Numbers. Just What the Title Suggests. But you have to read between the lines...

Actually Numbers has a much sexier theme than title: Desert Wanderings. Not sexy enough for you? You want to go back to Numbers? You wander around on the Saudi Peninsula for 40 years and see if it doesn't do a number on you. (oh i am hysterical. must be the sun)

The first thought most people have while reading through Numbers (ok, let's be real, most people don't read through Numbers. most people don't even pretend to read Numbers-their eyes glaze over and they assume: numbers do not equal spirituality, skip to the end ((that last phrase must be said in the voice of prince humperdink to the clergyman in the princess bride))

But those real holy people who do read Numbers (like me, of course), probably think to themselves more than once, why couldn't these lists have been condensed? To repeat the whole shpiel for each and every tribe seems so inefficient (not to mention DRY like the desert that birthed it).

But a few thoughts do present themselves. One, you've got this huge mob of kvetching, shvitzing ex-slaves with minimal education and probably zero experience in self-government wandering around dazed and frequently disconsolate. They were a rough lot. Probably really got on each others' nerves (definitely got on Moses' very last nerve over and over and over) and may not have trusted each other that much. Moses and the priests come in and they impose civilization on the scraggly band.

They introduced record keeping. Because record keeping is what civilized people do-they balance their checkbooks and update their planners and stuff, or so I hear). Not necessarily altogether unlike score keeping sometimes, either. Every single tribe gets every single detail listed in its turn. You couldn't look back later and say, "Yeah, I know they said every tribe gave 12 tons of gold, but I know for a fact that Benjamin only gave 11 and a half and just called it 12 cause that's how spoiled youngest children are." Keeping the records straight would have a civilizing effect in the future. And it seems like getting these people used to the idea of books and bookkeeping would be good since they would ultimately be called the People of the Book. And all the wonderfully explicit instructions about division of labor regarding care of the tabernacle and all that concerned it had to be indispensable for this lot of largely unskilled newbies.

Leviticus had two cautionary narratives about the scary consequences of trying to pull something over on God, and so does Numbers. 1) Korah's rebellion (ch 16, and mentioned by Jude in the NT too) and 2) Balaam's sin (chapters 22-24, yeah that's the one with the talking donkey).

Moreover, and to whit, there is actually Poetry in Numbers:
(I know you Math majors think there's poetry in all numbers, but we English majors need a little more wordli-ness to our poetry-yeah, And worldliness too, but that's not what I wrote)

1) That beautiful priestly benediction (6:22-26) that we have used across the centuries and around the world: The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace."

2) Moses' blessing of the Ark setting out (10:35b-36)
"Rise up, O Lord! May Your enemies be scattered; may Your foes flee before you."

3) Moses' blessing of the Ark coming to rest (10:36)
"Return, O Lord, to the countless thousands of Israel." (I'm not sure if he was getting tired of numbers at that point)

4) Israel's song of gratitude for water (21:17b-18a)
"Spring up oh well! Sing about it, about the well that the princes dug, that the nobles of the people sank-the nobles with scepters and staffs."

A::::nd that's all I got for Numbers today.

I think there is a whole lot more in here, not the least of which is the interesting factoid that in Hebrew each letter of the alphabet is also a number, so you could potentially hide all kinds of interesting ideas in big long strings of numbers....)