The Book of Numbers was aptly named bemidbar in Hebrew, for it bore witness to Israel’s experiences “in the wilderness.” Numbers 1:1-25:11 bore witness to the experience of the generation which YHWH delivered from Egypt: preparation of the camp and Tabernacle for entry into Canaan, persistence in rebellion, its condemnation, and the fulfillment of that condemnation. After the new census of Numbers 26:1-65, much of the focus in Numbers shifted to the new generation and preparing them to finally entering the land of Canaan in Numbers 27:1-36:13, fully manifest in the commandments and instructions given regarding where Israel had camped, defining the land of Canaan and how it should be conquered, and provisions of cities for Levites and for refuge in Numbers 33:1-35:34.
Numbers 33:1-49 featured Moses’ record of all the places Israel encamped from the day after the Passover when Israel departed from Ramses in Egypt to their final wilderness camp in the rift valley plains of Moab along the Jordan River (cf. Exodus 12:37-Numbers 33:49); it is the only passage in the Book of Numbers which explicitly credits Moses as its author. We do not know the specific sites behind most of the locations mentioned; most of them had been forgotten in antiquity. We have better estimations of the sites toward the beginning in Egypt and toward the end in Midian and Moab.
The plainness of much of the list proves notable: camping in the Wilderness of Sinai was addressed with as much fanfare as many of the camping sites during the forty years of wandering, even though much transpired at Sinai (Numbers 33:15-16). But we also do well to notice the particular points at which Moses provided greater detail: how the Israelites left Egypt “with a high hand,” or defiantly, while the Egyptians buried their dead and YHWH was vindicated by His judgment of their gods (Numbers 33:3-4); the springs and palm trees in Elim but no water at Rephidim (Numbers 33:9, 14; cf. Exodus 15:7, 17:1-8); Aaron’s death on Mount Hor, and noting his death after forty years of wandering and at 123, and the king of Arad hearing of the Israelite approach (Numbers 33:38-40; cf. Numbers 20:24-28, 21:1-3).
We can understand why the list of campsites was preserved: even if Israelites would not be able to visit or ascertain exact locations for most of those listed, it provided attestation for all the wilderness wanderings of the Israelites by the hand of Moses himself. But why was it placed at this point in the Book of Numbers? After all, it could have arguably been placed anywhere between Numbers 22:1 and the end of the book. We may not know exactly why the camp list was placed here, but it remains consistent with a general pattern which can be seen throughout the last section of the Book of Numbers: while the younger generation might be preparing to enter the land YHWH promised them, their context and situation was very much determined by all which had taken place beforehand. It was good to be reminded of all the places Israel had to go in order to get to the place where they now stood.
Having recounted all the places where Israel had encamped, YHWH gave commandment and instruction to Moses for Israel regarding the conquest they would soon begin (Numbers 33:50-56). YHWH charged the Israelites to dispossess the current inhabitants of the land and to destroy all the objects and places of their religious veneration (Numbers 33:50-53). Israel should then apportion the land of Canaan amongst their tribes by lot and proportional to the size of the tribe: the greater the tribe, the more land (Numbers 33:54). If the Israelites would not dispossess the people of the land, they would cause them great trouble, and YHWH would do unto the Israelites as He had planned to do to the Canaanites and others in the land (Numbers 33:55-56).
Having charged Israel to dispossess the inhabitants of Canaan and to apportion the land by lot, YHWH then instructed Moses regarding the boundaries of the land Israel would possess in Numbers 34:1-15. The boundaries established in Numbers 34:1-12, on three sides, comported to the consistent expectations before and afterward: the Mediterranean Sea on the west; the edge of the Shephelah to the Dead Sea on the south; the Jordan River on the east. The northern boundaries, however, would suggest Israel would be in possession of a lot of territory in Lebanon and Syria. Only in Ezekiel 47:13-48:35 do we find any comparable description of Israelite territory, and even then, Ezekiel’s prophecy was no doubt rooted in what was promised and expected based on Numbers 34:1-12. Numbers 34:13-15 reiterated the inheritance of Reuben, Gad, and half of Manasseh in Transjordan without explicitly delineating its boundaries.
YHWH then listed out the leader from each tribe which He was choosing to represent each tribe in the land selection process in Numbers 34:16-29. Eleazar the high priest, Joshua, and Caleb represented the only names already familiar to us; the rest of the tribal leaders were named here for the first time, and seem to represent entirely different families from within each tribe than before.
Having addressed the conquest, the land to be apportioned, and who would represent each tribe to portion out the land, YHWH then gave instruction to make provision for the Levites to dwell in the midst of their brothers (Numbers 35:1-8). Israel should give forty-eight towns in which the Levites would dwell throughout the land of Israel: the six cities of refuge which would soon be described as well as forty-two others; the number of towns per tribe should have been proportional to tribal size (Numbers 35:6-8). The Israelites were to give the Levites the town and grazing land around the town; the exact dimensions of the grazing land seem contradictory between Numbers 35:4 and Numbers 35:5, but perhaps the two thousand cubits defined its frontage and the one thousand cubits its depth (Numbers 35:1-5).
In Numbers 35:9-34 YHWH explained the cities of refuge in greater detail. There would be six cities in total, three on each side of the Jordan River (Numbers 35:13-14). The cities of refuge would provide a secure place for anyone who killed another person accidentally (Numbers 35:9-12, 15). YHWH did not want Israel to live under any kind of confusion or delusion: shed blood defiled the land on which the blood was shed, and the only way the land could be expiated of its bloodguilt involved some kind of death (Numbers 35:33-34; cf. Genesis 9:5-6). To this end, YHWH provided a few examples of what we would call first degree murder: if a man struck another with an implement of iron, stone, or wood, and killed him, in such cases the avenger of blood must kill the murderer to make atonement (Numbers 35:16-21). But then YHWH gave provision for cases we would call involuntary manslaughter: if a man threw a rock without seeing anyone or struck a man without enmity and kills someone without intending to do so, the community would adjudicate between the one who committed the involuntary manslaughter and the avenger of blood (Numbers 35:22-24). If the community judged the case as one of involuntary manslaughter, the community would then be compelled to escort the man back to the city of refuge to which he fled, and he must live there until the high priest dies, after which he can return to his city (Numbers 35:25). But if the man would leave the city and the avenger of blood come upon him and kill him, there would be no bloodguilt for the avenger of blood (Numbers 35:26-29). YHWH also made provision, insisting upon capital punishment for all cases of first degree murder, rejecting attempts to pay some kind of ransom instead (Numbers 35:31-32).
We can see the fulfillment of all which YHWH laid out in His commandments and instructions in Numbers 33:50-35:34 in the Book of Joshua. The conquest was set forth in Joshua 1:1-12:24; yet some of the land had not been conquered, and would ultimately not be fully conquered, and all of the inhabitants which the Israelites did not dispossess would indeed become a snare and a source of great pains for Israel (Joshua 13:1-7; cf. Numbers 33:50-56). The land was apportioned out in Joshua 13:8-19:51, although greatly circumscribed in the north in comparison to what was described in Numbers 34:1-12 (cf. Numbers 34:1-29). The cities of refuge were defined in Joshua 20:1-9: Kedesh of Galilee, Shechem of Ephraim, and Hebron of Judah west of the Jordan, and Bezer of Reuben, Ramoth of Gilead, and Golan of Bashan east of the Jordan (cf. Numbers 35:9-34). The rest of the Levite cities were determined in Joshua 21:1-42 (cf. Numbers 35:1-8). The author of the Book of Joshua then solemnly testified how YHWH gave Israel the land He promised to their ancestors, and not one of His promises to them was left unfulfilled (Joshua 21:43-45).
In this way YHWH gave commandments and instruction to Israel regarding the conquest, how the land would be apportioned and by whom, and the establishment of Levitical cities and the cities of refuge in Numbers 33:50-35:34 to prepare Israel for what they would soon accomplish. The Book of Joshua would then bear witness, in the same exact order as Numbers 33:50-25:34, for YHWH’s faithful fulfillment of His promises.
But if the Book of Joshua well recorded how YHWH proved faithful to all His promises to Israel, how come the more northerly lands encompassed within Numbers 34:1-12 were never truly conquered? It proves difficult to come to a firm and robust conclusion, but it is worth noting how the boundaries of the land of Israel as described in Numbers 34:1-12 substantially represents the territory of Canaan as defined, and controlled, by the Egyptians during most of the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1525-1208 BCE). We can therefore understand Numbers 34:1-12 as YHWH asserting His sovereignty over the lands of Canaan over which Egypt had formerly asserted its authority. If we entertain the later date theory of the Exodus, such would represent an actual substantive transition of authority: after Merneptah’s incursion in 1208 BCE, Egyptian authority over Canaan faded away, and despite a few later incursions and the assertion of authority over the land, Egypt would never rule over Canaan again the way it had beforehand. YHWH had defeated Egypt and its gods, and YHWH would now give the land of Canaan to whomever He willed. Much of it would go to the Israelites; because of their faithlessness, however, part of the land would not be theirs, and they would suffer all kinds of affliction and oppression from the hands of their neighbors throughout the period of the Judges.
The Book of Numbers would continue with the Gileadites speaking with Moses regarding the provisions made for the daughters of Zelophehad in Numbers 36:1-12; perhaps this narrative was placed here since it took place chronologically after all the previous instruction and before Moses’ final exhortation set forth in the Book of Deuteronomy, but we have addressed it in greater detail when speaking of YHWH’s original provision for the daughters of Zelophehad in Numbers 27:1-11. The Book of Numbers ended with Numbers 26:13, establishing what had come before as the commandments and decisions YHWH commanded Israel through Moses in the rift valley plains of Moab; such was intended to be the coda of the material which began very similarly in Numbers 26:3.
The Book of Numbers does not seem to have a dramatic ending. Yet perhaps such was the point: at its end, as it was at its beginning, Israel was still bemidbar, “in the wilderness,” as the Book of Numbers is named in Hebrew. The wilderness was the end for almost everyone in the generation of Israel whom YHWH led out of Egypt. The Transjordan lands would be the final destination for the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half of Manasseh. But for the rest of Israel, the wilderness was never intended to be the end of their story. Israel ended the Book of Numbers as much in transition as at its beginning, but in a very different place, both concretely and in terms of maturity and development. It required a long, circuitous, and painful route, but YHWH’s purposes for Israel at the beginning of the Book of Numbers had been satisfied by its end: Israel was organized militarily and societally for the conquest which they were about to undertake. So the Book of Numbers represented the preparations, events, commandments, and instructions for Israel to be prepared to conquer the land of Canaan between the establishment of the Law and the Tabernacle cult in Exodus and Leviticus and Moses’ final speech to Israel and his ultimate demise preserved in the Book of Deuteronomy. All would be fulfilled according to the purposes of YHWH. May we take strength and encouragement from the example of Israel and all YHWH accomplished in and through her and prove faithful to God in Christ through the Spirit!
Ethan R. Longhenry