Numbers 18 - 20

Numbers — Steve Gregg

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Numbers 21 - 22

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Numbers 18 - 20

NumbersSteve Gregg

In this thought-provoking exploration of Numbers 18-20, Steve Gregg delves into the significance of priesthood, the sanctification of the sanctuary, and the importance of service. Gregg discusses the privilege of receiving gifts and the responsibility to use them for the benefit of others. He also highlights the concept of leadership and the potential dangers of being offended by it. Throughout his analysis, Gregg draws connections to biblical teachings and highlights the symbolism found in various rituals and ceremonies.

Transcript

The chapters that lie ahead of us are a mixture of, oh, one might say, tedium, and, on the one hand, and, and, uh, sensational narrative on the other. The chapters 18 and 19 go back to certain laws related to the priests and purification and so forth, such as we've encountered in other places in the Pentateuch, including in the Book of Numbers. But then in chapters 20 and 21, we have action again, stories of great interest.

And, of course, in chapters 22 through 24, we will find the story of Balaam, which cannot fail to be intriguing. But in chapter 18, now that God in chapters 16 and 17 has vindicated Aaron's priesthood against those who were objecting, men like Korah and those who were with him are now dead, and God is supernaturally shown by the budding of Aaron's rod that Aaron is God's choice to represent him in the tabernacle. We have some description of the duties of the priests as well as how they are supported.

There's hardly anything in this chapter that is not a repeat of things we have found elsewhere. But it says, The Lord said to Aaron, you and your sons in your father's house with you shall bear the iniquity related to the sanctuary, and you and your sons with you shall bear the iniquity associated with your priesthood. Not entirely clear how God is meaning that.

The iniquity associated with the sanctuary, the iniquity associated with the priesthood. We do know that both the sanctuary and the priesthood had to be sanctified. They had to be cleansed and they had to be consecrated before they could be used.

But in what sense that that iniquity is born by Aaron and his sons? It's not. I mean, the concept is, to my mind, elusive. Obviously, it makes sense to God and it means something exactly.

It's meaning I don't understand and perhaps understanding it would be helpful, but maybe not. Maybe when I hear a difference of interest that are not hard to say. Also, bring with you your brethren of the tribe of Levi, the tribe of your father, that they may be joined with you and serve with you and your sons.

Are with you before the tabernacle witness. Excuse me, sir, while you and your sons are before the tabernacle witness, they shall attend to your needs and all the needs of the tabernacle, but they shall not come near the articles of the sanctuary and the altar. Let's say, die, they knew also.

So Aaron would allow the Levites to come close to the furniture and touch the furniture. Not only with the Levites or whoever touches it, die. But so what Aaron for letting them profane it with their touch.

They shall be joined with you and attend to the needs of the tabernacle of meeting for all the work of the tabernacle. But an outsider shall not come near you. And you shall attend to the duties of the sanctuary and the duties of the altar that there may be no more wrath on the children of Israel.

Behold, I myself have taken your brethren, the Levites from among the children of Israel. They are a gift to you given by the Lord to do the work of the tabernacle of meeting. Therefore, you and your sons with you shall attend to your priesthood and everything at the altar and behind the veil and you shall serve.

Then I like this line, I give you. I give your priesthood to you. As a gift for service.

But the outsider who comes near shall be put to death. The priesthood is a gift that God gave to Aaron, but for service. And this is a principle ministry gifts that God gives are a privilege to receive.

It is a privilege to be called into the ministry. It's a privilege for Aaron to be able to be a priest. It's a privilege to be to serve God in any capacity by any gifts that he may give you.

But those gifts are given for the purpose of serving. Although it is a privilege to receive them, it is not they are not given to us in order that we simply may benefit from them and be privileged by them. But the privilege is the privilege of serving.

As Jesus said, he that would be chief among you is the one who must be the servant of all. And there are all kinds of gifts, but all of them are for the purpose of service. By the way, in Romans 12, among the gifts of the spirit that Paul mentions is the gift of leadership.

The gift of leadership is a gift, but it is a service. All gifts that God gives are for service. That is one reason that we have problems in churches.

Political problems is because of the assumption that the leaders of the churches have a political kind of authority, which in the world's eyes, political authority means that everybody serves the person in authority. That's how the rulers of the Gentiles are. They lord it over them.

They exercise authority over them. But Jesus said it shall not be so among you. And so the person who has a gift of leadership, his gift of leadership is just as much a service to provide the church as someone has a gift of prophecy or the gift of giving or the gift of serving.

Whatever your gift is, is a gift to be offered. Now, by the way, if somebody has the gift of leadership, let's say they hold an office in the church and you don't feel inclined to follow them. There's no reason for them to feel offended, they're just offering leadership as a service to the sheep, that the sheep don't choose to follow them.

Then why should the leader care? He shouldn't be offended unless he thinks he has the right to be followed by virtue of being a leader. He has rights. No, a servant doesn't have rights, a servant just serves.

If I'm a teacher, if that's my gift and it's the service I provide and you say and I say, why don't you come to my school? Why don't you come to the next term, the next module of the school? And you say, oh, no, thanks, I got other things to do for me to get offended that you might. I mean, I have the gift of teaching. You have to be taught.

You have to come and sit under my gift of teaching because that's the service I provide, I insist. Well, that'd be absurd, of course. I mean, if I'm providing a service, you have the right to decide whether you need or want that service or not.

You might be able to take care of yourself without my service. And so it is also in the body of Christ, there are people who are there who are leaders, but not everyone needs their leadership. Leaders are for people who can't lead themselves.

It's true, we are all sheep in a sense, but we're also God's sheep. Jesus said, my sheep know my voice, they hear my voice and they follow me. And the head of every man is Christ.

So it should be that mature Christians don't need an awful lot of leadership from other people. New Christians need it far more because they don't know much about the Bible. They don't know how to know the Lord's voice as well as someone who's been at it longer.

But the point is, there are people in the church who need leaders, at least for a season in their life until they know how to follow the Lord themselves. But the leader shouldn't be offended by Christians who say, oh, that's OK. I don't need your counsel.

I don't need your help. I was in a church that had. I was not a leader.

Well, I guess that was kind of, but not officially. I was when our school was in McMinnville. We were loosely associated with a church not far away that that saw us as part of their ministry, because when we moved our school to McMinnville, our leaders had begun going to their church and became part of their church.

So they saw the Great Commission School as part of their ministry, although we had never joined the two groups institutionally in any way. The Great Commission School at that time had a board of directors that had been functioning for six years, operating on its own without without the oversight of these elders. And these elders actually wanted us to dissolve our board of directors and bring it under their eldership.

We said, no, thanks. We're doing fine without that. And they were offended.

Why should we be offended? You should be glad we don't need your leadership. You know, we've been doing fine without you. We have our own group of leaders here that we have been managing the school.

And the elders weren't quite sure how to handle that. And they thought we had an independent spirit or something. Well, independent of them, yes.

Is that a sin to be independent of them? And I remember there were a couple of times when large sums of money were donated. Well, one time, a large sum of money was donated to the Great Commission School and we needed some more property. We had sold our big property in Bannon, moved to McMinn's and we were buying small pieces of property to sort of accommodate our school in one neighborhood.

And so we looked at a house that was like next door or one house removed from our school, thinking about buying it for additional school property because someone had donated money for that. We looked at it, but didn't end up buying it. But the pastor of that church told me later, he says, I heard you guys almost bought this house over so-and-so for the school.

I said, oh, yeah, we looked at it. We thought about it. He said, don't you think you should have consulted the elders about that first? I said, why? What do they have to do with it? You know, you know, the money was not given to the church.

Elders, money was given to the school. The school was going to buy property for the school. What's this got to do with the church? But they just felt like we should be submitting to their leadership and consulting with them and getting permission to do things from them.

And when we had moved to McMinnville, we faced a new situation we didn't know in Bannon. In Bannon, we had a big campus, but it was out in the middle of nowhere. People, local people didn't come to school.

There were no local people. People had to come from far away to be at the school. So they lived at the campus.

So we charged them room and board and we weren't sure really what to charge for the school. So we just followed what Wyman charged for the SPS. We just charged the same thing because we had the same kind of program.

But when we moved to McMinnville, we were in the middle of the town and there were Christians who wanted to attend the school that lived at home. They didn't want to live with us. They didn't want to pay room and board to us and they didn't need to because they already were eating and sleeping in their own homes nearby.

So they asked, what do you charge just for the classes? And we thought, well, and I thought, wait a minute, what do we charge for the classes? We shouldn't be charging for classes. That's the word of God. You don't charge for the word of God.

You can charge for room and board because that's physical stuff, but you don't charge for teaching the Bible. To me, that'd be an abomination to charge for that. And so we decided that we were going to, since not all of the students were going to be living there, we're going to make the tuition aspect 100 percent voluntary.

And we reduced the amount we were charging even our live-in students because we realized that we had been charging them some for the teaching as well as for the room and board. So we cut their fees in half, brought it down to $200 a month, the students paid for room and board. That's less than what you're paying here.

But anyway, but then we owned the property outright and it didn't cost the property from purchase. But the point I'm making is when we decided we were going to not charge anything for tuition, the pastor of the church again heard about that and he said, don't you think you should check that out with the elders before making that decision? And again, I said, never crossed my mind, why should I do that? What do they have to do with this decision? The money paid by students doesn't go into the church treasury. The elders have nothing to do with it.

But you think this is the mentality of the modern church sometimes has. If you're doing something, if you're in a church, the leaders are the people who are supposed to be approving and disapproving. They're the ones who are supposed to be giving you permission or not giving permission.

And if you don't follow what they say, they feel like you're sliding their position. But they don't have a position. They have a service.

If we need their service, we'll come to them. You know, if you say, Steve, I have the gift of serving and therefore I want to come every day and, you know, rake up the leaves in your in front of your apartment. I say, well, actually, it's already taken care of by the management.

I appreciate that. We don't need you. And you showed up anyway to do it.

I said, oh, really, we don't need you to do that. And you said, but I have to get to service. I have to do this.

You have to let me rake your leaves. And I said, but it's an annoyance to me to hear you raking out there. We don't need it.

Thank you. But you say, but it's my gift. You say you don't impose your gift on other people because then you're expecting basically you're seeing your gift is something that gives you privilege.

The privilege of having people obligated to receive from you whatever it is you think you have to offer. But God told Moses, I told Aaron, I'm giving you the priesthood. As a gift for service, that's what gifts are for, to serve, not to impose on people who don't see any need for your gift.

We all we're all supposed to be following Jesus, but the gifts that are there to help to serve. And that's what Peter says when he talks about the gifts of the Holy Spirit in First Peter, Chapter four. He actually has a section, as Paul does in a couple of his letters on the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

It's a small section. But in First Peter, Chapter four, verses five, excuse me, verse 10 and 11. Peter says, as each one has received a gift, the word is charisma, the ordinarily ordinary word for a gift to the Holy Spirit.

As each one has received a charisma, a gift, minister, that means serve. The word minister is a word that means serve, minister it. To one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God, then he gives examples, if anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God.

If anyone ministers, that means serves, let him do it as of the ability which God supplies. That in all things, God may be glorified through Jesus Christ to him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

So he says in verse 10, if you have a gift and serve each other with it, that's what gifts are for. It's a service. Whether you prophesy, whether you show hospitality, whether you have a leadership gift or exhortation, teaching, you name it.

Whatever your gift is, it is a service. It's not a privilege that gives you some kind of a reason that people have to have to defer to you or to receive from you what you see God has given you. Service is provided to people who have a felt need for it.

And so although there may be a lot of people I think need the teaching I give, I don't have any right to impose on them or be offended that they don't want it. It's up to them. Before God to decide what assistance they need from me or anyone else.

And that would be true if I was a church leader, too. Now, let me give this one exception, because some people say, what about, you know, if everyone's doing what's right in their own eyes and rejecting the church leadership, what about the sin? Well, that's different. Sin is different because sin is not against the leaders.

Sin is against God and against the whole church. And Paul said when there was a case of sin, he said when the whole church comes together. He says that you deliver that person over to Satan for the destruction of flesh.

It's not just the elders. The elders may provide the lead in the sense that they call the church together, but it's not the sins of the members of the church are not sins against the elders. There's sins against God and the church in general.

And so, yes, just because, you know, following the lead of certain leaders may be something that you do it sometimes and not at other times. It doesn't mean that you have the right to sin and that the elders don't have the right to call an assembly for your discipline. They do.

But so many things that the elders want people to submit to are not things that are a sin to do otherwise. They're just the will of the elders or what they call the vision. Of the elders.

They use the word vision as a religious word for agenda. The elders have an agenda for the church and to make it sound spiritual, they call it a vision. And then, of course, if you go against their vision, then you're you have a Jezebel spirit or something like that.

You just don't you're you're rebelling against God. You're speaking against God's anointed. These comments I make might give you the impression I've had some experience with this kind of leaders.

If it does, it's a corrected impression. Verse eight, and the Lord spoke to Aaron here, I myself have also given you charge of my heave offerings, all the holy gifts of the children of Israel. I have given them as a portion to you and to your sons as the priesthood, as an ordinance forever.

Now, basically, this section versus eight through 20 is a summary of all the different ways that the income comes into the priest, what they live off. Of course, they lived off of the tithes of the Levites. But they had other things they came, they got to now, the Levites received the tithes of the nation and the priests received the tithes of the Levites.

That a tenth a tenth portion of what the Levites were given was given to the support of the priests. But in addition to the tithe of the Levites, the priest had a variety of other sources of food, mostly, which is the main thing people needed in those days. They didn't buy cars and stereos and things they just needed food.

They just need to stay alive. It was subsistence living, just like most people lived under in most of history. This shall be yours of the most holy things reserved from the fire that is from the altar.

Every offering of theirs, every grain offering, every sin offering and every trespass offering, which is which they rendered to me shall be most holy for you and your son in a most holy place. You shall eat it. Every male shall eat it.

It shall be holy to you. This also is yours. The heave offering of their gift with all the wave offerings of the children of Israel.

I have given them to you and your sons and daughters with you as an ordinance forever. Everyone who is clean in your house may eat it. All the best of the oil and the best of the new wine and the grain, their first fruits, which they offer to the Lord.

I have given them to you. Whatever first ripe fruit is in their land, which they bring to the Lord shall be yours. Everyone who is clean in your house may eat it.

Now, it might seem like God, you know, heaping a bunch of privileges, financial privileges, as it were, on the priests that the other tribes might resent. Hey, how come these guys get all these special perks? But remember that by being priests and by being Levites, they were deprived of something that everyone else in Israel got. That was real estate.

When they came into the land of Canaan, the Levites and the priests received no lands, no acreage. The all the other tribes were given acreage so they could farm and they could produce all they wanted to. According to their ability, they could produce great wealth for themselves.

They had to give 10 percent of it to the Levites. So that was it. They got to they got to use 90 percent of it to reinvest or to live high as they wanted to live or as they could on their income.

So although in the wilderness, nobody was farming and therefore the priests seemed to be getting a lot of freebies that no one else was getting. When they went into the land, the priests would still have to live off these things while the rest of it would have farms. And farms mean production, and it's like owning a factory or something today or a store.

Having your own business. All right, so we have all of these things that are mentioned that are given to them, everything that opens the womb in verse 15. Of course, the first born are brought to the Lord and the priests get those.

Verse 16. Well, we can move on down probably. Then verse 20, actually, let's go to verse 20, then the Lord said to Aaron, you shall have no inheritance in the land, nor shall you have any portion among them.

I am your portion and your inheritance among the children of Israel. So like Christians, our inheritance is not in this world or in this land. We have God as our inheritance.

Of course, there is a world to come. We will have an inheritance there. But right now, our inheritance is God himself.

That's our privilege. Verse 21. Behold, I've given the children of Levi all the tithes in Israel as an inheritance in return for the work that they perform.

The work of the tabernacle of meeting. Now, this is turned from the priests to the Levites as a broader category. Hereafter, the children of Israel shall not come near the tabernacle of meeting, lest they bear sin and die.

But the Levites shall perform the work of the tabernacle of meeting and they shall bear their iniquity. It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations that among the children of Israel, they shall have no inheritance. For the tithes of the children of Israel, which they offer up as a heave offering to the Lord, I have given to the Levites as an inheritance.

Therefore, I have said to them among the children of Israel, they shall have no inheritance. So like the priests themselves, the Levites don't have any land inheritance. Now, the tithe of the Levites then was given to the priests.

Verse 25, then the Lord spoke to Moses, speak thus to the Levites and say to them, when you take from the children of Israel the tithes which I have given to you from them as your inheritance, then you shall offer up a heave offering to of it to the Lord, a tenth of the tithe. And we were already told in the earlier verses of this chapter, the heave offerings were given to the priests. But this is how they present them.

They heave them. They kind of do a motion of heaving them, offering them up to the Lord, apparently. And you shall your heave offering shall be reckoned to you as though it were the grain and the threshing floor of the threshing floor and as the fullness of the wine press.

Thus, you shall also offer a heave offering to the Lord from all your tithes, which you receive from the children of Israel. And you shall give the Lord's heave offerings to from it to Aaron, the priest of all your gifts. You shall offer up every heave offering due to the Lord from all the best of them, the sanctified part of them.

Therefore, you shall say to them when you have lifted up the best of it, then the rest shall be accounted to the Levites as the produce of the threshing floor and as the produce of the wine press. You may eat of it in any place you and your households, for it is your reward for your work in the tabernacle of meeting. And you shall bear no sin because of it, because you have lifted up the best of it.

You shall not profane the holy gifts of the children of Israel lest you die. So the idea here is verses 21 through 24 says that Levites get to have the tithes from the people of Israel. But when they receive the tithe, they take a tenth of it and they kind of heave it up toward the Lord in a way, just in a motion that suggests we're offering this to God.

And then they give it to Aaron and the priests and then the rest of the tithe, the Levites can take home and eat. And they have by giving a tenth of it to the priests, they've acknowledged it to be God's and now they can eat it. And Chapter 19.

Now, the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, this is the ordinance of the law which the Lord has commanded, saying, speak to the children of Israel that they bring your red heifer without blemish on which there is no defect and on which a yoke has never come. This would be an unspoiled cow with entirely red hair. Now, a red heifer, a red cow is a fairly rare color for a cow.

And the rabbis after this believe that if the cow had even two white hairs on it or two hairs on it that were not red, it was disqualified for this purpose. This cow is going to be burned into ashes and the ashes will be mixed with water, just a little pinch of acid with a large amount of water. And that would be used for sprinkling people in the ceremony of cleansing someone who become unclean.

And so few a heifer provided so many ashes and so few were used per application that it is said that from the time of Moses to the time of AD 70, when the temple was destroyed. So the whole the whole period of the law, 1400 years or more, 1500 years almost. That they only use seven cows in that time because so much ashes were provided from one cow being burned up and they use so little in the water that they use.

So they didn't have to go through many red heifers. It's a good thing, too, because there aren't many of them around. In fact, you may have heard that there are people in Israel today who are desiring to reinstitute the temple ordinance.

And one of the things that is a challenge to them is to find red heifers for this particular purpose, to make water for purification of people who have been unclean. And there are ranchers who are specifically attempting to breed red heifers from time to time. And in Christian circles, you'll hear news that some rancher in Montana or somewhere has has has gained a red heifer, you know, and they're all excited about that.

Oh, wonderful. They've got a red heifer now. As if that's important today.

I mean, there are people who think that these rituals of the temple have got to be restored in the last days. There's certainly nothing in the Bible to to insist on that. And there's nothing in Christian belief to make that something for us to rejoice in.

Since, of course, if the Jews go back to trusting in red heifers rather than in Christ, they have simply found a substitute for Christ, which they currently lack. They don't have a substitute for Christ right now. They don't have animal sacrifices and water sprinkling and things like that because those ordinances ended in 87 because God was done with them and Christ has replaced them.

But the Jews are trying very hard, some of them, to get that up and running again so they can have a replacement for Christ. They wouldn't say it's a replacement for Christ. They'd say it's a replacement for the lost temple cultus that was destroyed in 87.

But, of course, the reason God allowed it to be destroyed is because Christ had come and made the temple service obsolete and Jesus has not stopped making it obsolete. And therefore, if they build the temple again and offer sacrifices and so forth and start doing all this ritual, it is because of their rejection of God's choice to replace it with Christ. That replacement is seen even with reference to this ritual of the red heifer in Hebrews, chapter nine.

Verses 13 and 14. Hebrews 9, 13 makes reference to the red heifer ritual here. Hebrews 9, 13 says, for if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, that's a reference to what we're reading about here in chapter 19 of Numbers, the red heifer.

The ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh. How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? So the writer of Hebrews sees that just like the blood sacrifices, you know, they were types of the blood of Jesus. So the sprinkling of the water with the ashes of the red heifer, that's the type of Christ blood also.

And that's probably why the heifer had to be red like blood. They took they didn't sprinkle every unclean person with actual blood, but they did sprinkle them with water in a ritual that has its antitype in our being sprinkled with the blood of Jesus. And therefore, the water was mixed with ashes from a cow that had been red like blood is red.

And that's no doubt why the emphasis on red for the heifer here. So he says in verse two of Numbers 19 that they bring you a red heifer without blemish in which there is no defect. Verse three, you should give it to Eliezer, the priest, that he may take it outside the camp and it should be slaughtered before him.

And Eliezer, the priest, shall take some of its blood with his finger and sprinkle some of its blood seven times directly in front of the tabernacle of meeting. Then the heifer shall be burned in his sight. It's hide its flesh, its blood and its awful shall be burned.

Because that red hair has to be included, everything has to be burned. Usually the skin was taken off and given to the priest, but not in this case. This is not a sacrifice.

This is something else. And the priest shall take cedarwood and hyssop and scarlet and cast them into the midst of the fire, burning the heifer. Now, these three things, their exact significance has been very much speculated about by Christian teachers and so forth that I've read.

I cannot say that I've heard an argument that is compelling to identify the hyssop and the cedarwood and the red cloth that they threw in the fire with anything specific. But it's interesting that the same three items are used in the cleansing of lepers in the 14th chapter of Leviticus, where we find them again, cedarwood, hyssop and scarlet. Cloth and they are used somehow also in the cleansing of lepers.

So they are related to this ceremonial cleansing thing. Cedarwood. I really don't know why cedarwood particularly is significant.

We know that cedars were later used as the main wood in the Temple of Solomon. Cedars from Lebanon were provided. And sometimes in Isaiah, cedars and other trees are really used as a picture of people in general.

People are compared to trees, even in Jesus teaching people are compared to trees, but fruit trees bearing fruit of some kind or another. But I don't know what symbolism the cedarwood have. The red cloth, of course, could easily be seen as representing the blood of Jesus and probably does in some measure represent that.

The white would be necessary to add to the red heifer. We already have red in the picture, so I don't know why the red cloth needed. Hyssop was used for sprinkling.

In fact, originally it was used in the Exodus for applying the blood on the lentils in the doorpost. The lentil was a shrub that had sort of a brushy end on it so they could use it like a paintbrush. They also sprinkled holy water on the lepers with it.

But how its use in this ritual is to be understood is not. Not entirely clear. Then the priest shall wash his clothes, he shall bathe in water and afterward he should come into the camp and the priest shall be unclean until evening.

And the one who burns it shall wash his clothes in water, bathe in water and shall be unclean until evening. Then a man who is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer and store them outside the camp in a clean place and they shall be kept for the congregation of the children of Israel for the water of purification. It is for purifying from sin.

And the one who gathers the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes and be unclean until evening. And it shall be a statute forever to the children of Israel and to the stranger who sojourns among you. He who touches the dead body of anyone shall be unclean seven days.

He shall purify himself with the water on the third day and on the seventh day. Then he will be clean. But if he does not purify himself on the third day and on the seventh day, he will not be clean.

Now, why the third day and the seventh day, the seventh day is understandable enough, as the number seven is significant and lots of things in the rituals of the temple have to seven days, the seven day feasts and so forth. And perhaps that is because that's one week and that's how long it took God to create the heavens, the earth and all that is in them and to rest. And so the seven day week, of course, is always a memorial of the creation and of the Sabbath.

And it is woven into many of the rituals. And so the idea of being having to cleanse himself after seven days is it doesn't require much explanation. But why twice? Why on the third day? And it's it may be, I don't know, but it may be because that corresponds with the day Jesus rose from the dead.

It's emphasized many times in the New Testament. He wrote on the third rose on the third day. And that would be, of course, the thing that brought about the opportunity for sinners to be cleansed is that Jesus death and resurrection.

It may be that that is what it refers to. He cleanses himself on the third day and the seventh day may simply represent the end of a man's life. Remember, the seven day feasts, I believe, represent a whole lifetime, for example, of unleavened bread.

Paul said that the feast of unleavened bread, which we know was seven days to the Jew, represents our whole life of living without the leaven of malice and wickedness and living a life of unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. So it may be that the seventh day simply represents the end of a man's life. Indicating that he needs to be cleansed at the beginning of his walk with God, represented by the resurrection of Christ from the dead.

You know, when we come to Christ and benefit from his death and resurrection, we are cleansed. We also need cleansing through our whole life. And we need to especially be clean when our life comes to an end, when Jesus, you know, when we stand before God.

But because whoever touches the body of anyone who has died or does not purify and does not purify himself defiles the tabernacle of the Lord, that person should be cut off from Israel. He should be unclean because the water of purification was not sprinkled on him. His uncleanness is still on him.

This is the law. When a man dies in the tent, all who come to the tent and all who are in the tent should be unclean. Seven days and every open vessel which has no cover fastened on it is unclean.

Whoever is in the open field and touches one who is slain by the sword or who has died or a bone of a man or a grave shall be unclean. Seven days touching a grave would make you unclean. And that's why the Jews at a later time whitewashed the outside of caves which had served as graves, especially at the festival times when Jews from all over the world would have to go to Jerusalem to keep the festivals.

There were caves that were used for graves and there were caves that were not. Now, people typically used caves for the privacy of frankly relieving themselves. It was like they're the outhouses along the road where any caves you could find Saul King Saul himself.

The king used a cave for an outhouse, as we know. And so they needed, you know, caves for actions that needed to be out of the sight of the public. But some caves that look just like others were actually burial places of the dead.

The problem would be if a Jew coming from another part of the world came to Jerusalem at festival and happened to go into a cave not knowing that it was actually a grave and found that he had walked into someone's grave. He really he'd be defiled for seven days. He'd be excluded from keeping the feast that he had traveled to Jerusalem for.

So in order to prevent that, the Jerusalem Jews began to paint caves that were graves with whitewash on the outside, at least at festival time. The paint would wash off eventually or rub wear off and over the course of time. But but it would be there mainly for the festival time so people could see, oh, that's a grave that's whitewashed.

And that's why Jesus made reference to the whitewash sepulchres. He said the Pharisees were like whitewash sepulchres. They're they're clean and white on the outside, but inside they're defiling.

They're full of dead men's bones. But the reason they had to do all that is because in verse 16 here it says, if a man touches a bone or a grave, he should be unclean for seven days. And for an unclean person, they shall take some of the ashes of the heifer burnt for purification from sin and running water shall be put on them in a vessel.

A clean person shall take his up and dip it in water, sprinkle it on the tent. And on all the vessels and on the persons who were there or on the one who touched the bone, the slain, the dead or the grave. That is, the tent where the person died or all the furniture, anything there that was present when someone died has to be sprinkled with his water.

The clean person shall sprinkle the unclean on the third day and on the seventh day. And on the seventh day, he shall purify himself, wash his clothes and bathe in water and at the evening shall be clean. But the man who is unclean and does not purify himself, that person should be cut off from among the congregation because he has defiled the sanctuary of the Lord.

The water of purification has not been sprinkled on him. He is unclean. It shall be a perpetual statute for them.

He who sprinkles the water of purification shall wash his clothes and he who touches the water of purification shall be unclean until evening. Whatever the unclean person touches shall be unclean and the person who touches it shall be unclean till evening. Now.

In the laws of uncleanness mentioned in Leviticus chapters 11 through 15, in most cases. Most ordinary cases of uncleanness, you were just unclean until evening or the evening of the day that your unclean condition ended or whatever. But some conditions left you unclean for seven days.

This was one of them. And this is this entire chapter is about people who come into contact with the dead body. Now, death, of course, is the wages of sin.

There's the reason people die is because of the curse upon the human race because of sin. And therefore, contact with the dead is reminiscent of, you know, the consequences of sin and therefore defilement. Now, there's something very mysterious about this whole ritual, because this is the water that was used to transform an unclean person into a clean person.

By sprinkling the unclean, these people became ritually clean. But the irony is that everyone associated with the ceremony that was conducting it was made unclean by the person who led the bull out and sacrificed it. The person who burned the bull, the person who collected the ashes, the person who mixed the water, the person who sprinkled the water, even the priest who sprinkled the water on people was made unclean until evening had to wash his clothes.

The strange mystery about this is that the same water that made the unclean person clean in the same act made the clean person who who applied it unclean. And it remains a great mystery among the Jews as to why this is. Why were people made unclean by applying this? It would be very inconvenient for them to be made unclean because most of the ones doing this would be Levites and priests.

And for a priest to be made unclean until evening interferes with the rest of his service, that day anyway. It is said that Solomon puzzled over this mystery and concluded it's unsolvable. That's what the rabbis say.

I think probably that may not be true. It may be just that the rabbis found it unsolvable and concluded that even Solomon wouldn't have been able to solve it. So it became one of their legends.

Although maybe Solomon did puzzle over it. I don't know the answer either. I'm not Solomon and I'm not one greater than Solomon.

But it is interesting that if the sprinkling of the of the water purification represents the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus and the blood of the bull then and its ashes and so forth and its and its body represent Jesus himself and his blood. Or not a bull, it's not a bull, it's a heifer, a cow. But if that represents Jesus himself, then it may be that it's saying that although Jesus would sprinkle many nations and make them clean, those who were instrumental in bringing about his death defiled themselves with the sin of crucifying him.

It was actually a sin on the part of those who killed Jesus to do so. And yet in doing so, they were bringing about circumstances would cleanse sinners. But God used the sins of the actually the priesthood, the Sanhedrin were led by the chief priests and so forth.

So it was the priesthood that applied the blood of Jesus in a sense, the Jewish priesthood. They're the ones who caused his blood to be shed. And because of that, they were defiled.

Remember, Jesus said to Pilate, you could do nothing to me unless it was given to you from above. Therefore, he that has delivered me to you has the greater sin. Persons who delivered Jesus to Pilate were the chief priests.

She said they have the greater sin for having done so. So they although they were the instruments through which the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus was made available to sinners, they were made unclean in the act of doing so. Maybe this ceremony of uncleanness for the priests that administer this is simply foreshadowing that event.

The chapter 20, then the children of Israel, the whole congregation came to the wilderness of Zin in the first month and the people stayed in Kadesh and Miriam died there and was buried there. Now, it says the first month. This is the first chronological reference we've been given for several chapters.

And yet it doesn't tell us what year. But it is the 40th year. How do we know that? Well, because we find by the end of the chapter, Aaron also dies in this chapter.

Miriam dies and Aaron dies. And Moses is told that he's going to die without going into the promised land. These things we lose the whole family.

Amram's children all die in one chapter, or at least their death is announced and two of them die in this chapter. But Aaron's death, we're told in chapter 33 and verse 38, that he died in the 40th year. So that marks this chapter for us in Numbers, chapter 33 and verse 38.

It says, Then Aaron, the priest, went up to Mount Hor at the command of the Lord and died there in the 40th year after the children of Israel had come out of the land of Egypt. The first day of the fifth month. OK, so Miriam died in the first month of the 40th year.

Aaron died four months later in the fifth month. Of the same year, and that was the 40th year, so by the time we come to chapter 20, we're now in the 40th year. How long we've been there, we don't know.

We might have been in the 40th year in chapters 18 and 19, too, for all we know, but we are not told that. So a whole 38 years of wandering has been passed over without really much comment at all. And yet what has been going on during that time? Israel has been essentially apostate.

They have murmured, they've grumbled, and there's other signs of their apostasy that have not been mentioned in the book of Numbers, but are brought out later. For example, in Joshua, chapter five. And verse five, we're told that this whole generation did not circumcise their sons.

Because the new generation, after they came into the land of Canaan, had to be circumcised, they had not been circumcised, we're told. That means that all these people who came out of Egypt, the first generation did not even practice circumcision. Imagine that.

That means they couldn't come to the tabernacle. That means they couldn't participate in any of these rituals. That means that although these rituals were given for 38 years, they were essentially neglected.

In fact, there's evidence of that from the book of Amos, that these rituals were neglected for those period of time. In Amos, chapter five. And Amos is found right after the book of Joel, if that will help.

In Amos, chapter five. Verses 25 and 26. The prophet says, did you offer me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness 40 years, O house of Israel? Now, that's a rhetorical question.

The answer is intended to be no, you didn't offer sacrifices to me during the 40 years. You also carried Sikuth, your king, and Chion, your idols, the star of your gods, which you made for yourselves. So apparently during this time, they made idols for themselves and worship them and carried them through the wilderness.

Now, how Moses and Aaron were responding to this at the time is not recorded. It must have been a great grief to them because they were trying to lead the people in the pure worship of Yahweh at the tabernacle and people were instead worshiping idols. Stephen quotes this passage in Amos over in Acts, chapter seven.

And he the way he words, it makes it clear that they actually worshipped during this time. Moloch, a very evil. Demonic God and also the hosts of heaven, they worship the stars and so forth, which God had warned them not to do in the law.

But this is in Acts, chapter seven. Stephen is preaching and in verses 42 and 43. It says, then God turned and gave them up to worship the host of heaven as it is written in the book of the prophets.

Did you? This is quoting the passage in Amos. Did you offer me slaughtered animals and sacrifices during 40 years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? Yes, you took up the tabernacle of Moloch and the star of your God, Refan, images which you made to worship. And I will carry you away to beyond Babylon.

Now, it is possible that what he means when he says, did you offer sacrifices, implying no to me? He means, although you did offer sacrifices to me, they were to me because of your wickedness. You might as well have been offering up to Moloch or to the stars or something else. It's hard to know exactly how God means that, because the reason I say that it could mean something like that is because in Isaiah, chapter 66.

God speaking to Israel at a time when they are apostate makes this comment. Verse three, Isaiah 66, three, he who kills a bull is as if he slays a man. Now, this means when they sacrifice the bull at the tabernacle at the temple, as far as God's concerned, they might as well be committing murder, not because bulls are worth the same as men, but because their sacrifice for other reasons is unacceptable to God.

As as unacceptable as murder is, he who sacrifices a lamb is as if he breaks a dog's neck. A dog was an unclean animal. He who offers a grain offering.

It's as if he offers swine's blood. He who burns incense. It's as if he blesses an idol.

Now, notice he's talking about Israelites who are actually bringing their sacrifices to the temple. And they're bringing bulls and they're bringing lambs, they're bringing their grain offerings, they're offering sacrifices at the temple, burns incense. But he says, you might as far as I'm concerned, you might as well be worshipping an idol.

As far as I'm concerned, you might be killing men, dogs or offering swine's blood. That is, say, although you are doing the ritual that I commanded, you are doing it with such evil hearts, with such evil lives behind it that it's absolutely unacceptable to me. The sacrifice is the wicked or abomination to God.

So it may be that when Amos says, did you offer sacrifices to me in the wilderness or were you worshipping Moloch and the stars and so forth? Maybe Amos is speaking poetically and speaking a little like Isaiah, saying, although they did come to the tabernacle and although they did do their sacrifices, as far as God was concerned, they weren't doing it to him. They were in rebellion against him, against Moses, against Aaron and against God, therefore. And therefore, their sacrifices were treated as if they had worshipped Moloch.

Now, did they worship Moloch? Well, that depends on if that statement in Amos is literal or not. But the point is, they didn't circumcise their kids. So how could they even come to the tabernacle? At least their children could come.

Maybe the parents did and they just neglected passing on the faith to their kids. The irony is their kids actually ended up being believers and the parents were not. So there's general apostasy during this whole time.

So the 40 years have now passed and we're going to find that even the new generation that is now addressed when Moses speaks to these people now, there's not one person among them who came out of Egypt except Joshua and Caleb and Miriam and Aaron. And Miriam dies here and so does Aaron. So by the end of this chapter, the only people surviving from that generation that came out of Egypt that were over 20 years old at the time are Moses and Joshua and Caleb.

Everyone else was a child at the time of the Exodus. So we've got an entirely new generation of adults he's addressing here. We need to keep that in mind.

Now, verse 22, after Miriam died and there's no fanfare, no mourning mentioned, there probably was mourning, but it's not mentioned. She never really made much of a contribution. I mean, she did leave the singers when they came out of Egypt.

But apart from that, she grumbled against Moses. God actually made her a leper because of that. And we don't really read that she had much of a claim to fame, except that she was Moses' sister.

Not much else is really attributed to her, nor is there any big to do over her death. We just read that she's gone. The oldest surviving child of that family.

Now there was no water for the congregation, so they gathered together against Moses and Aaron and the people contended with Moses and spoke, saying, If only we had died when our brethren died before the Lord. And I would go to people who died in those plagues, like when the ground opened up and saw the Lord, when the plague was brought, those people who died before the Lord under the judgment of God, they died at least quickly. We're going to die of thirst over a long period of time.

We wish we had died then. He says, why? They say, why have you brought us up, brought up the congregation of the Lord into this wilderness that we and our animals should die here? And why have you made us come up out of Egypt to bring us to this evil place? It is not a place of grain or figs or vines or pomegranates, nor is there any water to drink. They were in the wilderness.

There's no vines. There were no there's no fruit. And worst of all, it's hard to find potable water.

So Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly to the door of the tabernacle of meeting, and they fell on their faces and the glory of the Lord appeared to them. Then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, take the rod, you and your brother Aaron, gather the assembly together, speak to the rock before their eyes and it will yield its water. Thus, you shall bring water for them out of the rock and give drink to the congregation and their animals.

Now, this we know had happened or something like it had happened before in Exodus chapter 17, when they had their when their fathers. When their parents had grumbled that there was no water, God had actually told Moses to take his rod and strike a rock. And that was near Mount Sinai.

They're not there anymore. They're now at Kadesh. They're now are not Kadesh, they're at the plains of Moab.

They're across the river from Canaan. They're in a very different spot. There's a different rock.

Although the Jews had a tradition that this rock followed them, it was the same rock that followed them. And it doesn't tell us that here, but the point is that this is a similar action, a similar grumbling over a similar problem. And there's a similar solution, but not identical solution.

And it says, so Moses took the rod from before the Lord as he commanded him. And Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together before the rock. And he said to them, here now, you rebels, must we bring water for you out of this rock? Then Moses lifted his hand and he struck the rock twice with his rod and water came out abundantly.

And the congregation and their animals drank. So Moses did not follow God's instructions, but God brought water to the people anyway. But Moses had to answer to God for that.

And it was a severe thing. We will find that God is going to tell him that he's not going to enter the land. Verse 12, Then the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, because you did not believe me to hallow me in the eyes of the children of Israel.

Therefore, you shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them. Now, Moses, we don't read that Moses was penitent or begged for forgiveness about this at all. But Moses did think it was unfair.

And he complained about it numerous times after this. In Deuteronomy, he says, and for your sakes, God forbade me to go into the land. And I asked God to change his mind.

He wouldn't change his mind for your sakes. Moses kind of blames the people for driving him over the edge. And you can really be somewhat sympathetic with Moses about this.

I think of how many times they've been obstinate and unreasonable and rebellious against him when he had done nothing wrong. And on those occasions, when God was angry, Moses had often interceded for them. Now Moses is angry and God's not as angry.

God just says, speak to the rock and it'll give water to you. Now, different instructions than he gave back in Exodus 17. In Exodus 17, he said, strike the rock.

And he did. And it brought water. And he said, speak to the rock.

And he didn't. He struck it. But he first bawled out the people, said, you rebels.

Now, it's not stated exactly what action on Moses part was the thing that offended God most, except that God didn't most didn't believe in hallowed God. He didn't obey God. He didn't speak to the rock.

But what of the things that Moses did was the great offense. Most people say it was his striking the rock. And perhaps it was because the rock is a type of Christ.

And from Christ comes the living water, the water of life that sustains the life of the world. And that life came out of him because he was struck, because he was crucified. And so the striking of the rock the first time was an emblem of Christ being smitten and as a result of his death, bringing out life for the people.

But he didn't have to be stricken again. Jesus only has to be crucified one time. Once and for all.

To strike the rock again gives the wrong message. Since Jesus has died once, it's only necessary to pray, to speak to the rock. You don't have to strike the rock again to get life.

You only now, since that time, only need to speak to him to receive the water of life. And so that's how God intended for the type to be worked out. Moses fouled it up by striking the rock again.

This is how most Christians would say Moses blew it. And certainly he did blow it by striking the rock. But God doesn't really single out the action of him striking the rock as the issue.

There could have been other issues. The fact that he called the people rebels may be an issue in the Psalms. When it recalls this account, it sometimes mentions in the Psalms that that Moses spoke rashly, that he that he was he lost his temper.

He called them rebels. Well, they were rebels. But nonetheless, he spoke to them, you know, deriding them as rebels, which he had not really done that kind of thing before.

And he also said, must we bring water for you out of this rock? He and Aaron acted like they were the ones providing. That's the first time Moses ever did that. Moses always made it clear that it was not him, but God that was doing all these things.

But now he seems to be suggesting that he's the one who's going to bring water out of the rock. So there's a number of things wrong here with what Moses did. And God doesn't single out which one is the most offensive to him.

But he just said that you didn't do what I said. So you're not going to lead them into the promised land here after 40 years of putting up with these people. Moses loses that privilege because of this one action, which shows, you know, that God leans harder on leaders.

I mean, these people went into the promised land and they were rebels all the way through. Moses makes one mistake and he doesn't get to go in. It says in verse 13, this was the water of Meribah because the children of Israel contended with the Lord and he was hallowed among them.

Now, Meribah means contention. And we've encountered this word before. The waters near Mount Horeb that came from the rock were also called waters of Meribah.

And to make a distinction between the two waters of Meribah later on in Deuteronomy 32, 51, this incident is referred to as Meribah Kadesh. So, you know, they were near Kadesh. And this is Meribah, means contention, contention at Kadesh, whereas the other place was out near Mount Horeb.

So there are two Meribahs. They probably named this one after the other one because of the similarity. They're in a new location.

There's a lot of places like this, a lot of city names that exist in more than one state. In fact, a number of city names in New England were named after city names in England because the people came over from England named the new place after the place they'd come from. And so also so we got New York as opposed to York.

And, you know, a lot a lot of the a lot of the names on the East Coast are named after places in England. So also this is like new Meribah. Their ancestors, their parents had been at Meribah.

This is new Meribah. Then we read in verse 14. Now, Moses sent messengers from Kadesh to the king of Edom.

Thus says your brother Israel, you know, all the hardship that has befallen us, how our fathers went down to Egypt and we dwelt in Egypt a long time and the Egyptians afflicted us and our fathers. When we cried out to Yahweh, he heard our voice and sent the angel and brought us out of Egypt. Now here we are in Kadesh, a city on the edge of your border.

Please let us pass through your country. We will not pass through fields or vineyards. Nor will we drink water from wells.

We will go along the King's Highway, which is the main highway that all travelers took when they're passing through. We will not turn aside to the right hand or to the left until we have passed through your territory. Now, it's a modest proposal.

They're saying we're not going to drink your water. There's a lot of us. We realize your wells could run dry if we try to feed our cattle and ourselves from your water.

We won't go near your vineyards and fields where our livestock might rush off or our people might go in and try to take your grain. We'll just stay on the road. We just want to let you know we got no intentions to harm you.

Just give us permission to come through your territory. Then Edom said to him, you shall not pass through my land lest I come out against you with a sword. So the children of Israel said to him, but we will go by the highway and if I or my livestock drink any of your water, then I'll pay for it.

Let me only pass through on foot, nothing more. Then they said, you shall not pass through. So Edom came out against them with many men and with a strong hand.

Thus, Edom refused to give Israel passage through his territory. So Israel turned away from him. And so they had to go around Edom and said through it.

Not very brotherly on the part of Edom. And from this time on, Edom and Israel were enemies. This is the first time the two countries have really had a conflict.

Of course, Esau, the progenitor of Edom, had been hostile toward Jacob at one point, but they had been reconciled. So this is the first time we really see hostility between the two branches of the family. And it continued until Edom was gone, dead, extinct.

Hundreds of years later, then the children of Israel, the whole congregation journeyed from Kadesh and they came to Mount Hor. And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in Mount Hor by the border of the land of Edom, saying Aaron shall be gathered to his people, for he shall not enter the land which I have given to the children of Israel because you rebelled against my word at the water of Meribah. Take Aaron and Eliezer, his son, and bring them up to Mount Hor and strip Aaron of his garments and put them on Eliezer, his son, for Aaron should be gathered to his people and die there.

So Moses did just as the Lord commanded. They went up to Mount Hor in the sight of all the congregation. Moses stripped Aaron of his garments and put them on Eliezer, his son, and Aaron died there on the top of the mountain.

Then Moses and Eliezer came down from the mountain. Now, when all the congregation saw that Aaron was dead, all the house of Israel mourned for him for 30 days. This I try to put myself in the mindset of Aaron and his son going up this mountain, knowing that Aaron's going up there to die, he's going to take off his ropes around his son, he's going to just die.

Now, we don't know what form that death took. My guess is God just took his breath away. He just probably died painlessly.

You know, he didn't live a prolonged agonizing. He didn't have Moses slay him. Now, I didn't die by the sword or by the plague anyway, but God just took his breath away.

But still going up the mountain with his son, knowing, both of them knowing that Aaron's going to die. And as the garments are being transferred, just what must have, what the son must have thought as he saw his father, you know, divesting himself of his position on him, knowing that he's going to die that day. You don't always know when your parents are going to die unless they're going to face a firing squad.

You know, when people are sick for a long time, you might know their death is imminent, but you still don't know when they're going to die. But to know we're going to go up this mountain, dad's going to die. We're going to come down without him.

That's that'd be quite a poignant thing for the father and the son together, I would think. And the people of Israel liked Aaron. They still do.

The Jews still honor Aaron, although he made some big blunders. He seems to have made his blunders because he is weak and impressionable, which isn't a good thing. That's not a good thing to be, but he was not malicious or hostile or rebellious, apparently.

And so God often gave Aaron a pass when Aaron did some really bad things, apparently knowing that Aaron didn't intend to do evil. He was just sometimes stupid and sometimes too wimpy to resist the influence of others like Miriam, who had influenced him badly. The people mourned for Aaron 30 days.

We don't read that they mourned for Miriam. They may have, but we don't read of it. It's not not worth mentioning if they did, apparently.

All right, we'll stop there and we'll come back and get through some more interesting stuff next time.