Summary: Bible - Book of Numbers

The GIST

Numbers is the fourth book of the Hebrew Bible and of the Torah, and it tells how a journey that should have been short came to last forty years. It opens at Mount Sinai, where the people of Israel have received their law and covenant and where God has taken up residence among them in the sanctuary. The task ahead is simple to state: go and take possession of the land promised to their ancestors. The book ends on the plains of Moab, across the Jordan from Jericho, with that task still ahead and almost everyone who set out from Sinai dead. In between is the wilderness.

The English title translates the Greek Arithmoi and refers to the two censuses that frame the story. The Hebrew title, Bemidbar, is taken from the first verse and means in the wilderness, which captures the setting and the substance far better. Numbers draws together threads that began in Genesis. God promised the patriarchs descendants, a special relationship and a land. Here the descendants are counted, the relationship is tested almost to breaking, and the land is reached, refused, and at last approached again.

What It Says

Most commentators divide the book by place: Sinai, Kadesh-Barnea and the plains of Moab, with two stretches of travel between them.

At Sinai: an army around a sanctuary (chapters 1 to 10). God tells Moses to number every man of twenty years and over who is able to bear arms, and to appoint a prince over each tribe. The count comes to 603,550. The tribe of Levi is left out of the military census because it has another calling. The Levites are consecrated to serve the tabernacle in place of the firstborn sons, who had done so until then, and they are divided into three families, the Gershonites, the Kohathites and the Merarites, each under its own chief. The tribes are arranged in camps under their banners around the tabernacle. One Jewish interpretation sees in this the picture of a king dwelling in the midst of his people, surrounded by his troops. Laws follow on the purity of the camp, on unfaithfulness and on the vow of the Nazirite, and the tabernacle is consecrated. Then, guided by cloud and fire, the people set out.

From Sinai to the border (chapters 10 to 14). The complaining begins almost immediately. The people murmur and are punished by fire. Moses protests at the weight of leading them, and God has him choose seventy elders to share the burden. At Hazeroth his own sister and brother, Miriam and Aaron, speak against him; Miriam is struck with leprosy and shut out of the camp for seven days.

Then comes the turning point. From the desert of Paran, on the edge of Canaan, twelve spies are sent to look over the land. Two of them, Joshua and Caleb, come back urging the people on. Their argument is one of trust: "If the LORD delight in us, then he will bring us into this land, and give it us; a land which floweth with milk and honey." The other ten talk of giants. The people believe the ten and refuse to go in. The sentence matches the offense. Those who would not enter will not enter; they are to wander for forty years until a new generation has grown up to take their place.

The wilderness years (chapters 15 to 19). These chapters mix laws, on offerings, on fringes for garments, on the red heifer, with the most serious challenge yet to Moses and Aaron: the rebellion of Korah. Korah and his men are destroyed, and when the people blame Moses and Aaron for it a plague breaks out in which 14,700 die. Aaron's staff is made to bud as a sign of his calling. The priests are made answerable for the sanctuary, and the Levites are confirmed as their helpers.

From Kadesh to Moab (chapters 20 and 21). Miriam dies at Kadesh. There is no water, and the people turn on Moses again. God tells him to take his rod, gather the assembly and "speak ye unto the rock before their eyes." Moses does something else: "with his rod he smote the rock twice." Water pours out, but for this he is told that he will not lead the people into the land. The king of Edom refuses them passage and they go around. Aaron dies on Mount Hor. When the people speak against God and Moses once more, fiery serpents come among them, and Moses is told to make a serpent of brass and set it on a pole, so that anyone bitten, "when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived." Victories follow over the Amorites and over Og, king of Bashan.

Balaam (chapters 22 to 24). On the plains of Moab the story turns, for three chapters, to Israel's enemies. Balak, king of Moab, sends for a diviner named Balaam to curse the people camped on his border. God tells Balaam not to. He sets out anyway with Balak's officials, and an angel blocks the path of his donkey. In the end Balaam can say only what God gives him to say, and what comes out is blessing: "How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel!" He even foresees a figure, the Star of Jacob, who will defeat Israel's foes. Balak is furious, and can do nothing.

Baal-Peor and the second census (chapters 25 and 26). What a hired curse could not do, Israel nearly does to itself. At Shittim the people take up with the local women and join in the worship of a god called Baal-Peor. A plague follows. Phinehas, a grandson of Aaron, acts violently to stop it and is rewarded with a lasting priesthood for his descendants. Then the people are counted again. The total is 601,730. The generation of Sinai is gone, and the nation is nearly the same size as before.

Getting ready (chapters 27 to 36). The closing chapters look forward. The land is to be divided by lot. The daughters of Zelophehad, who had no sons, win the right to share in the inheritance. God has Moses appoint Joshua as his successor. The calendar of feasts and offerings is set out, and rules are given about vows. Moses orders a war of retaliation against Midian for the affair at Baal-Peor, a brutal episode that the text does not soften. The tribes of Reuben and Gad and half of Manasseh ask for the land east of the Jordan and receive it on the promise that they will help the others conquer the west. Moses lists the stations of the forty years' journey. The last five chapters are concerned entirely with land: the command to drive out the Canaanites and destroy their idols, the boundaries, the method of division under Eleazar, Joshua and a prince from each tribe, cities for the Levites, cities of refuge, and inheritance where there is no male heir.

Why It Matters

The plainest theme of Numbers is the gap between God's faithfulness and Israel's. The huge figure of the first census shows the promise of countless descendants already kept, and stands as a guarantee of victory. The careful ordering of the camp shows that nothing was lacking in the preparation. So when the people fail, the book leaves no doubt about the cause. It was not weakness. It was unfaithfulness, a refusal to trust. The two censuses bracket the lesson. One generation disobeys and dies in the desert. The next follows God's instructions through Moses and succeeds in what it attempts. And God, through all the rebellion, does not abandon the promise.

In Judaism the book is read through in ten weekly Torah portions, and its picture of Israel encamped around the divine presence has been taken as an image of the bond between a sovereign and his nation. Christian readers have long noticed that the serpent lifted on a pole is taken up by Jesus in the Gospel of John as an image of his own work. In both traditions the wilderness has become a lasting picture of testing between a promise and its fulfilment.

Scholars approach the book in other ways as well. Most hold that the Torah reached its present form after the Babylonian exile, and that Numbers is a priestly editing of older material. The census figures have been debated for centuries, since some 600,000 fighting men implies a population of 1.5 to 2.5 million, which does not match the archaeological evidence. Some take the numbers as symbolic of power and importance. Some suggest the word for thousand meant a clan or troop. Others, Calvin among them, have defended the figures as they stand. One modern commentator concludes that the answer is simply elusive. There is also a striking piece of physical evidence for the book's antiquity: fragments of the Ketef Hinnom scrolls, dated to the late seventh or early sixth century BC, carry verses from Numbers 6 and are the oldest known artifacts bearing text of the Hebrew Bible.

Who Should Read It

Read Numbers if you want the story that connects the exodus to the entry into Canaan, or if you have ever been stuck between where you were and where you were told you were going. It will appeal to readers interested in leadership under strain, in how communities fail and renew themselves, and in the Bible's realism about human nature. The lists and laws ask for patience. The narratives, including the spies, Korah, the rock, the brass serpent and Balaam, are some of the most vivid in the Old Testament.