Numbers 12-19 Recap | OT Ep 18

In this epidsode, Austin and Ashley recap Numbers 12-19 discussing the themes of leadership, rebellion, and divine intercession in the context of the Israelites' journey through the wilderness. It highlights the challenges faced by Moses, the complaints of Miriam and Aaron, the spies' report on Canaan, and the consequences of the people's lack of faith. The discussion also delves into God's confirmation of leadership through miraculous signs and the importance of purification rituals, ultimately drawing parallels to Christ's sacrifice.

Reading Plan - Old Testament in One Year
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tSmSv3JOd-gCJS6VSFMtu-iv14NZ45_M/view?usp=sharing

Chapters

• 0:23 Miriam and Aaron Complain Against Moses (Ch 12)
• 3:13 Spies Sent to Canaan (Ch 13)
• 5:46 Wouldn't We Be Better to Go back to Egypt? (Ch 14)
• 9:20 God's Rituals Clarified for the Promiseland (Ch 15)
• 14:17 Korah's Rebellion (Ch 16)
• 20:46 God's Confirmation of Aaron (Ch 17)
• 22:00 Clarification of Priestly Duties (Ch 18)
• 22:47 Purification Rituals and Their Significance (Ch 19)

Transcript

Hey everyone,

My name is Austin. And my name is Ashley. Welcome to the Clean Slate Podcast. Where we're finding Jesus in the Old Testament.

Hello friends and welcome to episode 18, where today we're going to be recapping Numbers chapters 12 through 19.

So let's remember back to last chapter, chapter 11. We had complaints about misfortunes, then complaints about meat. And God so kindly gives 70 elders some of the spirit that was on Moses to be able to help relieve some of the burden that was on him. And they prophesied throughout the camp. Now in chapter 12, Miriam and Aaron, his own sister and brother, complain against Moses.

Supposedly it was because he had married a Kushite woman. Now, you know when someone has something against someone else and they're trying to get all the evidence against them to bring people on board with them? You know, they don't have any real evidence against Moses leadership. So let me bring up his Kushite wife. You see her complaint when it gets down to it isn't actually against his wife at all. And as Chad Bird says,

Miriam and Aaron get a little too big for their spiritual britches.

In the Hebrew, the verb tense seems like it's more Miriam doing the talking and Aaron is just there with her. And they said in verse two, has the Lord indeed spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us also? And the Lord heard it. boy.

And the Lord said to all three of them, come out to the tent of meeting. God tells them, hear my words. If there's a prophet among you, I the Lord make myself known to him in a vision. I speak with him in a dream, not so with my servant Moses. He is faithful in all my house. With him, I speak mouth to mouth, or we would say face to face, clearly and not in riddles. And he beholds the form of the Lord.

Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses? Now at this point they had to have known that they had done messed up.

Then as the cloud moves away, Miriam was leprous like snow, and Moses, being meek, pleads to God on her behalf. Now picture this. The man who Miriam sinned against intercedes for her on her behalf. Can't you see the imagery of Jesus here? Who we sin against, and yet he intercedes to the Father on our behalf.

As further proof of Moses' close relationship with the Lord, God immediately answers his prayer, but equates her to a rebellious child when he says, if her father has spit in her face, that was a customary practice of shame. And God said she had to be put outside the camp seven days, but then she was welcomed back in and the people set out and camped in the wilderness of Paran

Moving right into chapter 13, the Lord tells Moses to send men to spy out the land of Canaan.

These men should be a chief from each tribe and one by one it lists out their names. It also gives us a little snippet of info that Hoshea, meaning he saves, is renamed to Yeshua, or as we would say, Joshua, meaning Yahweh saves. Let's pin that and keep that in mind once we get into the next chapter. So Moses tells these spies to see what the lay of the land is, what kind of people they have there,

Are they big or small? Is there a lot of them? What kind of things grow there, et cetera. and bring us back some fruit because it was grape season.

Now remember, this is the land promised by God to their forefathers. So they set out and saw that there were descendants of Anak, which were known for their height. People we would call giants, think of a Goliath type size person here. They came across this giant cluster of grapes, so big that they put it on a pole and two of them had to carry it.

They also picked up some figs and some pomegranates.

At the end of 40 days, they returned from their journey, which was believed to be about 220 miles.

And we see in the report that they start to give just what lack of faith that they have in the Lord's promise.

They start off okay, but end up embellishing their report a bit out of fear.

They say it's a land flowing with milk and honey. But their cities are fortified and very large. The people are strong, descendants of Anak. Plus the Amalekites, the Hittites, the Jebusites, the Amorites, and the Canaanites all live there. And in verse 30, Caleb tries to be a voice of reason and to negate some of the bad reports.

He quiets the people and says,

Let's go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it.

But the rest of the spies can't let it go. They say, no, we can't possibly go up against the people for they are stronger than we are.

You can just hear the, fish was this big type of story developing here. Then they start to embellish. It's a land that devours its inhabitants. And we saw the Nephilim, again, think giants. We seemed like grasshoppers.

The story keeps going right into chapter 14. Then all the congregation pitches them a little fit and grumbles against Moses and Aaron. would that we had died in the land of Egypt. This sounds familiar, doesn't it? Or in this wilderness, why is the Lord bringing us into this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?

Don't we do that, y'all? Don't we hear the gospel and that we are no longer a slave to sin? And yet when the Christian walk gets hard, we say in our hearts, would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt? Go back to that old lifestyle, that old habit? I promise you it would be easier. But friends, we have to trust in the promise of God that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us so that we may have life and life abundantly.

that we will one day make it to our eternal rest in our promised land.

So at this point, Moses and Aaron fall on their faces and Joshua and Caleb tear their clothes, which is a cultural sign of mourning. They all recognize this egregious thing that the people have said. Joshua and Caleb stand up and say to the people, the land which we pass through to spy it out is an exceedingly good land. If the Lord delights in us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us. A land that flows with milk and honey,

Only do not rebel against the Lord, and do not fear the people of the land. They are bread for us. Their protection is removed from them, and the Lord is with us. Do not fear them.

then it goes from bad to worse. And all the congregation said to stone them with stones.

The glory of the Lord appeared at the tent of meeting to all the people of Israel. And the Lord tells Moses, let me strike them with pestilence and disinherit them. Let me just make you a nation greater and mightier than them.

Moses again intercedes for the people and God responds with, have pardoned them, but none of these men that I did all these signs and yet they still have not obeyed my voice. None of them greater than 20 years old will see the land that I swore to give to their fathers except Caleb and Joshua.

You said you wanted to die in the wilderness? Well, that's what's going to happen. Your children that you said would be prey? Well, they're going to roam the wilderness as shepherds for 40 years. Then I will bring them in and they will know the land that you have rejected.

Then the Lord sent a plague and the men who brought a bad report of the land died.

So Moses tells the people this, I'm in verse 39, and they said, yes, Lord. Nope, they didn't. They said, here we are. Let's go to the place the Lord has promised for we have sinned. It's done too late for that, y'all. Moses says, why now are you transgressing the command of the Lord when that will not succeed? Do not go up for the Lord is not amongst you, lest you be struck down before your enemies.

Did they listen? No, they did not. They go up to the heights of the hill country in the promised land, the land of Canaan, and were defeated. I know we're all shocked.

We keep moving with this story right into chapter 15. So every time we see Israel encamped for a long time, laws were given for remembrance or clarification. So here in this section, that is exactly what God is doing. The Lord clarifies that once you come into the promised land, which I am giving you, God adds, I want you to do X, Y, Z. For example,

Some of the offerings needed to be accompanied by flour, oil, and wine. This is likely because these elements were not available in the wilderness, but once they enter the promised land, these things would be available and should be added to those offerings. Another example is the principle of first fruits. Once they enter the promised land, this should be extended to baking, and the first of their dough should be given to the priest.

Something else really interesting that I want to point out is at the end of verse 15 and 16, it says,

You and the sojourner shall be alike before the Lord. One law and one rule shall be before you and for the stranger who sojourns with you." Israel was supposed to proactively incorporate Gentiles into their worship of Yahweh. Aren't you glad that the Lord desires foreigners like you and me to be adopted into the family of God?

God goes on to clarify some more laws, but one that kind of sticks out is the guy that was intentionally breaking the Sabbath, purposely doing something written in stone that God said not to do. And for that, God said he should be stoned to death. Now, if this seems harsh to you, I would encourage you to number one, remember that this was not just a mere physical disobedience.

This was a heart issue before the physical act occurred. I mean, this cat broke one of the 10 commandments, the moral law. he not only did not keep the Sabbath day holy and set aside, but he worked on the Sabbath to try to get ahead. He was gathering sticks out of the lack of faith that God was gonna provide in the other six days. Number two,

When we come to a passage of scripture that's hard to hear, we have two choices. We can say, my God wouldn't, which is a very dangerous statement, my friends. Or we can let our feelings and emotions rest at the feet of King Jesus and realize that it's our hearts that have to align with God's word and not the other way around. His ways are higher than our ways and his thoughts higher than our thoughts.

And number three, we need to be thankful for the Lord Jesus as our great intercessor and sacrifice for our sins.

Closing out this chapter in verse 37, "God tells Moses to tell them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations and to put a cord of blue on the tassel of each corner. And it shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the Lord to do them, not to follow after your own heart and your own eyes, which you are inclined to whore after."

Tassels were worn by nobles and other high class people in that culture.

Blue was not only the same color as worn on the ephod of the high priest, but also in the inner veil of the tabernacle. Remember that in Exodus 19 verse 6, God says, you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. It's interesting here, the word in Hebrew for tassel is tzitzit,

which literally means to look at. Chad Bird says that just as couples wear wedding rings as a sort of miniature uniform to mark us as one bound to another, so the tassels were the uniform of Israel. But carrying that metaphor out, we are the unfaithful bride who intends to whore after our own heart and eyes, as the Lord mentioned in verse 39. But God,

is the faithful husband who makes a way for his unfaithful bride to be clean and continually calls her back to him.

Those of you that know us personally know that we've been moving houses and the normal process for us preparing for this podcast is that I do the outline and then we both kind of assign ourself what we're going to write about. We write, we kind of go over it from there. Well, the last couple of episodes, we've not exactly done it that way. We've just kind of said, Hey, you're going to do this. I'm going to do this. And we often don't even know what the other person is going to say until we're recording.

So something really neat is that there's a couple of things that Ashley said in her script that I had no idea she was going to say. And it's something the Holy Spirit laid on my heart too. So see if you can pick those out as we go along.

As we pick up in Chapter 16, we see that a few influential members of the elders of Israel didn't heed God's warning from the end of Chapter 15, where God warned them not to follow after their own heart and eyes, but to remember His commandments.

along with Dathan, Abiram, and On who were Rubenites, organized a rebellion against Moses and Aaron.

these men, accusing Moses and Aaron of taking too much glory for themselves, intended to appoint themselves as the new high priest and leaders over Israel. For a little more context, Korah is a Levite from the clan of the Kohathites. We covered this in last episode, that the Kohathites were a clan of Levites who were charged with the moving of the most holy things such as the Ark of the Covenant, the Table,

the lampstand, and so on. This particular clan had the most important duty of all the Levites except that of Aaron and his sons.

Going back to Dathan, Abiram and An who are Rubenites. Remember the important thing there is that Ruben was the first born of Jacob who was later renamed Israel. Traditionally, the first born was the preeminent leader of the family, but Ruben lost that privilege because of the sin he committed against his father, Jacob. So these men levy a charge against Moses and Aaron, but are they right? Proverbs 18 17 says, the one who states his case,

first seems right until the other comes and examines him. It is always helpful to hear and consider the other side of the story, even if it winds up being incorrect. With that said, need to remember that it wasn't Moses or Aaron who appointed themselves to the positions they had, but God did.

Not only is it sinful of Korah and his company to come against God's chosen leaders in this way, their motives seem to be less than righteous. If you look at Korah, he is as close to doing what Aaron does as one can be, and that wasn't enough for him, which was Moses' retort to him in verses 9-11.

The other men challenged Moses leadership and it would seem that they don't think Moses is a good leader and they should be the ones to oversee Israel from now on.

Moses called them up to speak in front of the assembly and they refused, accusing him of taking them out of the land of Egypt, which was flowing with milk and honey, which is ironic, and not getting them into the promised land, which is also flowing with milk and honey. So remember when they were in Egypt, they were slaves. These men seemed to have some amnesia about what was happening.

Moses and his anger towards these men accepted Korah's challenge and that the people that came with Korah would get their sensors and light incense the next day. And Aaron and his sons would do the same. The Lord would then decide who was to serve him.

The next morning, Korah assembled the whole congregation at the tent of meeting. God spoke to Moses and Aaron, telling them to get away from the congregation, so get away from everybody in Israel, and that He would consume all of them in a moment.

So God is furious at the congregation now for following these men.

But like the true intercessors they were, and like the true prefiguring of Christ if they were, Moses and Aaron interceded for those that rejected them being sent by God.

God told Moses to get the people away from Korah and his company. Moses did as God asked, and Moses in verse 29 and 30 said, If these men die as all men die, or if they are visited by the same fate of all mankind, then the LORD has not sent me. But if the LORD creates something new, and the ground opens its mouth and swallows them up with all that belongs to them, and they go down alive to Sheol,

then you shall know that these men have despised the Lord." So what Moses was saying there is that if they die of old age, right, if they die of natural causes, then nothing happened to them when Moses said this and that God did not send Moses. But in verse 31, the scriptures say, as soon as he, Moses, had finished speaking all of these words, the ground under them split apart and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up.

with their households, all the people who belong to Korah and all their goods. after everyone in the congregation sees this, they scatter in fear.

At the same time this is happening, the 250 men who had their censors and lit incense suffered a similar fate. So if you remember back in Leviticus with Nadab and Abihu, Aaron's eldest sons, when they offered false fire before the Lord, they were consumed by that fire. And the same thing happens here to that 250 men.

would be enough, but the very next day the congregation shows up and accuses Moses of killing these men. God, in His righteous wrath, sends out a plague against the people, and the only thing that stopped it was, again, Aaron's intercession.

The thing that I want to make sure that you're seeing here is that at no time were the people really questioning Moses, they were actually questioning God.

They were in essence saying, plan will be better, which is at heart a violation of the first commandment. They have put themselves ahead of the Creator God by thinking, just like Adam and Eve did, that they have a better way.

But the men that God had sent to them, even though they were despised and rejected, prayed for them and saved them.

So it is with Jesus. We have all put our plans, thoughts, and desires ahead of God. We've all fallen short of His glory, but as we see in Romans 5-8, but God shows His love for us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. I am so thankful for the loving, redeeming nature of Christ that moved toward us before we moved toward Him.

In chapter 17, God confirms Aaron in a different way than he confirmed Moses in chapter 16.

God has a staff gathered from each of the 12 tribes of Israel from each chief.

God then has each man write his name on the staff belonging to his tribe. So, Aaron's was written on the staff for the tribe of Levi.

So again, I mean, you guys are smart people. I'm just trying to paint the image. This is a staff. It's a stick. It's a very dead stick, right? God tells Moses to take all the staffs and put them in the Ark of the covenant and come back and get them the next day. God said that whichever one budded or bloomed or blossomed is the one who he.

God said that whichever one budded or bloomed or blossomed

is the man that he had chosen to be the priest.

The next day Moses did as he was told, and Aaron's staff was indeed the one that budded. In verse 9, Moses took all the staffs out for the people to see, and in verse 10, the Lord told Moses to put it back in the ark so that it would be a sign for the rebels, to remind them of who God had chosen.

In chapter 18, God doubles down on the priestly duties and who would be in charge of what regarding the tabernacle, the tent, and worship in general.

It's as if God is saying, for those in the back of the class, let me make this even more clear so we don't repeat our mistakes.

God expands on already covered topics such as the redemption of the firstborn, the Levites not having the same inheritance as the rest of Israel, and how the Levites would earn a living if all their duties were to be the day-to-day operation of the service held at the tabernacle.

God, after telling Aaron all of these things, including the provision He would give Aaron and to all the Levites, reminds him not to profane the holy things of the people of Israel, lest you die.

All of this brings us to chapter 19. And I know at a glance, you may be looking at this thinking, not another purification ritual, but I hope that you're learning with this podcast. Look a little deeper. CS Lewis said in the seventh book of the Chronicles of Narnia, further up and further in, take that approach to the scriptures. Whenever you think you know something, think further up and further in.

see where Christ is.

To that end, let's remember what Ashley went over a few episodes back and how when someone comes in contact with a dead body in any form, they need to be ceremonially clean before they can come back in God's presence. As we have said again and again, God provides the means for the Israelites to be brought back into right standing with Him. This time, God prescribed something different. God prescribed that a red heifer without spot or blemish be slaughtered and then burned.

people who have touched the dead body of a person would then cleanse themselves with a pre-made mixture of the heifer's ashes and water.

So God's method of cleansing this person who had touched death was to pour death over the top of them. And by this, death overcame death.

If we go to the New Testament, the book of Hebrews chapter nine verses 13 and 14 says,

For if the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinklings of a defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

Hebrews 13-12 says, So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood.

Jesus' death, outside the camp that would be Jerusalem, away from the Temple and figurative presence of God, was and is the sacrifice that overcomes the death that is inside of each of us.

And that's going to do it for today's recap guys. May His grace abound to you and to me as we study to find Jesus in the Old Testament.