Jeremiah 11-19: Brokenness

I feel really bad about getting so behind on these things.  It's just hard to blog about the prophets, like I said before.  I feel like I'm saying the same thing over and over.  I wonder if God felt that way when saying all this stuff to the prophets?

Chapter 11 is about how Israel has broken their covenant with God.  Covenant were an ancient oath ritual thing, very formal contracts that had specific terms and often very harsh consequences for breaking the covenant.  Israel has broken their terms of covenant, which were to remain faithful to God and worship Him only, basically. Not only this, but the people actually refuse to listen to God or turn back to Him. They don't want to be part of the God of Abraham's people anymore.  For this reason, God tells Jeremiah that he is not even supposed to grieve for the destruction that will come on Israel and Judah.  That would be very hard for me to obey.

Meanwhile, some people think it would be way more fun if Jeremiah weren't around, so there are some plots against his life, but God is protecting him from anything serious so far.

In chapter 12, we see again God's disgust with his chosen people who have rejected Him.  He says He is actually going to abandon them and forsake them - whoa, what?  The Bible actually says that?  Yes, it actually does.  God uses some very harsh language in the prophets, because He is flipping fed up with chasing after people who want nothing to do with Him.  So He's going to uproot them, cut them off, make their land desolate.

But . . .


The story doesn't end there.  After God does all this, He is going to bring them back, restore them, and bless them.  And when He does, then they will follow Him whole-heartedly.  I don't know if this is a reference to the coming of Christ, or to the eventual and ultimate restoration of Israel in the Day of the Lord.  Because Messiah has come, and the people of Israel didn't recognize or accept Him.

I think that we know more about Jeremiah as a person than we do about any other prophet who wrote a book.  Jeremiah (the book) is full of prayers of Jeremiah (the person), either laments over the state of his nation, or pleas with God to remember him and deliver him from his enemies, etc.  We find out about some of the plots against him, and we also find out that God didn't let him get married or have kids.  Bummer.  There are some people in the world that it seems God calls to live a really hard life.  Jeremiah did not have a fun life. Jeremiah did not have a lot of friends.  His only delight was in God.  He says in chapter 15, "Your words were found and I ate them, And Your words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart, For I have been called by Your name."  If we had no joy in life, would we be able to find delight in God?  That is something I wonder about myself.  Do I give praise to God because He makes my life fun and happy and successful, or because He is goodness and joy itself?

God uses some harsh words about Israel and Judah, like I said before.  He says that even if Moses and Samuel (the epitome of obedience to God, right?) were to plead with Him on behalf of the Jews, God would not listen or have compassion on them.  And this is saying a lot because Moses did plead with God on behalf of Israel more than once, and in each of those cases God relented from the punishment He was about to give. So Judah is in a pretty bad state right now if not even Moses can change His mind.


But . . .


There is something that could change God's mind, and that something is repentance.  He says, "If you return, then I will restore you."  No matter how far gone you are - even if you've become so corrupt that Moses himself could't argue a case for you - God will forgive you in a heartbeat if you simply turn away from a life of rebellion and submit to Him.  It's that simple.  Why don't we do that more often?

Chapter 17 has a famous verse about the heart: "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; Who can know it?"  My translation, the NASB, says that the heart is "desperately sick."  I think this is a better word image than what the KJV gives for the condition of our hearts.  We have a disease; it is called sin.  No matter what we do, we cannot rid ourselves of this inner illness, and what's worse, it is terminal.  Our sin is going to kill us.

But . . .


There is a cure.  There is one Doctor who knows how to treat this disease, a miracle surgeon who can take out all the nasty cancerous blackness and replace it with something good.  "Heal me, O LORD, and I will be healed; Save me and I will be saved," says Jeremiah.  There is only one way not to die of sin, and that is to die to sin by subjecting ourselves to the rule of God in our lives.  What does that look like?  Well, it kind of looks like clay being shaped into a pot, and God gives Jeremiah a visual of this by sending him down to a potter's house.  The potter is making a pot, and as sometimes happens in pottery, the thing just isn't turning out .  If you've ever tried your hand at pottery, you've experienced this - sometimes for whatever reason, the shape becomes such that you really can't fix it no matter what you do.  So you have to smash the clay back into a ball and star over.  This is what happens with the potter Jeremiah watches - the pot is ruined, so the potter starts over with the clay and makes something new, and that works.  This is what God is going to do to Israel.  They've become spoiled; they can't be repaired or patched or reshaped anymore because it's just patches on patches and sticking your finger in a dike, so to speak.  It's not going to work.  So God has to bring Israel down to the lowest possible point - He has to break her - in order to remake her into something new.

That is the gospel.  Sin has screwed us up beyond the point of repair; you can't slap a bandaid on an amputee and expect it to help.  If we are ever to become whole, we actually first have to become broken.  It's like when you break a bone, and it heals improperly, so then you go to the doctor to get it set and he has to re-break the bone in order to put it where it belongs.  It's a horrible, painful procedure, but it is the only treatment.  Brokenness is the only means to our cure.  That is what God is doing with Israel and Judah here - He's not just saying all this stuff about forsaking and destroying because He's done with them and is going to leave them in a pile of bones somewhere.  All this doom and gloom stuff has a purpose, and the purpose is to break Israel and Judah of their pride so they will return to following God.  And it actually worked; after the exile to Babylon, Israel remained monotheistic.  It was in Babylon that the Old Testament was compiled and copied.  To this day, the Jews have a strong attachment to their religion and the God of their fathers.  Unfortunately, as a whole they missed God's biggest blessing to them, their long-awaited Messiah.

Finally, one more broken thing.  God has Jeremiah take a jar out in the open and break it to foretell that destruction is coming to Jerusalem.  Another nation will come in and conquer the city and the nation, and they will demolish Jerusalem.

What do we learn about this passage?  First of all, there is a punishment for turning your back on God.  God is serious when He lays down consequences; He really means it when He says bad things will happen to you. Think about that before hastily agreeing to follow Him - because He's going to ask a lot of you.

Secondly, though, we learn that God is merciful, and that in spite of all His anger and frustration with these crazy people, He is willing and even eager to forgive them; in fact, everything He is doing to punish Israel is for the purpose of restoration.

I wrote in my journal once that we are like broken pieces of glass, and God can take all those broken pieces and shape them into something new and beautiful.  It's not something we can do ourselves (we're the broken pieces, remember?) - it's something only God can do.  And the amazing thing is, no matter how broken you were when you started, the thing He will make you into will actually be better than what you started as.  And that's a pretty awesome thing.

2 Kings 6-10: The Final Prophesies of Elisha

Okay, so I didn't exactly finish chapter 6 last time. The Arameans beseige Samaria, and the people inside run out of food, to the point that inflation skyrockets and people start cannibalizing their children, and when the king hears about it he blames Elisha (don't ask me why) and wants to kill him.   But then, in chapter 7, Elisha prophesies that food will be plentiful the next day.  What happens is that some lepers go out to the Aramean camp thinking that since they're about to die anyway, they might as well throw themselves at the mercy of the enemy.  They discover that the Arameans have abandoned their camp - God apparently made them hear the sound of an approaching army - and left all their stuff.  At first the lepers take stuff and hide it, but then they feel bad and tell the people of Samaria.  So the people go and find food and riches and stuff, and then Elisha's prophecy comes true - awesome, and totally unexpected.  Good thing the lepers had consciences.

But apparently the famine continues, because Elisha goes to that Shunamite woman and tells her that her family should take a vacation to another country, so she lives with the Philistines, who I assume aren't much of a problem anymore, for seven years.  When she comes back, the land where she lives is now occupied by somebody else, so she appeals to the king and tells him about how Elisha gave her a son and then resurrected him and all that, so the king says she should get her land back. I take it from this story that the woman's husband has now died.

Remember at the end of 1 Kings, when God told Elijah to anoint 3 people? - Hazael as the new king of Aram, Jehu as the new king of Israel, and Elisha as the new prophet?  The only person he anointed was Elisha.  I don't know if that was okay with God or not that he didn't do it, but God never reprimanded him for it or anything.  But anyway, now Elisha goes and finishes the job.  But he's really upset over anointing Hazael because he foresees all the destruction he's going to bring to Israel.  So then Hazael goes and murders the current king of Aram, who was very sick at the time, and becomes king.  Reminds me of Macbeth.

Jehoshapat's son Jehoram now becomes king in Judah, and since two generations of good kings was apparently too good to be true, Jehoram is pretty much like all the kings of Israel, probably because he marries Ahab's daughter (and I'm sure she was the spitting image of dear mother Jezebel).  Maybe helping out Ahab and Ahaziah wasn't such a good idea, eh Jehoshapat?  Now, if you're confused, yes, you have heard the name Jehoram before - he's the brother of Ahaziah who is now the king of Israel.  Get this - when Jehoram of Judah dies, his son becomes king, and guess what his name is? Ahaziah.  And you thought all the Henrys of England and Louis (Louises?) of France were confusing.  Anyway, he's also bad, but even worse is his mother.  Her name is Athaliah.  That name makes me cringe, because one time a guy told the story of Athalia and Ahaziah and his son, and to make it more interesting he said Athaliah's name in a high-pitched, freaky, cackly voice.  So I always remember her name, and it sounds like fingernails on a chalkboard.

Then Elisha anoints Jehu.  In another stroke of irony, Jehu's father was named Jehoshaphat.  He basically tells him that he's going to destroy Ahab's family.  So Jehu gets right to business: he tells his people what Elisha said, and they proclaim him king right then and there.  Only then do they go about killing the current king.  Jehu makes short work of Jehoram.  Then he has Jezebel thrown out the window, and he basically runs her over with horses.  Then he kills all the males in Ahab's family after tricking them into coming to him under the pretense of peace.

Jehu is a pretty tricksy character.  He pretends to be a devoted Baal-worshiper and gathers all the priests and worshipers of Baal together for a big sacrifice, but he kills them all.  It almost looks like he's going to follow God, right? Wrong.  He still worships other gods, he just has a thing against Baal apparently.  God commends him for destroying the altars of Baal and the house of Ahab, and promises that he'll have four generations of sons on the throne, which I don't totally get because Jehu was still bad.  He even brought out the golden calves that Jeroboam made and worships those.  Do you ever notice yourself making a really big deal about getting rid of one evil in your life, while ignoring others?  God, it seems, is amazingly patient with us, but unless we tear down all the altars in our lives and eradicate all the false gods from our hearts, we will not really accomplish anything good in the end.

So what did we learn in this passage?  I think this passage was mainly about fulfilling God's prophecies through Elisha.  It's sort of tying up loose ends, because I think this is the last we hear about Elisha.  I don't know how he died or anything, although I'm pretty sure he was killed (all the prophets were, except obviously Elijah).  I think we'll have to wait until Chronicles to find out. Anyway, so we find out that God is serious about what he promises, whether it's for good or for bad.  He provided food as he promised to Samaria, and he also executed judgment on Ahab's family as he promised.  And he was pretty gracious with Jehu, and Jehu is the only Israelite king who was promised a legacy (although Jeroboam was offered a lasting legacy in the beginning).  Sometimes God's promises are unconditional, like the food for Samaria in the midst of the famine.  But sometimes they're based on what we do, like how Jehu destroyed the altars to Baal and killed off Ahab's family.  He doesn't always act exactly in the same way, so don't try to predict him, but he does always keep his promises, so you can definitely count on him.

Joshua 13-24: Dividing the Land

Sorry I got behind again!  I'm going to finish Joshua today, but I might take a little more time with Judges.

So what happens now is that the promised land starts to get divided among the twelve tribes.  And that takes seven chapters.

In chapter 13 we see a list basically of what people/places have been conquered and driven out of the land, and which have not.  So there are some pagan cities and peoples who have not even been touched yet.  We also review that Moses promised land in Gilead to Gad, Reuben, and half the people of Manasseh, which they can now go back to because they kept their promise to help the rest of Israel fight the Canaanites.

In chapter 14, Caleb asks Joshua for a certain piece of land.  I really appreciate Caleb here.  He is basically Joshua's number 2 guy, although not officially (I don't think), and he's the only other person Joshua's age who's still alive because he was the guy who thought they could take on Canaan way back when the 12 spies were sent out and 10 of them were chicken.  I'm sure he does have a right to his choice of land.  Now, I get the feeling that if this had been Aaron or Miriam, they'd have griped and complained behind Moses' back by now, but Caleb doesn't do that.  He just goes to Joshua and makes his request.  Simple, bold, radical - the direct approach is generally always best.

So then for the next several chapters, we read what the borders of each of the territories are, and what cities are included in them.  I have to admit, this part got pretty dry.  I mean, do we really need to know exactly what Judah's western border is in explicit detail?  Well, I guess Judah needed to know.  Maybe it was written down like this so they wouldn't have border disputes later on, or maybe they just liked to record things.  Anyway, I'm sure there's a good reason as to why all this is in the Bible; it's just not very interesting for me to read.  I suppose if I were an archaeologist, it would be much more interesting because I would know what all these places are.  Kind of like how the genealogies are a little more interesting for me to read because I'm something of a genealogy buff.

By the time we get to chapter 20, all the land's been divvied up, and now it's time to designate six cities of refuge (we've read about those several times now).  I wonder why there are only six of them?  I guess they were planning on not having a whole lot of manslaughter-ers in the area, or maybe this just made it easier to keep track of who could and couldn't go where.  Anyway, in chapter 21 we see that there are 48 cities total that are just for the Levites to live in, and those are spread across the whole nation since Levi doesn't have their own section of land.

There's a great little addendum at the end of this chapter, once all the land has been given out: it says that the LORD gave Israel all the land He promised them, and that He gave them peace all around, and that not one of His promises to them failed to come true.  Isn't that just lovely to read? I think it is.  This stuff that we've been reading about since Genesis about promised land and a nation as numerous as the stars and all that - for the first time, it actually exists.  The nation of Israel is now more than a theoretical concept.  All the laws that God's been giving them for the last three books about "when you enter the land, do this," they can now do.  It's great.

So then something weird happens.  Once the tribes that live on the east side of the Jordan go back to their places, they rig up an altar.  Now, if you remember from a few entries ago, they weren't supposed to sacrifice stuff just any old place but only in the place God said.  So all the other tribes get really freaked out about it and march on Gilead.  What?  Well, for once the people are really concerned about doing things God's way, that's what.  They've just barely settled into the land, and they don't want anybody screwing it up for them.  Luckily, there's nothing to worry about.  The Reubenites and Gadites and Manassehites (?) have only put this altar thing up as a memorial to remind them that they belong to Israel, and so that their descendants and the other tribes' descendants will know that they're really part of each other and serve the same God, although there's a big river in between them.  So the other tribes say "false alarm!" and go back home.  I just find this really interesting.  After more than 40 years of people doing things their way and not giving a rip about what God wants, this generation is really committed to keeping God's laws.  If only it would last.

By this time, Joshua is an old dude.  He knows it's just about his time to go, so he gathers the elders together for a farewell address, like Moses did.  He urges them, just like Moses did, to remember the LORD and obey Him and teach their children to do likewise.  He reviews their history - everything that God has done, all the battles He's won for them and the good land that He's given them.  This is where that famous verse is: "Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve . . . but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD."  And the people respond to this, "We'll serve the LORD too!"  Joshua says "yeah right, you're going to turn away from Him."  The people say "No, we really will serve God."  So Joshua says "Okay, don't say I didn't warn you."  And he writes, presumably, the book we are now reading.

Finally, Joshua dies at age 110, which means the last paragraph wasn't written by Joshua.  We find out that Israel did indeed serve the LORD all during Joshua's lifetime, and during the lifetime of the people who immediately succeeded Joshua.  I don't know if that is when this little postscript was added, or if it was written later, because it doesn't tell us what Israel does after Joshua's successors die.  We'll find out very soon though, as we move into Judges.

Deuteronomy 27-34: A Big Decrescendo before the Climax

So here we are, the Law has been reiterated, Moses is about to die, and the Israelites are about to go into the Promised Land under the direction of Joshua.  Everything builds up, and then there's this major let-down before the ending.

First of all, Moses tells the people that when they get to the Promised Land they are to go up to Mount Ebal and Mount Gerazim (which are conveniently right next to each other) and write down all the blessings of God on Gerazim and the curses of God on Ebal.  Then there's a list of all the curses - e.g. ";Cursed is he who dishonors his father or mother.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'"

In chapter 28 we read the blessings that will be written on Mount Gerazim, which are the blessings for obeying God.  It's pretty thorough.  Then to counter that, we read all the curses that will happen if the people do not obey God; it's the reverse of every one of the blessings, plus some more elaboration.

In chapters 29-30, Moses makes a covenant with Israel to obey God, and he tells them again what will happen to the people who disobey God - and then tells them that they are going to disobey God as a nation pretty soon, but that when they turn back to Him, He will restore them from all the curses they're going to bring on themselves.  He beseeches them to "choose life in order that [they] may live."

So here comes the let-down.  In chapter 31, God tells Moses that the people are totally going to turn away from Him and that He is going to be angry with them and bring all those curses He promised on them, and He tells Moses to teach the people a song as a witness to them.  He also has Moses write the words of the Law down at this point.

Chapter 32 is the song of Moses, which basically states the greatness of God and everything He did for His people Israel, and how they turned from Him and as a result, He removed His blessing from them, and how He avenges all of His enemies.  At the end of that, God tells Moses to go up to Mount Nebo to see the Promised Land before he dies, and reminds him that he's not going in because of his own stubbornness and disobedience.  Major bummer to be reminded of that right before you die, right?

So that's the low point.  In spite of all the hype, God totally knows that Israel is not going to remain faithful.  And Moses, being the smart cookie that he is, knows it too.  The good thing is, God promises redemption and restoration; He's not going to turn His back on Israel forever.

In chapter 33, Moses blesses Israel tribe by tribe.  Some of the tribes, like Levi and Joseph, get long blessings, and some of them, like Reuben and Dan, get really short two-liners.  But each blessing is personal to that particular tribe, and it reminds me of when Jacob blessed his sons one at a time before he died.

So then Moses climbs Mount Nebo and God shows him the land he promised to Abraham.  I have to think that this was a really incredible, beautiful sight to Moses.  Imagine pouring more than forty years of your life into a goal, and finally being able to see it, even if you can't touch it.

What's really weird is what happens next.  Moses dies up on the mountain, but it appears that God is the one who buries him - it just says "He buried him," and nobody else is mentioned as having gone up with Moses, and furthermore, it says that nobody knows where Moses' grave is.

A lot of people say that Joshua or somebody wrote this last part of Deuteronomy, but I don't really think so, because it's written as if it's been a long time since Moses died.  Listen to this:  "Since that time no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses."  Doesn't it seem like there would have been a lot of prophets between Moses and the writing of this epilogue?  I don't know, maybe Joshua wrote it when he was really old.

Anyway, remember how I thought Abraham and Aaron got good epigrams?  Moses' is the best.  Check this out:

"So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD.  And He buried him in the valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth-peor; but no man knows his burial place to this day.  Although Moses was one hundred and twenty years old when he died, his eye was not dim, nor his vigor abated.  So the sons of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days; then the days of weeping and mourning for Moses came to an end. [. . .]

"Since that time no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face, for all the signs and wonders which the LORD sent him to perform in the land of Etypt against Pharaoh, all his servants, and all his land, and for all the mighty power and for all the great terror which Moses performed in the sight of all Israel."

Wow!  That is a lot to be said about somebody, especially by God - since God inspired the Bible, including these words here.  You know, Moses was kind of a screwy person sometimes.  He didn't want the job God called him to do, and he fought and kicked against it; he appears to have had marital problems, and he had a bad temper that led him to disobey God once or twice.  But you know, that stuff can be said about anybody.  Moses was a great man not because he was a man without fault, but because he was a man God used.  Face it, we all screw up.  We all have personal problems and family problems and whatever other kinds of problems, but that doesn't mean that God can't use us.  I guess what I've learned from the story of Moses is that when God decides to do something, He goes all the way.  Just go with it.  If God wants to use you for something, don't fight Him about it.  You may not think you're qualified - and you may be right - but I don't think God particular cares what we're qualified for.  Whatever holes we have in our resume, He is perfectly capable of filling.  If we are on God's side, then even a problematic human like you or me or Moses can do extraordinary things.

Deuteronomy 1-10: Let's Review

Hurray, we made it through another book!  Now we are in Deuteronomy, which means "second law."  It's called that not because there is a second law, but because this is the book where Moses gives the Israelites the Law for the second time.  So pretty much everything in this book will be stuff we've already heard before, and hopefully that reinforces it in our minds better.  And actually, this book repeats some parts of Israel's history more than once.

In chapter 1-4 Moses recounts what happened in Numbers - how the people left Mt. Sinai and came close to Canaan but chickened out from going in, and then had to wander around for 40 years.  Then in chapter 5, he backs up and tells them about the commands God gave him on Mt. Sinai, starting with the Ten Commandments, and reviews the incident with the golden calf and Moses' breaking the stone tablets and having to get new ones.

In the middle of that story, in chapters 6-9, he goes into a bunch of warnings and admonitions.  This is where the Shema, the most important commandment, is found: "Hear, O Israel, the LORD your God, the LORD is one.  You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might."  Moses tells the people to keep God's words so close to them that they talk about them all the time, that they write them down and tie them to their door frames and even to their hands and foreheads - and later on they actually will literally do that.  He warns Israel against intermarrying with any of the foreign people because they would lead them away from God.  Now, as a clarification, a foreigner could join the Jews, be circumcised if he was a male, and become a sort of naturalized citizen, and then I think it was okay to intermarry (we'll see that later on).  But no Jew could marry a foreigner while they were still a worshiper of other gods and did not follow the Law.

Moses tells the Israelites not to be afraid of going into Canaan because God has promised to drive the people out before them, and if they just follow Him wholeheartedly, they will have a really good life.  Listen to these promises: "He will love you and bless you and multiply you; He will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your new wine and your oil, the increase of your herd and the young of your flock . . .You shall be blessed above all peoples; there will be no male or female barren among you or among your cattle.  The LORD will remove from you all sickness; and He will not put on you any of the harmful diseases of Egypt which you have known."  Sounds like a pretty sweet deal.  But in order to get this deal they have to completely remove all temptation.  They have to destroy the altars to pagan gods and not even use the gold and silver the idols are made with.

Moses reminds the people of how God has provided for them over the last 40 years.  I think it's great that he makes a point of saying that for all these years, their clothes and shoes haven't even worn out.  That's something I would have wondered about.

Then Moses turns back to the story of the Ten Commandments, and about the golden calf and all of that.  And Moses' point here seems to be that God didn't choose Israel because they were a great nation or because they were a good nation - in fact, Moses says they've been rebellious for as long as he's known them, and that's certainly the truth.  But God is blessing them anyway, because He loves them and because He made a covenant with Abraham that He will always keep.  God doesn't go back on His word, and He also doesn't bestow favor on us conditionally - that is, based on how good or great we are.

I think one of the main points in recounting Israel's history this way is to impress upon them what God has already done for them, so they will have courage and trust in what He is about to do for them.  The people might still have some fear about going into Canaan - except for Midian, this is the first time that they have been the ones going out on an offensive war, and the people they're going against are giants who live in fortified cities.  Moses wants them to have faith in God and be confident that if God could do everything He did over the last 40 years, taking Canaan will be cake for Him.

Another main reason for saying all this again is that some of the people are actually hearing it for the first time.  Keep in mind that this is the second generation: the person here, other than Moses and Caleb and Joshua, can be no older than 59.  These people were children, teenagers, or not even born yet when God first brought Israel out of Egypt.  A lot of them don't remember what it was like to be slaves, so God makes special rules for treating slaves and foreign visitors well, saying "remember that you were aliens and strangers in Egypt."  They don't remember how God miraculously delivered them from Pharaoh, so Moses is reminding them.  They may have been too young to pay attention to what was happening on Mt. Sinai, so Moses is telling them the whole story.  But some of them do remember, and Moses' goal is to make sure they don't forget like their parents consistently did.

Finally, I think Moses is telling Israel all these things to inspire love and devotion to God, as well as to keep them humble.  He says to remember what God has done so that later on they don't think it was their power or strength that make them rich.  Moses says, "You shall remember the LORD your God, for it is He who is giving you power to make wealth."  Everything we have is a gift of God - even the things we make for ourselves, we can only make because God gives us the ability to do so.  I think it's important to remember that it is only by God's grace that we have whatever it is we have, so that we are always filled with gratitude and so that we appreciate what we have, instead of becoming prideful and greedy.  Well, we'll see how the Israelites do with these lessons later on.

Numbers 30-32: So This Is Weird

I'm putting these three chapters together because they're all a little, well, unusual, especially at first glance.  In fact I had to do some research on chapter 31 to understand what was going on better.

Chapter 30 is about making vows.  Basically, if you say you're going to do something, if you make an oath, you have to keep it.  What's interesting though is that if you're a girl and you make a vow, and your father (if you're unmarried) or husband (if you're married) tells you that's a dumb vow, you don't have to keep it.  If the father or husband either doesn't say anything against the vow or, presumably, doesn't hear it, it's binding, but a woman could be released from a stupid vow by her father or husband.  I wish that men could be released form stupid vows by their wives, but then again I suppose wives are always trying to get their husbands to keep their promises, so it's probably just as well.

Chapter 31 is the really weird one.  God tells the Israelites to go kill the Midianites, so they fight them and kill all the men, but then Moses tells them to kill the women and the boys too, but not the children who are girls.  There's also a mention of Balaam being killed - remember him?  And then the rest of the chapter is about splitting up the spoils of war.  So when I first read this, it really didn't sit well with me.  I did some research and went over some of the text again and found out that there's a key verse in the middle of this chapter, verse 16, which tells us that Balaam - the guy who Balak hired to curse Israel - had incited these women to try to destroy Israel through immorality and idolatry back in chapter 25 - remember Phinehas?  Apparently, when the Moabites and Midianites saw the Israelites coming and realized God was on their side in war, they put their heads together and tried to get God off Israel's side, and that's when Balak the king of Moab hired Balaam. When that didn't work, the Midianite and Moabite women went over to Israel to tempt them sexually and also invite them to start worshipping their gods, and it worked, or at least it came really close to working.

But if you're like me, you're wondering, where does Balaam fit into the story?  At the end of chapter 24, it looks like he's headed home, which is to the northeast near the Euphrates River.  But apparently he stuck around with the Midianites for a while, and that's where he was when Israel attacked.  Now, Balaam confuses me.  Here's a guy who seemed to have some kind of relationship with God - that is, he could hear God's voice and prophecy accurately, at least in Israel's case, although he and God don't seem to be on the best terms.  But now he's going and plotting against them.

I still think it's sad that a lot of people died - I mean, I think dropping the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was really sad - but now I see that it didn't just come out of nowhere.

Also, to clear up another common misunderstanding, the girls who weren't killed were not kept as wives.  It was still illegal for Jews to marry non-Jews, so prisoners of war were kept as slaves.

Another interesting note is that not all the Midianites died here.  We'll meet them again in Judges.

Finally, chapter 32.  The tribes of Reuben and Gad decide they want to stay on the east side of the Jordan River instead of crossing into the Promised Land, because it's good pasture for their livestock.  At first Moses isn't too keen on this, but they promise to help with the conquest and not to return to their new homes until after all the other tribes are settled in.  So those two tribes, as well as some of the Manasseh people, end up building permanent settlements over on the east side of the Jordan but leaving their wives and kids there while conquering the land of Canaan.  I guess they keep their promise to help out, because my map has their land marked as being right where it says they wanted to stay.  So I suppose that's a good example of keeping vows, as written in chapter 30.

Numbers 11-14: I Take That Back

In the very last few chapters, we saw Israel as a group of devoted followers of the LORD who were just ready and raring to go wherever He led them, right? Well, not anymore. That's right - the very next thing we read is that the people start complaining. And this time it's contagious - meaning, they're not the only whiners in this bunch. Let's see who all is guilty of it this time around:

1. The people - they complain that they don't have meat and they're sick of manna. They say, "we had it soooo great in Egypt - fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, garlic - we had it all! Now our soul is dried up."

2. Moses - that's right, the big guy complains to God that God's been picking on him, putting him in charge of all these people so that he has to baby-sit them all the time, and he doesn't have any help at all. So he says, "God, can you just kill me?"

3. Miriam and Aaron - Moses' support system, the dynamic duo get jealous of Moses (the guy who hates his job because he's all alone, remember?) and think they need more fame and glory for the work they do.

4. Ten spies - Moses handpicks twelve leaders from among the tribes, people that everybody looks up to and respects, guys that he thinks he can trust, and sends them into the Promised Land to check it out. When they come back, all but two of them have their tails between their legs because the Canaanites are tall. Dude, news flash: everyone is tall compared to Hebrews. Okay, so these happen to be legitimate giants maybe, but the spies conveniently forget that this guy called God Almighty has recently rescued them from the most powerful empire on the planet, and maybe He's got a plan for getting them into the land He promised them.

5. All the congregation, all the sons of Israel - I love that it makes a point now of saying "all," as opposed to just "the people" who were complaining earlier. They say "I wish we would have died in Egypt, or that we could just die here in the wilderness (which is what we were complaining would happen earlier) because God's leading us straight into a deathtrap!" Boo hoo.

So finally, God says to Moses, "How dense are these people? I have half a mind to do just what they want and make them all die in the wilderness." You know, whenever God says this stuff, I always wonder if He really means it, or if He's just saying it to Moses as a test or something. You know, like, "Hey Moses, you said you were sick of leading these people, so here's your chance to get off the hook. . . ." Maybe? I don't know.

So what happens with all these complaints?

1. God throws a fireball at the outskirts of camp (I guess as a warning shot), but then He gives them quail. But some of the people are so greedy that God puts a plague on them.

2. God tells Moses to get seventy elders from the people to help him out. This is, presumably, in addition to all the people Moses already appointed as judges at the advice of his father-in-law Jethro way back in Exodus 18 (see, he's not alone after all).

3. God gives Miriam and Aaron what-for, and then he gives Miriam leprosy. Moses pleads with God on her behalf, and God says fine, she'll only remain unclean for seven days (which is how long a person remained unclean for anything, as we saw in Leviticus), and then she'll be fine.

4. Caleb and Joshua say "Whatever, we can take this land because God is with us! Check out these grapes. If we lived here, maybe we'd become giants too!" (Okay, so they didn't say that last part.)

5. Moses reminds God of His promise to deliver Israel into the promised land, and says that if He doesn't, all the rest of the world will never believe that the LORD is God (which was kind of the point of doing all this stuff - so that they would all know).

6. So God decides to give the people their wish - sort of. The people who griped and complained and wished to die in the wilderness will never get to see the Promised Land; instead they're going to have to wander in the desert for 40 years until they're all dead, and their children will get to go in and take the land.

Then guess what happens? The people say, "Omgosh! We're sorry! Let's go take over Canaan right now!" So they try, and they get beaten pretty badly. No surprise.

So what can we learn from this? I think the pretty obvious lesson is, dude, just do what God says, because sin and disobedience have serious consequences. But I think there's another lesson when we compare this passage to the passage we just discussed, and that is this: when everything is going well, and everything's cool between us and God, don't get complacent. Don't just assume that because you're doing a pretty good job of following God right now, that you're always going to feel like doing what He says. Don't slack off and start wandering - you might start going in the wrong direction. That's what happened to these people.

Numbers 1-4: Let's Talk Math

It took me a while to get this far, because honestly, this book gave me some trouble from the beginning. I kept getting distracted by the fact that there were so many dang Israelites, and I didn't know if the numbers in the Bible were reasonable. I since found a site that really helped me out (click here).

Anyway. This is a difficult book for me to read when I'm trying to learn things about God. Why? Because so far it's a lot of lists and counts and repetition. It's very easy to start skimming and write it off as not important. I mean, how many sermons have you ever heard on any of the first four of Numbers? Speaking for myself, I haven't heard any (although I'm sure there have been some - my parents' church is reading through the Bible in a year and the sermons each Sunday reflect the week's readings).

I was going to do the first six chapters in this post, but chapters 5 and 6 are really on a different subject, so I'll do those next.

Here's the first four chapters of this book in a nutshell:

• Chapter 1: All the men in Israel who are of fighting age (20 or older) are counted. The heads of each tribe and the number of fighting men in each tribe is given. The Levites aren't numbered because they don't fight.
• Chapter 2: God tells Moses where each tribe should camp (north side, west side, etc.), and it tells you again who the head of each tribe is and how many fighting men are in each tribe, in case you had forgotten.
• Chapter 3: Now the Levites get numbered (all the males 1 month old and up), but they are given jobs in the tabernacle. Each clan has a different area of focus. Then all the firstborn sons of Israel are numbered, and the numbers of the Levites are supposed to match up, but there are 273 fewer Levites so the Levites get 5 shekels for every man they lack. This is part of the redemption of the firstborn thing that I'll come back to.
• Chapter 4: The duties of each of the three Levite clans are explained, and they're counted again but only the men between ages 30-50.
  

So as you can see, not a lot happens. What can we learn about God from this passage? What does the author, Moses or whoever, want us to know from reading this?

I think the first and most obvious answer is history. Judaism revolves around the exodus from Egypt. What happened between Goshen and Canaan is not only the basis their holidays, dietary customs, and moral code; it is their heritage. My family has this book of genealogical records that reads like this:

1. (first and last name) and wife, (first and last name).
1. (1st kid's name)
2. (2nd kid's name)
3. (3rd kid's name, etc.)
2. (1st kid's name) and wife, (first and last name).
1. (1st kid's name)
2. (2nd kid's name)

You get the picture. That's all the book is. Why the heck would somebody want to write about that? Because it's history. It tells me where I came from and to whom I belong. There's not a single complete sentence, or even a verb, in the whole thing, but from reading it I learn a lot about my past. I think Numbers is kind of the same way.

In keeping with that, I think another main point of Numbers is that it's history, not fantasy. The numbers in this book are intended as real numbers. Figurative and symbolic numbers in the Bible are generally 3, 7, 10, 12, and 40 (and a few multiples), along with "ten thousand times ten thousand" and "seventy times seven." The author of this book intends for the audience to know that what they are reading is a real story.

Let's keep going with that thought. When God spoke to Abraham and promised to make him a great nation, He gave a figurative number as well: "as numerous as the stars in the sky, and as countless as the sand on the seashore" - that's how many descendants Abraham would have, right? Now in Numbers, we see that God has turned that figurative number into a real number. The promise that existed only as an idea for so long has become a reality, and we can see that the Hebrews are a huge group of people, perhaps 2 million or more in total. God was faithful to Abraham in making his descendants numerous, and because of that, we can trust that God will be faithful to give Abraham's descendants the land He promised them as well, even though we won't see it happen for a few more books.

Now I would like to talk about the redemption of the firstborn. This seems to come up a lot in the Torah, and always under different circumstances. We first saw in Exodus 13 that God said the firstborn of every human and animal belonged to Him and was sanctified (set apart), because of the plague of the firstborn that freed the Hebrews from slavery. Because of this, every firstborn had to be redeemed (bought back). The animals and the sons were redeemed by sacrificing a lamb. Next, in Exodus 22:29-30, we see God mention giving the firstborn of their sons to Him again. Exodus 34 repeats what we saw in chapter 13. Finally here, in Numbers 3:40-51, it says that the firstborn sons are redeemed moreover by the Levites, who do not own any land or fight in battle but are constantly serving as priests, intercessors between God and man. That's why there were supposed to be as many Levites as there were firstborn sons, but they were just short so they had to substitute with money.

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what all the symbolism behind this concept means. On the surface, it's plain that God wanted the people to know they belonged to Him, and that their possessions - whether livestock or their own children - were a gift that He had given and could take away, as He took the firstborn of all Egypt. I feel like there's more to this, but I don't know what. If anybody has studied this passage, please elaborate on it for me.

Numbers is a difficult book because it appears so surfacey. I think, though, that there's a lot more depth to it, and that the more I read it the more I will understand. As I posted in my Xanga the other day, I'm glad that I don't understand this book very well, because it reminds me of how much more the Bible has to teach me.

Leviticus 1-6: Sacrifices and Burnt Offerings

So like Homestar Runner last summer, I seem to have skipped June. Now that I'm working more-or-less full time, it's been a little more challenging for me to make time for my reading. I will endeavor to post a blog at least once a week though.

There are three parts of the Old Testament that are really, really hard to get through: Ezra and Nehemiah, the Minor Prophets, and Leviticus through Numbers, where we are now. I think, though, that what you get out of these more difficult passages depends on what you put into it.

The first six chapters of Leviticus go over every kind of sacrifice that the Israelites were to make and what they were for. For the most part it's kind of repetitive, but don't skim or you'll miss some interesting things. Here are my observations from reading:

• I've always wondered why you're not supposed to cut up the birds in sacrifices. All the other animals you chop up and dissect, but the birds you pretty much just pluck. If you can remember back to Genesis 15, Abraham didn't cut the birds when God made a covenant with him. Is that because they're too small?

• What is it with God and leaven? No grain offering could have any leaven (or honey or oil) in it. I find that very interesting. Is this because it points back to Passover, when they weren't supposed to have leaven because they couldn't wait for the bread to rise? Does leaven symbolize something bad as it does in the Gospels when Jesus talks about the "yeast of the Pharisees"? Or was leaven actually bad for them, like how the unclean animals were potential health risks?

• God specifically says several times that the fat of the animal is not to be eaten but is part of the offering to the LORD. I'm not sure why that is, but it immediately reminded me of Daniel 1, when Daniel and his friends refused to eat the king's food - the meat they were served would have been mostly fat. Leviticus tells us why: it was considered sacred. I find that really interesting, although again I don't know why this was the case. Was it another dietary thing? Was it more than that?

• Leviticus 4:3 says that if a priest sins unintentionally, he brings guilt on the people. Does that mean there's such a thing as being guilty for what somebody else did? But if this happens, the people aren't the ones who have to make a sacrifice and repent; only the priest has to do that.

• Chapter 4 is about sins that were committed unintentionally and what you have to do about them once you're aware that you did something wrong. This tells me that motive is not the determining factor in what counts as sin. I like to say that sin is breaking a relationship more than it is breaking a rule, and that's true, but thinking that way can lead to believing that as long as your motives are good, it doesn't really matter what you do. But according to this chapter, you can be guilty without even knowing it. We can do things with a clear conscience and still be hurting God.

• I find it interesting that if a leader sins unintentionally, he must offer a male goat as a sacrifice, but if one of the common people sins unintentionally, he must offer a female. Not sure why that is either. There are a few other times when male or female is specified; most of the time the gender of the animal doesn't matter.

• In chapter 5 it says that if you swear thoughtlessly to do evil or to do good, you become guilty. I think this is referring to making promises you don't intend to keep. What do you think? Apparently our words are important to God. A promise isn't something to be taken lightly or to be made lightly. If you promise to do something, do it. Your word is your bond.

• God makes a provision for poor people, and he makes a provision for really poor people. If you can't afford a lamb, you can offer birds. If you can't afford birds, you can offer a little bit of flour (probably everybody had some of that).

• 6:9-13 states several times that the altar has to have a fire burning continually. This is a very important point. The whole purpose of this sacrifice stuff is to show us the price of our sin and to remind us that we need a mediator to make things right between us and God. But we don't just need that mediator when we lie in court or steal something or whatever; we need it all the time. The fire is a constant reminder of our sinful state, of a relationship that has been broken.
  

All of this talk about sacrifices makes me think of Hebrews 10, which has this to say about the sacrificial system:

For the Law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, because the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have had consciousness of sins? But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins year by year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Therefore, when He comes into the world, He says,
"SACRIFICE AND OFFERING YOU HAVE NOT DESIRED, BUT A BODY YOU HAVE PREPARED FOR ME;
IN WHOLE BURNT OFFERINGS AND sacrifices FOR SIN YOU HAVE TAKEN NO PLEASURE.
"THEN I SAID, `BEHOLD, I HAVE COME
(IN THE SCROLL OF THE BOOK IT IS WRITTEN OF ME)
TO DO YOUR WILL, O GOD.' "
After saying above, "SACRIFICES AND OFFERINGS AND WHOLE BURNT OFFERINGS AND sacrifices FOR SIN YOU HAVE NOT DESIRED, NOR HAVE YOU TAKEN PLEASURE in them" (which are offered according to the Law), then He said, "BEHOLD , I HAVE COME TO DO YOUR WILL." He takes away the first in order to establish the second. By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins; but He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, SAT DOWN AT THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD, waiting from that time onward UNTIL HIS ENEMIES BE MADE A FOOTSTOOL FOR HIS FEET. For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.

What's cool about Leviticus is that ultimately, it points to Christ, who acted as man, priest, and sacrifice in His death on the cross. When we read all this stuff about burnt offerings, we're really reading about Him. It's kind of exciting to find connections like that.

Genesis 18-22: Sodom and Isaac

Those are the two main stories being told in this segment.

Summary:

chapter 18: three men (somehow the three of them are a theophany: a manifestation of God in human form) visit Abraham and his wife and promise that they'll have a son within the year. Sarah goes "yeah right" but the guy hears her and says "you better believe it." Then two of the guys leave, but the third one tells Abraham that he's going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah because they're full of wickedness. Abraham asks God to spare the cities if there are righteous people in it, and eventually barters God down to ten righteous people in the city.

chapter 19: Well, apparently there aren't ten righteous people in the city, because the two men from earlier show up in Sodom, get Lot (remember him?) and his family and tell them to leave. So they do, and they settle in the mountains, and Lot's daughters commit incest with their dad (this is gross) so they can't have kids, because apparently they don't think they can go down the hill to the village, just because their father's too chicken to do so.

chapter 20: Anyway, then Abraham goes to visit a king and does the whole "she's my sister" thing with his wife like before, gets caught like before, and comes out with more possessions as a result, like before.

chapter 21: Then Isaac is born. Then Ishmael (Hagar's kid - he's a teenager now) starts picking on him, so Sarah gets fed up and makes Hagar and Ishmael leave. God visits Hagar again. Then we jump back to Abraham, who makes a covenant with Abimelech (the king he scammed in the previous chapter)

chapter 22: Everybody knows this chapter. It's the part where God tells Abraham to offer Isaac as a sacrifice, and just when he's about to do so, God intervenes and tells him not to kill Isaac after all.

I didn't really have any questions this time, but here are some things that either I thought of or somebody told me and I wanted to tell you too:

• Abraham's bargaining with God is really interesting, because you could almost get the idea that God is wishy washy and you can talk Him out of things. I don't think He is though, because He says that his mind is made up about the matter. However, I think He really wanted Abraham to know that this wasn't a rash decision and that He wasn't going to be killing innocent people along with the guilty.
  
  
• Abraham talks God down from finding fifty righteous people to only finding ten, and God says that if there are ten righteous people, he won't destroy the city. I wonder if Abraham could've talked God down even lower, and I think maybe he coudl have. During this whole thing God seems very accomodating of Abraham's request.
  
  
• Genesis is about beginnings, and one of those beginnings is the beginning of redemptive history, or God's relationship with man. As one of my commentors noted, Abraham most likely didn't have a clue who YHWH was when he left Ur; God progressively revealed Himself to Abraham as he went (the idea of progressive revelation is seen throughout scripture: a truth is slowly revealed in increments until they reach a pinnacle in Christ, or something like that). This story sets a precedent for how we are to understand God. Keep this incident in mind when we get into later stories about God killing people: God isn't acting out against the people, but against their sin. If there are righteous people undeserving of punishment, God seems to really want to spare them.
  
  
• I'm not sure how big Sodom and Gomorrah were, but isn't it sad that there weren't even 10 righteous people in it? Lot and his family (that's four people) alone made it out alive (his sons-in-law would have too if they'd taken Lot seriously). And really, I'm not sure that even Lot was all that righteous. The Bible usually notes right away when there's a righteous person amongst wicked people, and nobody does that for Lot until Hebrews.
  
  
• Some people are really concerned about the fact that Lot offered his daughters to the mob at his door in order to preserve the two men in his house. I would first of all like to say that this would have been seen by that culture as a perfectly moral action; hostpitality was one of the most important virtues, if you will, from ancient times up until fairly recently (as students of Macbeth should know). Secondly, I would like to say that the text doesn't tell us whether Lot did right or wrong in this action, like it doesn't tell us whether he was that righteous of a person or not. This is an important distinction: just because the Bible says something happened, doesn't mean it's saying that's what should have happened. My old pastor said once that the people in the Bible are not ideal people; they are real people.
  
  
• Why does Abraham do the same lie in the same situation? Doesn't he remember how it turned out last time? Is he completely nuts? Or is he just like us? Do you have any patterns of behavior that are so ingrained in your life that even if you know they're wrong, you can't help doing them? Ouch. I think I just hit myself on the head.
  
  
• I love that the angel of the LORD appears to Hagar again. Justin said the other day, when we were discussing this, that you get the idea that Hagar's relationship with God continued after that initial meeting. I think this little passage here supports that idea. God shows Hagar that He doesn't just show up once and then disappear; He continues in His faithfulness toward her. That's pretty cool to me.
  
  
• The almost-sacrifice of Isaac is another weird story. I mentioned progressive revelation earlier; it comes into play here. Being of a pagan background, Abraham probably is familiar with human sacrifice, and we haven't seen God tell him not to do it yet. On the other hand, Abraham knows that God promised his descendents would come through Isaac. Plus, God emphasizes the fact that Abraham loves his son. That makes for a really sticky situation. See, Abraham has a pattern of distrusting God's word. God promised him lots of descendents, so Abraham made one of his servants his heir. God promised an heir from his own body, and we got Ishmael. So now Abraham finally has Isaac . . . what does he do? Is he going to take matters into his own hands like usual, or wait to see God deliver on His promise? Look what he says to the young men attending him: "We will worship and return to you" - meaning, we will worship, and we will return. Abraham thinks Isaac is going to be okay (I think he thinks that). The author of the Hebrews thought Abraham was counting on God to raise him to life again after he'd killed him. So basically, what we have here is a HUGE stepping-stone for Abraham, from distrust to trust in God and His ability to provide and make good His promises.
  
  
• I'm almost done, I promise. Isaac, by now, is a big boy. I don't know exactly how old he was, but I've heard he was an adolescent. Abraham is a very very old man. Isaac figures out (unless he's really stupid) what's happening as far as the sacrifice goes, and he could probably take his dad out. But he doesn't. What is almost more amazing to me than Abraham's faith is Isaac's. How many of us in a similar situation would just sit there and let what happened, happen?

That's really all I have to say. Thank you so much for all your comments, everyone. Even though I don't reply to every one of them, I do read them all and I enjoy them greatly. I need to go to bed now.