Deuteronomy 5+6 The big commandments

Deuteronomy 5

Here we have a retelling of the 10 commandments we had in Exodus 20.
Moses points out that this covenant was not given generations ago, but they themselves were there.

Lets just check they are the same now-
Commandment 1 You shall have no other god before me - is the same in exodus
Commandment 2 You shall not make idols or worship other "gods" - is the same in exodus
Commandment 3 Do not misuse God's name - is the same in exodus
Commandment 4 Observe the Sabbath - exodus says remember the Sabbath but it is the same
Commandment 5 Honour your parents - exodus is the same
Commandment 6 Do not murder - exodus is the same
Commandment 7 Do not commit adultery - exodus is the same
Commandment 8 Do not steak - exodus is the same
Commandment 9 Do not give false testimony - exodus is the same
Commandment 10 Do not covet your neighbours belongings - exodus is the same

At least these have not changed!
Of the laws that are enforceable in a court of law today only commandment 5 could be challenged and then only with evidence that the parents are harming the child.

Deuteronomy 6

This chapter is entitled Love the Lord your God in my Bible - it is not enforceable by any government it is based on attitude.
When Jesus is tempted in the wilderness he quotes 3 verses of scripture at Satan - 2 of them are from this chapter and the third is only 2 chapters away in chapter 8.

The prime commandment is in verse 4 "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your strength."
The israelites are encouraged to keep reminders of the law of God everywhere and Orthodox and observant Jews will still do this and carry a copy of the law in a box tied to their head, strapped to their wrist, written on their doorposts and gates. They are encouraged to talk about them in conversation.

being tempted in the wilderness, Jesus is offered all the kingdoms of earth if he will worship Satan - Jesus responds with verse 13 
When Jesus is challenged to throw himself from a high place because Angels would catch him, he responds with verse 16

The big challenge for the fledgeling nation of Israel will be remembering and following the law of God when they are living in cities they did not build, eating fruit from trees they did not plant and drinking water from wells they did not dig - it is important not to forget the hard times when times are good.

Deuteronomy 4 Introducing the Law

Deuteronomy 4

This is a long chapter - Moses gets down to the main bits of what he wants to leave wit the people of Israel, the one thing that sets them apart from all other nations, the law of God.

The law is not to be taken away from, but neither is it to be added to.
The Law is to be taught to children and Grandchildren and the Israelite people will have a reputation of being wise and understanding and alone in that the God of Israel hears prayers and answers them - which is more than can be said of the god of others.
Moses reminds the nation that they heard the law with their own ears at Mount Sinai and though they knew God was with them , they never saw any form to God, because of this they are not to distract themselves with images and idols
Moses threatens that if Israel degenerates into worshipping idols or the stars or celestial bodies that they will become corrupt and will be driven out of the land

for some reason the chapter breaks and mentions that Moses sets up 3 cities of refuge in the lands occupied by Israel to the East of the river Jordan

The main thing for me in this chapter is that God is described in verse 24 as "A consuming fire, a jealous God"

What on earth does this mean? Do you know i am not sure, but it sounds dramatic doesn't it?

Perhaps God is Jealous in his love for his people and anything that separates them from him?
What about a consuming fire? Fire can be devastating, and the aftermath of a wild fire can be extreme, but what remains afterwards is more fertile and free for things to grow that would otherwise not stand a chance.

Another thought is that heat is vital in a lot of engineering - metal is extracted from ores by application of heat, refining metals is usually done by heating them and allowing the impurities to come to the surface.
Even something as basic as welding 2 pieces of metal toghether   actually consumes some of the metal - what actually happens on a molecular level is that the metals melt and flow into each other and on a molecular level the different pieces of metal are the same at the weld.

Perhaps a jealous God whose laws and statutes make me more pure is the kind of God I want to worship after all.

Deuteronomy 1-3 Moses Last words

Deuteronomy 1

Deuteronomy 1 describes itself as Moses final address - his last words, so to speak, however they seem to go on for quite some time!!

Moses starts by reminding the Israelites what bought them to their current position - they started getting to inhabited lands, appointed tribal leaders to share Moses load, sent spies to check out the promised land, and then decided to doubt God's promise.
They are now 40 years later and a new generation is due to enter the land that their parents did not believe God would give them,.

Deuteronomy 2

Moses recalls the wandering in the wilderness and the defeat of the first king that marched out to attack Israel.

Deuteronomy 3

Moses recalls the defeat of other attacking kings, giving tribal land East of the River Jordan to the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and hafl of the half tribe Manesseh (Joseoh's son)

Moses also says that he will die on this side of the Jordan and he will not set foot in the promised land.

It seems to me that Moses last words are going to take a while here - I hope you are sitting comfortably!

Numbers 35 & 36 Sanctuary and Inheritance

Numbers 35

The tribe of Levi (Moses relatives) are not given a plot of land with the other tribes because the Levites have been set apart to care for the tabernacle, and the priests are taken from their tribe.
Instead they are given a number of towns and cities from within the other tribes - each city with about a square kilomtetre of land surrounding it.

Among the towns given to the Levites are to be cities of sanctuary or refuge. The idea of a city of refuge is that somebody who, in innocence, accidentally kills another person. The vengeful relatives are not allowed to kill a person in a city of refuge.
If the killing is not accidental or there was a weapon involved the city of refuge leaders are to execute the murderer.

Interestingly this chapter forbids the practise of paying a ransom to pardon a murderer.

Numbers 36

Do you remember Zelophehad? I did not think you did - he appeared a few chapters ago, or at least his daughters did.

His daughters get their inheritance in this chapter, but there is a catch - they must marry within their tribe to avoid another tribe inheriting their land in the future, I guess the idea of this is that the land inheritance is fixed for all time and future squabbles are avoided.

This is the end of book 4 - next time we are into Deuteronomy.

Numbers 32 - 34 Settling down, journeys and boundaries

Numbers 32

Having invaded and dispossessed the locals two and a half tribes of Israel decide that they want to stay and live in the land they have already taken rather than in the promised land.

Moses is not impressed but they promise that the tribes taking this land will march at the head of the army to held their relatives to take the promised land.

Numbers 33

Describes a 40 year journey. Very few of these places have been located archaeologically,

  Numbers 34

Read this with an atlas - it describes the boundaries of the promised land.
There is also a list of the 12 tribal leaders at this time

Numbers 30 Promises, promises

Numbers 30 

In most things under law a woman has the same rights and duties as a man, and this chapter just does not ring right to me.

If I make a promise to God it is fully and legally binding according to this chapter and if I fail to fulfil this it is on my head.

If a legally responsible woman (such as a widow of divorcee) makes a vow it is legally binding too.

However, and this is the tricky bit if a daughter living at home makes a vow or a wife living with her husband makes a vow, her husband or father can say that he does not approve and agree and the vow is then not binding. However he has to object immediately - if he takes time to think then the lack of immediate response is taken that he accepts and the vow is binding, should he change his mind later, he will bear the responsibility of upsetting God by preventing his wife or daughter fulfilling her vow.

Part of me says - that is patronising and making women second class citizens, but then another part of me thinks nice one ladies, you can promise God things and if dad or husband objects it is not your problem or your fault.

I wonder if this law takes effect in the wedding service? For example could the husband say that he does not agree to his wife promising to obey him?

Numbers 31 

This chapter makes really uncomfortable reading - God calls on Moses to take vengeance on the Midianites, who have been responsible for tricking Israel into abandoning God.
This act of what would be called Genocide today took place and 12,000 Israelites including their kings.
Balaam has apparently not departed far enough - having blessed Israel when Balak had paid him to curse them, he is killed in the action, which is a shame I would have liked him to disappear into the mists of history proclaiming disasters. But there you go.

Moses hits the roof when he finds that the army only killed the men basically saying that it was the women who drew Israel aside from God's laws.
Moses insists that the boys and married women are to be executed and the young girls can be kept.

To me this is pretty gruesome, and in these days it is very barbaric, but certainly Rome and barbarian hordes did similar things and worse, there are some gruesome reminders of this - there is a fort in Israel today called Masada where the Jewish defenders eventually killed themselves rather than surrender to the Romans.
Closer to home, in the city of York in 1190 400 Jews chose suicide in Cliffords tower rather than a mob of anti-semitic locals.

After this - the soldiers are deemed unclean and any plunder that they took has to be ritually purified.
The plunder was split 50:50 between the community of Israel and the fighting men, with a portion for God of everything 1 in 500 from the army share and 1 in 50 from the civilian share.

I'm not going to describe the plunder, you can read about it for yourself,  but there is one more interesting thing, The officers having done a roll call found nobody had died and the officers donate their share of the gold to God as an atonement gift, the gold weighed the best part of 190 kg which is quite a bit.

I don't want to gloss over the brutality in this chapter - it is awful, but no worse than other civilisations before and after, and while I try and make excuses, I do find this very difficult from the vantage point of the 21st century 

I don't think that the entire Midianite civilisation was destroyed - I seem to recall they turn up again later....We shall have to wait and see.

  

Numbers 28 & 29 High days and Holidays

Leviticus 29 & 30

Describing the pattern of the religious observations, there is a prescribed service every morning and evening.
Every week there is another service on the sabbath.
At the start of each month there is another service. The Hebrew calender is based on the lunar cycle so this I think coincides with the new moon.

There are then the annual celebrations that we have already seen in Leviticus, namely Passover, weeks, trumpets, day of atonment and festival of tabernacles.

Each of these has their own service and sacrifice rituals.

The idea of animal sacrifice seems a bit barbaric to modern eyes. and in total 1051 lambs, 102 bulls, 24 goats and 31 rams are sacrificed on the alter every year.(that is a western year not a Jewish year) 
Though since the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in about AD80 there have been no official Jewish animal sacrifices.

By the way, as a meat eater, I really cannot take any moral high ground on this, however barbaric it may seem after all the majority of the sacrificed animals were actually eaten.

I will say that these animal sacrifices are pretty humane compared to a lot of the extremely unpleasant "sports" that used to be very popular but thankfully are now illegal including cock fighting, dog fighting, hare coursing, badger baiting, bear baiting, fox hunting etc.  

Post 100 - And now for something completely different

I don't know if you have been counting the number of these blog posts - Google has for me which is really nice of them, that is how I know this is the 100th post!

I thought this is a good time to stop and re-evaluate what I am doing and why.

I feel that there has been a lot of really quite unremarkable stuff in the journey to date - 7 chapters of Leviticus on how to burn things probably being the worst.

However lets look at some of the things we have read
Carl Sagan once said "To make an apple pie from scratch, one must first invent the universe" and we have seen in the poetic language of Genesis the creation of the universe, planet and the emergence of life.
These days there are fantastic programmes exploring the universe with Professor Brian Cox and the myriad forms of life with David Attenborough for us Brits and the aforementioned Carl Sagan in the USA.

Really, for me at least, the true scientist just stands there and looks at the universe and then puts his or her efforts into understanding just one small part of the puzzle.
Professor Tom McLeish once said (probably more than once to be honest but once in my hearing) that "Natural Philosophy" Which translates from the Greek as the "love of knowledge of nature" is better in some ways than "Science" which translates ore or less as "to know"

Anyway we followed Adam and Eve as they left paradise, we briefly explored the colossal Noah's Ark, watched Noah drink himself unconscious and see our very own rainbows, we saw the building of the first high rise run into difficulty when language barriers were erected
We then followed Abraham as he adventures around, paid a visit to Sodom and births of Isaac, How Isaac found his wife and we then see his soms.
We saw Jacob running away and his adventures with sheep, wives and father in law before re-uniting with his brother,
We saw Joseph sold into slavery and his amazing technicolor dreamcoat, dreams and portents, feast and famine and family reunions.

In Exodus we watched Moses born, become a killer, shepherd and leader and liberator of Israel.
We watched the suffering of the Egyptians wondering why this could happen.
We saw the red sea pedestrians crossing and heard the ten commandments.
We saw the complaints of the community in difficult states and saw the fabrication of the tabernacle and the alter.
We have seen Israel wander the wilderness and spy out the promised land then panic about taking hold of the promise.
Just the other day we saw Balaams talking donkey (I still reckon it sounded like Eddie Murphy from Shrek).

Not to mention all those regulations - I think we may even have found answers to the questions in the Open Letter to Dr Schlessenger and I'll try and formulate the reply once we have finished the section of the Bible that is known as the Law.

In the meantime, I hope that you have found some new things in the Bible so far, thank you for reading.

Mark
Nov 21st 2013

Numbers 26 Inheritance

Numbers 26

A guy called Zelophehad had dies without any sons, and his daughters (one of whom is called Noah by the way which I am pretty sure was a boys name last time we came across it in Genesis) asking if their family name should be lost as there are no male heirs.

Moses and Eleazar the priest say "good question" and ask God.

God's response is that if a man has no sons, his estate goes to his daughter, then if he has no daughters, brothers then uncles then some more distant relation.

Strangely enough - parents and wives don't seem to be in line to inherit - which is a bit odd to me.

The next person to inherit is Joshua Son of Nun, not A Nun, apparently his father really was called Nun - I think that Zelophehad probably might have died of vexation trying to spell his name right!

Due to Moses striking the rock in chapter 20 of numbers he will not enter the promised land, but he does not want the Israelites not to have a leader, so God tells Joshua that the job is his, whether he wants it or not. After all Moses interview technique showed just how keen HE was for the job back in Exodus "Can't somebody else do it?"

Numbers 25 & 26 Mixed marriage

Numbers 25

A common theme so far is that people will be people and they often forget or ignore the law of God.

In this chapter Israelites are being seduced by the local Moabites and give up following God and start following the god of the Moabites.
God is not impressed and sends a plague, which only ends when a man bringing a Moabite woman to his tend is spotted and executed.

I think God's beef in this chapter is more to do with living a moral and God fearing life than about falling in love - I guess it is possible the Israelites were probably falling in lust rather than love?

Numbers 26 is another census after the plague and is (to my view) quite boring!

Leviticus 23 & 24 More than he bargained for

Leviticus 23+24

Balaam finally meets up with Balak.
Balaam asks for 7 alters with 7 oxen and 7 rams for sacrifices.
Balaam then goes up to a high place where he can see the Israelites. 

He then goes back to Balak with a blessing for Israel 
This does not impress Balak, but he decides to try again at a different place.
He then does the same again and blesses Israel 

Balak then tells Balaam to stay silent if he is not going to curse Israel - you can hear the exasperation building a bit.

Balak then (rather foolishly if you ask me) asks Balaam to try again.
Again Balaam blesses Israel, at which point Balak goes crazy - he will now not pay Balaam what he promised and basically tells Balaam to go home without pay.

Balaam then tells Balak that his own country is basically doomed, on his way home he tells the same to the Amelekites, Kenites, Ashur, and Eber.

Numbers 21 & 22 Opposition and talking donkeys

Numbers 20

Israel seems to be getting close to inhabited areas and it is worrying the locals. The king of Arad attacked the Israelites and took captives. Israel flattens the cities in his realm and kills everybody there.
This seems like over reaction, but that is from a 21st century perspective - even then there are those who would do the same today.

I've lost count of how many times the Israelites grumble about their lot. In this case God sends a plague of snakes. When the Israelites work out that they managed to upset God again Moses makes a bronze replica of the snake which he sets on a tall pole, anybody bitten could get relief by simply looking at the bronze snake.

This, I believe, is the origin of the medical symbol that is used to this day.

The Israelites carry on their journey toward Moab, as they travel they come across 2 kings of Sihon and Og, 
Sihon is of the Amonite tribes (A son of Lot, Abraham's nephew. Israel offers to travel peaceably through his land keeping to the highway - Sihon marched out and attacked Israel, he lost.
Og also marched out and was also destroyed.

Israel takes possession of these lands.

Numbers 21

This is one of the best stories in the Pentateuch (first 5 books of the Bible)  Having seen what Israel did to Sihon and Og, king Balak of Moab gets some help from a guy called Balaam who actually came from somewhere close to where Abraham started from.
Balaam seems to have a gift for blessing and cursing, so Balak asks Balaam to curse Israel.
God tells Balaam not to go when summoned, so Balak sends some more impressive messengers.
Balak tells Balaam that money is no object, and Balaam agrees to go in the end.

On the way an angel blocks the road with a sword in his hand - Balaam cannot see the angel but his donkey does and the creature turned off the road into a field.
Balaam beat the animal back to the road.

A second time the angel blocks the road close to a walled vinyard, the donkey scraped Balaams leg on the wall trying to get past.
Third time, the Angel picks a spot where the donkey cannot go around - so it lies down and is again beaten.

Next moment the donkey starts to argue with Balaam -  demanding Why did you beat me? 
Balaam answers that he has been embarrassed by the donkey and if his staff was a sword there would be no more trouble.

The donkey asks, based on their long relationship if he is in the habbit of doing this, and Balaam has to admit that he does not.

At this moment Balaam is able to see the angel, who tells Balaam that his talking donkey has just saved his life - I hope Balaam's ass didn;t sound like Eddie Murphy who played Donkey in the Shrek movies!
Now read the story and try not to hear Eddie Murphy's voice!!

Balaam carries on and warns Balak that he cannot curse Israel unless God tells him it is ok.

Numbers 19 &20 Water

Numbers 19

This chapter describes the use and manufacture of the water of cleansing.

If anybody becomes ritually unclean through touching a dead body they have to be sprinkled with the water of cleansing on the third and seventh day otherwise they will never become ritually clean.

The water of cleansing is made by taking a red heifer and killing it outside camp, the priest will sprinkle some of the blood towards the tent of meeting. The heifer will then be burned completely, while burning thehave to throw some scarlet wool, hyssop branches and cedar wood onto the burning cow.

The priest, and the man who does the burning must bathe and wash their clothes and are unclean until night.
A ceremonially clean man has then to gather up the ashes - he then has to bathe and wash his clothes - he is then unclean until evening.

The ashes are kept and sprinkled on water and then the water is used for cleansing.

How this work is a total mystery to me and this just makes me go "Huh?"

Numbers 20

Moses Sister, Miriam dies at the start of this chapter.

The Israelite community seems to have the shortest communal memory as the Israelites start complaining that they were better off doing forced labour in Egypt, at least they had water there.

God tells Moses to shout at the rock and water will flow out.
In the end, Moses temper gets the better of him and he strikes the rock with his staff, and water flows out.

God's response to this is that Moses did not honour God and follow his instuctions therefore he will not lead Israel into the promised land - Given that Moses is well into his 80's, if not older, perhaps this is not too much a surprise.

The ancestor of Edom was a relative of Jacob, so when Israel comes out of Egypt they ask permission to cross the land .

Permission is refused outright. 

Israel says that they will pay for anything eaten or drunk and stay on the main road.
Edom basically says that this would be a declaration of war and they would attack.
Israel backs down and goes another way rather than provoke war.

This is not a good chapter for poor Moses, his sister dies at the beginning and now his brother dies at the end.
The method of Aaron's death is a bit odd, Moses, aaron and Eleazar (Aaron's son) climb up to the top of Mount Hor. Moses removes Aaron's priestly clothes and dresses Eleazar in them. Aaron then dies at the top of the mountain. Not much of a shock there - an old man climbing a mountain and then stripping off?  if the climb did not finish him off, well I mean, what the heck??

Numbers 17 & 18 You can't get the staff

Numbers 17

God tells the Israelites to bring one staff from each tribe and leave it in the Tabernacle.
The Man God has chosen staff will sprout leaves. This will put an end to all the grumbling.

In the Morning Aaron's staff has not just sprouted, but flowered and produced a crop of almonds.

Somehow I think that God is just showing off to prove a point!

Numbers 18

The Levites are given responsibility for care and maintenance of the tent of meeting and everything apart from the most holy items - these have to be looked after by the priests only.

In return for this the community will support the Levites and priests, they are entitled to a portion of all the sacrifices offered by the community.

The chapter goes on about this for quite some time but I really cannot be bothered to go into the same level of detail!

Numbers15 and 16 Offerings and more trouble

Numbers 15

This is another chapter of religious rules that are really not applicable these days,

There are a couple of slightly uncomfortable items in the chapter - a guy gets executed for working on the Sabbath (collecting wood)

The chapter recommends, or insists, that people should put tassels on their clothes to remind them of the laws.
I guess it is a bit like tying a knot in a handkerchief.

Numbers 16

This is a lot more interesting- Three guys oppose Moses and Aaron, Korah, Dathan and Abiram, their argument is that the whole community is Holy to God and Moses and Aaron have set themselves up as more holy 

Moses tells Korah, Dathan and Abiram to bring incense at the Tabernacle and let God Choose. 
They point blank refuse to turn up - Moses has taken them out of the land flowing with milk and honey into the wilderness and now is giving them orders.

Moses asks God not to accept their offerings and insists that they bring incense.

Moses then tells the community to move away from the tents of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, then suggests that if they die of natural causes that God has not chosen Moses and Aaron.

Suddenly the ground opens up beneath the tents of Korah, Dathan and Abiram and swallows up their entire families and that is the end of that particular argument.

Personally I think it is a bit harsh that the whole family should die for the sins of the head of the family.

Numbers 14 Promises deferred

Numbers 14

Never ones to let a good opportunity to complain pass, the Israelites blame Moses and Aaron for the fact that the land is not empty with people who are going to roll over and move out of the way .

The thing that really winds God up is that they decide to fins a new leader and head back to Egypt.

Only Joshua and Caleb among the spies give any encouragement, they say that God will lead the people into the land and give them possession leaving the current inhabitants without protection.

This does little to encourage the people, who start talking about stoning Moses and anybody who supports him.

God again tells Moses that he will wipe out the Israelites and make a great nation out of Moses descendants. Moses (not for the first time) pleads with God that it would look bad to the Egyptians that God would not be able to 

God forgives the Israelites but will not give this generation that grumbled access to the promised land, they will wander in the wilderness until every person over the age of 20 at the time of the census will die (Apart from Joshua and Caleb) before they enter the promised land.

The spies all die of a mysterious illness, apart from Caleb and Joshua.

The Israelites decide that they have made a bit of a mistake by refusing to enter the land and decide to enter anyway after God told them that he would not give them the land - some of them attempt an invasion but are easily repulsed by the locals

. 

Numbers 13 What to bring back from a land of milk and honey

Numbers 13

Moses sends out 12 spies to reconnoitre the promised land.
Their remit is to discover what the land is like, what the inhabitants are like, do they have large fortified cities or do they live in towns? 
They are requested to bring back something of the land to demonstrate what the land is like.

I think the next bit is funny - the spies return to camp carrying a massive bunch of grapes and tell the people The land is flowing with milk and honey and just to demonstrate here are some grapes.

Well I think it is funny.

The downside of the report is that the spies say that the land is really good, but the inhabitants are in massive heavily fortified towns, there are different hostile tribes living in the region and some of them seem totally impregnable.

Only Caleb (who shares a name with a fellow student at university who was on Christian union committee with me) advocates going in and taking the land they have been promised.

The other  spies say if the Israelites try and take the land they would be squashed like grasshoppers.

There are some interesting points on this exploration - the Israelite army is over 600,000 strong, an army that size must have surely been a match for a fortified city.
Something is telling that the inhabitants live in fortified cities - nobody will build fortifications that are not necessary either for actual defence or for symbolic defence 
It seems to me that strong defences actually show up that the people fear attack and don't actually have a strong enough force to repel invaders outright - they have to have a strong hold to fall back to. These people may not be secure in the land.

Numbers 11 & 12 Fire, quail and family trouble

Numbers 11

The Israelites reach a place that they call Taberah where their grumblings wind God up so much that fire strikes the camp outskirts. The people come to Moses and ask him to say sorry to God on their behalf.

Next moment the rabble are asking for meat, a diet of manna and whatever animals they have is beginning to pall and they remember the food back in Egypt.
Moses, probably fed up to the back teeth decides to have a whinge at God. 
God tells Moses that he will give him 70 assistants, God will take some of his spirit from Moses and give it to these people.

It seems that 2 of the chosen leaders did not turn up at the tabernacle and they got a dose of God's spirit in their normal occupation. Joshua is not impressed, but Moses actually would have been happy if God's spirit would rest on everybody as it would save him a lot of grief!

God then gives meat to over 600,000 people, and not for a day but for a whole month in the form of a massive flock of quail.
Some people started to gorge on the meat and were struck down by plague
They called the place "Graves of Craving".

Number 12

Not only does Moses have to put up with his older brother and sister, 
I love that a moment is taken here to mention that Moses is extremely humble.

At once God decides to settle matters, and summons Moses, Aaron and Miriam to the tent of meeting.
God tells them that with a prophet he speaks in dreams and visions, but Moses and God speak face to face, clearly and not in riddles.

When God's cloud retreats Miriam has a skin condition that makes her unclean.
Aaron's response is to show respect to Moses and to ask him to forgive their rebellion.

Moses prays to God to heal his sister and God tells him that she must remain outside of camp for 7 days - which would have been the same fate if her father had spat in her face!

The Israelites stay in camp until Miriam is allowed back in.

I guess from these chapters there is a real picture of Moses character - he gets frustrated and will argue with God, but he is also one one to hold a grudge even when his siblings are being unreasonable.

Milestone reached

Dear everyone who has read this guide so far, today I passed a milestone of 1000 page views.

Thank you so much for reading and I hope you found something useful.

Please feel free to share with people who may be interested and please feel free to comment if you would like to.

Thanks again,
Mark

Numbers 9&10 Passover Trumpets

Numbers 9

It appears to be about a year since the Israelites left Egypt and they are to hold their second passover.

The Passover is spoiled for some people as they are ritually uncleaase they have come into contact with a dead body.

An allowance is made for people who cannot celebrate the passover, they can celebrate a month later.
Foreigners are allowed to join in but have to be treated the same as a native born Israelite. 

When the Tabernacle is set up, God''s presence settled like a cloud over it - at night it looked like fire.
when the cloud or fire settled the Israelites made camp, when it moved they followed it.
Sometimes it would stay a few days, sometimes a year, sometimes only overnight.

Numbers 10

Moses is commanded to make 2 silver trumpets - forget your modern trumpet, valves were not invented until the 18th century.
Which reminds me of a quote by one of the funniest priests ever to be in the Church of England, Sydney Smith, who once remarked "his idea of heaven was eating frois gras to the sound of trumpets" One wonders.......

When both trumpets sound the whole community is to assemble, if only one the leaders are to assemble.
Whoever is playing the trumpets had a different signal - the trumpets were also used to signal the camp moving out with subsequent signals for the next group to start moving etc.

These trumpets are to be sounded when going to war with an enemy and for regular religious festivals (live the one every new moon) 

At this point the Israelites leave Sinai and move on with the 12 tribes setting out in turn with the Levites in the middle

Moses persuades his brother in law to come with them and every time the Ark of the covenant set out or stopped Moses would pray. 

Numbers 7 and 8 Lists and Levites

Numbers 7

I could shorten this chapter down to about 8% by simply saying things once!

Numbers 8

The tabernacle appears to have been set up, and the lamps lit.

Setting apart the Levites they all have to do a full body shave, wash their clothes and they offer 2 bulls as a sacrifice and the Levites are presented before God - the version of the Bible I am using today says they are offered as a wave offering - which sounds kind of interesting!


sorry not much exciting today!

Numbers 5+6 Shave and a Haircut?

Numbers 5 

Anybody who has leprosy, or who is ceremonially unclean for whatever reason is not allowed to live in camp they have to stay outside. There are a number of things that make one ceremonially unclean so I guess there are quite a lot of people outside at any one time

I'm not sure how it would work in practise but anybody who wrongs another person must make restitution of what was wrong plus 20%, it is good in theory.

The test for an unfaithful wife - this is outrageous! A husband can suspect that his wife is unfaithful (with or without cause), take her to the priest with a jealousy offering.
The priest then  takes some water, with floor dust, loosens the wife's hair  and make her swear that she has not been unfaithful.
He then writes a curse on a scroll and wash them off with the water/dust and makes the woman drink it.

If she is guilty she will miscarry children and get fat (or swelling in her abdomen). If she is not, nothing will happen.

There is absolutely no come back on the husband if she is innocent, nor is there any reverse test for an unfaithful husband.

I find this completely inexplicable - in pretty much the rest of the legal system in the bible there is requirements for evidence and witnesses and men and women are equal under the law.

Numbers 6 

The title of this post is taken from this chapter which covers a really odd kind of vow people used to make - the vow of the Nazirite .
During the period of the vow a nazirite may not cut his/her hair, shave (probably more of an issue for men) or drink wine, grape juice  eat grapes, or anything related to grape.
Nor are they allowed to touch a dead body - if they happen to be unlucky and somebody dies in their presence they have to start again.

I am not quite sure what kind of person usually took a nazirite vow, there are only 2 nazirites mentioned in the Bible, to save you wondering they are Samson and John the Baptist. Both of whom were special in that their parents took the Nazirite vow on their behalf and they were Nazirite from Birth all thier lives.

Numbers 6 ends with the priestly blessing,
I think that this blessing is awesome, it is so simple in just 32 words it says a lot.

May the LORD bless you and keep you:
May the LORD make his face shine on you and be gracious to you;
The LORD turn his face towards you and give you peace.

I'm not a priest but God bless you.

Number 3 & 4 Priests and helpers

Numbers 3

Moses and Aaron are descendents of Levi, and God chooses the whole of their clan or extended family to supply priests and the caretakers of all that is holy.

They take a count of all the Levites aged from 1 month old, and there are 22,000.
The census taken last time found that 22,373 first born sons in the rest of the tribes and the remaining 373 first born sons have to be redeemed for 5 shekels each

Numbers 4

There are 3 subclans in the tribe of Levi - Korathites (who are Moses and Aarons family) - these guys look after all of the most holy items.

Gershonites - These guys get to move and look after all the soft areas of the tabernacle - including all the curtains and covers 

Merarites - these guys get to move and look after all the hardware - poles, posts, pegs, bases, pegs, ropes etc 

In total there are 8580 able bodied people aged from 30 to 50 who are able to help look after the tabernacle and all the furnishings 

I'm bit quite sure that there is actually anything particularly interesting in Numbers so far, only from an academic historical viewpoint.

Numbers 1&2 Census and camping arrangements

Numbers 1 

The events of this chapter happen about 6 weeks after the Israelites had left Egypt. They had crossed the red sea and escaped the Egyptian elite armed forces.

This census covers only men over the age of 20 and able to serve in the army. There is one person from every tribe chosen to assist

In total the Israelites had 603,550 men  of military age. I can imagine that there are probably well over a million people wandering around in the desert.

It is interesting that the Levites are not counted - Moses family and their tribe are set apart to serve God and take care of the holy items - this makes them ineligible for front line military service.

Numbers 2 

I Imagine that moving around such a large number of people would probably be a logistical nightmare, in chapter 2 it explains that each of the different tribes would form camp in a square with the Levites and the tabernacle in the centre of the square.

Some sceptics will point out that after extensive archaeological investigations no trace has been found of the wanderings of Israel or identify any place that is described in the Bible.

I quite like archaeology programs like Time team, they would find a piece of what appears to be mud, but declare that it is part of a pot made in a certain place and at a certain time and they would then CGI in what the pot would have looked like new - my parents would usually exclaim "How can they tell?!" 

For me it is that experience  and expertise allow this type of identification and it is actually quite scientific.

But what really intrigues me is the dark ages and pre-historic excavations there the evidence for habitation can be seen at best as a circle of earth that is slightly darker than the surrounding earth that shows a post once was in the hole - and that is literally it for a building that would have been quite grand when built and may have stood for generations.

Or perhaps they have a chipped piece of stone that would get Professor Phil Harding (If you never saw time team and without being disrespectful he looks like a bit of a scruff with long straggly hair and a rather greasy hat but great knowledge and enthusiasm capped off with a wonderful west country accent) all excited, but these tend to have been found in conditions that have preserved them.- and this is for a site that is perhaps half the age of the exodus.

Really pottery is not something I can imagine that wandering people would really have a large amount of - it is fragile, quite heavy and much harder to repair or replace than other materials, and tents tend not leave obvious marks after a while.    

It is sometimes quite dangerous to say there is no evidence for something so it cannot be true too often evidence will show up - the best thing that can be said is that we have no evidence at present and we cannot prove it happened.

Leviticus 26+27 Rewards

Leviticus 26

This chapter outlines the benefits of living by God's law - Peace, plenty, rest, amazing military prowess, nobody would attack Israel and the people would be safe in their houses.

The downside of ignoring and not living by gods law seem to go on a lot longer - terror, disease, invasion first, then drought, then dangerous wild animals so bad that roads will be deserted.
At this stage God promises to become hostile! and the sword will pass thorugh, when refuge is taken in cities plague will break out, supplies will be so low that hunger will be a continuous problem.
Things will be so bad that cannibalism will become common .
Eventually they will be dragged from the land and ruled by foreign powers.

However God promises that his hostility will not be permanent and he promises to remember his covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Leviticus ends with a chapter about buying things back from God.

If you promise God something God will allow buy back or equivalent value.- for example if you promise somebody to God the promise can be fulfilled with money, the value is set in this case by age and gender.
There is some discretion here - if somebody cannot afford the full price, the priest may set a lower price the person can afford.

If I may point out another one of the questions to Dr Laura What is a good price if I sell my daughter into slavery? - The Bible does give a price for redeeming a female - 10 Shekels if she is under 20 but over 5. Younger - 3 Shekels, older 30 shekels. Though I will repeat that slavery is illegal and abhorrent, but the guy did ask!

Sacrificial animals cannot be exchanged - when promised they become holy, but if it is unclean it can be bought back.
Priests also get to act as estate agents if you promise your house.

Anything that God has a prior claim to can be bought back (such as the first of the crops and animals)
Also any body who has been sentenced under law - their sentence stands.

Phew - that is the end of Leviticus - there is a lot of stuff here, quite a lot of it seems draconian these days,

Tune in next for Numbers