Numbers Part 4

 

  *

Why It Took Forty Years

I know I've wondered out loud here more than once about just why in the world it took the Moses and the Israelites forty years to make their way to the Land Of Milk And Honey, aka Canaan. Well, the next few chapters spell it out for us, kinda, so let's get to it.

    Apparently their camp in the wilderness of Paran is pretty close to the Milk and Honey border, so in Chapter 13 Moses summons a hardy member from each of the Twelve Tribes (no Levites, right?) and tells them he wants a scouting report before the entire group makes the big push into the land God has promised. He wants to know all about the valleys, the hills, the fields, the people, what the towns are like, you know, the lay of the land. He also wants some fruit samples brought back. Just to make the assignment seem exciting and sexy he tells them they are spies and that the fruit should be "stolen."

    In case you want to know their names, here is the Israelites answer to the Dirty Dozen. It's not going to be on a quiz or anything, but if you want to memorize them I guarantee you'll blow away everyone at a party where some guy thinks he can impress the gathering by reciting the names of the Seven Dwarfs** or the Fifteen Counties of Arizona***.

1. Team Reuben: Shammua
2. Team Simeon: Shapnat
3. Team Judah: Caleb
4. Team Issachar: Igal
5. Team Ephraim: Hoshea (Moses changes his name to Joshua. Just because)
6. Team Benjamin: Palti
7. Team Zebulun: Gaddiel
8. Team Joseph: Gaddi
9. Team Dan: Ammiel
10. Team Asher: Sethur
11. Team Naphtali: Nahbi
12. Team Gad: Geuel

    The boys cross the border when nobody's looking and spread out to gather the needed intel. A couple of them come across a vineyard where they snip a bunch of grapes off a vine. It must have been a hella big bunch of grapes, because they have to tie it to a pole and carry it between the two of them on their shoulders. Land of Milk, Honey and Mega Fruit indeed.

    Forty days later they return to camp with their report. The land is indeed one of plenty, but the people who live there are big and scary and all but two of the spies are of the opinion that it is too dangerous to try to boot the existing tenants out. They are all for turning around and heading back to Egypt. The only two who think they should go ahead with the plan are Caleb and Joshua (formerly Hoshea), who lobby unsuccessfully for forging ahead.

    The larger congregation gets wind of the report of big and scary people in Canaan and in Chapter 14 they decide the Go Back To Egypt Plan sounds good to them. This upsets Moses and Aaron so much that they fall on their faces in front of everyone. Really, that's what it says in verse 5. Caleb and Joshua try to help Moses by telling the rest of the Israelites that with God on their side it'll all be okay, that Yes They Can boot all the nasty, scary people out of Canaan, but the people tell them to shut their pie holes or they'll take them out and stone them to death. Really, that's what it says in verse 10.

    God gets wind of what's going on and so he comes down and says he's done with all this disobedience and appalling lack of faith and by golly he's going to kill everyone and just start over. By now I think we can call this God's version of "Do you want me to stop this car? Because if it doesn't settle down back there I'm stopping the car. I mean it." Once again, Moses talks him down, telling him that wiping out the people God led out of Egypt wouldn't be good for his reputation. I mean, be real, what would the Egyptians think? He would be a laughing stock is what would happen. So God relents, kind of, by saying that he won't kill everybody, but he'll be good and gosh darned if the adults of the troupe are ever going to live to see the Land of Milk and Honey. And this is where I'm starting to get some clarity about why it's going to take forty years. God's going to make them wander around the edges of Canaan until the original cast members all croak, and then their descendents can take the land.

    But in the meantime, not being a big fan of delayed gratification, God does still want to smite at least a few of them. He does this in two steps. First, he sends a plague down on the ten spies who messed up his plan. I'm not sure how one arranges such a specifically targeted plague, but since he is All Knowing, maybe he knew they were going to be difficult beforehand and while they were playing at being secret agents he guided them in the path of acquiring some Canaanite STDs during their forty days in amongst the heathens. In my five minutes of research trying to figure out why God has such a poor opinion of those people it does seem that they are reported to have been a society of, shall we say, swingers. 

The amateur spies may have seen too many Bond movies and behaved accordingly.

    The general population Israelites, seeing how things are going and not wanting any more generalized plagues heading their way, put down their "Heck No! We Won't Go!" signs and banners and decide the best way to get back on God's good side is by marching into Canaan like they had agreed to way back when. But since he is still peeved at them, God doesn't go along to be their co-pilot, as it were, and it turns into a bit of an OT Bay of Pigs. 

45) Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived in that hill country came down and defeated them, pursuing them as far as Hormah.

    No, I do not know where Hormah is, but it doesn't sound like an all-inclusive resort.

    Just as the whole Will They Invade or Won't They Invade story is getting really interesting, Chapter 15 takes us off on another tangent with what seems to me to be yet another repeat of God's instructions about how he likes his sacrifices. There isn't anything in the thirty-one verses about this that is new as far as I can tell, so we'll just move on to the other two topics in the chapter. If you've become a sacrifices aficionado you're welcome to take the deep dive. 

    First, we are treated to the story of the man who goes out to gather sticks on the sabbath. This is during the Israelites' wandering in the wilderness days. Some of his fellow wanderers get wind of his activities so they grab him by the scruff of the robe and haul him off to stand in front of Moses to explain himself. Moses, of course, consults with God about how to handle the miscreant and God, of course, tells Moses that stick gathering on the sabbath merits death by stoning. The congregation complies with some gusto. Nothing like a good stoning to bring a community together.

    The last bit in this chapter has to do with God telling Moses that he wants everyone to wear fringe and a blue cord all the time. This is because he thinks it will remind the people not to misbehave. Kind of like a string around your wrist is supposed to help you remember something. I guess. My experience with people favoring fringe has been variable.

    Now back to some larger scale infractions, this time involving three gents by the name of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, all of which set off the spellcheck. It's pretty serious stuff, so if the Baby Name Consultant**** you're working with suggests any of those names I think it would be wise to request more choices. I know some folks like to name their kids after characters in the Bible and these three did get their names in the title of Chapter 16, but not for a good reason, as you will see.

Revolt of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram

    So what are they revolting against you may ask? Well, they're members of Team Levite, you know, the ones who work in the tabernacle. They're not Aaron's immediate kin so they're not priests, but still, they've got what I think most of the Israelites probably considered to be some of the more prestigious jobs to be had. But that's not good enough for Korah, Dathan, and Abiram and the two hundred and fifty fellow Levites they convince to come along with them. They're unhappy about the fact that God talks with Moses, and sort of talks with Aaron and Sons, and they think it has given those four an unappealing sort of outsized opinion of themselves. When they tell Moses this he does what the men of the time do when confronted with astonishing news: he falls on his face. Really, it's in verse 4.

4)When Moses heard it, he fell on his face.

    See?

    After he stands back up and wipes the desert dust from his eyebrows Moses tries to explain why things are the way they are and how some people are destined to be management and others worker bees, but the three ringleaders and their two hundred and fifty fellow grumblers don't understand, so they get their incense burners and gather in front of the tabernacle to stage a rally.

    God sees what's going on and he tells Moses and Aaron and Sons to back off, he's got this. He waits until Korah, Dathan, and Abiram have gone back to their tents, tells everyone else to give him some room, waits for the three ringleaders to obligingly step out of their tents with their entire families, and opens up the ground beneath their feet so they can...

go down alive into Sheol*****

    Yep, the ringleaders, their families and all their household goods get the old trap door treatment. And right after that, in verse 35...

35)And fire came out from the Lords and consumed the two hundred fifty men offering the incense

    It's like they hadn't gotten the memo about what happened to Aaron's sons Nadab and Abihu and their experiences with ill-timed incense burning.

    As if things weren't bad enough, just about everyone else gets their drawers in a bunch about what has just happened to Korah and Company they start yelling at Moses and Aaron. Like it's their fault. Yet again God feels he needs to step in to calm things down and his go-to method for that is to kill everybody; a plan he sets in motion with another plague. If it wasn't for the fact that Aaron does some quick running into the midst of the congregation with his own special incense formulation that acts as a sort of vaccine against Divinely Inspired Plagues, God's intention to end the whole Israelite Experiment would have come to a successful conclusion. As it is, only 14,700 dead. Plus, of course, the two hundred fifty and the three unfortunate households. But still, considering they've still got two million people who escaped the smiting, I think that is what we call an Old Testament Happy Ending. 

*We had a nice sunrise yesterday. It was ninety-three degrees at 5:45 AM, but the sky was pretty.

**Doc, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, Bashful, Sneezy, and Methuselah

• ***Apache, Cochise, Coconino, Gila, Graham, Greenlee, LaPaz, Maricopa, Mohave, Navajo, Pima, Pinal, Santa Cruz, Yavapai, Yuma

****There is at least one such consultant out there charging $295 for a five minute session. I'm thinking blogging about the Bible maybe wasn't my most lucrative late in life career choice.

*****I looked it up, and Sheol is the place of darkness where dead people go awaiting their judgment, or some sort of thing like that. The Hebrew faith doesn't seem to have quite the same sort of concept of Heaven and Hell as a lot of us might understand it, but perhaps Sheol could be described as having some of the features of both Hell and Purgatory. References to it in the OT are usually rather brief and sketchy, but it doesn't sound like a happy place to be sent to all of a sudden, even if you are with your wife and kids. Or maybe especially if you are with your wife and kids.

Numbers Part 3

 

  *

Stop Complaining

and

Blow That Trumpet

But first, make sure you celebrate Passover when and how God says. That is the subject of Chapter 9. And yes, I know God covered that back in Exodus, Chapter 12, but as we all know, a great way to make sure someone retains information is through repetition. So here is what God tells Moses during a conversation they are having during the first month of the second year since they put on their traveling sandals and skedaddled out of Egypt.

    Passover is to be on the 14th day of the 1st month of the year. Sunset to sunset to be specific. Although the translation here says "twilight", the footnote assures us that what God really means is "between the two evenings." As usual, any corpse touching** will disqualify a person from participation.

    Moses takes notes and then passes the info along to the congregation. A few folks grumble about how they might miss out because of a bit of corpse touching they have planned and can't get out of, and how can that be fair? Others want to know what if they happen to be traveling and can't get home in time for the holiday?

    Moses takes their concerns to God, who says, "No problem, if you've touched a corpse (or happen to be on the road***) right before or during Official Passover, you can have Makeup Passover on the 14th day of the 2nd month. How's that? But those are the only exceptions. If you're in town and haven't defiled yourself attendance is mandatory.

    Passover being taken care of, we move on to how the Israelites are going to know when they are supposed to strike camp. That is covered quite nicely in the "Cloud and Fire" section.

    God tells Moses that as long as the cloud he calls Home away from Heaven is covering the tabernacle they are to stay put. He'll make it easy to see in the night time by making the cloud look like fire, which is a nifty trick he just learned and is anxious to put into use. But when the cloud lifts, then is the time to pick up and go to the next KOA campground. They won't need a compass or Rand McNally, all they'll need to do is follow the cloud. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

    But what about the folks whose tents are too far away to be line of sight with the tabernacle you may well ask? I mean, we are talking about a "camp" with a population rivaling that of modern day Houston. How are they supposed to know it's time to pack up and move? 

    That, my friend, is covered in Chapter 10. 

    God tells Moses to make (I'm going to assume that what he actually wants Moses to do is delegate) a couple of silver trumpets of the hammered work variety. Those are to be used by Aaron's two surviving sons, Eleazar and Ithamar, to communicate with the population. One tune will be their cue to gather at the tabernacle for services or potluck or community talent show night, and another tune God calls "alarm" is to signal it's time to move one. The trumpets are also to be played during the burnt offering and well being sacrifices just to add a festive air to the proceedings.

    I know, once again we are dealing with a huge population, necessarily spread over an enormous chunk of land. Wynton Marsalis himself couldn't blow a note that would carry that far. Maybe God also had Moses delegate someone to make a FM radio station and pocket radios were distributed and Moses just didn't think it was worth mentioning here. Maybe.

    In any case, before you know it, on the 20th day of the second month of the second year since they crossed the border illegally, the cloud lifts. Everybody knows their assignments, they pack up their tents and the tabernacle and they head Paran way. I've used a bit of my allotted research time to try to figure out how far away Paran is, but as is often the case none of the scholars really want to commit to anything specific. Mount Sinai is, of course, on the Sinai Peninsula. So, apparently, is Paran. It's a bit south, but it covers a fair amount of area and we really don't know where precisely in Paran they ended up. So let's not worry about it, okay?

    One interesting thing we do learn at the end of this chapter is that every time they were getting ready to move on, Moses would say this,

Arise, O Lord, let your enemies be scattered,

and your foes flee before you.

    And when they arrive at the next stop, he would say,

Return, O Lord of the ten thousand

thousands of Israel.

    Kind of a "Please make sure nothing bad happens to us on the road" followed by a "Hey! We're here! You can settle your cloud now!"

    Remember back in Exodus when the Israelites were complaining about the lack of rations? Sure you do, that's when God sent them Manna From Heaven. Apparently, in spite of all of the references to slaughtered and roasted bulls and rams and goats and ewes and whatnot we've been getting treated to, giving the impression that there was protein on the hoof in great number traveling with them, manna is what the two million plus general population has been existing on since that time. Wake up, gather the manna from under the morning dew, fancy it up the best you can with herbs and a box of Manna From Heaven Helper maybe, but what you ate yesterday is what you're going to eat today and tomorrow, and the people are getting tired of it. So Chapter 11 is called "Complaining in the Desert" and that is what they are complaining about. 

    God, being quite content to live off of pleasing aromas from fricasseed livestock, is not sympathetic. He expresses his impatience with what he perceives as the Israelites' lack of gratitude by scorching the outer parts of the camp. We're not told what the casualty numbers are.

    After a bit of back and forth with Moses, God says "You want meat? I'll give you meat for a month!" And he flies in a bunch of quail from the sea, piling them up  two cubits deep on either side of the camp a day's journey away. A motivated bunch of Israelites rush out, make the world's first barbeque festival, and begin to fill up on avian protein. And then, in verse 33...

But while the meat was still in between their teeth, before it was consumed,, the anger of the Lord was kindled against the people, and the Lord struck the people with a very great plague.

    Another example of "Don't wish too hard for what you want, or then you might get it, and I do mean get it." You can believe there was a lot of corpse touching happening after that, because we're told that the people who "had the craving" were buried where they had been barbequing. The survivors even gave the place a catchy name, Kibroth-harraavah, which is Hebrew for "Eat your damn manna." A Park Service plaque is put up and they move on to Hazeroth. And no, I don't know where that is.

   But I do know that Moses' brother and sister, Aaron and Miriam, are experiencing a bit of sibling jealousy, because Chapter 12 tells us all about it. They can't seem to get over the fact that although they are actual prophets and Aaron is the Head Priest and can touch any part of the tabernacle he wants to without exploding, Moses really does seem to be God's Favorite**** and it's Just Not Fair.

    God tells them to settle down. Yes, he has chosen Moses to be his BFF (for now), but that's just the way it is. Then he strikes Miriam with leprous skin and says she needs to pitch a tent outside of camp for a week to think about what she's done.

    Nothing happens to Aaron. What a surprise.

*That's Copper. He was a good woofer and a great photo subject.

**We just can't get away from the corpse touching, can we?

***Aren't all of them kinda perpetually (or at least for forty years) on the road? Just asking.

****Which just happens to be the title of one of Neil Simon's more obscure plays. It is a comic retelling of the story of Job set in modern times. I was in a student production of "God's Favorite" in college and while we had a great time putting it on and the audience (small) seemed to appreciate it, it wasn't tough to figure out why it remains one of that tremendously popular and accomplished playwrights least performed works. I also happened to be in a college production of Sondheim's "Anyone Can Whistle", which is a bit of a fascinating trainwreck interrupted here and there by terrific tunes.

*****Gee, lots of footnotes today.

Numbers Part 2

 

  *

What Shall We Do With 

the Jealous Husband?**

You have probably noticed that often as not a chapter will cover a few different, seemingly unrelated subjects. In the case of Numbers, Chapter 5, we get:

1. Unclean Persons
2. Confession and Restitution
3. Concerning an Unfaithful Wife

    I know you're anxious to learn all about the unfaithful wife, but we're going to take things in order. For each one, we're told that the Lord spoke to Moses, so one is just as important as the others. I guess.

    First off, God tells Moses that anyone who has leprosy, or nasty oozing, or has been touching a corpse has to set up their tent outside of the main camp.

    Side note: Don't there seem to be a lot of references to corpse touching? And honestly, I haven't included nearly all of them in my little summaries here, but take it from me, corpse touching gets a lot of ink in Exodus, Leviticus, and now here in Numbers. It makes a person think that folks were dropping dead on an alarmingly regular schedule, not only causing grief for their families and friends, but also creating a situation where those same families and friends had to choose between either lovingly taking care of the mortal remains or risk being ostracized by the community at large. Were there no undertakers amongst the six hundred thousand combat ready alpha males?

    As for the confession and restitution section, essentially God says that whatever loss someone suffers on account of another person, the guilty party owes the victim that same amount plus twenty percent for pain and suffering. And if the victim isn't around anymore and neither are his or her heirs, then whatever is owed goes to Aaron and Sons. This is called Priestly Passive Income.

    And now...

    

    Concerning an Unfaithful Wife

    Here's the deal. If a husband either pretty much knows, or even just thinks that his wife has been engaged in a bit of extracurricular dalliancing, what is called "a spirit of jealousy" here, he is to bring said wife, along with a bit of barley flour to the priest. The priest will sit the wife down and put the barley flour in her hands. He then says some words about how the process is to proceed and what she can expect if things go one way or the other. The priest scrapes some dirt off the floor of the tabernacle, mixes it up in some water and makes her drink the nasty water. The upshot here is that if she had indeed been doing some unauthorized frolicking, the dirty water will make her uterus drop and her womb discharge, and there will be no pitter patter of little feet in her future. If her husband is just paranoid and generally prone to unfounded suspicions then her uterus and womb will be no worse for the experience. In either case,

31) The man shall be free from iniquity

    Of course he will.

    I hadn't heard of the Nazirites before Chapter 6 here, but the footnotes helped out. It seems there is a process non-Levites can go through in order to "separate themselves to the Lord", which I guess means they get special attention and maybe a merit badge or two. Once they have gone through the initiation, they get to call themselves Nazirites. And what, you may ask, are they required to do in order to earn this distinction?

1. Stay away from grapes.
2. No visits to the hairdresser or barbershop.
3. No touching of corpses. See, there it is again.
1. If corpse touching is unavoidable it can all be made right with a properly throttled brace of pigeons or turtledoves and a roasted lamb.
4. All prior requirements being met, the candidate will present a male lamb, a ewe lamb (both a year old and free of blemishes), a basket of nice unleavened bread, cakes of choice flour, a wicker tray lined with a tea towel from Selfridge's on which twelve identical, beautifully baked prune danish have been placed.*** 
5. They then can shave their heads and have a nice glass of Manischewitz.
6. We end Chapter 6 with a bit that brought back some nice memories of my time spent in the Methodist and then United Methodist church as a kiddo, youth, and young adult. If I recall correctly, services and youth meetings always ended with what I now know are verses 24-26, Chapter 6, the Book of Numbers. It is a bit of an oasis amidst all the banishment, consumption by fire, and jealous husbands we've been dealing with here.

24 The Lord bless you and keep you,

25 the Lord make his face to shine 

upon you, and be gracious unto you;

26 The Lord lift up his countenance

upon you, and give you

peace.

AMEN

    Isn't that sweet? And it would be a great place to end this installment, but if we just do two chapters at a time this will take forever. Chapter 7 is kind of a long one, but I think we can sum it up pretty easily. After the tabernacle is all built and decorated, Moses has the leaders of the Twelve Tribes bring six covered wagons and twelve oxen to the big tent of meeting. Two of the wagons and four oxen are turned over to the Gershonites to help them transport the tabernacle parts they are responsible for. Four wagons and eight oxen are given to the Merarites for the same thing. But wait a sec! you're saying, what about the Kohathities? They're responsible for a bunch of tabernacle hardware too. True, but the stuff they're assigned to transport all has loop and pole setups and has to be carried by humans of sturdy build. Lucky them.

    After this is established, we get a listing of the gifts each of the tribes brings to celebrate the Grand Opening of the Tabernacle. Everybody must have been looking at the gift registry at the same time because they all bring the same items. It adds up to:

• 12 silver plates
• 12 silver basins
• 12 golden dishes filled with incense
• 12 bulls
• burnt offering
• 12 rams
• burnt offering
• 12 male lambs a year old
• grain offering
• 12 male goats
• sin offering
• 24  bulls
• sacrifice of well being
• 60 rams
• sacrifice of well being
• 60 male goats
• sacrifice of well being
• 60 male lambs a year old
• sacrifice of well being

    The chapter ends with Moses going into the tent of meeting to speak with the Lord, whose voice comes from above the mercy seat on the ark, between the two cherubim. What they speak about isn't covered here. I'm hoping the subject of just how Aaron and Sons were supposed to go about cleaning up the place after slaughtering 252 animals.

    Chapter 8 covers two topics.

1. A repeat of God's expectations concerning the lamps.
1. 7 lamps in front of the lampstand
2. Lampstand to be made out of hammered gold.
2. The sort of ceremony needed in order to bring the Levites up to snuff so they can do the tabernacle related duties God wants them to do. There is washing, shaving, bull sacrificing, and some laundry involved. You can read the whole thing if you want, quite honestly I was beginning to nod off so I may have missed something.

* A California Condor, as photographed by the Navajo Bridge in northern Arizona

**Nothing.

*** Just seeing if you're paying attention.

Numbers Part 1

 

 *

For My Next Number...

Look at us, three books down and only...checks his notes...sixty-three to go. Holy Moses. Hmm, let's look at it another way. We've polished off 102 pages, which means we've only got...907 more in front of us.

    Sounds a bit daunting, doesn't it? Although I'm trying to look at it this way: it's bound to get better at some point and with over nine hundred pages to go it's got a lot of chances. I mean, God must mellow at some point, right? Finally decide that all of this "My way or you're toast (literally)" attitude isn't really endearing him to those swing voters out there.

    We'll see.

    My first question in approaching the fourth book in what is called the Pentateuch, or Books of Moses, was "Why is it called Numbers?". Luckily, the answer was provided right up front as I read it, and that answer is that there are a lot of numbers involved. I mean a lot.** As in taking a census sorts of numbers. God wants Moses and Aaron to count all of the Israelite men over the age of twenty, as this is a age group considered to be eligible for military service. Yep, strapping young man to advanced geezer, they're all considered to be battlefield fodder. 

    With an interesting exception. The Levite men, the descendents of Levi, son of Jacob, are exempt. God has other plans for them.

    But I'm getting ahead of myself. That can happen when your subject is as exciting as a military draft census. Chapter 1 opens with... 

    The Lord spoke to Moses

    Just in case we might have otherwise jumped to the conclusion that...

Moses had an idea

    Which Moses knows better than to do.

    What God tells Moses is that he wants a 

2)census of the whole congregation of Israelites, in their clans, by ancestral house, according to the number of names, every male individually; 3)from twenty years old and upward, everyone able to go to war.

    God then specifies who he wants assigned to the census committee: one man from each of the twelve tribes (the Levites make it a baker's dozen, but that's for the scholars to discuss) and so Moses calls a meeting, explains the goal, and they get busy making their count. Verses 20 through 43 give us the details for each of the tribes. We'll just mention here that the tribe with the mostest is the Judah clan, with 74,600 eligible males, and the tribe with the leastest is the Manasseh Family with just 32,200 to contribute. Add them all up and we get 603,550. It says so, right in verse 46.

    It doesn't say how long it took to do the census, but I'm thinking it must have taken the better part of an afternoon.

    God then tells Moses he has other plans for the Levite men and those plans are related to the tabernacle, specifically when it needs to be packed up for travel and then when it needs to be set up again. And just so Moses knows it's the one and only Actual God handing out these directions, death is promised to anyone else who might try to volunteer for tabernacle duty.

    Chapter 2 is all about where the Twelve Tribes are supposed to setup camp relative to the tabernacle. East side, west side, all around the tent.

    Chapter 3 opens up with a reminder of what happened to Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron who didn't get the timing right with the incense back in Leviticus, Chapter 10, so that's nice. And then we get a few of the particulars regarding the Duties of the Levites. Well, actually, we don't get much in the way of particulars here, but we do get another reminder from God that he's not going to tolerate any non-Levite elements messing around the Tent of Meeting.

    God then tells Moses that the Levites are going to serve as substitutes for the claim God has on all the Israelite first borns and I've got to admit I still don't understand what is going on with that. What I did get here is that God now wants Moses to conduct another census, but this time just of the Levite males a month old and older. Seems to me that could be a sort of never-ending task, because by the time you've counted them all there are bound to be more kiddos that were twenty-some days old who now qualify. I mean, you knew I was kidding with the whole "better part of an afternoon" gag, right?

    It seems there are three sorts of Levites and they all need their own censuses, if that's the word I want. And each of those groups are to be assigned certain duties related to the transport of the tabernacle, which of course, complex and exacting as its construction was, is designed to be portable. Providing you've got the manpower. Which apparently they have.

1. The Gershons:  
1. 7,500
1. In charge of the tent, hangings, screen, altar and cords.
2. The Kohaths:
1. 8,600
1. In charge of the ark, table, lampstand, altars (wait a sec, are these different altars?) the vessels of the sanctuary, and the screen (Okay now, two screens? If I had more time I'd look back at the building plans in Exodus. But that's not part of the deal here.)
3. The Mahlites:
1. 6,200
2. In charge*** of the hardware and framework.

    Back to the firstborn thing in a section titled "The Redemption of the Firstborn." God has Moses do yet another census, this time of all the firstborns among the Israelites. And then we get this bit of math.

     22,273 Firstborns

    -22,000 Levites

    =    273

    X        5 shekels

    = 1,365 shekels owed to Aaron and Sons

    As far as I can figure out, God is saying that he will leave the firstborns alone (thank goodness!) in exchange for having the Levites as his employees for life with such duties to be passed on generation to generation, amen and if you're a Levite boy don't you go dreaming about being a chorus boy on Broadway or a dentist. And since there aren't quite enough Levites to match the number of firstborns, he will accept cash in lieu of toddlers. And since he has no use for cash because everybody always pays for him wherever he goes, the money should go to his man Aaron (who is still hoping the Golden Calf episode doesn't come up again) and Sons.

    I hope that makes sense. If I can come up with a better way to explain it all I will amend this installment. Because that's what we do with the Bible. See A Word From the Committee.

    Let's wrap up today's installment with Chapter 4, in which God tells Moses to, you guessed it, take another damned census. By now Moses must be wondering where he's going to get any more slates and chalk and abacuses, if that's the word that is the plural of abacus, which probably wasn't in use by the ancient Israelites anyway so what does it matter, not to mention the fact (see note about facts) that fewer and fewer folks are turning up for Census Taker Volunteer Training classes. 

    But take another census he does and this time it restricts itself to Levite men between the ages of thirty and fifty, so it's not nearly as time and resource intensive. The rest of the chapter goes on and on and on and, quite literally, on with just how to prep all of the elements of the tabernacle when it's time to move on and who is going to carry said elements and it's up to Aaron and Sons to make sure everything is wrapped up in blue cloth and fine leather before the worker bees are allowed to come in and carry any of it off because if they don't and the worker bees touch anything they are not worthy to touch they are going to, you guessed it, die.

    Next time we'll learn exactly what to do when a wife has either been unfaithful, or her hubby just thinks his wife has been unfaithful. So far in my advanced reading I haven't come across what to do if a man has been screwing around. It must be here somewhere.    

*The Superstition Mountains

**When I say "lots" I mean that even the Kid's Adventure Bible makes mention of the fact* that there were at least a couple million Israelites wandering around the desert with Moses. So my guess in an earlier installment here has the highest scholarship to back it up.

        *I do hold to the "Facts are facts" as opposed to let's believe whatever we're told school of mental processing. And let's face it, some of the "facts" we've been presented with so far have been just a tad, shall we say, incredible.

***By "in charge", let me just make crystal clear that they are to serve pretty much as pack animals and they are never, ever, under any circumstance, actually touch any part of the tabernacle unless it is securely wrapped up in blue cloth and stretch wrap.

Leviticus Part 7

 

  *

Agriculture, Debt Forgiveness, Carrots, Sticks,

and Votives

I know, it seems like a lot, but we're going to finish Leviticus today and that's all there is to that.

    As we all know by now, almost all of the chapters in Leviticus open up with,

The Lord spoke to Moses

right? Now, I can't get the image out of my head of God holding forth on the summit of Mount Sinai, surrounded by all sorts of smoking and flaming and glitter bombing special effects, and Moses standing there, steno pad in hand, wishing he had paid more attention during the semester of shorthand he took at Cairo Community College. And God isn't helping by skipping all over the place, going directly from how to purify a new mother to how to spot (no pun intended) a case of galloping leprosy, or from the correct way to slaughter an animal to who it's okay and not okay to have sex with.

    As challenging as it must have been for Moses to keep up with the subject changes, these last three chapters might have been even more difficult because the instructions God is dictating are way specific and involve a fair amount of calendar and math references that, if gotten wrong, could mess up everything. I mean we've all seen how he reacts when somebody strays a bit from the guidebook he has in his celestial brain. I have to admit that even though I've read this final section more than a few times through, taking notes and exercising my highlighter each time, some of this stuff still boggles.

    So please accept the previous paragraph as my disclaimer for any wildly erroneous conclusions or calculations I may present here. As always, I invite you to read the material yourself, although we both know the likelihood of that happening is close to zip.

    

    Chapter 25 starts out simply enough with some advice (okay, OT God does not offer advice, he tells you what to do and kills you if you have your own ideas) about how to properly manage farmland. And yes, I still find it a head scratcher as to why he brings this up to a couple million folks who won't be settling down for another forty years. What land are they supposedly farming? Maybe he knows he's going to be busy with other divine duties around the time the Israelites are Manifest Destinying the Canaanites and Hittites and Floridianites off what they thought was their land. 

    What God wants Moses to pass along to his congregation is that when they do have their own fields and vineyards they need to let them rest every seven years. Simple enough. I'm no expert, but it does sound like good policy to me. God could have mentioned crop rotation too, but he didn't.

   Then, after a short bit about the Sabbatical Year, God spells out what he wants to happen every fifty years in is to be known as the Year of Jubilee.

    The whole fifty year spacing is arrived at in these two verses, which, I've got to admit, make my head spin.

8) You shall count off seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the period of seven weeks of years gives forty-nine years. 9)Then you shall have the trumpet sounded loud; on the tenth day of the seventh month...

    What is "seven weeks of years" for cryin' out loud? Be that as it may, every fifty years there will be a Year of Jubilee. Fine. But what does that mean? If you're like me, you associate the word Jubilee with Queen Elizabeth II, or maybe in a stretch with revered military anti-strategist Jubilation T. Cornpone, whose statue looms over the town of Dogpatch, USA in Al Capp's brilliant comic strip "L'il Abner."

    Sorry, I'm straying again.

    The Year of Jubilee, as far as I've been able to figure out through multiple readings and an excessively extravagant six minutes of online research, is the happy time once every fifty years year when anyone who has been having a tough time financially, can look forward to their debts being forgiven and, in some circumstances, even getting back the family home or acreage that had been lost to foreclosure or sold off to pay debts. There is a lot, and I mean a lot, of "if/then" and "it all depends on" contained in this part of the chapter, and unfortunately we once again have a section that legitimizes the practice of enslaving other people and even passing them on down to the next generation, but an almost universal twice a century debt forgiveness seems to be the nub of the issue. I would go into more detail, but math is not my strong suit, never has been. If there are any CPA's in the crowd, perhaps you could bring some clarity.

    Chapter 26 is divided into two sections, one spelling out the good stuff God will do if you follow his commandments, and a much longer one offering an inventory of what'll happen to you if you don't. The good stuff features things like bountiful harvests and feeling all safe and secure and being able to strike fear into your enemies with your little sword, which I know is at the top of most GOP Amazon Wish Lists. The penalties portion features a wide variety of nasty things that God will do to you including, but not limited to, turning you into a cannibal, laying your cities to waste, scattering you and your neighbors hither and yon with no forwarding addresses, and being devoured by your enemies. Perhaps most devastating of all, God will no longer find your odors pleasing. Say it ain't so.

    We wrap up our frolic through Leviticus with Chapter 27, which is titled "Votive Offerings" and I must admit that on my first reading I had no idea whatsoever what was going on here. To me, the word "votive" evokes nothing so much as little candles and that didn't seem to fit the bill here. Then there is the word "equivalent", that is tossed around frequently, that one threw me completely for a loop. Let me give you an early sample, and see if it means anything to you.

1)**The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 2)Speak to the people of Israel and say to them: When a person makes an explicit vow to the Lord concerning the equivalent for a human being, 3)the equivalent for a male shall be: from twenty to sixty years of age the equivalent shall be fifty shekels of silver by the sanctuary shekel.

    What is this "equivalent" of which they speak? Blast it all, more research was required. My thanks to the fine folks at the Yeshua Elohim Bible Church whose website provided a translation of the translation that is the New Revised Standard Edition Bible which is the Word of God as taken straight from the steno pad of Moses, having been filtered through a few other versions over the centuries (see "A Word From the Committee").

    Oops, I never defined what a votive offering means to God, Moses, Aaron, and the Gang. That one's pretty simple, at least according to the AI answer Google provides. It's something you bring to God that is what you might call a durable good. Something like, oh, a silver candlestick or a mahogany dining room table. You know, the sort of thing you might see on Antiques Roadshow. According to the Bible Church folks, what God expects when you bring him a bit of durable goods is that the value of said item should be commensurate with your gender and earning power. Middle aged men are expected to hand over more valuable stuff than a woman, regardless of age. That's what is meant by equivalent. And that, my friends, is just another example of how what we've read so far in the Bible lines up with certain political, social, and economic injustices we're still trying to correct.

    Back to votives.

    In verse 9 animals are mentioned as an offering option, so maybe that whole durable goods definition isn't that helpful. Geez. Anyway, the critter reference is the first in a whole list of items people might be offering to God. He tells Moses what he will and won't accept, what is his to begin with so don't even try, and whether the person doing the offering can ever hope to buy it back, which is what it meant by the word "redeem", which has nothing to do with S&H Green Stamps***. Surprise, surprise, but just about anything that can be redeemed is going to cost a good chunk of change more than it's actual value.

    This final chapter of Leviticus ends at verse 34 with this,

These are the commandments that the Lord gave to Moses for the people of Israel on Mount Sinai.

    From now on whenever somebody brings up the "Commandments" and I know they're just talking about the Famous Ten, I'm going to set them straight about the fact that there are actually about fourteen thousand of them, and hand them a Bible bookmarked at Leviticus.

*The photo for today is in honor of the Opening Ceremonies for the 2024 Paris Olympics. I'm certainly hoping that the games bring the world at least a little bit closer together.

**Does this work for you when I'm putting verse numbers in a quotation? There is probably a more elegant solution, but what that might be I have no idea.

***For anyone under fifty-five or so, you can look it up.