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Week 32: Numbers Part 1

March 15, 2010

(from Unlocking the Bible by David Pawson)

Introduction

Numbers is not a well-known book, neither is it widely quoted. Perhaps only two verses are well known. Samuel Morse quoted one of these after he sent the first telegraph message in Morse code to Washington DC on 24 May 1844. He expressed his amazement at what had happened with the verse, ‘What hath God wrought?’ (translated in the NIV as ‘See what God has done.’) The discovery of electronic communication was attributed to the God who had given the power.

The second verse is known by most people: ‘Be sure your sin will find you out’. This was originally said by Moses as a warning to the people when he was telling them that they must cross the Jordan and fight their enemies.

Neither verse is generally known to come from Numbers. Very few people are able to quote verses from the book and I have found that few know what any one chapter contains. We need to remedy this situation, as Numbers is another very important part of the Bible.

‘Numbers’ is a strange title for a book. In the Hebrew the title is taken from he first words of the scroll, ‘The LORD said’. When the Hebrew Scriptures were translated into Greek, the translators gave it a new title, Arithmoi (from which we get the word ‘arithmetic’). The Latin (Vulgate) version translated this as numeri. So in English we know it as ‘Numbers’.

It begins and ends with two censuses. The first was taken when Israel left Sinai one month after the tabernacle had been erected. The total number of people counted was 603,550. The second was taken when they arrived at Moab prior to entering the land of Canaan almost 40 years later. The number of people had dropped by 1,820 to 601,730 – not a very great difference. These were male censuses used for military conscription.

The book of Numbers tells us that there is nothing wrong with counting. King David was punished by God for counting his men, but this was because he was motivated by pride. Other parts of the Bible include examples of counting and taking stock – we are told, for example, that 3,000 were added to the Church at Pentecost. Jesus encouraged his followers to count the cost of following him by reflecting on how the leader of an army might evaluate his chances according to the relative strength of his army.

Three things can be said about the figures given in Numbers.

1. What a large number!

Many Bible commentators question the size of the numbers. The figures actually represent the military conscription – the men over 20 years old who were able to fight. We have seen already in our studies of Exodus that there were over 2 million people in total, so the ‘large’ number of 603,550 is actually a fraction of the whole population. There are a number of points to consider which indicate that the numbers given are, in fact, feasible and reasonable.

• In 2 Samuel we are told that David’s army was 1,300,000, so a figure of around 600,000 is small in comparison.
• The number is also small in comparison to the Canaanites. The Israelites would need to be of a certain strength in order to fight battles (remembering, nevertheless, that God was on their side).
• Those who argue that it is impossible for the 70 families who came to Egypt to produce so many forget that the people were in Egypt for 400 years. If each generation had four children (a small figure for those times), the figure is possible.
• Some say it is too great a number to fit into the wilderness of Sinai. It is feasible, however: there was enough space. If they travelled five abreast, the column would be 110 miles long and it would take 10 days to pass!
• Some say these numbers mean that there were too many people to be fed successfully in the wilderness. That would certainly have been the case, but for God’s supernatural provision.

2. What a similar number!

Given the magnitudes involved, a difference of 1,820 between the first and second censuses represents a very small percentage change. The tribe of Simeon had lost 37,100 and Manasseh had gained 20,500, but most remained about the same. Since numerical growth indicates God’s blessing, we can note from the outset that this was not a period when God was pleased with his people. Considering the hostile environment and the length of time, however, maintaining such numbers was remarkable.

3. What a different number!

There were over 38 years between the two censuses, so a whole generation perished in the wilderness. (It was rare for men to reach 60; Moses was an exception to live until 120.) So although the number was similar, the people were not. Only Joshua and Caleb (2 out of 2 million) survived from those who left Egypt to enter the Promised Land. In some ways this is the biggest tragedy in the whole Bible. Numbers is a very sad book. Two-thirds of the book need never have been written. It should have taken 11 days to travel from Egypt to the Promised Land, but it actually took them 13,780 days! Only two of those who set out actually reached their home. The rest were stuck in an aimless existence, ‘killing time’ until God’s judgement was complete. Over time they all died in the wilderness, and a new generation took up the journey.

Most lessons we learn from Numbers are negative. This is how not to be the people of God! Paul tells us how we should view it in 1 Corinthians 10: ‘Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did … These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfilment of the ages has come.’ Numbers is full of bad ‘examples’.

Context

What, then, is the context for this book? The journey from Mount Sinai to Kadesh Barnea (the last oasis in the Negev Desert) and the beginning of the Promised Land of Canaan takes 11 days on foot. The route the Israelites took was to turn away from Kadesh and go across the Rift Valley, to the mountains of Edom. They finished up in Moab on the wrong side of the River Jordan. It took 38 years and a few months, not because it was a particularly difficult piece of country but because God only moved a little at a time. He stayed a very long time in each place and told them he would wait until every man among them was dead, except Joshua and Caleb.

What happened to bring God’s judgement down on the people? At Kadesh the people refused to enter the land when God told them to. Today many Christians have been brought out of sin but have not enjoyed the blessing that God has set out for them. They too end up in a miserable wilderness.

Two-thirds of the book of Numbers is about this protracted journey. The Bible is a very honest book, telling us about failures and vices as well as great successes and virtues. When Paul told the Corinthians that Numbers was written down as an example and a warning to us, he meant this as a clear statement of the book’s purpose. It may not be a popular book, but if you do not study history you are condemned to repeat it.

Even Moses was not permitted to go into the Promised Land, although he did enter it centuries later when he talked with Jesus. He too failed miserably at one crucial point, as we shall see.

Week 31: Leviticus Part 5

March 8, 2010

(from Unlocking the Bible by David Pawson)

Reading Leviticus as Christians

What has this book to say to us, living as Christians in the modern world? Do we have to get rid of all mixed-fibre clothing? If we get dry rot in the house, do we have to burn it down?

One principle we can use as a guide is found in Paul’s second letter to Timothy. Paul writes: ‘From infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work’.

Paul is talking to Timothy about the Old Testament. The New Testament did not exist when he wrote this, so ‘the Scriptures’ referred to must be the Old Testament. When Jesus said, ‘Search the Scriptures, for they bear witness to me,’ he meant the Old Testament. We can learn about two things from the Old Testament: salvation and righteousness. This goes for Leviticus as well. It, too, can help us understand how to be saved, and it will open our eyes to right living. Those two purposes just shine out.

Leviticus in the New Testament

It is always very illuminating to see what the New Testament does with an Old Testament book. As somebody said: ‘The Old is in the New revealed, the New is in the Old concealed.’ The two belong together and each Testament outlines the other.

There are a number of direct quotations from Leviticus in the New Testament, but two in particular come very frequently: ‘Be holy, for I am holy’ and ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There are many other passages where parts of Leviticus are clearly in mind, and in particular we cannot understand the letter to the Hebrews unless we read Leviticus. These two belong to each other. Hebrews could not have been written unless Leviticus had been written first.

There are over 90 references to Leviticus in the New Testament, so it is a very important book for Christians to get to grips with.

THE FULFILMENT OF THE LAW

What, then, are we to make of the law of Moses today, remembering that there are not just 10 laws but 613 in total? We may have a hunch that we are not tied to them all, but how many are we tied to? For example, some churches teach their members to tithe. Others have strict rules about the Sabbath, even if for them the Sabbath is Sunday, not Saturday as observed by the Jews. Every Christian has to come to terms with this difficulty. It is complicated by the fact that Jesus said, ‘I have not come to destroy the law, but to fulfil it.’

We must therefore ask how each law is fulfilled. It is obvious that some are fulfilled in Christ and finished with. That is why you do not have to take a pigeon or a lamb to church when you go to worship next Sunday. The laws about blood sacrifices have been fulfilled.

In a similar way the Sabbath law is fulfilled for us every day of the week when we cease to do our own works and do God’s instead, thus entering into the rest that remains for the people of God. We are still free to keep one day special if we wish, but we are also free to regard every day alike. So we cannot even impose Sunday observance on other believers, never mind unbelievers, for we are all free in Christ.

It is very important to realize exactly what the fulfilment of each law is. Of the Ten Commandments, nine are repeated in the New Testament in exactly the same way, e.g. you shall not steal, you shall not commit adultery. The Sabbath one is not, being fulfilled in a very different way.

Other laws of Moses are fulfilled in different ways. One law in Deuteronomy says, for example, that when you are using an ox to thresh the corn, walking round and round, its hooves breaking the wheat from the chaff, you must not put a muzzle on it because it has every right to eat what it is preparing for others. This is fulfilled in the New Covenant. Paul quotes that law and gives it a completely different fulfilment, explaining that in the same way those who live for the gospel have a right to expect financial support from others. It is necessary to look at each law and see how it is fulfilled in the New Testament and given a deeper meaning.

There are, however, four crucial things that we learn from the book of Leviticus which are unchanged in the New Testament.

1. THE HOLINESS OF GOD

There is no book in the Bible which is stronger on the holiness of God than Leviticus and it is something we forget at our peril, especially in an age when people ask the question: ‘How can a God of love send anyone to hell?’ We know through Jesus that God is a God of love, and Jesus also spoke openly about hell. We cannot pick and choose: if Jesus told the truth about God being a God of love, we must also accept that he spoke the truth about hell.

Actually, God’s understanding of love is a little different from ours. Ours is sentimental love, his is holy love. His love is so great that he hates evil. Very few of us love enough to hate evil. We learn about the holiness of God from the book of Leviticus. We learn to love God with reverence, with holy fear. Hebrews says, ‘Let us worship God with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.’ This is a sentiment the writer got straight out of Leviticus. It is vital for Christians today to read Leviticus, in order to keep hold of this sense of God’s holiness.

2. THE SINFULNESS OF MAN

Leviticus strongly underlines the sinfulness of man as well as the holiness of God. It is so realistic and down to earth. Here is human nature, capable of bestiality, incest, superstitions, and many other things which are an abomination to God. ‘Abomination’ means something that makes you want to be physically sick because you are so disgusted. The Hebrew word for it is a very, very strong expression; the English translations – abomination, loathsome, vile, revolting – are all just poor substitutes.

The Bible is about God’s emotions. God’s emotional reaction to sin comes because he is holy. The sinfulness of man is not just in polluting clean things, but also in profaning holy things. Common swearing is the profaning of holy words. There are only two sacred relationships in our lives – that between us and God, and that between man and woman. Ninety per cent of swearwords come from one of these two relationships. Mankind profanes holy things and pollutes clean things. We live in a world that is doing both, and the sinfulness of man is not only in making clean things dirty, but in making holy things common and in treating things as common when they are not.

3. THE FULLNESS OF CHRIST

Leviticus points towards the fullness of Christ and his sacrifice, once for all. God has provided a way of cleansing the sin from mankind. His problem is how to reconcile justice and mercy. Should he deal with this sin in justice and punish us, or should he deal with it in mercy and forgive us? Since God is both just and merciful, he must find a way of being just and merciful at the same time. It is impossible for us to find a way, but it has been possible for him – by the substitution of an innocent life for a guilty life. Only when that happens are both justice and mercy satisfied. The sacrificial laws of Leviticus begin to show us how that can happen.

There are particular words associated with this process which occur many times. ‘Atonement’ and ‘blood’ are frequently mentioned, because in the blood is the life. If a person’s blood is taken away, their life is taken away. ‘Offerings’ are also frequently mentioned. The burnt offering speaks of the total surrender that is needed. The meal offering speaks of our service. The peace offering tells us of the serenity we can have with God. These are the three things that should characterize a grateful life, a life that has been saved.

Yet we note too God’s side of the equation, his sacrifice. The only sacrifices we now have to bring to the Lord are the sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving, and these should be properly prepared and brought before him. But the sacrifices in Leviticus also speak of the sacrifice that Jesus made. The sin offering tells us about the substitution of an innocent life for the guilty, and the trespass offering brings home to us that this sacrifice satisfies divine justice, that there is some law that is being met by it. It all looks straight forward to the New Testament.

4. GODLINESS OF LIFE

Leviticus tells us to be holy in every part of our lives, even down to our toilet arrangements! Holiness is wholeness, which is why we can read of the incredible detail God goes into as he applies his holiness to every part of his people’s lives. It tells you that a godly life is godly through and through or it is not godly at all.

It is important to note, however, that there are two major shifts between the holiness of the Old Covenant and the holiness of the New. In Leviticus there is the triple division between holy, clean and unclean. This still applies in the New Testament, but there are two major alterations to it.

First, holiness is moved from material things to moral things. The children of Israel were children and they had to be taught as children. They had to learn the difference between clean and unclean in matters of food, for example. Christians have no such rules, however. It took a vision to teach this to the apostle Peter. Jesus said that it is not what goes into your mouth that makes you unclean now, but what comes out of your mouth. Being clean or unclean is no longer a matter of clothes and food, but of clean and unclean morality. It has shifted from the material to the moral. Now we do not have all those regulations about clothes and food, but we do have a lot of teaching about how to be holy in moral questions.

Second, the rewards and punishments are shifted from this life to the next. In this world holy people may well suffer and not be rewarded, but the shift has happened because in the New Testament we have a longer-term view. This life is not the only one there is – it is only the preparation for a much longer existence elsewhere. So in the New Testament we read ‘great is your reward in heaven’, not on earth.

Given these two major shifts, Leviticus is a most profitable book for Christians to read. Above all, it gives us insight into those four vital things: the holiness of God, the sinfulness of man, the fullness of Christ, and godliness of life.

Week 30: Leviticus Part 4

February 1, 2010

(from Unlocking the Bible by David Pawson)

Rules for living

Clean and unclean

A crucial area to understand in Leviticus concerns the distinctions between holy and common, clean and unclean. Most people think in terms of good and bad, but the Bible works with three categories, as the chart shows.*

There are two processes going on. The first process is when sacred, godly, holy things are profaned and become common. You can spoil a holy thing by making it common. When the Bible Society sent Bibles to Romania, the communist government allowed the pages to be used in toilet rolls. It sparked a revolution started by Christians who were scandalized by this action. What had happened in that situation according to the teaching of Leviticus? In using the Bible for such a mundane though necessary purpose, a holy thing had been made common. The second process is when a common, clean thing is made unclean and sinful.

The three words sacred, secular and sinful correspond roughly to these divisions of holy, clean and common, and unclean. Just as there is a process of profaning the holy to make it common, and polluting the common and clean to make it unclean, so there is a process of redeeming this situation. You can cleanse the unclean and make it clean, then you can consecrate it and it becomes holy.

What is holy and what is unclean must never come into contact. They must be kept rigidly apart. Things holy and things unclean have nothing in common. If there is a mixture of unclean and clean it will make both unclean. Similarly, if you mix holy and common things, that makes them all common – it does not make them all holy.

Hence the downward process shown on the chart leads to death, quite literally, whereas the upward process leads to life – but this involves sacrifice. Only by sacrifice can you cleanse what is unclean and bring it to life.

This has ramifications for our view of life. According to the Bible our work can be consecrated to God. Work can be any of these three things, holy, clean or unclean. There are some jobs that are illegal and immoral, which are therefore unclean. A Christian should not be in them. There are other jobs that are clean, but common. But you can consecrate your work and do it for the Lord, and then it ceases to be common – it becomes a holy vocation in the Lord. So it is possible for a printer to be doing holy work, just as it is possible for a missionary to do only common work. Your money can be unclean if it is spent on bad things, clean if it is spent on good things, or holy if it is consecrated to the Lord. Sex, too, can be any one of these three things.

Plenty of people are living decent, common, clean lives, but they are not holy people. God does not want us just to be living good lives: he wants us to be living holy lives. This is the emphasis in Leviticus.

Those outside the Church may claim that they can live lives as good as the lives of those within it, but they are not the holy people God is looking for.

Holy living

Living holy lives involves all kinds of very practical things.

• The health of the body is just as important to holiness as the health of the spirit. What we do with our bodies does matter if we want to be holy to the Lord. Leviticus has instructions about haircuts, tattoos and men wearing earrings, as well as regulations on male and female bodily discharges and childbirth.
• There are a lot of regulations concerning food here, clean and unclean food especially.
• There is teaching in Leviticus about not getting involved in occultism or with spiritualist mediums.
• Instructions are given on the action to be taken when there is dry rot in the house. The house is to be torn down in love for your neighbor.
• There is teaching concerning clothing. There is to be no mixed material.
• Social life
• Sex

is also dealt with. Leviticus has things to say on incest, buggery and homosexuality. is covered: holiness means paying special attention to the poor, the deaf, the blind, and the aged. If you are a holy youth you will stand up when an older person comes into the room.

If you ask what is a holy life, Leviticus says it is how you live from Monday to Saturday and not just what you do on Sunday. God is looking not just for clean people, but for holy people. That is a big difference and until you become a Christian you never even think of becoming holy; you just think of being good – and that is not good enough.

Rules and regulations

We need to be clear about our understanding of the law of Moses. It is called the ‘law’, not the ‘laws’, because it all hangs together. Holiness means wholeness, and all these rules and regulations fit together and form one whole. If you break any of them you have broken them all. (In the chapter on Exodus I likened the breaking of one of the Commandments to breaking a necklace, which causes all the beads to scatter.) This fact cuts across most people’s view of the Ten Commandments. It is generally thought that if we can keep a high percentage of the laws we are doing well! This is not enough.

REASONS

God did not give reasons for all his rules. He did not tell us why we should not wear clothing of mixed materials, for example, or why we should not crossbreed animals or sow mixed seed. We can perhaps see a reason, however, in the fact that God is a God of purity – so he does not like mixed material for clothes, or mixed seed or mixed breeding. Although he does not always give the reasons for a prohibition, in some cases we can make an informed guess. The reason in some cases is undoubtedly hygiene. Some of the regulations about toilets are obvious, for example: there are hygienic reasons behind what God told them to do. Also it may be that some of the food forbidden as ‘unclean’ was also prohibited because of health concerns. Pig’s flesh, for instance, was peculiarly liable to disease in that climate.

Where there are no reasons given, the people were simply to obey because they trusted that the law-giver knew why he had commanded it. In the same way, there are times in the family home when children need to be told that they are to do something ‘because Daddy says so’. Sometimes to give the reason would be inappropriate, or it would be impossible to explain.

With many of the laws God is saying: Do you trust me? Do you believe that if I tell you not to do something I have a very good reason for that?

Too often we are only prepared to do something after we are convinced that it is for our good. We want to be God. Just like Adam and Eve, who took the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, we want to decide, to experience and to settle it for ourselves. But God has no obligation to explain himself to us.

WEEKLY HOLY DAY

In addition to the annual festivals, there was also to be a weekly rest, a particular blessing for people who had been slaves in Egypt. There is no trace of the Sabbath in the Bible before Moses. Both Adam and Abraham, for example, had no Sabbath day: they worked seven days a week. Moses introduced this weekly day of rest. It was not to be a holiday or a family day but a day for God, a holy day, and this was part of their calendar.

Sanctions

God may not give reasons, but he does give sanctions. There is a call for obedience, but the cost of disobedience is also spelled out. And the punishments are pretty severe. In Leviticus 26, therefore, a whole collection of positive reasons for being obedient is laid out, but by the same token there is also a curse on those who disobey. If a Jew reads the book of Leviticus, he finds that a number of things could happen if he disobeys God’s law.

He could lose his home, he could lose his citizenship and he could lose his life. There are 15 sins mentioned in Leviticus for which capital punishment is the consequence. Maybe now we can see why understanding this book was so critical – it is literally a matter of life and death.

Furthermore, Leviticus makes clear that the nation as a whole can lose two things. They could lose their freedom, being invaded by enemies from outside (we see this in the book of Judges). Or they could lose their land, being driven out and made slaves somewhere else. In time, both these things happened to the nation of Israel. These were not empty promises and threats. There are rewards for trusting and obeying God, but there are also punishments for those who distrust and disobey him.

HAPPINESS AND HOLINESS

What God is actually saying through this combination of rewards and punishments is that the only way to be really happy is to be really holy. Happiness and holiness belong together and the lack of holiness brings unhappiness. Most people get it the wrong way round. God’s will for us is that we be holy in this world and happy in the next, but many want to be happy in this world and holy later.

God is willing to let things happen to us which may be painful, but which will make us more holy as a result. Our character tends to make more progress in the tough times than the good.

Week 29: Leviticus Part 3

January 25, 2010

Week 28: Leviticus Part 2

January 18, 2010

(from Unlocking the Bible by David Pawson)

Relation to Exodus

Having looked at Leviticus in the context of the Pentateuch, we should also relate it back to Exodus. It is very important to recognize how each book grows out of the previous book if we wish to understand it fully. In the second half of Exodus the tabernacle is built, God’s tent in which he lives among his people. If you imagine the camp in Exodus, God’s tent would be in the middle and hundreds of other tents all around it – the divine tent and the human tents together. Leviticus is about everything that goes on in God’s tent and everything that should go on in the people’s tents. So it divides into two halves: God’s tent and the people’s tents, with the rules and regulations for both.

Furthermore, when dealing with the tabernacle, Exodus talks about God’s approach to man, but Leviticus talks about man’s approach to God. Exodus is about the deliverance that God brought to his people, but Leviticus is about the dedication of God’s people to him. Exodus is about God’s grace in setting the people free, but Leviticus begins with thank offerings, explaining how the people can show their gratitude to God for being set free.

We need both books and their complementary messages. This book may not be as exciting as Exodus, but it shows that God expects something from us in return for what he has done for us. Once again we are reminded that we are saved in order to serve. Exodus shows how God saved his people, but Leviticus explains how they are to serve him.

‘Be holy’

When we read the Old Testament it can be helpful to imagine that we are Jewish. For a Jewish person the reason for reading Leviticus is clear: it is quite literally a matter of life and death. To the Jews there is only one God and that is the God of Israel. All other so-called gods are figments of human imagination. It was the same for the Israelites in Exodus and Leviticus. Since there was only one God and they were his only people on earth, there was a special relationship between them. On God’s side he promised to do many things for them: to be their government; to be their minister of defense and protect them; to be their minister of finance, so there would be no poor among them; to be their minister of health, so that none of the diseases of Egypt would touch them. God would be everything they needed, their King. In return he expected them to live right and to do things right. The biblical word is ‘righteous’ – ‘righteousness’ means living right. The key text in the whole of Leviticus is one that is frequently alluded to in the New Testament: ‘Be holy for I am holy’.

God expects the people he liberates to be like him and not like those around them. Many of the things which seem puzzling in Leviticus are explained by this fact. It is the key that unlocks the whole book. When God tells them that they must not do something, it is because the people around them are doing it but they are to be different, to be holy because he is holy. If God saves you he expects you to be like him; he expects you to live his way and to be holy as he is holy.

The shape of the book

We have noted already that the book is in two halves. It builds up to a climax and then flows out from the climax. It is also like a multi-layered sandwich. The chart shows that the first section corresponds to the sixth, the second to the fifth, and the third to the fourth, leaving one right in the middle. There are clear correspondences between these sections, beautifully put together and worked out.

Remember that God is responsible for this pattern, not Moses. In fact, there are more words of God in the book of Leviticus than in any other book in the Bible! About 90 per cent of Leviticus is the direct speech of God – ‘The LORD said to Moses…’ There is no other book in the Bible that has so much of God’s direct speech, so if you want to read God’s Word this is a good book to start with. You will be reading the actual words of God.

The offerings and sacrifices of the first seven chapters are backed up by the sanctions and vows of the people in the last section. The details about the priesthood correspond to the details about the worship that they are to lead.

The climax of the book is the Day of Atonement, the day on which two animals were used to symbolize the sins of the people. They sacrificed one animal, a sheep, inside the camp. One after another they then laid their hands on the other animal, a goat, and confessed their sins. They pushed the goat out of the camp into the wilderness, where it would die with all their sins loaded on it. It was called the ‘scapegoat’, a word we still have in common use today.

The two sections of the book pivot around the Day of Atonement. The first half describes our way to God – what we call justification – and the second half describes our walk with God – what is known as sanctification.

Offerings and worship

Let us look first at the opening seven chapters, which deal with the rules for offerings. There are five offerings, of two different types.

Gratitude offerings

The first three offerings were the right way to say ‘thank you’ to God for blessing. They were not offerings for sin but offerings of gratitude. If we feel grateful to God he wants us to say ‘thank you’.

For the burnt offering, an animal was brought, slaughtered and then burnt so that God could smell it. The sacrifice was said to be a sweet-smelling savor to him.

In a burnt offering the whole thing was burnt, but for a meal offering some was kept back so that the worshipper could have a meal with God. Part of the offering would be given to God and part would be eaten by the person making the offering.

The third gratitude offering was a peace offering, in which all the fat was burned.

Guilt offerings

The other two offerings were not to express gratitude but to deal with guilt. There was the sin offering and the trespass offering and these did two things.

First, they made atonement for sin. They offered God compensation for what the person had done wrong. The word ‘atonement’ does not mean ‘at-one-ment’ – that is a modern idea. It actually means ‘compensation’, so if you atone for something, you offer something as compensation. Both the sin offering and trespass offering are compensation offerings to God involving blood: as a compensation for the bad life the offerer has lived, they offer to God a good life that has not sinned.

Second, they only work for unintentional sins; they do not work for deliberate sins. In other words, nobody is perfect, we all make mistakes, we all fall into sin unintentionally. Even though we do not intend to do wrong, we do it. God provided offerings for unintentional sin, but there is no offering on this list for deliberate sin.

This is an important point which is picked up in the New Testament. The New Testament distinguishes between accidental and deliberate, wilful sin in Christians. Like the Old Testament, it says that if we deliberately sin after being forgiven, there is no more sacrifice for sin. Deliberate sin in those who have been forgiven is very serious, which is why Jesus said to the woman caught in adultery, ‘Go and sin no more’. For accidental sin, however, there is full provision, because God knows we are weak, knows we fall, and knows we do not always intend to do what we do. As Paul says in Romans: ‘The evil I would not, that I do.’ This distinction between deliberate sin and accidental sin in God’s people runs right through the New Testament as it does through the Old.

Week 27: Leviticus Part 1

January 11, 2010

(from Unlocking the Bible by David Pawson)

Introduction

Many people who resolve to read the Bible all the way through get stuck in Leviticus. It is easy to understand why. It is a very difficult book to read, for three main reasons.

The first is that it is quite simply a boring book – it is like trying to read the telephone directory. It is so different in content from other books of the Bible, especially the first two, which are full of stories. In these books there is a plot, there is drama, things are moving. When you get into Leviticus there is hardly any narrative at all and, since many regard the Bible as a collection of stories, it is a great disappointment to arrive at a book which has no stories of any kind.

The second reason is that it is so unfamiliar. It is from a different culture as well as having a different content. We are moving away from our present situation by 3,000 years and 2,000 miles. It is a totally different world and we read about things that we find very strange. For example, consider the way they deal with infectious disease in Leviticus. The poor person has to tear their clothes, let their hair grow long and unbrushed, cover the lower part of their face and go around shouting, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ In our society we deal with infectious diseases rather differently! It also includes other weird activities – we do not arrive at church today carrying a little lamb or a pigeon to give to the pastor, who then slits its throat in front of the whole congregation.

The third reason is that it seems to be so irrelevant. What has Leviticus got to say to me living today? At work on a Monday? Deep down we know instinctively that we are not under the law of Moses and, since this book is part of his law, we are not sure what – if anything – it has to do with us.

Context

Let us therefore consider the book with a view to overturning some of the misgivings we may have. Leviticus is one of five books that together make up what is called the Pentateuch (penta meaning ‘five’). These comprise the law of Moses. The Jews call it the Torah, the ‘Books of Instruction’, and they read it through once a year. They start on the eighth day of the Feast of Tabernacles, sometime in September/October, and beginning with Genesis 1, they read it through the year to finish at the next Feast of Tabernacles the following autumn.

The interesting thing about the five books of Moses is that they have a distinctive and memorable shape. Noting this will help us put Leviticus in context. The diagram will make this clear.

ITS PLACE IN THE PENTATEUCH

Genesis is the book of beginnings: it is what the word ‘genesis’ means and it tells you how everything began, from the creation of our universe to Israel becoming the people of God. Exodus focuses on the Israelites going out from Egypt. Leviticus derives its name from the tribe of Levites, one of the tribes of Israel. The book of Numbers is precisely what it says: a book of statistics (600,000 men came out of Egypt, plus women and children, probably 2.5 million in all). Finally, Deuteronomy (deutero means ‘second’ and nomus means ‘law’) focuses on the second giving of the law (God gave his law twice, once at Sinai and once just before they crossed the Jordan into the Promised Land, so the Ten Commandments come twice – once in Exodus and once in Deuteronomy as a kind of reminder of the law just before they entered the Promised Land).

When we ask who these books are about, we begin to see the shape emerging. Genesis is a universal book – it is about everybody, the human race and the whole universe. Exodus is a national book – it zooms down on one people, the nation of Israel. In Leviticus the focus is even more narrow, on only one tribe out of the whole nation. Once past Leviticus, the focus opens out again and Numbers is about the whole nation once more. Deuteronomy puts Israel against the backcloth of the entire world and we are back to the universal viewpoint.

This shape helps to explain why so many people get stuck in Leviticus. While they are interested in universal things and even national things, they are less concerned when the focus is upon a particular tribe, other than their own.

ITS PLACE IN GEOGRAPHY

Genesis begins with the whole earth, then starts to focus in on the area of the Chaldees where Abraham lived, then on the land of Canaan to which he travelled, and then on Egypt where his descendants ended up. In the land of Egypt they became slaves for 400 years. In Leviticus the focus is once again very narrow, concentrating on just one place: Mount Sinai, where the law and regulations were given. The focus then expands with the journeys through the Negev, Edom and Moab, back into Canaan.

ITS PLACE IN TIME

Genesis covers centuries, all the past history of our earth. Exodus covers years, about 300. Leviticus only covers one month, while Numbers covers 40 years and Deuteronomy looks forward through the centuries to the future history of Israel. Once again we can see the shape of the five books of Moses. Leviticus is the hinge of the whole thing, focusing down to the most important month at the most important place with the most important tribe. The whole of the law of Moses hangs on this.

When the Jews read through the Pentateuch every 12 months, they spend about a fortnight to three weeks reading Leviticus.

Week 26: Exodus Part 7

December 28, 2009

Christian use of the Book of Exodus

The story of Exodus is compelling and the details of the Israelites’ worship fascinating, but we must ask this: How should Christians read it today?

The first thing to say is that God has not changed. He deals with Christians in the same way as he did with the children of Israel. That is why so many of the words in Exodus are used again in the New Testament – words such as law, covenant, blood, lamb, Passover, Exodus, leaven. They are used in the New Testament but derive their meaning from the book of Exodus.

At the same time there are some significant differences. We are not now under the law of Moses but under the law of Christ. As we shall see, in some ways this makes things harder and in other ways it makes them easier. The tabernacle is no longer necessary, for we know that Christ has provided direct access into the holy of holies. Neither are we dependent on God’s provision of food and water from the sky and the rock. There are two essential ways in which Christians need to apply Exodus today.

Christ

Christians are to seek Christ in the book of Exodus. Jesus said, ‘Search the Scriptures, for they bear witness to me.’ The Exodus is central to the Old Testament, and all the books which follow look back to it as the redemption on which everything else is based. In the same way the cross is central to the New Testament.

This is not a fanciful connection. Six months before Jesus died on the cross he was 4,000 feet high on top of Mount Hermon in the north of Israel, talking with Moses and Elijah. Luke’s Gospel tells us that they talked about ‘the exodus’ which Jesus was about to accomplish in Jerusalem.

What is more, Jesus died at 3.00 p.m., the very time when thousands of Passover lambs were being slaughtered. So Christ is called ‘our Passover lamb’, the one who has been sacrificed for us so that the angel of death would pass over those who trust in him. He rose from the dead on the third day and his resurrection liberates us from death, just as the Hebrews were liberated from slavery on the third day after the Passover.

There are other links, too. We read in John’s Gospel that Jesus is the bread from heaven. Paul says that Jesus is the rock from which Moses drew the water for the children of Israel. John also says in his Gospel that ‘the word became flesh and “tabernacled among us”’. He literally pitched his tent, God in Christ dwelling in the midst of his people.

With all this in mind, we can understand Christ’s words in Matthew: ‘I did not come to destroy the law but to fulfil it’. In short, we cannot understand the New Testament without the Old.

Christians

The book of Exodus can also be applied to Christians. Paul, reflecting on some of the events in Exodus, writes to the church at Corinth: ‘These things occurred as examples, to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things, as they did.’

The crossing of the Red Sea prefigures baptism. Paul says the children of Israel were baptized into Moses in the Red Sea and his readers had been baptized into Christ.

Christians also have a Passover meal regularly, for the Lord’s Supper is a Passover meal, commemorating the liberation of Christ.

Paul speaks of keeping the feast and getting rid of the yeast or leaven because Christ the Passover lamb has been sacrificed. This seems a strange exhortation until we consider the context. He was writing to a church about the immoral behavior of a believer who was sleeping with his stepmother. In this context the yeast stood for the evil that was taking place which needed to be got rid of if they were truly to ‘keep the feast’. The Exodus account sees things in a material way, while the New Testament sees them in a moral context.

Many become especially concerned about how Christians should treat the laws given to Moses. It is true that we do not need to keep the law, but in many ways the ‘Law of Christ’ is much harder than the ‘law of Moses’. The law of Moses says ‘do not kill anybody’, and ‘do not commit adultery’. Many people are clear at that level, but the Law of Christ says ‘do not even think about it’. It is much harder to keep the Law of Christ than the law of Moses.

On the other hand, it is much easier in some ways because now we do not need a great number of priests, rituals and special buildings. The apostle John wrote, ‘For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.’ Whenever we pray we can enter the holiest place of all unhindered in the name of Jesus.

There is a big difference, too, between the New Covenant and the Old. Under the law given at Pentecost 3,000 died, but with the Spirit given at Pentecost 3,000 lived. I would rather have the Spirit who writes the law on the heart than the old law.

The theme of glory also has a new meaning for Christians. Paul compares the fading glory of Moses with the Spirit’s work in the New Covenant. Christians can know the same glory that Moses knew when he came down from the mountain. This glory, however, is not connected with altars, incense and robes but with the Spirit who indwells the believer. This glory increases day by day.

Finally, we must note the way in which the tabernacle speaks so powerfully of how we approach God today. We come first through sacrifice (the altar), justified through Christ, then we need cleansing by the Spirit (the laver). The colors of the tabernacle are significant: purple speaking of royalty, blue of heaven and white of purity. Today we have a High Priest who represents us before God, but one who needs no sacrifice for his own sins. He made the once-and-for-all sacrifice to which all the sacrifices under the Old Covenant point.

There is still to come a future deliverance for Christians equivalent to the Exodus. In Revelation we find that over half the plagues of Pharaoh are going to happen all over again. There is an astonishing correlation between the plagues at the end of history and the plagues which were visited on Pharaoh. Those who remain faithful to Jesus will come through these and be victorious. Chapter 15 of the book of Revelation says that the martyrs, and those who have overcome all the pressures of persecution outside and temptation inside, will sing the song of Moses. In Exodus 15 we have the first song recorded in the Bible, a song composed by Miriam to celebrate the drowning of the Egyptians in the Red Sea. This song will be sung when all this world’s troubles are over and we are safe in glory. We will have a double exodus to celebrate – the Exodus from Egypt and the exodus of the cross.

Week 25: Exodus Part 6

December 21, 2009

8. Specification and specialists

SPECIFICATIONS

Next we come to the extraordinary fact that God wanted to live with Israel. He had already made his holiness very clear. When the law was given on Mount Sinai, God wanted the Israelites to be sure what his holiness meant. God said that no one could touch his holy mountain and live. Moses erected a fence around the bottom. The giving of the law was accompanied by thunder, lightning and fire, indicating God’s power and separateness from man.

But having emphasized his separateness, God then tells Moses that he wants to come down and live in the camp with them. Wherever they camp he wants to be there at the heart of his people. It will be in a tent in the middle of the camp and it must be a tent which communicates his holiness, so that the people will worship him respectfully.

This tent was called the ‘tabernacle’ and Exodus gives us the building specifications which God laid down, in the laws concerning the religious life of Israel (Chapters 25–31). Everything about the tabernacle was to speak of God and the right approach to him. It was to be located in the center of the camp, with the 12 tribes arranged in sequence around it.

SPECIALISTS

To use it

Most importantly, the tabernacle was not readily accessible, despite being in the middle of the camp. To begin with there was a fence 100 cubits by 25, high enough to prevent an outsider looking in. The fence had just one opening situated opposite the tribe of Judah. Inside the fence was a courtyard with an altar and a laver.

The first approach to God, therefore, would be through sacrifice: the animal would be slaughtered and then burnt on the altar in offering to the Lord. Then the worshipper would cleanse his hands in the copper laver between the altar and the holy place. Only then could God’s tent be approached. The tent had two sections, the place where God actually lived being a smaller part of the larger tent, a place shut off from human view and visited just once a year by the High Priest.

The larger part was 10 yards by 20 yards and was known as the holy place. Only priests were allowed to enter and then only if they had sacrificed an animal and cleansed their hands in the laver. It had three pieces of furniture. There was a table with shewbread, 12 loaves representing the 12 tribes of Israel. There was also a seven-branch candlestick lit by holy oil burning continually, and another altar for sacrifice next to a veil.

The veil hid an area 10 yards by 10 yards, the holy of holies: the place where God dwelt. In the holy of holies was a chest and above the chest were two cherubim. In the Bible, cherubim are always angels of judgement. Here they are described as looking downwards to the golden top of the mercy seat. Once a year the High Priest would enter the holy of holies and sacrifice a one year- old, spotless ram as atonement for the people. Also located in the holy of holies was the ark of the covenant, containing some manna and the books of the law. There was no natural light within the holy of holies, yet it was always radiantly bright. God dwelt there and his glory lit the place.

The beauty of the tabernacle must have been breathtaking, but most of it was hidden. There were beautifully embroidered curtains and coverings, but all were covered with a badger’s skin, hiding the beauty from the people. Inside were golden pieces of furniture and curtains embroidered in blue (the color of heaven), red (the color of blood), silver and gold.

The whole structure indicated that if you wished to come to God you must make a sacrifice first in order to be clean. God said that this was a copy of where he lived in heaven.

Even when this tent was dismantled and moved, all the elements were kept covered up. The tent had to be carried by specified people and the ‘ordinary’ people had to keep a thousand paces away from it until it was erected again.

The holiness of God is also emphasized in the clothes of the priests. The High Priest was given specific instructions regarding what he was to wear. He wore 12 jewels on his chest representing the 12 tribes of Israel. These jewels are mentioned again on the last page of the Bible, which describes the New Jerusalem. The High Priest also wore a special girdle, turban, robe, ephod and coat.

The ordinary priests also had ‘robes of office’, but their requirements included only special coats, girdles, caps and breeches. We can discern in these different robes a picture of the one to come who would be the High Priest for ever on behalf of his people.

To build it

Up to that point, the people’s skills consisted only of constructing and transporting bricks, so the task of building such an elaborate tent would normally have been beyond them. We are told that Bezalel, Oholiab and others were given particular gifts by God to accomplish the building. This is the first mention of ‘spiritual gifts’ in the Bible, and it is interesting that it should be in association with manual tasks such as these.

9. Indulgence and intercession

INDULGENCE

Moses was on Mount Sinai for a long time receiving the law. Not knowing what had happened to him, the people asked Aaron if they could worship a ‘god’ they could see. So with Aaron’s help they melted down their gold to make a bull calf they could worship. The choice of animal was significant. As we have already noted, these animals were one of many idols used by the Egyptians. Bulls and calves were symbols of fertility and have been used as such down through history. It is a clear principle of Scripture that idolatry leads to immorality: loss of respect for God leads to loss of respect for people. A wild orgy followed. When Moses came down and saw what was going on, he smashed both copies of the law. He was symbolizing what the people had already done by their behavior.

INTERCESSION

Moses went back up the mountain and told God that he was fed up with the people, only to find that God was feeling just the same. We reach a key moment in the history of Israel and a pivotal moment in Moses’ leadership. Moses told God that if he was going to blot Israel out of his book, he should be blotted out too, as he did not want to be the only one left. He was effectively saying, ‘Take my life in atonement for them.’ God explained that he only blots out of his book the names of those who have sinned against him, a theme picked up at various points throughout the Bible. The most important thing in life is to keep your name in the Book of Life. God said to Moses, ‘I blot out of my book those who sin against me.’

Moses insisted that the people were punished and God told him to deal with the ringleaders. Three thousand died. This precise figure may mean little to us, but the details of the Exodus narrative have some amazing correspondences with events in the New Testament. The law was given on Sinai on the fiftieth day after the Passover lamb was killed. The lamb was killed at 3.00 p.m. and on the third day after that the slaves were liberated. On the fiftieth day after the Passover the law was given, a day the Jews then called Pentecost. Three thousand people died because they broke the law. It was on that same fiftieth day centuries later, when the Jews were celebrating the giving of the law, that God gave his Spirit – and this time 3,000 people were saved (see Acts 2).

10. Construction and consecration

Where did the Israelites get all the materials they needed to build the tabernacle? At least one ton of gold was needed, not to mention the cloth, linen, jewels, copper and wood. There was an average gift of a fifth of an ounce of gold from each man.

God had told Abraham many centuries before that not only would his descendants be in slavery, but when they left the land of their captivity he would bring them out with great possessions. The materials for the tabernacle and the priests’ garments actually came from the Egyptians, who were so glad to see the back of the Israelites that they gave them all their jewelry. This tells us how they came to have the materials. They came to be used in the tabernacle because the people gave them, donated them for use in this way. Four words describe the nature of their giving: it was spontaneous, thoughtful, regular and sacrificial. This was not an enforced collection with penalties for those who did not give, but was purely down to the free decision of the people (‘Everyone who is willing…’).

At the end of Exodus we are told how God took up residence and consecrated the tent. The people saw his glory arrive and they saw the plume of smoke or cloud above the inner room. The inner room became filled with light as the glory of the Lord came into it. God was camping with his people. Thereafter, when they saw the cloud and the light move they knew it was time to move on.

Week 24: Exodus Part 5

December 14, 2009

Chapters 19–40

After the narrative of the escape from Egypt, the second part of Exodus turns more towards legislation, the commandments God gave his people, telling them how they were to live, and the covenant he made with them.

7. Commandments and covenant

There are three ‘legal’ collections in the second half of Exodus. The best known is the ‘Ten Commandments’ (or decalogue, which means ‘10 words’), written with God’s finger on two tablets of stone. (Most modern pictures of the event depict Moses returning from Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments split between the two tablets, five on one and five on the other, but actually all 10 were on each stone.) This was a legal contract, in keeping with similar treaties agreed at that time. A conquering king might make a treaty with a vanquished nation, for example. Each party would have a copy. In the case of the Ten Commandments, one copy was God’s and one copy was the people’s. This treaty was special, however, known in the Bible as a ‘covenant’. A covenant was not a bargain between two parties but a contract written by God which could be either accepted or rejected by the people.

The Ten Commandments formed the first legal collection and this was followed by what is known as the ‘Book of the Covenant’, which can be found in Exodus 20:23–23:33. This deals with laws relating to community life. The third collection is the book of laws in Chapters 25–31, which center on the worshipping life of Israel and are concerned with the place of worship and those conducting worship. Overlap and expansion of these laws is found in Deuteronomy. Thus there are not just Ten Commandments, but a total of 613 rules and regulations about the way to live right before God.

It is crucial to underline the importance of the context of the laws in Exodus. The Ten Commandments and the Book of the Covenant are sandwiched between two links which refer to the past and the future.

1. In 20:2 God says, ‘I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.’

2. In 23:20–33 God assures the people of his presence in the future and of the provision of land, providing they keep to his ways.

The first text refers back to Egypt and the second passage focuses on entering Canaan in the future. The context tells us that these laws from God are for people who have experienced his past and are expecting his future and who will therefore be able to live in his present.

King Alfred based the British legal system on the Ten Commandments, but it is hard to see how people can understand them if they have not experienced redemption. They must be seen in the proper context.

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

A closer look at the Ten Commandments and the accompanying legislation reveals three basic principles which are enshrined there. First is the principle of respect. All the Ten Commandments are based on this – respect for God, respect for his name, respect for his day, respect for people, respect for family life, respect for life itself, respect for marriage, respect for people’s property, respect for people’s reputation.

The message is clear: a healthy, holy society is built on respect. So much of society today, especially the mass media, sets out to destroy respect. Television comedy often encourages an irreverent view of life so that nothing is regarded as sacred. Everything and everyone is a potential figure of fun. But it is clear that the loss of respect for God leads to idolatry, and the loss of respect for people leads to immorality and injustice.

Most of the Ten Commandments are about acts or words, but the last of the ten is about feelings – it is the only one about the heart. Perhaps this is why the apostle Paul said in Romans 7 that he had kept the first nine but he could not manage the tenth, the commandment about greed. For when we desire something we do not have, our problem is with our inner life. If you break one law you have broken them all. They all belong together like a necklace, and if you break a necklace just once the beads are all lost. In reality there are not ten separate commandments. They are all one law.

The second principle is responsibility. Increasingly we are taught that we are not responsible for our actions, even down to the claim that wickedness is due to genetics! We know that original sin is transferred through the genes, but the idea that some people are more wicked than others because they have a wrong gene leads to the view that people are not responsible for what they do. Exodus stands directly opposed to that view. The Lord God says we are responsible before him for how we live with regard to his law.

The third principle is retribution. There are three reasons for punishment under the law. The first is reformation: punishment is intended to make the wrongdoer better. The second is deterrence: the idea being that observing others being punished works as a warning to other would-be malefactors. The third is retribution: the punishment occurs simply because the person deserves it, with no necessary concern for whether others heed the warning or the guilty party learns from his errors. This third principle of retribution is enshrined in the Exodus laws.

Capital punishment is applied to 18 different sins against God, from murder to breaking the Sabbath. These also include kidnapping, cursing or assaulting parents, and occasions when a person’s uncontrolled animal causes death.

There is a very careful distinction in God’s law between intentional and accidental death. There are two sorts of killing: intentional murder and accidental manslaughter. One carries the death penalty, the other a less severe punishment. In every case we are told that there is no sacrifice in the Mosaic law for continued deliberate, intentional sin. Indeed, if you read Hebrews you will find the same thing being said in the New Testament.

It is worth noting that the denial of personal freedom through imprisonment is not an option under the law. Nowhere in the Bible is this form of punishment argued. There was, however, a clear system of restitution, a system of compensation for those who had been injured. This is the lex talionis, known today by the shorthand expression ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’. If, for example, a pregnant woman is attacked and the baby she carries is born with a deformity resulting from the attack, the guilty party will be handicapped in the same way as the victim. In other cases there was a system of repayment in kind or cash when property was damaged or stolen.

Week 23: Exodus Part 4

December 7, 2009

4. Feast and first-born

The tenth plague was that every first-born boy in every Egyptian family would die. This was the pivotal plague to the whole drama. The tragedy would also happen to the Jews unless they followed God’s instructions. They were to paint the blood of a lamb on their door posts. The angel of death would come to Egypt that night and pass over the houses displaying the mark. For the other households, death would take place at midnight. Interestingly, blood is a scarlet/maroon color, the hardest color to see in the dark.

The blood had additional significance: the Jews were to slaughter a one-year-old ram, fully mature, and after they had put its blood on their door posts they were to take it inside for roasting. So they were both covered by it and fed by it. When we call Jesus the ‘lamb of God’ it can suggest a softer, more docile image than the Bible intends, for he is actually the ‘ram of God’, which gives a more robust picture. The Jews were to eat the meat standing up, dressed and ready to leave at a moment’s notice. They were told to take emergency rations of unleavened bread. They were to leave Egypt that very night.

The Jews continue to keep the feast of the Passover to this day. At a particular moment in the evening, the youngest member of the family has to ask, ‘What does all this mean?’ The oldest member of the family replies, ‘This is what God did on the night when every first-born boy died and we were saved because of the blood of the ram.’ Thus they are reminded that the first-born needs to be redeemed in every generation.

5. Delivered and drowned

There are three possibilities for the route taken by the Israelites when they left Egypt, indicated on the map overleaf.

The first is known as the northern route. This suggests that they went through a row of sandbanks in a shallow part of the Mediterranean. Maps of Egypt show sandbanks marked at a place called Lake Sirbonis. Their route then takes them to Kadesh Barnea. But they could not have been followed by the Egyptian chariots across the sandbanks, so this seems unlikely.

The second theory is that they went straight across through the Mitler Pass to Kadesh. But there was a line of fortresses (where the Suez Canal is today) built across there, against any invasion from the east. So the Israelites would have had to get through that line of fortresses. They were not armed and able to fight, so this route is very unlikely also.

The third possibility was the southern route down to Mount Sinai, where Moses had been a shepherd for 40 years. This is the most likely, for Moses knew this country. The location of Mount Sinai is uncertain, but all the tradition in the Middle East puts Sinai in the south. The Israelites left Goshen and came south. Pharaoh would only let them go into the desert, thinking that he could always bring them back from there. Having camped, they were hidden from the Egyptians by a cloud God had sent.

As regards the actual crossing of the sea, the Bible does not say that God divided the Red Sea, but that he sent an east wind which divided the water. But how could an east wind divide a sea?

If we were to examine the area in detail we would see that years ago the Great Bitter Lakes were actually joined up to what we call the Red Sea (see diagram below). They were joined up by a shallow, marshy channel called the ‘Reed Sea’ and in fact the Hebrew suggests the ‘Reed Sea’ is a more likely name than the ‘Red Sea’. The fortified line came right down to the Bitter Lake.

If this was where the Hebrews crossed, there are two natural forces which could have divided the sea. A strong east wind could drive the water to the west end of the Great Bitter Lake, an ebb tide also pulling it south.

This does not explain the miracle at all. How did the east wind just happen to come at the right time? In looking at it in such a down-to-earth way, we are not trying to explain away the miracle. Rather we are showing that it is a miracle of ‘coincidence’. In fact, the Bible tells us that there is no such thing as ‘coincidence’, but only ‘providence’.

The most striking fact about this crossing of the Red Sea or Reed Sea is that it happened on the third day after the Passover lamb was killed. The Israelites’ liberation came on the third day after the Passover lamb. Furthermore, the book of Exodus tells us the very hour when the Passover lamb had to be slaughtered: 3.00 p.m. On the third day after that the Israelites finally escape. They are free of Pharaoh and will never see him again. We will note later some parallels with events in the New Testament.

6. Provided and protected

The desert region over which the Israelites travelled was unable to support human life. It was not the ideal place to take 2.5 million people plus animals.

There were both external and internal problems for Moses, therefore, the most basic being the physical need for food and water. Every morning God provided food for them. They found it lying on the ground when they awoke. It was known as ‘What is it?’ in Hebrew – Manna. Every day there were 900 tons of it. It was literally bread from heaven, a theme revisited later in the Bible.

Though living comfortably on manna, the Israelites complained that they were not getting any meat. They had been used to a high-protein diet in Egypt. So God sent a flock of quails, so many that they lay 1.5 metres deep on the desert floor. The people ate quails until they were sick of them!

They also had a problem with water. The first oasis they came to was Marah. Although the place provided water, it was undrinkable – until it became fresh through a miracle. The next place, Elim, had fresh water from the start. The quantities required were considerable – at least 2 million gallons a day would be needed for that number of animals and people. Later they would get water from rock reservoirs. Perhaps one of the biggest miracles of their providential journey was that their sandals never wore out. Rocks even today wreck rubber tires on vehicles, yet these sandals lasted 40 years!

Moses also faced internal difficulties. Given the enormous numbers, it is no wonder that one of the biggest problems Moses had was judging disputes between the people. We are told that this could go on all day, to the point where Moses became exhausted. It needed his father-in-law Jethro to suggest a delegation of responsibility, whereby Moses appointed 70 elders to assist in the work.

Next Page »

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Come With Me Through Revelation
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Practicing the Principles of Prayer
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Unlocking the Bible
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Christianity Explained
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When Jesus Returns
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The Normal Christian Birth
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