Numbers 33 - 36

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Numbers 33 - 36

In these chapters of the book of Numbers, Steve Gregg explores the historical accounts and geographical references from Ramesses in Egypt to the plains of Moab near the Jordan River. The speaker delves into the significance of place names and discusses God's execution of judgments upon Egypt's gods. Additionally, Gregg analyzes the division of the land among the Israelites and the establishment of cities of refuge, examining the principles of justice and inheritance. The chapter concludes with a reflection on the importance of marrying within the faith and seeking God's guidance in relationships.

Transcript

What remains of the book of Numbers that we have not yet covered, chapters 33 through 36, really doesn't contain much more in the way of stories at all, or history. It's more administrative stuff. But chapter 33 is the only section of Numbers that specifically says that Moses wrote down the information in this chapter.

We believe that Moses is the author of the whole book of Numbers, at least the substantial author. Whether he wrote it in its final form or not is open to question, because it's possible that after Moses' death, Joshua may have updated some names and places and so forth. Made comments about Moses like that he's the meekest man on the face of the earth and all that.

Some lines in Numbers might not have come from Moses' pen, but he's a substantial author. Throughout the book, we read that the Lord spoke to Moses and Moses spoke these things. So whether Moses spoke them and someone else wrote most of them, or whether Moses wrote all of them down, really is somewhat immaterial, but we do know that he wrote chapter 33 because that's what we're told.

And chapter 33 is simply a recollection of the different locations where Israel encamped during the 40 years of their wandering in the wilderness. Actually starts with Ramesses, it can be spelled either way, in Egypt where they began the Exodus and then it ends up at the plains of Moab where we now have them just before crossing over Jordan into the promised land. And it gives the names of something like 40 places.

I say something like because different people count them differently. I guess it depends on whether you count Ramesses as one of them or not. But some say 40, some say 42 place names, and most of these have not been identified by modern archaeology.

That is, of the 40 or 42 names, there's been maybe a dozen of them have been identified with a fair degree of confidence by modern scholars, which means, of course, almost three quarters of them have. We don't really know where they are. They're just ancient place names that don't exist anymore.

And that makes it, of course, very difficult to trace the path of Israel during those 40 years because we don't know where these places were. There are guesses that can be made, but they're really just that. There's speculation.

So most of the place names are going to read about. We don't really know where they are. And yet the fact that they are listed indicates the authenticity of the ancientness of the document, because, you know, these are places that haven't existed for a very long time.

Obviously, it was written at a time when they did exist, when these names meant something to people. And I think about 24 of these places are mentioned in Exodus and numbers previously as places that the children of Israel have been. I think that's the correct number, about 24 of them.

The rest of them have been they were visited by the Israelites. But their visits there were never recorded in the historical narrative. And that means that they went a lot of places that we have no information about in the historical narrative.

We only have the name of the places and we don't even know where they were. So that gives us limited access to the information that's recorded here as far as making exact sense of it, plotting it on a map or anything like that. It says these are the journeys of the children of Israel who went out of the land of Egypt by their armies under the hand of Moses and Aaron.

Now, Moses wrote down the starting points of their journeys at the command of Yahweh. And these are the journeys according to their starting point. So it says Moses wrote these down in verse two.

They departed from Ramesses in the first month on the 15th day of the first month, of course, the day after the first Passover, the 14th day of the first month was the day that the first born of Egypt were slain and Pharaoh agreed to let the people go. And so the next day, the 15th day of the month, the first day of unleavened bread. They left Egypt, they left Ramesses.

The day after the Passover, the children of Israel went out with boldness in the sight of all the Egyptians, for the Egyptians were burying their firstborn whom the Lord had killed among them. Also on the gods, that is Egypt's gods, Yahweh had executed judgments, which is what God said he was going to do back in Exodus 12, 12. He said, I on all the gods of Egypt, I will bring judgment.

And and that's what the plagues were. The 10 plagues of Egypt were actually judgments on the various gods of Egypt. The Nile was a god.

Frogs were gods, bulls were gods. The sun was a god. And these plagues affected these different gods and and shamed them basically showed God's sovereignty over them.

Then the children of Israel moved from Ramesses and camped at Sukkoth and they departed from Sukkoth and camped at Etham, which is on the edge of the wilderness. They moved from Etham, and turned back to Pi-Hahiroth, which is east of Baal-Ziphon, which doesn't help us much. And they camped near Migdal.

And they departed from before Hahiroth, that is Pi-Hahiroth region. And passed through the midst of the sea into the wilderness. So all these names we've read were before they crossed the Red Sea.

And so the crossing of the Red Sea happens in verse eight. And they went three days journey in the wilderness of Etham and camped at Mara. Mara was where the bitter waters were that were turned sweet when Moses cast a tree into the water.

They moved from Mara and came to Elim. At Elim there were 12 springs of water and 70 palm trees. So they camped there.

They moved from Elim and camped by the Red Sea. They moved from the Red Sea and camped in the wilderness of Sin. And again, the word sin there, though it resembles our English word sin, is simply a coincidence.

It doesn't mean sin. It's a word that is thought to be the same root as the word Sinai. Sin or seen probably.

In any case, that's the name of the wilderness they were in. They journeyed from the wilderness of Sin and camped at Doth-ka. Now we're getting to some places we don't remember reading about.

They departed from Doth-ka and camped at Alush. They moved from Alush and camped at Rephidim. Now we did read about that.

That's where there was no water for the people to drink and where the water was brought out of the stone by Moses smiting it. They departed from Rephidim and camped in the wilderness of Sinai. They moved from the wilderness of Sinai and camped at Kibro-the-Veah or Hat-te-a-vah.

Excuse me. Remember, that's the place that's called the graves of lust, graves of craving, because that's where they craved meat and God gave them the quails until they were coming out their noses. We read that earlier.

They departed from Kibro-the-Veah and camped at Hazaroth. They departed from Hazaroth and camped at Rithma. They departed from Rithma and camped at Rim-on-Perez.

They departed from Rim-on-Perez and camped at Libna. They moved from Libna and camped at Rissah. They journeyed from Rissah and camped at Keh-he-lah-sah.

They went from Keh-he-lah-sah and camped at Mount Shefer. They moved from Mount Shefer and camped at Haradah. They moved from Haradah and camped at Makkalot.

They moved from Makkalot and camped at Taha. They departed from Taha and camped at Terah. They moved from Terah and camped at Miskah.

They went from Miskah and camped at Hajmonah. They departed from Hajmonah and camped at Moseroth. They departed from Moseroth and camped at Ben-e-Jayachim.

They moved from Ben-e-Jayachim and camped at Hor-hagad-gad. They went from Hor-hagad-gad and camped at Jot-bethah. They moved from Jot-bethah and camped at Abronah.

They departed from Abronah and camped at Eze-en-geber. They moved from Eze-en-geber and camped at the wilderness of Zin, which is Kadesh. They moved from Kadesh and camped at Mount Hor on the boundary of the land of Edom.

Then Aaron the priest went up to Mount Hor at the command of the Lord and died there in the fortieth year after the children of Israel had come out of the land of Egypt on the first day of the fifth month. Aaron was one hundred and twenty-three years old when he died on Mount Hor. The information that Aaron's death was in the fortieth year and that he was one hundred and twenty-three years old at the time is given only in this chapter.

That's how we know that chapter twenty begins events, begins to record events that were in the fortieth year, because that's where we find the death of Aaron. Now the king of Arad, the Canaanite who dwelt in the south in the land of Canaan, heard of the coming of the children of Israel. So they departed from Mount Hor and camped at Zalmonah.

They departed from Zalmonah and camped at Punan. They departed from Punan and camped at Oboth. They departed from Oboth and camped at Ijah Abarin at the border of Moab.

They departed from Ijim and camped at Dibongad. They moved from Dibongad and camped at Almondibletheim. You try to read these.

They moved from Almondibletheim and camped in the mountains of Abarim before Nebo. They departed from the mountains of Abarim and camped in the plains of Moab by the Jordan across from Jericho. Now we're in familiar territory.

They camped by the Jordan from Beth Jeshimon as far as Abel, Acacia Grove in the plains of Moab. I'm assuming that Beth Jeshimon and Abel, Acacia Grove are probably northern and southern extremities along the riverfront where they camped. I did not find them on a map, but that seems to be describing where they were camped at the time we're reading about.

So approximately 40 places in 40 years. And we don't know how long they stayed in each place. Remember when we're reading about how the cloud would leave them, sometimes it would just have them in one place overnight and they'd keep moving in.

Or they'd be there two days or a week or a month or a year, it's said. But on average, they obviously must have spent an average one year in each place. It may have been extremely uneven.

I mean, if one or two of these places were places they just spent the night, then that would mean to bring the average up. You'd have to have them staying two years in one place for every, you know, to bring the average such. So they must have spent multiple years in certain locations.

And of course, very short periods of time in others. And it was entirely unpredictable to them when they would camp, how long they'd be camping before they move again. They had to depend on the movement of the cloud, which God did not tell them in advance how soon that would be.

They had to always be keeping their eyes on God so that they know when it's time to move. Verse 50, Now the Lord spoke to Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan across from Jericho, saying, Speak to the children of Israel and say to them, when you have crossed the Jordan into the land of Canaan. Then you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you destroy all their engraved stones, destroy all their molded images and demolish all their high places.

These were all, of course, places and objects associated with the Canaanite worship of false gods. You shall dispossess the inhabitants of the land and dwell in it, for I have given you the land to possess and you shall divide the land by lot as an inheritance among your families. The larger you should give to a larger inheritance, the smaller you should give a smaller inheritance.

Everyone's inheritance should be whatever falls to him by lot. You shall inherit according to the tribes of your fathers. This is not new information.

This was brought out already in Numbers chapter 26. Verse 55. But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then it shall be that those whom you let remain shall be irritants in your eyes and thorns in your side, and they shall harass you in the land where you dwell.

Moreover, it shall be that I will do to you as I thought to do to them. He warns them that if they leave Canaanites alive, it will be a stumbling block to them. The religion of the Canaanites needs to be swept off the face of the earth.

It was too alluring because it allured to the flesh. It was a party time, an orgy time when they'd worship Moloch or Baal and the carnality of men, whether Israelite or otherwise, were often drawn to these things. And God says this has to be totally wiped out because you these people will be a problem to you if they live.

Now, the problem, he doesn't say what form that problem will take. It says they'll be irritants in your eyes and thorns in your side there in verse fifty five. But it might make it seem like the Canaanites that survive will continue to attack you and give you problems in that way.

And no doubt that was somewhat true. But more, they would be a problem to you in corrupting you so that, as he says in verse fifty six, God would be forced to do to Israel what he thought to do the Canaanites, that is, eliminate them. It's obvious throughout this whole section, throughout the book of throughout the five books of the Pentateuch, that God.

His special purposes for Israel are always conditioned on them not corrupting themselves. Notice, he said that if they are corrupted by the Canaanites and don't obey him, then he will do to Israel what he thought to do to the Canaanites. What did he think to do to the Canaanites? Exterminate them completely.

Unless this is an idle threat and God is lying, which I cannot accept that possibility, God is saying there is a possibility that Israel could be exterminated, too, if they go the way of the Canaanites. We've already seen in the book of Leviticus that God said to Israel that I'm driving the Canaanites out of the land because of all the abominable things they're doing. I'm causing the land to vomit them out.

And then he said, and if you do those same abominable things that they do, then I'll cause them to vomit you out, too. In other words, Israel is no more granted an unconditional. Grants to the land than the Canaanites were.

The assumption is the Israelites have an advantage, the Canaanites don't have, and as God has chosen them to give them his laws to make a covenant with them and to give them the land forever if they keep the covenant. But if they break the covenant, they're as vulnerable as any pagan nations to come in under God's judgment and even extermination, apparently, according to these verses. They have not been exterminated, thankfully, but they certainly were driven out of their land because of their unfaithfulness in former centuries.

Chapter 34, and then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, command the children of Israel and say to them, when you come into the land of Canaan, this is the land that shall fall to you as an inheritance, the land of Canaan to its boundaries. Your southern border shall be from the wilderness of Zim along the border of Edom. Then your southern border shall extend eastward to the end of the Salt Sea.

That is what we call the Dead Sea. So from some place in the wilderness to the West at the southern end of Israel, across some line, we don't know all the boundaries because, again, the place names that are given in this description, many of them are only a matter of speculation today. But we can see that the southern tip of the Dead Sea becomes one corner of the land.

And we're going to see that the River Jordan running north from the Dead Sea becomes a boundary, also the Mediterranean is also a natural boundary on the West. So the general boundaries on the on the South and the exact boundaries on the east and the West can be known. The northern boundary is a little harder to identify because, again, some of the place names that are given as the marker points are difficult or impossible to identify with certainty now.

What's interesting, though, is that the borders he's going to give them are different than what he said to Abraham because Abraham said he'd give them to the river Euphrates and that region is apparently not included in the description we're given here. It says in verse four, your border shall turn from the southern side of the ascent of Akrabim. And I don't have a note here, but I think Akrabim is a word in Hebrew that means scorpions.

Anyone have that information? OK, I thought so. Thought I recognized it because I think in Hebrew the Scorpio, the constellation Scorpio is called Akrab, scorpion. Akrabim would be plural.

So there's a place there's a place name there called the Ascent of the Scorpions. I wonder how I got that name. I wonder if anyone lived there besides scorpions.

Continue to then and beyond the south of Kadesh, Barnea, then it shall go on to Hazath Adar and continue to Asmon. Very helpful, the border shall turn from Asmon to the Brook of Egypt and it shall end at the sea. OK, that's the southern border.

And ending at the sea, I'm assuming is a reference to the salt sea mentioned in verse three, because it is giving some of the details of that southern border, which would extend from. Somewhere. Probably the Mediterranean or the Mediterranean hits the wilderness of sin of then then moving eastward to, as we see, the tip of the Dead Sea and all these other difficult to identify places are spots on the connect the dots to make the boundary description.

At the time, it must not have been confusing to them because these place names were used for the specific places and so they could become markers, boundary markers. Now, verse six says, as for the western border, you shall have the great sea. That's the Mediterranean for a border.

So had to see is mentioned at the end of verse three, it's the salt sea, which is the Dead Sea, and now we have the great sea. And I guess that makes it a little bit ambiguous, which sea is simply called the sea in verse five, but we have the great sea for a border on the west. And this should be a western border and this should be your northern border now from the great sea that's from the Mediterranean, you should mark out your border line to Mount Hoare.

Now, Mount Hoare, that's where Aaron died. But this can't be the same Mount Hoare, I don't think, because I believe the Mount Hoare where Aaron died was in the south more. And so it must be another Mount Hoare.

Actually, the word Hoare is related to the Hebrew word for mountain, I believe. So there might have been a number of mountains that had a similar name in the region. So what this Mount Hoare is, perhaps as anyone's guess, from Mount Hoare, you shall mark out your border to the entrance of Hamath, then the direction of the border shall be towards Zidad.

The border shall proceed to Ziphron and it shall end at Hazath-Inan and this shall be your northern border. And most of these place names are difficult or impossible to identify with certainty today, and therefore the northern border is a bit hazy for us. That doesn't have to be exact in our knowledge because we don't have to live there or don't have to enforce those borders.

That was that was something valuable for them. You shall mark out your eastern border from Hazath-Inan to Shechem and the border shall go down from Shechem to Riblah on the east side of Aen. The border shall go down to and reach the eastern side of the Sea of Chenaroth.

Chenaroth, Chenaroth is what we call the Sea of Galilee. And from that point on, it was the Sea of Galilee and the Jordan River and the Dead Sea that formed the eastern border. Obviously, the northern border proceeded quite some distance north of the headwaters of the river that became the the Sea of Galilee.

And so the eastern border had to be identified by certain place names until you get as far south. You move from the northern board southward until you reach actually the Sea of Galilee and then that forms a natural border. But the northern border must have been considerably further north than that.

And it says. Verse 12, the border shall go down along the Jordan and it shall end at the Salt Sea. This shall be your land with its surrounding boundaries.

Then Moses commanded the children of Israel saying, this is the land which you shall inherit by lot, which the Lord has commanded to give to the nine tribes and a half because the two and a half tribes were going to stay on the eastern side of the river. As he says in verse 14, the tribe of the children of Reuben, according to the house of their fathers, the tribe of the children of Gad, according to the house of their fathers, have received their inheritance and the half tribe of Manasseh has received its inheritance. The two tribes and a half tribe have received their inheritance on this side of the Jordan.

Across from Jericho eastward toward the sunrise. And the Lord spoke to Moses saying, these are the names of the men who shall divide the land among you as an inheritance. Eliezer, the priest and Joshua, the sun noon.

And you shall take one leader of every tribe to divide the land for the inheritance. These are the names of the men. And so we have from each tribe a man given the man from the tribe of Judah's name is well, Caleb, our friend Caleb.

We're already familiar with he's he gets to represent his tribe. The tribe of Simeon has a name, Samuel, the tribe of Benjamin, a man named Elie. Dad, the children of Dan have a guy named Buki.

The men are the ones who are on the West Side, the ones who are not the part of the tribe that stays on the east side of the Jordan, their leader is Haniel. The tribe of Ephraim has a guy named Camuel, the tribe of Zebulun, Eliza, the tribe of Issa, Shar, Paltiel, the tribe of Asher, Ahaiud and the tribe of Naphtali, Petahel. And so in verse 29 says, these are the ones the Lord commanded to divide the inheritance among the children of Israel in the land of Canaan.

OK, now we have chapter thirty five, which is going to talk about the inheritance of the Levites, the Levites, as we've been told several times, have no inheritance in the land in terms of. Farmland now they are given, of course, places to live and we would call that real estate when we think of real estate, we think of a house on a lot and the the Levites did receive houses or at least condos in certain Levitical cities, but they didn't receive farmland and that's like not receiving land at all in an agrarian society. You need land to graze livestock or to raise crops or something to make a living.

And the Levites were given no way to make a living. Now, they did have some livestock, which no doubt they bred and ate, but it wasn't a living for them. They didn't make their living off livestock and they had a limited amount of grazing land, like a thousand feet, a thousand cubits, which would be fifteen hundred feet from the walls of their cities out was their grazing land for their cattle.

That'd be severely limited if they have a lot of cattle. To how much they could graze there, but they weren't making their living on having large herds. These were full time ministers.

They might have some cattle on the side to supplement their diet, but they actually weren't making their living in any ordinary secular pursuit at all. They were full time servants of the tabernacle. Now, when I say full time, I only mean they weren't allowed to have another job.

They weren't really able to do something else. They were separated to the Lord. All the Levites couldn't possibly work full time at the tabernacle.

There were twenty three thousand of them. You know, you can hardly gather them all at the tabernacle, much less give them full time work there. Imagine trying to employ twenty three thousand people in a place the size, you know, smaller than a football field and keep them busy with activities full time, you know, six days a week when it's not Sabbath.

There just wasn't that much work to go around and the Levites would take shifts, I'm sure, and they would have weeks off and weeks on or months off and months on. So they would actually have a lot of leisure, it would seem. But in their leisure, they had other responsibilities that were not associated with the tabernacle, like teaching the scriptures, in all likelihood, they probably were to teach the law to people in whatever gatherings they had in those days.

They didn't have synagogues yet. The synagogues weren't formed until after the Babylonian exile. But there was some setting in which people could, I'm sure, gather to hear the word of God taught.

And I'm sure that that would be the main thing the Levites did when they weren't on duty at the tabernacle. In any case, they needed places to live, but they didn't need real estate of the sort that you'd make a living off of. And so they were given cities to live in, Levitical cities, 48 of them altogether.

And what they called the common land around the cities, which in one verse is said to be extending out 1000 cubits all around in verse four. But then verse five mentions 2000 cubits extended in every direction. And there's no explanation for the discrepancy or for the difference.

It is probably not a scribal error because the rabbis were aware of it way back in the old days, and they assumed that the additional 1000 cubits out beyond the original from the walls of the city out of 1000 cubits was specifically said in verse four to be for their livestock and such. And as we shall see. And then the other additional 1000 cubits beyond that, the rabbis thought or Jewish tradition teaches that that was for them to have vineyards and so forth.

Again, vineyards not for making a living, but vineyards just so that they could have grapes and wine and so forth, which people needed. You couldn't have life without wine in those days. Their water wasn't clean enough to drink by itself, so they have this little bit of land around around their cities.

Forty eight cities are given. The names of those cities are not mentioned here. They are in the book of Joshua.

They can't be given here because they haven't conquered the land yet. They don't even know the names of the cities there yet. Another evidence that this is early mosaic writing because Joshua, which was written after conquest, gives the names of the cities here.

Cities are mentioned, but there's no no names given because obviously this was written before they knew the names of the cities in Canaan. But it is said that in addition to the fact that 48 cities will be given to the Levites to live in to be their homes, there will be additionally or more like subtracted from those six cities that would be. They'd still be Levitical cities, but they would be called cities of refuge and their special use is described in this chapter.

Also, there would be six of those three on each side of the Jordan so that there would be they'd be situated. Conveniently enough that a man who had accidentally killed somebody else could flee there to get a fair trial and not get himself killed by the Avenger of Blood, which we find the Avenger of Blood is the next of kin of the deceased victim. If you're if if if you got murdered, you're next of kin, your brother, if you had one or a cousin or an uncle or someone near akin to you would actually have a responsibility to chase down the person who killed you and kill him.

Because that person would be the Avenger of your blood, so it was assumed, however, although the law does say that a murderer, a cold blooded premeditated murderer, should be put to death. Apparently, the Avenger of Blood would be inclined to kill a man even if he had accidentally committed the crime. And God says, well, if it was an accident, he can flee to a city of refuge and he can be safe there from the Avenger of Blood, assuming that the court that he finds there at the city of refuge hears his case and finds him essentially innocent of premeditated murder.

And the man then could live safely in the city of refuge, the Avenger of Blood could not come in there and get him. Now, if that man left the city of refuge, the Avenger of Blood could kill him with impunity. So the man who had accidentally shed human blood could live only in the city of refuge, but he was free to leave it after the death of the high priest, which is an interesting thing.

Doesn't explain why we Christians can in trying to figure out the typology to the New Testament truth might have an idea. But the law itself gives no explanation why the death of the high priest could possibly release the man. Anyway, that's what this chapter is about.

The Levitical cities in general and the law of the cities of refuge in particular. And the Lord spoke to Moses, chapter thirty five, verse one in the plains of Moab by the Jordan across from Jericho, saying, Command the children of Israel that they give the Levites cities to dwell in. From the inheritance of their possession, and you shall also give the Levites common land around the cities and they shall have the cities to dwell in and their common land shall be for their cattle, for their herds and for all their animals.

The common land of the cities, which you should give the Levites, shall extend from the wall of the city outward a thousand cubits all around. That's fifteen hundred feet, that's like. Five football fields, I think, right.

Sure. Five hundred yards. Yeah.

So like five football field length out from the city is where the gary's the cattle. Now, there's thousands, tens of thousands of Levites, and therefore they have a lot of cattle. And that sounds like a lot of space to me.

But if you're grazing cows and sheep and goats and so forth, they do eat up what's there. And so usually you have to move flocks around into a larger body of land and that to keep them fed. And so it's not really to accommodate the commercial rancher.

There were five says, and you shall measure outside the city on the east side, two thousand cubits on the south side, two thousand cubits on the west side, two thousand cubits and the north side, two thousand cubits, which is just a long way of saying two thousand cubits on each side. But the law likes to say things the long way sometimes just to make sure they don't leave any stone unturned. The city should be in the middle.

This should belong to them as common land for the city. Now, among the cities which you will give to the Levites, you shall appoint six cities of refuge to which a manslayer may flee. And to these you shall add 42 cities.

So all the cities you'll give the Levites should be 48. These you should give with the common land and the cities which you will give shall be from the possession of the children of Israel. From the larger tribe, you should give many from a smaller, you should give few.

Each should give some of its cities to the Levite in proportion to the inheritance that each inherits. One would think that since there's 48 cities and 12 tribes, each tribe would give four cities. But that would only be how it averages out because smaller tribes wouldn't have as many cities to give up as big tribes would.

And so it had to be proportionate to the ability of the tribes to surrender some cities to the Levites. Then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to the children of Israel and say to them, when you cross the Jordan into the land of Canaan, then you shall appoint cities to be cities of refuge for you, that the manslayer who kills any person accidentally may flee there. They shall be cities of refuge for you from the Avenger, that the manslayer may not die until he stands before the congregation in judgment.

And in the cities which you give, you shall have six cities of refuge. You shall appoint three cities on this side of the Jordan and three cities you shall appoint in the land of Canaan, which will be cities of refuge. These six cities should be for refuge for the children of Israel, for the stranger and for the sojourner among them, that anyone who kills a person accidentally may flee there.

But if he strikes him with an iron implement so that he dies, he's a murderer. The murderer shall surely be put to death. The city of refuge is not for people who take a lethal weapon and deliberately kill somebody with the city of refuge is not available for that.

Another example, verse 17, if he strikes him with a stone in the hand by which one could die and he does die, he's a murderer. The murderer shall fall, shall surely be put to death. Or if he strikes him with a wooden hand weapon by which one could die and he does die, he's a murderer.

The murderer shall surely be put to death. The Avenger of blood himself shall put the murderer to death. When he meets him, he should put him to death.

This is what we call frontier justice. You don't take the guy if a guy murders your brother, you kill him. Now, the assumption here is that it is there's witnesses, you know, I mean, you couldn't put a man to death without the testimony of at least two witnesses.

But if people saw it happen, if you heard that your brother was murdered and two witnesses say it happened, then you go after him and you kill him. Now, the murderer, if he is if it was inadvertent on his part, runs away to the city of refuge. Now, there he'll stand trial.

If the judges at the city of refuge decide he did do it premeditatedly, then they'll throw him out of the city and the Avenger of blood gets to kill him. If they say, no, we're convinced that this is an accident on your part, then they keep him there. And the Avenger of blood cannot get him there.

That's the idea. It gives more examples, verse 20, if he pushes him out of hatred or while lying in wait, hurls something at him so that he dies or in enmity, he strikes him with his hand so that he dies. The one who struck him should surely be put to death, for he's a murderer.

The Avenger of blood shall put the murderer to death when he meets him. But if he pushes him suddenly without enmity or throws anything at him without lying in wait or uses a stone by which a man could die, throwing it at him without seeing him so that he dies while he is not his enemy or seeking his harm, then the congregation shall judge between the manslayer and the Avenger of blood, according to these judgments. So the congregation shall deliver the manslayer from the hand of the Avenger of blood and the congregation shall return him to the city of refuge where he had fled and he shall remain there until the death of the high priest who was anointed with the holy oil.

But if the manslayer at any time goes outside the limits of the city of refuge where he fled and the Avenger of blood finds him outside the limits of the city of refuge and the Avenger of blood kills the manslayer, he shall not be guilty of blood. And this is interesting because the assumption is the man who lives in the city of refuge has been found innocent of deliberate murder. He said it was an accident and that's why he's allowed to live in the city of refuge.

But even though that is the case, if he leaves the city of refuge, he can be killed. It's interesting. And the Avenger of blood, if he kills him, even though the man has been judged to be not guilty of premeditated murder, the Avenger of blood will have done something that will not be held against him because he should have remained in his city of refuge until the death of the high priest.

But after the death of the high priest, the manslayer may return to the land of his possession. Now, these things should be a statute of judgment to you throughout your generations and all your dwellings. Whoever kills a person, the murderer shall be put to death on the testimony of witnesses.

But one witness is not sufficient testimony against the person for the death penalty. Moreover, you should take no ransom for the life of a murderer who is guilty of death, but he shall surely be put to death. That is, if a rich man murders someone and is condemned to death, he can't buy his way out.

He can't ransom himself from death. That's not OK. And you should take no ransom for him who has fled to a city of refuge that he may return to dwell in the land before the death of the priest.

And that is, again, a rich man who's now allowed to live in a city of refuge but wants to go home and the high priest hasn't died yet. He can't pay some fee to get to go out early. There's no payment can be made for this.

So you shall not pollute the land where you are for blood defiles the land. And that means, of course, the shedding of innocent blood. And no atonement can be made for the land, for the blood that is shed on it, except by the blood of him who shed it.

This principle was stated as far back as Genesis chapter nine, immediately after the flood, where Noah and his family received their first instructions from God after the flood, which included to spread out and fill the earth and so forth, just like Adam and Eve had been told to do. But in those instructions, God had said in Genesis nine. Verse five, Surely for your life blood, I will demand a reckoning from the hand of every beast.

I will require it from the hand of man, from the hand of every man's brother, I will require the life of a man that is every man's brother will be the avenger of blood. If a man is killed, whoever sheds man's blood by man, his blood shall be shed for in the image of God, he made man and as you as for you be fruitful, multiply and so forth. So whoever sheds man's blood, God said, shall be put to death by man.

Here it is stated the same principle, but from a different angle. He said that when innocent blood is shed, when a murder takes place, the land in which that happened is defiled and therefore comes under the curse of God unless it is atoned for. But nothing can atone for that except the blood of the murderer.

Only the murderer, by being put to death, can balance the books. The Jewish people have a tradition which makes an opinion, let's put it that way, which makes sense that if a man kills another man, murders another man. If that man who is the murderer is not put to death, it's a disrespect to the man who was killed.

It's suggesting that the innocent man who died, his life was not worth as much as the life of the man who killed him. And only by killing the murderer do you come close to settling the score. Of course, it doesn't give back the life of the innocent man to him, but it also does not reward the murderer with an ongoing life, though he has stolen a life from another man.

It's simply justice. It's simply pure justice. And God is a God of justice.

And he said that if there's murder in a land, unless the murder is put to death, the land is under a curse. Now, it's kind of scary for our country because innocent blood is shed on a regular basis at abortion clinics. Several million a year.

Innocent blood is shed continually all over our land. The land is defiled. Honestly, according to Scripture, the only way that that land could be atoned for is if the murderers were put to death.

Now, I'm not I'm not one who's in favor of bombing abortion clinics or assassinating abortion doctors or anything like that. But it certainly does mean that unless our country outlaws abortion and gives the death penalty to those who perform abortions, according to God, our land cannot help but be under God's curse. And because the land is defiled by the shedding of innocent blood.

And there's no way to atone for it except by the death of the murderer. You know, there is a law in Deuteronomy that comes up even about this different that if you find a slain man out in a field. And and it's an unsolved murder.

No one knows who did it. There were no witnesses. There's a corpse that there's no suspects.

Then it says that the elders of the city nearest actually the people should go out and measure the distance to the nearest city. To the corpse and that city then takes responsibility for offering certain sacrifices and so forth to to cleanse the land since they can't actually find the murderer and put him to death. They just take responsibility for being the nearest city to it, to have to go through certain rituals to cleanse the land.

Therefore, verse 34, do not inhabit, do not defile the land which you inhabit. In the midst of which I dwell for I, the Lord, dwell among the children of Israel. Now.

The cities of refuge, I think, are easily seen as a type of salvation, although not an exact type because they were only available for people who are relatively innocent, just like the sin offerings in the sacrificial system were only available for those who sinned unintentionally. The cities of refuge were available only for those who murdered unintentionally. Whereas, of course, the salvation that comes to us through Christ is for all sinners, including those who have sinned intentionally.

Everyone prior to becoming a Christian has sinned intentionally, and yet so the blood of Christ and the salvation that Christ offers actually extends more broadly than than the type in the Old Testament did to a broader number of guilty parties. Everybody, anyone can be forgiven if they flee for refuge to Christ. But it's interesting that they are.

The person was trapped in the city of refuge, as it were, if he would leave the city of refuge, he is subject to the death penalty again, which may suggest, of course, the idea that we have to abide in Christ. As Jesus said, I'm the vine, you're the branches, abide in me. And he says, if any branch does not abide or remain in me, if anyone does not remain in me, he's cast forth as a branch and withered and they gather and burn them.

That there is no ongoing security in life for the person who doesn't stay in Christ. Staying in Christ is necessary, just like staying in the city of refuge is necessary. A man steps outside of the city of refuge and he's subject to the same penalty as he was subject to before he got there.

It's only within the city that there is security as there is only security for us in Christ. Now, the death of the high priest, as I say, is never its significance is never mentioned, never explained in the law. And therefore, we can only speculate about it.

But the death of the high priest, certainly to us, bespeaks the death of Christ, our high priest. Christ is our high priest and he has died for us and in a sense has set us free, not free to leave Christ, as in the type of the city of refuge would be, but in a sense, free to go to our inheritance. And so there's a mixture of metaphors, a mixture of types in this imagery, I think.

But the death of the high priest, no doubt, represents in the mind of God, the death of Jesus, the high priest, as that which sets the sinner free, not free to leave Christ. We change the we change the imagery when we have a person leaving the city of refuge to go back to his home. But there's there's two different lessons here.

One is that we're saved in Christ and only in Christ, only as we remain in Christ, as we abide in him. But the other is that Christ is the one by whose death sinners who are otherwise locked up in there because of their sin are set free to return to the land of their possession, as it says in verse 28 or two, our inheritance, which is a return to what God had in mind for man. Kind of the first place before the fall back to a good relationship with God and.

In a paradise of God, as we read about in the future. Now, Chapter 36, a short chapter, the last chapter, and in it we encounter one more time the daughters of the law for her. And these daughters have been mentioned previously in Chapter 27, I believe it was because they were daughters of a man who had no son.

And there were five of them, and they must have been a seemingly a rare or unique case because there were certain laws that governed a situation like this that had to be made on this occasion, because these five women approached Moses about it, because the inheritance of a father was carried down through his son. His name was carried on through his sons and the name was attached to the land over the generations. And women, if they got married.

Would become part of the family of their husbands, and therefore they would carry on their husband's names, their children would be carry their husband's family, not theirs. Their inheritance would be the inheritance of their husband's family, not theirs. A girl, when she got married, left her husband, her father's family to become part of her husband's family, and therefore, if a man had only daughters, they all married off to other men.

Then he had no sons. Then when the man died, his name would not be carried on through another generation. The land that had been his would no longer be in the family.

And so in Chapter 27, this situation where a man had only daughters and no sons is brought before Moses and it was decided that and it was really a simple ruling. God made it, though, because in verse five of Chapter 27, Moses brought their case before the Lord and the Lord said, yeah, they're right. They should get an inheritance to the daughters can inherit the father's land if he has no sons.

But that leaves another matter open to question, and that is what if these daughters marry men from other tribes? Then their inheritance becomes their husband's and they were of the tribe of Manasseh. But what if they marry someone from a different tribe, let's say, from the tribe of Ephraim or from the tribe of Judah or the tribe of Simeon? What then? Then the land becomes the property of the tribe of Ephraim or Judah or Simeon or whatever their husband is. That means that land that had been in the tribe of Manasseh now has passed to the another tribe in the next generation, because these women who inherited it by marrying someone outside the tribe.

Actually, endangers the perpetuation of the of the property in that tribe. Now, since each tribe had boundaries within Israel, you know, within those boundaries, all the all the tribe of Judah lived in all the tribe of Ephraim lived in this other and all the tribe of dad and this other and Dan and Natalie and all these others. They all had their borders.

If there was a family like the lot that had family, let's say, in the in the borders of the land of Manasseh and they married men from another tribe. Then that land is within the boundaries of Manasseh becomes technically owned by people of another tribe. And that was considered to be a bad thing.

And so that is what is dealt with in this chapter. Another ruling has to be made. These women continually are bringing up new cases that that would that really do have to be handled.

It's just that they are. They set a precedent. There was no other family in Israel that had only daughters to bring this up, but there would be in the future others.

And therefore, a precedent had to be made and a law about what should be done in those cases. The decision was made in this case. They have to marry within their own tribe.

It is now the chief father of the families of the children of Gilead, the son of maker of the son of Manasseh of the family of the sons of Joseph came here and spoke before Moses and before the leaders. The chief fathers of the children of Israel. Now, this is about the daughters of the law had, but it's not the daughters who come to Moses this time.

It was the daughters themselves who came to Moses in chapter 27 because they were concerned about their rights of inheritance. Now it's other men from their tribe that are concerned about the ramifications of the previous ruling, because the men of the tribe are beginning to put two and two together. So if these daughters marry outside the tribe, then our tribal land is going to be kind of become a patchwork of of pieces of real estate that are owned by other tribes over time.

And so they said the Lord commanded my Lord Moses to give the land as an inheritance by law to the children of Israel and my Lord has commanded by the Lord to give the inheritance of our brothers, the law had to his daughters. Now, if they are married to any of the sons of other tribes of the children of Israel, then their inheritance will be taken from the inheritance of our fathers and it will be added to the inheritance of the tribe into which they marry. So it will be taken from the lot of our inheritance, meaning not these particular men, but of the tribe as a whole.

And when the Jubilee of the children of Israel comes, then their inheritance will be added to the inheritance of the tribe into which they marry. So their inheritance will be taken away from the inheritance of the tribe of our fathers. Then Moses commanded the children of Israel, according to the word of the Lord, saying what the tribe of the sons of Joseph speaks is right.

This is what the Lord commands concern the daughters of the law, saying, let them marry whom they think best, but they may marry only within the family of their father's tribe. So the inheritance of the children of Israel shall not change hands from tribe to tribe. For every one of the children of Israel shall keep the inheritance of the tribe of his father and every daughter who possesses an inheritance in any tribe of the children of Israel shall be the wife of one of the family of her father's tribe so that the children of Israel each may possess the inheritance of his father's.

Thus, no inheritance shall change hands from one tribe to another, and every tribe of the children of Israel shall keep its own inheritance. Just as Yahweh commanded Moses, so did the daughters of the law had for Mala, Teersa, Huggla, Milka and Noah. The daughters of the law had were married to sons of their father's brothers.

So they married their first cousins who were obviously their same tribe. They were married into the families of the children of Manasseh, the sons of Joseph, the son of Joseph, and their inheritance remained in the tribe of their father's family. These are the commandments and the judgments which the Lord commanded the children of Israel by the hand of Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan across from Jericho.

Now, that one statement in verse six, I don't know if it reminds you, as it does remind me of First Corinthians and Paul's instruction about marriage to widows. In First Corinthians 7, Paul gives instructions about marriage in general. He advises people who are not married that if they have the gift, they should stay single.

If they don't, they can go ahead and marry. It's not a sin. He talks about widows separately and whether they should remarry.

And his conclusion about that is they'd be happier staying single. But he says they can get married if they want to. But the wording of his statement then is rather close to the wording of this statement.

In that in First Corinthians 739. Paul says a wife is bound by law as long as her husband lives, but if her husband dies, she is at liberty to be married to whom she wishes only in the Lord. That is, there are limits, but not strict limits.

She can marry anyone she wants to within a certain category, within the category of those who are in the Lord, the Christian family. They have to be married Christians, but within the realm of the Christians, they can make any choice they want to. And so it says in Numbers 36, six of the daughters of the Lopahad, let them marry whom they think best.

There's anyone they want to, but they may marry only within the family of their father's tribe. There's a limitation put on it to marry within the family. Now, what's interesting here is it seems to address the question that Christians often have.

Does God have one person picked out to be your spouse? Oh, when people are single and Christian, they often wrestle over that issue, don't they? You know, is this the one? Is this person the one that God has picked? And it sounds from this that it's not as if God has picked one, but he's picked a category. The daughters of the Lopahad can marry anyone they want to within the tribe. They can't marry outside the tribe.

The same is true of Christians. Apparently, they can marry anyone they want to, but not outside the tribe. The tribe is the tribe of the Christians, and marriage is apparently permissible to anyone in that tribe.

So one does not have to worry. I mean, people often when they're single get really stressed over that because marriage is an important decision, obviously. I mean, it's hardly there isn't a more important decision you can make after you've made the decision to become a Christian.

There's only one thing as important as that or more that remains chiefly important, and that is whether you marry or not and who you marry. Obviously, your marriage is a choice for life and therefore affects your life more than any other choice you make, more than a choice of employment, more than a choice of even more than a choice of having children. That is how many children to have if you do make choices about that, because the children in your household will only be there for a while.

Eventually, you'll be with your wife permanently. And or husband. So it's a big decision and Christians often wonder, does God have a particular person picked out? Now, I think that there are times when he probably does, just like he had certain people picked out to be apostles and certain people picked out for certain ministries.

There are cases where God definitely does have a specific case. We find that when Isaac needed a wife and Abram sent his servant to the land of Padnerim to find a wife and God led Rebecca to the servant of Abram at the well. It says that the servant before she arrives said, the woman that I will say, give me something to drink and she'll respond by saying, drink, my lord.

And let me give water to your candles also. He says, let that be the one that the Lord has chosen for my master's Isaac. The man assumed there was a woman that God had in mind for Isaac, and that was probably a fairly safe assumption since there were very few people who would have been OK.

Had to find somebody of the same religion. There weren't many people in the world of the same religion. He assumed there's probably one person that God had in mind.

And no doubt he is right. God did. God did bring the girl and the countersign came off well and certainly it turned out that was the right choice.

So there are perhaps cases where God will give specific instructions to a specific person about marrying some other person. But it seems to me like that'd be the exception rather than the rule. It sounds like for the most part, God doesn't mind who someone marries as long as it's in the faith.

And I think that's important to know, because if you think that there's just one, then you might be guided in this matter by spooky considerations. I had a dream. I got a prophecy.

I've got this word from God. I'm supposed to marry so and so. And in my life, I've experienced that feeling, that feeling like God show me I'm supposed to marry someone.

And it turned out that wasn't the case. Women saying that God showed them they're going to marry me and it wasn't the case. I mean, it's just I've seen this happen many times in the body of Christ.

And the thing is, for example, my wife, my last wife, married me for one reason only. She felt like God told her to. She didn't love me.

She told me 12 years later. And I believe she's telling the truth. She didn't love me.

She wasn't attracted to me. She married me because she thought the Lord wanted to. She managed to stay in the marriage for 20 years before she bailed and left the Lord, too, I guess, if she stayed with the Lord, she was saved with me because she thought God wanted to marry me.

But she decided that was not worth it. And the thing is. I didn't know that's why she married me, but when people marry for those reasons, a lot of times they overlook things that common sense would tell you make it a bad match.

You know, something about someone appeals to you, something about someone attracts you to say, oh, that's the one I want. And yet there may be all kinds of things that common sense would tell you this. There's not compatibility here.

And. But but you ignore that because God said it. I mean, it seems to me that my wife, since she was not in love with me and wasn't attracted to me, should he's not the guy.

But she thought God said it. So she overlooks that. I don't think we're supposed to overlook those kinds of things.

I think that the general rule about marriage is you do use common sense or, as Moses put it, marry who seems good to you. How did he worded exactly there in Numbers 36? It's actually a good advice about marriage. It says, let them marry whom they think best.

That's really a good a good rule. Not the person that you think you got good vibes about or the person you think you got a prophecy about. Marry the person that you think is best.

And how do you do that? Well, that has to be decided on the basis of a lot of, I think, practical considerations and and compatibility and family concerns and, of course, family approval and things like that. There's a lot of issues that we wouldn't consider very spiritual issues involved in making the decision. But that's and it seems so maybe carnal.

To take God's guidance out of the consideration, but God's guidance isn't always spooky. God's guidance can be used in common sense, too. God did give you a brain and especially use it and he can he can give you insight that way.

And and it can be God's will. So the point I'm making here is that there's nothing implied at all, either in this statement in numbers nor in Paul's similar statement in First Corinthians seven. That would suggest that you have to proceed if you're a single person on the assumption that there's one person or just one person.

And that's the one person that God has for me. Well, I mean, in some cases, no doubt that's true. And if you marry a person, then that is the person.

And a lot of people who have this spooky idea get divorces because they get married to someone, they say, I married the wrong person. No, you didn't. You married foolishly, it may be, but you married the right person for you to stay with.

The one you made the commitment to, that's the right person for you to be married to for the rest of your life. Might not have been a good choice, but it's still now the right person. And so what makes the person the right person or not the right person is very seldom has anything to do with special divine guidance.

Though I would not rule out that divine guidance can be a factor, but once once someone suspects that maybe God, you know, there's something here that God may be doing. Then, of course, the exploration of the possibilities needs to be done with a lot of common sense, it seems to me, and not blinders on that says, well, God made me do it. Now, when God made you do it and then you made a stupid mistake and you're unhappy in the marriage, then there may be the temptation to blame God for your unhappiness.

But but that's not the way that God instructs us about that. And so this final chapter in numbers deals with this practical matter, sets a precedent, invokes a new law to apply to these cases, but also provides for us as as in First Corinthians 739, a. A good common sense and godly. Rule about who to marry, you have to marry within the tribe, you have to marry someone that doesn't mean in your same denomination, by the way, but someone within the Christian church, someone who's a believer in Christ, not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers.

And although, of course, marrying for a Jew to marry outside their own tribe was not forbidden unless they were daughters who inherited their father's land. This very law makes it clear that in general there was no law that required a person from one tribe to marry within their own tribe. The only time that rule applied was when doings marrying outside the tribe would endanger the inheritance of your father.

And that would be the case in this case where the daughters were the inheritors of their father's land. And so, you know, there's not a general rule in the Old Testament that the Jews had to marry within their own tribe. But there is this case that provides sort of a type and a foreshadowing of Paul's ruling that you don't want the inheritance of of your tribe to be spoiled by marrying outside.

And so also, you know, marrying a non-Christian certainly does pollute the inheritance that God had in mind for you and your family, because now you're outside the tribe. And it may be that your children and your goods now will belong to someone who's outside the body of Christ. Your kids may even be outside the body of Christ because of it in some cases.

All right. So that's the end of the book of Numbers.