Just a few interesting things in Numbers 4-8:

The test for an unfaithful wife (Numbers 5:11-31). If a man suspects that his wife has been unfaithful, he is to bring her to the priest who makes her drink holy water. If she is guilty, her abdomen would swell and she would miscarry (if she was pregnant). I assume that she would be stoned to death if guilty. If nothing happens to her after drinking the water, then she is innocent. I know what you are thinking (or I presume to know!). What is the test for a husband who is suspected of adultery? Well there isn’t one! So is God a misogynist? God is no respecter of persons. I think this test is to protect the wives of evil Jewish husbands. As Jesus said in Matthew 19, the law for divorce in Deuteronomy 24 was b/c of the hardness of the hearts of men’s hearts, to protect the wives. I think it is the same case in Numbers 5. The test would keep an evil husband from false accusing his wife of adultery which could lead to her shame, even her stoning.

The Nazarite vow (Numbers 6:1-21). AI: “People take the Nazirite Vow (outlined in Numbers 6) to completely dedicate themselves to God for a specific season or a lifetime by removing ordinary distractions and pursuing intense spiritual focus.

Key Reasons for Taking the Vow

Intense Consecration: By abstaining from wine and grape products (symbolizing earthly joy and luxury), letting hair grow wild (a visible sign of humility and set-apart status), and avoiding dead bodies (pursuing strict ritual purity), the person removed worldly distractions to draw closer to a higher power.

Gratitude and Thanksgiving: People often took the voluntary, temporary vow to thank God for a major blessing, such as recovering from a serious illness or the birth of a child.

Combating Temptation: In Jewish tradition, an individual might take the vow as a temporary discipline to restrain physical desires or overcome personal pride and temptation.

Samuel and Samson in the Old Testament and John the Baptist in the New Testament took the Nazarite vow.

The priestly blessing (Numbers 6:22-27).

²² The Lord said to Moses, ²³ “Tell Aaron and his sons, ‘This is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them:

²⁴ “‘“The Lord bless you
    and keep you;
²⁵ the Lord make his face shine on you
    and be gracious to you;
²⁶ the Lord turn his face toward you
    and give you peace.”’

²⁷ “So they will put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.”

That’s about it in these chapters. Keep up on. your daily reading. If you fall way behind, just pick up on the current date reading.

Leviticus 26: Blessings for obeying God’s laws; Curses for disobeying God’s laws.

Leviticus 26 outlines the conditional covenant between God and Israel, promising profound Blessings and Curses (Lev 26:1-46) — The Fellowship based on their obedience or disobedience to His commandments. [1]

Core Foundation (Verses 1–2)

• Idolatry forbidden: God commands Israel not to make idols, carve images, or set up sacred stones.
• Sabbath observance: They must keep God’s Sabbaths and revere His sanctuary. [1, 2, 3, 4]

Blessings for Obedience (Verses 3–13)

• Abundant harvest: Seasonal rains will yield massive crops, allowing them to thresh grain until the grape harvest and eat safely until full.
• Peace and security: God will grant peace in the land so they can sleep without fear, and hostile armies will flee before them.
• Increase and fertility: The nation will be fruitful and multiply.
• Divine presence: The ultimate reward is God walking among them to be their God while they remain His people.

Curses for Disobedience (Verses 14–39)

• Sickness and distress: God will bring sudden terror, wasting diseases, and burning fevers that consume the eyes and sap life.
• Unfruitful land: Their hard work will be wasted because the soil will yield no crops and the skies will turn to iron.
• Escalating discipline: If disobedience continues, punishment intensifies in four compounding, sevenfold stages—from wild animals robbing them of children to military siege and starvation.
• Exile: The disobedient nation will be scattered among enemy nations and their cities left desolate.

Promise of Restoration (Verses 40–46)

• Repentance: If the exiled people humble themselves and confess their sins, God will remember His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
• Unbroken commitment: Even during severe correction, God promises never to utterly reject or destroy them to the point of breaking His covenant.

Numbers 1-3. The census and arrangement of the camp. These are the chapters you “skim” through. The book of Numbers is called “Numbers” b/c of the two numberings (censuses) of the people: the first at Mt Sinai during the year they are there (Numbers 1; 603,550 fighting men above the age of 20), and the second on the plains of Moab 40 years later after the disobedient generation has all died off in the wilderness (Numbers 26: 601,730 fighting men). The Levites were placed in the middle nearest the tabernacle along with Moses and the priests. The duties of the 3 Levitical families for taking care of and moving of the tabernacle are given. This is the way Israel would camp each time they would stop during the 40 years in the book of Numbers. Just imagine the logistics of this. Over 600,000 fighting men over the age of 20 would mean 1 1/2 to 2 milliion total people. They gather their manna every day. They get water from the rock every day. But I wonder what their daily life was like.

Numbers will contain the story of those 40 years in the wilderness, although 38 of the 40 years is only. told about in 6 of the 36 chapters in Numbers (chapters 15-20). A sad statistic: about 1 1/2 to 2 million Israelites die in the 40 years wandering in the wilderness. That’s about 37,000 per year and 100 per day. That had to be the most depressing time for everyone. Imagine disposing of the bodies (I assume they had to be buried to prevent diseases like cholera but the Bible doesn’t record burying them). Imagine knowing that you, if you were 20 or older, are going to die in this horrible wilderness and nothing can change that. All that for later in your reading in Numbers.

Here’s a great slide showing the contents of the book of Numbers.

Here is the map that we will be using as we study Numbers. Bible.ca is a great source of information. The map correctly (IMO) places Mt Sinai to the east of the Gulf of Aqaba instead of at the traditional site west of that gulf. That means Mt Sinai was in modern day Saudi Arabia. The Israelites spend a whole year at Mt Sinai, so that’s where Numbers begins.

Leviticus 21-22: Laws for priests.

Rules on Mourning and Death (Leviticus 21:1–6)

• General priests: Cannot make themselves ceremonially unclean by touching a dead body, except for immediate family members (mother, father, son, daughter, brother, or dependent unmarried sister). [1, 2]
• Body modifications: Priests are prohibited from shaving their heads, trimming their beards, or cutting their bodies as part of funeral mourning rituals.

Rules on Marriage and Family (Leviticus 21:7–15)

• Marriage restrictions: Ordinary priests cannot marry a prostitute, a woman who has been defiled, or a divorced woman.
• The High Priest: Held to an even higher standard; he must marry only a virgin from his own people and cannot marry a widow, a divorced woman, or a prostitute. He also cannot go near any dead body, even that of his own parents.
• Family discipline: If a priest’s daughter becomes a prostitute, she brings shame upon her father and is to be burned to death.

Physical Requirements for Service (Leviticus 21:16–24)

• No physical blemishes: Any descendant of Aaron with a physical defect or blemish cannot approach the altar to offer food/gifts to God.
• Disqualifying conditions: Included blindness, lameness, a disfigured face, a broken limb, a hunchback, a dwarf, chronic eye/skin diseases, or damaged testicles.
• Allowance: While disqualified from serving at the altar or entering the inner sanctuary, priests with physical defects were still permitted to eat the holy food.

Handling Holy Offerings and Uncleanness (Leviticus 22)

• Partaking in sacrifices: Priests who are ceremonially unclean (due to a bodily discharge, skin disease, or touching something unclean) cannot eat the sacred holy offerings until they are cleansed.
• Who may eat: Only members of the priest’s household (including bought servants or daughters who return home due to widowhood/divorce) may eat the holy food; unauthorized outsiders, guests, or hired workers cannot.
• Unblemished sacrifices: Priests were also responsible for ensuring that any animal brought by the Israelites for sacrifice was completely free of physical defects.

Leviticus 23: The feast days.

Leviticus 24: The lamp and bread of the sanctuary. The priests were commanded to keep the lamps on the lampstand (the menora) burning continuously. There were to change out the bread on the table of shewbread every Sabbath and the priests could eat the old bread. A blasphemer is stoned to death by the entire congregation. “Eye for eye and tooth for tooth” is established as a rule of justice.

Leviticus 25: The Sabbatic year and the year of Jubilee. The laws for redemption.

Leviticus 25 outlines a system of Sabbath and Jubilee years that functioned as a radical agricultural, economic, and social reset for ancient Israel.

The Sabbath Year (Shabbat)

• Timing: Occurred every seventh year.
• Land Rest: Fields and vineyards were left unworked; no sowing, pruning, or harvesting of planned crops.
• Provision: Whatever the land produced naturally could be eaten freely by everyone, including landowners, servants, hired workers, and local animals.
• Trust: It required Israel to trust God for a triple harvest in the sixth year to sustain them through the fallow period.

The Year of Jubilee (Yovel)

• Timing: Occurred every 50th year, following a sequence of seven Sabbath cycles (7 x 7 = 49 years).
• Proclamation: Announced with the blowing of the ram’s horn (shofar) on the Day of Atonement.
• Land Return: Leased, sold, or mortgaged ancestral land reverted to its original family owners.
• Emancipation: Hebrew debt slaves and bonded laborers were set free to return to their clans.
• Agricultural Rest: Like the Sabbath year, the land received a second consecutive year of rest from planting and harvesting.

Theological Purpose

• Divine Ownership: The foundational premise was that “the land is mine [God’s] and you reside in my land as foreigners and strangers” (Lev. 25:23).
• Economic Equity: It prevented permanent generational poverty and the extreme accumulation of land and debt by a wealthy few. Capitalism is better than communism but capitalism breeds greed

In Leviticus 25, the laws of redemption ensured that ancestral land and impoverished Israelites could not be permanently lost or enslaved.

Rules for Redeeming Property (Land)

• Temporary sales: Land was never sold permanently because it ultimately belonged to God; a sale was essentially a lease based on the number of crops until the next Jubilee.
• Self-redemption: The original owner could buy their land back at any time by paying back the value of the crops for the remaining years until the Jubilee.
• Kinsman-Redeemer (Go’el): If a person grew too poor to redeem their land, a nearest relative was obligated to step in and buy it back for them.
• The Jubilee Reset: If neither the owner nor a relative could redeem the land, it automatically reverted to the original family during the 50th Year of Jubilee.

Rules for Redeeming People (Slaves/Servants)

• Poverty-driven servitude: An Israelite who grew impoverished could sell themselves into service to a fellow Israelite or a foreigner.
• Family buyout: A relative could redeem an Israelite sold into servitude to a foreigner at any time by calculating the price based on the years remaining until the Jubilee.
• Release at Jubilee: If they were not redeemed earlier by a family member, indentured Israelites were freed automatically with their children during the Year of Jubilee.

These chapters are hard to read and sort out the detials so I hope that the AI bullet articles help clarify all the laws.

Chapter 11: Clean and unclean meat. Great slide. Barnes Bible Charts has a lot of great images you can research.

Why did God forbid eating of unclean meats? That avoided eating scavengers that carried harmful diseases (although rabbits aren’t scavengers, and spanish mackerel, and swordfish don’t have scales and aren’t scavengers but are unclean). I’m not sure what other reasons God might have commanded this. What about Christians eating unclean meats today? Groups like the 7th Day Adventists won’t eat pork. These food laws were given specifically to Israel and not to Gentiles or all mankind. Paul answered this question in 1 Timothy 4:1 But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will ^[a]fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, ² by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron, ³ men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth. ⁴ For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude; ⁵ for it is sanctified by means of the word of God and prayer.” Christians are under the new covenant, not the old, and can eat anything as long as they give thanks.

Chapter 12: Laws of motherhood.

A “sin” offering after childbirth. AI: “In ancient Israelite law, contact with major bodily fluids and blood made a person ritually unclean for a set time (40 days for a boy, 80 days for a girl). The Hebrew word for “sin offering” (chata’at) is often better translated as a “purification offering.” It restored the mother so she could re-enter the holy sanctuary. The sacrifice did not mean the mother committed a personal crime or moral wrong. It simply removed the ritual barrier caused by the blood of childbirth.” Luke 2:22 “And when the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses, they brought Him (the baby Jesus) to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord.”

Chapter 13: The test for leprosy.

AI: The word for “leprosy” צָרַעַת (tsaraath) designates an array of divinely diagnosed contaminations that could afflict skin, clothing, and even houses. It likely included common issues like psoriasis, eczema, boils, ringworm, and lucoderma. Scripture never confines the term to modern Hansen’s disease; instead, it functions as a covenant marker of uncleanness that calls for priestly discernment and ritual resolution. The word appears about thirty-five times, with its densest concentration in Leviticus 13–14.” Of course it included Hansen’s Disease. White hair in the infection is mentioned as a test for leprosy. tzaraath actually described a broad category of escaling or inflammatory skin conditions. It most likely referred to vitiligo, an autoimmune condition where skin completely loses its pigment and the hairs inside the white patches frequently turn white. As you can see, the priests are the health officers, not doctors. Some of the skin diseases were contagious and the laws of leprosy helped keep them from spreading. God was concerned about the physical and spiritual welfare of Israel (and us also).

Chapter 14: Cleansing a leper or a leprous house.

Under the Law of Moses outlined in Leviticus 14, cleansing a healed person with a skin disease required a careful, multi-day purification ritual conducted by a priest which included several animal sacrifices. It is interesting that the priest offered a guilt offering and placed blood on the tip of the person’s right ear, right thumb, and right big toe. It is also interesting that leprosy could be found in houses, resulting even possibly in tearing down the whole house.

Chapter 15: Laws for bodily fluids and discharges

Leviticus 15 outlines ancient Israelite laws regarding ceremonial uncleanness caused by various bodily fluids and discharges. These laws included bodily discharges of sexually transmitted diseases, normal seman emission, a woman’s menstrual periods, and prolonged or abnormal bleeding outside of the normal menstrual cycle. The woman with the blood issue that Jesus healed would fit into that last category.

Many of these laws were just for ceremonial uncleanness and did not involve moral sins. Many of them were just designed to prevent the spread of disease and for good hygiene. Remember, these laws were given when the priests were serving as the health officers and there were no doctors. Doctors today could use these same methods to detect diseases today, I suppose.

Hang in there! Halfway through your favorite book in the Bible.

Ok, here’s the book you have been dreading reading! I will see if we can make it interesting. Here is an outline:

Chapters 1-5 cover the burnt offering, grain offering, peace offering, sin offering, and guilt offering. Great slide;

Several times after describing the particular offering it says, “Thus (with the animal sacrifice) the priest shall make atonement for him in regard to his sin which he has committed, and he will be forgiven.” But read Hebrews 10:1 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. ² Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, because the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have had consciousness of sins? ³ But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins year by year. ⁴ For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.” Sounds like a contradiction, doesn’t it? Perhaps this will help clear this up: Hebrews 9:¹³ For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, ¹⁴ how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” The blood of bulls and goats did “cleanse the flesh” but did not “cleanse the conscience”. Making an offering did forgive a sinner of his sin, but it wasn’t really the blood of animals that did it. Forgiveness was by the grace of God under the Law based on God knowing that He would one day use the blood of Jesus to forgive all sins. Once Jesus died, His blood “flowed backward and forward”. Backward to cover all those sins forgiven by the offerings under the Law. Hebrews 9:¹⁵ For this reason He is the mediator of a new covenant, so that, since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.” David is an example of someone forgiven under the Law of Moses. David said ““Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven, and whose sins have been covered.” (Romans 4:7) God forgave him of his sin with Bathsheeba, but it was by the blood of Jesus and the grace of God that he was forgiven. Maybe an example of all this is when you receive things bought with your credit card. You receive the purchased item immediately but the account is only settled at the end of the month when you pay the credit card bill. Sincere repentant sinners were forgiven under the old covenant but “on credit”, the final redemption price being paid with the blood of Jesus.

Hebrews goes on to discuss the old and the new covenants. Hebrews 9:¹⁶ For where a covenant is, there must of necessity be the death of the one who made it. ¹⁷ For a covenant is valid only when men are dead, for it is never in force while the one who made it lives. ¹⁸ Therefore even the first covenant was not inaugurated without blood. ¹⁹ For when every commandment had been spoken by Moses to all the people according to the Law, he took the blood of the calves and the goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, ²⁰ saying, “This is the blood of the covenant which God commanded you.” ²¹ And in the same way he sprinkled both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry with the blood. (Exodus 23). ²² And according to the Law, one may almost say, all things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” The author goes on to say that the Law was “about to disappear” at the time of writing (about 60 AD). Hebrews 8:13 When He said, “A new covenant,” He has made the first obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear.” The old covenant did “disappear” in 70 AD when the Romans destroyed the temple and Jerusalem. Since 70 AD there have been no animal sacrifices, temple, or priesthood to offer sacrifices.

That’s about it for Leviticus 1-5. I hope this article has been helpful in your study.

In Exodus 25-31 God gave Moses the instructions for building the tabernacle and making the furnishings in it. You may wantt to go back to the blog article on Exodus 26-30 for pictures of the tabernacle, the coverings, the furnishings, and the priestly garments. Exodus 35-40 tells about the actual building of the tabernacle, its furnishings, and the priestly garments. The people volunteered to bring the materials: gold, silver, skins for curtains, linen, etc and they brought so much that they were told to quit bringing any. It has been estimaed that the value of the materials donated was 70-100 million dollars in today’s currency. God gave the Spirit to certain craftsmen to enable them to build with. It took about 6 months to build everything and it was completed about one year from when they left Egypt. Exodus 39:⁴² So the sons of Israel did all the work according to all that the Lord had commanded Moses. ⁴³ And Moses examined all the work and behold, they had done it; just as the Lord had commanded, this they had done. So Moses blessed them.” In chapter 40 Moses put everything it its proper place and location.

THE GLORY OF THE LORD Exodus 40:³⁴ “Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. ³⁵ Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud had settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. ³⁶ Throughout all their journeys whenever the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the sons of Israel would set out; ³⁷ but if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not set out until the day when it was taken up. ³⁸ For throughout all their journeys, the cloud of the Lord was on the tabernacle by day, and there was fire in it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel.”

The main idea of the tabernacle is that it was a visible place of the dwelling of God among Israel. Exodus 25:8: “And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them.” Exodus 29:45-46: “And I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will be their God. And they shall know that I am the Lord their God… Shekinah is a Hebrew word meaning “that which dwells” or “the dwelling presence”. While the exact word Shekinah does not appear in the Hebrew Bible, the root verb shakan (meaning “to dwell” or “to pitch a tent”) is used frequently. Rabbis later used Shekinah to describe tangible encounters with God. The tabernacle was later replaced with the temple that Solomon built, and God dwelt in that temple. God’s presence filled Solomon’s Temple as a radiant cloud of glory during its dedication, According to 1 Kings 8 and 2 Chronicles 5, when the priests placed the Ark of the Covenant inside the Most Holy Place, a thick cloud filled the house of the Lord so intensely that the priests could not continue their work. Later in the history of Israel, the glory of the Lord would depart from the temple due to the sins of the people (Ezekiel 10-11) which led to the destruction of the temple in 586 BC by the Babylonians.

Ezekiel predicted that when the Messiah would come: Ezekiel 37:27: “My tabernacle also shall be with them: yea, I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Ezekiel predicted that the glory of God would return to the temple in Ezekiel 43:1–5, “coming from the east and entering through the east gate to fill the temple.” There is much debate over what Ezekiel’s temple was in Ezekiel 40-48, but I believe it is fulfilled in church, the temple of God in the New Testament. God came to dwell in His people, the church, a spiritual temple not physical. “The New Testament reveals that this physical tent foreshadowed Jesus coming to “tabernacle” or dwell among us, and later sending the Holy Spirit to live inside believers. John 1:14: “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.” The Greek word for “dwelt” is skenoo, which literally means to “tabernacle” or pitch a tent. 2 Corinthians 6:16: “…For ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” Revelation 21:3: “And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.” Zechariah 6:12 predicted, “‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, “Behold, a man whose name is Branch, for He will branch out from where He is; and He will build the temple of the Lord.” I believe that temple that Jesus built for God to dwell in is the church. The same Shekinah glory that filled the tabernacle fills the church today where God dwells in His people.