Bible Study Notes (Numbers) – Walk Together Ministries

Numbers 1-2

In Hebrew “Numbers” was actually called “In the Wilderness”
We’ve been following this family for almost 2700 years
God asks Moses to take a census
Sometimes they would do this in prep for war (counting soldiers)
Judah’s tribe is the largest of the twelve
- More than twice the size of any other tribe
Joseph was included in the lineage, making 13 tribes

Numbers 3-4

Aaron and his 2 living sons are the head of the Tabernacle
The Levites were there to help serve them and help them serve others
God calls for 3 censuses
- God calls the Levites his firstborn among all of Israel. Each firstborn of Israel is represented by a man from the Levites
- They are 273 male Levites short when counting all the firstborns of Israel
- God sets up a process where if you weren’t represented, you could give the Tabernacle 5 shekels instead
  - Because they couldn’t benefit the Tabernacle through the donation of a son, they could at least benefit it by giving money
- Counted the men from age 30-60 that could help carry the items to the new location
3 clans within the Levites
- Gershen -> Gershanites – Responsible for the curtains, coverings and fabric elements of Tabernacle
- Cohath -> Cohathites – Responsible for protecting the Holy vessels, ark, lampstand. Had to carry the Holy elements when they moved locations. Moses and Aaron were part of this clan.
- Moharir -> Moharirites – Responsible for structural elements, poles, pillars

Numbers 5-6

God addresses the other tribes
If you have an external impurity:
- Disease or if you’ve come in contact with a dead body – must stay outside of camp
Internal impurity:
- Sins committed against God or others – confess and repent and provide legal restitution according to the laws he gave Moses
- Adultery or suspected adultery – If anyone defiles it, the penalty was death
  - Woman is called out for potentially committing adultery. The husband goes after her, not the other man, which may be for a few reasons
    - There is no other man or he doesn’t know who the other man is
    - Her body won’t be able to hide it for long
  - God testifies
  - God holds both adulterers responsible
  - No examples of what to do if a woman expects a man committed adultery
  - Woman bears God’s curse but doesn’t get the death penalty that she deserved
Nazarites – John the Baptist, Sampson, and Samuel
- Nazarite vow made them visibly and morally distinct from others in ways that pointed to God
- Many rules exceeded those of what it took to be a priest
- Most vows were short term

Numbers 7

A whole bunch of money and animals were offered, showing they believed in God

Numbers 8-10

God addresses the Levites
He reiterates his plan and they are his firstborn
Celebrate 2nd passover
People must be clean in order to celebrate
People were upset that they couldn’t celebrate because they were unclean, God said they could celebrate but they had to wait until they were clean
God opened up the celebration to outsiders (including Egyptians)

Numbers 11-13

First time they moved camp in over a year
They grumbled about something, God sent fire around the camp
They grumbled about food
They longed for Egypt
Moses intercedes for the people
God says he will send meat for the people, so much so, that they will regret asking
God sends dead quail, about 3 feet high of dead bodies
God struck some people with the plague
Mariam and Aaron push back on Moses’s leadership and are prejudice against his wife (who was from Ethiopia)
God rebukes Mariam and Aaron, then strikes Mariam with leprosy
Moses pleads with God to heal her, God does but sends her into exile for a week
The whole camp was impacted by Mariam’s sin
When they move camp again, God tells them to send 12 spies to the new land since their enemies are living their
- Joshua was there
- Joshua will later become Moses’s successor
They spied on the land for 40 days
It was amazing and fertile, only 2 of them thought they’d be able to take the land
- Caleb from Judah
- Joshua from Ephriam
The others doubt God will provide
The Nephalim showed up again (from Genesis, the potential cross breed between fallen angels and humans).
- How can they show up again if God destroyed them all in the flood?
  - Potentially more fallen angels doing the same thing
  - The Nephalim may have just been a term used to refer to large people
  - The 10 spies may have exagerated because they were afraid and wanted to frighten others

Numbers 14-15

10 spies argued why they wouldn’t be able to take the land of Canaan
Because everyone was scared, they chose a leader that God didn’t appoint and chose not to try to take Canaan, and instead wanted to go back to Egypt
Doubt turned to feat which turned to rebellion
Bring doubts to God early
Moses and Aaron try to rally the people, instead the people wanted to stone them
God wants to kill all the people and start over with Moses
Moses intervenes and pleads with God
Moses quotes God back to God and God relents
The 10 spies who doubted, they died of the plague
All the men who refused to fight and said they would rather die in the wilderness, get what they asked for
No one who rebelled would see the promised land of Canaan
Process will take 40 years
They aren’t happy about that, so they defy God’s orders again
They lose the battle
More severe punishment for a more severe sin (an intentional sin vs unintentional sin)
Not all sin is equal. All sin separates us from God and all of our sins are equally paid for in Christ’s death but as is evident here, some sin is more wicked than others and requires a bigger sacrifice

Numbers 16-17

A couple of people rally 250 others to try and takeover Moses
Kora was a koathite (assigned to guard the Holy vessels)
Him and 3 neighbors conspired against Moses and Aaron
Rallies 250 people to join him
Moses tells them to come offer incense
2 refuse
Accuse Moses of bringing them out of the land flowing with milk and honey
Moses had brought them out of slavery
They refused to enter the actual land of milk and honey (Canaan) when they had the opportunity
Accuse Moses of appointing himself as ruler of them
Moses takes it to God and lets God sort it out
God is going to kill them, Moses pleads for their lives
Moses, Aaron, the 70 elders, and God go to their tents
God opens up a sinkhole that swallows them up
God consumed by fire the 250 others that unlawfully offered incense
The people accuse Moses of killing the 250 others
God wants to kill everyone, Moses has an idea to appease Him
Moses tells Aaron to take the Holy incense out to the people and let it cover them as an act of making atonement for their sins
It appeases God
God orders Aaron and Moses to write their names on their staffs
Moses puts all 13 staffs on the Holy of Holies overnight
The one with Aaron’s name has sprouted an almond flower
- Represents life, holiness, the presence of God, and the keeping of God’s promises
The people repent
God tells them to store the staff in the ark of the covenant

Numbers 18-20

God addresses Aaron directly
God provides new rules, Aaron and his sons are supposed to protect the tabernacle on the inside. The Levites are to protect the outside to keep everyone out
If a Levite goes into the area reserved for priests, they will both die
All tribes give 1/10 to the Levites. The Levites give 1/10 to the priests
Laws on how to cleanse yourself after a death
38 years passes and the Israelites are close to leaving the wilderness
Miriam dies
People complain because they have no water
God tells Moses and Aaron to use their words and then use the staff to strike a rock
They strike the rock without using their words.
God gives the people water
But Moses’s disbelief costs him, Moses and Aaron can’t enter Canaan
They begin to make their way to Canaan, they pass through Edom
Moses asks if they can pass through, they say no
Israel had to go the longer way around
Aaron dies and is succeeded by Eliazar

Numbers 21-22

While traveling around Edom, another king attacks them and takes some of their people
Israel ask God to help them destroy the pagans
God did
They run out of food and water again, they complain again
God sends snakes to kill them
They confess and repent, Moses prays for them and God sends mercy
God tells Moses to make a fiery serpent on a pole. If they are bitten, they can look at the serpent and live
- They weren’t worshipping the serpent (like the calf). They do eventually begin to worship it and it does eventually get destroyed later in the Bible
- This represents both the fall and Jesus’s cross
They have to pass through 2 other towns, they were attacked, God gave them victory
They got all that land, now called Jordan
Moab was afraid now, so the king hires someone to put a spell on the Israelites
- Balack (the king) hires Balaam (to curse them)
- God speaks to Balaam and tells him that he is not going to curse them because God blessed them
- Balaam turns down Balack
- Moabites try to convince Balaam again, God gives permission to Balaam to go as long as he obeys Him
- God gets angry when Balaam goes. Appears Balaam wants money instead of to obey God.
- The Angel of the Lord (likely a Christophony) shows up, only visible to Balaam’s donkey
  - Indicates their is a spirit realm that God can reveal at will
  - The donkey talks
- God opens Balaam’s eyes, so he can see the angel too
- Balaam repents and offers to turn back. God tells him to keep going.

Numbers 23-25

Balaam and his donkey arrived to meet with the king of Moab
The king hired Balaam to curse the Israelites because he was afraid
Instead Balaam blesses Israel
Balaam abandons the sorcery and follows God
Balaam ends his time with the king by saying “Blessed are those that bless Israel, and cursed are those that curse Israel”
Israelites are back to their old ways of idolatry, Baal.
Because of the idolatry, God sends a plague
Phineas, Aaron’s grandson, intervened by stabbing a couple of others. The plague stops.
24,000 people died
God honors Phineas
God commands Israel to strike down Mideanites

Numbers 26-27

God talks to Moses and Eliezar (new high priest now that Aaron has died)
God tells them to take a census
They were about to enter the promised land, leaders verified that there were no people remaining from the old generation
God told Eliazar how to divide the land, larger land to larger tribes, Levites get no land
5 women who lost their father were not going to get any land, they bring it to the judges and then to Moses.
Moses brings it to God and God says they deserve land, making it a new law.
God tells Moses he is going to die before he enters the land
Moses pleads that God appoints a new leader over them
God commands Moses to put Joshua (his assistant) in charge

Numbers 28-30

Jewish day starts in the evening
Sabbath = Saturday
- Their Saturday began at sun-down on Friday
- Their Saturday ended at sun-down on Saturday
They still practice the Sabbath today at this time
God demands rest from us

Numbers 31-32

Moses’s final assignment from God is to kill the Mideanites
Moses rallies 12,000 men and Phineas, son of the high priest
Takes some holy vessels and trumpets and they kill all the men of the land
Balaam was killed as well
As was typical, they brought all the women back after the battle
Moses had them kill all the women that weren’t virgins
Divide 2,000 remaining women between them
Not a single Israelite man died in battle
Offer up 500 lbs of gold to God
They are still not yet in the promised land
A couple want to stay there, Moses is not happy
Tribe of Ruben and Gaad, and half of the tribe of Menassah won’t get to see the promised land.
- Trans-Jordanian tribe
A couple of beliefs here:
- That land is not the land that God allotted them, so it’s not holy land
- Land that is won in a holy war, also belongs to God

Numbers 33-34

Moses recaps how they got to where they are:
- The 11 day journey took 40 years
Moses tells them when they cross the Jordan, they need to drive out everyone who lives there and everything they worship
Salt sea = dead sea
- Normal ocean is 3.5% sale, dead sea is 33.7% sale
- Because of so much salt, nothing can live in it
- Later in the Bible, there is a prophesy about a day when there will be fresh water in the dead sea and it will be filled with fish
Great sea = Mediteranean sea
Sea of Chenerit = sea of Galilee
9 and a half tribes settled in the promised land
2 and a half tribes settled in the trans-jordan (outside the promised land)
The Bible doesn’t deny there are other gods, it just always indicates that God is superior to the others [need more research on this topic]

Numbers 35-36

Since Levites don’t get any land, God calls the other tribes to donate some of their land to them
They also used some of that land to be cities of refuge
- Where people would go if they killed someone and wanted to remain safe from the avenger of blood
- They had to remain there until the high priest died
- Only death can atone for death, so they used the high priests death as atonement since it happened on his watch
God provides some basis for determining if someone murdered someone (were they typically angry, what type of weapon/tool did they use)
- Avenger of blood was the closest male relative that had to put the murdered to death
The 5 women that received land were concerned that if they married someone outside their tribe, their land would go to that tribe
The daughters were told to marry within their own tribe
They obeyed