Numbers

Numbers In the Book of Numbers we have the record of the failure of the Children of Israel to go in and possess the land. God’s object in bringing them out of Egypt was to bring them into the Land of Promise (see Exodus 3:8). In His tender care over them He did not lead them by the shortest route, “through the way of the land of the Philistines;” for God said, “Lest peradventure the people repent when they see war, and they return to Egypt” (Exodus 13:17). But when, having led them through the Wilderness of Sinai to receive the law, He brought them to Kadesh Barnea, His time had come for them to go up and possess the land. But in Numbers 13:1-33; Numbers 14:1-45 we have the record of their failure to enter in through unbelief of God’s power and disobedience to His commands. Then began the long years of wandering in the wilderness, which were not part o£ God’s plan for them, but the result of their disobedience.

What a picture this is of the life of many a child of God today. Redeemed out of the bondage of Satan, yet failing to enter into the fulness of the blessing of the Gospel of Christ. Do we not all know, either in the past or in the present, something of the wilderness life of failure and defeat? Yet even in their wandering the Lord did not forsake His people: He had compassion on them, He let them enjoy His provision and protection and guidance day by day.

Pilgrimage and Warfare. Numbers is the book of pilgrimage and warfare. In the early chapters we see God’s complete30 arrangements for the journey. As we come to this fourth Book of Moses we find it again full of Christ. From almost every page there flashes forth some new beauty, if only we had space to consider it. We see the camp arranged in perfect order around the Tabernacle--a picture of Christ in the midst of His people. The Cloud. We see the pillar of cloud and of fire resting on the Tabernacle over the Holy of Holies. It probably spread like a vast curtain over the whole encampment, by day a sheltering cloud from the sun, by night a column of fire to illuminate the whole encampment. The cloud regulated every movement of the Camp, its removal from the Tabernacle was the signal for the silver trumpets to sound the order to march. When the cloud rested the children of Israel rested, when it journeyed they journeyed, whether by day or by night, whether it abode two days or a month or a year. The cloud is a picture of the Lord’s unfailing guidance. “He that followeth Me,” Jesus said, “shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” We need to keep “looking unto Jesus,” that we may not miss His leading. The Silver Trumpets. Closely connected with the pillar of cloud was the sound of the silver trumpets. They were used as a signal for the journeying of the Camp, and for the calling of the assembly whether to war or in the day of gladness to keep the feasts. The sound of the silver trumpets could be heard to the utmost limits of the Camp, and when Israel heard the sound they were to obey. We need to listen to the voice of the Lord, whose words are as tried silver “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.” The standards under which the tribes were ranged, the Ark of the Covenant going before, the substitution of the tribe of Levi in the place of the first-born to do the work of the Sanctuary, and their consecration, the coverings of the various vessels during the march, the law of the Nazarite,--all teach fresh lessons to those who have ears to hear. The book opens with all the congregation appearing before Moses and Aaron to declare their pedigree (Numbers 1:18). How many of us can do this spiritually? How many can respond to the test given by Peter: “Sanctify in your hearts Christ as Lord: being ready always to give answer to every man that asketh you a reason concerning the hope that is in you, yet with meekness and fear” (1 Peter 3:15, R.V.)? Let us pause and ask ourselves 31whether we have indeed known the great change which Christ taught us is absolutely necessary when He said, “Ye must be born again.”

God’s Laws for Giving. The seventh chapter gives us the offerings of the princes. They each brought exactly the same, but instead of massing the offerings together each is repeated in detail. God delights to honor the gifts of His children. How carefully Jesus noted the gift of the poor widow who cast into the treasury all that she had, and He said that the anointing of His feet by Mary of Bethany should be told wheresoever the Gospel should be preached.

Surely in the light of Calvary our gifts should exceed the measure of the Israelites under the Law--but how far we come short! There are some who say, “The Jew gave a tithe, I give much more than a tenth of my income”; and yet if they really examined their accounts they would be surprised to find that they are giving less than a tenth. Besides, the tithe was only a small part of what the Israelites gave. The various other tributes probably brought the amount up to about one-fourth or even one-third of their incomes, and yet it was only after this had been paid that their free-will offerings began! If we as Christians were to give in like proportion, there would be no lack for our Foreign Missions or any other part of the work the Lord has entrusted to our care.

Aaron. The Book of Numbers gives us fresh teaching about Aaron. When the Lord sent a plague among the people for their sin we see Aaron--the High Priest whom they had so recently maligned--with his censer of incense running quickly and standing between the dead and the living to make an atonement for the people (Numbers 16:46-50). What a picture of One greater than Aaron--One whom they blasphemed and crucified--who having made a full atonement for the sin of the people, ever liveth to make intercession for us.

Immediately after this incident the representatives of each tribe were commanded by God to bring a rod and lay it up in the Tabernacle before the testimony, and the rod of the man whom God should choose, should blossom. The rods lay there through dark hours of the night, and in the morning the rod of Aaron alone brought forth buds, and bloomed flowers, and yielded almonds. The rulers’ rods were symbols of mere natural power--Aaron’s of spiritual power. Natural32 power may reform and civilize, the power of Jesus alone can change men’s hearts and impart new life (Numbers 17:1-13).[*] See Urquhart’s New Biblical Guide, vol. v. p. 217. The Priests and Levites were to have no inheritance in the land because the Lord Himself was their inheritance (Numbers 18:1-32). They were no losers. All the best of the oil and all the best of the wine and of the wheat was theirs “by reason of the anointing.” As we are the Lord’s priests He Himself is likewise the portion of our inheritance, and we have all in Him and can say, “Yea, I have a goodly heritage.” The time came when Aaron must die (Numbers 20:1-29). Moses was commanded to take him up into Mount Hor and strip him of his priestly robes and put them upon Eleazar his son, and Aaron died there in the top of the Mount. Here the type falls short of the glorious Anti-type. “There ariseth another Priest who is made, not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life” (Hebrews 7:15-16). It was on account of the disobedience of Moses and Aaron in striking the rock that they were not allowed to enter the Promised Land. On the first occasion, in Exodus, the Rock was a type of our smitten Savior. But only once was He smitten for us. On the second occasion they were commanded to speak to the Rock. The Hebrew word for rock in Exodus 17:6 signifies a low-lying bed-rock. The word in Numbers 20:8 is a high and exalted rock. The Water of Separation. In Numbers 19:1-22 we have the account of the Water of Separation--God’s beautiful provision for cleansing from the defilement contracted in daily life. The cleansing efficacy of the water consisted in the ashes of a red heifer, offered as a Sin offering, with which it was mingled. Thus it was a cleansing based upon atonement, a foreshadowing of the blood of Jesus Christ, which cleanseth (i.e. goes on cleansing) from all sin those who are walking in the light (1 John 1:7).

It was perhaps to this water that our Lord referred in His conversation with Nicodemus when He said, “Except a man be born of water, and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus’s failure to understand the type called forth our Lord’s reproof, “Art thou the teacher of Israel, and understandest not these things?” (John 3:10, R.V.). How much of the teaching of the New Testament we Christians miss through our neglect of the study of the types.[*] For Us Men, p. 134. Sir Robert Anderson, K.C.B., LL.D. 33

Teaching by Types. Our Lord Himself used types in His teaching, as for instance the manna, the living water, and the light of the world. But the types of the latter part of the New Testament are mainly relating to His death and resurrection, and in the very nature of the case it is not likely that He should dwell much on these before the events took place. Indeed it is remarkable that He should have given us such clear types of His death as the water of separation in the passage now before us, and the one which closely follows of the brazen serpent, and finally in the Passover Supper, when He said, “This is My blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” Of His resurrection He gave us the type of the Temple, which if destroyed He would raise again in three days, and of Jonah, “So shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” His conversation with the two disciples on the way to Emmaus, after His resurrection, must have been full of the application of the types, and no doubt it formed the basis of this line of teaching by the New Testament writers. The Brazen Serpent. In compassing the Land of Edom the Children of Israel came to the sandy stretch of land at the head of the Gulf of Aqaba. Much discouraged because of the rugged way by which they had come, the people murmured bitterly against God. He sent fiery serpents among them (Numbers 21:1-35). The thing near at hand was used to accomplish His will. Travellers tell us that this very district is still infested by poisonous snakes of large size, marked with fiery red spots and wavy stripes. When the people confessed their iniquity and entreated Moses to intercede, he was commanded by God to make a serpent of brass and to raise it upon a pole. “And it shall come to pass that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it--shall live.” Our Lord claimed this as a picture of the salvation which men were to find in Himself. It is plain that the power to save did not lie in the serpent of brass. Wherein did it lie? There is no answer to that question till we come to the Cross of Calvary. The Son of Man, who is also the Son of God, hung there for us. “There is life for a look at the Crucified One.” The poison of sin is working death in man’s experience today. The divinely appointed remedy was a serpent of brass lifted up, harmless, but bearing the image of that which wrought the woe. “For He hath made Him to be sin for us, 34who knew no sin: that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).[*] See Urquhart’s New Biblical Guide, vol. v. p. 226.

There is a point in the application which Christ made of this type to Himself which is often missed. It is this,--that regeneration, or the new birth, takes place as the result of faith in Christ’s sacrifice for sin. The bitten Israelites were not merely healed by looking at the serpent, they received life. Bitten--they were as good as dead, death was already working in them; and everyone that looked--lived. So when Nicodemus was puzzling over Christ’s words, “Ye must be born again,” and querying how the new birth could take place, Jesus pointed him straight away to Calvary, and said, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:14-15).

Every bitten Israelite that looked--lived; every child of Adam--“dead in trespasses and sins”--who has looked to Jesus as his Savior has received eternal life from Him. All down the ages, ever since the Gospel was first preached, there has been a multitude whom no man can number, of young and old, ignorant and learned, rich and poor, people of every clime and in every imaginable outward condition of life, who have all had this one circumstance, and many of them this one circumstance only, in common--that when they came as lost sinners to the Savior the same result happened with each, they became “new creatures” in Christ Jesus.

Prophecy. We close the study of the Book of Numbers with a reference to Balaam’s prophecy. On the back of an Egyptian papyrus, now in the British Museum, is a note of a certain dispatch sent in the third year of Menephtah by the Egyptian Government to the King of Tyre. The royal missive was entrusted to the care of Baal--, the son of Zippor. This old papyrus is a witness to the truth of the record before us. The name of the King of Moab, who dreaded the invasion of the Israelites, was in use in the district within a century or two of the time of which the Pentateuch speaks. The city of Pethor too, “by the river,” has been identified as situated on the Euphrates. The prophet from a far-off land who was called in to curse God’s people could only bless them, and the words of his blessing form a prophecy which has remarkably described the Israelites ever since they were first uttered, over thirty35 centuries ago. “The people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations”--words which, among others, no doubt, Frederick the Great’s chaplain had in his mind when the Emperor asked him to prove the truth of the Bible in one word, and he answered, “Israel.” In these books of Moses many points were prophesied about Israel and the land which are true today. For instance:-- They should be driven out of their land (Leviticus 26:33),
And their land should be desolate (Leviticus 26:33), They should be scattered among the nations (Deuteronomy 4:27),
And yet remain a separate people (Numbers 23:9). The same has never been true of any other nation except Israel. Whenever we see a Jew, we have a witness to the truth of God’s Word.

Again, Balaam looked down the ages and saw One who was to come. “I shall see Him, but not now; I shall behold Him, but not nigh: there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel… out of Jacob shall come He that shall have dominion” (Numbers 24:17; Numbers 24:19). “Where is He that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen His Star in the east, and are come to worship Him” (Matthew 2:2). Where is the King? We have seen His Star. The Star and the Scepter were foretold nearly 1500 years before they came to pass. And the wise men saw the star, shining in all its splendor, above all other stars in brightness, over the lowly spot where lay the Babe of Bethlehem. “I, Jesus, have sent Mine Angel to testify unto you these things in the Churches. I am the root and offspring of David, and the bright and morning Star” (Revelation 22:16).

Deuteronomy