Numbers
A trip that should have taken weeks and took forty years.
Who wrote it: Traditionally Moses. Most scholars see it as part of the same long editorial process as the rest of the Pentateuch, combining old wilderness traditions, census lists and legal material, with final editing during or after the exile. The Hebrew title, 'In the Wilderness', describes the book better than 'Numbers' does.
What it is
The name comes from the two censuses that open and close the book, and the name has put off more readers than it should. Chapters 1 to 10 are tribe counts, camp layouts, priestly duties and offerings, and they are slow going. Then in chapter 11 the people start complaining about the food, and from there Numbers turns into one of the most eventful books in the Bible.
The turning point is chapters 13 and 14. Twelve spies go into the promised land and come back agreeing that it is good and disagreeing about whether they can take it. Ten say no. Two, Caleb and Joshua, say yes. The people side with the ten, try to stone the two, and talk about going back to Egypt. God's response is that this generation will not enter the land; their children will, after forty years. The rest of the book is that sentence being served.
What follows is not boring. Moses' own brother and sister turn on him. A rebellion led by Korah ends with the ground opening. Moses loses his temper and strikes a rock and is told he will not enter the land either. Venomous snakes come, and the cure is a bronze snake on a pole that Jesus later uses to explain his own death. A foreign prophet named Balaam is hired to curse Israel and finds he can only bless them, after an argument with his donkey. The book is long on failure and strange on grace.
What to look for: the gap between how God is described and how he acts. Numbers 14:18 repeats the description from Exodus, slow to anger and full of loyal love, right after God has threatened to wipe the nation out and Moses has talked him down. Then the book ends with the next generation counted, standing on the edge of the land, ready. Nobody who left Egypt gets in except Caleb and Joshua, and yet the promise arrives on time. That is the shape of the whole thing.
Verses worth keeping
24‘The LORD bless you, and keep you. 25The LORD make his face to shine on you, and be gracious to you. 26The LORD lift up his face toward you, and give you peace.’
Gen Zsame meaning, your wordsThe LORD bless you and keep you. The LORD make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. The LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace.
The oldest blessing still in regular use, prayed over people for three thousand years. Face shining on you means he is looking at you and glad about it.
- Gen Zsame meaning, your words
I can't carry all these people on my own. It's too heavy for me.
Moses to God, in the middle of a prayer that also asks God to kill him. God's answer is not a lecture; it is seventy people to share the load.
Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, “Let’s go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it!”
Gen Zsame meaning, your wordsCaleb quieted the people in front of Moses and said, 'Let's go up right now and take it. We can definitely do this.'
Same land, same report, same giants. Caleb saw the same facts as the other ten and drew the opposite conclusion.
- Numbers 14:9WEB
Only don’t rebel against the LORD, neither fear the people of the land; for they are bread for us. Their defense is removed from over them, and the LORD is with us. Don’t fear them.”
Gen Zsame meaning, your wordsJust don't rebel against the LORD, and don't be afraid of the people in the land. They're bread for us. Their protection has been taken away from them and the LORD is with us. Don't be afraid of them.
Joshua and Caleb's speech. The crowd responded by trying to stone them. Being right does not mean being popular.
God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should repent. Has he said, and he won’t do it? Or has he spoken, and he won’t make it good?
Gen Zsame meaning, your wordsGod isn't a man who lies, or a human who changes his mind. Does he say something and not do it? Does he speak and not follow through?
Said by Balaam, a prophet who was paid to say the opposite. Even the hired curse comes out as a promise.
Read Numbers
The full text, every chapter, from the World English Bible, a modern public-domain translation. Pick a chapter below. The highlighted verses are the place to start if you have never read it.
Numbers 13
1The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 2“Send men, that they may spy out the land of Canaan, which I give to the children of Israel. Of every tribe of their fathers, you shall send a man, every one a prince among them.”
3Moses sent them from the wilderness of Paran according to the commandment of the LORD. All of them were men who were heads of the children of Israel. 4These were their names: Of the tribe of Reuben, Shammua the son of Zaccur.
5Of the tribe of Simeon, Shaphat the son of Hori.
6Of the tribe of Judah, Caleb the son of Jephunneh.
7Of the tribe of Issachar, Igal the son of Joseph.
8Of the tribe of Ephraim, Hoshea the son of Nun.
9Of the tribe of Benjamin, Palti the son of Raphu.
10Of the tribe of Zebulun, Gaddiel the son of Sodi.
11Of the tribe of Joseph, of the tribe of Manasseh, Gaddi the son of Susi.
12Of the tribe of Dan, Ammiel the son of Gemalli.
13Of the tribe of Asher, Sethur the son of Michael.
14Of the tribe of Naphtali, Nahbi the son of Vophsi.
15Of the tribe of Gad, Geuel the son of Machi.
16These are the names of the men who Moses sent to spy out the land. Moses called Hoshea the son of Nun Joshua. 17Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan, and said to them, “Go up this way by the South, and go up into the hill country. 18See the land, what it is; and the people who dwell therein, whether they are strong or weak, whether they are few or many; 19and what the land is that they dwell in, whether it is good or bad; and what cities they are that they dwell in, whether in camps, or in strongholds; 20and what the land is, whether it is fertile or poor, whether there is wood therein, or not. Be courageous, and bring some of the fruit of the land.” Now the time was the time of the first-ripe grapes.
21So they went up, and spied out the land from the wilderness of Zin to Rehob, to the entrance of Hamath. 22They went up by the South, and came to Hebron; and Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the children of Anak, were there. (Now Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.) 23They came to the valley of Eshcol, and cut down from there a branch with one cluster of grapes, and they bore it on a staff between two. They also brought some of the pomegranates and figs. 24That place was called the valley of Eshcol, because of the cluster which the children of Israel cut down from there. 25They returned from spying out the land at the end of forty days. 26They went and came to Moses, to Aaron, and to all the congregation of the children of Israel, to the wilderness of Paran, to Kadesh; and brought back word to them and to all the congregation. They showed them the fruit of the land. 27They told him, and said, “We came to the land where you sent us. Surely it flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. 28However, the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. Moreover, we saw the children of Anak there. 29Amalek dwells in the land of the South. The Hittite, the Jebusite, and the Amorite dwell in the hill country. The Canaanite dwells by the sea, and along the side of the Jordan.”
30Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, “Let’s go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it!”
31But the men who went up with him said, “We aren’t able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we.” 32They brought up an evil report of the land which they had spied out to the children of Israel, saying, “The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that eats up its inhabitants; and all the people who we saw in it are men of great stature. 33There we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim. We were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.”
Questions about Numbers
Why is God so angry in this book?
He is, and it is uncomfortable. Fire, plague, snakes and the ground opening up all appear in Numbers as responses to rebellion. Two things are worth holding alongside that. First, the anger is never random; every episode follows a specific breach, usually after warnings, and usually after a rescue the people have already forgotten. Second, the book keeps showing God being talked out of it. Moses argues, Aaron runs into the middle of a plague with incense, and God relents. Numbers presents a God who is dangerous to take lightly and who is also, again and again, persuadable toward mercy. If that combination bothers you, you are reading it correctly.
Why didn't Moses get to enter the land? Hitting a rock seems minor.
Numbers 20 says God told Moses to speak to the rock and Moses struck it twice instead, while shouting at the people. God's stated reason is that Moses did not trust him or treat him as holy in front of Israel. Readers have always felt this was harsh for a man who had carried the nation for forty years, and the text lets you feel that; Deuteronomy shows Moses still asking to go in and being told no. The most common reading is that leaders are held to what they represent, and in that moment Moses made God look like someone who has to be beaten into providing. It does not stop him being the most honored person in the Old Testament.
Are the numbers real? Two million people in the desert?
The censuses give around 600,000 fighting men, which implies two million or more people in total. Feeding that many in Sinai for forty years, and fitting them at a single spring, is hard to picture, and scholars have proposed that the Hebrew word translated 'thousand' may mean a clan or military unit, which would give a much smaller total. Others accept the figure as written and read the miracle as the point. The text doesn't resolve it. It is more concerned with who is counted, and why the second count has none of the same names as the first.