Category Archives : Numbers (Rayburn)

Text Comment

v.2

The Passover, as you remember, together with the Feast of Unleavened Bread that followed it, was the great festival celebrating Israel’s deliverance from slavery in Egypt. It began on the 14th day of the f…

Text Comment

9:15

“…the day the tabernacle was set up” was the first day of the second year, that is, the second year after the exodus from Egypt (Ex 40:2). In Exodus 40:34-38 we have the same material as we are given in N…

After several Lord’s Day evenings away from Numbers we return to our study of the book where we left off, reading tonight the whole of chapter 11. Remember, Israel has finally left Mt. Sinai after a year’s sojourn at the foot of the mountain and is f…

As we said last time, chapter 12 belongs with chapter 11 as a subsection of the part of the Numbers narrative relating Israel’s progress from Mt. Sinai to Kadesh where the catastrophe occurs. In chapter eleven we read of two incidents in which the Is…

We are not told until v. 26 that Israel had reached Kadesh-barnea, one of the most fertile oases in the Sinai peninsula, which we learn elsewhere (Numbers 34:4; Joshua 15:3) was on the southern border of Canaan. In other words, Israel had already rea…

We considered the report of the twelve scouts last time and drew attention to the fact that the rest of the Bible employs this history of Israel at Kadesh as a principle illustration of the reality of unbelief in the church . We considered therefore…

After the dramatic events described in the past two chapters, the opening of chapter 15 strikes us as an anti-climax. The question is: why put these ceremonial laws here and not after Leviticus 7 or even after Numbers 29 where they would be part of a…

The chapter we are about to read opens a section of four chapters all of which concern the priesthood and its work. In these chapters both the centrality and the indispensability of the priesthood are established by narrative and by law. [Wenham, 133…

If you remember, as we pick up the story Israel has now been condemned to wander in the wilderness, basically killing time, as punishment for her unbelief and rebellion at Kadesh Barnea. The Lord had refused to permit her to enter the Promised Land u…

Remember, we are in a sub-section of the wilderness narrative dealing with the priesthood, its privileges and responsibilities. We have read of the rebellion of Korah and his compatriots against the authority of Moses and especially of Aaron. We had …