Year: 2020

A lot happens in this chapter that is well known that we have to look at.  First of all, remember the last chapter we left off with Joshua and Caleb pretty much being the only ones who said that the land that they spied out is pretty amazing, in fact it is a land flowing with milk and honey.  But the people chose to follow the words of the other 10 who said that the land is inhabited by giants so there is no way that God would ever be able to overcome them.  In vs.4 of this chapter it gets so bad that the Israelites say: Let’s choose one from each tribe who will lead us and take us back to Egypt.  The assumption is  that Moses’ time as our leader is finished.  We are doing this on our own.  And the this is to go back to to Egypt where we were slaves, because it has to be better than what we have now.

As a result of this infidelity of the people God decides to strike them all down and kill them (vs.12).  Moses intercedes for them and reminds God in vs. 18 that His holy Word once said: “The Lord is slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression…”  These are all words that the Israelites needed at this time.  So God responds to this appeal by saying: I do forgive, but none of these people who plotted against you, so against me, shall see the promised land.  

He sets the time that they will be wandering in the wilderness where they will do, for one year for every day that the people spied out the land, which would be 40  years since they spied out the land 40 days.  But only Joshua and Caleb are going to be able to enter the land.  When the word gets back to the people, as you would expect, they were remorseful.  They had a great idea.  Let’s show God that we are on his side and that we won’t do that again and let’s go and take the land over, that should show him.  Moses tells them, don’t do that, God is not with you, not a good idea.  They try to invade the land and they are repulsed and slaughtered,  Not all of them, but enough of them to leave a mark.

We now have the stage set for the people of Israel to die off so that their kids can take over the promised land…

The people of Israel are approaching the promised land so Moses sends out some lead agents to get a feel for the land and to bring back a report of what the land is like.  The report is supposed to include some tangible signs of what the land is like as well as a report on their military establishments.  Don’t pass over vs. 8 where we are introduced to Hoshea, son of Nun who then is clarified in vs.16 as the one whose name was changed to Joshua without explanation.  We should take note that name changes are pretty frequent and they always represent a pretty significant and dramatic change in the life of the individual involved.  We don’t hear about a change in the life of Hoshea which required his name to become Joshua.  But, we know what will become of Joshua so keep your eye on him as we go along in Numbers.

He is mentioned as one of the spies that were being sent out into the promised land to get a read on what the land was like.  They all go out and they find grapes the size of whose clusters were so big that they had to be carried by two people.  The same for the figs and the pomegranates, it was just a very impressive area with very impressive produce.  They set out for forty days.  Don’t let that number pass you by either.  Noah and the ark had 40 days.  The wilderness will reflect a 40 year wandering.  It is a time period which always seems to be just enough to get whatever job needs to be done to get done.  

The spies come back and they are all pretty much unanimous in their report except for one.  They all say: Yeah, pretty amazing stuff over there but the people and the fortifications are way too advanced and sophisticated for us to even have a chance of doing anything to take it from them.  Let’s just call it good and go look for something else.  Caleb, however, was the only outlier who said no, we should go right now for God has placed that land in our hands.  You would think that Joshua would have taken Caleb’s side.  But we don’t hear one way or the other about him.  So when you have all the other spies saying that there is no way that we can go into that land or we will be smushed, that will be the general consensus.  We will see that this is exactly what happens in our next chapter.  Folks are pretty bummed out.

In leadership there are always times when there are those who think that not only could they be doing a better job than you, but they are somewhat indignant that you are even given the position that you have.  We find a really interesting story of a family squabble.  Remember that Aaron and Miriam are the brother and sister of Moses.  So these are three siblings who have incredibly prominent roles within the history of the people of Israel.  Miriam is the one who basically saved Moses’ life by following him along the Nile when he was a baby in a basket and encouraging the daughter of Pharaoh to raise up Moses.  How Aaron escapes death as a boy Hebrew child we are not told.  

We find that all of a sudden it is as if they just realized that the woman to whom Moses is married is a foreigner.  This, in their minds, disqualifies Moses from being the chosen leader that he is.  He should be playing a secondary role because he is not nearly as pure as the rest of them.  They made that decision on their own and began sowing the seeds of discontent.  Moses was not really someone who was willing to buck their decisions so he was about to go along with it.  The Bible says that he was humble, more so than anyone on the face of the earth so he did not want to rock the boat.  They want to lead the people, that’s fine with me.  It wasn’t my idea to begin with.

God had different plans and insists that his plans be followed and not those that we come up with.  He calls Aaron and Miriam before him and punishes Miriam with leprosy because she dared to question God’s decisions.  God’s decision was to put Moses in leadership and that was not good enough for his siblings.  Somewhat similar to Joseph and his brothers, but different.  As a result of her punishment the entire tribe of Israel had to wait until she was healed from her leprosy so that the nation could move forward toward the promised land.  So her and Aaron’s questioning of God’s authority, which was displayed in their questioning of Moses’ authority, developed into a punishment that was only laid upon Miriam, but had an impact upon the entire people in their week long delay.  

God could have been more severe, but in this punishment you hope she and Aaron learned their lesson.  Golden calf anyone?

We begin to see what happens when you travel together as a family for a long time in somewhat cramped  quarters.  We find the people of Israel complain to Moses because they did not have meat to eat.  They were reminiscing about the good old days in Egypt when they had all the fish they could eat, they had their own gardens, they had anklets and necklets and bracelets around them because they were slaves.  They actually left that part out of it.  But they remembered the meat and vegetables part and complained to God that they were sick and tired of this thing called manna.  It reminds me of this scene in Forest Gump.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFyM3xNoGSE

For some reason this won’t click on immediately, just paste and copy onto your browser, you’ll see the scene.  But how many different ways can you make manna?  God responds by saying, I will provide you with so much meat that you will ask how many ways are there to cook meat?  Did you miss the bookend in this chapter?  It begins with fire and death and it ends with a plague of death for those who complained about not having meat.

As you would expect God provides the quail just as he promised.  He also provides some relief for Moses who felt the burden of having to hear the protestations of the people of Israel all by himself.  God gave his Holy Spirit to two other people besides Moses who were enabled to lead and to prophesy as Moses was.  A  lot happens in this chapter and it is a bit of a precursor for the time when Moses sets up other judges who can rule over the people as he rules.  That will come in the next few chapters.  

We have trumpets, and these trumpets signaled a few things.  A double trumpet meant the whole assembly had to gather for something really important.  A single trumpet would sound if only the leaders were supposed to gather together.  There were other trumpet signals that would sound to go into battle.  And yet another trumpet sound to signal that we are picking up stakes and moving on, or that we will be settled down right here where we find ourselves.  I love the fact that it was the Levites who blew the trumpets.  Moses makes it really clear that only the Levites and no one else was supposed to be allowed to blow the trumpets.  Look at vs.8 and this was supposed to hold true for all generations.  I guess I am supposed to be the one who rings the bell when the first service starts.

It then moves on to describe how the tribes moved out when it was time to go forward in the journey.  We have an interchange between Moses and his father-in-law.  Remember Moses married a foreign woman who worshiped other gods.  He told Moses that he was going to head back home, it was fun, but home called.  Moses asks him to stay on because there was no one who was a better scout than he was.  He tells him: “You know where we should go.”  We don’t hear, but we can assume that he stayed on.  

Notice that Moses has a prayer for when they start off in the morning and when they settle in for the evening.  It sets the example of prayers in the morning and prayers in the evening.  

There are two  things to watch for in this chapter.  The first still  continues true to this day and that is the institution of the celebration of Passover.  Here we find that a specific month and day was to be used in order to celebrate the Passover.  This year it begins April 8 and it ends April 18.  Remember what the Passover celebrated.  It celebrated the literal passing over of the angel of death as the people of Israel were in captivity in Egypt.  They were spared the angel of death by the blood on their doorposts while the Egyptians lost their first born sons.  It was this tenth and final plague which allowed the Israelites to escape from Egypt, but hurriedly.  

The question arises if I am unclean am I still able to celebrate the Passover?  We know how strict the purity laws are, but Moses  talked  to God and God said absolutely!  You have to celebrate the Passover regardless of your purity status.  It is kind of neat to be able to see something instituted that is still celebrated today.  Remember, the last supper was a Passover meal.  So they all tie together.

The second matter that this chapter deals with is this cloud and fire which guided the tabernacle and the people of Israel.  God made His will be known in regards to when the people  were to move and when they were to camp out and hang out with a cloud and with a fire.  When a cloud was present they would hang out, no matter how long the cloud was there.  When a fire was present then it was time to move.  Wouldn’t you just love to have a cloud and fire directing you to knowing and understanding the will of God?  That would be pretty nice.

I’ll never forget hearing Tony Campolo speak one time and he hammered home a point to those in attendance, who tended to be somewhat elderly, that God never placed provisions for retirement when it came to serving the Lord.  I think Numbers 8 might have a different perspective on this.  Look at vs.24-25 where we find that the Levites are commanded to serve the Lord from the age of 25 on.  But at age 50 they are to retire and serve no more.  They can help out here and there, but at age 50 they have to hang it up.  Good thing that we don’t keep that statute in our running of the church.

This entire chapter is dedicated to ensuring that those who are serving the Lord are in the perfect condition to be able to serve the Lord.  It speaks about how the Levites, that is the priestly class, has to be cleansed completely and then an offering has to be lifted up on their behalf so that God is able to use only those who are the purest of the pure to do His work.  We are not talking about a moral judgment here, it is easy to go in that direction with our thinking.  Rather, God expected the individual to do what they needed to ensure that they were clean, and then those who were in charge, Moses and Aaron had to ensure that the person who is being lifted up is clean as well.  

The detail that went into this far exceeds what we think about when we recognize that our task is to serve the Lord and to bring His presence to the people.  In Numbers we see a concentration and an insistence of only those who are ready to serve the Lord are able to serve the Lord.

This chapter is redundant with information, but every now and then we need a little redundancy.  Moses, as they make their way across the wilderness toward the promises land, has set up the tabernacle, which is the precursor to the temple which will eventually be built in Jerusalem.  But the tabernacle was a mobile temple which every tribe had to support and had to give tribute.  What we find to begin this chapter is that every priestly class was given something because of the work that they put into building the tabernacle.  Every family except the Kohathites, because they were “charged with the care of the holy things that had to be carried on the shoulders.”  So…, not sure why they were left out of the goodies that the other priestly tribes were able to receive.

The redundancy comes as we see each tribe of Israel give the same exact contribution to the tabernacle, to the presence of the Lord.  I love the idea that every single tribe had the same value, had the same gift, had the same understanding of what it means to be a child of God.  No one gave more, no one gave less.  They each gave the same.  As a  result we see that God’s love for them is the same as it is for each tribe.  Not that this is a conditional relationship, rather the contrary is seen.  Each tribe wants to give the same to the Lord just as the Lord wants to receive  from each tribe the same.

I wish there were more redundancy in our world, where each person cares for the Lord and cares for each other in the same way.  Instead, it seems like there is a competition to build up our own resources to the detriment of those around us.  Moses’ relationship with God is still “face to face”.  What a rush it must have been to know that their leader had a relationship with God where he actually gets to hear his voice audibly.  

There are two topics that we need  to discuss today.  One is the Nazirene and what that means and who was a Nazarene in Biblical history.  The second is the priestly blessing which is incredibly powerful.  In the Bible we see that Samson the judge was a Nazirite.  This is why he had long hair and was required to abstain from alcohol.  Those were two of the commandments that they had to follow: no hair cutting, no drinking alcohol, and they had to keep themselves ritually pure which meant not getting close to any dead bodies.  The term means technically: “set apart”.  A Nazirite was someone who was set apart to do the will of God.  There was also Samuel who was  Nazirene and was set apart from birth and grew up to be a very powerful and important high priest.  

There is some debate as to whether John the Baptist or Jesus or Paul were Nazirites.  I would say no, Jesus was called someone who didn’t hesitate to drink alcohol.  There are other reasons.  But each of them, and each of us as we think about it, are called to be “set apart” for the work of the Lord.  Each one of us is called to make a vow of obedience to the Lord.  How that vow is lived out depends primarily on each one of us.  Some of us may choose not to drink alcohol, some of us may choose to not cut our hair, some of us may choose to maintain ritual purity.  But we do not, in the New Covenant under Jesus, have a specific path we have to follow in order to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.  Just love him and have a personal relationship with him.  How that plays out in our lives will be different for each person.

We can’t miss the very powerful Priestly benediction which we find in vs.24-26.  Some pastors only use these verses when they give their benedictions.  I love it and it has power because of its antiquity and because of its authenticity.  Let me leave you with it today:

The Lord Bless you and keep you

The Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you

The Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace

We begin to get into areas that are skewed in proportion to what is expected of women and what is expected of men.  The chapter begins innocently enough with the command to ensure  that anyone who is unclean because of a discharge or been in contact with the dead should be put out of the camp.  We do not know for how long, but just that they have to be put out of the camp.  This all makes sense just because the way that diseases spread back then was definitely a result of bacteria and those who are “unclean” coming into contact with people.  There really was no ability to disinfect anything.

The next section deals with restitution which again is innocuous and deals with paying back a person who has been wronged, not only what is due him, but a small percentage more.  That all makes sense.

 But then we get to the part about an unfaithful wife.  But as you read it, it not only covers an unfaithful wife but also a jealous husband whose wife has been faithful.  Keep in mind that there is no, at least at this point, law that speaks about the infidelity of a man, especially if the woman with whom he is unfaithful is unmarried.  Then it seems like nothing matters.  All of the emphasis is on a married woman who is either unfaithful or is subjected to a jealous husband.  In order to discern if a wife has been unfaithful or not the church, or the priests of God, are signed up to give a toxic chemical to the woman.  If she bleeds out and dies then she was guilty, if she survives, then she is innocent.  It does sound a lot like this scene in Monty Python.