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Numbers 8-11



The beginning of Numbers 8 mentions the lamp stand, the seven-branched candlestick called the menorah. The light of the menorah was symbolic of the light of God and the menorah itself became an appropriate symbol of Israel. (The photo above is of a recreation of the menorah from the Temple.)
The rest of Numbers 8 deals with the purification of the Levites. This process involved completely shaving their bodies, which must have really made them stand out as separate and distinct from the rest of the Israelite men since the maintenance of a beard would have been customary for all the other adult males in Israel.
The beginning of chapter nine contains an event that is out of order, something uncommon in the narrative of the Torah. Friedman explains:
The book of Numbers begins with God speaking to Moses in the second month of the year. Now it tells of God speaking to Moses back in the first month of the year. Why? Because it tells of a case in which some people had been unable to observe Passover, which falls in the first month, and so God tells Moses in this flashback that the law in that situation is that they should observe Passover one month later, on the evening of the fourteenth day of the second month. Their observance on that date thus belongs here in the sequence of the narrative. The flashback is placed here to explain it. The point is that the Torah adheres to chronological order in its story, and exceptional breaks in that pattern such as this one occur very rarely and for specific narrative purposes.[1]
Numbers 9:15 introduces an alternative name for the Tent of Meeting, namely the Tent of the Testimony. This phrase may actually refer to the inner pavilion over the Holy of Holies. It is called the Tent of the Testimony because the location is associated with the Testimony, the tablets of the Ten Commandments, in the Ark of the Covenant.
In Numbers 9:17 we read of the Israelites breaking camp and moving whenever the cloud lifted from over the tent and then making camp again whenever the cloud settled down on the tent. This action of the cloud is symbolic of God “tenting” with the Israelites.
This story makes me wonder how sensitive we are to the guidance of the Lord. We may not have a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night to guide us as the Israelites did, but there are many other ways God can guide us: through Scripture, the counsel of wise friends, prayer, reading, circumstances. Are we watching attentively for God to guide us, and do we obey him when he does?
Moses’ words at the end of Numbers 10 are sometimes referred to as poetry. However, it is difficult to come to that conclusion simply based upon a few lines. We will definitely see some short poems in Numbers 21-24. However, it is important to note that biblical poetry seldom rhymes and has no obvious meter. The most common feature of Hebrew poetry is the use of parallelism. For example take Isaiah 1:10….
Hear YHWH’s word, rulers of Sodom.
Listen to our God’s teaching, people of Gomorrah.
At the beginning of chapter 11, we have the first of many accounts in this book of Israel grumbling. Here we are not told why they grumbled. The people were simply negative, volatile, and lacking confidence. This reminds me of what C. S. Lewis says in The Great Divorce about grumblers becoming grumbles in the end, with nothing left but their grumbling. 
Notice that the Israelites appeal to Moses rather than God. They are more comfortable complaining against a human leader, perhaps because they realize how dangerous it might be for them to complain directly to the Lord.
At the same time, in Numbers 11:11, Moses is not afraid to complain to the Lord, “Why have you done bad to your servant?” Friedman calls this the most extraordinary speech of a human to God in the entire Torah. By contrast, Adam and Eve speak to God, after the fall, like children caught doing something naughty. Abraham questions the divine decision to destroy Sodom. Moses pleads for the people after the golden calf incident. However, here Moses speaks in a way we cannot imagine any human being speaking to God up to this point. He ends on a very negative note saying: “And if this is how you treat me, kill me!”
As Friedman points out, this is the opposite of the manner in which an atheist might speak about the gods. Moses speaks this way because he has become intimate with the Almighty. 
Is it not interesting that this generation that was closest to God, that saw his miracles on a daily basis in the desert, was also the most rebellious? I suppose in some ways, the passion of Israel, epitomized by Moses, is better than being lukewarm. As the Lord says in Revelation 3:15-16,
I know your works; you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth.
Perhaps the Lord can work better with the passion of a Moses, or a Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, than he can with the lukewarm nature of some of our prayers.
In Numbers 11, we also read of some of the Israelites prophesying. This does not mean that they were predicting the future. Prophecy sometimes involves foretelling but most often it is simply “forth telling” … telling forth God’s truth, God’s word. 
So how was it obvious that these people were prophesying? Were they in a state of ecstasy, a trance? As Friedman points out, prophesying is not usually pictured that way in the Hebrew Scriptures. However, much prophecy does appear in the form of poetry. So hearing people who do not normally speak in poetic form doing so was probably the sign that they were speaking prophetically.
Do we still have prophets today? If so, can you name one? What do you believe about the continuation of prophecy?


[1] Friedman, Commentary on the Torah, 454

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