Numbers

by John D. Currid

God has promised to be with Israel in the wilderness and John Currid shows how the book of Numbers demonstrates God's faithfulness in fulfilling his promises, despite their murmuring and rebellion. Now, in Christ, God promises to be with his people, guiding and leading them to the true promised land. The place of the book of Numbers in the literary pattern is clear. First of all, it concludes Israel's stay at Sinai, and it prepares the people for the march to the land of promise (1:1 - 10:10). Secondly, the book records the actual journey from Sinai to the plains of Moab, and it ends with Israel prepared to launch a campaign into the land of promise. It is telling that the final word of the book is 'Jericho'; this anticipates the book of Joshua, in which the tribes make an assault on the land by first attacking the site of Jericho.

479 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2009

About the author

Dr. Currid has been part of the RTS Faculty for 20 years, serving as both Chair of the Biblical Studies Division in Jackson and Professor of Old Testament in Charlotte. Prior to coming to RTS, he served as Associate Professor of Religion at Grove City College. He is currently an adjunct faculty member at the Jerusalem Center for Biblical Studies in Jerusalem, Israel. Dr. Currid serves as Project Director of the Bethsaida Excavations Project in Israel (1995-present). He lectures and preaches in many countries including Russia, Ukraine, Great Britain, Australia, and Brazil.

Reviews

[Craig Childs · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Currid's commentary on the Book of Numbers is insightful and easy to read. He is a reformed evangelical scholar who supports a view that Moses was the original author and that its census numbers are accurate and can be accepted at face value. A trained archeologist before he was a seminarian, Currid supports many of his interpretations with facts gathered from other ancient Near-Eastern texts and modern archaeological digs.

Numbers contains some of the best and well-known stories in all the Old Testament, but it has an undeserved reputation for being disjointed and boring. I suppose this is because it alternates narrative stories with passages of law-giving. The law passages are almost all repetitions of Leviticus.

Currid outlines Numbers with the understanding that it is structured around the centrality of God's Tabernacle in Ancient Israel's daily life. The tabernacle sat in the middle of their camps while they wandered in the desert for over forty years. Confrontations that occurred over the tabernacle and, by extension, the nature of the priesthood are the thematically climactic scenes of the story (Ch. 16-17).

Here are some other insights I gained from this study:

The marching order of the tribes when they leave Mt. Sinai marks the beginning of the ascendancy of the House of Judah, in long-awaited fulfillment of Jacob's prophecy in Genesis 49:8-12. Judah leads they Israelites when they march, and they are first to fight when they enter Canaan. The moniker ‘Lion of Judah’ begins to take on a Messianic tone at this time in history.
 
Numbers 3:28 is wrong. The census recorded only 8,300 Kohathites, not 8,600 (else the total for the entire tribe of Levi is wrong). This was likely a copyist error resulting from the loss of one consonant symbol that distinguishes a 6 from a 3.
 
Numbers 5 contains a bizarre instruction for near-mystical adultery trials; it feels similar to a witch trial complete with the curse “Your thigh will sag and your belly will swell", which is meant to denote infertility.
 
I always confuse the Levites, Nazirites, and the priestly line. Here are the rules to remember: All priests were Levites, but not all Levites were priests. Only the line of Aaron could be priests. Any Jew from any tribe could become a Nazirite by taking the applicable vows--no alcohol, no cutting or shaving their hair; never touch a dead body.

Is there a contradiction between Numbers 13:1-20 and Deuteronomy 1;19-25? Did the sending of spies into Caanan result from the command of Yahweh, or was it Moses' decision because the Israelites were too cowardly to take the land as Yahweh had commanded them to do? It does not take too much speculation to bring these narratives into agreement, but it's possible the passages reflect two separate rabbinical traditions.

Numbers 15:30 is critical to understanding the sacrificial system. It describes the only sin in the Torah for which there is no sacrifice covering.

In his discussion of Numbers 20:1-13 (Moses striking the rock in the desert), Currid gives an eloquent response to higher-critics why this episode cannot logically be a repetition of a similar incident in Exodus 17. In fact, the two stories are intended to bookend the desert wandering stories and illustrate how little had changed between the first and second generations of Israelites. However, Currid fails to make the connection back to 1 Corinthians 10:1-4 -- the rock symbolizes Christ, who would only be struck (killed) for our sins once for all and no further sacrifice can be required. Moses was punished because he acted in unbelief (20:12), he was aggrandizing glory for himself (20:10), and he distorted what was to be a picture of Christ's finished work on the cross (1 Cor.10:1-4).

Currid presents several historical opinions whether Balaam was a believer who worshipped Yahweh. Based partially on what we know about Balaam from extra-biblical sources, I lean towards believing he worshipped Yahweh as one of a pantheon of gods. Chapter 22 would seem to indicate that "from time to time, Yahweh reveals himself to those outside Israel usually for the benefit of Israel."