Dr Clifford Denton.
Pinchas: Numbers 25:10-29:40.
27th July 2024/21 Tammuz.
On the tenth day of this seventh month you shall have a holy convocation.
You shall afflict your souls; you shall not do any work. (Numbers 29:7)
Picture by Helen McNeill
Coming to what will seem like wilderness days in today’s world, we will do well to consider the example of how God dealt with the families of Israel and apply the teaching to our own lives. Our pilgrimage is not through the physical wilderness between Egypt and Canaan. Our journey will be through a world system that is less and less conforming to a biblical way of life. Our goal is to keep faith on our journey, just as they were to keep faith on theirs. The generation who would conquer Canaan grew in faith as they pursued their wilderness journey with all the day by day challenges. We, likewise, must bring up the next generation to have faith, with us, in God and His eternal promises.
For us, the world and all its seductive activities have the potential to draw the children of the next generation aside, spoil their journey of faith and ruin their eternal future. The way the Moabite women seduced a large number of men to follow false gods is one example from which to learn. As it was for Israel, family life is where faith can grow and be protected. The challenge before us is to learn from the Bible how to ensure that our families remain strong and to help one another.
Open our portion anywhere this week and see the word family is all through it. Israel was recorded by families according to the number of men over the age of 20 years.
In the first census when Israel came out of Egypt (Numbers 1:1-34) a total of 603,550 men were listed from 11 tribes and 22,000 from the Tribe of Levi. Interestingly, there was a similar number in the second census, 601,730 from 11 tribes and 23,000 from the Tribe of Levi.
The knowledge that, except for Joshua and Caleb, every one of the men in the first census would die in the wilderness, was ever before them. The youngest of those would be around twenty years old at the start and, if they survived the rigours of the wilderness, aged about sixty when they died. Those who were under twenty years old coming out of Egypt would be nearing sixty on the borders of Canaan, while others had been born on the journey and up to forty years younger. A group of men who were leaders of their families, between 20 years and 60 years old, had taken over from the previous generation. A considerable amount went on in every family during the pilgrimage about which we have only scant detail. Consequently, we have to imagine the day by day lives of individual families from the general information that is provided in the Bible, but these were real people in many ways like us.
Sometimes it might seem, on such a long journey, that God had not meant what He had said, but only when the final man from the first census had died, did God bring them to the edge of the Jordan River. We learn many things from this. Among them is that God does not compromise His Word. Another is that He pays careful attention to the families under His care, knowing them by name and in every way. Those who were forbidden entry into Canaan lacked faith in the God who brought them out of Egypt. Those who grew up as the next generation grew in faith so that they could fight the coming battles and enter Canaan.
God’s detailed knowledge of all His people was confirmed clearly by what Yeshua said (Luke 12:6): Are not five sparrows sold for two copper coins? And not one of them is forgotten before God. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. This is true for God’s covenant family today as it was in the wilderness years.
The second part of our Bible study describes the offerings for the Feasts and weekly Sabbaths. God so ordered His community for Him to be actively at the centre and ensured it would be so by the bringing of offerings. The Levitical system has been replaced by the once for all sacrifice of Yeshua HaMashiach: not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. (Hebrews 9:12) We must learn even more deeply how to live in the light of the New Covenant, finding fulfilment in Yeshua, and strengthening our walk of faith according to the pattern shown us in the journey of the Israelites through their wilderness years.
It is not that Yeshua has “done it all for us” so that we take lightly our responsibility on the journey, but that through His sacrifice we attain a depth on our walk of faith, we and all our family, that was not achieved by those in the first census of the Children of Israel. Yeshua Himself asked, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth? (Luke 18:8) It is not inevitable that the next generation will grow in the faith that God desires. Remember, it only takes one generation for a nation to depart from God, as can be seen in other nations already.
For all their failings, the number of the Children of Israel entering Canaan was as many as those leaving Egypt. Can we, with our better covenant and greater promises, prepare the next generation to enter the Kingdom of Heaven at our Saviour’s return?