Today's reading from the Chronological OT/NT Reading Plan is Numbers 1-2; Mark 12:1-27.
I found it really interesting in the Numbers reading today that Joseph's sons are named separately as tribes of Israel, even though they were grandsons and not sons of Israel. I tried to do a bit of research on this, and came up with a whole bunch of sites claiming that the USA is one tribe and the UK the other. ??????? I didn't look into that further, as it had no bearing on what I was curious about. If you want to look into it, a simple Google search will provide you with a whole bunch of information for your perusal.
According to The Birthright Blessings go to Ephraim & Manasseh and 1 Chronicles 5:1, Reuben, the eldest son of Jacob and Leah, forfeited the birthright normally given to the eldest son by sleeping with his father's concubine, and so the birthright went to the sons of Joseph, Jacob's oldest son by Rachel. Anyway, it seems that when Jacob/Israel blessed Ephraim and Manasseh before his death (Genesis 48) he said "Now then, your two sons born to you in Egypt before I came to you here will be reckoned as mine; Ephraim and Manasseh will be mine, just as Reuben and Simeon are mine." And so, when you discount the Levites as the priests of the entire nation rather than one of the tribes and take Joseph's two sons as separate tribes, you still come out to 12.
The rest of the Numbers portion today was kind of dull, but when I saw the final tally of all the men 20 or older who were able to serve in the army - 603,550 - I thought "Wow! I wonder what that would look like, all standing together in a group? And then there are the women, the children, the men who were not able to serve in the army for whatever reason, and all the Levites, who weren't counted as part of this... that is a lot of people!" Can you imagine what the looked like, all camped out in tents? And all the livestock??? How huge must their camp have been? (What did they do with all the ... poo?) Not to mention the miles long that the line must have been when they were on the move? I really can't imagine it.
On to the Mark passage...
The verse that really stood out to me today was Mark 12:27: "He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are badly mistaken!"
Since I'm having some trouble forming coherent sentences this afternoon (simply tiredness... no illness here at the moment, thankfully), I will leave it to Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary to expound upon it.
A right knowledge of the Scripture, as the fountain whence all revealed religion now flows, and the foundation on which it is built, is the best preservative against error. Christ put aside the objection of the Sadducees, who were the scoffing infidels of that day, by setting the doctrine of the future state in a true light. The relation between husband and wife, though appointed in the earthly paradise, will not be known in the heavenly one. It is no wonder if we confuse ourselves with foolish errors, when we form our ideas of the world of spirits by the affairs of this world of sense. It is absurd to think that the living God should be the portion and happiness of a man if he is for ever dead; and therefore it is certain that Abraham's soul exists and acts, though now for a time separate from the body. Those that deny the resurrection greatly err, and ought to be told so. Let us seek to pass through this dying world, with a joyful hope of eternal happiness, and of a glorious resurrection. (emphasis mine)
Short-term pain for long-term gain. That phrase has been echoing in my mind a lot lately.
"We're just here to learn to love Him; we'll be home in just a little while." (Amy Grant; In a Little While)
Have a great day!
Tomorrow's passage: Numbers 3-4; Mark 12:28-44.
5 comments:
I never really caught on to that phrase in Mark - because Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are dead. But I totally misread that. Their bodies are dead, obviously. But their souls are alive. This was Jesus refuting the Saduccees and their belief that there was no resurrection (because they based their "religion" on only the Pentateuch and the resurrection is not taught then). But Jesus corrected them by using the Pentateuch itself. Awesome.
I know Miriam - that would've been one huge group of people. The men alone is close to the number of people in our entire city. When you add in the women, children and men unable to serve - probably 2 million people... in one camp!! No wonder they were given such precise instructions as to who camps where and what order they walk in - talk about mass chaos otherwise.
I always wonder what it must have looked like, to be able to see such a HUGE group of people like that on the move! What really boggles my mind is how on earth did they just camp for one day?? I think a couple of times the Bible specifically mentions they camped for only one or two nights at whatever location. I mean, how could the last tribe even have arrived and finished setting up camp before the first tribe packed up and started moving again??!!! It really is mind-blowing.
I like that passage in Mark, too. Again, it seems like I've kinda missed the whole point of that speech, according to the notes in my Bible. It states that "Jesus' statement does not mean that people won't recognize their spouses in the coming kigdom. It simply means that God's new order will not be an extension of this life and that the same physicla and natural rules won't apply. Jesus' comment in v. 25 was not intended to be the final word on marriage in heaven; instead, this response was Jesus' refusal to answer to Sadducees' riddle and fall into their trap. Sidestepping their question about the mucch-married woman, He gave a definitive answer to their real question about the doctrine of resurrection."
Jesus saw right through the whole long story about the woman and her seven husbands and knew they were testing Him about His teaching about life after death, which they thought was ridiculous. It really had nothing to do about earthly marriage covenants being honoured in heaven. I never really recognized that before.
It didn't really have much to do with it, but it certainly does appear that there won't be marriage covenants honoured in heaven - which I confess, I don't really like. But since I know that heaven will be perfect, obviously when I'm there I won't care. It just seems odd that something so huge on earth would not be present in heaven. But I guess due to death and divorce, it could get kinda messy ;)
The vast number of people stood out for me today too. My bible says that it is evidence that God blessed the people richly and that their numbers increased greatly (only 70 moved into Egypt -Ex 1:5). My bible's footnote also noted that only 2 of the whole multitude of people (Caleb and Joshua) who did not die in the desert. Interesting.
I always think it's interesting that though only two of the original "Exodus-ers" who would have actually remembered the experience were left once the wandering was finally over, the Israelites still entered Canaan with almost exactly the same amount of people they left Egypt with!
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