Numbers: Chapters 26 to 31

The previous chunk of Numbers was pretty interesting, so let's see what happens as we near the end of the fourth book of the Torah:

CHAPTER 26

Time for another census!  Here’s how it shakes out this time, and for comparison’s sake I’ll provide the numbers from the first census in Chapter 1 as well.  Ordered from most to fewest in the new census:

Now     Ch. 1    Tribe                

76,500  74,600  Judah 

64,400  62,700  Dan

64,300  54,400  Issachar

60,500  57,400  Zeubulun  

53,400  41,500  Asher

52,700  32,200  Manasseh

45,600  35,400  Benjamin

45,400  53,400  Naphtali

43,730  46,500  Reuben

40,500  45,600  Gad

32,500  40,500  Ephraim

22,200  59,300  Simeon

Holy cripes – what happened to Simeon?  It was the third biggest tribe in the earlier census, and now it’s easily last.  It lost two-thirds of its people between the censuses. I know there has been a plague or two between things, but apparently the plague entirely hit that one tribe.

Well, four other tribes went down, too.  Gad and Reuben just went down a bit, though.  (Actually, Gad, Reuben, and Simeon are the tribes that say south of the tabernacle.  They were a fourth of the people last time, now they’re just a sixth.  Ephraim and Napthali also went down some, but nothing as catastrophic as Reuben.

And while Reuben is melting down, seven tribes increase.  Manasseh nearly doubles!  What, was everyone having sex all year long in that tribe?  Wait, no – that can’t be it.  This is a census of men 20 years or older who can report for military service.  So 20 years earlier they were constantly having sex in that tribe.  Asher, Benjamin, and Issachar also went up by over 10,000. 

In all, the tribes of Israel have almost the exact same population as before: 601,730 now versus 603,500 then.  Oh, and Levi has gone up a thousand: from 22,000 to 23,000.  So while the overall numbers are the same, the way it gets there is insane. 

Why, here’s a thought: the censuses were imperfectly done.  That’s really the only way to explain the bizarreness of these numbers.

CHAPTER 27

This has an interesting start about property rights.  No, really – it’s interesting.  Some daughters of a guy without a son want to know why their family should lose its wealth just because the dad didn’t have any sons. A family is supposed to give its wealth to the next male heir, not female heir.

For once, a complaint to Moses is found to have merit.  God tells Moses to let daughters inherit of there are no sons.  And he goes from there to explain what happens if there are no surviving kids and various other scenarios.  The key point is to preserve land among tribes.  Soon they’ll divvy up the land taken in the book of Joshua, and they’ll want the tribes to have – and keep – their land.  So this helps doing that.

This desire to preserve tribal integrity gives the woman of the Hebrew some claim towards property rights.  It’s not equal, that’s clear.  But it is something.

After that, Joshua is named the official successor to Moses.  God again complains to Moses for the mildest “rebellion” of all time – Moses at the rock.  Hey God, don’t go bringing that up much, OK?  Moses isn’t the one who comes off poorly there.

CHAPTER 28

Well, that’s enough of chapters where I can find something interesting to talk about.  This one is solely on sacrifices.  They should do them according to a series of arcane and boring rules.

CHAPTER 29

All that sacrifice talk is still going on.  Chapters 28-29 are basically one long, never ending chapter.  This one is just about holiday sacrifices.  (Well, some of them.  Chapter 28 covered Passover and the Pentecost).  I told you these read like one long chapter.

CHAPTER 30

We’re done with the sacrifice talk and are back to laws talk.  This is about how to annul a vow.  In short, it depends on your gender.  If a man makes a vow to the Lord, it’s binding – period.  It must be executed EXACTLY as uttered. 

However, if a woman makes a vow, there is an escape clause.  It turns out she doesn’t have final say over what is/not a vow to the Lord.  As a young girl, her father can veto her vow.  Later on, her husband can.  In both cases, the guy must use his veto right away; otherwise he’s consenting to the vow and therefore it’s in effect.  Thus no woman can ever remove her own vow. 

This is something we’ve seen earlier in the Bible.  When Abraham did his covenant with the Lord, it included Sarah, because she was his wife.  Head of the household meant quite a bit back then.  The husband/father speaks for himself, the wife, their kids, and any servants/slaves they have to – just as was the case with Abraham. 

Women can have power if they are widows or divorced.  Then they have full control over their vows.  That’ll be the case for the next few thousand years in western culture, too.  Interestingly, it never mentions orphaned females without a dad.   I guess the sense is that their guardian will oversee them, and then later on they’ll be married.  Until married, you belong to the dad. 

Which brings up the next point – there is not even any talk of unmarried females.  They don’t exist. That tells you how prevalent marriage was.  This goes beyond just looking down on women not getting married.  If it were just looked down on, the Bible would spend a verse or two condemning it.  But it’s not even brought up, so the practice is so poorly regarded that it effectively doesn’t exist.  Women who become adults will get married.  (Which also means that men will get married; though with polygamy still existing, some might get squeezed out of the marriage market). 

CHAPTER 31

What was the last actually appalling and nasty chapter of the Bible?  The 10^th plague, I guess.  Well, that means we’re overdo for another one, and my golly do we ever get a genuinely disturbing one here.

Earlier in Numbers, we learned that now the Midianites are horrible people, and the Israelites should kill them some time.  Now the time has come.  Moses orders 1,000 soldiers to be raised from each tribe. (Sadly, it may be for this very purpose Moses ordered that second census.  Hey, it makes sense). 

The fighting itself is mercifully quick, but the results are horrible.  First, we learnt that the Israelites kill every single male in battle.  Yeoch.  As for the women and kids, they are taken prisoners, as are the flocks and other elements.  Their towns are set on fire.  It’s a genocide.

Well it’s not a genocide enough for Moses’ taste.  Hey – you guys saved all the women and kids?  What gives?  Moses points out that the problem with the Midianites earlier was the womenfolk sleeping with Israeli men and leading them astray from God.  So kill ‘em all.  The exact quote from Moses: “Now kill, therefore, every male among the children and kill every woman who has had sexual relations with a man.”  A boy is to die, regardless of how young and innocent he might be.  If he’s a Midianite, he dies.  Only the female virgins can be kept – and of course they’ll later be de-virginified by the Israeli men. 

Yeah, this is absolutely horrifying stuff.  It’s done, and we learn there were 32,000 female virgins left.  That means there were about 32,000 underage male virgins kills on Moses’ word.  Plus however many adults females.  This is flat out genocide. 

Remember: Moses father-in-law Jethro is a Midianite priest.  Jethro has been one of the good guys throughout the Torah.  Thus Moses own wife is a Midianite.  His kids are half-Midianite.  He’s ordering a genocide upon the Midianites because their women seduced Israelites – and he’s married to a Midianite woman himself! 

Yeah, I know, he isn’t going away from God because of her.  And, if you follow previous laws, once she married Moses she becomes part of his family.  Still, as horrifying and upsetting as this genocide is, it’s extra disturbing based on Moses past history.  Guess what?  Moses has been with the Israelites for maybe two years by now.  He spent decades on Jethro’s land with the Midianites.  Not that any of that matters, though…..

Yikes.

EDITED to add: click here to continue with the end of Numbers: Chapters 32 to 36