Year 1, Week 20, Day 1 Bible Reading Observations

Year 1, Week 20, Day 1

I have a brief observation for today’s reading of Numbers 36; Deuteronomy 1.

Today’s reading completes the Book of Numbers and proceeds with the Book of Deuteronomy. Numbers 36 revisits the matter of land for the daughters of Zelophehad. These daughters had appealed to Moses for their father’s share in the tribal allotment of land. Moses granted them their father’s share. But now an issue concerning their share arose: “But if they are married to any of the sons of the other tribes of the people of Israel, then their inheritance will be taken from the inheritance of our fathers and added to the inheritance of the tribe into which they marry. So it will be taken away from the lot of our inheritance.” (Numbers 36:3). If the daughters married outside their tribe, their tribe’s share of the land would be diminished as another tribe would gain new land. A modified ruling was issued: “Let them marry whom they think best, only they shall marry within the clan of the tribe of their father. The inheritance of the people of Israel shall not be transferred from one tribe to another, for every one of the people of Israel shall hold on to the inheritance of the tribe of his fathers.” (Numbers 36:6). Deuteronomy 1 orients us to the date and location of the Israelites as the second generation of Israelites receives Moses’ final words.

One of the things that struck me from today’s reading for the LORD’s purpose of reissuing His covenant with the people of Israel: “He commanded our fathers to teach to their children, that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children, so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments; and that they should not be like their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation whose heart was not steadfast, whose spirit was not faithful to God.” (Psalm 78:5b-8). The first generation of Israelites had been unfaithful. In spite of seeing the powerful deliverance of God from Egyptian captivity, they did not look to the LORD: “The LORD your God who goes before you will himself fight for you, just as he did for you in Egypt before your eyes, and in the wilderness, where you have seen how the LORD your God carried you, as a man carries his son, all the way that you went until you came to this place.” (Deuteronomy 1:30-31). The first generation did not trust in the LORD: “Yet in spite of this word you did not believe the LORD your God” (Deuteronomy 1:32). Thus, they were disciplined: “And the LORD heard your words and was angered, and he swore, ‘Not one of these men of this evil generation shall see the good land that I swore to give to your fathers” (Deuteronomy 1:34-35).

Now, the second generation was just on the other side of the Jordan on the verge of entering the Promised Land: “These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel beyond the Jordan in the wilderness, in the Arabah opposite Suph, between Paran and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Dizahab.” (Deuteronomy 1:1). The very day that Moses delivered this address that we know as the Book of Deuteronomy, it was the fortieth anniversary of Israel’s release from Egypt: “In the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month, Moses spoke to the people of Israel according to all that the LORD had given him in commandment to them” (Deuteronomy 1:3). It had taken Israel forty years to complete an eleven day journey: “It is eleven days' journey from Horeb by the way of Mount Seir to Kadesh-barnea.” (Deuteronomy 1:2). Moses explains in today’s reading how an eleven day journey turned into a forty year ordeal: “Yet you would not go up, but rebelled against the command of the LORD your God.” (Deuteronomy 1:26). Now a whole new generation will be given a new opportunity.

The new generation’s entrance into the Promised Land would only come through reliance upon the LORD. The land still had mighty people who dwelled in the land. But unlike the first generation, the new generation of Israelites would need to see that the LORD was mightier: “The people are greater and taller than we. The cities are great and fortified up to heaven. And besides, we have seen the sons of the Anakim there.”’ Then I said to you, ‘Do not be in dread or afraid of them.” (Deuteronomy 1:28b-29). It would not be Israel’s might that would conquer the mighty inhabitants of the Land. The Israelites were not mightier than the Land’s inhabitants, but the LORD was. The new generation of Israelites would need to rely upon the LORD and obey His instructions: “See, I have set the land before you. Go in and take possession of the land that the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give to them and to their offspring after them.” (Deuteronomy 1:8). 

What struck you in today’s reading? What questions were prompted from today’s reading?

Pastor Joe