Numbers: A Pastoral and Contextual Commentary

By Mitchel Modine

The book of Numbers is a misunderstood book of the Bible. It is about a lot more than just numbers. Rather, it is about the people’s journey with God in the desert. The Hebrew title of the book, Bammidbar, means “In the Desert” indicating that the setting is the most important part of the story. The God who delivered his people from Egypt is the same God who will lead them through the wilderness and give them the Promised Land. But as the book of Numbers shows us, often it is through the experience of being in a desert that God fulfils his purpose. It is the same thing for God’s people today. This commentary opens up the value of this often overlooked Old Testament book to those who find themselves or their churches in a barren place but with the presence of the Lord alongside them.
The Asia Bible Commentary Series empowers Christian believers in Asia to read the Bible from within their respective contexts. Holistic in its approach to the text, each exposition of the biblical books combines exegesis and application. The ultimate goal is to strengthen the Body of Christ in Asia by providing pastoral and contextual exposition of every book of the Bible.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Langham Global Library
• Release date: May 6, 2018
• ISBN: 9781783684151

Book preview

Series Preface

In recent years, we have witnessed one of the greatest shifts in the history of world Christianity. It used to be that the majority of Christians lived in the West, but Christians are now evenly distributed around the globe. This shift has implications for the task of interpreting the Bible from within our respective contexts, which is in line with the growing realization that every theology is contextual. Thus, the questions that we bring into our reading of the Bible will be shaped by our present realities as well as our historical and social locations. There is a need therefore to interpret the Bible for our own contexts.

The Asia Bible Commentary (ABC) series addresses this need. In line with the mission of the Asia Theological Association Publications, we have gathered evangelical Bible scholars working among Asians to write commentaries on each book of the Bible. The mission is to produce resources that are biblical, pastoral, contextual, missional, and prophetic for pastors, Christian leaders, cross-cultural workers, and students in Asia. Although the Bible can be studied for different reasons, we believe that it is given primarily for the edification of the Body of Christ (2 Tim 3:16–17). The ABC series is designed to help pastors in their sermon preparation, cell group leaders or lay leaders in their Bible study groups, Christian students in their study of the Bible, and Christians in general in their efforts to apply the Bible in their respective contexts.

Each commentary begins with an introduction that provides general information about the book’s author and original context, summarizes the main message or theme of the book, and outlines its potential relevance to a particular Asian context. The introduction is followed by an exposition that combines exegesis and application. Here, we seek to speak to and empower Christians in Asia by using our own stories, parables, poems, and other cultural resources as we expound the Bible.

The Bible is actually Asian in that it comes from ancient West Asia, and there are many similarities between the world of the Bible and traditional Asian cultures. But there are also many differences that we need to explore in some depth. That is why the commentaries also include articles or topics in which we bring specific issues in Asian church, social, and religious contexts into dialogue with relevant issues in the Bible. We do not seek to resolve every tension that emerges but rather to allow the text to illumine the context and vice versa, acknowledging that we do not have all the answers to every mystery.

May the Holy Spirit, who inspired the writers of the Bible, bring light to the hearts and minds of all who use these materials, to the glory of God and to the building up of the churches!

Federico G. Villanueva

General Editor

Author’s Preface

When the invitation to write the volume on Numbers for Asia Bible Commentary first came to me, I was in the final stages of writing the volume on 1–2 Chronicles for a series published by my denominational publishing house in the United States of America. Previously, I also had the privilege of contributing parts of the second volume on the prophet Jeremiah for this same denominational series. Thus I have now completed commentaries on books in each of the three divisions of the Old Testament, according to the Hebrew reckoning: Prophet (Jeremiah), Writings (1–2 Chronicles), and Torah (Numbers).

The two latter volumes required me to stretch as a scholar into areas with which I was not familiar. I received the assignment for Jeremiah because my editor for the previous series and I had both written our doctoral theses on Jeremiah at the same institution, under the same mentor, precisely twenty years apart. In addition, as most people familiar with the Old Testament are aware, Chronicles and Numbers tend to rank among the boring books, whose content seemingly offers little of interest to the scholarly reader, much less to those who interact with the Bible on a casual or devotional level. Nearly one-third of 1 Chronicles, in terms of the number of chapters, is taken up with genealogies. Numbers, so far as I knew, concerned itself with lists of this and lists of that, along with various obscure laws for sacrifices and whatnot.

Yet by studying these books extensively in preparation for the commentaries, I discovered a wealth of material that contributed to my understanding of the thought-world of ancient Israel. In the case of Chronicles, I learned a great deal about the concerns of Persian-Period Judah. Studying Numbers led me to a deeper awareness of the monarchical period in which, according to the theory that still holds large command of the field, the book received its final form.

More than that, however, through my deep study of these boring books, God’s Holy Spirit revealed to me insights that I never expected to find. At several points during the writing of the present volume, I was brought to my feet, overwhelmed by a sense of wonder at the holiness of God. I do hope that this sense of amazement will communicate well to the readers of this commentary. I further hope that God will be able to use my work to raise the boring book of Numbers back to its rightful place – not leaving it relegated to a place of secondary importance amongst more interesting works such as Genesis or Romans. May God inspire the readers of Numbers and of this commentary, just as God inspired the writers of Numbers and the writer of this commentary, with eyes trained toward God’s glory alone.

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to Dr. Bruce Nicholls, who first approached me on the steps of Malaysia Bible Seminary in June 2012 with the opportunity to write this volume. Thank you also to Dr. Federico Villanueva who, taking the mantle of leadership after Dr. Nicholls, encouraged me along the way without showing any trace of impatience as the project drew on and on. I also appreciate the labors of the blind editors, who provided many helpful comments, along with a few challenging ones. Finally, I wish to thank three people who provided some of the stories used for contextualization purposes. Neville Bartle served for many years as a Nazarene missionary to Papua New Guinea and Fiji. In addition, Tsutu Thurr and Achichita Thupitor gave me insight into their tribal wedding practices in Nagaland, India.

I also wish to extend my gratitude to the leadership of Asia-Pacific Nazarene Theological Seminary in Taytay, Rizal, Philippines for the opportunity to work with many talented students from around the world. Chief among all humans who deserve my thanks stands my wife, Marnie De Castro Modine. She helped me in ways I cannot express with sundry bits of information regarding Asian culture and Filipino culture in particular. She gave me this assistance mostly without knowing that she was doing so, as I typically framed my questions without specific reference to Numbers, the Old Testament, the Bible, or teaching.

Above all, as usual, I give thanks to Almighty God, who inspired the biblical writers and continues to inspire biblical readers. I offer this volume in response to the many ways in which God’s grace has been showered upon me. I dedicate this volume in loving memory of my father-in-law, who passed to his eternal reward while this volume was in its initial editing stages.

Mitchel Modine

Asia-Pacific Nazarene Theological Seminary

Taytay, Rizal, Philippines

List of Abbreviations

Introduction

Upon reading the thirty-six chapters of the book of Numbers, one discovers that it has the wrong title, for it is not really about enumerating things at all. True enough, there is a census of the army at the beginning of the book, and there is another census of the tribes about two-thirds of the way through. However, apart from these two accounts, there are few references to numbers in the rest of the book. There is a reference to the sequential ordering of sacrifices brought for the tabernacle (see ch. 7), another for the number of the spies sent into the land (see chs. 13–14), and another identifying that a fellow named Zelophehad had five daughters but no sons (see chs. 27, 36). Yet these accounts are few and far between, thereby rendering the title Numbers rather strange.

The title Numbers comes from the Septuagint translation, created sometime in the second century BC. This Greek title is Arithmoi, Numbers, which the editors undoubtedly used because of the first story, the counting of the army. The Hebrew titles for the first five books of the Bible (the Pentateuch, or the Torah) all come from the first verses of the books. Thus Genesis is called, bereshit (In [the] beginning), and Leviticus is called, vayyiqra (And [the LORD] called), after their first words. The Hebrew titles of Exodus and Deuteronomy, respectively shemoth (names) and debarim (words), are the second words in the Hebrew texts, the first in both cases being, And these [are]. The Hebrew title of Numbers, bemidbar, means, In the Desert, and is the fifth word in the Hebrew text. Because almost the entire book is set within the wilderness between Mount Sinai and the Promised Land, this Hebrew title seems far more appropriate to the content of the book.

The titles of the books, of course, do not have theological importance. Nevertheless, a better English title for the book of Numbers might be: Journey with God in the Desert. James S. Diamond agrees with such a designation: The narrative sections [of Numbers] . . . tell of a people adrift in the desert, adrift physically and spiritually.[1]

This commentary on Numbers assumes the Hebrew title, organizing the material under three large headings, each of which describes a stage of the journey and begins and ends at major waypoints along the route. A waypoint is a stopping point along a journey, and in stories about traveling, the reader often finds that significant events take place at such waypoints. Though one must not discount significant events that take place along the way, the stopping places often seem more important, for reaching each of these places represents a significant achievement in the larger journey.

Part One, labelled At Mount Sinai, runs from 1:1–10:10. The Israelites have been camped at this most important mountain since Exodus 19:1, and so leaving it behind marks a significant step in their journey from the land of slavery to the land of promise. The Israelites leave the area of Sinai in chapter 10.

The commentary then follows them as they follow the Ark of the Covenant and the presence of God in the fire (at night) or cloud (by day). They go from one mountain to another, Sinai to Hor (10:11–21:3). On or near this mountain, two of the three great leaders of the Exodus – Aaron and Miriam, Moses’ older siblings – die. Their deaths foreshadow the judgment recorded in Deuteronomy 1:35: Not one from this evil generation shall see the good land I swore to give your ancestors. The reasons for this are complicated, and the commentary will deal with them in due course.

The final stage of the journey recorded in the book of Numbers moves from Mount Hor to the Plains of Moab (21:4–36:13). The Plains of Moab will be the literary setting for the book of Deuteronomy, which represents itself as three final speeches of Moses prior to the Israelites’ entry into the Promised Land. Moses will not be able to join them in this entry, and an interesting contrast between Numbers and Deuteronomy explains why this is the case. (See the commentary on 20:1–13.)

PREVIOUS SCHOLARSHIP ON THE BOOK OF NUMBERS

Numbers is considered the fourth book of the Pentateuch, an organizational framework that has been shaped by a particular scholarly consensus for more than a hundred years. Popularized, though not invented, by the famous German scholar Julius Wellhausen (d. 1918), this theory posits that the Pentateuch was made up of four more or less independently created sources, which editors brought together around the time of the Babylonian Exile. Wellhausen refined an earlier theory of Karl Heinrich Graf (d. 1869), which attributed the writing of the Pentateuch to four anonymous sources of tradition, compiled sometime near the Babylonian Exile (586–539 BC). Scholarship subsequent to Wellhausen has refined and expanded this theory to a great extent, even to the point of questioning the existence of one or another of the sources, extending the theory into the book of Joshua (or all the way to 2 Kgs),[2] or deleting Deuteronomy to create the Tetrateuch of Genesis through Numbers. Yet the underlying thought of the theory remains intact.

Scholars identified the four sources that come together in the Pentateuch with the letters J, E, P, and D.[3] J stands for Jahwist (pronounced Yahwist, as the letter J makes a y-sound in German) and was produced just after the division of the kingdoms by someone connected to the royal palace in Jerusalem. E, or Elohist, responded to J about 850 BC and supported the interests of the Levitical priesthood. Levites eventually joined J and E together, elevating the character of Moses in the process. The elevation of Moses has influence on the book of Numbers, particularly in the various times in which Moses’ leadership is called into question (see, for example, ch. 12). The P, or Priestly document, also pays close attention to the Levites, in particular the descendants of Aaron. The rebellion of Korah (Num 16–17) specifically directed itself against the prominence of the Aaronide line amongst the Levites. Finally, the D, or Deuteronomistic document, came into being as the law book was supposedly found – but more likely created – during the reign of Josiah (2 Kgs 22:8), and it includes at least the core of Deuteronomy 12–26. (Because this document is completely contained within Deuteronomy, some cut this book out of the theory.) A redactor (called R) brought all this together sometime during the exile, and some identify this redactor with Ezra, though that is a matter of dispute.

As one might expect, the book of Leviticus is dominated by the Priestly document. However, there is also a significant amount of P material in the book of Numbers, which makes sense when one considers the emphases on order and proper religious behavior throughout this book. We will consider some of these ideas in this commentary, in particular the cleansing of the tabernacle. Though such rites may sound strange to contemporary readers, this ancient text can help us bear witness when we take into account the differences between our societies, not only in culture but also in time.

The title Pentateuch simply means five books, which comes into English from Latin and into Latin from Greek. This term preserves the organic connections that appear between and among these five books, without needing the figure of Moses as the glue. Yet the Pentateuch designation does not consider the relationship between the book of Deuteronomy and the books that follow it. In simple terms, the books of Joshua, Judges, 1–2 Samuel, and 1–2 Kings recount the story of Israel’s history in a way that is infused with the theology of the book of Deuteronomy. Thus if Deuteronomy stands at the head of Joshua through 2 Kings, then perhaps it does not belong at the end of the grouping of Genesis through Numbers. Including Deuteronomy with the historical books that follow it (a collection of books that is referred to as the Former Prophets in the Hebrew ordering) leaves Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers as the Tetrateuch, or Four Books. Indeed, Wellhausen did this when he ascribed Deuteronomy almost exclusively to his D source.

Finally, the designation of Genesis through Deuteronomy as the Books of the Law has both advantages and disadvantages. The primary advantage to this designation is that it describes well the content of these books, without having recourse either to the figure of Moses or to literary theories that group material together. However, this designation has two glaring disadvantages as well. First, the English word law is only partially acceptable as a translation for the Hebrew term torah, which can refer to the concept of law in general and to specific laws like the Third Commandment (Do not take the name of the LORD your God in vain). Yet torah also has a much broader significance, reaching into concepts covered by English words such as lifestyle, teaching, instruction, and the like. Moreover, actual legal material forms a rather small proportion of the Torah. True enough, one may find 613 commandments, both positive and negative, in the Torah. However, considered against the entirety of Genesis through Deuteronomy, this is a paltry sum. Indeed, the majority of these 613 laws occur in Exodus through Deuteronomy, thus creating a different version of the Tetrateuch than that described above.

Second, the Christian reader often finds this material, frankly speaking, rather boring. While this reaction is understandable, one should avoid the temptation toward supersessionism, which is the idea that God replaced Judaism and Jewish law because they were too focused on law rather than grace. As the above comments show, even a book with lots of legal material (such as Numbers) should not be considered as a book of law – much less the entire Old Testament or Jewish religion as a whole.

Admittedly, the laws may be difficult to understand, primarily because modern Christian readers are outsiders to the cultural context in which the laws belong. The twentieth-century anthropologist Mary Douglas provides some help in this regard, particularly in her approach to laws regarding ritual cleanness and purity. She writes: No particular set of classifying symbols can be understood in isolation, but there can be hope of making sense of them in relation to the total structure of classifications in the culture in question.[4] In other words, taking the laws of the book of Numbers as a window into the culture of ancient Israel reveals the intimate relationship the laws have with the culture. Examination of the culture then illuminates the deeper significance of the laws. Understanding this deeper significance of the laws helps the interpreter build bridges between ancient and modern societies, which is, after all, the stated aim of careful biblical interpretation. Thus the laws, though difficult to understand, are far from boring. The interpreter does the church a great disservice when she/he skips over the legal material of the Old Testament because it is difficult to understand or, worse, tries to interpret the laws with a half-understood or ill-conceived notion of the relationship between the Testaments.

READING NUMBERS IN ANCIENT AND MODERN ASIAN CONTEXTS

In many ways, Asian readers of the Bible are much closer to the Bible’s original cultural context than Western readers since the Bible came from Western Asia. Admittedly, the historical circumstances are wildly different and confusing – the two often lead to misinterpretation.[5] More importantly, many of the cultural norms visible in the Bible seem quite similar to cultural norms in Asia. The caution here is that the population of modern Asian countries, especially megacities like Tokyo, Manila, or Mumbai, is quite mixed in terms of ethnic and cultural background. While the Exodus and wilderness wandering generation of Israelites may have had some mixture of different cultures as well (see the commentary on 11:1–9), final judgment on this question lacks sufficient evidence.

With God in the Desert has many important lessons for our Christian life. It describes God taking a rabble of refugees, who are fleeing from genocide and oppression in Egypt, and forming them into a nation. In Egypt, each person had simply been a slave with a number. This is also the case in Asia, where, awash in a sea of people, individuals often find their personal identities melded into the crowd, valued only for the work they can contribute. In the book of Numbers, the Israelites are organized into tribes and extended family communities. They are identified as a people on a journey, and God is visibly traveling with them. Though God promises to bless them in chapter 6, many times, like us, they miss out on God’s blessing because of their lack of faith or their grumbling and quarreling. If we listen carefully with open hearts, we will hear God speaking to us and teaching us about how we should walk and talk so that we can live under God’s smile rather than God’s frown.

In some ways, Asians who read Numbers may find more connections than Western readers because many features of so-called traditional societies are still quite prevalent in Asia, at least in some form. When our reading of the Bible interacts with our own cultural background in this way, we can generate many interesting insights. For example, one of the topics included in the commentary has to do with marriage and the clan system of Nagaland, India. If the residents of this place were specifically to follow the junction laid upon the daughters of Zelophehad (see Num 36:6), then daughters would marry within their own clans. However, marriage within one’s clan is an abomination in Nagaland. Therefore, some interpretation is necessary in order to discover how this text should be applied. On the one hand, one could adopt the earlier story of Zelophehad’s daughters (ch. 27), which does not include this specific instruction. On the other hand, one could set aside this instruction as applying to a specific situation rather than applicable for all time. I do not feel that the often-heard distinction between the timely and the timeless, or between the historically conditioned material and the universally valid material, is helpful. Instead, one should view all of the material in the Bible as culturally conditioned. The Bible was written in Israel during ancient times rather than Egypt, Greece, the modern-day Philippines, or Nagaland, and we need to take these differences in society seriously as we read the text.

One of the main goals of reading and interpretation, which are essentially the same activity, is to draw analogies between the ancient context that produced the Bible and the modern contexts in which its interpreters function. The evangelical view that the Bible is the inspired Word of God – however one understands that term – makes these analogies necessary. It will not do to ignore the differences between the cultures and the wide span of history that has passed since the writing of the Bible. However, those differences should not present an insurmountable barrier to understanding the Bible, even if our understanding is always provisional and subject to constant renegotiation. Thus, for example, the issue of Sabbath observance has importance in both ancient and modern contexts. The principle is important – setting aside one day in seven to pay attention to the things of God. However, the specific day is irrelevant. It makes no difference if one worships God on Sunday, Saturday, or even Tuesday. For that matter, Christians simply do not observe Sabbath in the same way that Jews do. First, Sunday (the typical day) is not a day of rest, especially for pastors and other ministers. Second, the Christian day of worship is not indexed to Sabbath, the seventh day of the week, but rather to a weekly remembrance of Jesus’ resurrection on the Lord’s Day, the first day of the week.

It seems that errors of interpretation, such as associating the red heifer (19:1–10) with the doctrine of the end-times, often stem from interpreters departing from the basic principles that they have established to guide their interpretation. Chief among these principles is to study texts within their contexts, both literary and historical. Simply put, any interpretation which relies on things not stated in the text should be received with suspicion. To use an example from outside the book of Numbers, some interpreters suggest that the family of Naomi – her husband, Elimelech, and her two sons, Mahlon and Chilion – die in Moab because God punished them for having left Judah. However, nothing in the text makes this claim, nor even suggests that this might be the case. Hence, an interpretation based on this claim runs into immediate problems. Such an interpretation should not immediately be judged as incorrect, but neither should it be accepted as correct without careful thought.

By contrast, the strategy of reading against the text is quite different. One may, and many interpreters do, disagree with the logical connections the text itself makes, or question the assumptions on which the story is based. We may consider the story of Zelophehad’s daughters (chs. 27 and 36) for an example. The assumption of male dominance lies behind both texts, but especially the tribal elders’ claim in chapter 36 that they may lose their inheritance if the case is dealt with in what they perceive as the wrong way. One may conclude that, since an extra stipulation is laid on the women, chapter 27 represents a more female-friendly version, while chapter 36 is more patriarchal.[6] On the other hand, one may read against the text and conclude that patriarchal concerns about land transfer and inheritance underlie both texts, even though they each express this concern in slightly different ways.

THE DATE OF NUMBERS

In general terms, I follow the scholarly consensus that the