Land Division
Read Numbers 33. Why do you think the Lord had Moses write down their “starting points, stage by stage”? What purpose could that serve?
It’s really an incredible history, if you think about it. An entire nation flees its captors after centuries of oppression and survives for four decades wandering in the hostile environment of the Sinai wilderness. Only by the grace, power, and miracles of God could this have happened. Notice, too, how the text in Numbers 33:2 stressed that they moved place to place “by the commandment of the Lord.” The Lord wanted them, and future generations, never to forget that the whole story of the Hebrew people on the move in the wilderness was, really, the story about God and His dealings with sinful human beings in an effort to save them and to bring them into the Promised Land.
However powerful the story of their wanderings, today there are biblical scholars who, while not denying the reality of a group of ex-slaves leaving Egypt, nevertheless try to attribute it to purely natural circumstances. That is, they were doing exactly what the Lord didn’t want done, and that is to forget that God was central to all that had happened.
Read Numbers 33:50–56. Putting aside the immediate historical context (and the inevitable difficult issues it raises for us today), what important spiritual principle is found in these texts? From what you know of the history of ancient Israel after they had settled the land, why was this commandment about dealing with these peoples so important?
Compromise with the world has been and continues to be “barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides” (vs. 55, NRSV) for the Lord’s people. Unless we protect ourselves from the bad influences in the world and from the culture surrounding us, we are always in danger of allowing these things to corrupt our faith and lead us astray.
| How can we protect ourselves from the negative influences that are always around us? What personal choices must you, and you alone, make for yourself to help limit the negative impact of these influences on you? |
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