Numbers, 1-12

To me, the first 12 chapters of the Bible's fourth book, Numbers, have elements of the previous three – the strong narrative of Genesis, the discord between the people of Israel and Moses / God in Exodus caused by hunger, and the laws of Leviticus. The book's title relates to the numbering of the people by census to assess the size of God's army before going to war. Chapter 1, in a hugely repetitive and detailed way that reminds me of the Catalogue of Ships in Homer's Iliad, breaks down the number of fighting age men (aged 20+) in each tribe of Israel. As outlined by the fine research of the Cambridge Bible for Schools & Colleges, the huge numbers that the Bible recounts here are clearly preposterous, i.e.:

(1) The number of male Israelites of fighting age is put at 603,550, which appears in round numbers as 600,000 (11:21). But the fighting men could form hardly more than a quarter of the whole; so that the population would reach a total of some 2.25mn. The present population of the Sinaitic peninsula is estimated at from 4,000 to 6,000, and a body of over 2mn people could not find subsistence even if dispersed all over the peninsula.

(2) The male first-born numbered 22,273 (3:43); and it is fair to suppose that the number of families in which the first-born child was a female would be about the same, giving a total of some 44,546 families; in which case there was an average of about 50 children to a family.

In readiness for their departure from the sacred mountain of Sinai, each tribe is told to gather by its own ensign or flag (2:2). Arranged into four camps around the tabernacle, where the 13th "tribe" (of Levi, the non-fighting priests) reside, each faced one of the four main points of the compass. Given the relatively similar sizes of the Camp of Reuben and the Camp of Dan, which occupy the opposing sides of north and south, and the very different sizes of the strong Camp of Judah and relatively weak Camp of Ephraim, it seems more than a coincidence that they should form a cross when viewed from the sky. See the more detailed diagram below:

At 3:39, we're told that there are 22,000 males aged one month+ in the house of Levi, with Moses, Aaron and sons in charge of the tabernacle's sanctuary, and other Levite tribes taking charge of various aspects of the tabernacle's operations. In these prehistoric times before clocks and calendars, it seems plausible that a family might know if their baby son had passed the age of approximately one month, but what mystifies me is how (at 4:23) different families could be assessed by the census for the number of men aged 30-50. I suppose that people just kept a mental record of how many times they had participated in an annual festival, but that would make the census system highly vulnerable to errors and lies. Anyway, I digress.

At 5:21-22, we're told that the priests should make a bitter water concoction for potentially adulterous women that would "make thy thigh to rot, and thy belly to swell". I understand that "thigh" in this context is likely KJV euphemism for sexual organs, and that belly means womb. This whole horrific trial by ordeal, which results from a husband suspecting his wife of adultery, thankfully later fell out of practice for Jews and Christians. Some also interpret this trial by bitter water as a type of abortion, which of course makes it problematic for people of faith (see this link for more). For me, this chapter is simply more evidence, if any were needed, that many of the inhumane laws and practices outlined in the early books of the Old Testament have little relevance to modern life.

In chapter 6, we learn about the procedure for those who wish to make a voluntary show of devotion to God, what's referred to here as the "vow of the Nazarite", which means avoiding all alcohol, growing one's hair long and not touching any corpses or graves for a specified period of time. The word "nazir" is still used in Modern Hebrew to refer to Christian or Buddhist monks. I suppose there's a little bit of this human instinct still to be found in modern exploits like dry January and Movember, though I can't think of any contemporary challenges that involve avoiding dead bodies.

Chapter 7 details how all the princes of the tribes make lavish offerings, which at 7:84 amounts in total to "twelve chargers of silver, twelve silver bowls, twelve spoons of gold". At 9:1, the Lord speaks to "Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the first month of the second year", which helps us to place these events in time, just over a year after the exodus from Egypt. When we're told at 10:2 that two trumpets of silver must be forged so as to call all the people of Israel to assembly, I'm reminded of the bugles that were used on my Boys' Brigade camps as a kid, both in the morning (reveille) to wake up all the sleepy heads and at the the end of the day (last post).

As we get near the end of chapter 10, however, things start to unravel quickly, especially after Hobab initially defies the entreaties of Moses (10:29) to join him in his new mission. When the people then start complaining and murmuring, especially about their lack of sustenance (manna from heaven was not enough for some), God really loses his rag and (at 11:1) incinerates some of his people in the "uttermost parts of the camp". Since laying down the law in Exodus and Leviticus, it seems to me that God has become even more vengeful towards his people's transgressions. If we view the covenant with Moses as essentially a contract between God and the people of Israel – for me, it's more a contract than a legal framework given that Abraham, Noah and Moses all technically enter into the agreement willingly – then the system of rewards (blessings) as well as punishments (curses) makes a little more sense, even if the latter can seem very harsh indeed.

All the fiery carnage is followed by a lovely passage in the KJV about the burden that Moses bears:

Have I conceived all this people? 

Have I begotten them, that thou shouldest say unto me, 

Carry them in thy bosom, as a nursing father beareth the sucking child, 

unto the land which thou swarest unto their fathers?

At 11:20, we read that God is angry at his people's nostalgia for Egypt and all the food they had back there, especially the meat. To appease his people, God blows quails from the sea to the camp, but there are still murmurs about the lack of meat, so God then infects all those that eat the quails with plague, as punishment for their "lust", or what we might now call greed or gluttony (11:31-33). It's like a scene from Dante's Inferno. Another strange passage follows in chapter 12, with Aaron and Miriam both upset at their brother Moses for reuniting with his Ethiopian wife Zipporah. They slander her because she's a Midianite from the ancient kingdom of Kush, in an apparent act of racism, and God then summons them and reproaches them, before punishing Miriam with a disease that makes her skin "white as snow". Aaron, in another sign of God's unfair treatment of the sexes so far in Numbers, gets off scot-free.