Numbers devotional intro...

Numbers covers events that happened sometime between 1450 and 1240 BC.

Geographically, the book opens at Mount Sinai, where the Israelites arrived in .

They remained there for the rest of Exodus (chs. 19–40), all of Leviticus, and the beginning of Numbers, finally breaking camp in .

They arrived at the southern border of the promised land in 12:16 but rebelled against the Lord’s command to enter (chs. 13–14).

Because of this, they spent the next 38 years in the wilderness until finally arriving at the plains of Moab (22:1), just east of the promised land, where they would stay for the rest of Numbers.

It was here they received the book of Deuteronomy and awaited final orders to go into the promised land under Joshua ().

THEOLOGICAL THEMES

Broadly speaking, Numbers tells this account: The Lord, the covenant God of the Israelites, provides them with final instructions for preparing to march into the land he has sworn to give to them (1:1–10:10).

They could do so with confidence because the Lord Himself would be going along in their midst (10:33–36).

But the adult Israelites of the exodus generation continue to grumble and complain as they had done in the book of Exodus.

Ultimately, they reject the Lord and the leaders he appointed, turn to other gods.

The Lord punishes them but also responds repeatedly with mercy, refusing to treat the people as a whole as their sins deserve (chs. 14, 21, 25).

Finally, after the exodus generation has died out, the Lord prepares the next generation of Israelites to enter the promised land and live there as his covenant people (chs. 26–36).

In the course of telling this story, Numbers emphasizes different theological themes, and these may be grouped under three headings:

the Lord,

the people, and

the land.

As part of the Pentateuch, Numbers focuses on the promises made to the patriarchs.

These promises focus on the Lord calling a specific people (Israel) to Himself and promising to give them a land (Hebrew ʾereṣ) where they could walk in fellowship with him (, ; ).

What should not be missed is that these promises are in direct keeping with the Lord’s intent for humanity from the very beginning.

The Bible begins with the story of the Lord creating people (Adam and Eve) and commanding them to fill all the earth (Hebrew ʾereṣ) as they walked in fellowship with him and reflected his image to the world ().

The Lord’s intent has always been to enjoy fellowship with his created people and to have them fill all the earth with his character—love, justice, mercy, goodness, and peace.

To return to Numbers, this means that Israel’s purpose is nothing less than to carry out the Lord’s creational purpose for humanity:

walking in close fellowship with their King as they live out his love, justice, and mercy,

in this way filling all the land with His holy kingdom, in anticipation of the time when God’s kingdom will fill the earth.

1:1–2:34 The Census of Israel and the Arrangement of the Tribal Camps. In order to prepare for the upcoming battles in the promised land, the Israelites needed to know the number of their troops (1:1–46) and what their war camp should look like when at rest or on the march (2:1–34).

1:1–54 The Census. After briefly describing the setting (v. 1), ch. 1 describes the preparation for the census (vv. 2–19), its results (vv. 20–46), and the duties of the one tribe (Levi) not counted in the census (vv. 47–53). Verse 54 is a conclusion.

God’s people always need a mediator, and Moses fills that office supremely in the Old Testament, speaking to God as with a friend (12:8; ).

Yet with the advent of Jesus Christ, the Word of God itself became flesh and tabernacled among us ().

Because no one knows God more intimately than his Son, it is Christ, the long-awaited new and greater Moses (; ),

who has made God known most fully ().

Having delivered the Israelites out of Egypt, God now shows his ongoing grace as he prepares them to conquer the land.

The census reminds the people that God has already been faithful to fulfill one part of his gracious promise to Abraham, to make him into a great nation,

so that the counting of those “able to go to war”

should now bolster confidence that God will also fulfill the land promise ().

We too, having been delivered out of sin and death through the new exodus of Christ’s suffering and glory, are called upon to engage in battle spiritually.

We do this by putting to death the deeds of our sinful nature and resisting temptation (; ).

In all of our spiritual struggles, our confidence is in God’s gracious purpose demonstrated in the cross of Christ.

Having died to reconcile us to God, Christ now lives to bring us into glory (; ; ).

So, the book of Numbers takes up where Exodus leaves off, and tells of the arrangements for the journey, of the journey itself and of the arrival of the people of God at the threshold of the land of promise.

The people had to be well organized for their odyssey, and, as a first step, a census was taken of the fighting potential of the nation.

God’s People (1-16)

The Lord told Moses to count the people, 1:2 — “... by their families, by their fathers’ houses, according to the number of names, every male individually,

So we have to ask ourselves, why did God have an interest in having such a census taken?

God was asserting His sovereign dominion over His people

When census’ are taken, at its most basic level it signifies that you are counted under the jurisdiction of the United States government.

God said to Israel, ‘I am your God and you are my people.’ Lordship and ownership belonged to Him.

He spoke;

He commanded;

He willed—and

they were marshaled according to His decree!

God was declaring His love for His particular people.

As the Shepherd of Israel, he counts off the sheep ().

He leads, guides, protects and saves His sheep ().

Hence the naming of the heads of the tribes. The Lord knows those who are His ().

It is a picture of the love which moves the Lord to enter, one by one, the names of those who are recorded in the book of life ().

He knows His saints by name, the hairs on their heads are numbered.

God’s love is personal and particular. He knows his elect with saving love,

He knows his elect with saving love,

but he declares to the reprobate lost on the Day of Judgment, ‘I never knew you’ ().

Numbers (vv1-46) begins with the Lord revealing His will to His people by speaking to Moses.

God’s people always need a mediator, and Moses fills that office supremely in the Old Testament, speaking to God as with a friend (12:8; ).

Yet with the advent of Jesus Christ, the Word of God itself became flesh and tabernacled among us ().

Because no one knows God more intimately than his Son, it is Christ, the long-awaited new and greater Moses (; ),

who has made God known most fully ().

Christ explicitly tells us that He chose us out of this world. Paul says, — just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love,

God’s choosing is for the purpose of entering into a personal, love relationship with us through His Son, the mediator

— In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

God was reminding them of His covenant promise, made so long before, that Israel would be a great nation (;; ).

Jacob had taken a family of seventy people into Egypt four centuries earlier and now they were a nation of perhaps 2,000,000!

In God said that Jacobs descendents would be more than the dust of the earth.

Not a jot or tittle of that good promise has failed.

To go from 70 to 2,000,000 in a little over 200 years, can only be attributed to the extraordinary virtue in the divine promise and blessing.

God had been faithful and that promised greater things for the future as they looked to the journey to the promised land.

The census had a future reference. It organized the people for blessings yet to come!

The lesson remains for the church today, for we who were ‘not a people’ are now, in Jesus Christ, ‘the people of God’ ().

— 9 But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; 10 who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy.

Fighting Saints (1:17-46)

Devoted Ministers (1:47-53)

Obedient Disciples (1:54)