Well, this lesson is entitled Israel in the Wilderness, part one, we're going to be talking about this whole period of Israel's journeys in two hours and two lessons. This part one essentially really is looking at the book of numbers and what happens after Israel is leaving Mount Sinai and journeying towards the borders of the promised land. All right, so looking at the notes here, if you're following along, a book of numbers takes its name from the Greek, Arithmoy. Arithmoy is the origin of our arithmetic.
It's not called the book of numbers because there's some sort of ancient divinely revealed algorithms or trig or calculus or anything like that. It's called the book of numbers because it is numbering the people of Israel in two points. Actually, there are two censuses. The first one is in chapter one, where they're going, where they're doing a census of all the Israelites at Mount Sinai, and then there's another census in chapter 26.
So the first census is of all those Israelites that left Egypt. They're at Mount Sinai. They've just ratified and broken the covenant at Mount Sinai as we discussed last time. Then they die in the wilderness because of their sins.
So then there must be a second census of the second generation. That's why there are two censuses because the first generation dies. And we'll talk about all of that as we move throughout our lesson. Okay, so this period of numbers covers a duration of 40 years from the time they leave Sinai to the time they arrive at the border land.
You might be thinking 40 years seems like a long time to go that distance. They really should have only taken them a couple of weeks, you know, a few weeks to travel. If everything is on task, it takes them 40 years. Why in the world did that happen?
Did Moses not ask for directions? As a lot of people like to joke and pour Moses out there trying to lead the people and he refuses to ask directions and his wife is just simply saying, honey, just ask directions. No honey, I know where I'm going. That's not the reason why there's a specific reason why they have to wander for 40 years and we're going to cover that as well.
So lots to do. All right, so let's look here at the first major section of numbers, which I've kind of entitled here, preparing for departure in the notes, preparing the people happen in the first four chapters, numbers one through four. And we pick up right where we left off with Exodus. The Israelites are at Mount Sinai and in chapter one, it has the census, as I mentioned before.
So let me just read a few verses for you. We have chapter one, verse one, the Lord spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai in the 10th of meeting on the first day of the second month and the second year after they came up out of the land of Egypt. So there you have it. It's been, it's one year actually after the first arrival in Sinai.
A year later, here you have Moses saying, verse two, take a census of all the congregation of the sons of Israel by families, by fathers, houses, according to the number of names, every male head by head from 20 years old and upward, all in Israel who are able to go forth to war. We'll stop right there. So this census is a couple of interesting things here. Number one is only of the males, 20 years old and upward.
And you might be wondering why not the females, right? If this is a census, you kind of want to include all of them. Why not the children? And the reason is it's said here because we want to find out all the males 20 years old and older who can go forth to war.
So this census is specifically, you might want to think of it as a census that's going to prepare them for the physical warfare that's going to be necessary when they go and enter in the land. This is a census for all the soldiers who are going to fight the battles. Now another thing to point out is you read, none of the Levites are numbered here. You have the 12 tribes and then the Levites are not numbered.
They're separate. And we know this if you go all the way down to verse 47. It says, the Levites were not numbered by their ancestral tribe along with them. For the Lord said to Moses, only the tribe will leave by you shall not number and you shall not take a census of them among the sons of Israel, but appoint the Levites over the tabernacle of the Covenant and over all its furnishings and over all that belongs to it, etc.
etc. to take care of the tabernacle and the liturgy. So the Levites have a separate census because they are essentially being reserved for spiritual warfare. That's how I like to look at it.
So the first census of all 12 tribes is for the physical warfare of actually fighting the battles when they get into the promised land. The census of the Levites is for the spiritual warfare and the spiritual warfare is more important. And if you want to write down in your notes or keep in mind the story of Jericho that will make a lot more sense when we get to Joshua in our time of salvation history. So here they're really preparing to depart Sinai and they're preparing to conquer the land with the 12 tribes, the soldiers of the 12 tribes and then you've got the Levites who are going to leave them spiritually.
Okay spiritual warfare like I said. Now at this point you're like, okay, wait a minute. That's 12 plus one. I mean 12 plus Levi.
That's 13 tribes. Why are there 13? Well, if you remember back in lesson 10 when we were looking at the story of Joseph, I was explaining and sharing with you and how in Genesis 49 through 50, Jacob adopted Joseph's two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh in Joseph's place. So that bumps the number from 12.
Jacob does have 12 sons, but in Joseph's place, you've got Manasseh in F.R. Even the two sons that were born to him in Egypt, bringing it to a number of 13. So if you want to go back and look at that whole story in lesson 10, it'll make sense. All right, awesome.
So this then also is a good opportunity to review really quickly why the Levites are the new priests. Why are they separate? Why are they separated from all of the other tribes? It's because of everything that went down in Exodus 32.
It holds a buckle of that golden calf if you remember Moses is up on the mountain for 40 days. They're like, oh, well, the cats away, the mice come out the play kind of a thing. They decide to with Aaron's help. Unfortunately, a craft is golden calf.
They worship it and it's just not worshipping it if you remember from our last lesson. Now they're involved in all kinds of spiritual idolatry and also spiritual adultery. It is a fertility God. And so there you can imagine all kinds of the fertility actions that they would fall into.
It's really kind of a sexual immorality that's involved in the idolatry. So because of that, all 12 tribes were leicized and only the Levites stood up for the glory of God and they essentially become now the one and only priests. This is a huge shame as we'll talk about a little bit later here in number in letter C of our notes, but before we get there, there are two very important verses. I mentioned before and I'm going to mention it here and probably in Deuteronomy as well in part two of Israel in the wilderness, Galatians 3 and Hebrew 7.
These are very important verses for trying to understand why we have all of these laws independent to the five books of Moses. Why did Israel get so many laws from Sinai all the way up to the Promised Land? These verses explain why. Number one, Galatians 3 and 19.
Why the law? It was added because of transgressions. Whenever Israel sins, Moses has to give them more laws. We do this all the time with children.
If a child breaks a particular rule that's set forth by mom and dad, then more laws are added in order to try to bring that kid back to the straight in the narrow. Same thing happens with companies. Policies and procedures are written because employees come up with creative ways to kind of fudge things. And then so the HR director has to say, oh, wow, I've never thought of that before.
So he created a reason for adding a whole new section in the handbook for why you're not supposed to, I don't know, do X, Y, or Z. Laws are added because of transgressions. That just happens in normal life. Same thing here with the story of Israel.
If you break the law, more laws are given. Related to that, in this particular story or this time of salvation history with the Levites, Hebrew 710 says when there's a change in the priesthood, there's necessarily a change in the law as well. So here with Exodus 32 of the golden calf, there's a change in the priesthood. So therefore you must have a change in the law.
And of course they broke the law of Sinai and now they must have further laws given. That explains why you have the book of Leviticus. If there was no golden calf, there would have not been the book of Leviticus, that symbol, right? And just a moment here, we'll talk, we'll give you a quick overview of the book of Leviticus.
But it's at this point in numbers with that background, with that quick, quick review of the golden calf and why the Levites are now the priests. If you look here in chapter three of numbers, you have what I like to call it the public shaming or the changing of the guard or whatever it is, whatever you want to call it, because now all the tribes are laicized, the Levites will take their place and this is what God asks them to do is publicly do this switcheroo, okay, this exchange. There's a couple of different points it's mentioned, numbers chapter three verse 12, behold I have taken the Levites from among the sons of Israel instead of every firstborn that opens the womb, the Levites shall be mine for all the firstborn are mine. So the point here is the Levites substitute the firstborn sons who used to be priests and they do this entire public exchange of the guard in verses 40 and following.
Chapter three verse 41, you shall take the Levites for me instead of all the firstborn among the sons of Israel and all the cattle of the Levites instead of the firstlings among the cattle of the sons of Israel. And then it goes on to describe this redemption of the firstborn son. You have to buy back your firstborn son because he's no longer a priest and in his place will be a Levite. And it is a shame, I say a public shaming, but it really is because this gift of a kingdom of priests, what was said back in Exodus 19, that was lost because of their sinfulness, because of their idolatry and spiritual adultery.
It's a huge shame. Every family's firstborn son with the father would be the priests and now you've lost that grace, that benefit, that blessing. It's a huge shaming and you can just kind of imagine as everyone's doing the switcheroo here in the substitution, you can kind of feel the sting like, yeah, we lost this priesthood because our sins. All right.
So then these first few chapters, numbers one through four, it's one year after they arrive at Sinai, the Israelites are receiving all kinds of new laws and directions stipulations, instructions, et cetera, on how to worship God in the context of this new Levitical priesthood. You've got a new priesthood, the tabernacle is newly erected and built, you've got new sacrifices stipulated, and all of these instructions are recorded in the final chapters of Exodus, the book of Leviticus, and here in the first opening chapters of the book of Numbers. All right. So that's sort of setting the stage here for us on what's going on and why connecting it with Exodus.