Old Testament · Law · book 4 of 66 · 2 min read
The book of Numbers
A book named after two censuses, which is really about the forty years that happened because a people got to the edge of the promise and decided not to enter.
“Yahweh bless you, and keep you.”
At a glance
- Chapters
- 36
- Author
- Traditionally Moses
- Written
- Final form likely sixth to fifth century BC
- Written for
- The generation after the one that refused to go in
- Themes
- wilderness, complaint, census, a generation lost
What it is about
The English name comes from the two head-counts that bracket the book, which is a misleading title for what is inside. Numbers is the wilderness book: the stretch between leaving Egypt and arriving, and the reason that stretch took forty years rather than eleven days.
Chapter 13 is the hinge. Twelve scouts go into the land; ten come back saying it cannot be done. The people believe the ten, and the consequence is a generation that dies in the desert. Almost everything after that chapter is life lived under a verdict, and the book is unusually frank about what that does to people — rebellion, complaint, a plague, water struck out of a rock in anger.
It also contains the blessing every congregation has heard, spoken over precisely these people. That juxtaposition is deliberate.
Where to start
Chapter 13. The censuses and camp arrangements in 1 to 10 are documentation; chapter 13 is where the book's actual subject begins.
The chapters worth knowing
- Numbers 6 — The blessing every congregation has heard, spoken over people about to fail badly.
- Numbers 13 — The scouts. Ten say it cannot be done, the people believe them, and forty years follow.
- Numbers 20 — Moses strikes the rock in anger and is told he will not enter the land.
What people get wrong about it
That the forty years were a punishment for a moral failure. The text presents it as a consequence of a specific refusal — the people were asked whether they believed the promise could be kept and answered no, in front of witnesses.
Questions
Why is the book called Numbers?
From the two censuses that open and close it. The Hebrew name, taken from its first line, means "in the wilderness", which describes the contents considerably better.
What happens in the book of Numbers?
Israel reaches the edge of the promised land, sends in scouts, refuses to enter, and spends forty years in the desert until that generation has died. The second census counts the ones who go in.