Numbers: Chapters 20 to 25

Last part was pretty boring, but the action really picks up here:

CHAPTER 20

So Miriam dies.  She really wasn’t much of a character, stuck in the background, only coming to the foreground to give her song about getting out of Egypt, and joining Aaron in a rebellion against God.  That said, she’s probably the most memorable female character since Rebekah, wife of Isaac.  The Bible is mostly about guys.

Then the Israelites complain yet again.  They need water.  Well, that’s a legitimate concern, but my golly am I getting sick of hearing them say how they were better off before and why were they taken from Egypt.  Well, God has a solution. It’s an oldie but a goodie.  He tells Moses to command a rock to yield water.  He did it before (back in Exodus – Chapter 17) and it worked, so it should work now.

But things get weird.  Moses taps on the rock twice, and water springs forth – but God is deeply upset.  So upset, that he decrees that neither Moses nor Aaron will reach the Promised Land themselves.  Wait – what? Seriously?  The hell?

Well, the problem is that Moses felt the need to top the rock a second time, which apparently showed a lack of faith in God.  If he had faith, just one tap would be enough.  OK, but that’s really small potatoes.  In face, when I read this at age 10, I couldn’t even figure out what the problem was.  God tells Moses to get water from the rock and he did.  At the very least, the punishment doesn’t fit the crime.  It’s wildly disproportionate.  Moses has carried God’s water all along.  He’s been in the painful role of middleman of an often angry God and a whining people.  Moses has been stressed, but he’s always been there.  But … he tabs the rock twice and he’s out.

And how about Aaron?  He literally didn’t do anything here, and he gets punished.  Mind you, he’s done much worse earlier, but now the punishment comes along?  Man, this story isn’t very pleasant.  God comes off like a real dick. 

Well, it makes more sense if you know the Biblical scholarship for how it was written.  This is believed to be written by source P, the third of the four authors of the Torah. The first two were J and E, both of which came from the days of the divided kingdoms.  J came from the priests of Judea, who traced their lineage back to Aaron.  E came from the ten tribes of Israel, and they traced their origins to Moses.  Well, Israel fell to Assyria, and some priests came south to Judea, and took their holy books with him.  This wasn’t good for the Judeans priests from Aaron’s loins.  The E book had plenty of nasty things about their forerunner – the golden calf, the rebellion with Mirian – and that made them look bad.  So when they wrote P, one thing they did was get some revenge on Moses.  He was too big a figure to take head on, but they could get him when they can.  So they disfigured him in Exodus 34, and here have Moses denied entry into the Promised Land. 

But they sure found a weak rationale for doing it.

At any rate, the chapter goes on and they ask passage through Edom, but are denied.  The Bible makes it clear – Edom is in the wrong, not Israel.  They’re the ones acting unbrotherly.  That can justify any future fights Israel has against them.

At the end, Aaron dies.  So it’s book ended by the deaths of Moses’ kin. 

CHAPTER 21

Now the Israelites aren’t just on the move, they’re on the warpath.  Not always, but they engage in their first battles since mid-Exodus.  They beat up the King of Arad, whoever he is.  They go around Moab, and there is bad blood there.  (Moab is one of the nations descended from Lot’s incest with his daughters).  Then they beat up the Amorites.  There are some pretty violent songs of success here.  It’s Psalm 18 all over again. (Or maybe I should say Psalm 18 is Numbers 21 all over again, as this does come first in the Bible).  Oh, then they beat King Og of Bashan.  King Og? Yeah, there’s another name that didn’t catch on.

But along the way, we have some more complaining Israelites.  They again say life sucks – this time it’s the quality of the food.  So God sends done poisonous snakes to bite them.  Eventually its solved, but there is a theme here, now isn’t there?  No matter what God does, as soon as things go wrong, people complain.  You got to wonder – is God regretting the whole deal he made with Abraham?  He promised to make Abraham a great nation is Abraham did right. Abraham upheld his end of the bargain, but boy are Abraham’s descendents an obnoxious bunch.  He didn’t know what he was getting into when he involved himself with this bunch.

CHAPTER 22

Now for an unusual little segue in the Bible.  The next three chapters tell a story about people we haven’t seen before and won’t see again. I don’t think any are Israelites, though one kind of is. 

King Balak of Moab is wetting his pants over the Israelites.  They have been kicking butt and taking names, and Balak wants help.  So he summons Balaam, who is really good at divination, to lay a curse of them.  Now, as the story comes out Balaam kinda comes off as an Israeli, but he apparently isn’t.  He believes in their god, but he isn’t in their tribe. Anyhow, Balaam is told to come and says no.  I can’t lay a curse on people God likes.  He’s asked again.  He says no again, saying that he wouldn’t come for a house full of gold. 

Now things get a bit weird.  God comes to Balaam and tells him to go.  So Balaam goes – and God is infuriated.  Wait – what?  This is the second time in three chapters God comes off like a dick.  There is a traditional Biblical explanation.  God tells Balaam to go on the condition you do exactly as I tell you to do.  Well, the theory is that Balaam has decided to go for the money after all.  OK, that’s a theory.  But it’s based on reading into the Bible more than what is actually there.  But what’s actually there makes God seem extremely capricious and frankly like a dick.

But the story gets more interesting.  Because rather than just tell Balaam to go back, God acts through Balaam’s donkey.  The donkey sees the angel of the lord with his sword unsheathed.  Three times this happens, three times the donkey goes away, and three times Balaam beats his donkey.

And here’s where it gets really interesting.  The donkey talks.  Officially, it’s God talking through the donkey, but the donkey is talking.  This is the first talking animal in the Bible since the snake in Eden.  I’m not sure if we’ll ever see another talking animal.  The donkey tells Balaam not to beat him because he’s always been good before.  Balaam, for his part, takes things in stride.  After briefly debating the donkey, he agrees he’s in the wrong – and it doesn’t hurt that he now also sees the Angel of the Lord.  Me?  If I was the one who a donkey started talking to – I’d freak out a bit.  “Holy crud?  You can talk??!?!?”” But Balaam takes that part in stride.

Anyhow, once Balaam sees the angel, the Lord tells him to go to Balak, but only do what the Lord says.   That’s what God said earlier, but now it’s officialized or something.  I dunno.

He goes and meets Balak.  On to the next chapter.

CHAPTER 23

Balak wants Balaam to curse the Israelites, but Balaam can only do what the Lord tells him.  And he’s not about to curse the children of Israel.  So comes the first oracle – and like all of these oracles, it’s a poem.  Instead of cursing the Israelites, they’re blessed.  Balak, as you might have guessed, is livid. 

OK, but Balaam is good at this sort of thing, so let’s try again.  They go to a new location, as if that’ll change things.  And out comes a second oracle.  And again, they’re blessed. 

Balak, slow on the draw, tries it again. Let’s change locations again!  That’ll solve everything!  But that comes in Chapter 24, because this section is one of those parts where chapter breaks is especially arbitrary.

CHAPTER 24

So does the third oracle work?  Nope.  They’re again blessed, and Balak is even told the Israelites “will devour hostile nations, break their bones, and crush their loins.”  Well now, that doesn’t sound too pleasant. 

Balak is deeply upset.  Hey – what happened to cursing these guys? Balaam says, hey – I told you I couldn’t curse these guys.  Balak tells him to scram and go home without any reward.  Balaam says he already said he wouldn’t do it for a house full of gold, so he’s fine without getting a paycheck. 

Then he surveys the field and offers up a fourth and final oracle. It’s more of the same, but now he’s more precise in things. He says Israel will crush Moab, “and the skull of all the Sethites.”  The nation of Amalek will perish forever.  The Kenites won’t be safe – but it’s Assyria that will do them in.  (So clearly this was written during the heyday of Assyria).  The Ishmaelites will perish forever.   Then Balak goes home. 

It’s an interesting little side story in the Bible.  I just wonder where it came from.  I suppose it’s to help fully justify the Israelites conquering what is at this point someone else’s land, and further dramatize that God is on their side.  It’s one think for God to say it, but nothing quite brings the story home like a nice story.  Edicts are boring, but stories catch the eye.  But it’s odd with the talking donkey.

CHAPTER 25

Back to the Israelites again.  And shocker upon shocker – they’re screwing up again.  Man, that sure was a bum deal God made for himself with Abraham.  It ain’t going well at all so far.

Now they’re not complaining.  Now the Israelites are breaking the first commandment, and worshipping other Gods.  They’ve taken up with Moabite women and worshipping Baal.  Yeah, that won’t end well.  God orders the leaders executed and Moses tells people to kill everyone.  Whoah – that’s going beyond God’s orders, pal.  This is actually a worse that double tapping a rock, but God doesn’t seem to mind here. 

Aaron’s grandson Phinehas sees a mourning Israelite and a Moabite women by the tent of meeting (tabernacle) and is offended.  These are the problem and they’re within spitting distance of the holiest of holies.  So he takes a spear and kills them both.  Yikes.  He’s congratulated for this.  Meanwhile, a plague kills 24,000 and everyone learns their lesson – for the time being anyway. 

Lastly, Lord tells Moses that the Midianites are enemies to be struck down.  This really sucks because we’ve met a Midianite and really liked him – Moses’s father-in-law, Jethro, who is a really likable character.  Moses lived with them for decades.  Now they’re bad guys?  Oh man that sucks.

Really, a lot of this section has questionable morals.  It’s a lot livelier than much of the previous 60-70 chapters of the Bible, but a lot is difficult to grapple with.

EDITED to add: click here to continue with Numbers: Chapters 26 to 31

Numbers: Chapters 15-19

Picking up where we left off - more Numbers:

CHAPTER 15

Here’s another chapter that’s nothing but priestly duties and roles. While it’s more boring bookkeeping, there is a point to all of this.  From what I remember from “WhoWrote the Bible?” by Richard Elliot Friedman, a lot of what’s going on here is a tug-of-war on how to properly perform the Hebrew religion.  The priests were sure that it should all go through them.  Sacrifices and offerings were to be made at the Temple and at the Tabernacle.  That’s what it was there for – and that’s what the priests were there for.  But many laity had their more localized places to issue sacrifices.  And they did an end-run around the priests.  With that came alternate forms of worship, as the Official Religion mixed in with folk religion.  (At one point, that’ll even lead to the erection of some golden calves, but that’s getting ahead of things). 

The priests are horrified by it, and one motivation for writing all of these various works (that later get combined into the Torah) is to boost priestly power.  Hey, it isn’t just us saying this – it’s Moses saying it – and Moses is repeating the word of God!  So do what we say because we’re doing what Moses and God said! 

A lot of these really boring parts of the Torah are just a big priestly power play.  And my golly, are there ever a lot of boring parts in the Torah.

CHAPTER 16

This is weird.  You get two different stories – both of rebellions – smushed together as one.  It’s fairly clearly two stories.  It works better if you pull them apart and read first one, and then the other.  But when the Redactor (the editor who put the Torah together) combined his sources, he kept going back-and-forth instead of first one than the other.  I guess he figured it would look weird to have two separate rebellions.  Perhaps.  Or maybe he thought he could make it work well, like how George Martin and Geoff Emerick took the two speeds of Strawberry Fields Forever and ran them together so that no one notices.  Perhaps.  Whatever the theory, it doesn’t work. 

One rebellion is led by a guy named Korah, from the house of Levi.  He wants to know why only Aaron and Moses are the holy ones.  If God is with us all, then shouldn’t we all be holy and therefore don’t need Moses and Aaron.  He and 250 men complain, and of course God isn’t happy. Fire consumes them all.  Bummer.

The other rebellion is led by brothers Dathan and Abiram, Reubenites.  They complain that Moses has led them away from the land of milk and honey to die in a wilderness. They are swallowed up by the earth, along with their “wives, their children, and their little ones.”  Again, bummer.  It happens, right on cue, too, as Moses says if they be right, let them die an ordinary death, but if they’re wrong, let the ground swallow them up and have them go to Sheol alive.   And so they do. 

(Looking it up, the P source wrote the story of Korah and the J source handled the rebellions of Dathan and Abiram). 

I imagine this for a second from the point of view of an average Israelite.  OK, God killed a bunch of Egyptians to led you out of bondage.  Good for God.  But now, if you ever go against God, he’ll kill you.  When you put it like that, it’s like they exchanged bondage to the Egyptians for bondage to God.  Yeah, there are tons of other things I’m leaving out, but boy – do what the powerful almighty says --- or he’ll punish you in ways a slave owner wouldn’t even dream of doing.

CHAPTER 17

This is more priestly junk that no one cares about.  It’s essentially the priests from the Kingdom of Judea writing down their interpretation of the Hebrew religion and putting it in the mouths of Moses and God.  It’s just yet another power play. 

We’re told that “no unauthorized person, no one who was not a descendent from Aaron, should draw near to offer incense before the LORD, lest he meet the fate of Korah and his faction.”  See?  Give the priests all the authority over religious matters. 

But people complain anyway. Huh – I guess what I said at the end of Chapter 16 was felt by many Israelites.  They aren’t taking the deaths as a sign that they were wrong, but as a sign that they’re being wronged.  Lord tells Moses that he’ll “consume them at once.”  And so a plague hits them, and 14,700 die.  This is at least the second plague to hit them since leaving Egypt.  Rough year, isn’t it?

People still grumble.  Yeah, killing your opponents can give you power, but it can’t make you loved.  God seems to have trouble figuring that out here in the wilderness.

CHAPTER 18

It’s even more priestly gunk.  As boring as Leviticus was, at least it tended to focus more on the laws than this stuff. 

There is some more effort made to sanctify the power of the House of Aaron over religion.  God ttells Aaron that he’ll be in charge of the contributions made to the Lord.  Fun fact: the priests of Judea considered themselves to be descended from Aaron.  So all the power given to Aaron is power given to them.  And they’re the ones writing much of this Torah.  Imagine that. 

There’s also more talk of firstborn animals to be sacrificed.  The more I read this, the more convinced I am that the 10 plagues – especially the 10^th plague is written backwards.  You sacrifice the firstborn to show the Lord how important he is to you – he’ll have the first serving.  Then later on, when folk memory comes up with the story of how they got out of Egypt, you have the Angel of Death kill all the firstborn sons in Egypt to dramatize the sacrifice of firstborns to the Lord – and then that bounces back to be the new reason why you sacrifice first born animals to him. 

CHAPTER 19

This is a purification ritual.  It involves an unblemished red heifer.  Why red?  I dunno – I guess it was considered more valuable, being red and all. 

That said, I’m really getting sick of all the chapters like this.  Fortunately, actual stuff happens in the next chapter.

EDITED to add: Click here to continue with Numbers: Chapters 20 to 25

Psalms 38 to 46

Picking up where we left off w/ psalms last week ..

PSALM 38

This one is called “Prayer of an Afflicted Sinner” and as you might guess, it sure is bleak. OK, there is a tradition of bleak psalms.  In them, the psalmist cries out to the Lord to ease his burdens, to give him hope and salvation.  The psalmist is turning to the Lord because he has no one else to turn to.  He’s at the end of his rope and only the Lord can help him out. 

It’s a powerful theme and these are generally among the most vivid and visceral of psalms.  This time, however, there’s a little wrinkle.  You see, normally the psalmists burdens are caused by his enemies.  Normally, the Lord is his only friend. 

But here?  The Lord is the cause of his misfortune.  Wait, no – hold that a second.  The Lord isn’t literally the cause – the sinner’s sinning is the cause.  But he fells the Lord is angry at him and turned away from him – and that’s why he is suffering so much. 

The language here makes it sound like the psalmist contracted VD.  Maybe not, but you have to admit, it’s a legitimate interpretation of lines like, “My loins burn with fever; there is no wholesomeness in my flesh.” 

At the very end it chickens out a bit.  Now he’s blaming his enemies for his misfortunes, but it reads like the stanza from a different psalm was stuck on this one.  That said, what’s really different about this psalm is the lack of a happy ending.  He gets no resolution – he just suffers and prays to God to be redeemed.

PSALM 39

This one has one of the best starts of any psalm I’ve read so far.  The psalmist starts by pledging to bide his tongue and stay silent and muzzle his mouth and  .. and .. and – he just can’t do it!  “In my sighing, a fire blazes up, and I break into speech.”  Yeah, that gives this guy some credibility.  He sounds like someone who is going to just lay it out there and tell some untold (and perhaps unpleasant) truths – because they have to be said.  Also, it’s a nice narrative effect.  It sucks us in and makes us wonder what will happen next.

What happens next is a fairly standard psalm.  It’s not bad, but it’s the opening lines that stick in the memory. 

PSALM 40

I can see this psalm being popular with Christians.  It fits their imagery pretty well.  Actually, it seems to flatly go against ancient Hebrew beliefs, as the psalmist (again, allegedly David) says, “Sacrifice and offering you do not want; you opened my ears.  Holocaust and sin-offering you do not request.” Well, the Torah makes very clear he does request that and the Israeli priests did sacrifices until the Roman Empire.  So this fits more in with Christianity, which never went for that.

Aside from that, it’s a standard psalm about how the psalmist takes comfort and aide in God.  Again, I can see why the faithful like psalms such as this, as it can provide solace when they are blue. It has some nice imagery, too, as God: “Draws me up from the pit of destruction, out of the muddy clay, Sets my feet upon rock, steadies my steps.”  Yeah, good job by the psalmist with those lines.

The second stanza begins with a bleak start as the psalmist notes that evil surrounds him, his sins overtake him – but of course it’s all about building up to the happy ending where the Lords helps him out.  Here is how it ends: “Though I am afflicted and poor, my Lord keeps me in mind.  You are my help and deliverer; my God, do not delay!” I like the bit of ambiguity there.  Sure he has faith, but he also has doubts and flaws – and he needs God to hurry up already so his pros will overcome his cons.  The exclamation point sure is a nice touch.

PSLAM 41

This reads like two different psalms stuck together oddly as one.  The first stanza is praise for helping the poor, and how those that do so will be repaid by the Lord.  The rest of the poem has nothing to do with that, though.  The rest is standard “Lord, help me versus my accursed enemies” stuff.  (Actually, it reminded me of “Positively Fourth Street” by Bob Dylan as the psalmist recounted how people speak to him without sincerity and gossip behind his back).

How do you reconcile these two halves?  My answer – though this is yet another psalm supposedly written by David, it’s a poor, obscure man and the psalm was later attributed to David.  Yes, I know David began life as a shepherd, but this reads more like someone who lives all life at a lowly rung.  Since he’s lowly and people are treating him bad, he begins his poem by saying how wonderful those are who help the poor.  It’s harder to reconcile the first stanza with the rest if it’s written by the king of all Israel. 

PSALM 42

This begins Book 2 of psalms.  Pretty much everything in Book 1 was attributed to David, but these early ones in Book 2 aren’t.  Why multiple books?  It’s due to printing technology.  Back then, you didn’t have books, but scrolls.  And the most words you could fit on a scroll is essentially the Book of Isaiah.  Well, psalms are a lot longer than that, so I assume it must’ve been on multiple scrolls.  Therefore, I guess Psalm 42 was the first one on the second scroll. Really, they could’ve chopped up psalms into multiple modern books of the Bible, but obviously they didn’t see the point in doing that.

OK, lesson in psalms aside, this is one of the bleaker psalms.  Sure, there is still plenty of talk about how wonderful God is and how he’s the inspiration, but the main theme here is a sense of lacking.  This psalmist wants a closer relationship with God, but isn’t feeling it.  This deep yearning is causing him problems.  He feels downcast.  The psalm ends with him still feeling every bit as blue as at the beginning, but affirming that God will help him.  Eventually.

I can see the appeal of this psalm to the faithful.  Everyone has doubts.  Everyone has their moments of crisis.  And everyone has moments where they feel low.  Part of the appeal of religion is that it can give comfort, knowing that there is this higher power out there that you can turn to for help.  But, sense you always have doubts, what if you feel cut off from that higher power?  Then where can you turn to?  Well, then you turn to Psalm 42 and realize that even in the Bible people feel the same way you do.

No wonder Psalms are among the more popular parts of the Bible.  This is a far more personal book, one which helps people get over their dark moods and get past their crises in their faith and personal life.  The psalms themselves can help people persevere. 

This also explains why I don’t get as much out of it.  I ain’t a believer, so it’s just a purely academic exercise for me, not a personal or spiritual one.

PSALM 43

This is a short psalm – just five verses – that covers much of the same ground as the previous one. The psalmist is sad because while he believes in God, he feels God is spurning him.  His soul is downcast and groans within him, but he still has hopes God will help him eventually.

Hey wait a second – both Psalm 42 and Psalm 43 have the exact same end line!  (looks further).  Actually, the last two lines are the same, word-for-word: “Why are you downcast, my soul, why do you groan within me?  Wait for God, for I shall again praise him, my savior and my God.” 

Well, clearly these psalms are by the same author going through a personal crisis.  In fact, I have wonder if they were originally meant to be just one poem, with a common refrain. 

PSALM 44

This is a weird psalm in that it combines two themes that aren’t typically combined.  First, there is a sense of longing, a feeling of being abandoned by God.  You get that often – like in the psalms immediately before this one.  Aye, but this isn’t a peaceful psalm.  Not at all.  Instead, the second theme here is blood and guts.  It’s not nearly as violent as Psalm 18, but the psalm longs for the days when, well, when God would kill all his enemies.

The first stanza fondly recalls how God, “rooted out nations to plant them, crushed peoples and expelled them.”   Ah, the Good Old Days.  But now those days are gone, and the Hebrew are forced to retreat.  Their enemies advance, and they feel completely rejected.

It’s interesting, because we think of God as being so much vaster and above things than the old fashioned pagan gods of the ancient Near East.  In those places, a city or empire would have a god it prayed to for help and victory in war.  Their gods were more like local patron saints than what we’d now think of as god.  But here?  God is every bit as parochial as any run of the mill Near East deity.  He just happens to be the all-powerful God (though I’m sure the Philistines and others felt that about their gods, too).  The Hebrew prays to him because he can give them glory and success in war.  The Hebrew take on gods began out of the Near East context, they just broadened him to make him THE God, not just their god.  But here, he’s still just their god.

What’s interesting is how the third stanza makes clear that the Hebrew don’t deserve this.  The psalmist clearly states that they’ve kept their covenant and not forgotten him – yet they’ve been forgotten anyway.  That’s not normally how Jewish theology works.  The Babylonian Captivity was explained as punishment for their transgressions, not punishment despite a lack of transgressions. 

Also, there are some nice lines here.  In discussing their misfortunes, the psalmist psalms: “You make us a byword among nations.”  Bummer.  They’re the Cliff Clavin of the ancient Near East.  Later on, he writes: “For you we are slain al the day long, considered only as sheep to be slaughtered.”  Sheep to be slaughtered – that’s a line with a future in front of it.

PSALM 45

This one is called a Song for a Royal Wedding, and it’s not quite what I expected.  It’s not really about a wedding.  The first half is apparently for the king: “You are the most handsome of men,” it says.  Gee, buttering the monarch up, I see.  But it talks about success in battle and how God is on his side.  And how God also loves justice.  Really, though, I’m a bit confused if the pronouns refer to the king or God. 

The second half is advice for the woman getting married.  The main advice is to, “Forget your people and your father’s house.”  You belong to your husband now. This is quite a bit more than just changing last names back then. 

PSALM 46

This is a fairly standard psalm in praise of God.  It’s pretty much all about God, rather than the psalmist’s relationship to him, and as such I don’t have too much to say about it.

Well, with one notable exception, that is.  Some of the imagery is rather striking.  In fact, it reminded me of a movie – a movie about the Lord’s tabernacle, in fact.  Yup, this psalm is a nice accompaniment for Raiders of the Lost Ark. 

Just check out these lines: “Though nations rage and kingdoms totter, he utters his voice and the earth melts.”  Hey – in Raiders a guy melted when the Tabernacle was opened up!  Later it says, “Who stops wars to the ends of the earth, breaks the bow, splinters the spear, and burns the shields with fire: `Be still and know that I am God!’”  That’s a nice Big Time line to end on.  That said, burning with fire and destroying everything that comes in his path – yup, that still sounds like Raiders of the Lost Ark.

EDITED to add: here is the next batch of psalms

Numbers: Chapters 10 to 14

Picking up where we left off -- last time I plowed through the worst chapter in the Torah. Now, things finally pick up - as the Hebrew leave Mt. Sinai.

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 12^th 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

Numbers: Chapters 5 to 9

After beginning Numbers, we now go deeper into it:

CHAPTER 5

Not much happens in the first half of this chapter.  The unclean are expelled.  Well, we already went over who is/not unclean already.  There are also some general laws about property.

But then comes the second half – with a trial by ordeal. What if a husband accuses his wife of adultery without any proof?  Then she is to drink some water that has some dirt from the tabernacle floor mixed in.  If her stomach swells and her uterus falls, then she’s guilty. If not, she’s in the clear.  As these things go, it’s not that bad of a trial by ordeal.  But boy, trials of ordeal sure don’t have a good reputation. 

Also, it’s only the woman who undergoes this.  There’s nothing about a woman who accuses her husband of infidelity. Going back to Abraham (or even further back, to Noah), the wife is covered by the husband.  He deals with God on behalf of the whole family.

CHAPTER 6

More bookkeeping.  This is about a group called the Nazirites, who apparently pledge themselves to God.  They can’t have anything from the vine and can’t cut their hair.  They can’t come into contact with any dead, not even their parents.  It’s all to make them more holy.  This must be a group of holy men that existed, so stories emerged how their existence went back to Moses so this bit was written in to provide a codified version of what they should do coming out of the mouth of the main prophet himself. 

CHAPTER 7

Oh my God.  I’ve read bookkeeping chapters, but nothing compares with this.  This chapter has got to be the low point of the Torah so far; and will almost certainly be the low point of everything in the Bible – except Chronicles I and II.  This is just insane.

You want to know what happens here?  The 12 tribes make offerings to the tabernacle.  One by one, they all make an offering on behalf of the tribe.  Folks – they all make the exact same offering.  Exact same thing.  So does the Bible say, “They all offered the following” like you’d think?  Nope.  First Judah gives a series of things, then the tribe of Issachar gives the same thing, and so on down the line.  People, these offerings aren’t just one or two things, but a list of things that takes six verses to describe.

So we get those six verses 12 straight times in a row.  It’s like Rainman took over writing the Bible when he was fixated on a grocery list of something.  It’s the same and same and same and same and same.  It’s even more repetitive than that last sentence.

Oh, and when it’s done – the Bible decides to summarize the offerings.  Really, Bible, really?  I mean, you really felt that need, did you?  Yikes.  It weights in at 89 verses, easily the longest chapter of the Bible so far. 

Random comment – the tribes give their offering in the same order they’re listed in back in Chapter 2 when they set up camps. 

CHAPTER 8

Yawn.  This is just a boring chapter, not even enough to be annoyed at like I was last chapter.  This is just about the Levites.  God says they alone are totally dedicated to him and so will take the place of the firstborn of all Israelites.  All first born belong to him, for he passed them over in Egypt, but the Levites will be a replacement.

Eh, this just tells me the Levites weren’t really a tribe at any point like the others.  They are all dedicated to God? All?  Eh, there are always exceptions in a family, and the tribes are basically one big family. 

They are to begin working for the Lord at age 25, and retire at age 50. 

CHAPTER 9

More yawning.  So far, Numbers is doing far worse than Leviticus.  That was entirely dry and devoid of all actions, but this is about purely bookkeeping and methodological stuff.  This is about the second Passover.

You do see a few more laws put in.  If you’re unclean because you came in contact with the dead or because you’re traveling, it’s OK to celebrate Passover, but wait a month.  This is just a logistical point they had to deal with. 

The Lord appears as a fiery cloud.  Yeah, he does that some times.  

EDITED to add: Click here to continue with Numbers: Chapters 10 to 14

Numbers: Chapters 1 to 4

After taking a few days off, time to get back into it.   Here's the beginning of Numbers:

CHAPTER 1

We start off with the event that gives this book its name – the first ever census of the Children of Israel.  It’s not a complete census, just a tally of men over the age of 20 who are able to serve militarily. It’s about 600,000 (603,500 in all) – a figure almost exactly the same as we’d been told marched out of Egypt.  That makes sense – it’s just a year later, after all.  So if there’s 600,000 able bodied men, there’s at least 600,000 able bodied women, plus elderly and lame of both genders, plus kids.  Plus there’s the Levitites, who aren’t tallied because they do priestly duties.  You could have 2,000,000 or so in all.

Quick note – all Leviticus long, we were told that Aaron and sons were the priests.  Now its all Levites.  What’s going on?  Well, I don’t have my copy of Richard Elliot Friedman with me for the next few days, but I’m assuming it’s a different author.  The P author handled nearly all of Leviticus. This is probably E author.  D author came later and just wrote Deuteronomy, so it ain’t him.  That leaves J and E.  J is associated with the priests of Judah, who saw themselves descended form Aaron.  They wouldn’t want to minimize their ancestor.  E was from the divided kingdom of Israel to the north and saw themselves aligned with Moses, not Aaron.  So it makes the most sense that it’s him. 

Mind you, all that above is pure guessing.  When I get ahold of Friedman it could easily turn on that I’m wrong.  The Bible always has its oddities, no matter how you try to minimize them.

As for the census itself, here’s how it stacks up, tribe by tribe.

74,600 in Judah

62,700 in Dan

59,300 in Simeon

57,400 in Zeubulan

54,400 in Issachar

53,400 in Naphtali

46,500 in Reuben

45,600 in Gad

41,500 in Asher

40,500 in Ephraim

35,400 in Benjamin

32,200 in Manasseh

The tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh are named after the sons of Joseph.  All other tribes are named after the children of Jacob.  Judah is biggest and will always be the biggest. Benjamin will end up the smallest.  One reason the 10 tribes will later breakaway is they fear excessive power by Judah – which by then makes up I believe half of all Israel by itself.  Only Benjamin sticks with Judah, because it’s so small and next to Judah. 

CHAPTER 2

This is just bookkeeping.  Now that we’ve had a census, time to divvy them up in camp.  People are to live with their tribe.  On the East side, go Judah, Issaachar, and Zebulun, 186,400 strong.  They have the honor of marching first (for when that time comes).  On the South are Reuben, Simeon, and Gad: 151,400 strong.  In the middle go the Levites.  As keepers of the tabernacle, they get to serve as the heart of the community in the middle.  To the west goes the tribes of Ephraim, Manasseh, and Benjamin – hey, it’s the children of Jacob’s favorite wife!  There are just 108,100 of them and they’ll march third.  Marching last and pitching tents to the south are the remaining tribes: Dan, Naphtail, and Asher: 157,600 strong. 

That’s it.  That’s the chapter.  It’s just logistical matters.

CHAPTER 3

Time to count up Levi.  It’s divided into three sections and its men are given specific tasks with the altar.  Two things – first, this is a very small tribe.  In total, they are just 22,000. They’d need to improve by 50% just to hit the next largest group (Manasseh).  Most tribes are over double this size, and Judah is 3.5 times as large.  No wonder they’re not a full-fledged tribe.  They’re too small.  They are the Pluto of Jacob’s loins.

Second, while still small, their numbers are comically too large for the tasks given them.  7,500 men to look after the tabernacle?  Really?  Man, lotta dead weight there.  OK, let the most holy guys do it and the others, what?  Are they eternally on break or something?  It’s just too much for their duties while still being too small to be a tribe.

That said, this chapter answers my question above.  The top of Chapter 3 says Aaron’s sons do the top tier priestly duties, and these guys do the lower tier stuff. So they’re the outsourced priestly laborers. 

CHAPTER 4

Yawn.  All this chapter does is discuss particular priestly duties that need to be done. Stuff like this is my least favorite part of the Bible.  It’s not about people.  It’s not about God.  It’s a bunch of priests – because that’s who wrote the Torah – telling the word all sorts of minutia about their jobs.  It’s navel gazing at its worst.  What matters most of all to them isn’t how people live or what makes a just law, but the utterly trivial details of their jobs.  At least the impression I get is that, when they go on for so long about so comparatively little.

EDITED to add: Click here to continue with Numbers: Chapters 5 to 9.

Numbers Main Page

Chapters 1 to 4
Chapters 5 to 9
Chapters 10 to 14
Chapters 15 to 19
Chapters 20 to 25
Chapters 26 to 31
Chapters 32 to 36