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Week 9 Numbers 35-Deuteronomy 13

Numbers 33-36 is a mixed bag of topics (and not a bad way to end the book).
First there’s a Forty-Year Travel Review, a listing of all the places Israel had camped – from the first stop fleeing Egypt, across time and distance to prairie country in Moab, just over the river from Jericho.
They had discussions there about subdividing the land, and chapter 34 ends with a list of twelve leaders who’ll do that job.
The Levites were the odd-men-out as far as land was concerned – their tribe got no land at all. They had to be content with being privileged guardians of the Hebrew religion (and they didn’t go away totally empty-handed – they got forty-eight cities).
The book ends with a polite dispute about inheritances. A man named Zelophehad had five daughters – Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. And he had no sons. The rule was: an inheritance goes to the son. Back in chapter 27 the brother-less sisters had already asked Moses to modify the rule and let them have the inheritance. Moses agreed and the rule was changed. Now, at the end of the book the Zelophehad girls come back with another practical question: who gets our inheritance if we marry a guy from a different tribe? In that case, a new ruling was made that a girl with an inheritance had to marry within the tribe. Maybe not an ideal compromise for a girl. But maybe flexible and fair enough to not be the worst.

Week 8 Numbers 18-34

Balaam appears suddenly. He’s a kind of diviner with a reputation for extrasensory capabilities, a guy variously skilled in secrets of the supernatural world. But the Moabite king hires him to do one thing only: speak an incantation against Israel. Curse them with harm and misfortune.
As far as the bible’s circle of people-to-respect goes Balaam is way out in the border lands. Maybe not as totally persona non grata as it’s possible to be, but definitely a non grata-grade guy.
And Balaam had no special commitment to the Lord. He was a shaman with access to a range of magical phenomena – maybe demonic powers, maybe ancestral spirits or otherworldly enchantments, like that. His toolbox might have held as many deities and spirits as a Percy Jackson-novel. The fact that a spirit spoke to Balaam probably didn’t surprise him. Whether he knew just whose voice it was is something different.
But the Lord made him his spokesman, even though Balaam was an unwilling voice (I get the feeling he blessed Israel against his own judgment, his own preference, and his own financial interests).
So far in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers the Lord is mostly (a) very interested in Israel, and (b) very interested in good-quality people. That much I’ve gotten used to. So Numbers 22, 23, and 24 is a reminder that the Lord is under no restrictions about who or what kinds of people he works with. The Lord engages whoever, for whatever his own reasons are.

Week 8 Numbers 18-34

Twelve leaders are listed in the opening verses of Numbers 13.
1. Shammua
2. Shaphat
3. Igal
4. Palti
5. Gaddiel
6. Gaddi
7. Ammiel
8. Sethur
9. Nahbi
10. Geuel
11. Caleb
12. Joshua
The twelve of them went to spy out the land of Canaan.
Spies 1-12 agreed that Canaan was very good, productive, desirable land.
Spies 1-10 also said that, unfortunately the land was not conquerable.
The Lord had promised Abraham hundreds of years before: I’m going to bring your family to this good land and give it to them. But after Shammua, Shaphat, Igal, Palti, Gaddiel, Gaddi, Ammiel, Sethur, Nahbi, and Geuel reconnoitred they said that sure, the land is terrific (but we’ll never get to live there).
Spies 11-12 disagreed. They said no, we’ll be able to conquer the land because the Lord will be with us.
So, a majority report and a minority report. The majority were very impressed with tangible factors: the urban fortifications, the formidable opposition, and the combined strength of the military. The thing that didn’t impress them too much was God. He was a negligible factor.
Caleb and Joshua pleaded with them, told them: the Lord is with us; do not fear them. But tangible evidence, just as compelling then as it is now beat out faith by a five-to-one margin.

Note: quote from Numbers 14:9 (NASB)

Week 7 Numbers 3-17

Numbers 7 is one of the longest chapters in the OT. It lists the offerings the twelve tribal leaders were supposed to bring after the tabernacle was set up.
The first time I read it I got down to the third or fourth leader – Eliab, or maybe Elizur – before I stopped and asked myself what’s going on here?
The offerings were very similar.
My first thought was that there might be subtle differences among them. Maybe the first leader – Nahshon – had to bring one goat for a sin offering, and then Nathanel two goats, Eliab three, etc.
But there were no subtle differences. I cross-checked each list and only found unsubtle samenesses.
All the offerings were exactly the same: a silver dish and a silver bowl, both full of flour, a gold pan of incense, a bull, a ram, and a lamb for a burnt offering; a goat for a sin offering, and a pair of oxen, plus 5 more rams, 5 more goats, and 5 more lambs for peace offerings.
I wondered why the author thought it was necessary to keep repeating the same thing?
I wonder now: since I know this is a ‘repeater’ chapter is it okay for me to just read the first set of offerings then gloss over the rest? I could read an 89-verse chapter in a minute or two. It’s a thought.
But I’m reading through so I read them all. Fairly quickly.

Week 7 Numbers 3-17

May the Lord bless you and protect you.
May the Lord smile on you and be gracious to you.
May the Lord show you his favor and give you his peace.
This is a familiar prayer to me.
I’ve heard it prayed many times in churches. Probably heard it prayed in the last month in the church I attend now.
Whatever ideas I’m forming as I read through the OT they have to include this good word that is prayed over us in church.
Six striking requests to the Lord for all of his people.
Not a self-composed, self-interested invocation. This is a prayer that the Lord basically dictates to Moses to tell Aaron to speak over the people of Israel. Legitimate asks, straight from the Lord, for his people.
An immaculate prayer.

Note: the prayer is from Numbers 6:22-27 (NLT version)

Week 7 Numbers 3-17

Numbers 6.
I checked a word book. The term Nazarite shows up for the first time here in Numbers 6:2. Other than the seven times it’s used in this chapter it only appears in two other places in the rest of the bible.
There’s nothing simple about this special vow – the other word used in the margin of my bible says the word is roughly equal to difficult.
So a difficult vow shows up right in the middle of a lot of other laws and regulations and ordinances that have been laid out for Israel. As I’m reading along through Exodus and Leviticus I’m not getting the impression that these hundreds of other laws are easy. They seem like a lot of not-so-easy laws.
Then this separation-to-the-Lord vow shows up, a commitment that’s more difficult than the others.
I’m surprised to see it’s a personal and voluntary vow. A man or a woman would decide to be fully and specially devoted to the Lord by adding it to all the others. An add-on vow.
Not a have-to-do-it legal minimum; it looks more like a want-to-do-an-above-and-beyond act of devotion to the Lord. I’m wondering about a man or woman who would decide to do more than this law code asks for.

Week 6 Leviticus 14-Numbers 2

Directed doodling can help – it helped with Numbers 2 and 3.
They describe where each tribe was physically located in camp.
I got a sheet of lined paper, and found a black marker.
On the right side I wrote East. Beside, a bit to the left I added Issachar, Judah, and Zebulun – one under the other.
I added three more tribes beside South, West, North.
There was a perimeter of names on the edges of the sheet.
Near the empty middle I added a quadrangle of priests’ names. The Levi family: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari (plus Moses & Aaron on the East).
Inside the perimeter of priests – the very centre of the page – I wrote Tabernacle. I highlighted it with a blue marker.
The Tabernacle – the sanctuary. Inside the sanctuary, curtained off, was the sacro-sanctuary where the Lord would be present. Right in the centre of the camp.
So there it is: the Lord at the very centre, in the sanctuary, surrounded by the families of priests, surrounded by the twelve tribes.
Everything else, everything off my lined sheet, is Outside the Camp.
I end up with 22 hand-written words sitting in a rough geometry on the page. A stripped-down, keyword picture of the 85 verses in Numbers 2 and 3. Doing my own sweated-out version helped me focus.

Note: Numbers 3 doesn’t give details about the Tabernacle – I already read those in Exodus on a minus-29 degree January day.

Week 6 Leviticus 14-Numbers 2

Leviticus 18:1-5 is a read-it-again paragraph.
Reading it I get the impression that cultural conformity is a concern. It was a big enough concern that the Lord pointed out two contemporary groups that Israel was not to start aping.
First he looked back to the state of Egypt and told Israel not to imitate their behaviour.
Then he looked forward to the Canaanite tribal territories where Israel was headed, and told them not to imitate their behaviour either. Their sexual behaviour.
Verses 6-24 give specific examples. That section could be titled: Canaanite Sexual Practices to Not Imitate (there are about twenty of them).
It’s an interesting list for two reasons.
First, these practices are part of the reason that the Canaanite nations will soon be punished (that’s spelled out in verses 24, 25, 26, 27 and 28). Which makes them pretty serious.
Secondly, my guess is that every one of the sexual practices listed is practiced in Alberta today. Which tips me off that we don’t take them too seriously.
So there’s the question of applicability. Are there any OT laws that apply to Albertans today?
There’re probably three starting points to an answer:
(a) All of them are applicable;
(b) Some of them are applicable;
(c) None of them are applicable.
I guess I’d be running solo if I chose (a), and running with the pack if I chose (c).
So I have a niggling sense that (b) is where I need to begin.

Week 6 Leviticus 14-Numbers 2

Leviticus 16 talks about the ceremony called the Day of Atonement – a big, annual, public event that involved everyone.
Atone isn’t a trendy word. Not a Top 1000 word in the Hat. The dictionary says it means the same as reconciliation.
At one. If two people are not at one, then it’s not until they reconcile that they become at one.
Atonement – at-one-ment – is an OT word.
Atone, atoned, atonement, atoning – that group of words is found about 93 times in the OT; about 66 times in Leviticus-Numbers. About 0 times in the NT.
When I bring it home, personalize it, I think of atonement this way. There are two players. There’s the Lord and there’s me. And the two of us are at-two-ment (being at loggerheads with the Lord is the sorry foundation of the relationship, it’s the key thing).
And there’s only one thing that can make me at one. That, unfortunately, is that something has to die.
Something has to die for me. That’s what I’m seeing as I read about animal sacrifices. An animal, something subbing in for me, can stand in my place. It can die for me. It’s either that or else I die, all alone and at two.
At-one-ment necessitates blood.

Note: the word counts are mine, so don’t take them to the bank.

Week 6 Leviticus 14-Numbers

About 80% of Leviticus is legal-religious directions and practices.
So after reading the absorbing (and unnerving) story of Aaron’s sons I’m not surprised to land in five chapters of what’s clean and what isn’t clean.
I decided to read 11-15 all at once: there are lists of animals that can or can’t be eaten; there is uncleanness related to childbirth, and uncleanness related to seminal discharges. In between there’s a long section on leprosy. Maybe not Top-100 reading, but pretty manageable.
The big idea that’s staring right at me is this: being clean is important (I ran the numbers: there’s about 60 references to cleanness and more than 100 to uncleanness in these five chapters – 1 reference every 1.25 verses).
What do I make of it?
I think there are two answers: nothing much and something.
I don’t know anyone who says that after sexual intercourse a contemporary man and woman have become ritually unclean. So in one sense I disregard these rules. There’s really nothing much to them for me.
But Leviticus says that there’s a why-do-I-do-it behind the what-do-I-do. The author quotes the Lord: for I am the Lord your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy; for I am holy.
Only two verses out of 200. But they link cleanness with the holy.
So even if there’s nothing much here for me, there is something.

Note: quote is from Leviticus 11:44-45 (NASB version)