The Bible in a Year – 22 February

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

22 February. Numbers 26-27

The first of these chapters is the Old Testament as those who have not really read it might imagine it all to be – a detailed list of tribes and clans and descendants. But this is the military census of the people (or rather, the fighting men) before they cross the Jordan to start conquering its existing inhabitants.  With God’s blessing pronounced by Balaam, these 601,730 men (and their families, and the non-combatant Levites – at least 2 million in total) were camping on one side of the river getting ready to fight, as the armies of William of Normandy, or of Napoleon or of Hitler, had threatened England across the Channel down the centuries (with varying degrees of success).   The Canaanites cannot have been unaware of them coming. History, they say, is written by winners, so it’s sometimes good to take the view of the losers – one man’ “share of the promised land” is someone else’s long-standing family home raided by foreign invaders (with the inevitable rape and pillaging).  In our own time, remember those who suffer a similar fate at the hands of religiously-inspired armies in Nigeria, Syria and elsewhere.

 

One verse stands out – Zelophehad was the only tribal elder listed who had no sons, but five daughters (including one called Noah – now there’s a trick quiz question, was Noah in the Bible a man or a woman?). They appear again in the following chapter where they challenge the patriarchal culture that would have denied them an inheritance, and God tells Moses to let them (and others in the same position in future) have their family share of the promised land.  Maybe not full equality, as sons will still take precedence, but then we still see sexism at work even in our own supposedly equal society.