Introduction to
Numbers:
The
common Hebrew name for this book is “bemidbar” (in the wilderness). It seems to
collect everything relevant relating to the wilderness travel of the Jews. Schocken Bible editors see it as a
narrative about “the death of the old and the birth of the new.” It starts
with life in the camp, goes on to stories of rebellion and challenge, both from
within and later from without. It ends
with preparations to enter the Holy Land.
The book is bracketed by two
censuses—the first when they start, the second as they prepare to enter
Canaan—hence the name “Numbers” (647-648).
The
first ten chapters cover the camp life of the Israelites. It is centered on the ark and primarily a
military ordering, based on a head count of men over twenty. An Egyptian
mustering would have been around the king’s throne Schocken says (653). Much
discussion has gone on with respect to the numbers of men given—600,000. This would put the entire population in the
millions. It may also have represented a number system
we are not aware of, a purposeful exaggeration.
We don’t know.
Numbers 1 - Today’s reading
concerns Moses’ preparations for his
departure from the encampment at Sinai where the Israelites stayed for the
first two years after their deliverance.
It shows how the many tribes and households of the Israelites were
organized. The main principal behind the
system of organization was military.
Each of the twelve tribes was counted according to the number of males.
Leaders are named for each tribe: Reuben – 46,500; Simeon – 59,300; Gad –
45,650; Judah – 74,600; Issachar – 54,400; Zebulun – 57,400; Joseph (Ephraim) –
40,500 and (Manasseh) 32,200; Benjamin – 35,400; Dan – 62,700; Asher – 41,500;
Naphtali – 53,400.
Levites are not
counted. They attend to the Tent of Dwelling. Omitting
the Levites, the family from which Moses and Aaron came and the least numerous
of the tribes, there were 603,550 men.
Numbers 2 - The camp is ordered
physically around the meeting tent. The companies of Judah, Issachar and
Zebulun are arrayed to the east of
the tent (the place of pride); the companies of Reuben, Simeon, and Gad are
situated to the south; the companies
of Ephraim, Manasseh and Benjamin are on the west and the companies of Dan, Asher and Naphtali are on the north.
Looking
at a map of how the various tribes of the Israelites were later arrayed in the
Promised Land, one sees a very rough correspondence to this desert arrangement.
Their
organization includes an “order of
march” when they break camp beginning with the companies in the east, then
south, then west and finally north. This
order of march is set in motion with prescribed trumpet alarms and is fully
described in chapter 10.
Numbers 3 – The sons
of Aaron are set aside—but the sons Nadab and Abihu were killed for
offering “profane (outside) fire” (3:4).
Eleazar and Ithamar
inherit their responsibilities. The
Levites under them care for the tent of the Dwelling, but there is an order
of service within among the clans of the Levites.
The
Gershonites are housed behind the
Dwelling to the west and have responsibility for the Dwelling tent, its
covering and the curtains and hangings.
The
Kohathite clans camp to the south of
the Dwelling and have charge of the ark, the table the lampstand, the altars,
utensils and the veil.
The
Clans of Merari, camped to the north
of the Dwelling take care of the boards of the Dwelling, its bars, columns,
pedestals and fittings; and to the east
of the Dwelling, east of it (towards the sunrise) lived the families of Moses
and Aaron and they were priest of the sanctuary. One can see that
nothing in the ordering and placement of the clans and tribes was left to
chance. Everything was ordered around
the holy sanctuary of the Lord’s presence and religious and military order
governed it entirely.
It is interesting that
the Levites were considered to take the place of the first-born among all the
other tribes. Because they were saved from death during the
Passover, they were considered to be the Lord’s and dedicated to him. But the establishment of the priesthood was
thought to be a redemption of these first born who were properly thought to
belong to the Lord. As the number of
Levites was less than the total number of first-born sons among the Israelites
to be redeemed, the ransom for the surplus of first-borns was a payment of five
shekels silver to be given to Aaron and his sons.
Numbers 4 – Kohathites aged thirty to fifty have charge of the most sacred
objects. Aaron and his sons have charge
of taking down the veil and covering the ark with it. Over the veil they shall put a cover of
tahash skin (tanned leather in Schocken) and an all violet cloth. (blue-violet
in Schocken, made from a mollusk) A
violet cloth shall be spread of the table of the presence, a scarlet cloth and
tahash skin. Violet cloths shall also be
spread over plates and cups, etc., over the lampstand and containers of oil,
over the cleaned altar. Only after all
the sacred objects have been covered as prescribed shall the Kohathites enter
to carry them off on a litter. They
cannot touch any of them or they will die.
The
Gershonites have other tasks and things to carry. So also the Merarites—either the boards or
the sheets, etc.
Numbers 5 – The “unclean” are to be expelled from the
camp. If people wrong others, it is God
they have broken faith with. They must
restore ill-gotten goods and pay a
penalty of 1/5th their value back as well or to the priest if
there is no next of kin.
If
a man becomes suspicious of his wife’s
faithfulness, he can bring her to a priest with an offering of cereal. The priest performs a ceremony intended to
uncover any guilt in her conscience—she is to hold the cereal offering in her
hands while the priest holds bitter water that brings a curse and he says to
her, if she has been unfaithful, “May this water,. . .that brings a curse,
enter your body to make your belly swell and your thighs waste away!”
(5:22). Then he puts the imprecations
into writing, washes them off into the bitter water and has her drink it. If she is guilty she will suffer the swelling
and become infertile.
Irenaeus of Lyons
(c.180 AD)
Selections from the Work Against Heresies
Book III – The Faith
in Scripture and Tradition
Preface – Irenaeus says he is
called to bring the teachings of the Gnostics into the open and to show how
they are linked to Simon, whom he calls “the father of all heretics.” He
believes he can refute all of them.
He
will use arguments from Scripture, and he hopes he will demonstrate to others
how these heresies can be dealt with. We “will be able to resist them
faithfully and boldly on behalf of the one true and life-giving faith, which
the Church has received from the apostles and imparts to her children. For the
Lord of all gave to his apostles the power of the gospel, and by them we also
have learned the truth, that is, the teaching of the Son of God—as the Lord
said to them, ‘He who hears you hears me, and he who despises you despises me,
and him who sent me.’”
The Traditions of the
Gospels – “[W]e
earned the plan of our salvation from no others than from those through whom
the gospel came to us. They first preached It abroad, and then later by the
will of God handed it down to us in Writings, to be the foundation and pillar
of our faith.”
Some
of the Gnostics try to convince us “that they preached before they has come to
perfect knowledge” and that THEY “are the correctors of the apostles.”
We
believe that after the Lord has risen from the dead, “they were clothed with
the power from on high when the Holy Spirit cam upon them, [and] they were
filled with all things and had perfect knowledge.”
Matthew
went to the Hebrews and wrote a gospel in their tongue, while “Peter and Paul
were preaching the gospel at Rome and founding the Church.” Mark handed down
what Peter had preached and then Luke, a follower of Paul, recorded everything
in his gospel. “Finally John, the disciple of the Lord, who had also lain on
his breast, published [his] Gospel while he was residing at Ephesus in Asia.”
“All
of these handed down to us that there is one God, maker of heaven and earth,
proclaimed by the Law and the Prophets, and one Christ the Son of God.” People
who do not accept this gospel are “resisting and refusing his own salvation.”
No comments:
Post a Comment