Holiday Hiatus

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

It's that time of year....

And this year we are doing a fairly large scale production for the holiday at church.

And, well, that means costumes.  Lots of costumes.

So, in the interest of keeping my sanity...and maybe actually getting everything done that has to be done, I'm going to suspend the Desert Digging study until January.

Just don't think I've got the time to put in on it right now...and I want to put time on it, not just check it off the box.

I will drop in as I can!

Blogging Bible Study: Digging in the Desert -- To the Banks of the Jordan

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

Here's where the whole 'Look at desert references' thing starts getting crazy.  The Israelites are no longer wandering about, but moving with a purpose.

The Israelites moved on and camped at Oboth.  Then they set out from Oboth and camped in Iye Abarim, in the desert that faces Moab toward the sunrise.  From there they moved on and camped in the Zered Valley.  They set out from there and camped alongside the Arnon, which is in the desert extending  into Amorite territory.  The Arnon is the border of Moab, between Moab and the Amorites...From there, they continued on to Beer, the well where the LORD said to Moses, "Gather the people together and I will give them water."...Then they went from the desert to Mattanah, from Mattanah to Bamoth, and from Bamoth to the valley in Moab where the top of Pisgah overlooks the waseteland. -- Num. 21:10-13,16, 17b-20

Point to point to point in the desert.  Checking my NIV Bible Atlas, the Arnon dumps into the Dead Sea on the east side, just about in the north-to-south middle.  From Kadesh, they went around the southern edge of Edom's territory and came up the east side of the Dead Sea.

They actually asked the Amorite king, Sihon, for permission to cross his territory on the public highway, promising to stay on the highway and take no provisions or water on their way through. (21:22)

But Sihon would not let Israel pass through his territory.  He mustered his entire army and marched out into the desert against Israel.  When he reached Jahaz, he fought with Israel.  (21:23)

That's actually the last mention of the desert until we get to Chapter 24. I wonder how accustomed to the desert the Amorite army actually was; Israel had been living in the desert for 40 years...it was no hardship for them.  But the Amorites may have suffered from the environment as much as they did the swords and bows of the Israelites...and they were defeated.  Now, this was the entire army of the Amorites; when Israel defeated them, they conquered the Amorites...the whole lot of them...and occupied their cities.  This wasn't the first battle they had fought, but it was the first in which they claimed territory.

Because the Amorite king attacked them in the desert.

Once the king and his army were defeated, there was no one to stop them from occupying the land.  But they were under strict instructions to remove the folks they found living there, lest they intermarry and take on the pagan lifestyle/ beliefs.  Moses sent spies into Jazer and they easily captured the settlements and drove out the Amorites, as instructed.

The same thing happened with Og, the king of Bashan; he attacked the Israelites and was completely defeated, so the Israelites occupied his territory as well.

This kind of sets up the pattern that we saw when we studied Joshua last year; entire armies,sometimes multiple armies,  came against Israel and were defeated, so that the territory became theirs with a single battle. Of course, the people were still there, but the army was decimated and the Israelites became the  military power ruling the area.

Chapter 22:1 relates that the Israelites  then traveled to the plains of  Moab and camped there, on the east side of the Jordan, opposite the city of Jericho.

The rest of Numbers and the entire book of Deuteronomy take place in that location, with the nation poised to enter the Promised Land...which was just on the other side of the river.

The desert had been their hardship for 40 years, but it was also their purging and their preparation. They had lost much, but they had learned much.  It was a different people than they were 40 years earlier, with a different mindset, AND with recent military victories to encourage them.  They were...almost...ready.

But there was one more purge and a change of leadership coming before they could cross that river. 

Blogging Bible Study: Desert Digging -- Final Years of Wandering

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

As I mentioned last week, there really isn't a lot of description of the forty years the Israelites wandered in the desert; Korah's Rebellion happened at some point, and eventually they wandered around to a place with a familiar name...

In the first month, the whole Israelite community arrived at the Desert of Zin, and they stayed at Kadesh.  There Miriam died and was buried.  (Ex. 20:1)

According to the Bible Atlas I have handy, that is indeed the location that is called Kadesh Barnea in other scripture...like Numbers 14.  I don't know how I have missed all these years that Moses' big faux pas also  happened at Kadesh, but, well, there it is.

Now there was no water for the community, and the people gathered in opposition to Moses and Aaron.  They quarreled with Moses and said, "If only we had died when our brothers fell dead before the LORD!  Why did you bring the LORD's community into this desert, that we and our livestock should die here?  Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to this terrible place?  It has no grain or figs, grapevines or pomegranates.  And there is no water to drink!"   (20:2 - 5)

Grumble count: 8

Of course, this is the incident in which Moses lost his temper.  God told him to assemble the people and speak to the rock, and water would come out of it.   But it didn't go down that way.

He and Aaron gathered the assembly together in front of the rock and Moses said to them, "Listen, you rebels, why must we bring you water out of this rock?"  Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff.  Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank.  (20:10-11)

Frankly, I am amazed that Moses had managed to keep his cool this long.  Every time up to this point, when he had been accused, or the people rebelled or complained...he either took it up with God or fell on his face in intercession.   But this time, Moses gave his emotions their freedom, and he resentfully added his own flourish of pounding the rock for emphasis.  God, in his care and mercy, still released the water.  But Moses had committed a grave error. (Hm. Didn't mean that pun, but it works, so....)

Moses and Aaron were now included with the rest of their generation and forbidden to enter the Promised Land.  They got no special allowances.  With that, the Israelites moved again, detouring around Edom because the Edomites refused to grant them passage through their land.  Aaron died on Mount Hor and was succeeded as High Priest by his son Eleazar.  From Mount Hor, they traveled southeast, around Edom, and, well, it happend again.

They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go around Edom.  But the people grew impatient along the way; they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, "Why have you brought us up of of Egypt to die in the desert!  There is no bread! There is  no water!  And we detest this miserable food!"  (21:4-5)

Grumble count: 9

And again, it cost them....

Then the LORD sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. (21:6)

But...as the judgment was falling, the Israelites did something they did NOT do the previous eight times they complained and suffered the consequences.  This time, they confessed their error:

The people came to Moses and said, "We sinned when we spoke against the LORD and against you.  Pray that the LORD will take the snakes away from us."  So Moses prayed for the people.  (V.7)

This was a very interesting response from the people. It was the FIRST time they had owned their complaint as sin...and as we continue to follow them through the desert to the Jordan, you will see that it is the LAST time they complain.

But God, in response to Moses' prayers, instructed Moses to create a bronze serpent, put it on a pole and display it before the people; telling him that anyone who looked at the bronze serpent would live.

Moses did so, and anyone who was bitten by a snake could look at the bronze snake and be healed. (vs. 8 - 9).

But...with their repentance and end to complaining, something else happened.  When they left that place (apparently they took the snake-on-a-pole with them; it turns up again much later in Israel's history), they were no longer wandering...they were moving.  They  began conquering territory.  They were headed for the plains of Moab...on the east side of the Jordan River.  The years in the desert were drawing to a close.

Blogging Bible Study: Desert Digging -- Heading Back to the Desert

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

 

I confess, this week had had me cringing, flinching, procrastinating... But now it's time to take a deap breath and tackle it head on.

The next mention of 'desert'  after the dismal affair at Kadesh is Numbers 15:32:

While the Israelites were in the desert, a man was found gathering wood on the Sabbath day.

We are not given an itemized description of what happened whilst the Israelites wandered about in the desert, shut out of the promise until all the complaining generation had died off, but we do get a couple of significant events.  The lowly fellow breaking the Sabbath led to catastrophic events, which came to be known as Korah's Rebellion.

The fellow who broke the Sabbath was stoned for his audacity...or absent-mindedness.   It was important that the Israelites learn that God was serious about this Sabbath business, but it was also apparent that they weren't used to the boundaries yet.  So God gave Moses instructions to have the Israelites create tassels  on the corners of their garments...tassels with a blue thread.  The idea was to give them a  continual visible reminder that they were holy people, with holy expectations, so they wouldn't fall back into old habits and break the covenant.

Sounds simple enough, right?  

But the tassels caused problems.  

Not going to quote it all here; you can read it in the first part of chapter 16...Korah, some Reubenites, and 250 community leaders  came as a group to Moses and said, "You have gone too far!" (16:3) 

Taking the whole thing in context...their complaint was triggered by Moses reporting the new requirement to put tassels on the clothing.

That was, apparently, something the men of the assembly could not handle.  So they rebelled.

Moses basically told them they would have a meeting before the LORD, who would then demonstrate clearly who had the authority to speak for God, telling the group 

"It against the LORD that you and all your followers have banded together.  Who is Aaron that you should grumble against him?"  (16:11).

Side quest grumble count: 6

Moses summoned the Reubenites who were supporting Korah to the, um, meeting but received the response

"We will not come!  Isn't it enough that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey to kill us in the desert?  And now you also want to lord it over us? Moreover, you  haven't brought us into a land flowing with milk and honey or given us an inheritance of fields and vineyards.  Will you gouge the eyes out of these men? No, we will not come!  (16: 12b - 14).

Adding grumble to grumble...accusation to accusation.

The next morning, as had been determined,  all the leaders accusing Moses and Aaron took their censers of incense and appeared in front of the tent of meeting.  Moses and Aaron fell facedown before God and interceeded for the people once again, and once again God determined the scope of his judgement...

"Say to the assembly,  'Move away from the tents of Korah, Dathan and Abiram.' " (16:24)

It no doubt took some time for everyone to pack up their tents and such and move away from these folks; Korah's tent would have been with the Levites, but Dathan and Abiram's tents were in the camp of the Reubenites.  Nonetheless, eventually all the Israelites had removed all their belongings and families well away from the tents of the three leaders of the rebellion.  Those guys stood at the entrance to their tents with their families...heartbreaking.  

Selah a moment to get a good mental picture of what that looked like....these three guys, with their families, watching everyone pack up and move away from them.

Once everyone was clear, Moses made a declaration to the nation. paraphrased as:

"We are going to see if God sent me and told me to do all these things.  If nothing happens, and all these folks in front of you go on about their business and die of natural causes at a good old age, then I 'm a fake and God never spoke to me.  But if God does something totally new and unexpected...like, say, the ground opens up and swallows them and all that belongs to them and they are all buried alive, then you will know that these men have treated God with contempt."

We pick up the narrative in 16:31:

As soon as he finished saying all this, the ground under them split apart and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them, with all their households and all Korah's men and all their posessions.  They went down alive into the grave, with everything they owned; the earth closed over them , and they perished and were gone from the community."

Selah a moment and get a mental picture of THAT.  

At their cries, all the Israelites around them fled, shouting, 'The earth is going to swallow us, too!'   (16:34)

Are you imagining the chaos and confusion and terror?  Do you see the choking dust? Are you hearing the screams of those that perished and those who thought they would be next?  And yet in the midst of all this, one other stroke of judgement fell...

And fire came out from the LORD and  consumed the 250 men who were offering the incense. (16:35)

Nobody had moved away from them; they were still presumably standing in front of the Tent of Meeting with their censers.

The ashes of those that died and the coals in the censers were scattered, but God declared their censers holy, and they were collected to be hammered out as an overlay for the altar, reminding the Israelites that God had chosen Aaron and his descendants to minister to him.  Every time the sacrifices were made, the people would see the bronze from the censers of the men who paid for their rebellion with their lives.

You would think this would be the end of the issue, with God's chain of command clearly verified before the people.

Nope.

The next day the whole Israelite community grumbled against Moses and Aaron, "You have killed the LORD's people," they said.  (16:41)

Grumble number seven.  On the VERY NEXT DAY.

Verse 42 tells us that the assembly gathered in opposition to Moses and Aaron and turned toward the Tent of Meeting.

The intercession the day before had pivoted on the mercy of God to not destroy the whole nation because a small percentage had rebelled.  But on that day, it was the entire nation rising up against them, despite the clear signs that God was working through them alone.  

This time, Moses and Aaron fell facedown before God's declaration that he would destroy the nation...and the plague started.  Some kind of virulent disease broke out and people began dropping like flies (Cholera? Even that takes a few days.  Whatever this was, it was lethal and it was spreading fast).  Moses told Aaron to put incense in his censer and make atonement for the people.  He did so as quickly as he could, and ran into the the midst of the assembly and made atonement, with his incense and his prayers.

He stood between the living and the dead, and the plague stopped. (16:48)

Numbers 16:49 tells us that Fourteen thousand seven hundred people died in the time it took Aaron to get the coals in his censer and find the leading edge of the plague. Add to that the folks who had died on the previous day and we are pushing 15,000 people who died because they decided being required to put tassels on their clothes was going too far.

Chapter 17 relates the final sign God gave to tell the people that Moses and Aaron were acting on His authority...Aaron's staff budded , blossomed and produced almonds.  The staff was put in front of the Testimony, as a sign, again, to remind people not to grumble.

We have more instructions about offerings and such; the instructions for the water of cleansing, which was to contain the ashes of a perfect red heifer, but no details on their movements through the rest of chapter 19.

This was clearly the biggest challenge to Moses and Aaron to date.  It is, perhaps, understandable if you realize that the Israelites really didn't have a concept of who God was or what his heart was towards his people.  They may very well have assumed it was Moses who brought them to the edge of the Promise, only to wave it in front of them and then deny them access to it.  If they really didn't believe God was with them, if they concocted some kind of narrative that explained everything away without God's intervention, they totally missed the lessons.  They did, as Moses stated, treat God with contempt. Because they didn't really believe.

It was a willful self-deception.  And they paid the price for it.

Self-deception is not excused.  It incurs penalties.  It is one of the things that angers God.

It's also one of humanity's favorite responsibility dodges...we refuse to see, refuse to believe, allow ourselves to be convinced...all to avoid acknowledging our sin.  It makes us feel better but...it doesn't work. All it does is blind us to the truth...to the point that God can be moving right in front of us in ways we can't ignore ( do you suppose those screams haunted dreams for decades?) but we will not see what is really  happening.  

I need a 'tassel' in my life, to remind myself daily that I am not my own, I am bought with a price...and I am to honor God at all times.  Because it's way too easy to fall into doing what makes sense to me.  The 'tassel' is a reminder that what makes sense to me...isn't necessarily what is sensible before God.