What's Numbers & Deuteronomy

Review

Pentateuch: the first five books of the Bible.

Genesis

Exodus

Leviticus

We learned how God used one family to launch a rescue plan.

Numbers

Example: Youth ministry trip counting kids

Hebrew name for the books is “In the Desert”

CSB Study Bible: Notes Introduction to Numbers

The English title “Numbers” derives from the Septuagint name “Arithmoi,” based on the two military censuses in chapters 1 and 26. The Hebrew title, Bemidbar, “In the Wilderness,” describes the geographical setting of much of the book—from the Wilderness of Sinai to the arid Plains of Moab, across the Jordan River from Jericho.

CSB Study Bible: Notes Circumstances of Writing

BACKGROUND: Numbers continues the historical narrative begun in Exodus. It picks up one month after the close of Exodus (Ex 40:2; Nm 1:1), which is about one year after the Israelites’ departure from Egypt. Numbers covers the remaining thirty-nine years of the Israelites’ stay in the wilderness, from Sinai to Kadesh, and finally to the plains on the eastern side of the Jordan River.

Numbers is fundamentally three things:

Lists and numbers about arranging Israel while in the desert pointing towards entering the promised land

Laws and rules to follow in the desert and when entering the land

If a law begins with “when you enter the land” we know it’s not a moral law.

Narratives about the failed attempt to enter the promised land and wandering in the desert

The pivotal moment:

Numbers 13:1–3 CSB

1 The Lord spoke to Moses: 2 “Send men to scout out the land of Canaan I am giving to the Israelites. Send one man who is a leader among them from each of their ancestral tribes.” 3 Moses sent them from the Wilderness of Paran at the Lord’s command. All the men were leaders in Israel.

The Mission: Enter the land and scout it out to prepare to enter.

Question: Why did God say to send leaders from each ancestral tribe?

Numbers 13:26–33 CSB

26 The men went back to Moses, Aaron, and the entire Israelite community in the Wilderness of Paran at Kadesh. They brought back a report for them and the whole community, and they showed them the fruit of the land. 27 They reported to Moses, “We went into the land where you sent us. Indeed it is flowing with milk and honey, and here is some of its fruit. 28 However, the people living in the land are strong, and the cities are large and fortified. We also saw the descendants of Anak there. 29 The Amalekites are living in the land of the Negev; the Hethites, Jebusites, and Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live by the sea and along the Jordan.” 30 Then Caleb quieted the people in the presence of Moses and said, “Let’s go up now and take possession of the land because we can certainly conquer it!” 31 But the men who had gone up with him responded, “We can’t attack the people because they are stronger than we are!” 32 So they gave a negative report to the Israelites about the land they had scouted: “The land we passed through to explore is one that devours its inhabitants, and all the people we saw in it are men of great size. 33 We even saw the Nephilim there—the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim! To ourselves we seemed like grasshoppers, and we must have seemed the same to them.”

Although Caleb and Joshua had the courage to enter the land, Israel as a whole did not. They threatened to stone Caleb and Joshua and the cried out blaming God for bringing them into the wilderness to die. Their plan: “we should choose our leader to bring us back to Egypt. God approached Moses asking: “how long will my people treat me with contempt?” Moses interceded for the people asking God for mercy:

Numbers 14:17–23 CSB

17 “So now, may my Lord’s power be magnified just as you have spoken: 18 The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in faithful love, forgiving iniquity and rebellion. But he will not leave the guilty unpunished, bringing the consequences of the fathers’ iniquity on the children to the third and fourth generation. 19 Please pardon the iniquity of this people, in keeping with the greatness of your faithful love, just as you have forgiven them from Egypt until now.” 20 The Lord responded, “I have pardoned them as you requested. 21 Yet as I live and as the whole earth is filled with the Lord’s glory, 22 none of the men who have seen my glory and the signs I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have tested me these ten times and did not obey me, 23 will ever see the land I swore to give their ancestors. None of those who have despised me will see it.

Does someone interceding to God on behalf of a sinful people remind you of anyone in the New Testament?

We see three realities here:

Judgement for sin

Forgiveness through grace

Consequences for actions

God “put Israel in a timeout” wandering in the desert before entering the land.

Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy means second law or repeated law.

After the forty years of timeout in the desert had passed God reiterated the law to Israel to prepare them to enter the Promised Land.

CSB Study Bible: Notes Introduction to Deuteronomy

The title of this book of the Pentateuch, Deuteronomy, comes from the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament) and means “second law” or “repetition of the law.” The phrase is actually a mistranslation of 17:18, which reads “a copy of this instruction.” It is still a fitting title since much of the book contains repetitions of the laws found in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers.

CSB Study Bible: Notes Message and Purpose

Though the initial covenant between the Lord and Israel was made at Sinai, the generation that received it had largely died out in the thirty-eight years since that event. Now the younger generation needed to affirm their commitment to the covenant (4:1–8). Moreover, the transition from a largely nomadic existence in the desert to a sedentary lifestyle in Canaan required a covenant revision and expansion suitable to these new conditions. The purpose of Deuteronomy is to provide guidelines for the new covenant community to enable them to live obediently before God and to carry out his intentions for them. Several themes appear throughout Deuteronomy:

The Law

Deuteronomy 6:1–3 CSB

1 “This is the command—the statutes and ordinances—the Lord your God has commanded me to teach you, so that you may follow them in the land you are about to enter and possess. 2 Do this so that you may fear the Lord your God all the days of your life by keeping all his statutes and commands I am giving you, your son, and your grandson, and so that you may have a long life. 3 Listen, Israel, and be careful to follow them, so that you may prosper and multiply greatly, because the Lord, the God of your ancestors, has promised you a land flowing with milk and honey.

Question: What do you think comes next?

Deuteronomy 6:4–6 CSB

4 “Listen, Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. 6 These words that I am giving you today are to be in your heart.

Tricky Question

What do we make of extreme punishments int he Bible. Not just death penalty for murder, but for cursing God or even cursing our parents?

Read in context

Apply general equity

Deuteronomy 21 talks about stoning disobedient children. To American readers what do you think I mean if I say:

“If a child doesn’t listen to his parents the parents should take him to the elders to be stoned.”

What am I talking about?

Let’s read this in context to see what the Law is actually talking about.

Deuteronomy 21:18–21 CSB

18 “If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father or mother and doesn’t listen to them even after they discipline him, 19 his father and mother are to take hold of him and bring him to the elders of his city, to the gate of his hometown. 20 They will say to the elders of his city, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious; he doesn’t obey us. He’s a glutton and a drunkard.’ 21 Then all the men of his city will stone him to death. You must purge the evil from you, and all Israel will hear and be afraid.

Question: What age are the children in this law?

What is the stated purpose of this law?

What should people be afraid of?

I’m not aware that any person at any time ever put this law into practice. We are obviously not called to put this into practice today.

But what principles can we learn from this law?

It is very important to discipline our children appropriately when they are young so they don’t grow into rebellious adults.

The family structure is important to God.

Moral law: Children should honor their parents

Moral law: Parents should raise their children well.

Moral law: Stubbornness, rebelliousness, disobedience, gluttony and a lifestyle of drunkeness are wrong.

There is a relationship between our parenting and our community.

We are responsible to both God and our community to discipline and raise our children well.

Our community does not have authority over parents regarding discipline. It is the parents coming to the elders, not the elders parenting for the parents.

Threats? Salvation By Works? Or Faith In Response to God’s Grace?

Deuteronomy 28:1 CSB

1 “Now if you faithfully obey the Lord your God and are careful to follow all his commands I am giving you today, the Lord your God will put you far above all the nations of the earth.

This chapter, like much of law and Deuteronomy in particular promises a blessing for following God’s commands and a curse for ignoring it. Is this God making threats, demanding salvation by works, or is it something else?

According to Plan: The Unfolding Revelation of God in the Bible Preparing the New Generation

It would be a mistake to think that Deuteronomy uses the promise of the kingdom and the threat of destruction as the only motivations for covenant faithfulness. This would be to reduce salvation to a reward for good works. The sense of history in the book is consistent with what went before in the Sinai covenant. Above all, it is because of God’s redemptive love in the exodus event that Israel is called to be obedient (Deut 4:20, 37–40; 5:15; 10:20–22). Nor may obedience be a merely formal or outward thing such as the bare sign of circumcision, for the response to God must be from the heart (Deut 10:12–16).

Exodus through Deuteronomy are one large story of God’s grace for his sinful, stubborn people.

The primary motivation for following the law is to respond to the goodness and faithfulness of God.

Moses is pointing out for the people that they have seen with their own eyes God’s power and the life found in following God and rejecting God leads to disaster.

The pivotal decision here is having faith to enter into the land. Will Israel trust and accept God as their deliver or continue to reject him as their parents did? As they are poised to make this decision they are reminded of the covenant including God’s promise and God’s expectations for them. Will they trust God?

The Pentateuch continues to point to the heart and to faith. Actions are the opportunity to demonstrate faith, but it is ultimately God not works that save and the attitude of the heart that God is most concerned with.