22 February

Bible in 365 Days

Numbers 26-27

Numbers 26

At this point we begin the third and last movement in the Book of Numbers, that which is devoted to the second numbering of the people and their preparation for taking possession of the land from which they had been excluded for forty years.

We have first the record of historic facts in sequence and all the way an account of how the divine government was insisted upon by the repetition of certain laws with new emphasis and applications. In this particular chapter we have the account of the taking of the census and a record of the families and their numbers.

The record is followed by the account of an instruction given to Moses concerning the division of the land among the tribes, the numbering of the Levites, who possessed no inheritance in the land because they were devoted to the service of God.

An examination of this new census will reveal the omission of many names occurring in the first, while others have taken their place. Thus there is emphasized a marked continuity of purpose, notwithstanding the change of persons.

Two men only of those who long before had come to the same margin of the land were now to pass over into possession. These were Caleb and Joshua, the men who constituted the minority, who saw more than enemies and walled cities because to them the vision of God was unclouded.

Numbers 27

An interesting historic incident is here recorded during the wilderness wanderings. One Zelophehad had died, leaving no sons but five daughters. These now petitioned that they might have an inheritance in the land and their petition was granted.

The time for the passing of Moses had now come. In the plan of God it was necessary that the people should pass into the land from which they had been so long excluded. Moses could not enter with them. There is a great tenderness in all God's dealings with him in those closing scenes. The final account of his death is found at the close of Deuteronomy. Here we see him permitted publicly to appoint his successor.

When the call of God came to him to ascend the mountain and view the land and be gathered to his people, the final passion of his heart was that which had so long sustained him in the midst of all the trying circumstance of his work as leader. He thought of the great congregation and of them as the "congregation of Jehovah." He knew, as no other man, their weakness and the necessity for one to succeed him who would lead them according to the will of God. They were indeed but a flock of sheep, and to the mind of Moses, sheep without a shepherd, as they were to the mind of Jesus so long after-men helpless and hopeless.

Moses' last prayer, then, was that Jehovah would appoint his successor.

The prayer was immediately answered and he had not only the satisfaction already referred to of appointing his successor, but, what was far more important to him, that of knowing that the one so appointed was the man of God's own choice.