The Book of Numbers.

• The 4th book of the Bible.
• It has a handful of really famous Bible stories.

The Book of Numbers doesn't get a lot of attention from Christians or Bible readers very much these days but what is this book about and why is it important to understanding the rest of the Bible.

The Book of Numbers now if you have a good understanding of numbers you're going to have a much easier time understanding the rest of the Old Testament because numbers comes at a very important spot in the story of the Bible in the book of Genesis that's the first book we see the ancient origins of this people group that comes to be known as Israel in the book of Exodus Israel's God rescues them from slavery in Egypt you've probably heard this story.

He pulls them out into the wilderness to this mountain this mountain called Mount Sinai where he makes a very special agreement with them he says you're going to be my people I'm going to be your God because I rescued you from the people and the gods of Egypt.

The Book of Leviticus we start to understand more of the regulations that the people of Israel believes they had to follow in order to maintain that proximity to their God and then the Book of Numbers picks up right where Exodus and Leviticus left off they're still at the foot of that mountain where God has made this a really special agreement called a covenant with the people of Israel and what numbers does is it's going to take us from this mountain outside of Egypt all the way to the plains of Moab which is this patch of land just across the Jordan River from the promised land.

The Israelite hoped to inhabit and the sad news is it's not that great of a road trip and we're going to get an idea of how this goes as we're looking through the Book of Numbers we're going to pay special attention to three different parties.

One is just the entire nation of Israel everybody.

Second is this special group of Israelites called the Levites Israel divided itself into twelve different Shen's called tribes these are groups of families and one particular tribe was distinguished from the rest and they served the they served Israel's God on behalf of Israel as priests they offered sacrifices they maintained their portable temple called the tabernacle.

Moses and who was the prophet who was leading these people and Aaron who was the high priest they both came from this tribe of Levi so they're a really important group for us to keep an eye on while we're looking at numbers because they are the the people that go between the whole nation and their God.

Third party that we're gonna keep an eye on is God himself and see what He's doing through this story no numbers falls into three major sections and it's what's happening at Mount Sinai before they take off on their journey to the promised land and then we're going to stop in the middle with a really big section in this place called Paran and or Paran and Perron is where the Israelites make a  really bad choice and the fallout.

It is very grave and then we're going to end up with a good section of time in or a good section of text rather in the plains of Moab exploring what happens just before Israel enters the Promised Land.

The foot of Mount Sinai Moses numbers the people of Israel that's where we get the name numbers from for this book he takes a census and he sets up the camp in this formation this formation is really important because as far as the ancient Israelites were concerned they placed God at the center of their camp and then and of course God inhabited that tabernacle that portable temple and then surrounding the tabernacle was this group of Levites and then surrounding the Levites or the rest of the tribes of Israel.

We see this structure set up and God's roles are made pretty clear God's providing shelter when Israel's on the move he appears in the form of this fiery cloud and his role as their protector and guide and so it's a good setup you have this really powerful divine being that's going to be taking Israel for the wilderness into the promised land.

It's supposed to be great but when they start off on that journey things go sour pretty quickly the people of Israel complained and the people are the only ones who complain the other leaders in the tribe of Levi start to complain about Moses - Moses own brother and sister questioned whether or not Moses is the legitimate sole person that God is leading Israel through and that doesn't work out too well for them because God punishes the people who complain there's a plague that breaks out in Israel through some food and and also Miriam contracts leprosy it's really not that great to complain against Moses or God.

After that really brief interlude we find ourselves in this place called Perron and right as they get here Moses sends spies to go and see what is this Promised Land like and they come back and they say the land is really good but the current inhabitants are super strong we're not going to be able to take them in battle or at least that's what most of the spies say ten of the spies say we can't do this two of the spies have faith that God will be good to his word and be their protector and guide and help them conquer this land.

But the rest of Israel sides with the ten spies they were bail they plan to kill Moses and Aaron and go back to Egypt cut their losses and God says okay well I'm going to give you what you want you're not going to enter the Promised Land but God has already rescued this nation from Egypt so rather than allow this generation in to forfeit the promised land and take their children back into slavery God says you're going to die out in the wilderness and then your children will have the choice of inhabiting the Promised Land really bad decision for Israel it's a really sad point in the story.

Afterwards we get some laws for living in the land there is an exception to this rule that everyone's going to and that is that Joshua and Caleb the two spies oh that didn't bring back a bad report on the land will get to enter which is really good for them.

We see God not only not not just judging people who don't listen to him or don't believe in him and follow. I believe that he's going to make good on his word but we see him sparing not just the ones who do but also the future generations so that they can make their choice as well so he's giving people a choice and he honors their poor decisions also in paren.

We have another problem with a rebellion so we've already seen the people of Israel rebel as a whole then we see some of the other Levites rebelling against Moses and Aaron and they say you know we don't want we don't believe that only Aaron's family should have this position of priesthood we want to be priests too and so there's this huge divine showdown between the the people in the the family of Korah.

Moses and Aaron and it's super dramatic the earth opens up and just swallows the rebels it's a pretty gnarly story but not all the people of course family die out some of the sons of Korah survived and in fact they play a part through the rest of Scripture some of the descendants of this rebel actually contributes some of the Psalms to our Book of Psalms.

We have this example of God respecting humans bad decisions and affirming those who are faithful and loyal to him and sparing future generations so that they can make their own decisions as well and then we get some new laws for the priests so we kind of have this parallelism people reject the land.

God acts and then he gives them new laws for living in the land we have some of the Levites rejecting their leadership got affirms his leaders and then gives new laws for those priests and there's going to be this long 40-year gap of time in which now we see the entire generation of Israel die off the idea is that almost everyone that got numbered at the beginning will not be alive by the end of numbers.

It's  kind of a sad way that worked out in our traveling interlude over here in chapters 20 and 21 we have something really similar to what we saw earlier Israel complains a plague breaks out Aaron and Miriam die and then also Moses will die - Moses doesn't demonstrate faith in God he disobeys some of God's instructions in front of all the people and God says I'm sorry Moses you can't get into the Promised Land.

Again really sad but we see God not only judging those who disobey Him and our unloyal to him but He provides ways for people to be healed of their sicknesses and he fights on behalf of the people of Israel so we're seeing God still holding into his role as protector and guide of the whole nation which is really interesting.

What we see through this Book of Numbers is that God is finding ways to be faithful to his own promises even if the people. He made those agreements with aren't faithful is a very fascinating portrait of how God works with his people so it's very interesting and one of the reasons why this book is very important.

The last section we are in the plains of Moab so the people of Israel are just across the river from their promised land and when we look at the nation as a whole Moses takes a new census so there are more numbers and this is the generation that gets to entertain and they'll make a choice that will be presented to them in the next book of Deuteronomy.

We see this man named Phineas this is Aaron's grandson and he demonstrates such zeal on behalf of God and His laws that God makes an agreement with Phineas and says these are like phineas and his line are the ones that are definitely going to serve me as priests in the new land because Phineas has some great zeal he's very passionate for on behalf of his God and so it's a pretty nice a nice ray of hope.

When we're looking at the story of Levi because although they were supposed to be intermediates between the nation of Israel and God we've seen them turning on Moses and questioning God's authority throughout the book but now we see Phineas and Phineas is on board with God in his law meanwhile not on the plains of Moab.

We see some of Israel's enemies hiring this prophet named Balaam and you've probably heard about Balaam or at least his donkey which actually has a few lines in this story but the big idea is that Balaam is a prophet for hire and so Israel's enemies hire him to curse Israel and Balaam goes along with it but the problem is that although Balaam tries to curse Israel seven times God will only allow him to pronounce blessings on Israel so even though God has been dealing with people who are really disloyal to him and didn't count on his blessings.

When they had the chance to enter the Promised Land the first time he is still providing for them from afar and holding the other nations and their gods at bay so that he can make good on his promises to the nation of Israel and their ancestors and then right before we head into the book of Deuteronomy and right before Israel heads into the Promised Land we start seeing some more things coming together just sort of starting to wrap up the books of Moses so we have some more laws Moses knows he's not going to make it into the Promised Land.

Joshua is named as his successor Joshua you'll remember is one of the spies who brought back a good report on the land of Canaan two and a half tribes of Israel say we really like this land on the east side of the Jordan River where we already are can we just settle here and Moses says yeah that's okay just so long as you're loyal and supportive to the tribes that cross over to occupy the land of Canaan so we're already seeing God making good on some of his promises the giving of land to the people of Israel at the end of the book.

The Book of Numbers ends so as you can see there is a lot going on in numbers and this is a very condensed video but it's very important for understanding of the rest of the Bible because we see this generational impact of people who are given a choice as a community and to take God at His Word or to make up their own rules and try to do things their own way and when presented with that choice of entering the promised land they didn't choose to obey God and they paid the consequences but God found a way to spare those were loyal to him and also provide an opportunity for an entirely new generation to make their own decision.

It's a marvelous look at how God works with the nation of Israel through the rest of the Old Testament because we're going to see this motif of generations making decisions about how they're going to obey and remain loyal or disobey and be unfaithful to this God of theirs so that's what the Book of Numbers is all about.