Update note: Melissa and I have a Bible study at our apartment on Thursdays and I saw someone else blogging the Bible, so we wanted to write about what we talk about and get some feedback on questions and ideas from you all. We're finishing up with Numbers now, so here goes:
Numbers 22:
Balak (a king) tries to get Balaam to go curse the Israelites, because there's a lot of them and they're getting ready to invade Canaan. Balaam doesn't want to because he doesn't want to go against the Lord his God, the Lord talks to him when he sleeps and tells Balaam not to curse the Israelites, but Balak sends more people and the Lord tells Balaam that he should go with the people if they ask him to (v. 20). A few chapters pass and Balaam blesses the Isrealites four times, saying each time he can't say anything that the Lord doesn't tell him to. Why then does Balaam get compared to false teachers in II Peter 2:15, loving the wages of wickedness? Is it because he goes with the people when they don't come and call for him? Because that's when the donkey talks to him - in the King James by the way, it's a dumb ass. Reminds me of Red Foreman every time I read it.
It's also interesting that Balak lives in this place with all these worshippers of Baal and Molech, and probably other ones I'm not remembering, but when he actually needs something done he goes to the guy who follows the Lord.
Numbers 25
There's a plague and I don't know when it starts or who's getting killed. The people of Israel commit whoredom with Moab, that's bad, OK. Plus they start worshipping Baal. I think it's been some thirty eight years since the last time the Lord stood against them, so maybe they forgot the price of this kind of thing. Anyway, the Lord tells Moses all the people that have been joined to Baal need to be killed. While Moses and the rest of the leaders are prostrating themselves in front of the tabernacle and they see some prince of the Simeonites brings one of the daughters of the Midianite leader into the camp. The priest Eleazar goes and spears through the man and the woman in one shot, I guess they were engaged in some up close and personal activity for that to be feasible... At any rate that stays a plague that we only learn there was afflicting the Israelites and it kills 24,000 of them. Can someone tell me what's going on there? Was this not the first time he brought her into the camp? Was the plague just the Lord's way of dealing with those who were making nice with the Midianites instead of letting the judges do it? Or was it a separate punishment for the Israelites letting a Baal worshipper into their camp?
Anyway, that's what we got.
1 comment:
I read Numbers 31 today, it always seems to help to have a more complete picture. They put Balaam to the sword along with the rest of the Midianites (v. 8) because he had encouraged the Israelites to commit idolatry with the Midianites and sin against the Lord, thus bringing the plague (v. 16).
So that seems to answer the plague question, and I thought the Balaam question. But upon further review Balaam's greed was called out by the dumb ass so it had to have happened before he leads the Israelites to idolatry... I think. At the beginning of both stories the congregation camps across from Jerico in Moab (Numbers 22:1 and 25:1), so I guess they could have happened at the same time, or the Balaam story during the idolatry time, or something to that effect.
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