Theology in Numbers

One of the covenantal promises that God made to Abraham back in Genesis 12 was that he would be made into a nation by the Lord’s sovereign hand.  The Lord God would take this man, who was childless, and grant him such an abundance of offspring that they would grow beyond the confines of merely a single family into such vast numbers that they would have to be re-classified as a nation of people.  And every single one of them would be directly descended from Abraham.

Here in the book of Numbers, we find another step in that process.  God commands Moses to number the people.  Now obviously, this was not for the Lord’s benefit in terms of gaining knowledge He did not possess.  He knew perfectly well exactly how many Hebrews were encamped at Sinai.  The point of this census was so that the Israelites would know how many they were.  He wanted to demonstrate visibly to them that He had gloriously fulfilled His promise to His servant Abraham.  And in the process, God’s intention, as it always is, was for greater glory to be ascribed and worship to be given to Him.

Not content to limit the revelation of His character to the fulfillment of the Abrahamic Covenant alone, we find that throughout the book of Numbers God is continually unveiling nuances of Himself to His chosen people, and in turn the modern Bible reader today.  A few examples of this revelation are as follows.

In chapter 3, verses 39 to 51, the Lord instructs Moses about the redemption of the firstborn.  God had staked a claim to the firstborn male of every household in Israel, both of men and of animals.  He demanded that every firstborn was to be consecrated to Him as His due.  But rather than take the firstborn of every family in the nation, God decreed that He would instead take the entire tribe of the Levites as His.  The Lord was so serious about this that when a discrepancy was found in the count He exacted the precise cost of the difference from the people.  The firstborn of every home in all Israel numbered 22,273.  But the entire tribe of the Levites was only 22,000.  Meaning that if God took the Levites instead of the firstborn of every household He would be short 273 people. 

The human tendency might be to overlook this seemingly minor detail.  Not so with the Lord.  He instructed Moses to take five shekels per head for the 273-person difference, and give that sum to Aaron and his sons as a redemption price.  I think this demonstrates a truth about God’s character.  First, He is inhumanly precise.  The Lord God does not fudge numbers.  He does not estimate.  He does not guess.  He perfectly and accurately orders every piece of His creation.  Secondly, what is His is very important to Him.  The honor He is due, represented here by the consecration of the firstborn, is of such significance to God that He extracted the exact price from the Israelites so as to make sure He received every drop of glory that was His by right.  If God takes His honor so seriously, then we had better be extremely careful not to play games with our Christian walk.  There is no room for nominal Christianity in the body of Christ.

Then in chapter 6 we read of the instructions regarding a special Nazirite vow that people could make to God.  Particularly in verses 2 to 8 of this chapter, God outlines exactly how a Nazirite should behave, what they should look like, and what they should eat.  The requirements are stringent.  And they would have immediately set someone apart and made them quite noticeable to everyone around them.  There would have been no mistaking that a Hebrew had taken the vow of the Nazirite.  I think this is noteworthy, because it demonstrates that God is holy and He demands holiness from His followers. 

In this context, holiness points to uniqueness and purity.  The Nazirite was to avoid grapes so as to stay far away from the potential for drunken loss of self-control that could have come with wine consumption.  Rather, they were to be pure in their lifestyle even as God is perfectly pure.  The Nazirite was to leave his hair uncut and avoid all contact with the dead, even those of his own family.  This was to demonstrate that he was separate and unique from the normal mass of humanity.  In the same way, God is inherently separated and unique, or transcendent, over all created things.  And those who would serve and follow after Him must order themselves according to His standard of measure.  This means, for the Christian, that they must be righteous where the world is unrighteous and pure where the world is unclean.

Later, in chapter 11, there is frankly an astonishing account of God’s patience with His servants, in particular Moses.  The Israelites have complained once again, and Moses is tired of dealing with it.  He begins to focus on himself and elevate his private concerns and feelings over and above the Lord.  In verses 11 to 15 of this chapter, and then again in verses 21 and 22, Moses displays an incredible level of arrogance and rebelliousness.  He essentially throws a temper tantrum right to God’s face, even going so far as to accuse Him of being unfair, creating straw man arguments to artificially tear down, and questioning God’s ability to work miracles.

What is most shocking to me about this incident is God’s response.  Here is the most holy and sacred being that exists, and He is getting symbolically slapped in the face and spit upon by one who is hopelessly contaminated with sinful evil.  Moses, by all rights, should not have even been allowed to be on the same continent as the Lord’s presence, let alone 10 feet away from Him inside the tent of meeting.  Yet, in spite of the rank injustice of the situation, God responds patiently and kindly to His childish servant.  When I think of how impatient and unkind I am to other people, at the slightest infraction of what I believe I deserve, I am ashamed of my behavior.  If God can display this level of compassion toward us, how much more should we strive to be compassionate toward others.

Finally, in chapter 15 God describes the process of dealing with unintentional sins.  In other words, when a person commits a sin but they did not realize it at the time.  In spite of the oversight, God still demands that appropriate sacrifices be offered to Him so as to make atonement for their error.  I find this to be distinctly different from how humans often operate.  A phrase I have heard many times from people, in response to the breaking of a rule or a mistake that has been made, is “it’s not like I meant to do it.”  Such a response does not track with God’s perspective of sin.  Clearly, here in Numbers 15 as well as throughout the Bible, if a sin has been committed the sinner is at fault, regardless of whether they meant to sin or not.  The obvious implication for us is that our sin is serious, God takes it seriously, He demands repentance, and a failure to do so leaves us in a very precarious position indeed.

All of these examples plus many more throughout Numbers and beyond form the great heartbeat of the Scriptures.  That is, they are a window through which the diligent reader can begin, in some small measure, to comprehend the character and nature of God.  This is the very essence of theology; to know and understand God.