I honestly was kind of dreading starting to read Numbers. I was thinking about all of the people and numbers in Numbers. I went into reading the book with a prejudice. My prejudice toward the book of Numbers came from all the many times I have attempted to read through my Bible where I would try to read through the these old testament books as fast as I could. This time I took a long time to look at chapters 1 and 2 in Numbers mainly because I became very busy and didn’t take the time to post the blog after my first reading the chapters. After reading through the books a few times I became aware of some amazing truths in scripture.
In Numbers 1 you are given a size of the Israelite community with the census numbers given of all the men of age to fight. The total number of men was 603,550, that is a lot of people. If you think that each man most likely is married and may have a child or two so if you multiply that number conservatively by 3 you would get 1.8 million people. That is a lot of people that are all traveling together. In the end of Numbers 1 I found a most amazing foreshadowing of who Jesus Christ is amongst all the details about how the Israelite camp was to be set up. In verse 53 it states that the Levites are to camp around the tabernacle between the people and God’s anger. This picture is a representation of who Jesus Christ is because he is the high priest who stands between the wrath of God and us. When God looks upon me He sees Jesus and the sacrifice that was made upon the cross and God’s wrath passes.
I am encouraged by how all of scripture is an encouragement to daily living to christians today. We only need to slow down enough to see the truths that God has given us. As I continue in my journey to blog my way through the Bible I know that God will reveal Himself to me through all of His scripture.
