Friday, July 14
Numbers 27: This chapter is divided between two subjects, the ordinances gov-erning 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 Jor-dan (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 Eleazar 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 in-heritance 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 in-terest governing this decision was the preservation of the memory of these sis-ters’ 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 con-sidered here, the governing principle of inheritance was proximity in consan-guinity (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 con-crete. It meant solid, indestructible, landed property.
With regard to the five young ladies that brought 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 Moun-tains, 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 suc-cessions 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.
Saturday, July 15
Mark 8.22-30: This healing of a blind man took place at Bethsaida, a town near the NE corner of the Sea of Galilee, just east of the point where the Jordan Riv-er flows into that body of water. Bethsaida sits at the base of the Golan Heights.
One easily detects the similarities between the present account and the earlier story of the deaf mute (7.31-27). It is evident that Mark intended to make a pair of these two events. The reader observes the details that demonstrate that intention:
First, in each case, those who approach Jesus are said to carry the one to be healed. The wording, in both instances, is identical: “They carry a mute to him” (7.32); “they carry a blind man to him.” (8.22), The verb in each case is phero, not the verb we normally expect. Indeed, in all the English trans-lations I have seen, this verb is rendered by the ambivalent “brought.”
The Greek verb, phero, however, is not ambivalent. It means, “to carry.” Moreover, both the deaf mute and the blind man are able to walk. Why say they were carried?
In the context of these two accounts, the use of this verb places a certain nu-ance on the action. Those friends, who bring the needy to Jesus, become more important to the story.
One gains the sense that both these men, the deaf-mute and the blind man, are an essential part of the action. Jesus does not merely meet these two men; they are brought to him, carried into his presence, presented to him.
Those who perform this charity are active agents in the whole enterprise. They, too, have faith in Jesus, like the men who carried the paralytic to Jesus, in chapter 2, and then lowered him through the roof into Jesus’ presence. We re-call that Jesus, on that occasion, looked up and saw their faith.
Likewise, in the cases of the deaf mute and the blind man, the miracle of heal-ing takes on a more social side. The man who cannot hear and the man who cannot see are brought to Jesus—carried to Jesus—by the kindness of those who believe in Jesus.
Neither of these two stories, therefore, portrays a one-on-one encounter with Jesus, such as we have, for example, in the stories of the woman at the well in St. John and the conversion of St. Paul in the Acts of the Apostles.
Something more is happening here. What Mark portrays, in these two stories, is the social aspect of meeting and belonging to Christ. It happens, Mark reminds us, in social setting.
A second component common to the two stories is Jesus’ use of his own saliva to effect the cure. Once again, the wording is nearly identical (7.33; 8.23). One is reminded of the healing of the blind man in John 9.
Sunday, July 16
Acts 17.1-15: Paul had departed from Philippi, the first city in Europe where he founded a church. He left Luke there to pastor this new congregation, but Silas and (it would seem) Timothy came with him as he proceeded southwest along the Egnatian Road, one of the great arteries that held the Roman Empire to-gether.
A day or two and some thirty miles later, Paul’s party came to Amphipolis (Acts 17:1), about 3 miles inland from the sea, at the point where, Herodotus tells us (History 7.114), the Persian emperor Xerxes had crossed the River Strymon in 480 BC on his way down to the Battle of Thermopylae. As Paul and Silas came near Amphipolis, they could not help but notice beside the road the large statue of a lion that had already stood in that place for nearly 500 years. It was a monument erected there to commemorate the victory of the Athenians over the Edoni in 437 BC, and today’s visitors to northern Greece still stop to admire and photograph it, almost two and a half millennia after that battle. On the two occasions I saw that lion, I took scores of photographs of it.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_of_Amphipolis
Paul and his company, proceeding almost directly south the next day, and still walking parallel to the coast, arrived in Apollonia, whence they proceeded due west to Thessaloniki some 38 miles away (Acts 17:1). It would have required the gift of long-range prophecy for Paul to know, on that day, how important his arrival at Thessaloniki would prove to be in the course of European history over the next 20 centuries.
Paul and the others promptly preached the Gospel and established a local church at Thessaloniki. Indeed, “promptly” is definitely the word we want here, because after only 3 weeks they were run out of town! (Cf. Acts 17:2)
When physical danger obliged them to sneak away during night (17:10), Paul and his company were doubtless very discouraged. They had hardly had time, in less than a month, properly to catechize Jason and the other new converts. These, in fact, were already beginning to suffer persecution for the sake of the Christian faith (17:5-9; 1 Thessalonians 1:6).
As he continued his missionary journey, first to Berea, then to Athens, and then to Corinth, Paul remained concerned about those new Thessalonian Christians. In fact, the fruit of his concern is found in two epistles that he wrote to them during the ensuing eighteen months that he spent at Corinth between early 50 to mid-51 (Acts 18:11).
In these two epistles, Paul mainly answered the questions put to him by the Thessalonians through his envoys Silas (Silvanus) and Timothy. (This is why he included them as co-authors.) Paul endeavored to fill in some important details about Christian life and doctrine, details which his brief stay in the city had caused him to neglect. These two epistles, the two earliest books in the New Testament, thus served to strengthen the faith and commitment of the Thessa-lonians.
Monday, July 17
Mark 9.30-41: The disciples have been arguing “among themselves which of them was most important.” This dispute, set with in the theme of the Cross, was more than slightly embarrassing. This is why the disciples “kept silent.”
If we wonder what prompted them to be engaged in such a conversation, let us bear in mind what Mark wrote just 32 verses earlier, near the beginning of chapter 9: “Jesus took Peter, James, and John, and led them up on a high mountain apart by themselves; and he was transfigured before them.” Aha, here is the reason for the dispute. Jesus had just manifested what they under-stood to be sign of favoritism; he had picked out three of them for a special revelation. The other nine had felt left out. Jealousy ensued.
None of these men deserved to be apostles; the entire business was grace from the get-go. Yet, even though not a one of them was worthy, this did not pre-vent their rivalry to determine which of them was “most important.”
Here we see the apostles to be very frail, insecure men, mutually jealous—in short, worldly individuals, each of them protecting personal turf and regarding the others as rivals. This combination of characteristics describes the world person: insecure, combative, and easily prompted to jealousy. To such people the Word of the Cross can only be heard as a threat.
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.
The subject of vows would hardly require much legislation except for those oc-casions when a vow is impossible, unadvisable, or even harmful to keep. The present chapter considers such cases.
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 free to observe it. A woman, however, who is normally un-der male authority, represents a different set of cases.
The first case is the 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 ob-serve such vows as he approves (verses 6-7). Otherwise not (verse 8).
In the case of a widow or divorced woman, who are under no male authority, their 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 presup-posed order of things. Vows are to be observed, therefore, except in those cas-es where they man threaten the stability of that order. This line of reasoning has always guided the Church’s own discipline of vows.
Tuesday, July 18
Acts 18.1-17: When he arrives in Corinth, coming from Athens, Paul is su-premely depressed (1 Corinthians 2:3), perhaps from his relative failure at Ath-ens, and probably also because he has not yet heard back from the delegation from Macedonia. It is now near or at the beginning of the year 50, and Paul will remain in Corinth until the summer of 51.
The congregation that he founds at Corinth will be among the most contentious Christian churches of antiquity. There will be so many problems within that congregation that Paul himself will be obliged to write them at least four epis-tles, of which two are preserved in the New Testament (or three, if 2 Corinthi-ans is a composite of two epistles). In addition, before the end of the century the church at Corinth will receive yet another letter from Clement, the third Bishop of Rome, reprimanding them yet again for the same sorts of dissension, rebellion, and contentiousness that had so grieved Paul at the earlier period. A modern scholar, K. Stendhal, remarked about the church at Corinth that it “had almost all the problems that churches have had through the ages, except the chief problem of our churches today: it was never boring.” Under the guidance of divine providence, of course, those Corinthian troubles have worked unto our own spiritual profit, for without them we would not have some of the most im-portant pages of the New Testament (1 Corinthians 13, for instance).
The city of Corinth joins two major seaways separated only by a half-mile of isthmus, which bears the same name as the city. Thus, the latter has major ports on both sides and was a very bustling commercial center. (In modern times a canal across the isthmus joins those two waterways more directly.) Alt-hough Cicero called it “the light of all Greece,” the philosopher Diogenes, who certainly knew the place better (and would eventually die in it), said that he went there only because a wise man should go where the most fools are to be found.
The first people to meet Paul in Corinth, however, were not fools. They were a couple, Aquila and his wife, newly arrived from Rome. The wife’s name is Prisca (1 Corinthians 16:19; Romans 16:3; 2 Timothy 4:19), though Luke always calls her by the affectionate diminutive name, Priscilla (“little Prisca”) (verse 2). It is also curious that Luke twice names the wife before the husband (18:18,26), which may hint which of the two impresses him as the stronger and more strik-ing personality. Like Paul they are leather-workers (skenopoioi), a pro-fession involved in making tents, saddles, and such things.
Meanwhile, Silas and Timothy arrive from Macedonia (verse 5), bringing reports from the congregations at Philippi, Thessaloniki, and Beroea. In response to one of these reports, Paul writes the First Epistle to the Thessalonians early in the year 50, including the names of Silas and Timothy as joint-authors (1 Thessalo-nians 1:1). Here in Corinth Paul also has his usual troubles with the Jews (verse 6), so he simply takes his teaching next door to the synagogue (verse 7), and he takes the leader of the synagogue with him. This was Crispus (“curly”), who will appear later in 1 Corinthians 1:14-16.
We know, from an inscription found at Delphi, that L. Junius Gallio Annaeus, older brother to the philosopher Seneca, was the proconsul of Greece (Achaia) from the early summer of A.D. 51 to the early summer of the year 52. Along with Claudius’s expulsion of the Jews from Rome in 49, this inscription is one of our most important controls on the dating of the events narrated in the Acts of the Apostles. It enables us to “fix” the time of Paul’s appearance in the pres-ence of Gallio, the story told in these verses, in May or, more probably, June of the year 51. The judgment place (bema) of Gallio, where Paul appeared, may be visited even now in the excavations at Corinth.
Concerned solely with the preservation of the civic order, Gallio is not im-pressed by the vague accusations brought against Paul by his Jewish detractors (verses 13-15). They, frustrated by the governor’s insouciance, begin to beat one of their own leaders, who had recently become a Christian (verse 17). This is Sosthenes, who will later serve at Paul’s secretary in the composition of 1 Corinthians (1:1).
Wednesday, July 19
Acts 18.18-28: We now come to Paul’s third missionary journey. Though he once again begins from Antioch, this point of departure is more implied than stated (verse 23), and in fact the focal center of Paul’s activity will now shift to the Asian city of Ephesus. To prepare us for this shift, Luke shares some of the background of this new church at Ephesus.
During the winter that Aquila and Priscilla spent there without Paul, they be-came acquainted with an Alexandrian Jew, a follower of John the Baptist with an imperfect knowledge of Jesus and the Gospel. This man, Apollos, they fur-ther instructed and brought into the fullness of the Christian faith (verse 26). Prior to Paul’s arrival at Ephesus, Apollos goes on to Corinth, carrying a letter of recommendation to that church (verse 27; cf Romans 16:1; 2 Corinthians 3:1-6; Colossians 4:10). At Corinth his eloquence and learning (verses 24 & 28) bring to the faith a whole new wave of converts easily distinguished from those whom Paul had converted in the same city. Indeed, within a few years the two groups at Corinth would begin squabbling in a very disedifying way (cf. 1 Corinthians 1:10-12; 3:4-11,22; 16:12).
Numbers 32: Life is soon to change for the Chosen People. They have never been sedentary, not even in Egypt, where they lived as semi-nomadic shep-herds. How, however, they are to become farmers, the very type of people most tied to the land.
The differences between these two ways of life (exemplified as far back as Cain and Abel) are not reducible simply to their sources of their livelihood. The dif-ferences extend, rather, to the entire social structure, particularly government and systems of loyalty.
Not all the Israelites are equally keen on making this transition to agriculture and vine-growing, especially those tribes that have been most successful in raising herds These included, especially, the tribes of Reuben and Gad, which now announce their preference to remain in the good grazing land east of the Jordan (verses 1-5).
Moses’ immediate objection to this suggestion concerns Israel’s diminished mili-tary strength, if its forces were to be reduced by two tribes. He likens the re-quest of these two tribes to the earlier incident when the twelve spies brought back a discouraging word from their inspection of the Holy Land. Indeed, this discouragement is the point of the comparison (verses 6-15; compare Judges 5:16-17).
The tribes of Gad and Reuben, by way of response, declare their intention, after securing their own families on land east of the Jordan, to remain with the invad-ing force until all the Promised Land is conquered (verses 16-19).
Moses agrees to this arrangement (verses 20-24), and the two tribes repeated-ly pledge their cooperation (verses 25-27,31-32). Moses announces the com-promise to the rest of Israel’s leadership (verses 28-30).
Half the tribe of Manasseh, whose recent significant growth we have already had occasion to observe, is added to these two tribes inheriting land east of the Jordan (verse 33), and the chapter ends with a list of new Israelite villages and strongholds in that territory (verses 34-42).
The tribes that settled in the land of Gilead will be subject to unusually difficult pressures in the centuries to follow, as various peoples east of the Jordan, but especially Syria, will look upon that rich grazing land with a covetous eye.
Thursday, July 20
Mark 10.13-22: From a discussion about marriage Jesus passes to the subject of children. The subject arises when children are brought to Jesus to receive His blessing (verse 13), a scene found in all the Synoptics (Matthew 19:13-22; Luke 18:15-17).
Once again, of course, the Apostles attempt to gain control of the situation, not yet grasping the Word of the Cross (verse 13). All of the Evangelists in-clude this objection of the disciples against what they evidently regarded as an unwarranted intrusion on the Lord’s time and attention. The Apostles have for-gotten the message of servanthood.
It has been suggested that the early (pre-Scriptural) Church preserved the memory of this scene because it answered a practical pastoral question abut infant baptism. Read in this way, Jesus is affirming the practice of infant bap-tism: “Let the little children come to Me.” Indeed, the verb that Matthew uses here, koluein, “forbid them not,” is identical with the expression used with respect to the baptisms of the Ethiopian eunuch and the friends of Cornelius (Acts 8:36; 10:37; 11:17).
I do not think this interpretation of the passage to be likely, because there is simply no evidence in the New Testament that infant baptism was a problem. On the contrary, as the Christian replacement for circumcision, it is reasonable to presume that baptism was available to infants, just as circumcision was. In each case it was admission to the covenant. It would be strange indeed, if Jew-ish children could belong to the Mosaic covenant, while Christian children could not partake of the Christian covenant. Moreover, the baptism of entire house-holds in the New Testament (Acts 11:14; 16:15,31-33) indicates that it was normal to baptize infants in Christian families.
Numbers 33: As Israel’s long journey draws nigh to its end, the inspired author of this book thinks it an opportune time to recount the stages, since Egypt, that the Chosen People have traveled (verse 1). This list is based on Moses own “log” of the trip, but the Lord Himself directed this recording of it (verse 2).
For us readers, nonetheless, identifying each of these places is a far from cer-tain exercise. When the desert is called a “trackless waste,” full consideration should be given to that description. Deserts and their shifting sands are notori-ously deficient in stable landmarks, and this record antedates by far the art of calculating one’s precise geographical position by reference to the stars. In ad-dition, archeology has not been able, in every instance, to identify the place names listed in this chapter. If it did, we could confidently map out the entire period of Israel’s desert wandering.
An illustration of our difficulty is immediately provided by the name “Sukkoth” (verses 456-6), which means tents or booths. It may be the case that this place received its name for no other reason than the fact that Israel pitched its tents there.
The place names in the list in verses 5-15 correspond very closely to the ac-count in Exodus 12:37—19:2. Dophkah (12-13), a name not included in Exodus, seems to be what is now called Serabit el Khadem, a site of turquoise mining in the south of the Sinai Peninsula. One suspects that Alush, also missing from Ex-odus, gave its name to Wadi el‘esh, just south of Dophkah.
Kadesh, which Israel reaches by verse 36, is not desert at all. It is a lush valley with abundant spring water. The major spring was Ain el-Qudeirat, twelve miles from which is Ain Qudeis, which still preserves the name Kadesh.
Friday, July 21
Numbers 34: The present chapter may be read as a contrast with the chapter we have just finished, and this contrast pertains to both time and place. Having looked backwards in the previous chapter, the inspired writer now turns his at-tention to the future, and as the former chapter took the measure of the de-sert, the present chapter will measure the Promised Land.
The large territory considered in the first half of this chapter (verses 2-15) was not all conquered during Joshua’s period of conquest. Not until the monarchy in the tenth century before Christ did Israel occupy such a large area. When in this chapter, three centuries earlier, its distribution was being considered, the thought may have seemed fantastic.
Nonetheless, the territory outlined here really does correspond very closely to the “Canaan” over which earlier Egyptian pharaohs had exercised dominion until the close of the fourteenth century before Christ. In this sense it would have seemed normal to Moses and his contemporaries to think of Canaan (verse 2) in these same dimensions.
Having come up from the south, Moses first considered Canaan’s southern bor-der. Under Israel’s occupation this southern border will be the land of Edom (verse 3)—that is, a line running westward from the border of the Dead Sea to the Mediterranean (cf. Joshua 15”3-4; Ezekiel 47:19). The Wadi el-Arish (“river of Egypt”—verse verse 5) serves as a kind of natural division of the Negev from the Sinai Peninsula.
The “sea” (verse 5) and “great sea” (verse 6) are references to the Mediterra-nean, Israel natural western border.
On the north a line running eastward from the Mediterranean, somewhat north of Byblos, to the desert beyond Damascus, will border Israel. Zedad is northeast of Mount Hermon (verse 7-9).
Respecting the eastern border of Canaan, its northeastern corner will be Benaias (a later name, derived from the Greek god, Pan), the major source of the Jordan River. Then the Sea of Galilee, the Jordan, and the Dead Sea will roughly form the natural eastern border (verses 11-12).
We note that these boundaries completely exclude the land recently claimed by Gad, Reuben, and half of Manasseh. These latter tribes, therefore, are not con-sidered in the division of the land just circumscribed (verse 13-15)
The chapter ends by listing the names of the men charged with the division of the Holy Land (verse 16-29).