Feb 20: Numbers 26:35-28:31
Today’s
reading starts with the rest of the census. At this point not a single person
from the original census (those over the age of 20 at that time) was left
except Caleb, Joshua, and Moses of course. That meant that there was no one
else over the age of 59! Everyone had spent at least twice as long in the
desert as they had in Egypt. Now there were actually a few thousand more men of
this age than there was at the beginning!
A couple of
items that interested me in the genealogy – the only woman mentioned is Serah,
the daughter of Asher (v 26:46). Did no other son of Jacob have a daughter? And
of course there is no mention of Dinah. I wonder what influence Serah must have
had to be named here? Some speculate that she may have been a prominent
ancestor of the Asherite clan because she is mentioned in all the Asherite
genealogies (here, Num 26:46, and 1 Chr 7:30).
Did you find
it strange that Moses and his family are left completely out of the picture?
Exodus 18:4 says that Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, brought the two sons of
Moses, Gershom and Eliezer, to join Moses along with his wife Zipporah. We
never hear any more about them. Did they stay with Moses in the desert or
return with Jethro when he went back home? They don’t feature in the genealogy
of the Levites.
There is so
much more to be said about today’s reading. Oh, the courage Zelophehad’s
daughters must have had! And God goes totally against the culture to give them
an inheritance. Moses gets to view the Promised Land from a distance, but will
never step foot on it in his lifetime (but wait until we get to the New
Testament!) We also see the commissioning of Joshua to succeed Moses.
TOMORROW’S
TEXT: Numbers 29:1 – 31:47
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment