Friday, July 18
Numbers 24: Unlike Balak, Balaam has the situation figured out. He knows that it is hopeless; Israel cannot be cursed. Balaam turns his back, therefore, and stares into the wilderness; he will not look at Israel (verse 1). Even there, however, and apparently in mystic trance (verse 4), he beholds the hosts of the Israelites, and the Holy Spirit of prophecy descends upon him.
This new “parable” (mashal—verse 3), the most solemn hitherto (verses 5-9), invokes the lion symbolism that Jacob had used of Judah (verse 9; Genesis 49:9) and the imagery of the water and trees of Paradise (verse 6; Genesis 2:9-10).
Barak, naturally quite exasperated by now (verse 10), orders Balaam to leave at once (verse 11). The latter, however, after defending himself (verses 12-14), has one more parable “for the road,” as it were, this one not sought by Balak. Indeed, this final prophecy is a multiple parable (mashal—verses 15,20,21,23), a prophecy in parts, in which Balaam announces what Moab and its neighbors may expect of the Israelites in the years to come.
The star rising from Jacob (verse 17) is, of course, the Star of David and refers to the Messianic line of David’s sons. Just as it was the pagan prophet Balaam who first saw this star in mystic vision, it was the pagan sages that beheld its coming with their own eyes (Matthew 2:2,7,9,10).
The Christian interpretation of this star was recognized early:
And that He should rise as a star from the see of Abraham, Moses demonstrated ahead of time when he said, ‘A star shall arise from Jacob, and a leader from Israel’; and another Scripture says, ‘Behold a Man, the East is His name.’ Accordingly, when a star arose in heaven at the time of His birth, as is recorded in the memoirs of the Apostles, the Magi from Arabia, recognizing the sign by this, came and adored Him (Justin Martyr, The Dialogue With Trypho 106).
And again:
Therefore there is one and the same God, who was proclaimed by the prophets and announced by the Gospel; and His Son, who was of the fruit of David’s body, that is, of the Virgin descended from David, and Emmanuel; whose star Balaam also prophesied, ‘A star shall arise out of Jacob, and a leader shall arise in Israel.’ But Matthew says that the Magi, coming from the east, exclaimed, ‘For we have seen His star in the east and are come to adore Him”; and having been led by the star into the house of Jacob, to Emmanuel, they showed by the gifts that they offered Him just whom they were adoring (Irenaeus of Lyons, Against the Heresies 3.9.2).
Saturday, July 19
Numbers 25: After the previous three chapters about Balaam, and especially in view of the latter’s enthusiastic prophecies regarding Israel’s great expectations, we may have anticipated immediate success for the Chosen People.
Alas, however, a serious moral lapse is going to delay even further Israel’s entrance into the Promised Land. More sadly this lapse seems to have befallen the younger people, the very ones who were to replace the generation that perished in the wilderness.
The incident in this chapter took place at Shittim, the Hebrew for “acacia groves,” a wooded area east of the Jordan. It was from there that Joshua would in due time send the spies to investigate the Holy Land (Joshua 2:1).
This moral lapse, following so suddenly on the oracles of Balaam and narrated immediately after his departure, is not related to Balaam in this text, but Balaam is certainly blamed for it a few chapters later: “Look, these women caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to trespass against the Lord in the incident of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the Lord” (21:16). This moral depravity of Balaam is really the only context in which he is remembered in the New Testament (2 Peter 2:5; Revelation 2:14).
Israel’s failing in the present circumstance began as fornication with Moabite women and proceeded to idolatry with Moabite gods (verses 1-2). Indeed, in popular religion in this part of the world, the two were sometimes hard to keep separate.
The Lord’s reaction, to the surprise of no one who had been reflecting on recent events, was not favorable (Verse 3). Since the idol worship and sexual immorality of the Moabites were typical of the atmosphere into which Israel would soon be immersed, it was important that the problem be dealt with decisively.
“Decisively,” in fact, is exactly the adverb we want here. Coming from the Latin de-cido, meaning “to cut off,” it generally refers to the cutting off of discussion.
Sometimes, nonetheless, cutting off discussion is more rapidly reached by cutting off the heads of those who continue the discussion. This was the approach adopted in the present instance (verses 4-5).
The pursuit of righteousness in this matter was exemplified by Phineas, the son of Eleazar and grandson of Aaron. He was certainly a decisive sort of priest, with a pronounced tendency to executive decisions (a word also derived from de-cido, meaning “to cut off” (verses 7-8). Phineas reacted in response the sinful activity of a particularly flagrant nature (verse 6), undertaken by a couple who evidently thought that, because their families were well placed and well connected, they were exempt from the common discipline, the universal moral law, and the authority of the priesthood. Phineas “decided” (also from de-cido, “to cut off”) to clarify the situation for them (verses 14-15).
This reasonable and highly commendable action of Phineas determined that Israel’s priestly succession would pass to and through his own sons (verses 10-13); 1 Chronicles 5:30-34); Psalms 106 [105]:30; Sirach 45:23-26; 1 Maccabees 2:26,54).
Sunday, July 20
Numbers 26: The census at the beginning of this book was taken forty years earlier and counted a population that by now has disappeared. An entire generation has died in the wilderness, replaced by its children, and these already have children, and, doubtless, even grandchildren, of their own. Therefore, it is time for a new census before Israel moves again, this time across the Jordan into the Promised Land. Thus, the narrative of the Book of Numbers lies between two demographic lists.
Moreover, the direct purpose of the present census is to determine the demographic figures necessary for the coming distribution of the Promised Land. It is no accident, therefore, that the census in this chapter is followed by an outline of inheritance laws in the next chapter. Israel is exactly at the point when its existence will soon pass from migratory to sedentary, and it is the proper context for matching needs with resources. This census will indicate the territorial needs of each tribe.
The census complete, the distribution of the Promised Land is to be done by a double method of casting lots and maintaining equity in the distribution. Since there is great disproportion in the size of the inheriting tribes, this process is bound to be both complicated and difficult (verses 52-56).
Comparing the figures in this census with the earlier one in Numbers, we observe that some of the tribes have declined slightly, a thing not surprising in view of the extreme rigors of the desert. For instance, respecting the tribe of Reuben, one may compare the figure in verse 7 with Numbers 1:21. The tribe of Simeon, we note, has diminished by more than half (verse 14; 1:23), a circumstance that may explain why Judah eventually absorbed this tribe. Other tribes have declined as well: Zebulon (verse 27; 1:31), Ephraim (verse 37; 1:33), Naphtali (50:1:43).
Other tribes have actually grown. For instance, the tribe of Judah, eventually the royal tribe and of which we have already discerned an increasing prominence, has grown slightly (verse 22; 1:27), as have Dan (verse 43; 1:39), Issachar (verse 25; 1:29), and Asher (verse 47; 1:41). Even more pronounced is the growth of Benjamin (verse 41; 1:37). Manasseh has almost doubled in size (verse 34; 1:35), a fact that will explain why half of this tribe will settle on the east side of the Jordan.
Unlike the earlier census (1:49), this one does count the Levites, but care is still taken to keep their census separate from that of the other tribes (verse 62; cf. 1:47).
Eventually there will be some discussion about female inheritance in families that produced no male heirs. For this reason, two cases are mentioned in the present chapter (verses 33,46).
Monday, July 21
Numbers 27: This chapter is divided between two subjects, the ordinances governing inheritances in the Promised Land (verses 1-11) and the choice of a successor to replace Moses and lead God’s People to the west side of the Jordan (verses 12-23). Each section begins with a short story.
In the story introducing the first topic, five sisters, the only offspring of a man who had died a natural death in the wilderness, approach Moses and to complain that, if the current laws, limiting the inheritance of real estate, were to obtain, their own father’s memory would be obliterated from Israel’s history (verses 3-4).
The resolution of this problem, by which these five women may obtain the inheritance of their dead father, was not prompted by an impulse to treat men and women equally in the inheritance laws. Had this been the case, their own treatment would not be regarded as an exception. On the contrary, the sole interest governing this decision was the preservation of the memory of these sisters’ father, not a concern for the women themselves. It would be widely off the mark, therefore, to interpret this account as some sort of early version of “women’s rights.”
The resolution of this individual case also provided the context for further legal determinations respecting the inheritance of property. In every instance considered here, the governing principle of inheritance was proximity in consanguinity (verses 8-11). The goal sought in this legislation was to maintain real estate attached to the family. That is to say, the major preoccupation in these rules was to guarantee that a family’s inheritance really meant something concrete. It meant solid, indestructible, landed property.
With regard to the five young ladies that presented the problem in the first place, we know from Joshua 17:3-6 that they really did inherit, in the name of their father, land west of the Jordan. At least two of these women left their names to cities in the Holy Land.
In this chapter’s second story the Lord tells Moses to climb the Abarim Mountains, in order to see the land that he will never enter. These heights, which Mount Nebo, rise on the western slopes of the plateau of Moab (verses 12-14).
In response Moses seeks from the Lord someone to succeed himself (verses 16-17). In implementing the Lord’s choice of Joshua, we may especially observe its reliance on the priesthood of Aaron’s family (verses 19,21,22). Like many successions in the bible, it is transmitted by the laying-on of hands (verses 18,23). Still, this succession is not hereditary but charismatic (verse 20).
Even the successor of Moses, Joshua did not receive the former’s full authority, much less his historical role. Strictly speaking, Moses was irreplaceable.
Tuesday, July 22
Numbers 28: Outside of any logical sequence that we can recognize, there follow two chapters of regulations on the sanctification of time: the day, the week, the month, and the year.
The first rule has to do with the two daily offerings of yearling lambs, one in the morning and the other at evening (verses 3-8; Exodus 29:38-42). These two daily sacrifices, the one to consecrate the passage of light into darkness, and the other to dedicate the passage of darkness into light, were Israel’s minimum requirement of daily sacrificial worship. These times of daily sacrifice became, for all Jews everywhere, special times of prayer each day, known as “the hours of prayer” (cf. Acts 3:1; 10:2-3,30). In this way each day was to be sanctified.
This discipline and custom, detached from the temple sacrifices, passed over into the Christian Church as daily Vespers in the evening and daily Matins (Orthros) in the morning. These times, handed down since the time of the Apostles, have remained as the two daily Canonical Hours in traditional churches of both East and West: Matins and Vespers.
The same discipline was also approved by the Protestant Reformers of the sixteenth century. Martin Luther, for example, provided for daily services in church (a full hour in length for each!), complete with two daily sermons on the Bible, while in England Thomas Cranmer provided the format and content of both services—Morning Prayer and Evensong—in The Book of Common Prayer.
After the two daily sacrifices, the Sacred Text turns next to the sanctification of the week through the observance of the Sabbath (verses 9-10). The details of the daily sacrifice are repeated for this weekly sacrifice, indicating that on the Sabbath the daily sacrifice was simply doubled.
Then comes the sanctification of the month, at the beginning of each new moon. This is time’s next larger unit, and the sacrifice is much larger and more elaborate (verses 11-15).
Next the Sacred Text turns to the sacrifices associated with special feast days, through which the year itself is sanctified through the observance of the annual calendar. The first chief feasts in this cycle are Passover and Unleavened Bread (verses 16-25) and Pentecost (verses 26-31).
In this chapter, then, we observe the original outline of the daily, weekly, and annual services of worship that the Christian calendar inherited from Judaism. We observe that the component not taken over by the Christian Church was the special observance of services for each month. Was this a reluctance born of Colossians 2:16?
Wednesday, July 23
Numbers 29: This chapter, continuing the theme of the sanctification of time, moves from spring to autumn.
In Israel’s ancient calendar, as reflected in this and the previous chapter, we observe a concentration of focus on the spring and the autumn, the two “transitional” seasons, moving from cold to warm and from warm to cold, from darkness to light and from light to darkness. These seasons, then, serve as the annual representations of each day’s morning and evening. The sundry feasts associated with these two seasons become a kind of annual Matins and Vespers.
The autumnal “seventh month” (Tishri) is the exact correspondent to our own word “September” (from the Latin septem, meaning “seven.”) In fact, the ancient month Tishri overlaps September and October.
As the “seventh” month, Tishri is the most important and sacred month. As we see in the present chapter, there are three feasts associated with it:
The first is the feast of the trumpet, which heralds the month itself (verse 1). In later days, this trumpet announced the new year; the day was then called Rosh Hashanah, “the head of the year”—that is, New Year’s Day. In addition to the daily, weekly, and monthly sacrifices, there are special sacrifices associated with this feast itself (verses 2-6).
It is worth remarking that the Orthodox Church still begins the liturgical year on the first day of the seventh month—September—and calls it “the crown of the year.” Obviously, neither Jews nor Christians see a discrepancy with beginning the new year in the seventh month!
The prescribed blowing of the trumpet is reminiscent of the blowing of the trumpet associated with Joshua’s storming of Jericho, to begin the conquest of the Holy Land. It is passing curious that the Orthodox Church also celebrates Joshua’s feast on September 1.
Because this beginning of autumn falls on the first day of the seventh month (verse 1), its prescriptions specify that the appointed sacrifices be done in addition to the regular sacrifices designated for each month (verse 6).
The autumnal season goes on to include Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement (verses 7-11), which always falls on the tenth day of Tishri (cf. Acts 27:9 – If, as we are justified in suspecting, this was the year A.D. 59, then the Day of Atonement was October 5.) Requiring an extra day of rest, this feast has a Sabbath quality.
Finally comes the Feast of Tabernacles, Sukkoth (verses 12-40), which lasts an entire week and requires more detailed instructions. This feast, always occurring in the seventh month, also has about it a kind of Sabbath character, in the sense that it involves a time of rest (verses 12,35).
During the course of the weeklong Feast of Tabernacles, there is a gradual diminishing of the number of bullocks sacrificed on each day. There are thirteen on the first day (verse 13), twelve on the second day (verse 17), eleven on the third day (verse 20), and so on (verses 23,26,29,32), finishing with only one bullock on the eighth day (verse 36). That is to say, this feast has about it a quality of “winding down,” as it were.
Thursday, July 24
Numbers 30: From the “freewill offerings” mentioned in the previous chapter (29:39) there is a reasonable transition to the vows treated in the present one.
Because the Israelites shared, with most other religious people, a positive view of vows (cf. Genesis 28:20-22), the subject of vows did not require a systematic or philosophical treatment. Nor would it hardly require much legislation except for those occasions when a vow is impossible, unadvisable, or even harmful to keep. The present chapter considers such cases.
That is to say, the substance of this chapter is casuistry, or case law. It also presumes the earlier biblical legislation about vows (cf. Leviticus 5:4; 7:16-18; 22:17-25; 27:1-31; Numbers 6:2-21; 15:1-10).
The major principle about vows is enunciated at once: Vows are morally binding (verse 1). More particularly, they are binding on a man, a male person (‘ish) who is socially and politically free to observe it. A woman, however, who is normally under male authority, represents a different set of cases.
The first case involves an unmarried woman who is still under paternal authority. She is bound by such vows as her father permits (verses 3-4). Otherwise not (verse 5).
Similarly, a married woman, living under the authority of a husband, must observe such vows as he approves (verses 6-7; cf. 1 Samuel 1:11). Otherwise not (verse 8).
In the case of a widow or divorced woman, who is under no male authority, her vows are treated exactly like those of a man (verse 9), unless the husband had formerly determined otherwise (verses 10-15).
The general line of reasoning in this chapter is clear: Of their very nature, vows involve supererogation—they are added on to the existing and presupposed order of things. If they are found to be in conflict with the social order, those responsible for that order—husbands and fathers—have the authority to abrogate them.
Vows are to be observed, therefore, except in those cases where they may threaten the stability of order. This line of reasoning has always guided the Church’s own discipline of vows.
Friday, July 25
Numbers 31: Except for a recent skirmish with the Amorites a few chapters ago, the armies of Israel have not been involved in much fighting for a long time. The recent oracles of Balaam, however, indicate that Israel is now a significant military power, and we know that its armies will soon cross the Jordan to conquer Canaan. Hence, it is time to review some of the rules for warfare, specifically as they pertain to prisoners and spoils. Such is the burden of the present chapter, in which, once again, a prompting narrative precedes the rules.
Moses, before his death, must oversee Israel’s vengeance on the Midianites (verse 2). This task, which involves only a fraction of Israel’s forces (verses 3-6), is explained by Numbers 25:18, where we learned of collusion between Moab and Midian in the moral seduction of young Israelites. That collusion also explains why Balaam is one of the casualties of the present conflict (verse 8).
Israel’s force of twelve thousand is accompanied by Phineas, the warlike priest who is charged with blowing the trumpet (verse 6).
The reported execution of every Midianite male (verse 7) should be understood with something less than mathematical exactness, since we know that the Midianites in the next generation will be stronger than ever (cf. Judges 6).
This successful exercise in warfare brought certain practical problems attendant on military victory, chiefly what to do with the surviving captives and their possessions (verses 9-12). Moses is upset that ANY enemies survived the battle (verse 14). After all, were not these the very women who had corrupted Israel’s youth just a few chapters back (verse 16)? In the end he permits only the virgins to be spared, in order to become wives for the Israelites (verse 18).
The ensuing slaughter of the women and little boys rightly offends our moral sense. If it did not, we would be in sorry shape, I think; it might suggest that the Sermon on the Mount has not taken sufficient hold on our conscience.
The Bible’s report of this event also cautions us, however, against elevating our moral sense in an absolute way that would challenge the holiness of God. This incident of the Moabites and Midianites was an attack on the holiness of God, and therefore it involves something more than a merely human offense. Although we correctly disapprove of killing women and children in the context of war, and more especially when the war is already over, our correct moral disapprobation is not the last word on the subject. Even when our moral judgment is correct, it is still inadequate to deal with the holiness and righteous judgments of God. In the execution of the Midianites we touch on the holiness of God. The holiness and righteousness of God so transcends the moral sense of man that its activity, as exemplified here, may strike man’s moral sense in offensive ways. It is imperative that we ever bear in mind that God is holier than even the most moral of moral men. This is all to say that man’s morality is one thing, and a very good thing, but the holiness and righteousness of God is something infinitely more.
All killing of human beings, even when blood is justly shed in combat, defiles and requires cleansing (verses 19-20). This does not mean that the shedding of blood in these circumstances is morally wrong. On the contrary, the shedding of blood in a just war is morally correct and may even qualify as an act of charity. (What else but genuine charity for our countrymen, including our own families and immediate neighbors, would prompt us, at the extreme risk to our own lives, to kill our enemies in combat? This perception explains why the Christian Church has always provided blessings and other prayers for the armed forces of our nations.)
Still, such bloodshed falls infinitely short of the purity necessary for entering into God’s presence in worship. This is the reason why a prescribed purification process is necessary. Indeed, this is another example in which the holiness of God stands infinitely above even the highest morality of man. (The Christian Church, therefore, has always placed certain canonical, sacramental restraints on those who take the enemy’s life in warfare—not because such shedding of blood is morally wrong, but because it does not adequately reflect the holiness and righteousness of God’s house.)
Following this narrative comes the rules for the disposition of persons and booty captured in war (verses 22-40). A percentage of these spoils was dedicated to divine service, very much like the fruits of labor (verses 41-54).
This chapter’s final section displays the same concern for numerical exactness and tabulation that we have elsewhere seen in this book appropriately called Numbers.