Numbers 33 Commentary
This is how the Holy Script came about – much of it by God’s direct command to write down the events. Verse 1.
God is interested in history. Let posterity be informed!
Verse 4 explains the plagues of Egypt. They served as signs against Egyptian gods, so we can look back and appreciate the choice of signs against Egypt. For example, we can see that the sign of complete darkness was a sign to defy the Egyptian sun god.
The Israelites left Rameses and camped at Sukkoth. Between Sukkoth and the plains of Moab, Israel camped and decamped dozens of times. The lengthy list of stoppages tells its own story. But at last, Israel is here.
The LORD repeats Israel’s mandate: destroy and possess—more appropriately, destroy and possess. Destruction needed to be complete. As history would have it, they didn’t destroy it completely. Instead, they mixed in. The bad influences of Canaan infiltrated the Community of God’s people, but that is for later history.
Possession was important but only after destruction. Today’s saint is warned that you cannot have a clean and clear walk with the LORD without completely destroying sinful elements in your life. As someone has said, you cannot escape a swarm of bees with honey in your hands.
When you read the Bible in pieces (which is very bad), you get the temptation to think that the LORD God was cruel in ordering Israel to destroy Canaan completely. But if you have been through the Book of Exodus and the Book of Numbers, you know Israel suffered the same punishment each time she sinned. In fact, the same punishment awaited Israel if she sinned similarly.
The generation receiving these instructions is very different from the one that we started with in Exodus.
We do have a hint here regarding the events of the Book of Judges. The LORD promises to punish Israel for any holiness failures – the same punishment that Canaan is about to suffer.
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