the five verses and ~92 words)”. Readers would get the point. Plus chapter seven would be approximately 55-verses shorter.
Yesterday there was a lot of repetition in chapter one and when I checked a different bible I saw it had taken a short-cut and omitted most of the repetition. So I checked that bible today. But its chapter seven was 89-verses long too and it had twelve 5-verse paragraphs with ~92 words that were exactly the same.
I wondered why the editors had cut out the repetition yesterday but not today. Maybe their rule was: once isn’t enough.

Week 6  Numbers 1

Moses takes a census of Israel in chapter one. It’s a head count of all the military-aged men in each tribe. Twelve tribes. He introduces each of the twelve like this: of the sons of ________ their genealogical registration by their families, by their fathers’ households, according to the number of names, every male from twenty years old and upward, whoever was able to go out to war.
I checked another bible version. Its introduction said: this is the number of men twenty years old or older who were able to go to war, each listed according to his own clan and family. The really big difference is that this version only says this sentence once…not twelve times. (It also formatted the  data in a list:
Reuben…………………….46,500
Simeon…………………….59,300
Gad…………………………..45,650…like that.)
Which means the second version is a lot quicker to read (~27 words vs. ~444 words). The editors admit in a footnote that the phrase this is the number of men twenty years old or older who were able to go to war, each listed according to his own clan and family is actually repeated twelve times in the original Hebrew bible. But not in theirs.
I looked at the front & back of the bible for an explanation to see why they deleted the sentence eleven times but couldn’t find one. Maybe their rule is: once is enough.

Note: quotes from Numbers 1:20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34 36 38 40 42 (Reuben and Simeon add the phrase ‘head by head’) (NASB) & Numbers 1:20-21 (NLT)

Week 6  Psalm 36

David describes four qualities of the Lord: love faithfulness righteousness & justice. Four fairly specific things about what the Lord is like (I know there’s more than four but David just mentions these).
Finding out specific details about what the Lord is like is very helpful. But David also adds details about the extent and range of the four qualities – their expanse & magnitude & dimension & extravagant size. The Lord’s love faithfulness righteousness & justice stretch out beyond the stratosphere. They’re higher than Everest. Deeper than the Mariana Trench.
When I think about love faithfulness righteousness & justice I’m thinking about known qualities. Which helps a lot. David doesn’t say in psalm 36 that the Lord is – let’s say – colisticomorantic. He sticks to familiar concepts. I do have a general understanding about what love faithfulness righteousness & justice are. But David’s added-value comment – about the scope of the qualities – I do have some trouble with.
If a kid says to his mom ‘how much do you love me?’ and mom says ‘a million trillion’ then the kid can accept that. Mom loves me (even if I don’t have a comprehensive quantitative grasp of the degree of Mom’s love). The kid is just happy that his mom loves him. Her expression of excessive numerical quantity is more of a theoretical backstop to reassure him that more capacity is there. He’ll never not have what he needs from his mom. There’s no end to it.

Note: Psalm 36:5-6

Week 6  Psalm 34

It’s a short paragraph in the middle of the psalm and David asked a pretty interesting question: do any of you want to live a life that is long and good?
It’s a straightforward question with two possible answers:
A#1: Yes.
A#2: No.
David likely figured most people would say “yes” because he only lays out guidelines for that group:
Watch your tongue
Keep your lips from telling lies
Turn away from doing evil
Do good
Work hard at living in peace with others.
[If David had also asked ‘do any of you want to live a life that is short and bad?’ then his advice would look something like this:
Say whatever you like
Lie and be deceptive
Do evil things
Don’t waste time on good actions
Conflict is part of living (so make sure you come out on top).]
David’s short list of Long & Good Life recommendations is a selective basket of actions. There are more. But his condensation is a handy set of actionables.
And from the look of them they’re permanent & ongoing regulations. They’re not like the alphabet where once I learn it I’ve got it and I can move on to other things. If I want a long and good life then during all of my long-and-good life I’m managing my language. Overbalancing my lies with truth. Offsetting Evils by Goods. Phasing out my attack strategies.
A short list but with long-term implications.

Note: quotes from Psalm 34:12-14 (NLT)

Week 5  Leviticus 11-15

I’ve thought about creating a list of all the chapters in the bible in declining order – most-interesting at the top all the way down to the least-interesting. It would be a huge project and I wouldn’t do it. But if I did I’d start with the  really obvious ones (kind of like finding the perimeter pieces of a jigsaw puzzle first) – fantastically-engaging chapters at the top…on the bottom the grindingly-drudgerous ones. (The in-betweens would be the problem.)
Anyway today I landed on a section that would be very very close to the very bottom of the list. The food laws in chapter 11 for instance. They aren’t interesting at all but they’re by far the most interesting of the whole five-chapter section. After that? Purification instructions related to childbirth. Diagnosing leprosy & contagious skin diseases & sores & infections. Quarantine rules. Cleansing rituals. Seminal discharges & menstruation.
I mentioned the MHJ Weighting-Scale a while back. It’s an informal mental hierarchy where I give a higher-or-lower value to chapters to determine the time I allocate to a passage – it’s a reader’s pace-determination scale. Passages that are interesting informative helpful applicable instructive enlightening relevant engaging & affective will get higher scores. Chapters 11-15 are none-of-the-above so get a dismal score on the MHJ Weighting-Scale.
Which means that today I just put my head down and plowed through fairly quickly.

Note: I talked about the Weighting-Scale back in February 1/21: “weight & speed”