Unclean skins covering the holy Tabernacle? Pagan name for the LORD? (Numbers 1:1–4:20)

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How is Hosea 1:9–2:23 connected to the reading from Numbers?

One of the main themes of Hosea’s prophetic ministry was to teach the people who God considered His people and who God did not consider His people. We see this in Hosea 1:10 which says, 

“Yet the number of the sons of Israel Will be like the sand of the sea, Which cannot be measured or numbered; And in the place Where it is said to them, ‘You are not My people,’ It will be said to them, ‘You are the sons of the living God.’”

Hosea 1:10 NASB

 And God tells Hosea again, 

“I will sow her for Myself in the land. I will also have compassion on her who had not obtained compassion, And I will say to those who were not My people, ‘You are My people!’ And they will say, ‘You are my God!’”

Hosea 2:23 NASB

Hosea is calling on his children to reject the culture, the teachings and actions of their mother, who has apostatized against the Lord. He is also calling on them to refuse to imitate the disgusting cultural practices of the nations surrounding them. He reminds them focus attention to who is truly responsible for their well being, which is God, not the false gods of the nations around them, the ones their mother follows devotedly. They are warned that although they were born into a family, if they don’t stay in the family, they can be pruned off. However, God gives all humanity the opportunity to be His sons and daughters, even those who were not born into the household of God. 

This theme of being counted as sons of God is what ties Torah reading בְּמִדְבַּר Bemidbar (“in the wilderness,” Num. 1:1–4:20) and its parallel reading from Hosea together. The apostle John in John 1 and the apostle Paul in Romans 9–11 pick up this message. 

What is the ‘porpoise skin’ covering on the Tabernacle (Num. 4:5–10)?

““When the camp sets out, Aaron and his sons shall go in and they shall take down the veil of the screen and cover the ark of the testimony with it; and they shall lay a covering of porpoise skin on it, and shall spread over it a cloth of pure blue, and shall insert its poles. Over the table of the bread of the Presence they shall also spread a cloth of blue and put on it the dishes and the pans and the sacrificial bowls and the jars for the drink offering, and the continual bread shall be on it. They shall spread over them a cloth of scarlet material, and cover the same with a covering of porpoise skin, and they shall insert its poles. Then they shall take a blue cloth and cover the lampstand for the light, along with its lamps and its snuffers, and its trays and all its oil vessels, by which they serve it; and they shall put it and all its utensils in a covering of porpoise skin, and shall put it on the carrying bars.”

Numbers 4:5–10 NASB

The Hebrew words that the NASB translates as “porpoise skin” is עוֹר תַּחַשׁ ’or takhash (H5785 + H8476; tekhashim plural). The truth of the matter, is that we really don’t know what tachash is. For over 2,000 years, Jewish scholars have wrestled with the meaning of the word. Christian translators latched on to the idea that this takhash must have come from some sort of sea creature such as a porpoise, which bothers and offends modern Jewish scholars. 

Think it through. Why would God instruct the children of Israel to kill and skin an unclean sea creature and then process that skin into leather and then use that leather to as a covering over the most holy items in the most holy place that nothing else could touch? It makes as much sense as killing and skinning a pig and using its leather to cover the Ark, which is no sense at all. 

Generations later, when the Greeks desecrated the altar by sacrificing a pig on it, they replaced the altar because once the altar came into contact with the pig, it was utterly unclean. Covering the Ark of the Covenant in the skin of any unclean animal would have similarly rendered it unclean. 

We don’t know for certain what type of leather is being described here, it could have been the skin from a wild, clean animal such as a deer, but we simply don’t know. 

This is why in most modern Jewish translations of the scriptures into English simply transliterate the word and do not attempt to translate it into English. We probably won’t have a definitive answer about it until the Messiah comes and He reveals it. 

For more information regarding different midrashim (explorations) regarding this term, check out this article from TheTorah.com. 

Why is this book called ‘Numbers’ in English while it’s called Bemidbar, which means ‘in the wilderness’ in English?

In Judaism, the titles of the first five books of the Tanak come from the first word of those books. While Christian translators gave this book the title of “Numbers” because the first four chapters of the book provide detailed lists of different counts and census performed upon the children of Israel. The Christian translators used subject based titles for this books, rather than just grabbing the first reasonably significant word of the book and using that as a title. 

Did they establish camp based on the orientation of the four winds (north, east, west and south)? 

The short answer to that question is yes. Except that the tribe of Levi were split into their smaller clans and they were camped around it in the first ring around the tabernacle and then the other tribes were bundled into groups of three and oriented around the tabernacle behind the Levites. 

We have done many talks over the years detailing these camping arrangements and their significance both in terms of the hierarchy of the tribes in Moses’ day and how these hierarchies continued after they took root in the Promised Land. 

Here a previous talk that reviews the encampment orientation in detail: “Numbers 2: How the army of Israel surrounds the Tabernacle and prepares for war”

Why do we face Jerusalem rather than facing ‘east’ when we pray? 

Thank King Solomon for that because in his prayer of dedication, he asks God to answers the prayers of all those who face the Temple. In Jewish tradition, they would face towards the east regardless of where they live in the world, until recent times. 

How is the counting of the Levites different from how the other tribes were counted? (Num. 3:40–51)

There were roughly 600,000 men of fighting age, over the age of 20 in the entire nation of Israel.But in this count, they were only counting first born males and the count included all the first born Israelite males from one month old up and they found there were 22,273 were first born Israelite males in the community at the time. 

The Levites are counted separately and rather than just counting the first born of the Levites, they counted all the males of the tribe from one month up and there were 22,000 Levite males.

There were 273 more Israelite first born sons than Levites. This is important because before God appointed the Levites as his priestly clan, the task of priesthood was assigned to the first born males of the families. But after the Golden Calf, God rejected the first born of Israel as his priests and choose the tribe of Levi for that role instead. 

Were the ‘standards’ the children of Israel used to designate their camps similar to coats of arms?

Now the LORD spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, “The sons of Israel shall camp, each by his own standard, with the banners of their fathers’ households; they shall camp around the tent of meeting at a distance.”

Numbers 2:1–2 NASB

Nowadays, many churches have read this verse and made banners representing the 12 tribes, mostly using imagery from Jacob’s final prophesies over his sons recorded in Genesis 49. These are conjecture. We really have no idea what symbols, if any, were on these standards. 

My guess is, and the Sages support this idea, that the standards used in the wilderness bold, simple colors that could be seen from a long distance away so that regardless of where one wandered the camp or outside it, that one could return to ones campsite without getting too lost in the crowd.

[Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi) wrote:] These “signs” were indeed “ensigns,” as OJPS translates. Each standard had a colored flag hanging from it, and the colors were all different—each tribe’s flag was the same color as the stone representing it on the High Priest’s breast piece. This way, everyone could recognize his standard.

Michael Carasik, Numbers, The Commentators’ Bible; (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 2011), paragraph 382.

Why is God calling Himself by the title of a pagan god?

“It will come about in that day,” declares the LORD, “That you will call Me Ishi And will no longer call Me Baali.

 “For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, So that they will be mentioned by their names no more.”

Hosea 2:16–17 NASB

Why would one ever call God “ba’ali” (“my master”)? But the word “ishi” means “my man.” Ishi is more of a term of endearment between God and His people (think, husband), while the title ba’ali is not a term of endearment, it’s a more formal, more distant relationship between people and God. 

Yeshua epitomized this type of husband when He said that if one wants to be the ruler of all, he must be willing to be the servant of all.

Summary: Tammy