well we're in the book of numbers and we're addressing in this final session chapters 32 through 36 and as you know the Book of Numbers that's a strange name for this book it really comes from the Latin and the Septuagint in effect the Greek because of the census that's taken at the beginning and then later in the book but in the Hebrew title of this book is far more descriptive the bid bar which means the wilderness because it is indeed the wilderness wanderings it covers the 38 years from the giving of the law at that Sinai to the evening the eve of a conquest if you will when the but the baton is passed to Joshua and he takes over and they go into the to conquer the promised land and while Joshua is the successor to Moses he's not as a replacement no one can replace Moses Moses has a very unique position in the scripture in terms of Joshua led the people but he took his instructions through the priesthood not directly from God Moses did and that Moses conversed with God strangely enough and contrary to contrariwise he did not like Moses do any miracles they had miracles performed of course but I mean not by Joshua really but obviously by God but so it's it's different but we have here in numbers a chronicle of this strange period that we call the wilderness wanderings and we should another perspective that we should keep in mind there is an idiomatic notion that crossing the Jordan is going to heaven you know there are songs to that effect like crossing the Jordan is symptomatic of going to heaven that's nice poetry but that's very biblically not analogous at all because crossing the Jordan put them in the wilderness not in heaven and we you and I are in our wilderness and it's warfare no warfare in heaven but that's clearly what they engaged in and also what we engage in on a daily basis and so there are many lessons there our primary thrust in these studies is to deal with the text expositionally there's sort of three levels at least exegetically what does the text say we don't spend a lot of time on the translational issues except maybe where there's a critical issue of some kind that's called exegesis we primarily focus on what's called exposition having heard what the text says what does it mean and that's really the challenge that faces most of us as we read our Bibles the next level I tend to presume a sophisticated audience and so I'm assuming that if you have it properly expositor the application the homiletic to our lives should be pretty self-evident and that doesn't come really so much by preaching as it redoes by devotion the whole idea is chewing the cud the idea is to digest it to mull over it and whichever the passages are all passages lend themselves to that interestingly enough and so we haven't focused on that in in in the interests of moving through the exposition but numbers is full of expository issues which we've tried to address it's also full of practical applications that in my opinion and large measure ourselves evident and that's so I'm presuming you on you as the listener of the reader on that but let's move on in our previous session they were preparing to enter the land we had this curious inheritance exception for the daughters of Zelophehad you may recall and that exception isn't just a quaint tribal custom inserted in the Torah it turns out the claims of Christ hang on that exception so that again it use it as an example there is nothing in the scripture that's there by accident or that's trivial every detail every number every place name if you investigate deeply enough you'll discover it's there deliberately by design and that design in one way or another always points to whom Jesus Christ exactly right then we talked about the spring feasts in the fall feasts they're alluded to a numbers we use that occasion to review them briefly and in fact I think was Rabbi Hirsch said that the the Jews Catechism is this calendar if you understand the Jewish calendar you understand a great deal about what the scripture has to say for Israel then we had laws of vows and then they had this episode where they took vengeance on the Midianites that had been coached by Balaam earlier and had caused all that grief that we reviewed the previous session so this session we're going to talk about Reuben and GAD two tribes that elect to stay or to claim for themselves the area of Gilead east of the Jordan actually it's Reuben GAD and a half tribe of Manasseh and I will deal with that and then we'll talk about there'll be a summary of 42 encampments so this is a retrospective it's gonna look back at the because they're all getting this in the last few chapters they're all getting ready for Joshua to take them into the land so these are all preparatory but chapter 33 is a summary of those encampments chapter 34 deals with the boundaries of the land that we're dealing with and then we're going to have some interesting issues with the Levitical cities the 48 cities and six of them are cities of refuge we'll talk about that and there's a final chapter that amplifies some details regarding once again the daughters of Zelophehad and that completes the book so let's jump in to numbers 32 where we'll deal with two and a half of the twelve tribes Reuben GAD and half the tribe of Manasseh numbers 32 verse 1 now the children of Reuben and the children of GAD had a very great multitude of cattle and when they saw the land of Jays ur and the land of Gilead that behold the place was a place for cattle the children gab the children of Reuben came and spake unto Moses and to Eleazar the priest and are the princes of the con Gaugin saying so they're coming with special request it's kind of understandable that there can that their interests and conditions were in common because they camp together if you remember how the camp was laid out Reuben and GAD were adjacent and they also were cattle people and so they saw the land up there in the Gilead area is ideal for cattle so they come to Moses with a proposal Ashtaroth Gibbon get jazzer and Imre and hezmana Ilya and Chiba and Nebo and beyond these are all cities there even the country which the Lord smoked before the congregation of Israel is a land for cattle and thy servants have cattle who ever said they if we have found grace in thy sight let this land be given unto thy servants for a possession and bring us not over Jordan so Moses reaction was probably the same on you and I have reading this it sounds like they're trying to get out from under the burden the challenge of crossing over the warfare that they're about to face that's not what they have in mind they'll explain it here in a minute but to give you a feeling of the geography this is the map that we looked at before and obviously going from south to north from Midian which is actually north western Arabia then you get to eat them by the time you get up to Moab you're just east of the Dead Sea itself north of that is Gilead north of Gilead as bhishan just to give you a feeling which is roughly you know east of the like Sea of Galilee as we call it the Sea of Galilee by the way is a mistranslation should be the lake of galilee but there's a translational but it's been it stucks ever he calls it the sea that's fine to the north of that of course is what we call the Golan Heights was somewhat synonymous to what they called Bashan but anyway it's the area of Gilead that's at issue here and the cities there are the ones that we talked about before and the ones that are specifically mentioned in the text as Reuben and GAD are the primary promoters of this proposal to Moses Moses said to the children of GAD in the children Reuben shall your brethren go to war and shall ye sit here and we're for discouraging the heart of the children of Israel from going over into the land which the LORD hath given him you know it's not only lack of their help that bothers Moses by their staying you're going to have a morale problem with the nine and a half tribes it have got a the war to fight so Moses is at first very upset about this he's very suspicious very cynical thus did your father's when I sent them from Gaydos Barnea to see the land he's making an analogy by their attitudes apparently here with the attitudes when they failed to go in and conquer the land back there at Kadesh Barnea you may recall and when they and when they went up into the valley of Eshcol and they saw the lamb they discouraged the heart of the children of israel that they should not go into the land which the Lord had given him thirty-eight years ago the the lack of resolve the lack of courage the lack of faith on the part of the nation caused them to be condemned to or exile and I say to the wilderness until all their all the parents died one of the children survived you remember that you know the story so Moses sees a parallel between what happened 38 years ago at Kadesh Barnea and what these guys apparently are cooking up here in their interest in painting this particular very attractive property for themselves and the Lord's anger was kindled the same time and he sware saying surely none of the men that came up out of Egypt from 20 years old--and excuse me Moses is still recounting the history here most of the and the Lord's anger was kindled at the same time speaking of kids bernieoh and he sware saying surely none of the men that came up out of Egypt and from 20 years old and upward shall see the land which I swear unto Abraham and to Isaac and Jacob because they have not wholly followed me safe Caleb the son of Jephunneh and the Kenan sight and Joshua the son of nun for they have wholly followed the Lord the Lord's anger was kindled against Israel he made them wander in the waters 40 years until all the generation that had done evil in the sight of Lord was consumed so these last few verses are Moses's reaction to their proposal he's do counting the history but in the premise that underlies is recounting this is that he presumes that you're going to have a repeat of the same thing that these people are the the reuben and gad are gutless here that's the problem then behold ye are risen up in your father's stead an increase of sinful men to augment yet the fierce anger of the lord to Israel for if he turn away from after him he will yet again leave them in the wilderness and he shall destroy all his people and they came near on them said we will build sheep foals here for our cattle and cities for our little ones but we ourselves will go ready armed before the children Israel until we have brought them unto their place and our little ones shall dwell in the fence cities because of the inhabitants of the land we will not return unto our houses until the children of Israel have inherited every man his inheritance so what they're really proposing hey we want this land who will leave our kids here and stuff we'll come and fight until that whole mission is accomplished and then come back that's a that puts a different complexion on what they're proposing obviously for we will not inherit with them on yonder side Jordan or forward because our inheritance has fallen to us on this side of the Jordan eastward and Moses said unto them if he if he will do this thing if he will go armed before the Lord to war and we'll go all of you armed over Jordan before the Lord until he hath driven out his enemies from before him and the land beasts subdued before the Lord the fan afterward he shall return and be guiltless before the Lord and before Israel and this land shall be your possession before the Lord but if he will not do so behold you have sinned against the Lord and be sure your sin will find you out and by the way from verse 23 is where that expression occurs in the English language that's an expression we've all heard we may not know where it came from but this is what came from that be sure that your sin will find you out yeah I'm sure how many have heard that before probably from mom and dad a long time ago right yeah but this is where it comes from and that's exactly what Moses is saying so he's putting them on the spot build you cities for your little ones and folds for your sheep and do that which have proceeded out of your mouth and the children of GAD and the children of Reuben spake unto Moses saying thy servants will do as my lord commanded our little ones our wives our flocks and all our cattle shall be there in the cities of Gilead but thy servants will pass over every man armed for war before the Lord to battle as my Lord hath said so concerning them Moses commanded Eleazar the priest Joshua the son of nun and the chief fathers of the tribes the Church of Israel and both said unto them if the children of GAD and the children of Reuben will pass with you over Jordan every man armed to battle before the Lord and the land shall be subdued before you then ye shall give them the land of Gilead for a possession see Moses realizes he's not gonna be part of that action he knows that he's going to die before they cross over God told him that and he will so but he's giving them instruction to make sure they need to honor this commitment that's the point but if they will not pass over with you arm they shall have possessions among you in the land of Canaan and the children gab the children grew up and answered saying as the LORD hath said unto thy servants so will we do we will pass over armed before the Lord into the land of Canaan that the possession of our inheritance on this side the Jordan may be ours and Moses gave unto them even to the children of GAD and as children of Reuben and then we have also added here the half cry of Manasseh the son of Joseph so we really have two and a half tribes there's no real scriptural visibility is what constituted the half that decided to cast in with Reuben and GAD but we can presume that they also were cattle oriented and close friends or whatever so this deal is extended to the half tribe of Manasseh also and you'll see that you'll constantly see references in the scripture of two Reuben GAD and the half tribe Manasseh these are the two enough tribes that chose to stay on the east side of the Jordan after the Joshua and the gang the whole gang finally subdue the land and under Joshua they do a pretty good job they subdue the land the Rubin and Gavin after I go back to the galan Heights area the Gilead area and so forth to raise their cattle and so forth and so it's actually not Josh not the the Joshua's generation it's the problem the next generation which constitutes the book of Judges do a terrible job they fail to really maintain and follow through and that the the book of Judges is a dismal record of their repeated failures but in any case it's interesting however that Reuben and GAD and Manasseh chose to be on the east side of the Jordan but they also then when the late many centuries later when the Assyrians take over they're the first to fall and many cares have continued this verse the tribe monastic Joseph the kingdom of sihon the king of Emirates and the kingdom of the king of Bashan the land with the cities thereof and cutting the coasts even the cities of the country round about so that's the region you may recall both sigh on the king of the amorite sand also augggh the king of Bashan were two of the major battles two of the three major battles that occurred under moses there were three major battles the Amalekites sion and awe and we're going to talk about that we finish to go back when we review a little bit but anyway that's where they're gonna they're hang out the children of GAD dibban and after often error and a trough and chiffon and Joe as ur and jug bit and ha and Beth Nimrod and beth horon defense cities and falls for sheep the children of Reuben built heshbon Iliad and kiriat haim and nebo and Balin their names being changed and shivnath and and gave other names to into the cities which they build it the children mark here the son of Manasseh went to Gilead and took it and dispossessed the amorite which was in it and I won't get into all these place names I will mention that Nebo is a town not a mountain and the Mount Pisgah is right next to it and the mountain is sort of indeterminate of its peak so people refer to it by which town is closest to that peak and so many people call it Mount Nebo even many Bible helps do but technically neva was the village Mount Pisgah is the mountain but anyway moving on and Moses gave Gilead and makeer the son of Manasseh and he dwelt therein and J here the son of Manasseh went and took small towns thereof and called them have other' and noble went and took Kenneth and the villages their oven called it noble after his own name these are all villages in that same region we studied when we were dealing with the conquest of the Moabites okay at this point we actually have a summary here of 42 names I can't pronounce properly and and I had great dreams of really doing a detailed map of all these but I discover many of the space are uncertain and many many commentators have slightly different views of them but the general area is well known obviously numbers 33 verse 1 - these are the journeys of the children of Israel which went forth out of the land of Egypt with their armies under the hand of Moses and Aaron and Moses wrote their goings out according to their journeys by the commandment of the Lord and these are their journeys according to their goings out so we fought we have a log here of these place names and they departed from ramiz's that was in Egypt in the first month on the fifteenth day of the first month on the morrow after the Passover the children Israel went out with a high hand in the sight of all the Egyptians and Egyptians buried all their firstborn which the Lord has smitten among them upon their gods and also the Lord executed judgments and the children Israel removed from ramiz's and pitched in succoth and the apart from zhukov pitched an FM which is at the edge of the wilderness they removed from etham and turn to Piatt hair off which is before bales if on and they pitched before macdonald and may departed from before pila hair off and pass through this the midst of the sea into the wilderness and went three days journey into the wilderness of ethan and pitched in Marah and I think we have a map coming ups by the way to give you a perspective here they removed from Mehran came to ilium and Elam were twelve fountains of water and the threescore and ten palm trees and they pitch there and they removed from Elam and encamped by the Red Sea and they removed from the Red Sea and encamped in the wilderness of sin and they took their journey out of the wilderness of zin and camp encamped in dot-com now these passages that were reading from verse three through verse fifteen here in numbers has their parallel in Exodus 12 through 19 the passages from verse 17 you'll find we saw in numbers 11 and 31 33 in Deuteronomy 10 and the following verses are in numbers 20 through 21 so some of these will be familiar to you because this is a summary but it is it is cross-referenced if you will in both Exodus and Deuteronomy for what value that might be to you these of course will be in the notes they depart from drop cot and camped in Aleutian they removed from a in Campton refa demon where there was no water for the people to drink that was the first time you recall and the departed from refa demon pitched in the wilderness of Sinai they removed from the desert of Sinai and pitched at the keeper off Hut haha and the apart from keeper off haha and then captive has her off and apart from has her off and pitched in rhythmic and the partner if montt pitched in remnant Peres and they departed from Bremen Peres and pitched in Lebanon and they moved from Lebanon and pitched at Rissa and from ERISA they pitched in calf Allah and then they went from Calphalon pitched in Shaffer mantra fir and they removed from our chauffeur and Campton hard ah and he moved from hard ah and pitched to Mecca cloth and they moved from chuckle off and encamped at the hospital and the department half and pitched at Torah and from removed from Quran pitched in Mitka and they went from Miska and pitched in Hodgman on and they departed from Houseman on and he camped at Messer off and they depart from Esther off and pitched in then that took on and put better check on encamped it or Haga died or hog he died God it sounds like something out of Johnson Swift doesn't and they removed from been jock on and encamped at hog it died God or Haga dad got it's not going to get any better we might just keep going in and they went from that place and pitched to Jeff petha and they moved from drop the file and then camped it had run off and they parted from abrin ah and encamped at sen gabber and they moved from Abbey as in gabart to in pitching the wilderness of sin which is in Kadesh and they moved from Kadesh from Kadesh and pitched in mount hor the edge of the land of Edom and Aaron the priest went up into the mount or and at the command of the Lord and died there in the fortieth year after the children of Israel will come out of the land of Egypt in the first day of the fifth month very important date for dating when when Aaron dies that's important to scholars we won't get into that too much here Aaron was 120 and 3 when he died at Mount hor and king of the Canaanite which dwelt in the south of the land of Canaan heard of the coming of the children israel and they departed from Mount hor and pitched in salmona and the part of his elmo none pitched in going on and from Hunan they pitched in a bog and depart from a boss and pitched in a gibbering in the border of Moab and he parted from em and pitched in deep on God and they moved from deep on God and camped at alamode did blossom and they removed from Almaty blah theme and pitched to the mountains of Abram before any ball he parted from the mountains of Eberron and pitched in the plains of Moab by Jordan near Jericho and they pitched by Jordan in beth Jessa mauve even to a him in the lands place of Maud anyway getting give you another perspective of these many I had hoped frankly of really doing a very detailed map from all about I was very disappointed as I invaded my resources which are substantial to discover that many of those places were not exactly sure where they are scholars have slight difference because obviously they were a lot of distances traveled since those places were identifiable but let's take a look they obviously f grand missus went down the what's called the Sinai Peninsula and crossed the Red Sea and to Jabal al lawz we believe as the real Mount Sinai most of your maps in the back of your Bibles are speak of Mount Sinai as the traditional site which is a tradition is a one that subsequent discoveries have I think discredited Jabal al lawz there's lots of evidence indicating that it really is the place but in any case it's astonishing to find the evidence they have there but let's move on that right now right near there's the ref Adeem the rock thing they found the rock that split it's very intruders evidence of huge erosion of water from out of that rock and so forth but then they go from there obviously to Kadesh Barnea which is the big confrontation that's the place where they really blow it that's where they they after sending the spies in and so forth ten of the spies said hey we can't handle it Joshua and Caleb were two contrariwise is that let's go let's God's on our side but they fail to do that and because that God condemns them they said you just sent us here so our children would die in the wilderness and God's just know you got that wrong you guys are going to have the will destroy the ones that are gonna grow up and inherit the land that's been promised so that condemns them to 38 years of wandering even after that episode then they decide well gee let's go let's go against hormones so they do go up against hormone and get clobbered you may recall because God is not with them and that leads them eventually around Edom and up to Mount Pisgah exactly where these places are in these wanderings is a little confusing and obviously they wander for 38 years so it isn't a simple route as I've summarized it here on the map obviously but we do know these that the towns in Gilead or I should say in Moab and Gilead are identifiable and known so bale pail are up there just north of the Dead Sea on the just northwest well just north of it really is where you know Balaam and all that takes place and so forth and so it's up here and jay-z and Hezbollah on and so forth that's the Gilead area that Reuben GAD and half tribe it's the Gilead area that they single out for themselves so that's a quick perspective of the region even though we've got a lot of unpronounceable names I do Harbor a suspicion by the way that I think I'll tease you with on those occasions when I have been able to unravel some of the names of places I haven't variably discovered some surprising things and the the the names in numbers 31st verse changed the whole complexion of that of that chapter the book of Proverbs and proverbs 30 and and the the the genealogy of Noah in the book of Genesis 5 has a tremendous surprise once you discover what the names are so I really have while I can't prove this with everything I encounter I can tell you I haven't seen it enough to believe that behind almost every name and place name and what-have-you there's a surprise the names of people turn out to be very significant all through the scripture as you study a book it's very worthwhile trying to find out what do those names mean because it'll be there's often some very interesting surprises some of them prophetic in those names so it's worth being sensitive that we're not dealing here with an anthology of ancient tribal customs we're dealing here with a narrative that I believe is god-breathed that God controlled every letter in in in the New Testament there is one letter in an adjective of the Greek that changes what we know about about joseph of arimathea one letter changes what looks like an adverb into an adjective and it changes the whole he wasn't secretly a follower of Jesus he was secreted as a father of Jesus it's an edge of which means he was in hiding as there after his life there's the point I'm getting at is the more you study the scripture from the point of view of taking it seriously the more you begin to discover that it is intended to be taken seriously jesus said not one yarder one tittle shall pass in the law till all be fulfilled you should keep that in front of us as we go well let's continue here number 33 the Lord spake unto Moses and the plains of Moab by Jordan near Jericho saying speak unto the children of Israel and say unto them when ye are passed over Jordan into the land of Canaan see the right across from Jordan that's where they're gonna cross over when Joshua takes over see then he shall drive out all the inhabitants of a land from before you and destroy all their pictures really destroy all their molten images and quite pluck down all their high places in other words destroy the things they worship the false gods is what he's really aiming at here and ye shall dispossessed the inhabitants of land and dwell therein for I have given you the land to possess it not the PLO not the UN Israel okay and he shall divide the land by lot that's alight yet in other words by drawing numbers forth he shall divide the land by lot for an inheritance among your families and to the the more you shall give the more inheritance and to the fewer you shall give less inheritance every man's inheritance shall be in the place where his lot falleth according to the tribes of your father's he shall inherit but if he will not drive out the inhabitants of the from before you then it shall come to pass that those which he let remain of them shall be pricks in your eyes and thorns in your sides and you should and shall vex you in the land wherein ye dwell more which will come to pass that I shall do unto you as I thought to do unto them we could spend an hour on these two verses if you do a study of the book of Judges the book after Joshua and you discover how again and again and again they fail to drive out the various tribal groups and that tribal group then dominates them and so they're abused and then the Lord will they'll repent eventually and then the Lord raises up a deliverer and that deliver under them they succeed for a while everything's fine for a while same pattern they get complacent they fail to follow through they get oppressed it's a the book of Judges is just a sequence of failures six of them and six periods of submission to the Moabites so here the Philistines they're wherever and it's just it's just a dismal record of failure and what's interesting if you study the book of Judges geographically you'll discover the primary areas where they fail is in the Golan Heights in the core center and in Gaza those and if you mark those you have a map of modern Israel the Glen Heights the West Bank as the press likes to call it and Gaza the same disputed territories that were unsuccessfully taken possession of in the days of the judges are this are still disputed today where is the cat where was the capital of the amorite Jericho that was the Betty Rodham House of the moon-god that's what stands for and where is the headquarters of the PLO today Jericho interesting there's another side of this that's verse 56 here moreover it shall come to pass that I shall do unto you as I thought to do them because they were idol worshipers God out of his property that piece of ground for whatever reasons we have no knowledge of God has his name on and when they they failed to dis possess the surfers in that land they have problems if when they fall into the same idolatry what does God do to Israel exile them from the land that's what led to the Diaspora so it's it for let's go into pass that I shall do unto you as I thought to do unto them interesting the Lord's commands the first man was the land is given to Israel as promised in the Abrahamic covenant and that's Genesis 15 for those that want to make a note of that and he then he talks about how its to be distributed you know there was by tribe that's why in Israel you could not sell property when they say so-and-so sold some land what they really mean he sold the use of that land we would call that a lease because it all returned to the tribe of origin at the Jubilee and so forth the command to drive out the nations destroy their idols in high places is not just here in numbers it's in Exodus 23 and 34 Leviticus 20 and Deuteronomy 7 12 13 and 29 so it's all through the scripture what's not here but is also a emphasized elsewhere and especially the book of Joshua is he is told by God to wipe out every man woman and child of certain tribes and that shocks us isn't a New Testament Christian what's that this sounds like genocide yes it is and that's be under to understand that you need to understand what rough a.m. is and the gene pool problem that Satan and introduced having for centuries to prepare for this well numbers 34 now deals with the land of promise the boundaries Abraham was promised the land between the river of Egypt and the Euphrates that's more than they ever took over by the way and when people like to talk about the West Bank I like to ask which River did you have in mind so the the full extent of the land was never possessed there was a brief period under David and Solomon where they had they did hold land from the afraid ease to the Gaza Strip and from Dan to bear Sheva but that was just for while and the the ideal of the promise was not lost sight of however it's mentioned in exodus 47 as a millennial emphasis and the promise to Abraham still awaits fulfillment we believe it will be fulfilled since zekiel 40 through 48 the last part of Ezekiel is millennial really in focus and it deals it deals with it their Lord speaking to Moses saying command that shown of Israel and say unto them when you come into the land of Canaan this is the land that shall fall unto you for an inheritance even the land of Canaan with a coaster of then your south quarter shall be from the wilderness of sin along the coasts of Edom and your South border shall be the utmost coast of the salt sea eastward that is the Dead Sea as we call it and your border shall turn from the south to the ascent of a crow beam and pass on to sin and going forth thereof shall be from the south to Kadesh Barnea and shall go on to Hazara dar and pass on to Esmond and the border shall fetch a compass from asthma into the river of egypt and the goings of it shall be at the sea and that's for the western border you shall even have the Great Sea for a border this shall be your West border and the only peaceful border they enjoy and this shall be your North border from the Great Sea you shall point out for you Mount hor Vermont hora shall you point out your border to the entrance of home off and the goings forth the border shall beat as a dot and the borders will go on as if Iran and the goings from it shall be house or none and this shall be your North border and you shall point out your East border from tes Iran to chiffon and the coast will go down from chiffon to reblog to the east side of iene and the border shall descend and shall reach unto the side of the sea of kynareth that with the sea of Kenneth Kenneth is the term for a harp and that's the shape of the lake we would call it a lake a sea of galilee but the proper dame is kynareth if you will eastward the border shall go down to Jordan and the goings of it shall be at the salt sea this shall be your land with the coasts thereof round about and Moses commanded the children Israel saying this is the land which he shall inherit by lot which the LORD commanded to give unto nine tribes and to the half tribe for the tribe of children of Reuben according to the house of their fathers and the tribe the true yeah decor in the house of their fathers have received their inheritance and the half-dry of Manasseh have received their inheritance in other words the two and a half they're already taken care of so it's the nine and a half they're gonna divide the measure by the rest of it the to try two and a half tribes that receive their inheritance on this side of the Jordan see they're still east of the Jordan at this point near Jericho these word toward the Sun rising that is to the east and the Lord spake unto Moses saying these are the names of the men that shall divide the land unto you so he's actually delegating by name God the people that are going to be responsible for the allocations and going through all of that Eleazar the priest and Joshua the son of nun and ye shall take one prints of every tribe to divide the land by inheritance the names of the men are these of the tribe of Judah Caleb the son of Jephunneh and of the tribe of the children of Simeon Shem ul the son of my hood the tribe of Benjamin Ella dad the son of Chisholm and the Prince of the tribe of the children of Dan bukai the son of dougla and the Prince of the children of Joseph for the tribe of the children Manasseh and Anil a son of ephod and the Prince of the tribe of the children of Ephraim chemi well the son of chef Don and the Prince of the tribe of the children's Ebden Ella Eliza farm and the son of karnaki and the Prince of the tribe of the children is a car palty oh the son of his own and the Prince of the Tri the children Asher I heard the son of shallow me and the Prince of the tribe of the children of Naphtali peda hell the son of my hood and these are they whom the LORD commanded to divide the inheritance therap under the children of Israel in the land of Canaan III o them all an apology but we'll keep moving on numbers 35 the Levitical cities and specifically the cities of refuge the Lord spake unto Moses in the plains of Moab by Jordan near Jericho saying command the children of Israel that they give unto the Levites the of the inheritance of the possession of cities to dwell in and ye shall give also under the Levite suburbs as they call it we'll get to that in a minute for the city's round about them and the cities shall they have to dwell in and suburbs of them shall be for their cattle for their goods and for all their beasts now understand all the other tribes the other 11 of the 12 tribes actually inherited property substantial property they were agricultural society they survived by raising food the Levites did not inherit any land their inheritance was God their primary commitment was to serve God not to be dealing in in pecuniary terms buying and selling and doing what most people do they were to be serving either directly or indirectly the services of God through the tabernacle what-have-you so they're given not any contiguous property they are scattered throughout the nation in 48 cities six of those are gonna have a special purpose we'll come to and the suburbs of these cities which you shall given the Levites shall reach from the wall of the city and outward a thousand cubits roundabout and you shall measure from without the city on the east side 2,000 Hubert's and on the south side 2,000 cubits and on the west side 2,000 cubits and on the north side 2,000 cubits and the city shall be in the midst and this shall be to them the suburbs of the cities you would be amazed this has taxed the ingenuity of commentators try to figure out what does this really mean and this is the most cogent of all the possible of a number of different possible ways to interpret that text you have a city here that is surrounded by what they call suburbs the city itself is a thousand cubits on a side and the the suburbs are two thousand cubits on a side and this comes as close as two reconciling being reconciled the text there are other constructions that are different but not materially different that's me this is basically what seems to be the simplest understanding of what the text is trying to communicate the the city itself is where they live and they have around that a designated area that's available for pasturing their lifestyle their personal livestock in other words so that's the concept the township okay just one rendering from that text and among the cities which she shall give it a Levites there shall be six cities now here we get into out of the 48 there are six that we want to understand and if you understand this properly you all understand that which you will not find in most commentaries most commentaries deal with this that I've run into as a quaint solution to a very practical problem it's far more than that let's take a look at this and among the cities which he shall give under Levites there shall be six cities for refuge which he shall appoint for the manslayer that he may flee vitter and to them he shall add forty and two cities nobody got these six but then it's forty two that are not cities the refuge so all the cities which he shall give to the Levites shall be 48 cities 49 cities then you shall give with their suburbs and the cities which he shall give shall be of the possession of the children of Israel from them that have meant from them that have many he shall give many and from them that have few you shall give for you every one shall give of his cities on to the Levites according to his inheritance which he inherited so in other words these cities are sort of taken from the inheritance of all the other tribes now the land itself if you look at this as the light of Israel was divided by lot they were the allocated we have Manasseh up just east of the lake the Sea of Galilee south of him is GAD and south is Reuben so that's the Gilead area that we talked about then up wait up north on the northwest corner we have Asher and closer and we have Neftali and then we have Zebulon these are all up there between the Galilee and the coast but we of Haifa in that area south of that we have a sacar then the rest of the other half of the tribe of Manasseh and then Ephraim Ephraim becomes a very dominant tribe when the northern kingdom peels off or the other civil war then the whole northern kingdom is sometimes referred to as Ephraim and I would third label is used generically for the whole northern group if you will but be on your toes when you read those things realize the term Ephraim can refer to the geography in fact it usually does rather than the tribe itself many people get confused when the when the Assyrians conquered the Northern Kingdom they didn't conquer ten tribes they conquered that territory there were members of the tribes in both north and south and many people are confused by that and that leads to all these myths and quaint stories about the so called lost ten tribes and no tribes that are lost accepted they're all lost in some respect but that's a different issue okay Dan notice where Dan is it's on the coast Benjamin is Dan is west of Benjamin Dan is a one of the largest tribes but gets one of the toughest areas that's where the Philistines were which had the technology and iron and they couldn't handle it Samson did some colorful pranks but accomplished very little when he died they couldn't handle it so a day I'll get back to that Judah is south of Benjamin Jerusalem is really on the border of both of them in effect and Simeon to the south so those are the 12 tribes but Dan can't handle it down there so they send a recruiting party they go up north and they take over a little silly city called Laie Sh and so Dan really relocates itself at his own initiative up in the northern tip of the country it Springs from there to become a sea for a seafaring tribe and all of that is quite independent of the Assyrian invasion the fact that Dan this disengaged itself from the commonwealth of israel is a matter of record it started and even an exodus and continued long before the Assyrian invasion and it's worth the separate study altogether but in any case the city that Levites were assigned 48 cities six of which are designated cities of refuge I haven't tried to list all the 48 cities because many of their locations are in scholastic dispute because they weren't that prominent but these particular six are reasonably identified and they're very significant because these were designated as cities of refuge and we want to understand what a City of Refuge - there's a it's important for us for lots of reasons so let's take a look at it Lord spake unto Moses saying speak unto the children of Israel and say unto them when you come over Jordan into the land of Canaan then he shall appoint you cities to be cities of refuge for you that the Slayer may flee whither which kill if any person at unawares what that language is intended to focus on is what you and I would call manslaughter someone who kills somebody else inadvertently by an accident of some kind not first-degree murder as we would call it not premeditated not a reason not a result of anger what we would but he's still guilty of someone's death and what happens is that person's next of kin is coming after him so the city of refuge is to give him the man slit the the manslaughter guy a place to retreat to that's what it's going to come up here then shall be unto you cities of for refuge from the Avenger that the manslayer die not until he stand before the congregation and judgment you know it's interesting that all of this in part is to protect the sanctity of life this is to brew this is this is not to provide for someone killing somebody this is to provide a mechanism to raise the sanctity of life if it wasn't for this you'd start what most societies have as a blood a blood feud because you inadvertently killed one guy then his family guy comes and gets him and then there's it's it starts an endless chain you know the the and so of the Hatfields and the McCoys kind of thing or whatever so okay and of these cities which he shall give six cities you shall have for refuge and you shall give three cities on this side of the Jordan and three cities shall you give in the land of Canaan notes three are east of Jordan three are west of Jordan so V cities of refuge these six cities shall be a refuge both for the children Israel and for the stranger and that is a you know a non Israeli resident in there and for the Sojourner among them that everyone that kill if any person unawares may flavor and if he smite him with an instrument of iron so that he died he is a murderer the murderer shall surely be put to death it's interesting that Israel had endorsed capital punishment and that was God's ordination to cleanse the land to keep the land from being polluted when we let a murderer not get killed where the scripture would call that way that's a way of polluting the land and you can draw your own comparisons with the country we live in and if he smite him with the throwing a stone wherewith he may die and he die he is a murderer and the murderer shall surely be put to death or if he smite him with a hand weapon of wood wherewith he may die yet he died he is a murderer the murderer shall surely be put to death the revenger of blood himself shall slay the murderer when he meat of him he shall slay him want you to realize stand back and realize that Israel ancient Israel had no police force had no prisons was much simpler the Avenger of blood was the next of kin and it was his responsibility to track down the murderer of his kin and deal with it that was the way it worked and it sounds very primitive but it works but if he thrust him of hatred or hurl at him of the laying of weight that he died or an enmity smite him with his hand that he died he that smote him shall surely be put to death for his murderer the revenger of blood shall slay the murder when he meat of him so far it seems straightforward you get the picture you accidentally killed somebody the minute you realize the situation what did you do you hightailed it to the nearest city of refuge when you got to the City of Refuge you had to convince the at the gate the city fathers the situation they would give you sanctuary from the Avenger of blood who you knew would be on your tail and you just hope that you were fast enough to get to a City of Refuge before the Avenger of blood could find you the Avenger of blood would be called a Goyle okay but if he thrust him suddenly without empathy have cast upon him anything without laying of weight or with any stoneware with a man-made eye seeing him not and cast upon him that he died and was not his enemy neither sought his harm then the congregation shall judge between the Slayer and the revenger of blood according to these judgments the con Gatien shall deliver the Slayer out of the hand of the revenger blood and the congregation shall restore him to the city of his refuge whether he was fled and he shall abide in it unto the death of the high priest which was anointed with the holy oil what's that got to do with anything now up till now it all seems to be make good practical sense doesn't it but you've got this refugee refugee he's in the City of Refuge his Avenger blood is outside the gate just waiting for him to leave if he leave town he's had it he's got refuge in the City of Refuge he's safe there but he can't leave he's stuck there if he leaves he's fair game that's the way the game worked and the Avenger of blood could nail him now that's kind of an unstable situation I mean he's got family he's got things to do no he's got a standard he's the City of Refuge at his own risk and all this stays that way until down in Jerusalem the high priest dies when the high priest dies all bets are off the Slayer and the manslayer can head home safely the Avenger of blood can't touch him anymore it's over done kaput okay but if the Slayer shall have a time come without the border of the city of his refuge whether he's fled the revenge of blood find him without the Board of the city of refuge and the revenger blood kill the Slayer he shall not be guilty of blood in other words he's he's he's forgetting because he should have remained in the city of refuge until the death of the high priest but after the death of High Priestess Slayer shall return unto the land of his possession so these things shall be for a statute of judgment unto throughout your generations in all your dwellings now if you read most commentaries they all regard this as a rather quaint mechanism to deal with the tribal situation to provide to elevate the concept the sanctity of life that murder would be dealt with and yet inadvertent murder would be dealt with in a less extreme way that's it there's another issue here you'll get to it who so kill if any person the murderer shall be put to death by the mouths of witnesses but one witness will not testify against any person to cause him to die thing that was always takes more than once several plays the script should always takes how many witnesses to moral Rachelle take no satisfaction for the life of murder which is guilty of death but he he shall surely be put to death and he shall take no satisfaction for him that is flood to the city of the refuge that he should come again to dwell the land until the death of the priest so he shall not pollute the land wherein ye are for blood it defile at the land and the land cannot be cleansed of blood that is shed therein but by the blood of him that shed it he file not therefore the land which he shall inhabit away and I dwelt for I the Lord dwell among the children of Israel boy the prevalent the prevalence of unsolved murders just in our senior administration in this country is a shock over a hundred murders covering up the Vince Foster murder mister give you one example and we could go on and on and on it's astonishing to see how ineffectual we are and our prisons are bursting when I had a tour of Angora which is probably the largest prison 80 thousand acre campus in Louisiana the Gordon confided in me it's his belief that half the people half of his 5,000 don't belong there but that's not his job his job is to enforce the law interesting 30 guys in death row several which has pardons recommended by the pardon not being assigned by the governor you get into the whole penal system it's astonishing the abuse and the confusion in the boy anyway let's move on cities of refuge let's summarize them they're available in cases of manslaughter not premeditated murder right they are they secure the the guy against the Avenger of blood as long as he's abiding in the city of refuge right with me so far and this all prevails until the high priest died is that it that's that's the summary of the whole deal you with me I have a question for you was the crucifixion of Christ manslaughter or premeditated murder not easy is it not easy from the point of view of God it was premeditated by his predetermined counsel he planned that before the foundation of the world because he knew we're gonna need it it's all laid out in advance so from God's point of view is premeditated but we're really not worried about God worried about us from our point of view is it premeditated or manslaughter well you can argue that probably both ways but what did Jesus say on the cross Father forgive them for what so I'll use that as my plea that it's manslaughter not premeditated murder so we're entitled to flee to our city of refuge right who do you suppose is our city of refuge is Christ Civic ethic and how secure are we in Christ absolutely secure for as long as we abide in Christ I won't get into the Calvinism arguments here we'll leave that one and go right now but in certainly if you're in Christ you're secure for how long did this work till the high priest died who is our high priest he died he said two tallest I paid and fall it is finished and here it is for us so he's our City of Refuge it's interesting to me that if you get behind any one of these laws with daughters of Zelophehad which is God's way of getting around the curse of Jeconiah and the virgin birth and all of that or whether it's the City of Refuge or whether it's the brazen serpent and numbers 21 every one of these things has a local application that's obviously and yet if you get in behind that you discover there's a whole nother teaching there's a whole nother insight and that insight always punch to Jesus Christ well we have another chapter to wrap up the Book of Numbers daughters elif had surface again there's a detail that comes up here the member that daughters valve had it was a Torah exception on the rules inheritance normally went through the man but if the man if the man had only daughters no sons the dock five daughters came they requested it Moses that they have some kind of a deal here and numbers back there in chapter 27 and it God go and he goes to God and God says do so and he puts at the record and in Joshua 17 these five daughters will come to Joshua and he honors that and they get their inheritance what most people don't understand as how that worked is that and the lever right marriage the husband was adopted by the father of the bride to pass that inheritance that occurs in Ezra two and Nehemiah seven and so forth and so this end is a participate of the lineage of Christ because in Luke we have the lineage of Mary who is the son-in-law of he lie and if you look in the Greek in in Luke 3 verse 23 the word is no meat so which means in the Greek reckoned as by law in way we would translate that Joseph was the son-in-law of he lying in other words Jesus Christ inherited the legal line through Joseph who was his legal father but the bloodline through Mary who was his blood mother so interesting onward chief fathers the families of the child of Gilead decided Makar the son of Manasseh and the families of the sons of Joseph came near and spake before Moses and before the princes and the chief fathers of children Israel they said Lord commanded my Lord to give the land for an inheritance by lot to the children my lord was commanded by the Lord to give the inheritance of gsella Fahad our brother to his daughters and if they married to any of the sons of the other tribes of the children Israel then shall their inheritance be taken from the inheritance of her father's and should be put to the inheritance of the tribe where and who they are received so shall I be taken from the lot of our inheritance either concerned about the fact that all sounds good but if one of those daughters whose inherited land marries outside the tribe that suddenly messes things up because as long as stays within the tribe everything works but if they're outside the tribe it creates some confusion that's what they're trying to deal with here and when the Jubilee of the children Israel shall be and they shall and then shall their inheritance be put into the inheritance of the tribe will enter they are received so shall their inheritance be taken away from the inheritance of the tribe of our fathers so they recognized the tribes here haven't have run a risk of abuse here Moses commanded the children Israel according to the word of the Lord saying the tribe of the sons of joseph hath said well love it's you raise a good point this is the thing which the Lord doth command concerning the daughters of Zelophehad saying let them marry to whom they think best only to the family of the tribe of their father shall we marry it's sort of like Henry Ford in his admit the old model T you know you get any color you want as long as it was black the daughter could marry anyone she liked as long as it was within the tribe she couldn't marry outside the tribe and contain the inheritors she met outside the tribe she lost adherence and that makes sense because they're trying to keep integrity with the tribe and the geography so there they are so shall not the inheritance of the children Israel you move from tribe to tribe for every one of the children Israel shall keep himself to the inheritance of the tribe of his father's and every daughter that possesseth inheritance of a tribe of the children of Israel shall be wife unto one of the family of the tribe of her father that the children of Israel may enjoy every man the inheritance of his father's neither shall the inheritance removed from one tribe to another tribe but every one of the tribes the children Israel shall keep himself to his own inheritance even as the lord commanded moses so did the daughters of Zelophehad for molitor's aha Milka and noah the daughters of zell effete were married under their fathers brothers sons so everything stayed orderly here it appears and so and they were married into the fathers of the sons of Manasseh the son of Joseph and their inheritance remained in the tribe of the family of the father these are the commandments and the judgments which the LORD commanded by the hand of Moses under the children of Israel in the plains of Moab by Jordan near Jericho and so ends the Book of Numbers now in the earlier sessions of course we had talked about the camp of Israel the tabernacle the preparation of the camp then there was cyanide at Kadesh Barnea and that's where they blew it so then from there they journeyed to the plains of Moab in the following chapters and in our previous session we talked about the brazen serpent the the Battle of the Siham the king of the amorite sand AAG the king of the Giants then the roughing him there and that course paves the way for the land to be available for a Reuben and GAD and so on then we encounter those strange chapters with Balak the king of Moab and Balaam the prophet thus peculiar Gentile prophet that finally gets his own comeuppance and then we have a chapter about the idolatry of Israel so they're preparing preparing the end of the land the daughter says Elif I had we had the spring feast the fall feast the laws of vows vengeance upon Midianites and then this session with Reuben GAD that's like Gilead the summary of 42 encampments which I couldn't pronounce properly the land of promise the Levitical cities those del fat now one of the things we asked ourselves before we started just to wrap this all up is that why are we studying the Book of Numbers these quaint ancient things well for a lot of reasons Paul tells us in 1st Corinthians 10 now all these things happened unto them for examples and they are written for our admonition your name upon whom the ends of the world are come the word examples in the Greek is two posts from which we get the English word type like a prototype the term is intended to be a figure or an image a pattern a prefiguring the return type is used in literature it's not so much often using our common language we would use the term model perhaps it's a model of such-and-such and so on and they're similar in our vocabulary so there all kinds of types we saw a type in numbers to the order of the camp we saw the type of manna the bread of life we saw a type of water coming from Iraq in fact it was the second time that happened we saw the brazen serpent numbers 21 and the cities of refuge in this chapter see if there's a these are probably the main ones you should be aware of in the Book of Numbers there's many others remember how the camp was laid out that they could only camp by following the law on the cardinal parts of the compass and if we went through the and did that all Geographic you know to scale we ended up with the what what Balaam saw from the Mount looking down namely the camp of Israel formed a cross interestingly enough and I think if we had a time machine back there would be startled to see how God anticipates things that obviously had no awareness far beyond the awareness of the writers at the time and then we have the man of course he provide that manner and it interesting enough it was provided only on six days the seventh day it did not and will call your attention the fact that seventh day Sabbath was not established under the law the law was this was this a chimera occurs in Exodus 16 the law isn't given until Exodus 20 this the sabbath was ordained in genesis chapter 2 and so it's a very fundamental and so this is before the law was given then the waters at Meribah remember at redeem it had happened in exodus 17 where they got water from striking the rock at Meribah he was told not to strike but to ask the rock and he didn't do that because it didn't do that he was not allowed to enter the promised land Moses who spent a hundred twenty years forty years growing up in Egypt forty years in the wilderness of Midian and then 40 years through the wilderness wanderings he's 120 dreaming of getting to the promised land and denied that because he didn't instructions boy that should sober us God expects his instructions to be followed and he's a man of precision God is a person of precision Paul even makes an interesting remark about the waters of Meribah he says these the rock was Christ in 1st Corinthians 10:4 the rock that followed them was Christ he's obviously speaking idiomatically but I but I'd like to give you a challenge then oh and of course this because this but not following this Moses was denying the rock of Scripture if you want an interesting study take a concordance and find how often rock is used specifically as a reference to Jesus Christ he of course was the source of the living water in both the Exodus 17 accounts in numbers 20 Paul authenticates that in 1st Corinthians 10 he is the stone that was rejected according to second Peter 2 he's also the rock of the fence of the rock of stumbling in second Peter 2 he's the headstone of the quarter of the corner in ephesians 2:20 in fact if you read Deuteronomy 32 and 33 that's called the song of Moses the book of Deuteronomy has three sermons and then this final writing of Moses the yah-hey Vevey or the Yahweh or yova however you want to say it in the song of Moses it's clearly an allusion to the Messiah and it's astonishing how an Orthodox Jew can read Deuteronomy 32 and not recognize throughout the whole chapter the the song of Moses - the Messiah - the one that we call Yeshua or Jesus and there are over 100 other illusions of a rock or stone referring to Jesus Christ again it's astonishing to see the consistency of idiom from Genesis to Revelation well I had the brazen serpent of course you remember how in response to the the murmuring the fiery serpents was sent and Moses intercedes and then instructed in place a brass serpent on a pole on a high hill that would look anyone that look at it would be saved but it would be spared by faith and how it and as a strange strange remedy that makes no sense all through the Old Testament you can read the entire Old Testament and be powerless to figure out what that really means until you get to the New Testament in John chapter 3 Jesus himself explains it as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness even so shall the Son of Man be lifted up that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but everywhere I sing live for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life this illusion sets the stage for the most famous verse in the entire Bible John 3:16 but without this verse without this insight it's a very bizarre remedy putting a brass serpent on a pole on the hill without a serpent represented sin you look at sin and you get saved what's this all about no it's sin judged brass okay a couple of other things that's kind of interesting we we noticed that under Abraham in Genesis there are ten tribes listed in the land of Canaan under Moses and numbers 21 we saw three of them put down the Amalekites the amorite sand the ravine and under Joshua there are seven that are left that he deals with in the book of Joshua and I'm fascinated by this comparison even though the tribal things are somehow overlapping in some respects it's interesting that all through prophecy we find that there are ten heads and seven horns and Daniel 7 verses 8 and verse 20 we discover that three of the heads don't go along with Allah this little horns playing so he puts three down that's why there are seven heads and ten horns 10 10 minus 3 is 7 I'm fascinated that that this model of the final climax of the world seems to be foreshadowed by the same situation in that we're witnessing here we're three of the 10 are wiped out by Moses and seven remain under Joshua to clean up because there's a final yahushua coming to dis possess the earth of its user purrs and it fascinates me if you study the Book of Joshua you'll discover that in dozen ways it is a foreshadowing the text itself is a foreshadowing of the book of Revelation where they have the seven trumpets and they have they send in two witnesses there in advance and on and on and so forth and very interesting situation well one of the lessons here expositionally be focused on the integrity of design of the scripture that's our primary one of the primary things I hope you carry away not the details but there recognize that it's a piece of a much larger skillfully designed puzzle homiletically these were real people with real practical problems all the way through we didn't take the time to really build the narrative of it in that sense but I think we should keep in front of us that these were real people with real problems devotionally crossing over the Jordan is not going to heaven you and I are in a warfare we are in our own wilderness and I suggest that every day that we is our kadish Barnea I believe God everyday finds a new way to ask the question do you trust me when they were T&S Barnea they didn't and they paid it pay the price a price of exile a price of unnecessary hardship and we're in the same boat the lesson God would have us learn is to trust him and each of us in our lives will have equivalent kinds of challenges so there's much here though when you speak of the text devotionally the way you do that is to do the same way an animal chews its cud is to go over it digest it go over it again digest it again and the Lord will reward that and bring all that to the surface well many people say where do we go from here it's a we finished the Book of Numbers a natural place to go if you haven't gone there before is Deuteronomy that way you would complete the Torah you've gone from Genesis to Deuteronomy you've got the core of the the most venerated part of the Bible to the Jewish mind especially or if you're in a Jewish mood you want to go to New Testament go to Matthew the Jew what I'll call for like a better term the Jewish gospel he presents Jesus Christ as the the Lion of the tribe of Judah or go to the Epistle of the Hebrews the fulfillment of the law or if you want to go to the one book that promises you a special blessing the only book that has the audacity to do so in the Bible book of Revelation the ultimate wrap-up of all things but where you go go where the spirit leads you you're an individual the Holy Spirit's working with you personally he has something on his mind that he would do I encourage you to pray about it and go where the spirit leads it isn't necessarily the next book is to whatever he leads you into so with that let stand for a closing word of Prayer
