Numbers 28-30: Faithful God! Faithful People?

Numbers 28-30: How will God’s people dwell with him in the Promised Land?

Today’s reading is a little on the lengthy side, so feel free to sit down if you’d prefer — although you’re welcome to remain standing if you’d like. Our reading starts on page ___ in the Blue pew Bible if you’d like to follow along.

Read:

English Standard Version Chapter 28

28 The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Command the people of Israel and say to them, ‘My offering, my food for my food offerings, my pleasing aroma, you shall be careful to offer to me at its appointed time.’ 3 And you shall say to them, This is the food offering that you shall offer to the LORD: two male lambs a year old without blemish, day by day, as a regular offering. 4 The one lamb you shall offer in the morning, and the other lamb you shall offer at twilight; 5 also a tenth of an ephah of fine flour for a grain offering, mixed with a quarter of a hin of beaten oil. 6 It is a regular burnt offering, which was ordained at Mount Sinai for a pleasing aroma, a food offering to the LORD. 7 Its drink offering shall be a quarter of a hin for each lamb. In the Holy Place you shall pour out a drink offering of strong drink to the LORD. 8 The other lamb you shall offer at twilight. Like the grain offering of the morning, and like its drink offering, you shall offer it as a food offering, with a pleasing aroma to the LORD.

And then we see requirements for weekly Sabbath offerings, monthly offerings, and yearly festival offerings: Passover, in the first month, Firstfruits, at harvest time, and Trumpets/Atonement/Tabernacles, in the seventh month. The section concludes with verse 40:  So Moses told the people of Israel everything just as the LORD had commanded Moses.

Now, chapter 30:

English Standard Version Chapter 30

30 Moses spoke to the heads of the tribes of the people of Israel, saying, “This is what the LORD has commanded. 2 If a man vows a vow to the LORD, or swears an oath to bind himself by a pledge, he shall not break his word. He shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth.

Women and Vows

3 “If a woman vows a vow to the LORD and binds herself by a pledge, while within her father’s house in her youth, 4 and her father hears of her vow and of her pledge by which she has bound herself and says nothing to her, then all her vows shall stand, and every pledge by which she has bound herself shall stand. 5 But if her father opposes her on the day that he hears of it, no vow of hers, no pledge by which she has bound herself shall stand. And the LORD will forgive her, because her father opposed her.

6 “If she marries a husband, while under her vows or any thoughtless utterance of her lips by which she has bound herself, 7 and her husband hears of it and says nothing to her on the day that he hears, then her vows shall stand, and her pledges by which she has bound herself shall stand. 8 But if, on the day that her husband comes to hear of it, he opposes her, then he makes void her vow that was on her, and the thoughtless utterance of her lips by which she bound herself. And the LORD will forgive her. 9 (But any vow of a widow or of a divorced woman, anything by which she has bound herself, shall stand against her.) 10 And if she vowed in her husband’s house or bound herself by a pledge with an oath, 11 and her husband heard of it and said nothing to her and did not oppose her, then all her vows shall stand, and every pledge by which she bound herself shall stand. 12 But if her husband makes them null and void on the day that he hears them, then whatever proceeds out of her lips concerning her vows or concerning her pledge of herself shall not stand. Her husband has made them void, and the LORD will forgive her. 13 Any vow and any binding oath to afflict herself, her husband may establish, or her husband may make void. 14 But if her husband says nothing to her from day to day, then he establishes all her vows or all her pledges that are upon her. He has established them, because he said nothing to her on the day that he heard of them. 15 But if he makes them null and void after he has heard of them, then he shall bear her iniquity.”

16 These are the statutes that the LORD commanded Moses about a man and his wife and about a father and his daughter while she is in her youth within her father’s house.

This is the word of the LORD. Please join me in prayer as we ask the LORD’s blessing on his word.

Our text divides into two sections: chapters 28-29, which deal with regular sacrifices the Israelites were supposed to offer, and chapter 30, which deals with keeping vows, all of them asking the question, “How will God’s people dwell with him in the promised land?”

Chs 28-29: Sacrificial Requirements for Dwelling with God in the Promised Land

I want to point out two features of chapters 28-29. First, they seem rather out of place, so we ought to ask,

“What are these doing here?”

Second, they are rich in imagery we’d miss out on very readily if we weren’t familiar with the rest of the Pentateuch, especially Leviticus — a sermon series, by the way, that’s worth listening to over and over again if you haven’t already because of the book’s centrality to the entire Biblical narrative. Accordingly, we’ll ask, “What do these offerings teach?”

Let’s ask that first question.

What are Numbers 28-29 doing here?

Well, the narrative action has really slowed down since Numbers 25 with the plague after the incident with Baal at Peor, so it’s actually not all that surprising to see more dialogue. What is surprising is the content of the dialogue. Numbers 26 and 27 at least served to advance the storyline — who’s going to inherit the promised land now that the previous generation is gone? (The new generation, of course.) Who’s going to lead them, since Moses is too old for war, aside from his disobedience at Meribah in Kadesh? (Joshua, of course.) And now that we have those questions answered, we’re ready to take the Promised Land! Let’s go! Well, not so fast, says the LORD.

See, one of Israel’s troubles is that they always wanted God’s promises without God himself, and Numbers 28-29 serve as a corrective to that impulse. In these chapters that break up the narrative moving forward, we see a faithful God who has kept his covenant word now reminding his people to be faithful to their end of the covenant by “being careful” to keep the stipulations that covenant enjoined upon them.

And do you see the grace in this? That first generation utterly failed with regards to the covenant. How easy would it have been for God to scrap the entire program and start over with a new nation? How easy would it have been to set up even stricter parameters for remaining in fellowship with him, giving yet more and more law to keep to appease his ever-growing wrath against their ever-growing iniquity? But that’s not the way of God. He promised Abraham his descendants would live in the land of Canaan, and he’d given those descendants the conditions on which that promise would come true.

Numbers 28-29 are a reminder that God doesn’t just want to put the right people in the right place so he can keep his word to the bare minimum, but that he wants to maintain fellowship with those people as their God who dwells with them.

Why do I say that? Let’s go ahead and answer our second question,

What do these offerings teach?

These offerings teach at least two things: first, God’s character and second, how he wants to relate to his people.

First: the burnt offering was meant to display God’s holiness — his utter purity and set-apartness from his creation, and his generosity.

The animal for the offering was supposed to be pure and without blemish, from among the best of the flock, and significantly, was not supposed to be for food — it was completely burnt up as a symbol of its consecration to the Lord, as well as the consecration of the person offering the sacrifice. You may also remember that even the ashes of the burnt offering were holy — the priest making the offering had to change his clothes and carry the ashes outside the camp to a clean place.

And in this context especially, the offerings display God’s generosity. If you add up all of the offerings, you’ll find that the ground around the altar would have been pretty bloody and the priests some very busy boys. Over the course of a calendar year, they would have offered almost 1100 lambs, over 110 bulls, nearly 40 rams, 30 goats, and a heck of a lot of fine flour and wine — with not a single day off, between the daily burnt offerings and having to keep the fire for the burnt offerings arranged every single morning.

Considering that these offerings were entirely burnt up and not for human consumption, we have to ask what sort of society could afford to just burn up that many animals, especially a society in the middle of a war campaign against multiple nations? Well, we’re looking at either a society that doesn’t need to eat all that much, or, more likely, a society whose needs are richly provided for, whose flocks and herds are grazing in a land flowing with milk and honey, not just barely scraping by. God is simply not in the business of requiring of his people things he does not provide for them in the first place, quite unlike the gods of the pagan nations whose hunger was never quite satisfied.

Second: The burnt offering taught how God wants to relate to his people.

Regarding the burnt offering, we read in Leviticus 1:3-4 “If his offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he shall offer a male without blemish. He shall bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting, that he may be accepted before the Lord. He shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him.” Now, there’s a slight difference because this is the regulation for any Israelite bringing a burnt offering, and in Numbers it’s the priests themselves who are in view, but that’s the beauty of it.

If the priests’ daily offerings were accepted (instead of the priest being burnt up in judgment), God’s people could approach with confidence that they, too would be accepted every single day.

The regular rhythms of these offerings, from the minor daily offerings to the major yearly festival offerings were to be persistent reminders to Israel that God is holy and pure, and a price must be paid for sins both intentional and unintentional. Crucially, though, he stands ready to accept people who come to him on his terms — in this case, through his accepted priests.

So with these regular offerings, we finally have what our hearts have been yearning for as we’ve read Numbers — a generation of God’s people ready to take the land God promised to Abraham, and all they have to do is keep the stipulations of the covenant they’ve already learned from their leaders. There are priests ready to get their hands dirty, eager to keep the Lord’s name holy (remember Phinehas), and the people are assured that their covenant with a holy and generous God who stands ready to accept them in fellowship is still in effect.

Of course, we know how the story of Israel goes, and we know that today we do not have priests offering daily, weekly, and monthly burnt offerings year after year with everlasting smoke and a blood-drenched altar. Instead, we have now in Christ one High Priest who offered himself once and only once to make perfect atonement for his people’s sins, and who is now sitting down at the right hand of the power on high. In Christ, fellowship with God is predicated on precisely one condition: do you belong to Jesus? Have your sins been covered by the atonement he made through his sacrifice on the cross through faith in him?

If so, the sacrificial system in view in Numbers still has quite a bit to say to you. Hear Romans 12:1 “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” And Hebrews 10:19-22

Hebrews 10:19–22 ESV

Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

We who are sojourning to the Promised Land are still invited to offer sacrifices to our covenant-keeping God — not in order to be accepted, but because we already are accepted in God’s presence. May we not settle to come into his presence only once a week as we gather, or even only twice a day in the morning and at night for 15 minutes, but rather continuously as we enjoy the fellowship of the Holy Spirit who dwells within each of us and all of us corporately, and the fellowship of our Lord who promised us he would never forsake us until his return. Let us enjoy this fellowship as a foretaste of what is to come in the true Promised Land. This is how we prepare to dwell with God in that land which is to come, with uninterrupted bliss and eternal delights as we gaze on the face of our Lord and behold his glory.

Chapter 30: Character Requirements for Dwelling with God in the Promised Land

Now, on to chapter 30, a passage whose interruption to the narrative is equally as perplexing as chapters 28-29, and whose contents are, we have to admit, pretty offensive to modern sensibilities.

But if we read this chapter asking the question, “How will the people dwell with God in the Promised Land?” I think we’ll get a pretty good understanding of what’s going on.

How will the people dwell with God in the Promised Land?

At the center of everything in these chapters is God’s statement in Leviticus 20:22 “You shall therefore keep all my statutes and all my rules and do them, that the land where I am bringing you to live may not vomit you out” and Leviticus 20:26 “You shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine.”

Of course, offering up the appropriate sacrifices at the appropriate time is only part of what holiness should have looked like for Israel. We know that God detests sacrifice simply for the sake of sacrifice and very much prefers to have the heart of his worshippers — as in Hosea 6:6, “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”

So in addition to offering sacrifices, the new generation were to exhibit Godly character, for which vow-keeping stands as one vital component. One of the LORD’s clearest revelations about himself, after all, is that he is God and not a man, so his word is unchangeable. He does not lie. He “does all that proceeds out of his mouth” as we could apply Leviticus 30:2 to him.

Now, the question I’m sure has been burning on all your minds — why are the rules different for men and women here? Why do women get 13 verses while the men just get one?

And the short answer is not that women are inferior, or more prone to make bad vows because of anything inherent in their God-given gender. Women are just as much created in the image of God as men are. No, the LORD has set up particular provisions and protections for women both in Israel and, more importantly, in creation itself. In Israel, a woman was under the authority of her father until she married, at which point she would come under the authority of her husband until their marriage was over, either through death or divorce. After that, she would not be under any particular male authority save those authorities to which every Israelite was subject, whether priest, king, judge, or what have you.

The men exercising that authority, let’s be crystal clear, were not under any circumstances to abuse that authority (although plenty of them did, shamefully) but rather to lovingly carry out the responsibilities that come with authority. They were to provide for and protect everybody under their authority. And when we keep in mind the authority differential, we understand why there has to be a little further explanation. If a woman was to hypothetically make a vow or pledge that caused her to run afoul of the goals of the authority over her, the LORD provided a way for those competing authorities in her life to be resolved — namely, a woman could be released from her vows without incurring any penalty if the authority figure in her life nullified her vow because, for example, that vow might impede his ability to either provide for her or protect her and she would be worse off because of it.

And we see this baked into the creation order, as well. Within God’s design for the family, for example, we see that “the head of a wife is her husband” (1 Cor 11:3 and Eph 5:23) because “man was not made from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman, but woman for man” (1 Cor 11:8). Going all the way back to Adam, God has placed men in authority over their wives (implicated in Adam’s naming of Eve) in order to paint a picture of Christ’s love for the church — Ephesians 5:32 “This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.”

But our culture rejects authority higher than the individual, and we are familiar with far too many stories of people, both men and women, abusing positions of power, and so even we in Christ are tempted to chafe at God’s good design for us. May it not be so within the church!

Men, we must be those who wield whatever authority we have, whether we’re single or married, as bearers of the image of Christ. Christ is the ultimate authority over all creation, and he is as tender as a lamb dealing with his people while remaining fierce as a lion against those who would seek to harm them.

It is utterly Satanic, a complete perversion of God’s creation, when we fail to exercise authority in a loving way. There is very little we could do worse for the name of our God than abuse those under our authority or fail to provide for and protect them through passivity and neglect. May we be instruments of the Lord such that Domestic Violence Awareness Month becomes a thing of the past and utterly unheard of in our company as we fight fiercely for the vulnerable both in our midst and in our society.

And saints, we all must recognize that we are under authority, whether men or women. Our head, Christ, has the final say over everything we say and do in our lives, and this is for our good. How much damage have you done to yourself trying to be your own authority? Are you all-knowing and all-powerful that you would entrust your ultimate wellbeing to yourself? That is foolishness of the highest order, and along that path lies only destruction and misery.

Will the people be faithful in the promised land?

As we conclude, we’ve seen in these three chapters a glimpse of life in the promised land — God’s people offering numerous sacrifices on a regular calendar, ensuring their continued fellowship with God; and God’s people keeping their word and reflecting God’s character. We also know because of our mastery of the Old Testament that this is not how the story of the promised land went. Israel not only failed to take the entirety of the land; they were vomited out of it in the exile, and the return to the promised land in Ezra-Nehemiah was hardly what the prophets were looking forward to.

In Jesus, however, there is a return to the promised land. Ezekiel 37:24-25 “My servant David shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd. They shall walk in my rules and be careful to obey my statutes. They shall dwell in the land that I gave to my servant Jacob, where your fathers lived. They and their children and their children’s children shall dwell there forever, and David my servant shall be their prince forever,” is coming true in the church under the New Covenant, with the church as a depiction of the promised land, where God dwells with his holy people who carefully obey their statutes because of the new heart God has put in them.

So how will we live with God in the promised land now?

Hopefully, by practicing how we’re going to live in the promised land forever! By drawing near to God regularly, continuously, even, with our sacrifices, confidently assured that we are already accepted in Jesus and reflecting God’s character more and more clearly as we are conformed to the image of our head who is Christ, until we see him face to face and become as he is.

May we each run our race so as to finish like Paul, who wrote in 2 Timothy 4:6-8, “For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.”

Numbers 28-30: How will God’s people dwell with him in the Promised Land?

Chs 28-29: Sacrificial Requirements for Dwelling with God in the Promised Land

What are Numbers 28-29 doing here?

What do these offerings teach?

God’s holiness — his utter purity and set-apartness from his creation, and his generosity.

How he wants to relate to his people.

Chapter 30: Character Requirements for Dwelling with God in the Promised Land

Leviticus 20:22 “You shall therefore keep all my statutes and all my rules and do them, that the land where I am bringing you to live may not vomit you out”

Leviticus 20:26 “You shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine.”

Will the people be faithful in the promised land?

So how will we live with God in the promised land now?