About the Reading:
Today we read the end of Numbers. We find out the stages of the travels, town lines, and final inheritances.
My Thoughts and Notes:
While reading today’s passage, I find myself thinking that it’s just tying up some loose ends from the rest of the book. I’m sure there is something more important in there; I just didn’t find it.
Anyone want to enlighten me? Anyone want to leave some final thoughts on Numbers before we move on to the next book?
These chapters are basically a recap of the trip across the wilderness. God also sets up the cities of refuge. Also, the daughters of Zelophehad were instructed to marry within their father's clan, so that their inheritance would not pass to another clan.
ReplyDeleteHere is some technical stuff on Numbers 33-36 please bare with as I have to jump around to post these statements. I will start 33, 1 ff This list of camping sites was drawn up by Moses, as v 2 expressly states. However, in its present form it probably includes some glosses. Moreover, a comparison with the more detailed accounts of the journey as given elsewhere shows that this is not complete. It records just forty camping sites, not counting the starting place, Rameses, and the terminus, the plains of Moab. This number, which corresponds exactly to the forty years of wandering in the desert, is probably a schematic device. Besides, it seems that in its present form the order of some of these names has been disturbed. Several names listed here are not recorded elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteThe cities of refuge 35, 8: This provision was hardly observed in the actual assignment of the Levitical cities as narrated in Jos 21. 35, 16-25: Here, as also in Dt 19, 1-13 there is a casuistic development of the original law as stated in Ex 21, 12ff.
35,12: “The Avenger of Blood”: One of the close relatives of the slain (2 Sm 14,7) who, as executor of public justice, had the right and duty to take the life of the murderer; cf Dt 19, 6.12; Jos 20, 3.5.9.
36, 4: Before the jubilee year various circumstances, such as divorce, could make such property revert to its original tribal owners; but in the jubilee year it became irrevocably attached to its new owners. 36, 5-9: This is a supplement to the law given in Nm 27, 5-11