Wandering in the Wilderness: Reflections from the book of Numbers. 3500 years to Covid-19
Lesson Four (Chapters 8-10)
To view this online as a video: https://youtu.be/UJ1LhbvlfJc
A. Introduction
1. Greetings
Shalom to each of you here on the Zoom call and those who will watch this class lecture on YouTube later. Our usual program during these talks is to conduct an overview of the Bible section in the first 25 minutes and then let everyone on the call into a conversation about all the themes or ideas that I will bring up for the last 30 minutes or so. Further discussion happens even deeper in our D-Groups that happen over the next week or maybe some will conduct a D-Group on Shabbat.
I’m going to recommend that you who are watching this on YouTube should read the next three Bible chapters before you listen/ watch the rest of this. They are chapters 8 through 10. Then press play on your machine and re-join us. Thanks.
2. Overview
[For those online, see this book overview from The Bible Project (https://youtu.be/tp5MIrMZFqo)] We saw how this book breaks into three major geographic and chronological sections. The first is found in chapters 1 through 10. Geographically we were at Sinai at the time. That’s where we are in this our 4th class today.
Some of you are new to our Zoom call and I especially welcome you, whether here in Australia or from overseas. You are muted at the beginning, but in a short while, our host will allow the usually lively conversations and questions.
3. Three Theses
We will continue to remind ourselves about three major considerations that Moses addresses over and over in the book of Numbers. You will find them throughout our study. First, as Jewish people today still think, the goal of our wandering was a settled place, then titled ‘Canaan’ and today titled ‘Israel.’ Wildernesses are ok for trekkers or adventurers, but that’s not the long-ranged plan of God for us Jewish people. The second major thesis is the centrality of God, in location, in guidance, in physicality, in the structures he establishes from Tabernacle on. We are a community often on the march, but we are never to forget the centrality of the Almighty. The third major thought concerns authority. We have the One who gave us his law at Mt Sinai, and to whom we often have to return for further clarification and advice.
Watch for those three theses each week, although some weeks they won’t be that visible, but usually they are front and centre.
B. Today’s study: Beha’alotecha
When I was a teenager, this parsha was one which I was assigned to read publicly at the synagogue, and I had not prepared well enough, so I feigned a throat problem about 2 minutes into my reading. Thus when I get to this section of Bible, I have a deep regret, a sense of shame, and a memory that causes me to reflect on guilt and embarrassment. Maybe you have such memories in your life. I’m here today to assure you, nothing is beyond the grace and power of God to forgive. There is no sin which can prevent the forgiveness of the Lord to reach us. On what do I base that? The Word of God! It starts here with lamps.
1. Lamps are lit
As chapter 7 concluded, the issue and roles of authority are evident. God spoke with Moses and now as chapter 8 begins, the speaking is overheard if you will. What God said to Moses, Moses records for us that we might know three things: 1) God’s voice is to be obeyed, 2) Moses is only the spokesman and not the originator of these directions and 3) the compliance by the Levites or the priests or Aaron or even Moses himself—those are functions of obedience and both a template and a record of what Israel is to do and how we are to behave going forward.
First things first. Light the lampstand after you build it. Of course the menorah was already built in Exodus (instructions in Ex. 25, fulfilled in Ex. 37), and now the location of the lamp is in view.
Most of your versions of the Bible read verse 2 something like “when you erect” the lamps. But the Hebrew says ‘beha’alotecha’, which means ‘when you cause the lamps to go up.’ I really like that. There is a sense of height that is missed in the English. And if there is height, there is increased capacity both for observation by others and for viewing which the lamps can reach. Does that make sense to you? God wants light to pervade the Mishkan and he wants that light to reach every corner, every crevice. And that includes reaching into your life here in 21st century, lockdowns and COVID-oriented and virus fatigued Australia and wherever you live. Letting light shine is the goal and trimming lamps is the mechanism of doing this. Let me explain.
Matthew 25 opens with a parable of 10 virgins and lamps. It’s a parable about readiness and about awaiting the return of Messiah. Yeshua tells the story to focus the listener (or in our case, the reader) on eager anticipation of the coming of Messiah, and about living with such hope.
6 “But at midnight there was a shout, ‘Behold, the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ 7 “Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps. 8 “The foolish said to the prudent, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’
The story has great conflict and drama and I encourage you to read it later after our class today. The wise virgins are those who long for the return of the Bridegroom and who maintain light on the subject. The foolish ones are those who let their lights dwindle by dawdling and misbehaving. The clarity is obvious and I bring it to this reading of Numbers today to highlight our need to keep our lamps trimmed and burning. The biblical folks didn’t have electricity as neither Tesla nor Edison had rolled onto the scene. Lights were not candles but oil and wicks, and to keep up continual light.
Ex. 27:20 “You shall charge the sons of Israel, that they bring you clear oil of beaten olives for the light, to make a lamp burn continually.
The purpose of the menorah was to fill the Tabernacle with light, not for a moment, but ongoing, morning and evening, which is a dramatic was of saying perpetually.
Those olives were beaten to produce the oil and the wicks were cut and trimmed to make this happen. In other words there are sacrifices and cutting which produced the end result God required. So it will be in your life; God will ask of you diminutions and tough times, beating if you will, to produce a godly result. Don’t despise those trimmings. The end result is light, for others, and you will benefit as well.
Even in verse 4 of our text today (Num. 8.4) the menorah was made of hammered gold. You want the light to shine in the Mishkan? The oil and the menorah are both beaten. You want the light of God to shine in your life? The reality is that some significant loss has to happen so that real stuff shines.
In Revelation 18.23, we read. “the light of a lamp will not shine in you any longer; and the voice of the bridegroom and bride will not be heard in you any longer; for your merchants were the great men of the earth, because all the nations were deceived by your sorcery.”
Those whose light stops shining are those who dwell at ease in Babylon, without stress or difficulty, with bounty and luxury. Let God have his way in you, this week, even today, amen?
2. Levites cleansed
The children of Levi are now in view as the Mishkan is finished, the tent needs people to work there. It’s almost as if you are walking past a new business in your neighbourhood. The building site has been behind the construction site walls, and finally, the grand opening is announced. Then the walls come down and the new building is almost finished. You bring your family to see the new place. Looks really good. The announcement of the Opening Day is on the building, and a help wanted sign is seen in the distance.
What good is the new business if no one works there.
So it is with God who has the Tabernacle built and now he’s hiring. He has already numbered the people and now he hires the Levites to run the place. But not simply a Levite, rather a cleansed Levite.
What are the rites associated with this readying? The end result is separation to duty (8.14). The guidelines from the Authority are these: 1) Clean water, 2) shaved hair, 3) cleansed garments, 4) presentation of animal and food offerings, 5) gathering at the Mishkan for presentation of the Levites to the people, 6) laying on of hands by the people of the Levites, 7) Aaron presents the Levites to the Lord as a wave offering and finally 8) the Levites make sacrifices to make atonement.
Now that’s a lot of effort for people who are already chosen. Here’s what I mean. By right, the children of Levi were established by God to be the workers in the Mishkan. (Num. 3.5-7) The announcement had already been made. Now they who are deserving have to be made ready. It was automatic but it wasn’t. The Levites were qualified by genealogy, but it had to be filled full and completed by these 8 actions. In the same way, my people, the Jewish people are all automatically deserving of a relationship with God, already in place by genealogy to be his, but there are actions we have to take to complete this choice.
When I say I’m a completed Jew, it means I’ve been doubly chosen. I often think in sports analogies because I’m a keen sports watcher and sports player enthusiast. Some would say fanatic, but I prefer the kinder word, ‘fan.’ A sports personality like Diego Maradona who died yesterday in Buenos Aires was the most important player on his Argentinian side in the 1980s. In 1986, he hit two goals against England in the semi-finals which launched his home side to ultimate victory in the World Cup. He was nicknamed “El Dios” which means “the god” and is not a little sacrilegious. But think with me in this way. If Maradona had earned his salary in the beginning of the season and was the celebrity of every newscast, but then for whatever reason, he decided to sit out the match against England, the noise from the crowds would have been heard here in Sydney.
Imagine if Maradona said, “I’m chosen. I’m the celebrity. I’m the winner.” But then didn’t play. The fans across his country would have been scandalized and horrified. Chosenness is about performance, not about status.
In the same way, we Jews are chosen, not to sit idly by while the world is wasting away in Babylon. We are chosen to perform, to make the world a better place, to listen to the Authority of God and to enact his purposes. To bring his light to the darkness of the world. Amen?
So when the Levites are chosen to work, they can’t just rock up and say, “Yo, I’m here. Where’s my throne? Where’s my lounge room?” They have work to do to ready themselves and then to ready the business in which they will be working.
Washing in water. Obviously. They’ve been in the heat of the wilderness for a year, and they and their clothes both need a cleansing. Shaving marks them out as distinct. Sacrificing animals and offering appropriate foods, but then they had to present themselves, orderly, humbly, to be anointed and have hands laid on them. They are now offered as an offering. How good is that? The Levites had to bow their heads and have a benediction said over them. That humility before their brothers.
What else is there? The sprinkling. It’s in the infinitive, thus not a command to Moses to perform (over 200,000 Levites) but a requirement, however the Levites did this. Then also in verse 7, the phrase is ‘purifying water.’ But the Hebrew is ‘water of sin’ which really means the water to remove sin, or better water which accompanies the cleansing from sin. The water alone doesn’t wash our sin.
Peter the apostle said something similar about baptism.
“baptism now saves you — not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience — through the resurrection of Jesus Christ” 1 Peter 3.21. The water of baptism isn’t salvific, it’s the appeal to God for a new heart, a cleansed heart, through Yeshua’s life and death and resurrection.
Now the Levites are cleansed and we learn more about their qualifications.
They are to serve the Aaronides (the priests) and make atonement for the people of Israel. They apprentice from 25-30 years old and then they serve among their brothers for 20 years until they are 50. (.23-25) After that, they became trusted advisors to the newer Levites and priests.
Chapter 9 is next in our text, but we have already covered that in our First Lesson as it takes place at the beginning of the chronology of this book.
So we skip to Chapter 10.
3. The Dixieland Band
God tells Moses to line up some trumpeters. Think New Orleans and Dizzy Gillespie or the Aussie James Morrison rather than the shofar blowers of Rosh Hashanah. But you might argue, isn’t the trumpet always a shofar? Nope, in this case they were silver trumpets and were used for various purposes.
Again, they were made of beaten work (10.2) to remind me of the purpose of suffering, to make fantastic music and to sound purposeful signals to the community. You remember the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow cantillation, “one if by land and two if by sea” in “Paul Revere’s Ride” (1860 poem by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow that commemorates the actions of American patriot Paul Revere on April 18, 1775)
Similarly, here the sounding of certain sounds in sequence or in rhythm or in pairs would tell the people one thing or another. Notice it’s the priests, not the Levites who are trumpeting their signal. I find this significant. Music is a high calling and as such is for the highest-ranking Israelites.
If you heard the teruah that’s a battle cry, or ‘alarm’ in many versions. If you heard a single blast it meant to call the princes of the tribes to gather. Two clarion sounds of the silver trumpets and that meant all the nations should gather.
Look at verse 9. When we hear the trumpets, when the priests blow and we listen, then we are in a way praying, so that God remembers us, and ‘you shall be saved from your enemies.’
The final use is in verse 10 where we read, ‘Also in the day of your gladness and in your appointed feasts, and on the first days of your months, you shall blow the trumpets over your burnt offerings, and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings; and they shall be as a reminder of you before your God. I am the LORD your God.”
God wants us to rejoice in him with sounds of gladness. He wants us to mark festivals with such celebrations and silver trumpets. Our offerings and our new moons. In other words, let everyone know that it’s a holiday or a festival. Don’t leave any Israelite out in their seeking for God’s life and news about God.
I really believe that this is significant. Today is Friday in Sydney, but it’s still very much Thursday in the USA, and this is Thanksgiving there. The holiday that’s the most travelled (usually when not Covid time) of all the US holidays. There are reasons to be thankful today. And those reasons do not include 260,000 dead people from the virus. That does not include the millions including Lil and Robin, Glenn and so many that I know, who have contracted the virus. Our thankfulness involves eternal matters and God’s provision. God has given us reasons to celebrate all his love and his attention to us. And we are glad. If you are glad and don’t say ‘thank you’ to the Lord, you are missing out.
Gratitude is one of the most wonderful gifts God can give you. Be thankful for all his supply. I’m grateful for my family who loves each other. My wife and kids and grandsons. Awesome. I’m grateful for my first cousins and the life of Janet who passed last week. I’m glad we had some delightful times together. I’m glad for my Aunt Sarah, the last uncle or aunt in my life, who passed away the other night, and our times of fellowship in the Lord and her joyful spirit even to the end. I’m grateful for technology which allows us to share on Zoom and the Bibles we all have in abundance, enough to share. I’m grateful for the donors who supply needed funds to keep our work going here in Sydney. I’m grateful for the Jewish men and women who are seeking God, considering his life and plan and purpose. Even this morning here into our shop came South African Tom who had his first visit with us, and it won’t be the last.
I’m grateful that Yeshua died for my sins and extended eternity to me by his spirit so I could enter eternal life almost 50 years ago in May, 1971, by faith in the blood of Jesus. What an awesome God we have.
Can you make a gratitude list today? You don’t have to wait until the 4th Thursday in November where you live. You can have your own Thanksgiving anytime. With a turkey and cranberry sauce or simply with a list of thanks. It’s worth doing. Blow a trumpet if you have one. Dixie land music includes trombones, too. Or just look up to heaven and smile, lift your hands and say, ‘thanks.’
Conclusion
Stay with us during these weeks and learn with the others how you can stay on track in 2020 and beyond. And in the D-Groups, you will work this out with others, as a community on the march. If you have not yet joined a weekly Discipleship Group, please re-consider that and join us as we dig deeper.
I hope to see you next Friday 10 am Sydney time, as we study chapters 11 and 12, and learn about our marching to Zion together and our first anniversary or what I might title Kvetching 102”. Hope to see you then, and until then, please keep your lamps trimmed and burning, bless those around you and shout Hallelujah to the Lord of life for all he has done for us all. Shabbat shalom!
The three theses:
1) The goal of our wandering was another place: Israel
2) God is to be central to our marching and in our living
3) Authority of the Lord and his anointed is not to be missed
Bibliography
Budd, Philip, Word Biblical Commentary, Volume 5. Numbers. Word, Waco, 1984.
Hertz, Rabbi Dr JH, The Pentateuch and Haftorahs, Soncino, London, 1978.
Pakula, Martin, Numbers: Homeward Bound, Aquilla Press, Sydney, 2006.
Weirsbe, Warren. Be Counted. David C. Cook Publishing, Colorado Springs,1999.
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D-Groups for this week
1) Tuesday 11 am Sydney time. Led by James Howse
2) Monday 10 am Sydney time, led by Rebekah Bronn
3) Thursday 7 pm, Sydney time, led by James White
(Contact our office for zoom details)
If you’d like to host a D-Group either online or in person, please contact bob@jewsforjesus.org.au for further details. It’s time to step up. Ponder this—who will be in your D-Group?
Actual text:
Num. 8:1 Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Speak to Aaron and say to him, ‘When you mount the lamps, the seven lamps will give light in the front of the lampstand.’” 3 Aaron therefore did so; he 1mounted its lamps at the front of the lampstand, just as the LORD had commanded Moses. 4 Now this was the workmanship of the lampstand, hammered work of gold; from its base to its flowers it was hammered work; according to the pattern which the LORD had shown Moses, so he made the lampstand.
Num. 8:5 Again the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 6 “Take the Levites from among the sons of Israel and cleanse them. 7 “Thus you shall do to them, for their cleansing: sprinkle purifying water on them, and let them use a razor over their whole body and wash their clothes, and they will be clean. 8 “Then let them take a 1bull with aits grain offering, fine flour mixed with oil; and a second bull you shall take for a sin offering. 9 So you shall present the Levites before the tent of meeting. You shall also assemble the whole congregation of the sons of Israel, 10 and present the Levites before the LORD; and the sons of Israel shall lay their hands on the Levites. 11 “Aaron then shall present the Levites before the LORD as a wave offering from the sons of Israel, that they may qualify to perform the service of the LORD. 12 “Now the Levites shall lay their hands on the heads of the bulls; then offer the one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering to the LORD, to make atonement for the Levites. 13 “You shall have the Levites stand before Aaron and before his sons so as to present them as a wave offering to the LORD.
Num. 8:14 “Thus you shall separate the Levites from among the sons of Israel, and the Levites shall be Mine. 15“Then after that the Levites may go in to serve the tent of meeting. But you shall cleanse them and present them as a wave offering; 16 for they are wholly given to Me from among the sons of Israel. I have taken them for Myself instead of every first issue of the womb, the firstborn of all the sons of Israel. 17 “For every firstborn among the sons of Israel is Mine, among the men and among the animals; on the day that I struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt I sanctified them for Myself. 18 “But I have taken the Levites instead of every firstborn among the sons of Israel. 19 I have given the Levites as a gift to Aaron and to his sons from among the sons of Israel, to perform the service of the sons of Israel at the tent of meeting and to make atonement on behalf of the sons of Israel, so that there will be no plague among the sons of Israel by their coming near to the sanctuary.”
Num. 8:20 Thus did Moses and Aaron and all the congregation of the sons of Israel to the Levites; according to all that the LORD had commanded Moses concerning the Levites, so the sons of Israel did to them. 21 The Levites, too, purified themselves from sin and washed their clothes; and Aaron presented them as a wave offering before the LORD. Aaron also made atonement for them to cleanse them. 22 Then after that the Levites went in to perform their service in the tent of meeting before Aaron and before his sons; just as the LORD had commanded Moses concerning the Levites, so they did to them.
Num. 8:23 Now the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 24 “This is what applies to the Levites: from twenty-five years old and upward they shall enter to perform service in the work of the tent of meeting. But at the age of fifty years they shall retire from service in the work and not work anymore. 26 “They may, however, assist their brothers in the tent of meeting, to keep an obligation, but they themselves shall do no work. Thus you shall deal with the Levites concerning their obligations.”
Num. 10:1 The LORD spoke further to Moses, saying, 2 “Make yourself two trumpets of silver, of hammered work you shall make them; and you shall use them for summoning the congregation and for having the camps set out. 3 “When both are blown, all the congregation shall gather themselves to you at the doorway of the tent of meeting. 4“Yet if only one is blown, then the leaders, the heads of the divisions of Israel, shall assemble before you. 5 “But when you blow an alarm, the camps that are pitched on the east side shall set out. 6 “When you blow an alarm the second time, the camps that are pitched on the south side shall set out; an alarm is to be blown for them to set out. 7 “When convening the assembly, however, you shall blow without sounding an alarm. 8 “The priestly sons of Aaron, moreover, shall blow the trumpets; and this shall be for you a perpetual statute throughout your generations. 9 “When you go to war in your land against the adversary who attacks you, then you shall sound an alarm with the trumpets, that you may be remembered before the LORD your God and be saved from your enemies. 10 “Also in the day of your gladness and in your appointed feasts, and on the first days of your months, you shall blow the trumpets over your burnt offerings, and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings; and they shall be as a reminder of you before your God. I am the LORD your God.”
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