Jewish sages and commentators such as Rashi note that there is deep significance to why the leaders—the chief men over the twelve tribes—chose to assign a value to the offerings they presented at the tabernacle. Notice that the tribe of Judah gave the first offering, as this tribe would one day produce the kings of Judah and the future Messiah.
The Silver Charger (platter)—130 Shekels (7:13)
The first offering is a silver platter, called a “charger,” of 130 shekels. The number 130 is significant because Adam was 130 years old when he established the first family’s “righteous lineage” through Seth (see Gen. 5:3).
The Silver Bowl—Seventy Shekels (7:13)
The next offering is a silver sprinkling basin valued at seventy shekels. Its core significance is linked to the life of Noah. After the flood, his three sons—Shem, Ham, and Japheth—eventually formed seventy new nations and seventy souls came out of Jacob (see Exod. 1:5).
The Spoon (pan)—Ten Shekels with Incense (7:14)
According to Rashi, this offering of ten shekels is significant when compared to the Torah that Moses wrote in the wilderness. The Torah consists of five books and is viewed as one book, but it is divided into ten major command- ments containing 613 deeds and commands for the Jewish people to follow.
One Bull, One Ram, One Lamb (7:15)
The bull is for Abraham, the chief father of Israel. The ram is for Isaac, as it was a ram that enabled his life to be spared. The lamb is for Jacob, as the blood of a lamb would save his sons during the Passover in Egypt. These three patriarchs fathered all generations of Hebrews to this day.
The Sin Offering (7:16)
This atonement is believed to have been established for Joseph and for his brothers’ sin against him.
The Peace Offerings (7:17)
These offerings were for Moses, Aaron, the priest (Levites), and the Israelites.
All twelve chiefs of the tribes presented the same offerings, indicating that all the tribes were equal in the sight of God. The offering continued for twelve consecutive days. The number twelve speaks of government and divine order.
When we total the weights and values, we read:
• The silver vessels weighed 2,400 shekels after the weight of the sanctuary (7:85).
• The gold spoons (with incense) weighed 120 shekels (7:86). The shekel was a general measure of weight used for silver and gold. It is used of silver in Genesis 23:15 and of gold weight in Genesis 24:22. The weight here is the weight of the incense (ten shekels) on the gold spoon and is mentioned twelve times in Numbers 7:14- 7:80—thus ten shekels of incense on twelve different spoons (one from each tribe) is 120 shekels in incense.
• Sin offering: twelve bulls, twelve rams, twelve lambs, and twelve goats totaled forty-eight sin offerings (7:87)
In these chapters Moses recorded important laws of sanitation and purification. These particular regulations may seem strange to us today, but we must remember that when God gave them, His people were living close together in the hot climate of a wilderness for forty years. God prepared these guidelines to prevent transmittable diseases or viruses from spreading throughout the camp. The reason for these sanitation and personal hygiene regulations would not be understood and appreciated until many centuries later.
The writer S. McMillen in his book None of These Diseases comments on the bizarre remedies used in Egypt during Moses’ time:
“Several hundred remedies for diseases are advised in the Papyrus Ebers (written in Egypt). The drugs include ‘lizard’s blood, swine’s teeth, putrid meat, stinking fat, moisture from pigs’ ears, milk goose grease, asses’ hoofs, animal fats from various sources, excreta from animals, includ- ing human beings, donkeys, antelopes, dogs, cats, and even flies’” (page 11).
Because Moses spent the first forty years of his life in Egypt, he would have been aware of these Egyptian “quack cures,” yet none of these ridiculous remedies are found in the Torah. Instead, God the Creator gave unique sanitation codes to prevent the spreading of germs and disease.
One notable feature of these laws is that God believed in washing and cleanliness. God instructed the priests to wash their hands and feet before ministering and slaying the sacrifices (see Exod. 30:18-21). The inwards (entrails) and inside legs of the sacrifices were to be washed (see Lev. 1:9-13). A person touching a dead carcass needed to wash his clothes and his body (see Lev. 11:24-28) with running water and was considered unclean until evening. If someone touched a scab, a running sore, a possible leper, or anyone with a skin disease or infection, both the clothes and the person making contact with the afflicted individual had to be washed in water, and in some cases, running water (see Lev. 15:13).
In ancient medical circles, no one knew that certain diseases, infections, and germs could be passed from person to person through physical contact. God commanded running water to be used to cleanse and purify a person. The importance of washing was understood in the early twentieth century at the Vienna Medical Center Hospital, when doctors noticed that one in six women were dying in childbirth of infections. Previously, doctors had washed their hands in a basin of water. Later it was discovered this was a source of passing infection to the other women. Today, doctors scrub their hands in an alcohol-based soap or hand scrub and use warm running water, thus helping to prevent the passing of infections to their patients. This simple procedure was revealed to Moses 3,500 years ago.
Also unknown in ancient times was the fact that diseases, infections, and germs could be passed on by the bacteria on a dead carcass. Throughout the Torah, God emphasized the importance of washing when a person touched anyone or anything considered ceremonially unclean, such as the dead carcass of an animal or a person. Leviticus chapter 15 lists specific things that caused a person to be unclean and required ritual purification:
• Any bodily discharge or sore (v. 2-3)
• Any bed, chair, or clothes of a person with a discharge (v. 4-6)
• Any person who is spit upon by an unclean person must wash (v. 8)
• Any clay pot touched by the unclean person must be destroyed; a wooden vessel must be cleansed in water (Lev. 15:12)
• The law of washing prevented the spread of germs and disease during a time when the Hebrews lived in close confinement in tents in the wilderness. This law protected them then, just as practicing healthy sanitation today protects us from germs and disease.
Don’t Forget Your Paddle
In Deuteronomy, God instructed the Hebrews in the wilderness to carry a small wooden paddle on the side of their outer garment. When they needed to “ease themselves,” they would walk to the outer edges of the camp, dig a small hole, and afterwards cover up the excrement with earth (see Deut. 23:12-13). This rather strange process is another example of a life-saving sanitation code.
In Moses’ time, six hundred thousand men, not counting women and children, camped in a hot, rocky desert. If they allowed open sewage near their tents, dysentery, typhoid, and other diseases would spread quickly. Today we know that open sewers become a major source of disease in third-world countries. During biblical times, God established a simple yet healthy way to dispose of human waste, thus preventing the spread of dangerous diseases among His people. These regulations are as practical today as they were thousands of years ago.
Moses had married Zipporah—one of the seven daughters of Jethro, the priest of Midian—when he fled from Egypt after slaying an Egyptian taskmaster (see Exod. 2:21). Forty years passed, and God called Moses back to Egypt to deliver Israel. On his journey he took Zipporah and his son Gershom, who was uncircumcised. God’s anger led to Zipporah suddenly circumcising her son and accusing Moses of being a “blood husband” (meaning, “the marriage bond between us is now sealed by blood”). But Zipporah sees the shedding of blood in circumcision as unnecessary because she was unfamiliar with the Jewish law of circumcision. After circumcising her son at an inn, Zipporah became angry and she and her son went back to her father. God “let him go” (Exod. 4:26), meaning that she returned to her father and sent Moses alone to meet Aaron.
Zipporah was a Midianite (see Exod. 2:16), a descendant of Abraham through his wife, Keturah (see Gen. 25:1-2). After Israel departed from Egypt, Jethro brought Moses’ two sons and his wife, Zipporah, into the wilderness to be reunited with Moses (see Exod. 18:2-6). After the meeting, we read that his father-in-law eventually “went his way into his own land” (Exod. 18:27).
Here in Numbers, Miriam and Aaron criticize the Ethiopian woman that Moses had married. Some rabbis suggest that Moses divorced Zipporah, as she is not mentioned again, and that Aaron and Miriam are upset because Moses remarried this Ethiopian woman, whom he had married when he lived in Egypt.
However, the answer may be found in the writings of Josephus. According to Josephus, the first forty years Moses lived in Egypt, Moses defeated the King of Ethiopia in a battle and married the king’s daughter, named Tharbis (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Book II, chapter 10). When Moses suddenly departed from Egypt at age forty, he left Tharbis behind. Believing he would never return to Egypt, Moses married Zipporah, a daughter of Jethro. Forty years later, Moses returned and brought the people out. Some suggest Moses may have brought his former wife, Tharbis, out of Egypt with him when he departed. Others believe that when Moses left Egypt, Tharbis returned to her land in Ethiopia.
Some rabbis suggest that this woman simply refers to Zipporah, and Aaron and Miriam were concerned that after Moses’ death, he would place his “non-Hebrew” sons born in the land of Midian over the nation. If this woman mentioned here was Moses’ early wife from Ethiopia, then this is perhaps why Miriam criticized him. It is conjuncture to attempt to prove which theory is correct.
The Old Testament is filled with types, shadows, and patterns of things to come. Types and shadows are taught in Christian theology as a form of biblical exegesis that reveals the amazing parallels between people, things, events, and the mystery of redemption concealed in the Old Testament. One way a Christian can prove the divine inspiration of Scripture is through understanding the amazing types and shadows, such as the prophecies of the Messiah and the plan of redemption revealed in the ceremonies, sacrifices, and ministry at the tabernacle. The writer of Hebrews does a masterful job comparing the first covenant and the sacrificial and ceremonial portions of the Law of Moses being fulfilled and complete in Christ’s earthly and heavenly ministry as High Priest.
The revelation of the tabernacle was given for people to apprehend God
The revelation of the tabernacle offerings was given for people to appease God
The revelation of the tabernacle ministry was given for people to approach God
What is a Type?
The word type is derived from the Greek word tupos and is found sixteen times in the New Testament. It is translated in the King James Version of the Bible as print (John 20:25), figure (Rom. 5:14), pattern (Heb. 8:5), manner (Acts 23:25), form (Rom. 6:17), and example (1 Cor. 10:6, 11). An Old Testament type is a person, place, thing, or event that resembles a person, place, thing, or event in the New Testament.
What is a Shadow?
The word shadow is from the Greek word skia (see Col. 2:17). A shadow is an imperfect image or copy that is a reflection of a true substance. A shadow prefigures the anti-type. Paul used the word shadow in Hebrews 10:1: “For the law having a shadow of good things to come . . .” A shadow implies that a reality is yet to come, but a reflection of what is to come is found in the past, or in the shadow. A shadow is a reflection of light cast upon an actual object. Concealed within the Law was the reality of the coming Messiah. The Old Testament holds the shadow and the New Testament brings forth the light.
What is a Pattern?
The term copy or pattern is the Greek word hupodeigma, a word that refers to a sketch of something in the future. The tabernacle furniture and services were a “pattern” of things to come and were patterned after the heavenly temple. Not everything in the Old Testament is a type, shadow, or pattern of things to come. However, there are many types and shadows found in the tabernacle, the priesthood, the sacrifices, and the priestly ministry.
What is an Anti-type?
An anti-type is the fulfillment of a type. From a biblical standpoint, the type is found in the Old Testament and the anti-type is revealed in the New Testament. Before His final act of redemption on the cross, Christ compared His future suffering to the story of Jonah in the belly of the fish for three days and nights: “For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matt. 12:40). In some of the catacombs of Rome, large whales are carved above many of the tombs as a sign of the promise of the resurrection. Another type fulfilled in Christ was the sacrifice of Isaac, which was a foreshadowing of the crucifixion of Christ (see Gen. 22). God provided a lamb for Abraham and He provided a Lamb for the world (see Gen. 22:13-14; John 1:29). Also, the story of Joseph and how he provided salvation for his brothers through his own season of “suffering” (see Gen. 37—47) was a picture of Christ suffering to redeem His own people from sin (see Heb. 2:9-10).
COMMONLY TAUGHT TYPES
People Who Are Types of Christ
The first Adam is a type of Christ, the “last Adam,” as Paul mentions in Romans 5:14 and 1 Corinthians 15:22, 45.
Melchizedek was a king and priest of Jerusalem, a type of Christ, a priest after Melchizedek (see Heb. 5:5-10; 7:1-17).
Places That Are Spiritual Types
Egypt represents the world system and spiritual bondage before conversion (see Gal. 4:1-25; Rom. 6:17).
Jerusalem or Zion typifies the heavenly Mount Zion and Jerusalem (see Gal. 4:25-26; Heb. 12:22; Rev. 21:2).
Babylon, in the New Testament, represents an apostate church system (see Rev. 14:8; 17:5).
Things That Are Spiritual Types
The tabernacle’s three chambers are a type of the tri-part of human beings: body, soul, and spirit (see 1 Cor. 3:16; 1 Thess. 5:23).
Water from the rock and manna in the wilderness are types of Christ, the bread and water of life (see John 6:32-35; 1 Cor. 10:4).
The brass serpent on the pole was a type of Christ’s death on the cross, bearing our sins (see Num. 21:8; John 3:14).
Throughout the notes in this Bible, I will point out various types and shadows in the ceremonial, sacrificial, and ministry services at the tabernacle and temple.
All men over twenty years of age were to be counted and a “sum” or grand total tabulated (see Exod. 30:13-14). This chapter lists the tribal leaders and the numbers counted. The census was necessary, with the loss of 24,000 men in the recent plague involving the women of Moab (see Num. 25:9), with the men dying in the wilderness, and others being born during the many years of wandering in the wilderness. Only Joshua and Caleb from the original Exodus generation were guaranteed an inheritance in the Promised Land.
Notice the total number counted in this census was 601,730 (v. 51). The Hebrews originally departed with 600,000 armed men (see Exod. 12:37), and after nearly forty years of wandering, their number had only increased by 1,730. This is because all men over twenty who departed from Egypt had to die before the new generation could cross the Jordan River and possess the land.
The book of Numbers tallies the number of people counted as follows:
The Hebrew name for the Day of Atonement is Yom Kippur. It falls each year on the tenth day of the seventh Hebrew month called Tishrei (usually September or October), and is the climax of the Jewish high holy days. According to Jewish tradition, Adam sinned on this day; therefore, atonement had to be set on this day. The day was, and is, intro- duced by the blowing of the silver trumpets.
In the days of the tabernacle (and later in the temple), the high priest removed his royal garments of beauty and wore four garments, all made of linen: pants, a tunic, a belt, and a bonnet (mitre) for his head (v. 4). All gold was removed, as gold was used by Aaron, the first high priest, to construct the golden calf. Thus, when the priest entered the Holy of Holies, he took off all gold lest he be tempted with idolatry. The high priest offered a bull and a ram for himself (v. 3, 6). He selected two identical goats and “cast lots” to determine which sacrifice was the goat “for the Lord” and which was the “scapegoat” (v. 7-10). The Temple Institute in Jerusalem shows a small wooden box with two wooden “lots” covered with a brass plate marked in Hebrew “for the Lord” and the other “for the scapegoat” (the Hebrew word Aza’zel). This box and method of inquiry was called a “lottery” for the “casting of lots.” The original may have been two pebbles or stones with markings on them, because the Hebrew for the word lots is gowral, and its root word means “a pebble” or “a stone.” After prayer, the high priest would reach his hand into the box to select which goat was “for the Lord” and marked to die on the altar, or “for the scapegoat” that would escape death on the altar and later die in the wilderness.
According to the Talmud, a red thread was tied around the neck of the goat for the Lord and a red thread was tied around the right horn of the scapegoat. The high priest laid his hands upon the scapegoat and transferred the sins of Israel onto the goat (v. 21). This goat was later released in the wilderness.
Later, at the temple in Jerusalem, once the scapegoat had the sins transmitted to it, a priest tied a rope around the goat’s neck and led it into the Judean wilderness, where it was pushed off a cliff. This action ensured that the goat bearing the sin would not return to the Israelite camp or to the city, symbolically bringing the forgiven sins back to the people. Tradition says that in Jerusalem, a third red thread was tacked to the temple doors, and once the scapegoat died in the desert, the red thread supernaturally turned white, indicating that the sins of the people had been forgiven. Rabbis believe this is what Isaiah alluded to when he wrote, “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool” (Isa. 1:18).
During Old Testament days, on Yom Kippur the high priest would pass the golden altar, bringing the holy incense near the mercy seat (the golden cover on the Ark of the Covenant), allowing the cloud of smoke to cover the mercy seat (v. 12-13). The blood of a bullock was sprinkled seven times on the east end of the mercy seat. The priest then slew the goat and sprinkled the goat’s blood seven times with his finger, followed by the sprinkling of blood on the brass altar seven times (v. 18-19). In New Testament times, during the days of the temple, when the people gathered for the ceremony, they fasted the entire day and stood on their feet.
This ceremony took place once a year. Yet, when Christ ascended after His resurrection, sins were atoned for once and for all. In the New Testament, we read:
“But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.” (Heb. 9:11-12)
“It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.” (Heb. 9:23-24)
Christ entered the heavenly temple and made a final atonement for all who would receive Him as Savior. Every sinner who approaches Christ experiences an individual “Day of Atonement” when he or she draws near to the throne of grace in heaven and seeks forgiveness of personal sins. Christ’s blood fully atones. His atonement is enacted when a person asks for forgiveness, believes that Christ is the Son of God who has finished His redemptive work, and confesses faith and confidence in Christ’s ability to cleanse and forgive. Romans 10:10 tells us: “. . . if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.”
At age thirty, after forty days of fasting, Christ returned to Galilee and preached His first message at a small synagogue in Nazareth, His hometown. Christ selected and read a passage from the prophet Isaiah:
“The Spirit of the LORD is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.” (Luke 4:18-19)
The passage in Isaiah reads:
“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn.” (Isa. 61:1-2)
Note that in Luke, Christ purposely closed the scroll and read only the first part of Isaiah 61:2: “. . . to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.” He did not read the second half: “. . . and the day of vengeance of our God.” The day of vengeance is the time of the future Great Tribulation (see Matt. 24:21), in which the vengeance, or wrath of God, will be poured out upon the inhabitants of the earth (see Isa. 13:9, 13). Christ appeared to mankind as the Lamb to declare the acceptable year of the Lord, and not as the Lion of Judah to introduce divine judgment upon sinners.
This term “acceptable year of the Lord” is identified as the year of release, or the time of Jubilee. Christ was healing the brokenhearted, opening the eyes of the blind, and loosing the spiritual captives from their prisons. By saying that He was fulfilling this prophecy, Christ was announcing that He is the Jubilee!
Again, this season of release occurred every fiftieth year and was a shadow of things to come. Christ came to deliver humanity, and He brings a release from sin, death, and disease. The Jubilee is no longer a fifty-year cycle, but a Person, Jesus Christ the Redeemer!
The fiery serpents were poisonous vipers that lived in the deserts and wilderness. Some read this and are puzzled as to why God instructed Moses to put a serpent on the pole. After all, the serpent is a universal symbol for evil and Satan (see Gen. 3:1; Isa. 27:1; Rev. 20:2); serpents had also brought death to many people they had bitten. It is important to note that Christ used this story of the brass serpent to reveal His own suffering on the cross (see John 3:14-15). Christ was perfect and sinless in His birth, life, and ministry. However, just as the scapegoat had to bear the sins of Israel on the Day of Atonement, the sins of all humanity were placed upon Christ; thus, the image of the serpent represents the ultimate sin offering being raised up. The fiery serpents brought death, just as unrepentant sin in the human soul brings death. Only the cross can reverse the bite of the serpent and restore life to all who look to the Christ of the cross. (For more about the connection between the cross and the pole, turn to the article “The Brass Serpent on the Pole” in Numbers in Depth.)
Four types of trumpets have emerged in Israel’s history. The common word for trumpets in the Old Testament is shophar, which was normally a ram’s horn, as indicated in Joshua 6. At times a larger horn from an antelope was used, but the horns had to be from a kosher animal.
In these verses, Moses crafted two silver trumpets for calling the congregation and directing the movement of the camp. Silver trumpets were later used during the “divine service,” including the Sabbaths, new moon, jubilee cycles, and certain main festivals—Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles.
At the tabernacle, if one trumpet was blown, only the heads of the tribes were to gather at the door of the Tabernacle of Meeting. If both trumpets were blown, the entire congregation was to gather. Distinct trumpet sounds indicated whether the congregation should assemble, march out of the camp, or head to war. According to Jewish tradition, a long blast indicated the people were to assemble; short staccato blasts were used in battle and sounded an order to begin movement.
Silver is a metal that represents redemption. Two trumpets are significant when we consider that as the future “ingathering of the saints” occurs, there will be both “the voice of the archangel” and the “trump of God” (1 Thess. 4:16). When the dead in Christ are raised and the living saints are changed from mortality to immortality, we will be changed at the sound of the “last trump” (see 1 Cor. 15:52). Various opinions exist about the meaning of the phrase last trump. However, if there is a last trump, there must be the sounding of a first trumpet. Some suggest the first trump sound will raise the dead in Christ and the second sound will impact the living, initiating the changes predicted by the apostle Paul.
The two silver trumpets are a perfect image of the gathering together of the dead in Christ and the living at the return of Christ. The two silver trumpets were for the “calling of the assembly” and the “journeying of the camps.” The first blast called the people to gather together, and the second blast indicated movement as a group to their new destination. Could this imagery be compared to the sounding of the trumpet of God? The first raises the dead, and with the second blast we meet with them in the air.
These silver trumpets helped to bring the people together, just as the coming of Christ is called the “gathering together” (see 2 Thess. 2:1; Eph. 1:10).
Levi had three sons: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari (v. 17). A census was conducted of all males one month old and upward. The sons of Gershon totaled 7,500 males (v. 22). Kohath’s male family members totaled 8,600 (v. 28), and the sons of Merari totaled 6,200 (v. 34). God gave each of these descendants’ families a specific charge or duty in the care of the tabernacle, His dwelling.
• The Gershonites cared for the tent, the curtains, door hangings, and all the cords (vv. 25-26).
• The Kohathites were responsible for all the sacred furniture, and the internal hangings (v. 31).
• The Merarites cared for the boards, pillars, sockets, pins, and cords (v. 36-37).
The story of the prophet Balaam teaches an important spiritual lesson that applies to believers today. God gives Balaam a unique gift of being able to initiate a blessing or a curse by speaking it into existence. The King of Moab, Balak, attempts to hire Balaam to curse the children of Israel (see Num. 22:5-7). However, each time Balaam opens his mouth to speak cursing, only blessing comes forth. Balak continues to pressure Balaam to curse Israel by offering a reward. Balaam informed the evil king, “How shall I curse, whom God hath not cursed? or how shall I defy, whom the Lord hath not defied?” (Num. 23:8).
After several attempts, Balaam is unable to curse the Hebrew nation or speak evil against it. If this is so, then why is the name Balaam so negative in the Scriptures? The New Testament mentions Balaam in three places. If we combine all three passages, we can see another side of the story:
“Which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness (2 Pet. 2:15) . . . Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core (Jude 11) . . . But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication” (Rev. 2:14).
Balaam’s sin is the sin of compromise, receiving wages from Balak for a plot to curse God’s people. However, when the curse fails and he is only permitted to speak what God places in his mouth, Balaam forms a strategy that will make his name despised forever among the Hebrew people. Balaam knows he is unable to curse Israel, but if Israel sins against God, then God will be required to curse them Himself. This new strategy could somehow get the Hebrew people to sin against God’s commandments, thus bringing judgment and disfavor upon Israel.
Part of the strategy is to introduce some of the women of Moab to the young Hebrew men in the Israelite camp. These women could seduce these Hebrew men into committing sexual immorality (fornication) and thus bring a plague on the nation. Chapter 25:1-3 tells us what happens:
“And Israel abode in Shittim, and the people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab. And they called the people unto the sacrifices of their gods: and the people did eat, and bowed down to their gods. And Israel joined himself unto Baal-peor: and the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel.”
The strategy is effective. The women of Moab intermingle with the sons of the Hebrews and a plague strikes the camp, killing twenty-four thousand (see Num. 25:9). Moses demands a severe punishment for those who have disobeyed. With the large numbers of people, sin and rebellion could easily spread and cost the people God’s favor. As believers, if we walk in love and follow the New Covenant, we experience the blessing of God in soul, mind, spirit, family, finances, and health (see 3 John 2). When we turn from the truth and sin, it not only opens a door for the adversary, it also hinders the flow of our spiritual blessings. The adversary, knowing he cannot place a curse upon believers because we have been “redeemed from the curse” (Gal. 3:13), tempts us to sin against God and His Word.
If we don’t repent, we will be chastised and judged for our sins (see Heb. 12:5-8).
Abraham is now old and desires to see Isaac married, knowing Isaac must have children to produce the nation God has promised. Abraham sends his personal servant to find a bride for Isaac. This is beautiful imag- ery of how the heavenly Father found a bride for His Son, Christ.
Sarah has died, and Abraham sends his servant, Eliezer (whose name means “God is my helper”) to find a bride for Isaac among the Gentiles in Syria. He takes ten camels loaded with gifts, Eliezer riding one of the ten, leaving the remaining nine carrying gifts. Eliezer finds Rebekah at a well and she cares for the camels. Eliezer presents her with earrings and a gold bracelet. As he speaks to her and her father about Abraham and his son Isaac, Rebekah is willing to leave her family to marry a man she has not yet seen. Isaac is in the harvest field working and is at the well, Lahai- roi, meaning the “living water.” Isaac meets her, takes her into his mother’s tent, and is comforted in his grief over his mother’s death.
God the Father sent His helper, the Holy Spirit, to find a Gentile bride for His son, Jesus. The Holy Spirit has nine gifts and fruits to present as gifts to the bride (see 1 Cor. 12:7-10; Gal. 5:22-23). After Pentecost (see Acts 2:1-4), the Gentiles were grafted into the cove- nant (see Acts 10:1-45). We have “earrings,” or ears to hear from the Spirit, and “bracelets,” a symbol of doing the works of God with our hands. Christ has promised us the Spirit’s refreshing through the “well of living water” (see John 7:37-39). According to Paul, natural Israel was temporarily blinded and the Gentiles were grafted into the New Covenant (see Rom. 11).
