04/08/2025 – Day 282 – Numbers 33 – 36 (Conclusion of the Book)
Check out the post from 12/06/2022. Included are two handy maps: 1) Map of the Wilderness Journey, and 2). Map of the boundaries of Canaan. In our first cycle, the post of 02/23/2021 covers the Lord’s warning to the people if they don’t drive out the inhabitants of Canaan, covering 33: 50 – 56 and entitled “Putting God in the Dock”.
I would like to share commentary excerpts from “The Apologetics Study Bible” to enhance our understanding and insight in this reading:
“33: 50-56. Commentators who ascribe this section to a Priestly editor, who allegedly combined Deuteronomic material with the Yahwist-Elohist traditions and appended vv. 50-51, have ignored the unified literary structure of this section. This passage sets forth the challenge to the Israelite community to claim its inheritance in the land. Faithfulness to the Lord’s intention involves a threefold process: drive out (dispossess) the sinful Canaanites, destroy their centers of idolatry, and divide the land proportionately among their ancestral tribes.”
“35: 30-31. The death penalty could not be carried out on the basis of a single witness, but only the basis of multiple attestations. If the case was determined to be murder, the city of refuge offered no protection for the perpetrator.”
“36: 1-2. This section supplies further clarification of property inheritance issues in the case of Zelophehad’s daughters (27:1-11) whose husbands had been part of the tribe of Manasseh.”
Comment – Noteworthy that they brought it before Moses to decide since the tribal leaders appropriately recused themselves from the case as they would not have been objective.
“36: 13. The concluding verse of this book summarizes its content, and in particular, the last section in which the geographical setting is the plains of Moab on the east side of the Jordan River, opposite Jericho (26:3; 33:50; 35:1; cp. 22:1). Moses’ role as God’s appointed prophetic spokesman is reiterated in the use of the phrase ‘through Moses’ (lit. ‘which the Lord commanded by the hand of Moses to the children of Israel’). There, on the threshold of the promised land, the nation was positioned both geographically and spiritually — they had recently done as the Lord commanded — to claim their divine inheritance.”
Soli Deo Gloria!
Questions for fellowship generation, the lifelong sanctification process:
- What does the text reveal about God’s character?
- How has this reading generated prayer for you and/or us?
- What themes stand out to you in this bible study?
- How does our reading fit into the bigger picture (creation, the fall, restoration, etc.)?
- What verse(s) jumped out at you like never before? Is it explainable at this point?
- Do you have any questions you would like to put before the group as to how to interpret any particular verse(s) in our reading. Let scripture testify to scripture: Share with us where you sense contradiction between passages elsewhere.
- What did you find convicting and inspiring at the same time? Share with us how the Spirit of God is working within you as a messenger, both within and outside of our fellowship group.
- Share with the group how our study is calling or confirming to you a new mission to glorify God in our times.