To The Reader

The Daughters of Zelophehad… Zelophehad (tzel-of-khad) is one of my favorite OT names. I prefer how it is usually pronounced: zel-off-uh-had. We know nothing about him except that he was of the generation that died in the wilderness. He had no sons. Only 5 daughters – who are about to go into the promised land…

The Second Census – 📋 So I just got a clue and realized that Dathan and Abiram were… brothers?! What? How did I not catch that before? That’s why when we get done reading the Bible through, you’re gonna go back to Genesis and do it all over again. Because you’ll learn new details every…

Third time’s a charm, right? For the third time King Balak of Moab takes Balaam to a mountain to view the camp of Israel and pronounce a curse on them. But… “By now Balaam realized that the Lord was determined to bless Israel, so he did not resort to divination as before. Instead, he turned…

Balaam & the Talking Donkey. 🫏 It’s my belief that some animals (probably more than we realize) are capable of thought and communication. Not at the level of a human adult but more like the level of a small child. My dog Walter knew what several words meant: walk, treat, kitty… 😏 🐩 You might…

This chapter covers a lot of time and events. We’ll take them one by one. Israel wasn’t allowed to go into the Promised Land, but God didn’t say they couldn’t try to conquer other lands. And so they did… ARAD IS CONQUERED Arad is an interesting name. In Hebrew it’s Ayin (eye/look), Resh (head man/top/first),…

This is a rather long post. Lots of things in these 2 chapters. Feel free to break it up or maybe settle in with a cup of coffee. ☕️ Here we go… Just in case any of you, dear readers, are not familiar with the difference between a heifer and a cow, cows have had…

After all the drama with Korah, the Lord speaks to both Moses and Aaron and makes some things VERY clear about the Levites- what they’re allowed to do and what not. It’s kinda like school. Israel had basically failed their first semester of How To Honor Yahweh 101. So they have to have some remedial…

The Rebellion of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram is a major event. It will be referred to in future texts. It’s nearly impossible for me to read this chapter and not picture Edward G. Robinson as the smarmy Dathan from the movie – The Ten Commandments. He did such a good job in his bad-guy role…

The Complain-O-Meter: 7️⃣ 8️⃣ 9️⃣… Based on the negative report of the 10 spies, the people give up and start forming a plan to return to Egypt. They really didn’t get it, did they? They’re acting as if settling in Canaan and driving out the giant clans was optional – as if they were looking…

The Mission of the 12 Spies… Just to get a bit better picture of what the spies did, let’s look at some maps; starting with where on earth is the Wilderness of Paran? The Wilderness of Zin or Sin is also in this area (see map 1) but it has nothing to do with “sin”…

Remember the “why-did-we-ever-leave-Egypt” counter back in Exodus 23? We last saw it with a count of 2️⃣ I’ve decided to rebrand it as the… 📣 COMPLAIN-O-METER 🎊 And it’s about to start dinging. 🔔 COMPLAIN-O-METER: 3️⃣🔥🔥🔥 Hardship. I’m sure living in tents is inconvenient. They have just spent 3 days packing up every morning, traveling…