To The Reader

“the land that Yahweh struck before the community of Israel, is a land of livestock, and your servants have livestock.”‭‭Numbers‬ ‭32‬:‭4‬ ‭LEB‬‬ When I read that, this soundtrack starts playing on my mental jukebox: This is cattle country… 🐂🐂🐂🐂🐂🐂🐂 (I tried Googling “cattle country” and apparently there’s a video game?) If you don’t know the…

Vows & Vengeance… What are these vows? And why is it handled differently for males and females? 🤔 Most of us don’t take many vows these days. Marriage vows and being “sworn in” as part of judicial proceedings or as part of a government position are the kinds of vows and oaths we’re familiar with.…

Offering Review… Q: When does the teacher give a review? A: Before a test. 📝 There are several things happening in these chapters. Moses does a new census. The technicalities of land inheritance are settled. Joshua is commissioned to take Moses’ place. The Lord is getting the new generation ready to settle in the land.…

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…