When I read Chapter 7, I thought "Why in the world is all this information repeated twelve times over?!" and I went back and read my post from last year, where I found I had asked the exact same question! ;)
I reread my post as well as the comments and re-discovered a few points Tammi had found - that the gifts were generous, and yet the gifts were humble (each tribe brought the exact same thing), and that each and every one was noticed by God.
I did a bit more digging and managed to find a sermon on this chapter which I found especially interesting.
According to Rev Dr Robert Rayburn ....
The question every modern reader of Numbers 7 has is why the author chose to repeat the list of gifts twelve times. Why couldn’t he have simply said, each tribal chief brought the following gifts and listed them as he did in vv. 13-17. Then, if he had wanted to, he could have provided a summary of the total as he did in vv. 84-88. In that case the chapter would be twenty-three verses in length and not 89, a much easier bite to swallow when reading through the Bible in a year!
Well there is little doubt that it is emphasis he was after and that it is emphasis that is served by repetition. That was even more the case in an oral and aural society as Israel was in the 15th century B.C. The Israelites were not reading this; they were hearing it read. Modern readers love conciseness, especially in such a text as this, but ancient hearers were more willing to listen and more sensitive to the impact of repetition....
Well here the weight falls on the gifts given and the fact that they were given by every tribe. In fact, put yourself in the place of an Israelite listening to this passage being read in worship. You happen to belong to the tribe of Naphtali or Zebulon. You would listen intently for the name of your tribe and so would the members of every tribe. And you would listen carefully to be sure that your tribe contributed everything the other tribes did.
In this particular case the gifts given were given in support of what nowadays we would call the mission of the church. All the gifts were given to the Levites to enable them to perform their responsibility – the ox-carts, the animals for sacrifice, and the utensils filled with meal and oil – gifts for grain and incense offerings – all fall into the category of gifts for the work of the church.
In that sense all of the gifts represent the people’s concern that, now that the tabernacle has been built and set up, it can finally be used for its appointed purpose as the place of divine worship and of seeking and finding the presence of God. Think of the various sacrifices for which animals were brought. They represented cleansing from sin, the dedication of the people to God, and the enjoyment of fellowship with him. That, by the way, is a good summary of what our worship services are for. In any case, what all of this giving meant is that the tabernacle could finally begin to function precisely as it was designed to function and the people could begin to receive the blessing and benefit of that worship. The final verse of the chapter – seems to emphasize that. Yahweh was there and was communicating with his prophet and through him to his people just as he had promised would be the case.
And as the exact repetition suggests, as well the absence of the guilt offering – a more personal and individual form of sacrifice as the guilt offering was – this worship was to be offered by and for the people together. Everything that was contributed to the tabernacle, to the sanctuary, in the gifts given by these twelve tribes at this particular time was for the corporate worship of the church....
If there is a subtitle that would apply to Numbers 7 both in its historical context in Numbers and with respect to the timeless principle that is enunciated here it should read: “We are all in this together and need to be.” The gifts that were given in this way for the use of the sanctuary were precisely not gifts that were used by an individual for his own worship of God. They were used in the sanctuary for the worship of the entire people. These were gifts, in other words, that were given both to God and to others. They were not first an investment in one’s own spiritual welfare...
Another way of putting this point is to say that this giving of the twelve tribes to the worship of the tabernacle was in response to God’s grace not a method of acquiring or obtaining his favor.
Amazing what you can learn from a seemingly endless, monotonous, boring piece of scripture. After all, All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 (emphasis mine)
Tomorrow's passage: Numbers 9-11, Mark 14:1-26
2 comments:
Great post, Tammy. I must admit, I read the first four and skipped over the rest. Cheating, I know. But I like the explanation about each person listening for the gift their own tribe had given, even though it was the same as everyone else's. I also liked the quote from last year's post about each gift being the same so that no one tribe could feel smug about having given more than another.
P.S. Did anyone else think of Haiti, New Zealand, and Japan while reading today's Mark passage?
Great thoughts. I wondered the same thing but then I went back to see if all the gifts were in fact the same just in case there was a small difference in one of the tribes(-there wasn't!).
Miriam-I did think of the recent events as I read.
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