WHO ACTUALLY WROTE THE BOOK OF NUMBERS?

There is constant debate about whether or not Moses wrote the Torah (the first five books of he bible.) We know that he went up on Mt. Sinai for a total of 80 days (two 40 day periods of time) and came back down with SOMETHING.  That SOMETHING was either “the law” or “the first five books of the bible”, depending on who you listen to and how you interpret Hebrew.

This whole argument stems over a few Hebrew words that can be translated in two different ways. Many bible students have looked at the evidence and noted the fact that Moses wrote about himself in the third person, and they note the fact that the books of the Torah speak of his death after he is dead.  The same books also talk about the people of Israel living in Canaan AFTER the death of Moses.

There are a million different explanations and theories around all of this. A lot of it is impossible to sort out and/or determine as to precisely what the meanings truly are.

As we begin to study the Book of Numbers and we come to that old question again about who wrote the first five books of the bible, and more specifically; who wrote the Book of Numbers; we find ourselves scratching our head a bit and wondering who is right.

SEVERAL SUGGESTIONS TO PONDER

Was it Moses?

Was it a group of ancient priests who wrote the Torah together and passed it down through generations while giving Moses the credit?

Was it Joshua; who led the people after Moses died?

Did Ezra the scribe rewrite anything during the Babylonian captivity times?

Were there only a few passages rewritten and changed by others?

We could ask a million more questions like these and debate this back and forth all day long.

THE POINT IS WHO INSPIRED THE BOOKS; NOT WHO WROTE THE BOOKS

The final point is that God inspired the words to be written down in what we now call The Bible. Whether or not Moses wrote them himself or dictated them to someone else; isn’t the point at all.

Bible scholars have all agreed that these first five books called “Torah” are accurate and worthy of being called The Word of God.  That is truly what matters.  The men who have been willing and useful to help tell God’s stories are not the true storytellers; the whole and complete story comes to them directly  from God.

A PERSONAL OPINION

I do have a personal opinion which I will offer; but beware that it is only my personal opinion.

Personally; I think that Moses wrote MOST of the Torah as God dictated that it should be written.

In several passages of the New Testament the words of Jesus seem to IMPLY (not prove) this fact that Moses was the author of the Torah.

We know that Jesus spoke to others of Moses as if Moses WAS the writer of the Torah. Was Jesus speaking to them from the view of their own understanding, or from a place of precise truth? Who really knows; but I tend to think that Jesus would never even imply or hint of anything that wasn’t absolute truth.   Again; that is just my own personal opinion.

LET’S STUDY WHAT HAS BEEN SAID INSTEAD OF WHO WROTE IT DOWN

For all of the above reasons, we won’t go into the debate about the author of Numbers here; but we WILL dive into the things that this mysterious author had to say.

We know that whatever is written in the holy scriptures was inspired by God and has survived all of this time just so we can come to the knowledge of the truth of God. That thought alone will suffice for beginning our study of The Book of Numbers.

But what is so special about this book anyway?

WHY IS NUMBERS A SPECIAL BOOK OF THE BIBLE

What makes this book any different from the other books?

Why would The Book of Numbers stand out from all of the other five books enough to merit its very own study?

A FEW KNOWN FACTS

Exodus and Leviticus are books that taught specifically about law.

Numbers teaches about law also; but it gives more specific historical accounts about the implementation of these laws.

Numbers is a good place to study the historical side of the law.

The book is called Numbers because it relates to the number of people that were included in all of the tribes of Israel when they journeyed through the wilderness toward the promised land.  Each person was recorded; and that is what gives us accurate historical records.

For example:  we can look at this book and know how many people were in the tribe of Judah and compare it to how many people were in the tribe of Dan.  We can look at all the tribes together and note there was a total of twelve tribes and we can know how many people belonged to each tribe.  The numbers of the people traveling together and coordinating how they went about it are amazing.  Just the fact that they carried all they needed to live and worship with them for forty years as they moved around the desert is an astonishing miracle.

HISTORY MATTERS IN HIS STORY

So why are we so concerned with the lives of these twelve tribes of Israel?

What makes them so important?

Good question! The results of the history of the twelve tribes of Israel are the positive proof that God has kept His covenant with his servant named Abraham.

If you have followed my teaching for very long you have often heard me make that same statement over and over again; “God always keeps His promises!”  It is a comforting reality for me to know and proclaim in these times that we are living in today.  Just knowing that one thing gives me and many others all the hope that we need to continue on in keeping God’s best ways to live and to keep living out daily life in the way we think God wants it to be done.

GOD’S PROMISES TO ABRAHAM

Just what did God promise Abraham anyway?  Do you remember what we studied way back in our Genesis study?

God promised Abraham four things: 1) that he would be given a land to live in, 2) that his descendants would be many and become a great nation, 3) that he would be personally blessed, 4) that the nations of the earth would be blessed through him and his descendants.

All of these things have happened, and they are recorded for us in The Book of Numbers.  Just as they have already happened; they continue to happen today.

PROMISES FOR THEN; AND PROMISES THAT CONTINUE ON INTO THE PRESENT AND FUTURE

The book of Numbers speaks of how God is bringing the descendants of Abraham to a place where He will bless them and continue to fulfill these promises.

Isn’t that exciting?

It happened then; and it will happen again in the future.  By studying what happened with those physical descendants of Abraham back then we can better know what will happen with the spiritual descendants of Abraham later when The Kingdom of God is ripe and ready to be harvested in the future.

This is pretty amazing stuff!

So let’s get started:

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to our every-Thursday online bible study called COME AS A CHILD.  We are walking through the bible together, word by word and page by page as if we had never seen or heard the scriptures before.  We have discovered the treasures of Genesis, Exodus and Leviticus so far.  Today we start with our first lesson for The Book of Numbers.

ONE YEAR, ONE MONTH AND ONE DAY AFTER ESCAPING SLAVERY

Today’s scripture passage is found in The Book of Numbers; Chapter One. Let’s read verses 1 – 3 together as we begin our Numbers study.

Verse 1 reads like this; The LORD spoke to Moses in the tent of meeting in the desert of Sinai on the first day of the second month of the second year after the Israelites came out of Egypt.

So we know from this verse that the people had been camped at Sinai after leaving Egypt.

By the time mentioned in today’s scripture passage they had escaped slavery for one year, one month and one day.

Why do these particular words sound so familiar?

Those words “on the first day of the second month of the second year” also refer to the time that the tabernacle was first erected for worship.   Remember studying this before?

We read those same words in Exodus 40:17; and it came to pass in the first month in the second year, on the first day of the month, that the tabernacle was reared up.

The passage sounds like it is telling us that from the very first day the tabernacle was erected God immediately came down to them inside The Cloud and began to speak to Moses inside this tent of meeting.

HOW THINGS HAD PROGRESSED OUT IN THE DESERT

God had given Moses the law. This had taken 80 days altogether with Moses staying up on Mt. Sinai.

After that happened; the people had built the tent of meeting which we have called the wilderness tabernacle.  They built it  according to God’s instructions. This took about five and one-half months.

Now the tent called The Tabernacle was about to begin the amazing process of being put up and taken down every time that the Israelites moved along their journey as they followed The Cloud by day and The Fire by night and made their way through the desert.

GOD WAS INSTRUCTING THEM ABOUT WHAT TO DO NEXT

The very first day that the Tabernacle went up; God began right then and there to instruct Moses about what should be done next.  From the moment they finished one instruction from God; the next instruction would come forth.  Moses was constantly being given the next thing that God wanted them to do.

The next verse in this chapter gives us that “next thing.”

God told Moses to take a census.

Up until this point everyone had been anonymous and autonomous.  They had escaped with all the others with God’s help and had come with them to this place in the desert.  They were now free and self-operating, totally subject to free-will and not having to be part of anything or any certain group.  They could come or go; they could leave or stay.  Up until this day it did not matter.

The moment that God came into their midst and dwelled within the Cloud and the Fire among them; that brought a change.

The people still had free-will; they were still free to decide whether to stay or go; but now they all had a decision to make.  Would they stay committed to the work of God’s wilderness tabernacle; or would they walk away and live according to their own standards.

Now the laws became official.

If the people stayed; they became an official part of the vast number of people being formed into a new nation which God was forming.  This new nation would become the pattern for all of the earth for learning how to worship God and how to live as His children.

Once they became committed to the Tabernacle way of life and officially decided to  follow the God Who dwelled within its quarters; the people who stayed true were made a part of the count of the descendants of Abraham.  Everyone now had a RECORDED name and a RECORDED number and God knew it.

God had told Moses to take a census and the census was what brought total accountability into play with each and every person who had been out there with those former slaves who were living their lives out there in the wilderness.