Chapter By Chapter: Numbers
Moses takes a census of Israel and finds 603,550 men older than twenty and able to fight.
The census proves God has fulfilled His promise to Abraham to multiply his children. This size of army might encourage them to believe God will fulfill His promise to give them Canaan.
2: “Take a census of all the congregation of the people of Israel, by clans, by fathers’ houses, according to the number of names, every male, head by head.””
The arrangement of the tribes around the tabernacle while encamped. The marching order for the tribes when they move.
The camp of Judah has pride of place (the east side of the tabernacle) and is first on the march, prefiguring its later prominence as the tribe of David and of Jesus.
2: “The people of Israel shall camp each by his own standard, with the banners of their fathers’ houses. They shall camp facing the tent of meeting on every side.””
Moses takes a census of the Levites, who were not counted in the first census. Each clan’s areas of responsibility are listed. The Levites take the place of the firstborn of Israel.
The priests camp on the east, guarding the entrance to the tabernacle. Jesus, as high priest, is the only way into God’s presence.
41: “And you shall take the Levites for me—I am the LORD—instead of all the firstborn among the people of Israel, and the cattle of the Levites instead of all the firstborn among the cattle of the people of Israel.”
Moses takes a census of Levites available for duty (the previous census counted all Levites). Each clan’s specific duties are listed.
The elements of the temple are treated with utmost care, because their holiness, and God’s holiness, must not be violated.
3: …from thirty years old up to fifty years old, all who can come on duty, to do the work in the tent of meeting.
Unclean people are expelled from the camp to prepare Israel for the march. Various regulations to prevent uncleanness from re-entering the camp, including perjury and adultery.
For Israel to succeed, God must go with them. For God to go with them, they must purge uncleanness. Today, Jesus has forever taken all the uncleanness on Himself so God can dwell with us.
6: “Speak to the people of Israel, When a man or woman commits any of the sins that people commit by breaking faith with the LORD, and that person realizes his guilt…”
Laws about the Nazirite vow (dedication of laypeople). The blessing of Aaron (“The Lord bless you and keep you…”)
Nazirites, dedicated to God, had stricter standards of cleanness, like priests, and higher sacrifices when those standards were violated to restore relationship with God.
27: “So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.”
The tribes supply the Levites with carts and oxen to transport the tabernacle. Identical offerings for the tabernacle from the chiefs of each tribe, starting with Judah.
The entire nation of Israel is (equally) dedicated to supporting the place for God’s presence and worship and sacrifice. Judah is “first among equals.”
84: This was the dedication offering for the altar on the day when it was anointed, from the chiefs of Israel: twelve silver plates, twelve silver basins, twelve golden dishes…
God instructs Moses to light the lampstand to shine on the shewbread. Moses dedicates the Levites to their service through sacrifice. Levites must retire at age fifty.
The light of the lampstand indicates the constant blessing of God on the twelve tribes of Israel, represented by the shewbread.
6: “Take the Levites from among the people of Israel and cleanse them.”
Israel celebrates their second Passover (first in the wilderness). Unclean people were allowed to celebrate a month later. Israel follows the cloud of the presence of God.
The Passover culminates all of the preparations: the building and dedication of the tabernacle, Aaron and the priests, and the Levites; and the cleansing of the people and the camp.
18: At the command of the LORD the people of Israel set out, and at the command of the LORD they camped. As long as the cloud rested over the tabernacle, they remained in camp.
Moses makes two silver trumpets to choreograph the movement of the tribes. Israel sets out from the camp at Sinai.
God has given Moses the law, and Moses has given it to the people, and all the preparations are complete for the new nation, so at God’s direction, the people finally begin to march toward the Promised Land.
13: They set out for the first time at the command of the LORD by Moses.
Israel complains about their condition. God gives Moses seventy elders to help. God gives the people quail to eat, but they are greedy, so He also sends a plague.
God honors both Israel’s and Moses’s requests for help: He sends quail and elders. But while Moses does as he’s told, the people’s greed is punished.
4: Now the rabble that was among them had a strong craving. And the people of Israel also wept again and said, “Oh that we had meat to eat!”
Aaron and Miriam complain that Moses has unique authority even though God has spoken to both of them. God summons them directly and confirms Moses’s position.
To oppose God’s anointed (Moses) is to oppose God. Moses must have been special for God to speak to him plainly, “not in riddles.”
2: And they said, “Has the LORD indeed spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us also?” And the LORD heard it.
Moses sends spies into Canaan, one from each tribe. They initially give a good report, but they’re afraid of the inhabitants, so all except Caleb recommend not going in.
The spies doubt God’s ability to give them the land. Only Joshua and Caleb trust God, and only they will later escape God’s judgment.
31: Then the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are.”
Israel believes the spies’ bad report and decide to return to Egypt. God tells Moses He will destroy them, but instead, He sets them wandering until all who rebelled are dead.
The spies’ cowardice leads to forty years of wandering. God’s judgment is ironic: all those who refused to go up into the land are doomed never to enter it.
30: “…not one shall come into the land where I swore that I would make you dwell, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun.”
God gives Moses rules for freewill offerings and sin offerings as well as tassels to remember His commandments.
Even though God just swore that only Joshua and Caleb would enter the Promised Land, He still gives commands for living there, because He will still fulfill His promise.
40: “So you shall remember and do all my commandments, and be holy to your God.”
Some elders challenge Moses’s leadership. God opens the earth to swallow their leaders, burns the rest with fire, and sets a plague in the camp of Israel.
The challengers thought they knew better than God and desired a higher station for themselves. Blasphemy, idolatry, greed, and pride; no wonder God was angry.
11: “Therefore it is against the LORD that you and all your company have gathered together. What is Aaron that you grumble against him?”
God affirms his choice of Aaron and his sons as priests by making his staff sprout flowers and almonds.
God does nothing halfway. He consumed the rebels and their leaders and set a plague on the camp, and He still confirms His choices by a further miracle.
10: And the LORD said to Moses, “Put back the staff of Aaron before the testimony, to be kept as a sign for the rebels, that you may make an end of their grumblings against me, lest they die.”
God gives to Aaron and the priests the Levites, the temple offerings, the firstfruits of the land, and the firstborn of the flocks and herds.
God is ordering His inheritance: priests and Levites will live off the offerings of the people and receive no land; “the laborer is worthy of his hire.”
20: And the LORD said to Aaron, “You shall have no inheritance in their land, neither shall you have any portion among them. I am your portion and your inheritance among the people of Israel.”
Rules for the ritual for cleansing from corpses: producing the ash from burning a heifer, then sprinkling and bathing the unclean person.
God is life and cannot abide death; therefore, those in contact with death must be ritually cleansed to remain part of the community of God.
22: “And whatever the unclean person touches shall be unclean, and anyone who touches it shall be unclean until evening.”
Miriam and Aaron, Moses’s siblings, die. Israel regroups after their defeat trying to enter the Promised Land without God. God gives them water from the rock at Meribah, but because Moses struck the rock, he too is barred from the Promised Land. Edom refuses to let Israel through.
Miriam, Aaron, and Moses are excluded from the Promised Land for imperfect obedience, leaving only Caleb and Joshua who remained righteous. As Jacob and Esau were brothers, so Israel and Edom should be brothers, but the tension between Jacob and Esau is reflected in Edom’s refusal.
12: And the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not believe in me, to uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.”
Israel begins to move north. They are attacked by, and defeat, the king of Arad, King Sihon of the Amorites and King Og of Bashan. The people complain again, and God punishes them with poisonous snakes; Moses makes a bronze serpent that cures them.
When Israel attacked after the spies returned, against God’s wishes, they were defeated. But when they defend themselves against these nations, God protects them and they win. Jesus compares His crucifixion that saves the world to Moses’s lifting up the bronze serpent to save Israel.
34: But the LORD said to Moses, “Do not fear him, for I have given him into your hand, and all his people, and his land. And you shall do to him as you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived at Heshbon.”
Balak of the Moabites pays Balaam to curse Israel, but God commands him to speak only what God tells him. God puts an angel in his way, which his donkey sees, but he cannot.
Balaam is a pagan prophet-for-hire paid to curse Israel, but God turns him into an instrument of truth and blessing for His people.
38: Balaam said to Balak, “Behold, I have come to you! Have I now any power of my own to speak anything? The word that God puts in my mouth, that must I speak.”
Balaam sets up two sacrifices and blesses Israel twice, contrary to Balaam’s wishes. The first blessing is to be numerous, but set apart. The second reflects that God has blessed them, so no curse can affect them.
Balak’s attempt to curse Israel turns into Balaam pronouncing God’s blessing over them, confirming his promises to bring them out of Egypt and make them numerous.
19: God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?
Balaam blesses Israel two more times, comparing the Promised Land to the Garden of Eden and prophesying their defeat of the Edomites, the Moabites, the Amalekites, and the Philistines.
Balaam says, “a scepter shall rise out of Israel,” probably referring to King David, who did later defeat those nations Balaam mentions. Prophesies of David frequently also refer to Jesus, who defeated the spiritual enemies of the people of God.
7: Water shall flow from his buckets, and his seed shall be in many waters; his king shall be higher than Agag, and his kingdom shall be exalted.
Israel mixes with Moabites, worshiping their god Baal and marrying their women. God sends a plague among them until Moses, the judges, and the priests kill the idolaters. God praises Phinehas the priest and promises his family a perpetual priestly dynasty.
Just like when Moses was receiving the Ten Commandments at Sinai when Israel built the golden calves, here Balaam was pronouncing blessing over Israel while they began worshipping Baal.
11: “Phinehas the son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, has turned back my wrath from the people of Israel, in that he was jealous with my jealousy among them, so that I did not consume the people of Israel in my jealousy.”
Moses takes a second census of Israel by tribe and by clan to correctly size the inheritances in Canaan (the first census was at Sinai).
While the total number of Israelites is very similar from the first census (Numbers 1) to the second, every person in the first census has died except Moses, Joshua, and Caleb, fulfilling the purpose of the forty years of wandering.
64: But among these there was not one of those listed by Moses and Aaron the priest, who had listed the people of Israel in the wilderness of Sinai.
The daughters of Zelophehad secure themselves an inheritance among the male-led clans. Moses commissions Joshua as his successor, as God commands.
Zelophehad’s daughters’ request changes inheritance in Israel forever so that daughters inherit after sons, but before other male relatives. Joshua, whose name resembles Jesus’s, will lead Israel into the Promised Land.
18: So the LORD said to Moses, “Take Joshua the son of Nun, a man in whom is the Spirit, and lay your hand on him.”
God gives Moses instructions about public offerings made on behalf of the whole nation: each day, each Sabbath, each month, each Passover, and each Feast of Weeks.
The sacrificial system is critical to the daily lives of Israel, keeping them connected to and righteous before God and His laws. Israel cannot possibly supply all these animals without conquering Canaan, so God’s instructions imply God will provide.
2: “Command the people of Israel and say to them, ‘My offering, my food for my food offerings, my pleasing aroma, you shall be careful to offer to me at its appointed time.’”
God continues to give Moses instructions about public offerings made on behalf of the whole nation; this time for the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, and the Feast of Booths.
The sacrificial system is critical to the daily lives of Israel, keeping them connected to and righteous before God and His laws. Israel cannot possibly supply all these animals without conquering Canaan, so God’s instructions imply God will provide.
39: “These you shall offer to the LORD at your appointed feasts, in addition to your vow offerings and your freewill offerings, for your burnt offerings, and for your grain offerings, and for your drink offerings, and for your peace offerings.”
God describes when someone may be released from a vow. For men, widows, and divorcées, never. For women, only if her father (if never married) or husband (if married) objects as soon as he hears of it.
God has promised to give Israel Canaan, and He will be faithful; Israel must likewise be faithful in their promises to God.
2: If a man vows a vow to the LORD, or swears an oath to bind himself by a pledge, he shall not break his word. He shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth.
At God’s command, Israel goes to war against Midian in revenge for their corrupting Israel at Peor. They kill all the men, women, and male children, but take no losses.
Typically women would be spared in war, but since these Midianite women had seduced the men of Israel and led them to worship Baal, God ordered them killed as vengeance.
16: Behold, these, on Balaam’s advice, caused the people of Israel to act treacherously against the LORD in the incident of Peor, and so the plague came among the congregation of the LORD.
The tribes of Reuben and Gad request inheritances east of the Jordan, outside the Promised Land, because it is excellent for cattle grazing. Moses makes them promise to lead the conquest of Canaan before settling down.
Requesting land outside the promise shocked Moses because he thought they were rejecting the promise of God. Only after they offered to lead the army did he accept their request.
5: And they said, “If we have found favor in your sight, let this land be given to your servants for a possession. Do not take us across the Jordan.”
A summary of Israel’s journey from Egypt to Canaan. God warns Israel to drive out the inhabitants of Canaan, not mix with them.
God fulfills His promise to rescue Israel from Egypt and lead them to the Promised Land. In return, they must worship Him alone and not allow themselves to be led astray by other gods and cultures.
1: These are the stages of the people of Israel, when they went out of the land of Egypt by their companies under the leadership of Moses and Aaron.
God gives Moses the boundaries of the Promised Land and appoints chiefs from every tribe to divide the land among the people.
God promised Abraham “the land of Canaan;” here He puts concrete structure to that promise for the first time.
2: “Command the people of Israel, and say to them, When you enter the land of Canaan (this is the land that shall fall to you for an inheritance, the land of Canaan as defined by its borders)…”
God appoints forty-eight cities for the Levites, along with surrounding pastures, because they do not otherwise inherit land. Six of those cities are for refuge for people who commit homicide to receive trials rather than summary judgment.
God continues to make the promised inheritance concrete, with a place and a plan for every one of His people.
2: “Command the people of Israel to give to the Levites some of the inheritance of their possession as cities for them to dwell in. And you shall give to the Levites pasturelands around the cities.”
Moses rules that daughters who own land must marry within their own tribe so that no tribe loses its inheritance over time. Zelophehad’s daughters marry cousins within their tribe.
God promised inheritances to each tribe, and the Year of Jubilee generally ensures those lands remain, but the laws of marriage might have changed that, so this rule returns the guarantee that tribes will not lose their God-given inheritances.
6: “This is what the LORD commands concerning the daughters of Zelophehad: ‘Let them marry whom they think best, only they shall marry within the clan of the tribe of their father.’”