Monday 7th August
Read Numbers 1:1-2; 10:11-12
“The Lord spoke to Moses in the tent of meeting in the Desert of Sinai on the first day of the second month of the second year after the Israelites came out of Egypt. He said: 2 ‘Take a census of the whole Israelite community by their clans and families, listing every man by name, one by one…
…On the twentieth day of the second month of the second year, the cloud lifted from above the tabernacle of the covenant law. 12 Then the Israelites set out from the Desert of Sinai and travelled from place to place until the cloud came to rest in the Desert of Paran. 13 They set out, this first time, at the Lord’s command through Moses.” (NIVUK)
It is clear why the Greek translators ascribed the title ‘Arithmoi’ for the fourth book of the Torah, translated in English into ‘Numbers’, for the book begins and ends with a lot of counting. However, the Hebrew title of the book derives from the first phrase, ‘In the wilderness’ (‘Desert’ in the NIVUK), and this captures the heart of the book for better.
The people of God, newly called out of Egypt to the foot of Sinai to learn how to be God’s holy people amongst the nations, set out for the promised land (v12). Very quickly they learn that obedience in the wilderness is hard. It requires trusting God when everything you experience says that maybe He doesn’t care and things were easier without Him. It is a place of trial and testing.
Testing in the wilderness is a theme that runs through scripture. David spent many years ‘in the wilderness’, trusting that God would fulfill His purposes for David despite everything he was experiencing. It is captured beautifully in many, many psalms. Jesus was tested ‘in the wilderness’ also. Even Paul spent time in the wilderness (cf Galatians 1:17). The wilderness is where one learns to trust God.
But though the wilderness is place where we are tested, it is also a place where we are nourished. Learning to trust God is a lifelong journey and gift, it is a place of blessing as well as trial. Consider John’s picture of the wilderness. Although there is suffering and trial and great peril as attacks come from within and without it is also a place of divine care.
“The woman fled into the wilderness to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days.” (Revelation 12:5) (NIVUK).
For as we will learn in Numbers, God is with us ‘in the wilderness’ too. We are in the wilderness ‘at the Lord’s command’ (v13) but He journeys with us and our place is prepared.
