Today we are continuing a new sermon series I have entitled “Route 66” because we are taking a journey together through all 66 books of the Bible in 66 Sundays. My challenge to you, after hearing a message about each book of the Bible is to read the book of the week.
Today we are looking at the book of Numbers. After the seeming interruption of the book of Leviticus with its seemingly tedious laws, we return to stories, some memorable, in this book. So, let’s look at the author, date, theme, and structure of the book together…
Author
Over the course of the last three Sundays, we have talked about the traditional view that Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible. I have also pointed out that there is no explicit internal claim to Mosaic authorship in any of these books.
If that is so, why did some people, traditionally, view Moses as the author of these books? The claim is based upon references to Moses’ writing activity throughout the Bible. (See Exodus 17:14; 24:4; 34:27; Joshua 8:31; Mark 7:10; 12:2b; Luke 2:22-23.)
However, even a cursory reading suggests that at least portions of the book of Numbers must have been added by later authors and editors down through Israel’s long history. Numbers 12:3 says, “Now Moses was a very humble man, humbler than anyone else on the face of the earth.” If Moses himself wrote this, then he was hardly humble. It makes much more sense, in my opinion, to suppose that Numbers was written down by one or more authors long after the time of Moses.
The view of modern scholarship, for the past 200 years, is that there were multiple sources for the first five books of the Bible. They designate one of those sources by the letter “J” for Jahwist or Yahwist because that author uses the personal name for God, Yahweh. There is a second source “E” that stands for Elohim because that author uses the more general name for God. And then we have talked about the source “P” that stands for the priestly author. Next week we will talk about a fourth source.
As I have said before, this theory of multiple authorship reminds us of something very important about the Bible from the get-go. The Bible is not simply one book by one author. It is a collection of books, a sacred library if you will, containing many voices of faith writing over many centuries. This makes the foundation of our faith richer rather than poorer.
Date
The traditional dating for the book of Numbers goes along with the idea of Moses as author. Thus, the traditional date puts the writing of the first five books of the Bible in the 15thcentury BC, during the time that the Israelites were wandering in the Sinai desert for forty years.
The view of modern scholarship puts the date of writing for the first five books much later, anywhere between the 10th and 5th centuries, so as early as the time of King David or possibly as late as the post-exilic period. In any case, it is the view of most modern scholars that many of the sacred stories of Israel were first passed on orally, then written down by their separate sources, J, E, P, and others. It was only much later that these sources were combined to form the first five books of the Bible as we know them today.
Once again, if you want to know more about who wrote the first five books of the Bible and when, I highly recommend reading Who Wrote the Bible by my former professor, Richard Elliott Friedman.
Themes
The book of Numbers presents an account of the thirty-eight-year period of Israel’s wandering in the desert following the establishment of the covenant at Sinai. It chronicles Israel’s journey from Sinai to the plains of Moab on the border of Canaan. The book is so named because of the census lists found in chapters one and twenty-six.
The book tells of the murmuring and rebellion of God’s people and of God’s judgment upon them for failure to enter the Promised Land when first instructed to do so (Numbers 14).
As Numbers begins, Israel is organized into a conquering army with the Lord as head, and they are given the commission to establish God’s kingdom in the Promised Land.
Numbers also presents the chastening wrath of God against his disobedient people. Even Moses does not escape the discipline of God. (See Numbers 20 and Hebrews 112.) Amidst discipline, however, God remains faithful to his people despite their unfaithfulness to him. (Numbers 22-24)
Structure
The structure of Numbers works out like this…
- Israel at Sinai, Preparing to Depart for the Promised Land (1:1-10:10)
- The Journey from Sinai to Kadesh (10:11-12:16)
- Israel at Kadesh, the Delay Resulting from Rebellion (13:1-20:13)
- The Journey from Kadesh to the Plains of Moab (20:14-22:1)
- Israel on the Plains of Moab (22:2-32:42)
- Appendices Dealing with Various Matters (33-36)
Key Concept—Attitude Determines Altitude
As I said earlier, one reason why Numbers is a more popular book with readers than Leviticus is because it is filled with stories. One of my favorite stories in this book has to do with a man named Caleb. From Caleb I think we can learn that attitude determines altitude.
I also learned this lesson from flying with my father. The direction of the nose on a plane is called the attitude. If the attitude of the nose is up the plane can rise higher in altitude. If the attitude of the nose is down, the plane can descend.
Likewise, our spiritual attitude determines how high we can rise in our relationship with God. Let's see how this works out in the life of Caleb...
Caleb was a descendant of the tribe of Judah, and he was a contemporary of Moses’ successor Joshua. Caleb was a leader among the Israelites who came out of slavery in Egypt and made their way through the desert to the Promised Land of Palestine. Caleb was one of the twelve spies sent to analyze the Promised Land in preparation for taking it over. Caleb expressed a God-confident attitude when, after checking out the Promised Land, he said, “We should go up and take possession of the land for we can certainly do it.” (Numbers 13:30)
F.B. Meyer once described Caleb as follows…
Amid the marchings and counter-marchings, the innumerable deaths, the murmurings and rebellions of the people, he retained a steadfast purpose to do only God’s will, to please him, to know no other leader, and to heed no other voice. It was of no use to try and involve that stout lion’s cub in any movement against Moses and Aaron. He would be no party to Miriam’s jealous spite. He would not be allured by the wiles of the girls of Moab. Always strong and true and pure and noble; like a rock in a changeful sea, like a snowcapped peak in a change of cloud and storm and sun. A man in whose strong nature weaker men could hide, and who must have been a tower of strength to that new and young generation which grew up to fill the vacant places in the van of Israel. The Nestor of the Hebrew camp, in him the words of the Psalmist were anticipated, that he bore fruit in his old age, and to the last was fat and flourishing.
In short, I would suggest that Caleb was the sort of person who would have gone after Moby Dick with a rowboat, a harpoon, and a jar of tartar sauce.
But what we have to realize is that Caleb’s positive attitude and positive report about the Promised Land, were prompted by faith; and faith is a gift from God.
How do we define faith? Elton Trueblood once said that “Faith is not belief without proof but trust without reservation.” I love that!
Caleb did not have a blind faith in God. He had seen God at work in the concrete situations of life. He had seen God bring the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt. He had seen God lead the Israelites through the Red Sea on dry ground. Caleb’s faith in God was based upon the evidence of God’s prior working in his life and in the life of others. He knew that God was more than a match for the giants in the land of Palestine.
Caleb was not a self-confident person. He knew that he did not have the resources in himself to conquer the giants in the land of Canaan. I think he would have agreed with George Mueller when Mueller wrote, “Faith does not operate in the realm of the possible. Faith begins where man’s power ends.”
You have probably heard the story of the famous tightrope walker, Charles Blondin, who strung a cable across Niagara Gorge near Niagara Falls. To the applause of thousands, he would walk across that tightrope. He would even do it blindfolded or ride a bicycle back and forth. Then he would push a wheelbarrow across the gorge on the tightrope.
The story is told that one day, while getting ready to push the wheelbarrow across, Blondin asked the crowd whether they believed he could successfully push the wheelbarrow across with a person riding in it. The crowd said “yes” but when Blondin asked for volunteers, there were no takers. Later, Blondin did in fact carry his manager, Harry Colcord, across the tightrope on his back.
Well, Caleb had the kind of faith that would get into the wheelbarrow, trusting God to get him to the other side. I wonder, what kind of faith do we have?
A.W. Tozer once said,
The man of pseudo-faith will fight for his verbal creed but refuse flatly to allow himself to get in a predicament where his future must depend upon that creed being true. He always provides himself with secondary ways of escape; so that he will have a way out if the roof caves in. What we need very badly these days is a company of Christians who are prepared to trust God as completely now as they know that they must do at that last day.
Caleb was that kind of man. He was a person of real faith. Caleb did not hedge his bets. And God blessed Caleb because he followed God wholeheartedly. In Numbers 14:24 we read God’s promise to Caleb…
But because my servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly, I will bring him into the land he went to, and his descendants will inherit it.
That word, wholeheartedly, is used to describe Caleb six times in the Bible. In other words, Caleb had total faith in God and gave himself totally to God. As I have said before, being a Christian means giving as much as you know of yourself to as much as you know of Christ. I get the picture that Caleb was fearless because he trusted wholeheartedly in God to take care of him.
George MacDonald once wrote, “It is a man’s business to do the will of God; God takes on himself the special care of that man; therefore, that man ought never to be afraid of anything.”
One of the things I find most inspiring about the life of Caleb is that he followed the Lord his whole life long. And it was a long life indeed. After entering the Promised Land at age eighty-five, Caleb asked his friend Joshua for the hill country of Hebron and he drove the giants out of there. (See Joshua 14:10-12; 15:13-14.)
What a way to live! Trusting and obeying the Lord with an attitude of confidence in God can lead to a long, good life. But it probably won’t be a life without struggle. Caleb certainly must have experienced struggle in the desert for forty years and struggle in conquering the giants in the Promised Land. But at age eighty-five he was still strong and still living by faith.
I think Caleb would have agreed with John Bainbridge when he wrote,
A man with fifty problems is twice as alive as a man with twenty-five. If you haven’t got problems, you should get down on your knees and ask, ‘Lord, don’t you trust me anymore?’
Personally, I believe that problems can be our greatest opportunity to show the power of God to a watching world.
I wonder, are you lacking confidence today as you face some sort of problem or obstacle in your life? Why not ask God to give you the kind of confidence in him that Caleb had?
You know, Jesus never ran away from problems either. He met them head on. Jesus didn’t run away from the cross. He went to the cross to die for self-confident and unconfident people like you and me. Jesus can give us his mind, his heart, his Spirit, to face problems with a God-confident attitude.
On my bookshelf I have a card I purchased on one occasion from St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle. The card contains these words by Minnie Louise Haskins quoted by King George VI in his Christmas Broadcast of 1939…
I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year, “Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.” And he replied, “Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way!”
What giants are you facing in your life today? Is it the giant of health problems, or relational problems, or financial problems, or simply the giant of an unknown and scary future? Let me urge you to go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of Jesus. And he shall be to you safer than light and better than a known way…
Comments