Numbers 1-5

Numbers 1-5
There's a tally of the population of each tribe, totaling to 603, 550. It's another incident of numbers and measurements being so specific for something that might seem almost unimportant that I wonder if the numbers don't mean something extra besides what they appear to mean at face value. I also can't help thinking that the main purpose of all this is to find out "do we have enough for an army?" Certainly Moses would be considering this as they head toward hostile territory- they are a nation now, and a nation has to defend itself. They specifically want to know how many men are of age and can bear arms.

All the tribes have to stay in their own tribal groups, parked around their tribal standards. These people on the move must have been something to watch. Like a huge, mobile city.

The Levites are set apart, they're not supposed to do anything except take care of the temple.

The Sons of Levi are:

Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. The clans of Gershon are Libni and Shimei. The clans of Kohath are Amram, Izhar, Hebron and Uzziel. The clans of Merari are Mahli and Mushi. There are very specific instructions for what each Levite is responsible for. The Kohathites are in charge of the holiest things.

With all these people constantly on the move, such regimented social roles make sense. It makes things easier and faster if everyone has a specific job which they never deviate from. There are 22, 000 Levites total.

However, the rules are becoming much harsher. Now, anyone who tries to get involved with helping set up or take down the tabernacle, or who attempts to touch anything in the tent, and who is not a Levite will die. This translation says they'll be put to death, but I think it really means that they'll die from touching the energy source in the tent. People who are unclean are to be "put out of the camp".

Chapter 5 verse 12-31

"Speak to the children of Israel, and tell them:'If any man's wife goes astray, and is unfaithful to him, and a man lies with her carnally, ……

The priest shall bring her near, and set her before Yahweh; and the priest shall take holy water in an earthen vessel; and of the dust that is on the floor of the tabernacle the priest shall take, and put it into the waterThe priest shall set the woman before Yahweh, and let the hair of the woman's head go loose, and put the meal offering of memorial in her hands, which is the meal offering of jealousy. The priest shall have in his hand the water of bitterness that brings a curse. The priest shall cause her to swear, and shall tell the woman, "If no man has lain with you, and if you haven't gone aside to uncleanness, being under your husband, be free from this water of bitterness that brings a curse. But if you have gone astray, being under your husband, and if you are defiled, and some man has lain with you besides your husband:"

then the priest shall cause the woman to swear with the oath of cursing, and the priest shall tell the woman, "Yahweh make you a curse and an oath among your people, when Yahweh allows your thigh to fall away, and your body to swell; and this water that brings a curse will go into your bowels, and make your body swell, and your thigh fall away." The woman shall say, "Amen, Amen."

"'The priest shall write these curses in a book, and he shall blot them out into the water of bitterness. He shall make the woman drink the water of bitterness that causes the curse; and the water that causes the curse shall enter into her and become bitter. The priest shall take the meal offering of jealousy out of the woman's hand, and shall wave the meal offering before Yahweh, and bring it to the altar. The priest shall take a handful of the meal offering, as its memorial, and burn it on the altar, and afterward shall make the woman drink the water.

When he has made her drink the water, then it shall happen, if she is defiled, and has committed a trespass against her husband, that the water that causes the curse will enter into her and become bitter, and her body will swell, and her thigh will fall away: and the woman will be a curse among her people.

If the woman isn't defiled, but is clean; then she shall be free, and shall conceive seed.

Here's an interesting discussion on this topic.
http://community.livejournal.com/christianleft/156901.html which reveals that this passage is not really at all what it seems. Although I'm still slightly bothered by the fact that there's no similar test for an unfaithful man, I understand why there wouldn't be. It was just the way of the world back then, and is the way of the world still-men get away with cheating many times when women don't. I'm also wondering if the whole little ritual isn't just something devised by Moses/the priests/God to humor paranoid men.

Numbers 13-20
Who signs up for a Bible study and then gets annoyed because there aren't enough pagans? It's a Bible study. What would you expect the majority of people to be? In fact there are plenty of pagans, they just don't feel like going around shouting "look at meeee, I'm a pagan!"

Also, people need to learn what the definition of a "terrorist" is. A terrorist doesn't wear a uniform, a terrorist doesn't need a paycheck to be a terrorist, nobody says "I wanna be a terrorist when I grow up". A riot is not terrorism. Furthermore, no matter what he does, God cannot be a terrorist. He's God, and therefore a) operates according to a different set of moral guidelines and b) if he made it, it's his prerogative to destroy it. We may not like it, we may not think it's fair, and some may decide not to worship a god who would do that, but to call God a terrorist is a horrible misuse of the word. It's also kind of racist, considering we're talking about war in the Middle East. God is just such a big concept that his actions can't be boiled down to "OMG Terrorist!"



in 13:2 Moses is told to send spies into Canaan. I'm not going to retype all the names here (of course the names are listed) but I will say it amuses me that one of the men is called "Oshea" in the KJV. It's also written as "Hoshea" in some of the translations, and Moses calls him "Joshua". The spies come to Hebron. They cut off a branch of grapes, and take some figs and pommegranates back to the Hebrew camp. At the camp, they say that the new country is full of giant fruit just like this! But also that the people there are also huge, and mean- they're the "children of Anak" aka the Nephilim. They're saying this mainly because they're afraid to fight the new people.

13:29

Amalek dwells in the land of the South: and the Hittite, and the Jebusite, and the Amorite, dwell in the hill country; and the Canaanite dwells by the sea, and along by the side of the Jordan.

Caleb says they should take the land anyway, but the other men disagree. Now, this is supposed to make Caleb a hero, but is he really?

"Let's not go to war with the foreign people who are actually semi related to us and who we'll be feuding with forever if we do this.. it sounds like a bad idea."

"LOSER! WIMP! "

"Let's go kill the foreign people who are actually semi related to us, and who we'll be feuding with forever if we do this…"

"YEAH! Caleb, you are the MAN!"

God comes down and yells at everyone again. Then God says that because the people in the other countries have not been good, he'll strike them down and make Israel a great nation. And Moses says "that'll show the Egyptians."

So wait. Is God the god of everyone, and that's why he can punish these other people too, or is God just the god of the Israelites? If God is the god of everyone, why is he uprooting everyone else to make room for a special group of people? If God is everyone's god, isn't there the slightest possible chance that these other worship practices might be legitimate too? (barring the ones that involve human sacrifice and such).

But then the people begin to worry that God doesn't really mean it, maybe God brought them out here to kill them where there'd be no witnesses. God gets annoyed and tells everyone that the people who doubted him will never see the promised land. And he's going to make their children wander for another forty years. Then he orders them to go around the Amorites, instead of through them. The ones who "grumbled against Yahweh" all die of a plague.

Then a few of the people decide that they're going to attack the new country right away, even though God said to wait. They rush off without Moses or Aaron or the ark. Of course they lose in the most humiliating way.

I think this battle is actually described in "The Egyptian", except from the enemy's pov. The main character is an Egyptian doctor who happens to be doing business with some Hittite troops, when a ragtag bunch of wild eyed people called "Khabiri" (Egyptian word for "Hebrews" apparently) come out of nowhere and attack them. To the Hittites, who only encounter the ones who disobeyed God, these people seem kind of desperate and pathetic, ignorant hillbillies who are just looking for food. Killing them all is hardly a workout. Of course, the Hittites don't know that there's thousands of people waiting on the other side of the hills and the only reason why they haven't been attacked again is because a god told the people not to engage.

15:32
A man is put to death for gathering wood on the Sabbath. Geez.

In 15:38, there's some puzzling fashion advice from God.

Some priests attempt a coup, and God announces that he will kill them. He tells Moses and Aaron to step back, and the ground opens up beneath the rebellious priests. The desert literally swallows up a couple of families (16:33). Act of God, flowery language, or sinkholes? Yet another 250 people are destroyed by fire. And then fourteen thousand seven hundred people die in a plague.

20:8, the people are whining about not having water.

God tells Moses and Aaron


"Take the rod, and assemble the congregation, you, and Aaron your brother, and speak to the rock before their eyes, that it give forth its water; and you shall bring forth to them water out of the rock; so you shall give the congregation and their livestock drink."

I guess I realize that this is probably just a natural method of divining for water. But I'm so depressed that all the things I used to think were magic turn out not to be.


I've read most of these passages several days ago and have typed them up after that, so I'm not like, reading six chapters a night or anything, lol.