Week 6 Numbers 1-2
Moses wasn’t in story-telling mode when he started Numbers.
I knew right away I was in bleak country so decided to switch to my Directed Listing Technique (DLT). The DLT is in the same class of bible-reading-assistance techniques as Directed Sketching or Directed Diagramming (Directed Doodling – which is more mindless – is in a related but different class).
Last year I did some Directed Diagramming of Numbers 2 to visually orient myself about Israel’s desert camp. That drone’s-eye sketch-up helped me read in a more focused way.
This year when I read the first list of tribal names I got out a pad of yellow paper and wrote them in a column down the left margin.
Something was fishy. I flipped back to Genesis 29-30 and in my Column 2 listed Jacob’s sons in their birth order. Which was a different order than Column 1.
Column 3 was the second list in Numbers 1 – the military census list. I wrote those names down and saw they were in a different order from Columns 1 & 2.
Then Numbers 2 re-categorized the twelve tribes into a list of four groups of three. This one – Column 4 – was similar to the census list but still slightly different.
I spent a bit of time trying to dope out the differences. But in the end I had my four columns of names in similar – but different – order. And in the end I still had questions.
Which – I decided – was okay. The Directed Listing Technique helped focus my attention (riddle-solving wasn’t its intended function).