40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Episode 149 (Numbers 24:15-25:15)

Episode Date: January 24, 2019

Balaam gives his final oracle. He speaks of a star and scepter rising out of Israel in the future. How do Jesus and perhaps the wise men from the east fit into this? The men of Israel start marrying the woman of Moab and worshiping their gods. God is not pleased and Phinehas, the grandson of Aaron, responds in a shocking and bloody way. Chad and Daniel discuss all this and more. Have a listen! 1517 Podcast Network Here We Still Stand Conference CHF City Events Support The Podcast

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast. Check out all the other ones we got going on over there. I know I've recommended this before, but if you haven't listened to The Soul of Christianity with Dan Mavores and Debbie Winridge, you should do that. See, the reason you should do that is because they go over the Apostles' Creed

in 12 parts with special guests. Guests like Delwyn Campbell and Jared C. Wilson and Dave Zoll and Sarah Condon and Michael Horton. You can go and listen to what they have to say about the Apostles' Creed, which would be a good thing to do if you're coming out to Here We Still Stand in October because we're going to theme it around the Apostles' Creed, the common faith. And if you don't have tickets for that, well, there's not a lot of tickets left. So you should go over to herewestillstand.org and get those tickets.

We want to see you there. We want to hang out with you, talk about the Apostles' Creed. Do it. If you're not going to make it to that because, I don't know, you just can't or you just hate California, maybe you live in Texas or maybe you live in Minnesota or maybe you live in Iowa. We're going to be in all those places too. We're going to be in Austin on March the 9th, April 13th in Des Moines, Iowa, May the 4th in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

You can come out to any of those. The secret about those is they're free. So you can go over to ChristSoulFast.org, go over to the city events page. All you got to do is sign up. That's it. The registration is free. Just sign up. Let us know you're coming and you show up.

Chad, what's going on, man? You planned that well. so you're going to south texas in the winter and you're going to minneapolis in may smart man i like that that's right that's not an accident when we plan when we plan these things there are certain places we don't we don't we try to go to places where the weather is good yeah you don't want to plan minneapolis in january or something right no because what happens at most of these events chad if people haven't gone this would be maybe enticing what we try to do is so it's the one day events you have some talks in the morning and you have

singing in the morning and then they have a you have like an hour and a half lunch break uh before things resume in the afternoon and the lunch break what we usually try to do is try to get local food trucks out uh which is cool because you kind of get these like you know distinct local flavors going on but that doesn't work well if it's all you know freezing cold outside and stuff because usually you know you have a couple you know we usually have like two food trucks parked in the parking lot serving people up and you don't want to stand out there shivering so we try to make it to where we go to places where the outside won't be terrible.

Yeah, wise planning. That's right. So, people should come out. Yeah, it'll be good. It'll be good. Well, you ready to wrap up, Balaam? I'm ready, dude. Alright, we are like right at the end here. We have spent, I think, two episodes going over

this story, which encompasses three whole chapters in the book of Numbers. So, we're right at the end of chapter 24, beginning with about verse 14. And this is what's called the fourth proclamation or fourth oracle sometimes of Balaam. So the first three that we heard from him are dealing with basically whatever God tells him to say. And the first one is all about the beauty and the power and the dominance of Israel. The

second one kind of continues that theme. And then the third one would begin to branch out into more of a futuristic vision that Balaam has regarding what is going to happen to Israel in the later days. And in verses 8 and 9 of chapter 24, he actually jumps ahead to messianic language, describing the victory of Israel in terms of a lion. And of course, we think of the lion of the tribe of Judah in reference to the Messiah. Well, after all of this, after being hired to curse Israel and turning things around and blessing Israel instead, Balaam is fired on the spot by Balaam. So he's told that his services are no longer needed. And so he can head on home. But before he does, he has one more thing to say. And that's what we're going to look at in

verses 14 to the end of the chapter. So this is Balaam speaking. And he says, now, look, I'm going to my people and I'm going to advise what this people will do to your people. That is what Israel will do to Balaam's people in the days to come or at the end of days is another way that this can be translated. He starts out. The first two verses are more or less a repetition of what he said before, that this is Balaam's oracle, the one whose eye has been opened, the one who hears the words of God and sees the vision of the almighty. So this is the language that he's used in reference to his other visions as well. But listen to this. This is verse 17.

I see him, but not now. I behold him, but not near. So he's looking down the road. This is some kind of prophetic vision that Balaam has been given, but it's not something that's going to happen now. It's not even something that's going to happen in the near future, but he's looking way down the road, not now, and not near. Well, what does he see? Second, verse 17 tells us a star shall come forth from Jacob and a scepter shall rise from Israel and shall crush through the forehead of Moab and tear down all the sons of Seth. And then he goes on, it says Edom shall be a possession, Seir shall be a possession, and Israel is going to perform valiantly. And then verse 19, one from Jacob shall have dominion and shall destroy the remnant from the city.

Now, this is an Old Testament way. We kind of have to accustom ourselves to the non-New Testament language that we encounter in the Old Testament. This is the Old Testament way of proclaiming the victory of one whom God has appointed, who comes forth from Jacob, who is a star, who holds a scepter, and who will destroy his enemies. So this is the Old Testament way of preaching about the Messiah. Now, when we hear a star coming forth from Jacob and a scepter rising from Israel, those are both messianic as well as regal images that we have here. the star is is frequently associated throughout near eastern history with a ruler uh and then a scepter of course is is the kind of staff that a that a ruler holds so it was it's like his official official staff that's the emblem of of his office so he's not talking here about a nation

he's talking about an individual who is going to emerge from jacob or from israel as a ruler and his reign is going to be accompanied by his scepter and by a star that comes forth from Jacob. And what he's going to do is he's going to defeat his enemies. And the way this is described in Old Testament terminology is crushing the forehead of Moab and tearing down cities and possessing the adversaries. All of these Old Testament ways are basically saying that this one that is identified by a star and a scepter is going to reign triumphant. He will put all his enemies beneath his feet. And that's why from the earliest days, not just to the church, but even in the Old Testament times,

we have first century evidence of this. In fact, this was understood to be a prophecy of the Messiah. So he's not talking about David. He's not talking about another ruler that comes forth from Israel, but he's talking here about that ruler of rulers, that king of kings who is going to to come forth and of course we can't hear the language of of a star rising or a star coming forth from jacob without our minds immediately jumping to epiphany right to the coming of the wise men uh because it was the star that they saw in the east that prompted them to leave their homeland to and to make and to make the journey you know one of the arguments is which i happen to agree with is that because you do have these guys from the east and you're like well how do

they know what's going on one of the the thoughts is that because of daniel and the babylonian captivity that you had this sort of remnant of people that knew about all this jewish prophecy prophecy and stuff which i think makes sense and and if that is the case this is a text that they would know about because this is this is if they know about messianic texts um this is would be one of the ones that would that they would have because daniel would have considered this a messianic texts as well yeah yeah i suspect that they had they were probably studying many ancient writings including of course the jewish scriptures because the the jewish prep presence in babylon was uh was consistent at least from the time of the babylonian captivity onward and that was

that was the sixth century uh the israelites were exiled to babylon in uh in 586 bc and most of them stayed there you know we 70 years later there was a small remnant that came back to the holy land and they rebuilt the uh the temple they rebuilt the city eventually it took them a long time but most of the jews stayed in babylon right well because it wasn't turmoil though for there forever i mean after the yeah the lion's den episode like things get a lot easier Yeah, I mean, Jeremiah had told them to build homes and plant vineyards and pray for the peace of their cities because they were going to be there a long time. And in fact, they were. I mean, for the longest time, Babylon, not Israel, Babylon was the center of Jewish scholarship. If you've heard about the Talmud, the Talmud is like the religious text for the Jews.

And the Talmud, there are two Talmuds But the one that is studied still today Is the Babylonian Talmud There is also a Talmud that's from Jerusalem The Palestinian Talmud But the Babylonian Talmud is the one that's studied And so that came out of this particular place Where the Jews had lived for centuries

It was the center of scholarship for them And all of that to make the point that it is not surprising whatsoever that when the wise men came from the east they came because they've been studying jewish writings because they would have been surrounded by the jews and their scholarship and their and their scripture so it makes sense yeah i mean so if you're studying jewish writings and then uh you see this star up here i mean it's not they don't just like it's not just like this assumption like there's a star there must be a king i mean like you were the star is associated with royalty anyway but but this on top of it means like what they're

saying is the thing that we've read about that may just be happening yes right and they were so convinced of course that that that they set out on this long long journey to to investigate the star so all of it goes back to ironically to a prophecy made by a non-israelite yeah and there's The tie in there, too, we have non-Israelites, the wise men, coming to see the star that they saw from the east. And the prophecy of that star was also uttered by a non-Israelite. Well, it's interesting that sometimes God puts true words in the mouths of lying people. We will see, we're about to see, that you might be at this point, if this is all you knew, the story ended here. Now, Balaam would probably have a very different reputation within the history of the church and in Jewish history.

Because you'd say, well, look, here's a guy that maybe at the beginning things were a little strange. But, man, he got straightened out. And then, you know, he wouldn't budge. And he just spoke the word of the Lord. He'd probably go down as like a pretty legit prophet. But he's not going to go down as a legit prophet because he's about to do something really shady. but though he is a shady dude god will put his words in the mouths of people like that and so i'm reminded of what paul says you know and in romans when he says i let god be true and every

man a liar uh when god's the one putting the words in your mouth and those things are true and uh and everything else that you speak might be completely false and terrible Yeah, that's true of Balaam. It's true of a lot of situations. If they're the mouthpiece of God, then they are simply speaking the Lord's words. Now, they might be a scoundrel. They might say a lot of other things that are not true. But if God's words are coming out of the mouth, then those words are truth,

and they have nothing to do really with the individual himself. Yeah, I mean, this isn't the only place that this happens where some guy speaks prophetically that we don't even know if he's a legit believer at all. This happens with the high priest, with Christ, right? I mean, explicitly we're told that he prophesies. You have things like, let his blood be on us and our children. Crazy things like that that happen where you don't even know what you're saying, man. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, that's a great example. God turns that around. Let his blood be on us and on our children. And God's like, yes, that's exactly what's going to happen. His blood of atonement will be the one who is covering you. So anyway, that's the essence of this last fourth and last oracle of Balaam. He goes on in a few more verses, basically, to give other examples of how this one who has the star in the scepter is going to reign supreme over his enemies. Which, of course, we finally see in his resurrection.

and we uh we await that final enemy to be put under his feet in the resurrection of all flesh on the last day but this is the old testament way of prophesying both the birth because of the star as well as the triumphant resurrection of the messiah all the way back there in balaam's day and the chapter finishes off with one verse in prose it says then balaam arose and departed and returned to his place. And Balak also went his way. And like you said earlier, if that was the end of the story, I mean, if we didn't know anything else, then we might all stand up and give Balaam a round of applause because, you know, what a great guy. I mean, yeah, he started off with a lot of problems, but in the end, he spoke God's word. He spoke it truly. He refused to be

manipulated by, uh, the guy that had hired him to, to curse Israel. End of story. Balaam emerges with, uh, with shining colors, but that's not what happened. Uh, as we will find out in the chapter that we're about to start next. So we're in chapter 25 of Numbers now, and chapter 25 is, uh, is, is part of a, of a longer story that's going to be interrupted. So we're going to, We're going to cover the story in 25, and then it's like we go in this long kind of parenthesis with a whole lot of other stuff. Chapter 26 talks about a census, and then chapter 27 talks about some special laws of inheritance, and then chapter 28 and 29 goes through a whole lot of offerings that are things that we've covered before. chapter 30 talks about vows so there's a whole lot of chapters where it goes off talking about

various other subjects but then once we get past those chapters to chapter 31 we're going to return to kind of part b of the story that we're going to to look at next so for whatever reason it's like a long commercial break here between between chapter 25 and chapter 31 with a whole lot of other extraneous material that's thrown in there. And then when we get to 31, we'll pick up the narrative of exactly what happens with regard to Israel and her neighbors. So let's jump into it. Chapter 25. We know that Israel is now at the border of the Holy Land. I mean, they are right there across from the Jordan River. And they're at a place called by various names, Peor is one of those. They're also camped at a place that's known as Shittim, which is where the chapter

starts out by situating Israel. And what's going to happen to them in this particular chapter is it's like the second verse or the third verse of a song that we've been singing all along. they're going to get ensnared in idolatry, and there's going to be a plague, there's going to be death, there's going to be redemption and atonement. There's a whole lot going on in this chapter, and everything that's going on is going to seem like deja vu because it has so much in common, especially with two previous episodes. One of those is the golden calf, and the other is what happened to them earlier when they were on the the edge of the of the promised land so both of those are actually going to provide a a backdrop to this this particular chapter well so

what happens well they they're they're uh they're they're camped out there at shatim and it says when they were there the people began to play the harlot with the daughters of moab why well Verse two says, because they invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. So Israel joined themselves, it says, to to Baal of Peor. And no surprise how verse three ends. The Lord was angry against Israel. So this is, I guess you could consider this both a backward-looking and a forward-looking narrative, as are many of the narratives in the Old Testament. It's backward-looking because what happens here, as I just mentioned, is like a replay of a couple of episodes from Israel's previous history.

One, the Golden Calf, and the other, when Israel was at the Promised Land, the border of the Promised Land, 40 years previous. But this is also a forward-looking narrative because what we see happening here with Israel is going to be the same thing that we see replayed over and over in their history. Now they're in what's called the Transjordan, which is the other side of the Jordan, the eastern side of the Jordan. But once they cross the Jordan, once they enter into the Promised Land, they're going to face this same temptation over and over again. And most of the time they will succumb to this temptation. They will ally themselves in various ways with the peoples of the land, end up committing harlotry, both physically as well as spiritually, and bringing the wrath of God on them. This is more or less the cycle that we see in the book of Judges. Over and over, Israel goes through the same cycle of rebellion and the retribution from God that follows that.

Now, what's ironic about this big of a story is that it's like you go from you go from bright daylight in chapter 24 to darkest midnight in chapter 25. I mean, it's quite it's like it's like a jarring segue between these two, because we just heard Balaam talk about the glory of Israel and the messianic victory that's to come. In earlier oracles or in earlier proclamations, we heard him talk about how fantastic Israel is and how great they will be in the future. All this positive language about Israel

and their coming salvation and victory in the star and scepter that comes forth from Jacob. And then we run smack into this horrible, rebellious infidelity of Israel in chapter 25. So there's this terrible tension between what we saw in chapter 24 and chapter 25, between the promise of what God is going to do in the future and the travesty of Israel's rebellion in chapter 25. Yeah, I see two things here. One is that Israel is a mess and that when all these positive things are spoken about Israel, it really doesn't make a lot of sense unless you read them through the sort of Israel reduced to one man in Christ, that all the blessing and victory and stuff ultimately is boiled down to him. because if you look at what happens to israel like we're like well this is not some kind of

incredible uh righteous people uh the other thing is that you realize that lust and idolatry are not exactly new i mean this this is these are the two things that just follow everything around yeah and as we've seen uh as we've seen before i mean that the physical side of adultery is uh is connected in two ways with idolatry one it is uh idolatry itself is called is referred to as spiritual adultery but the two often exist simultaneously right because in the in the worship of the canaanites you have this kind of sexual activity going on kind of a sacral prostitution as it's sometimes called but then you also have because it is connected with the worship of a false god there's there's idolatry going on as well so these these two are are

existing within they're sort of two separate sins but they're really one in the same sin because they're both uh they're both harlotry just of different kinds yeah i'll give you an example from my own life long long time ago i dated this girl who was a mormon and we were very serious and we're talking about getting married but we had a little bit of an impasse me not being a mormon And here was the deal. She was like, yeah, 100%, like, let's get married. Here's the deal, though. We have to get married in a Mormon tabernacle.

And I have to come over. Like, I have to start attending a Mormon church. I have to convert, as it were. Now, unlike Israel, I said no can do, And the relationship ended up ending after much, much debate, after long drawn out trying to convert one another, finally the impasse. But this is how this works, is you meet these people, like, here's the deal. You have a religious conflict where, like, you know, something's got to give. And for some reason, Israel's always the one that's like, we'll give.

Yeah. That is strange, isn't it? I mean, I'm sure there were, well, we do have some recorded instances in the scripture where Israel actually brought the Canaanites over into their congregation. I mean, they became Israelites, right? Yeah, yeah. But most of the stories we have in the Bible are the opposite. It's the Israelites who end up going over to the Canaanites. And it usually works like this.

If you want our daughters, you have to have our gods. it's very it's not as you don't see a lot of examples if you want our sons you gotta have our gods that just doesn't that doesn't have the same allure i guess no it doesn't well if you remember uh i was just reading this the other day back in rereading it back in genesis you know when uh when jacob and his sons when they came back to the promised land and uh and their sister donna is kidnapped by uh by shechem and and the brothers basically trick trick the leaders into saying by saying, hey, if you will be circumcised, and all the men

in your city will be circumcised, then we'll let our, you know, you can marry our daughters. And they're like, okay. Yeah. We'll do that. So, I mean, if they could convince a bunch of, a whole city full of men to be

circumcised so they can have these Israelite women, then that just shows how far guys are willing to go. Yeah, they didn't go in there and say, if you guys get circumcised we'll let your daughters marry our sons i don't think that would have worked yeah no it's it's the opposite that works and and it works with israel time and time and time again uh i'll throw this out there now even though uh it's actually not recorded here uh but this is what we've been alluding to with regard to balaam all along well what happened

evidently although we're not told this till chapter 31 what happened evidently was you know we're given the impression at the end of chapter 24 that balaam is like all right i'm done prophesying see ya and he heads home but before he does evidently he gives a little advice when he did this we don't know but sometime before he left anyway he said it's like he kind of pulls balak aside and whispers in his ear and he's like hey okay i couldn't curse israel but here's an idea yeah hey you know that honor that you said i wasn't gonna get maybe maybe i could get a little bit of that honor yeah i got an idea work out something under the table here yeah i mean if so if you if you really want to get israel don't try a frontal military attack because that's not

going to work but what you need to do is you just you know you get your daughters and you have them invite some of the israelite guys over for dinner on saturday and have a little worship afterward and before you know it you're gonna have those israelite men just streaming over to your side and lo and behold that's exactly what happened yeah this is some real serpent in the garden kind of stuff here like the serpent in the garden doesn't like fall out of a tree and then bite eve on the neck no it says look at how tasty this looks that's how this works man he goes like old school temptation and this is what balaam's doing too but balaam's like look man you could you're not gonna go down you don't want to go down there and just defeat them like that's not

gonna happen like you don't want to just like attack them what you want to do is you want to tempt them that's how the devil works man yeah yeah suggestion delight ascent those three stages of temptation right there's there's old as the garden of eden so that's what happened here we don't know how long all of this was going on but evidently for for a while so you have israel tempted they are evidently judging by the way the story goes from here they were intermarrying already with uh the the people of the land with the moabites and the moabites midianites i think they were all mixed together this time judging by how the story goes so you have uh uh you have a recipe for disaster and that's exactly what happens so god is angry with israel and they're

in in verse four and following we kind of have a it's a little bit confusing uh but here's basically what happens there's like three different uh approaches to dealing with this issue so god's angry and so verse four first of all here's what god says this is god speaking to moses he says I want you to take all the leaders of the people and I want you to execute them in broad daylight before the Lord so that his fierce anger may turn away from Israel. Now, this is actually even more gruesome than might come across in most English translations. I'm reading from the New American Standard, which is the translation I always use, and it says execute them in broad daylight. I didn't check other translations, but the Hebrew here is a unique verb. It means to impale or sometimes it's translated as crucify.

Either way, we're talking about not simply this is not a sword to the heart. This is not a guillotine. This is not stoning. This is being pierced through. This is being impaled in some way. It only occurs in two different contexts in the Old Testament. But one here and then one when I forget how many, but several sons of Saul are impaled as as retribution. You can read about that in Samuel. So this is not just an execution. This is a very, very public, very different, very graphic kind of execution that God commands Moses to carry out. All right. So that's that's what God says. Then verse five, Moses. it's like Moses comes up with a different suggestion because he says to the judges of

Israel, each of you slay his men who have joined themselves to Baal HaPeor. So God says, kill all the leaders. Moses says to the judges, I want you to kill the people, the men who are actually guilty, the ones who've joined themselves to Baal HaPeor. That's like the second thing that might happen. Now, as it turns out, neither one of those things actually happened because what happened next the third option is what actually stopped the uh the anger of god and this is where we are introduced to uh a very a very famous character from the old testament whose name is phineas and here's what happens so verse six it says that this is just this is this is an amazing story uh Just the the the crassness, the the hard heartedness of what's going on here.

Just amazing. So you've got you kind of got a picture of the scene. You've got the congregation of Israel. They're like they're they're weeping at the doorway of the tent of meeting. So evidently, you know, Moses has let them got they know God is angry. There's a there's a plague that's broken out. People are dying. there's all this horrible stuff happening and moses and the israelites are in this state of mourning right there at the entrance of the tabernacle and while this is going on one of the israelite men brings home a medianite woman to his relatives it says so i'm assuming that this is probably a marriage that's about to be uh consummated uh i don't think this is just

like hey he's he's bringing you know he picked up this girl and he's in they hooked up and he's bringing her home so they have sex i think this is actually uh a marriage that's about to take place because he's bringing her home it says to his relatives and he it's like he walks in front of the congregation of israel as they're weeping as they're mourning because of all this is happening and he uh he brings her into what's called uh what's translated here is a tent it's a it's a unique hebrew word it's only used here uh probably means it doesn't mean the tabernacle i'm pretty sure i used to think it did but i don't think it does it's a the word is probably some sort of some sort of tent that was used as like a marriage tent uh like a honeymoon suite if you

Well, what we might call it. Anyway, they go into that in the presence of all of Israel. And then this guy named Phineas, who is the grandson of Aaron, he is the son of Eleazar, who is now the high priest. And Phineas was Phineas was the head guard of the tabernacle guards. He was the top guy. He was the one in charge. He sees this happening. and he gets a spear and he goes to where the man has just taken this Midianite woman. He walks into the tent and while the two of them are having sex, he puts the spear through both of them. This is one of those biblical stories you just –

I never studied this in Sunday school. I probably shouldn't have because this is one of those that makes you want to read the Bible more when you're a kid. Yeah, this is not one of those ones that's on the felt board. Yeah, here we see Phineas walking to the tent where the spirit is in. This is just about as graphic as you get in the Bible. So while this Israelite man, who is a leader, by the way, is with this Midianite woman who is the daughter of a leader of Midian. And so we have two two people from families of power while they're having sex in this tent, presumably to to to consummate the marriage. Then Phineas puts an end to it.

It's like the shortest marriage ever because he ends it right there. And then as a result of that. The plague on the sons of Israel, it says, was stopped. It was checked at that point by by the death of these these two these two people. What happens after this is also amazing because it says that God spoke to Moses as soon as this happened and said Phineas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest has turned away my wrath from the sons of Israel because it says he was jealous with my jealousy. So it's like the zeal of the Lord of Hosts was implanted or was felt in the same way by Phineas, so that he becomes the agent of Yahweh to bring about punishment on not just these two, but in some way they were like the surrogate for the rest of the Israelites. As a result, God gives Phineas a covenant of peace, and he and his descendants will, it says, have a perpetual priesthood because he was jealous for his God and made atonement for the sons of Israel. And then it goes on in the rest of the story to give us the names of the two people who were just killed.

Now, I was thinking about this story in relationship to the broader biblical narrative. And I think this is one of those examples where you have kind of an unlikely messianic figure that's in the person of Phineas, but in a strange sort of way. But this is one of those examples where, again, if you look at it in the broader biblical picture, you have someone, you have an individual who's putting an end to the wrath of God by means of death. now in this particular case of course he is slaying two sinners and so he brings about the end of wrath by their death but in a strange sort of way it's also a picture of the ultimate way that god is going to take care of wrath because it's by death by the death of the messiah that the wrath of god is checked not just against israel but against but against everyone and in some ways you could almost kind of combine these three people into this strange group, the man and

the woman and Phineas, as a picture of how God finally brings about the end of wrath and the punishment of sin, because Christ really becomes all three of these in a way. When he becomes the sinner, he takes on our sin. He becomes like the man and the woman, but he also is like Phineas in that he is the warrior, he's the one who is jealous with the jealousy of God and who goes forth to bring about the atonement, to bring about the end of wrath. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I think that the fact that not everyone ends up dying, but that he says that, he even says, the language is even there, that he has made atonement, right? So a sacrifice has been made.

At the very least, you have this gradual establishing, I mean, you see this in the sacrificial system, But even in instances like this where God is like setting up that one, or in this case two, but that one can atone for the many. And so God doesn't say like, yep, now do that to everyone else. No, he says like, okay, that's the end of that. And I would assume that this was a pretty good deterrent from anyone else deciding they were going to go and do some more marriages. So it probably put an end to that as well. but uh but yeah you do see this this setting up of at first it was going to be like all the elders going to die and then moses comes up with his own plan now we'll keep the elders alive we'll just

have the elders kill all their men and phineas comes in and and just ends it with one execution i think that the language that that atonement is made that this is like this is sort of good enough for people obviously it's not ultimately good enough ultimately you're going to need christ But all of this stuff is pictures of what is to come, and that one man will, in fact, atone for the sins of not just the people of Israel, but for the sins of the world. Yeah, you can see this story as kind of a one jewel in that giant mosaic that we have in the Old Testament. I mean, the atonement, the work of Christ is pictured a whole lot of different ways from a whole lot of different angles. and some of those are quite unexpected like this one or like Jonah

three days and three nights in the belly of the fish there's all sorts of very odd stones that work their way into this mosaic but it's the whole picture that's important and being able to see these individual stories as part of that bigger picture is

important for understanding how the Old Testament prepares us for the coming of Christ by giving us all different ways to look at his saving work yeah and not to mention you have the image of being pierced as well which is you know yeah yeah exactly yeah which which of course fits with the crucifixion absolutely and that's it man we're gonna leave it right there on that super positive note uh and and we have made our way through this story of balaam uh hopefully you guys found that interesting uh we will be picking

up moving on to some other things the journey continues but on our seat belt for these next few chapters because we'll be moving pretty quick uh through the next uh through the next few all right well we'll see you next week chad all right see you then