CHAPTER 10
Hey – something actually happens. After spending the back half of Exodus, all of Leviticus, and now
early Numbers going over laws and bookkeeping, we finally start doing actual
stuff again.
Here, the Israelites finally leave Mt. Sinai and begin their
extended wanderings. The cloud leaves
the tabernacle and they go off to follow.
They take down the tabernacle and set out with everyone following. Moses
asks his father-in-law, now called Hobab (I guess his different names are a
result of different sources going into it), but Hobab initially refuses. Moses pleads, but we don’t hear how Hobab
responds to the pleas. I suppose he
goes along, but the only thing he ever says is no.
The chapter ends with a poem/song, which means it might
actually date back to way back when.
The songs are the easier things to remember and pass on from generation
to generation, so this could be one of the oldest lines in the Bible. It’s just saying hurrah for the Lord.
OK, not much happens in this chapter, but the point is
something actually happens. I do
believe the dullest part of Numbers is in the past.
CHAPTER 11
You really get a sense of a shifting tone here. Now, people are involved in the story again.
For the last far too long, it’s just been God and laws and tabernacles – but
not the Children of Israel return as actors in the drama. Checking “The Bible with Sources Revealed”by Richard Elliot Friedman – yes, in fact this is a place where you finally go
away from Author P, who wrote almost all of the first 10 chapters of Numbers
and dang near all of Leviticus. So no
wonder it feels different.
And yes, the children of Israel do start acting, and they
act as only they can: they complain.
Really, that’s about all they do in the Bible. But they complain because God has them on a vegetarian diet. Back in Egypt they could eat meat! Oh sure, they were also enslaved, but they
ate meat, so those were the good old days. God decides to go the ironic
punishment route with them. He gives
them so much meat that they become sick of it.
Oh, and then he goes old school, and gives them a plague that kills
many. Yeah, don’t mess with God.
But before that happens, we get a sense that it just ain’t
no fun being Moses. He’s so overwhelmed
by the responsibility from God and by the complaints from the people that he
tells God, “If this is the way you will deal with me, then please do me the
favor of killing me at once, so that I need no longer face my distress.” Yowzers.
Sure, everyone says or thinks this, but he’s saying it directly to God –
someone with the ability to actually do it.
Remember, Moses never wanted to be a prophet in the first
place. He told the burning bush that it
was a bad idea. He seemed to settle
into the role by in Egypt during the plagues, but its gotten wearying. He was the leader of a people then. Now he’s the leader of people who don’t want
to follow him. No wonder he wanted his
father-in-law to accompany them. Moses
needs the kind of old man as someone he can rely on. (Which doesn’t say much for Aaron, but we’ll get to that next
chapter).
But God likes Moses and cuts him a deal: he makes 70 elders
help take on responsibility with him.
CHAPTER 12
This begins with Moses’ own siblings coming after him. Brother Aaron and sister Miraim are jealous
and don’t like how Moses outranks them.
Hey – aren’t all three of us prophets of the Lord? What makes this guy so much more special
than us?
Well, they all go before God and he tells them to go stick
it. Other prophets the Lord speaks to
in their visions and dreams only. Moses? He gets face time with the Lord. Then God decides to punish Miriam – he makes
he skin a scaly infection, as white as snow.
It doesn’t seem fair that Miriam gets punished but Aaron doesn’t, but we
do get the comedy of Aaron’s reaction.
After she goes white scales, Aaron freaks and begs forgiveness. Ah, Aaron, only has a personality when he’s
a schmuck. We saw it when he blamed the
children of Israel for the golden calf, and now again here. His personal motto must be, “Not in the
face! Not in the face!” Moses also pleads God for forgiveness for
Miriam, and God says in a week she can return to normal.
By the way, this scene shows how God is making things worse
for Moses, putting more stress on him.
OK, sure – on the face of it he is solving the problem. He is handling the main, most directly
pressing issue: ending the threat to Moses’ authority. But he goes so far that he makes Moses have
to beg the Lord for mercy for the rebel.
Folks, this is Moses own sister he has to plead for. That must be a stressful moment for him.
Oh, and one last small note. Moses is described here as “Now the man Moses was very humble,
more than anyone else on earth.” That
line is notable because it helped kick off modern Biblical scholarship. Traditionally, Moses is regarded as the
author of all five books of the Torah – Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers,
and Deuteronomy. But wait a second,
this line messes all that up. Because
that would mean he describes himself as the most humble man in the
universe. Two things there: first
really humble people don’t make it sound like they engage in competitive
humbleness, and second there are plenty of points in the Torah where Moses is
clearly praised. If he’s so humble,
what’s he doing that for? Thus this
line helped serve as an opening shot in the argument that Moses didn’t really
write the Torah. Well if he didn’t, who
did? Enter Biblical scholarship.
CHAPTER 13
Send out the scouts!
They send out 12 scouts, one from each tribe, to check out Canaan. And they come back (after 40 days – I wonder
why that number 40 became so important to the Hebrew) with a very gloomy
report. Sure, there’s land of milk and
honey, but there is also fortified cities and big towns and strong people and
we’re doomed. They even say the giants
mentioned briefly back in Genesis are there.
We’re doomed! DOOMED! Give up hope and don’t even think about
going there.
Well, 11 of the 12 say that. The 12th scout, Caleb, disagrees. He’s the scout from Judah, so this must come
from author J, which came from Judea.
I wonder why the other scouts were so despondent. It’s one thing to say they have fortified
cities and stuff like that. It’s
another to say that there are literal giants. Sounds like these guys are afraid
of a fight. That just brings up the question of who choose these guys as
scouts. Bad choices, man, bad choices.
CHAPTER 14
Now we get the Israeli reaction to the bad news of the
scouts. As you might imagine, they
don’t take it very well. They take it
about as well as the passengers in the movie “Airplane!” when the stewardess
asks if anyone knows how to fly a plane.
There is wailing and weeping and crying. They bemoan that they were ever taken from Egypt, and cry out,
“If only we would die here in the wilderness!” Careful what you wish for guys,
careful what you wish for.
Moses and Aaron fall prostate before them to calm them
down. It doesn’t work. Caleb and Joshua try to reason with
them. They are nearly stoned to
death. Finally God gets involved. He is sick of their whiny shit. He tells Moses he’ll kill them all and
punish them. Moses, again playing the
middleman between God and Israel, tells God he can’t do that, it’ll make him
look bad. Everyone will say you killed
the people because you couldn’t fulfill your promises to them. This is the second time Moses has made this
argument to God about the people.
Apparently, God has his vanity.
God agrees. OK, I’ll
let them live. But he’s still got a
rider. All adults won’t live to see
Canaan. They’re kids will, but all
those who spurned me won’t. Joshua,
Caleb, and all those under age 20 will make it to the Promised Land, but the
others won’t. They’ll be made to wander
for 40 years.
Some are horrified by this and decide to attack on their
own, but predictably lose. God isn’t on
their side, after all. Still it’s a
pretty incoherent of them. First they
don’t want to go because they here a bad scouting report, but now they will go
because God is telling them not to?
Man, God should try reverse psychology on this annoying bunch.
EDITED to add: Click here to continue with Numbers: Chapters 15 to 19
EDITED to add: Click here to continue with Numbers: Chapters 15 to 19
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