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The book of Numbers is more than just a collection of long lists of numbers of people in the tribes and families of Israel and of places where the people camped for 40 years. It shows us how God prepares His people then and now to move forward into the tasks He has for them. Numbers contains lessons of character refinement of a people.
We’ll go through some of the highlights of the book of Numbers. Chapter 1 [see parts 1 and 2 of the study] and Chapter 26 had census lists of all the tribes. We notice that certain tribes lost a large number of people while others were either stagnant or increased in population.
The eastern (in orientation to the tabernacle), western and northern tribes increased but the tribes in the south decreased by a large margin, mainly the tribe of Simeon lost the most men during the 40 years.
We also learned that each of the names listed in the genealogies of these tribes tell a story about part of the Messiah’s birth, life, ministry and death.
In Chapter 10, they had to confront an enemy, not just an enemy of the Israelite people but an enemy of God Himself. The enemy fled from God and His people. They gathered themselves around the tabernacle in specific order.
Chapter 11 introduces us to the foundation of the Sanhedrin, 70 elders were appointed by Moses to help him hear the cases brought by the people. They were all given the Holy Spirit to be able to prophesy with power.
In Chapter 12, Miriam and Aaron started a conspiracy of gossiping against Moses, which God Himself had to intervene. He told them they should be scared to speak out against Moses in any way and punished them by giving Miriam leprosy for seven days.
Later, we read about the 12 spies and how the 10 spies spoke a bad report about the Land. Those 10 unfaithful spies were killed by God as a consequence of their faithlessness.
We are blessed with some degree of hindsight from God and we are quick to criticize the people for not seeing God’s hand in these events and only seeing Moses and Aaron’s hands through the events of the plagues, the Red Sea, etc. The popular opinion in most of Israel was that the Land to believe the lies of the 10 spies over the truth given to them by the 2 faithful spies. They were so set to rebel against God at this point, they conspired to kill Moses and Aaron and elect a captain over them to go back to Egypt.
God was tired of their rebellion at this point and He cursed all of that generation to death in the wilderness.
Soon, we start to see the new generation come into their own in the community. This is when the rebellion of Korah occurred. The 250 rebellious Levites who attempted to bring incense to the tabernacle were killed by holy fire and their censers were melted down and used in the tabernacle.
Gold and silver are precious only because God said they was precious. God’s word is the foundation of our monetary system.
The Reubenites also accused Moses of not bringing them into the Land, the Land they didn’t even want to enter in the first place. God struck them down for their rebellion, too.
Sometimes we accuse our world leaders of breaking promises but world events are shaped by God’s will, not the will of men.
God gave Moses and Aaron a lot of supernatural power. When the earth swallowed up the leaders of the rebellion, the people still didn’t understand that it was God who gave the power to them. They still saw only Moses and Aaron exercising power and they were envious of their power.
What is so fascinating about Aaron’s rod? Aaron’s rod was a dead stick yet buds, blossoms and fruit all came forth.
In Chapter 20, Moses and Aaron were punished for “not believing in Me” at the waters of Meribah and did not sanctify Him with the people and as a consequence, neither Aaron nor Moses were allowed to bring the children of Israel into the Land of Israel.
In chapters 21–24 [see studies on chapters 21, 22 and 23–24] we meet Balaam, and He was paid to curse the children of Israel but he blessed them instead. It wasn’t until Chapter 24 that Balaam learned why he was commanded to bless the children of Israel. Balaam said that his eyes were finally opened at that point.
In the last chapters, God tells them what they are to do with murderes and manslayers. The accidental manslayers have to live in the city of the High Priest for the rest of the High Priest’s life. As long as they lived in the city of the High Priest, they were safe. Once the High Priest was dead, they were freed from their crime. This teaches us some profound lessons about our relationship to our Messiah, too.
Speaker: Richard Agee. Summary: Tammy.