Introduction the Numbers

The book of Numbers strikes me with the idea that the book should have been so much shorter.  When we look at the content of the book we see that in a very short period of time the children of Israel arrived at their intended destination and should have entered the Promised Land at that time.  However, because of their disobedience and lack of faith in the Lord; they spent forty years walking in circles, sinning and dying.  Once the nation literally comes “full circle” the original generation has all died off and the new generation is prepared to do what their parents should have done.  God used the difficulties of the desert to mold the character of the people so they would be willing to obey His command.  The oldest person in the nation, besides Caleb, Joshua and Moses would have been sixty years old.  The majority of the people who were now ready to go into the Promised Land were born wandering in the desert or they were children when they left Egypt.

PREPARATION AND PURIFICATION: The book begins with the command to take a census and number the people.  The result of the census reveals that there are over 600,000 men over the age of 20 who are able to go into battle which it would stand to reason places the population of the nation at over two million people.  It is clear that prior to entering the Promised Land there were two things that needed to be done.  They needed to be organized and they needed to be purified.  They were about to go into battle and one does not go into war without being prepared.  Their preparation needed to be both logistical and spiritual.  This balance is important to remember throughout all of life.  There are things that we need to be responsible to do in order to be successful in our endeavors.  However, there are other things that only God can do.  The children of Israel needed to be prepared for battle and organized in their efforts to be victorious.  They also needed to be sanctified before the Lord and dependent upon Him in order to prevail against an enemy much stronger than they were physically.  God expects us to be diligent, disciplined and dedicated in our efforts to accomplish His will.  At the same time, we desperately need to recognize that unless we are devoted to the Lord and dependent upon the Lord all of our efforts will be in vain.

REBELLION AND RAMIFICATIONS: The second portion of this book is one of the greatest tragedies in all of literature.  God had demonstrated His ability to free the people from Egypt by inflicting catastrophic plagues on the people.  He opened the Red Sea.  He gave them victory in battle over the Amalekites as Moses raised His arms over the battle.  God fed them, led them and corrected them.  The children of Israel were on the brink of entering the Promised Land and sent 12 men to spy out the land.  I have always wondered if this expedition was really a part of God’s plan or if Moses, as a leader, took matters into his own hands.  Scripture does not tell us one way or the other but the results of their report were terrible.  They raved about the richness of the land but were intimidated by the strength of the inhabitants.  Joshua and Caleb were confident that God would deliver the land into their hands as He had promised but the other ten men whose names none of us can remember were overcome with fear and they instigated a rebellion against Moses, Aaron and God.  The people refuse to trust the Lord and conquer the land and God threatens to wipe the entire nation off the face of the earth.  Moses intercedes with God on behalf of the people using God’s own glory as his argument and God answers his prayer.  Instead, He decides to sentence all who are over 20 years of age to death over the next forty years as they wander in the desert.  Now the people decide they can invade the Promised Land on their own and are defeated.  This begins a long series of rebellions on the part of the people followed by the ramifications of that rebellion.  Korah and his followers rebel against the leadership of Aaron and Moses and God opens up the earth to swallow them up.  God has to establish Aaron’s leadership by causing his staff to bud.  The people complain and Moses becomes angry and disobeys God by striking the rock to bring water out of it instead of speaking to it and he and Aaron are banned from entering the Promised Land.  The people live in disobedience and God sends serpents to kill the people but God provides a means of deliverance in the form of a bronze serpent that they can look upon and be healed.  There are always terrible consequences to sin but God also provides means of forgiveness and cleansing through the Lord Jesus if we are simply willing to trust Him.

WANDERINGS AND WARS: As the people wander through the desert literally waiting to die; they are faced with numerous confrontations and wars.  The nation is large and they struck fear into the hearts of the other nations that lived in the land.  However, instead of granting Israel’s request to simply pass through the land, the nations would come out and confront Israel in battle.  Without exception, Israel would prevail through the miraculous provision and protection of the Lord.  These numerous wars left the children of Israel battle tested and confident in the ability of God to deliver them in the face of conflict.  Israel began to gain a reputation in the nations that struck fear into the hearts of all who heard of them.  In desperation the Moabites try to hire Balaam to curse Israel but God does not permit it so they attempt to infiltrate the nation through intermarriage and idolatry.  As the forty years of wanderings come to a close the Lord begins to, once again prepare the people for entering the Promised Land.  He instructs them about sacrifices and cities of refuge and He calls them to take a new census of the people which reveals a nation that is basically the same size as it had been forty years earlier.  The cost of rebellion had been high, but this nation is now ready to obey God and move into the Promised Land.  Two of the tribes desire to remain on the other side of the Jordan but commit to fighting with their brothers until they too have inherited their land.  God has strengthened the nation through wandering and wars just as He often uses hardship in all of our lives to prepare us for greater service for Him.