Numbers 33, 34
We find in the redemption of Israel from slavery in Egypt, their wanderings, and their instructions concerning the inheritance promised Abraham a type of the eternal redemption God prepared and executed for his chosen people. The first manifests divine faithfulness, righteousness, and holiness in spite of human unfaithfulness. The second shows the immutable execution of redemption, the securing of a chosen people, and their translation into an inheritance that is “incorruptible, undefiled, that does not fade away, reserved in heaven.” These heirs of the land are not left to their own moral strength, for it is thoroughly polluted, but are “kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Peter 1:4, 5).
I. All Along the Pilgrim Journey – Numbers 33:1–49
A. God told Moses to record the place of each encampment.
There were more than forty encampments. Deaths and births probably occurred at each encampment. All the people more than twenty years old at the time of their departure from Egypt had died (Joshua 5:6). This record would remind the people of the pivotal events of their forty-year journey, such as their refusal to take the land (14), unfaithful complaining, different occurrences of rebellion (including Aaron and Miriam [12]), God’s judgments (cf. Numbers 16:28–35), and miraculous provisions.
B. Miriam, who led in the rejoicing (after the Song of Moses) upon crossing the Red Sea and the destruction of the Egyptian army (Exodus 15:20, 21) had died (20:1).
Aaron, the first High Priest of Israel died at Mount Hor (Numbers 20:27–29). Moses, their faithful leader and earnest intercessor, had been provoked into a presumptuous sin against God in the wilderness of Zin and had been excluded from entrance into the land (Exodus 20:12).
C. The image of pilgrimage is derived from this experience of the Israelites.
Peter wrote, “Beloved, I beseech you as sojourners and pilgrims abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul” (1 Peter 2:11). Paul used the entire experience from the Red Sea to the lifting of the bronze serpent to say, “Let him who thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12). The writer of Hebrews presented those persevering in faith as “strangers and pilgrims on the earth” who knew that they had a “better, that is, a heavenly country” (Hebrews 11: 13, 16). Peter addressed his first letter to those who were “pilgrims of the dispersion” (1 Peter 1:1 NKJV) also translated as “sojourners” (ASV).
D. As children of God by the power and effectual grace of His redemptive purpose wrought in Christ, “our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior” (Philippians 3:20).
We are wanderers, sojourners, aliens, pilgrims traveling for just a little while here until we reach our heavenly home—the new heavens and new earth in which righteousness dwells (2 Peter 3:13).
II. Partakers of the Inheritance – 33:53, 54; 34:13–15
A. God led them through these years of travel, scarcity, suffering, death, intervention, and support to bring them into a land in which they would prosper.
“You shall take possession of the land and live in it, for I have given the land to you to possess it” (53).
B. From the standpoint of God’s purpose on this earth in time and space, these people—“elect exiles”—needed a place and time of stability to become the people through whom the Messiah would come.
They would live and develop in the context of prophets, priests, and kings, awaiting the final antitype of Prophet, Priest, and King in the person of their promised Messiah.
C. The tribal integrity was to remain intact, each son of Jacob having a specific tangible place and function in the ordered nation.
The inheritance would be subdivided within the tribal possession according to the size of each family (54). Persons were designated within each tribe to oversee the apportioning of the land (34:16–29). Possession of the land was not general and undefined, but specific and identifiable. Cities would be set aside within each tribe for the Levites (35:1–3), so that the priestly class was distributed throughout the new nation.
D. God had selected this particular people to be His “chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people” and their witness would “proclaim the praises of Him who called them” and set them apart according to His purpose of mercy (1 Peter 2:9, 10).
As they had regularly rebelled during the wanderings, so they would not fulfill as a nation the righteous witness for which they were set aside. The amazing contrast between their unfaithfulness and God’s maintenance of his purpose through them controls the narrative throughout the Old Testament (Jeremiah 21:1–10; 23:3–8; 30:1–3).
E. The history of Israel simulates the history of the world.
What was intended as a kingdom of righteousness and unbroken fellowship with God was plunged into moral chaos by the sin of Adam; in the same way, this “holy nation” given a righteous law did not attain to that law nor to the purpose of presenting the true God to the people of the world.
F. The redemption of sinners, prefigured in the Israelites’ redemption from Egypt and their settlement in the land, will be accomplished by the Lord Himself through the perfect Moses, the perfect Joshua, into the perfect land of promise.
As the tribes were given a specific portion and each family also, so this is fulfilled by grace for the elect nation of Jesus’ redemptive work. In light of this blessing of the eternal and imperishable covenant, the redeemed give “thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:12–14).
III. An Inheritance Undefiled – 33:52, 55, 56
God told Abraham that the land would be the property of his descendants when the sins of the Amorites were full (Genesis 15:16). His descendants were to be the agents of God’s justice against those inhabitants when God led them back to the land.
A. From the onset of their occupation of the land, God’s command was to drive out all the people and put them to the sword, destroy all the pagan idols lest they be a snare to them (55).
They did not (Joshua 7:11). Some had managed to survive and, as the Lord had warned, they became trouble to Israel (Judges 2:11–15).
B. Because all are fallen, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, they are under a verdict of death.
In the end God will dispose of all persons according to His perfect justice (Revelation 20:11–15). He has the absolute right to bring people to death and judgment as he determines (2 Thessalonians 2: 7–12). He established a death penalty for murderers (Genesis 9:5, 6). He established laws designating capital crimes to be faithfully executed by Israel (Leviticus 18:3–5; 19; 20:1–16, etc.). By command in the context of indisputable revelation, all the inhabitants (with designated exceptions) were to be put to the sword (Joshua 10:38–40).
C. That God’s justice is as inflexible as His mercy is great, and that His infinite wisdom transcends the difficulty of reconciling them may be seen in the unthinkable moment when “The Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all” so that “by His stripes, we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5, 6).
POEM
More than forty camps had been brief resting spots from wandering.
Thousands perished for rebellion, matter for their pondering.
Miriam died and Aaron too, and Moses was excluded.
Righteousness revealed true worship, compromise excluded.
And now they had the land before them to take as their own.
The promise made to Abraham would lead to David’s throne.
But pagan nations, ripe for wrath, must be eliminated.
Filthy idols, they who claim them, must be expurgated.
“Let none remain; let none survive, by My word cleanse the land.
Then settle there, divide by tribes, grow crops, have kids, expand.
But if you leave a pagan remnant, they gouge out your eyes.
My wrath will billow, you will scatter—deadly compromise.
Into the land our Moses went; He won each battle fought.
Our bread, our water, curse removed; by His death we’re bought.
His sprinkled blood gained our escape, His Spirit sealed each heart
For undefiled inheritance to each his blessed part.
