The beginning of Numbers 8 mentions the lamp
stand, the seven-branched candlestick called the menorah. The light of the
menorah was symbolic of the light of God and the menorah itself became an
appropriate symbol of Israel. (The photo above is of a recreation of the
menorah from the Temple.)
The rest of Numbers 8 deals with the purification
of the Levites. This process involved completely shaving their bodies, which
must have really made them stand out as separate and distinct from the rest of the Israelite
men since the maintenance of a beard would have been customary for all the other adult males
in Israel.
The beginning of chapter nine contains an event
that is out of order, something uncommon in the narrative of the Torah.
Friedman explains:
The book of Numbers begins with God speaking to Moses in
the second month of the year. Now it tells of God speaking to Moses back in the
first month of the year. Why? Because it tells of a case in which some people
had been unable to observe Passover, which falls in the first month, and so God
tells Moses in this flashback that the law in that situation is that they
should observe Passover one month later, on the evening of the fourteenth day
of the second month. Their observance on that date thus belongs here in the
sequence of the narrative. The flashback is placed here to explain it. The
point is that the Torah adheres to chronological order in its story, and
exceptional breaks in that pattern such as this one occur very rarely and for
specific narrative purposes.[1]
Numbers 9:15 introduces an alternative name for
the Tent of Meeting, namely the Tent of the Testimony. This phrase may actually
refer to the inner pavilion over the Holy of Holies. It is called the Tent of
the Testimony because the location is associated with the Testimony, the
tablets of the Ten Commandments, in the Ark of the Covenant.
In Numbers 9:17 we read of the Israelites
breaking camp and moving whenever the cloud lifted from over the tent and then
making camp again whenever the cloud settled down on the tent. This
action of the cloud is symbolic of God “tenting” with the Israelites.
This story makes me wonder how sensitive we are
to the guidance of the Lord. We may not have a cloud by day and a pillar of
fire by night to guide us as the Israelites did, but there are many other ways
God can guide us: through Scripture, the counsel of wise friends, prayer,
reading, circumstances. Are we watching attentively for God to guide us,
and do we obey him when he does?
Moses’ words at the end of Numbers 10 are sometimes
referred to as poetry. However, it is difficult to come to that conclusion
simply based upon a few lines. We will definitely see some short poems in
Numbers 21-24. However, it is important to note that biblical poetry seldom
rhymes and has no obvious meter. The most common feature of Hebrew poetry is
the use of parallelism. For example take Isaiah 1:10….
Hear YHWH’s word, rulers of Sodom.
Listen to our God’s teaching, people of Gomorrah.
At the beginning of chapter 11, we have the first
of many accounts in this book of Israel grumbling. Here we are not told why
they grumbled. The people were simply negative, volatile, and lacking
confidence. This reminds me of what C. S. Lewis says in The Great Divorce about grumblers becoming grumbles in the end, with nothing left but their grumbling.
Notice that the Israelites appeal to Moses rather than God. They are more
comfortable complaining against a human leader, perhaps because they realize
how dangerous it might be for them to complain directly to the Lord.
At the same time, in Numbers 11:11, Moses is not
afraid to complain to the Lord, “Why have you done bad to your servant?”
Friedman calls this the most extraordinary speech of a human to God in the
entire Torah. By contrast, Adam and Eve speak to God, after the fall, like
children caught doing something naughty. Abraham questions the divine decision
to destroy Sodom. Moses pleads for the people after the golden calf incident.
However, here Moses speaks in a way we cannot imagine any human being speaking
to God up to this point. He ends on a very negative note saying: “And if this
is how you treat me, kill me!”
As Friedman points out, this is the opposite of
the manner in which an atheist might speak about the gods. Moses speaks this
way because he has become intimate with the Almighty.
Is it not interesting
that this generation that was closest to God, that saw his miracles on a daily
basis in the desert, was also the most rebellious? I suppose in some ways, the
passion of Israel, epitomized by Moses, is better than being lukewarm. As the
Lord says in Revelation 3:15-16,
I know your works; you are neither cold nor hot. I wish
that you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither
cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth.
Perhaps the Lord can work better with the passion
of a Moses, or a Tevye in Fiddler on the
Roof, than he can with the lukewarm nature of some of our prayers.
In Numbers 11, we also read of some of the
Israelites prophesying. This does not mean that they were predicting the
future. Prophecy sometimes involves foretelling but most often it is simply
“forth telling” … telling forth God’s truth, God’s word.
So how was it obvious
that these people were prophesying? Were they in a state of ecstasy, a trance?
As Friedman points out, prophesying is not usually pictured that way in the
Hebrew Scriptures. However, much prophecy does appear in the form of poetry. So
hearing people who do not normally speak in poetic form doing so was probably
the sign that they were speaking prophetically.
Do we still have prophets today? If so, can you
name one? What do you believe about the continuation of prophecy?
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