Day 23
Numbers 1 -4
Bible Time Period:
Desert Wanderings
You taught Israel to walk in faith through 40 years’ wandering in the
desert: Help me to trust in you today, O
God.
Prayer
Lord God, You called Your people Israel out from the nations of the earth to
serve You as Your holy covenant people and Your partners in the plan for man’s
salvation. In the same way, Lord, You
have called each of us to come out of the mass of humanity to make the decision
to willingly place our lives in Your hands and to advance the Kingdom of Your
Son. Just as the Israelites followed Your guiding presence in their exodus out
of slavery in Egypt and in their forty year journey to the Promised Land, so do
we make the commitment to follow You in our exodus through this earthly existence
on our journey to the Promised Land of heaven.
We ask You, Lord, to bless us as we study the story of Israel’s
struggles, tragedies and triumphs in the book of Numbers. May the failures of of Old Covenant
predecessors to trust and obey You when their journey became difficult be a
lesson to all of us when we face discouragement and hardship on our journey to
eternity. We pray in the name of God the
Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
(Agape Catholic Bible Study Numbers Lesson 1)
The Book of Numbers
The book of Numbers is often treated as a separate Bible book and as one of the
seventy-three books that comprise the entire canon of Sacred Scripture. The book of Numbers is not however, a separate
book but is instead one section of the five-part work of the “Book of Moses,” known in Hebrew as the Torah, in Greek as penta teuchos, “five scrolls,” and in
English, as the Pentateuch.
The period of time covered in the book of Numbers is about
thirty-nine years. The Israelites spent
three months traveling from Goshen in Egypt to Mt. Sinai, arriving as the
Hebrew text reads in “the third [full] moon” after leaving Egypt (Ex 19:1).
After arriving at the mountain in Exodus chapter 19, they
experienced a terrifying revelation of God followed by a period of covenant
formation, covenant ratification and instruction in Exodus chapters 20-39. Then in Exodus chapter 40, the Sanctuary was
completed on the first day of the first month in the second year after leaving
Egypt (Ex 40:2). After the Sanctuary was
completed, a month was spent receiving divine instruction in the civil and
religious law, the ordination of the priesthood and the establishment of
liturgical worship in the consecrated Sanctuary (recorded in the book of
Leviticus). The book of Numbers
chronologically begins with the celebration of the second Passover (fourteen
days after the Sanctuary was consecrated), the census of the tribes of Israel
(one month after the Sanctuary was built), and the events of Israel’s last twenty
days at Mt. Sinai in Numbers chapters 1 – 9.
From their arrival on the 15th day of the third
month to their departure in the second year on the 20th day of the
second month (Num 10:11), the Israelites spent about ten months at Mt.
Sinai. The remainder of the narrative of
the book of Numbers covers the journey to Kadesh-Barnea on the border of
Canaan, the aborted attempt to take possession of the Promised Land, God’s
judgment on the Exodus generation for their lack of faith, and the thirty-nine
years the Israelites lived as nomads in the northeastern Sinai near
Kadesh-Barnea. The narrative concludes
with the events surrounding the arrival of the new generation of Israelites on
the plains of Moab in the fortieth year after leaving Egypt. (Agape Catholic
Bible Study Numbers Lesson 1)
Reflection
Getting Israel out of Egypt and setting them up as his people was one
thing. It will be quite another to purge
Egypt from their hearts. They are
children still, spiritually, and they need to learn to trust their Father and
walk in faith before they are ready to possess the land that was promised
them. The book of Numbers picks up the
story here and tells how they fare in the period of “Desert Wanderings.”
The Book of Numbers gets its English name from the census
God has them take at the start of the book and again at the end. (The book’s title in Hebrew, bemidbar, means “in the desert” – which is
where they will spend the next 40 years, before entering Canaan.) The tribe of Levi is not counted in the
census because they have no military role.
After the incident with the golden calf, God set them apart from the
other tribes to care for the Tabernacle.
Notice their position in chapter 2 in relationship to the tabernacle and
to the other tribes, which are being put into a formal marching order.
Today’s Reading
Today’s Question
The Tabernacle provided a way for the people to approach God. What do all these
careful instructions say about him?
Commentary
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Art
Israel Encampment - Abe Goolsby
