40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Episode 150 (Numbers 26:1-27:23)
Episode Date: January 31, 2019Chad and Daniel discuss the purpose of genealogies and how the promised land relates to Eden, the great commission and the new heavens and new earth. Why are the Levites scattered throughout the land?... What happens when a man dies and he has no sons to inherit his possessions? Moses cannot enter the promised land, so who will lead the people when he is gone? Have a listen! 1517 Podcast Network Become A Supporter
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament.
40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast.
That means you can go over to 1517.org slash podcast,
check out all the other podcasts that are living over there.
While you're over there, you might want to support those podcasts
or the blog or the conferences or any of the other things,
the academy, all these things that we do for free.
I mean, really, the only thing that anyone ever pays for
is a ridiculously cheap ticket to Here We Still Stand.
And that's just because we're serving you so much food
that we're just trying to cover something.
But city events, those are free.
The podcast, those are free.
The blog's free.
The academy's free.
So much free stuff.
How, you ask?
Well, that's by a lot of people just giving a little bit.
A lot of people joining the team, becoming a supporter.
You can do that over at 1517.org or ChristSoldFast.org.
It all goes the same place, and you can help us out.
If you do, or if you already do that, thank you so much.
You're not only making it possible for us to continue doing this,
but you're making it possible for people to be receiving the stuff that we do.
And so we thank you, they thank you, and keep it up.
Chad, do you know what this is?
What is this?
This is episode 150, Chad.
Oh, man, we should have a drum roll or something.
Throw a party.
I don't know.
We've got to do something to celebrate.
It's pretty awesome.
Maybe we'll do like a big, huge thing for episode 200.
But 150, that does not include, of course, live episodes that didn't get a number and stuff.
But of just this, just me and Chad going through this stuff, this is the 150th time that we've done this, which is pretty crazy.
That is pretty crazy.
Yeah.
Of course, when we started this, we had no idea how it was going to go or how fast it would go or anything like that.
But it's been an adventure.
it's been uh i tell of all the people i tell people all the time that it's just it's really
been a blast to just to go chapter by chapter i've never done anything like this just to be
able to go chapter by chapter through uh through the text is uh is loads of fun and i've learned a
lot uh and hopefully everybody listening out there has learned a lot too and man we got i think we
have enough material to keep us going for a while too yeah a little bit yeah so 150 episodes in and
we're somewhere in the middle of numbers so i think we're gonna i think we can continue doing
this uh for a while one day we will get to the promised land yeah somebody somebody asked me
once they were like what are you gonna do after you get done with the whole old testament i said
uh die yeah well probably i don't think i'll feel the need to do anything if i'm still alive
uh i suppose i'll just hang it up we'll be like 80 years old yeah yeah man so 150 and here we are
right in the smack dab in the middle of numbers yeah we're in a we're beginning chapter 26 now
this will be a little bit different episode because we are going to uh we're going to go
a little faster as i mentioned last time we have material coming up in the next three or four
chapters which is either a duplication of material that we've already covered or the kind of material
where there's just not a whole lot that we can mine from it i will say a couple of things about
each of these sections, but there's not much that we're going to be spending an inordinate
amount of time on. So what we're looking at, or actually what we're beginning now,
is the last section of Numbers. We're in chapter 26, and this is going to take us through the end
of the book, which is chapter 36. So these last 10 chapters are the final unit in the book of
numbers. And if you could characterize this particular section, it's basically a description
of the nation as it prepares to enter into, finally, to enter into the promised land.
So we have everything from a census, which we're going to cover in chapter 26, to the division of
the land, to a summary of the various stops along the way that the people have, where the people
have camped. We have some inheritance issues to take care of, a couple of unusual scenarios that
need to be addressed there, as well as a recap of the whole, what we would call, liturgical year,
I guess, of the Israelites, the various festivals in which they gathered to offer their sacrifices.
So all of that is packed into these last 10 chapters.
So we'll get rolling here and see how far we get today.
So as I mentioned, this first chapter we're looking at, chapter 26, is the census.
It goes through each of the 12 tribes and lists out how many people are parts of those tribes.
And we've seen this before at the beginning of Numbers.
So this is kind of a bookend, if you will, to this particular book.
the the the final book end the book started out with a census when the people were leaving
leaving egypt basically in the early in the early days before their uh before they actually knew
they were going to be out there for 40 years and then it was followed that census first census was
followed by a description of how they were camped if you remember they were all camped
around the tabernacle which was situated smack dab in the middle where god was located so this
This census, the second census in chapter 26, is going to be followed not by description of where the people are camped, but instead by description of where they actually are going to settle down.
So there is somewhat of a parallel between these two parts of numbers.
The first part has the census and then the arrangement of the camp.
this last part is going to have a second census of basically the kids and the grandkids of those
original people who left egypt followed by a description of where they are going to not camp
but sink roots in uh in the holy land so uh that's that's what most of the chapter is about
at least verse 1 through through 51 is is this particular particular census and i will i will
mention this because uh it's been a while since we've talked about a genealogy i i i know that
genealogy is one of those things that we usually just like if we're reading through the bible uh
over the course of one year we get to genealogy and we just like scan it until we get to the very
end and and i understand that i admittedly i'd i'd do the same but it's worth remembering why
it's there. The genealogies, at least the way I understand them, have a couple of functions,
theological functions. One is, it's sort of implicit, and that is that these genealogies
accent the fact that these individuals and families matter. You know, their names are
actually listed here. And it's a reminder to me, anyway, as I read these, it's a reminder to me
that these individuals mattered they were actually named in the scriptures recorded so that now
thousands of years later we are actually reading reading their names and so it's a reminder to me
that each each of the individual who's part of this story uh is important and matters matters
to god so much that he actually had those names recorded just like each of us matter matter to
him. We're not just kind of one big glob of humanity that God looks down upon, but he looks
at each of us individually, just like he looked individually at each of these people in the
genealogies. Now, the counterpart to that, which I also think is significant, is the fact that when
they're listed there, they're not listed just as isolated individuals, but they're listed as those
who are part of a family or part of a tribe. And it's a reminder that each of us are also
interconnected. And I can't really emphasize that enough, especially in our day of rampant
individualism, where we kind of think of ourselves as just an island unto ourselves. Each of these
individuals are also interconnected with those who are around them. So just as we matter as
individuals, we also matter in that we are connected to other people. And then kind of
joining with that, it's a good reminder that all of these individuals and families and tribes are
connected all together into the people of Israel. So just like we talk about the body of Christ
and us being individually members of it, so we can talk about the body of Israel, if you will,
and all these particular names as individual members of it. And so God deals with us in both
ways. He deals with us as individuals, but he also deals with us as individually related to
other people and as the church. So this is sort of a picture of the Old Testament church, both
in its corporate reality as well as in its individual reality. And all of this, all of this
genealogy, both on the corporate and the individual level, is ultimately there to lead us to, well,
to the way the New Testament begins, which is with a genealogy, the genealogy of the Messiah.
So all of these families and the individuals thereof are in one way or another part of this ongoing narrative that ultimately is going to culminate in one particular individual who in himself brings all of these other people together into him as well as us and becomes the representative, the representative human.
uh israel reduced to one humanity reduced to one who comes to to be our righteousness and to
fulfill all of the stuff that we're reading about in in the old testament so that's just a couple
things i wanted to mention about this genealogy since it's been a few episodes since we since we
actually covered one so that takes us through uh verse 51 uh where i think that might be record
speed for us, cover 51 verses in like five minutes. Then moving on to the second part of
this chapter, which begins in verse 52 and takes us through the end of the chapter, which is verse
65. This is where we begin to have a discussion of the inheritance that each of the tribes is
going to receive. Now we're going to get more into this in a future chapter in the same section,
but i will mention here just that uh that the reason that the land is important
is is is for well it's it's for a practical reason to begin with but it's also for a broader
theological and christological reason uh the practical reason is because god cares about
his people he wants him to actually have a place to settle you know i i own a home uh i don't it
just uh it's just a lot with it with a house on it but it's mine this is this is where i sink my
roots. This is where I raised my family. This is where the place from which I serve and all the
vocations to which God has called me. And so the physicality of where I live is significant.
Same with my parents on a little bit of land up in the Texas Panhandle, about 20 acres. They have
a home on that. And so it's a bigger portion of land, but that is also the physical place where
God has put them in order that they might serve in their vocations. And it was like that for the
israelites each of them received a portion of the land because god cared about them having a place
being rooted and in that particular place to be able to fulfill whatever callings he had he had
given to them so there is that that practical reason for the emphasis that the old testament
puts on land but there's also a broader theological and ultimately a christological reason for
these the centrality of land in the old testament and really to understand that you got to go back
to the beginning, of course, when God creates the heavens and the earth, he also picks out a
particular place, the garden. He picks out Eden, and this becomes the location of his dwelling
place among his people. So you can kind of picture it as if you can kind of picture the whole earth
as the potential temple of God and Eden as the Holy of Holies. This is the location where God
dwelt with Adam and Eve. And back then, the ultimate goal was for them to actually
to subdue the earth, to rule over it, and so to expand out that garden. But of course, we know
that that didn't happen because of their failure. But it wasn't as if God dropped that plan
altogether. Instead, what he does in giving the Israelites the Holy Land is he re-inaugurates
that initial vision that he had, so that the Holy Land becomes the location, the specific location
where God is dwelling amongst his people. And of course, within the Holy Land, there's going to be
that temple, that Holy of Holies, where God dwells among them. And all of this, this physicality,
this land-centeredness where God dwells among his people, all of this is really God's slow but
steady way of preparing for His ultimate goal, and that is to take His dwelling and to expand it
outward, to expand His kingdom outward, and in expanding His kingdom outward, also to expand
His holiness and His glory to eventually encompass the whole earth. And that is really the background
of what we call the Great Commission in Matthew 28. God sends out His people in order that they
might take his holiness, take the glory of his promises in the Messiah, and bit by bit, step by
step, acre by acre, to expand that whole land until it encompasses the whole earth, because
that is God's ultimate goal, is to expand his holiness and his glory throughout the whole world
by the preaching of his gospel. So that's sort of the theological significance of the land in
the old testament finally then is is leading us to matthew 28 into the expansion of the kingdom
under uh under the preaching of the gospel yeah i mean so land has always been starting in eden
you have something that god says is is good in creation so he creates everything that is
and says it's good and then creates man and then gifts man this good thing so uh so when the
language comes up of God, you see over and over again in the Old Testament, the land which I will
give you, or afterward, the land which I gave you, this is in complete harmony with just like I gave
you Eden. So the idea of a home, a place for you to dwell, the language of gift is always tied to
it uh this this does a couple of things one it tells you that it ultimately belongs to god and
that that or belongs to god first and then so he has the right to give whatever land to whoever
right because it it's ultimately his he made it and he can he can give it away the other thing
is that it is just that that it that everything that you receive even the place where you end up
laying your head is a gift from God. And so there's no earning what you have, even down to
the dirt under your feet. That too is a gift. And as we go out then to bring people into,
you know, try to bring people into the faith, you know, Matthew 28 style, what you're doing
is you're going out to bring people into this sort of theology of everything being gift.
We don't have to then go and go to some place and tell them that they need to move
to the promised land, but that the land that they inhabit already is something that God has
gifted them. And he invites you into a relationship where everything, everything is gift.
And so, you know, and down to the fact that while the faith then spreads and the glory of God
spreads, it's also the belief that even as good as this is, and I live in a pretty good place and
Chad lives in a pretty good place. I think most people probably are like, hey, you know, it's good
that I have a home. It's good that I have a yard or maybe you live in an apartment. It's good that
you have four walls it's all going to get tore down and and and the belief is that that something
better is coming and that too is gift all the language of promised land is language of yes a
certain land for a certain time but it's all foreshadowing the ultimate and greater promised
land of the new heavens and new earth so i'm saying the land that i promised you yes there's
a specific and narrow sense in which that's that land but that language also is uh the the promise
of the kingdom of god coming in full the creation of the new heavens and new earth um the ultimate
land that we will possess is not this land uh just just like all these other things in the old
testament uh the sacrificial system and uh you know everything that we've covered the walking
to the red sea it all is speaking to something greater and uh and for the land and for homes
it's speaking to the new heavens and the new earth uh where where that's the land that we will that
we will where we will ultimately dwell yeah so you can kind of think of you can think of the holy land
in the old testament as uh uh to use that big theological word eschatological that is it is
always pointing toward the end times right so it's pointing the it was significant for israel of
course, but it ultimately pointed beyond itself to the end, to the ultimate goal, as you say,
to the new heavens and the new earth. And we actually have promises within the Old Testament
itself about this expansion of the Holy Land to encompass the entire world. And Isaiah promises
that this will actually be a new heavens and a new earth. So all the Old Testament bears witness
to this fact, while at the same time also thanking God for the present gift of the Holy Land for the
people of Israel. But as we learned from John 4 in Jesus' conversation with a woman at the well
in Samaria, she tries to engage in kind of a worship debate with him. Well, you people say
we should worship with Jerusalem, but I think we should worship here at this mountain. And Jesus
says, well, I tell you what, times are coming when nobody's going to worship on that mountain
or your mountain. Instead, they're going to worship in spirit and in truth. And the implication of
that, of course, is that the worship of God is no longer sort of spatially located in one particular
part of the world. It's wherever the spirit and the truth are, wherever the Holy Spirit and wherever
the truth of Christ are preached, there is the Holy Land. And all of this is ultimately leading
toward the resurrection and the new heavens and the new earth, where everything will finally be
as God has been preparing it since the foundation of the world.
Yeah, so this is one of the things you might ask is that what's so special about the promised land?
Why do you have to decide that, oh, this whole generation has got to die.
They can't enter in.
And God seems to have this idea that rebellious and sinful people aren't going to inherit the land.
He like kills a bunch of them off and this sort of thing.
And obviously only sinners walk into the promised land.
This is true.
But what's being done, like what we're supposed to pull from that is that in the eschatological promised land that there won't be any sin.
Now, no perfect Israelites go walking into the promised land.
We know that.
But what it's telling us is that actually perfect people are the only people that could inhabit what is coming.
And, of course, we know that ends up too being gift, that we have to be gifted that perfection.
And this is what we need Christ for, because you do need to be perfect.
You do need to be sinless to get into that land.
Yeah, I was trying to find this verse in Revelation, but I'm not finding it right off the top of my head,
where it basically says that no one unclean will enter into the new Jerusalem.
Well, yeah, that's exactly right, because all those who enter the heavenly Jerusalem will be cleansed by the blood of Christ.
So, yeah, nothing, it's just like here, this is all foreshadowed in the death of the rebels in the wilderness.
Their children will enter the promised land.
So also, we will enter the promised land as those who are not rebels, but instead have been cleansed by the blood of Christ.
And so God sees us as having the righteousness of Christ and thus as clean.
So that's what those verses from Revelation are talking about, not that you have to be sinless in and of yourself in your own righteousness to go to heaven because that, of course, is ludicrous.
Well, yeah, all the language of the people not being able to go into the promised land is supposed to show us that nobody gets to enter the promised land and something needs to be done.
Yeah, right.
And we know what is done in Revelation when we're like, hey, who are all these dudes dressed in white?
and and the and the answer comes oh those are the ones who have washed their robes in the blood of
the lamb yeah that's that's who those are yeah they didn't wash their robes in their own righteousness
yeah they would have been they would have been dirty and soiled and stained and greasy if that
would have been been the case but yeah they washed their robes made them white in the blood of the
lamb was slain from the foundation of the world and uh who was pointed pointed toward by all the
sacrifices in the old testament in shadow here pointing toward what's to come i don't think
there's anything else i really need to say about uh about the the chapter one just one reminder
that the levites have no inheritance they'll be scattered so when when all the tribes receive
their inheritance and we'll get into that later the levites will not as far as just a portion of
land in the holy land so they're going to be spread throughout throughout the holy land in
48 cities, six of which will be called cities of refuge.
We're also going to get to that.
But the Levites are scattered throughout the Holy Land.
I think, although I can't prove this, I wish I could,
but my suspicion is that they were scattered throughout the Holy Land
so that they could serve as the teachers of Israel,
so they wouldn't be just concentrated in one area.
But because they were especially selected by God to serve him at the tabernacle,
to guard his word, to guard his holiness, to be those who were entrusted with the holy
things of God, I suspect that's the reason they were scattered throughout Israel, so
that they could serve as Israel's teachers and not be concentrated in just one particular
area, but be able to be amongst all of the tribes and thus to serve as the teachers of
Torah to those who were around them.
And we know from other passages that it's sort of the – it's the other 11 tribes' job to take care of them, their well-being.
It's not as though they're all homeless, starving.
God's like, no land or food for you.
No, the rest of Israel has been commissioned to take care of their needs.
Yeah, and so it's – well, it's just like Paul says.
You don't muzzle the ox while it's shredding the grain, right?
He uses that as an illustration of those who are ministered to, ministered to the ministers.
That is to say, we take care of those who give us the word of God, and so Israel did that as well.
They took care of the Levites.
They didn't, like, write them a paycheck, because that's not the way it worked back then.
But they gave them food, and they gave them a portion of the sacrifices, and they took care of them in other ways.
So they were they were the gift to Israel in the sense that God gave the Levites to Israel as a chance for Israel to exercise love toward their neighbor and to care for and to care for the Levites in that way.
That takes us to the end of 26. And let's jump right here into into 27.
and uh chapter 27 begins with uh i think it's the fourth of these situations we've seen in the book
of in the book of numbers where a particular case comes up where moses doesn't know exactly what he
should do about it and so he has to go and consult god to get a specific answer to a specific
situation we saw this uh let's see in the case of the man who was gathering firewood on the sabbath
We saw it in the case of the people who were unclean at the time of the Passover, so they couldn't partake.
And so they were like, hey, we want to Passover too.
And so God told Moses in this special case that they could celebrate it a month later than everybody else.
And there was one other situation, which I just can't think of right now.
But in this particular situation, it has to do with inheritance.
So there are these daughters, the daughters of Zelophehadad, and it lists their names there.
They're from the tribe of Joseph, specifically from the half-tribe of Manasseh.
And the deal was that their father had died in the wilderness, and it says he died of his own sin.
That is, he didn't die specifically like in the rebellion of Korah.
He wasn't struck down by God.
He just happened to be one of the adults who died in the wilderness, just like all the other adults who were 20 years old and up were died in the wilderness.
But the deal was he had no sons.
All he had were daughters.
So the question is, what happens to their father's inheritance? Because according to the way everything is set up in the Torah, the inheritance of the land passes from father to son and from that son to his son. So it's a paternal lineage in that way are the ones who receive the land.
So what happens in this case where you got a guy, he's got all these daughters, no sons.
And so what's going to happen to his land?
And the daughters bring this case to Moses.
And he's like, well, good question.
Let me find out.
Which in and of itself, I like because it's like Moses saying implicitly, hey, I don't have all the answers.
This is a unique situation here.
So rather than just like, you know, making something up, I'm going to admit the fact that I don't know this.
and I'm going to consult God to find out what he has to say.
This is how you know they were having a lot of kids.
Like, if this is a unique – like, I mean, okay, so I don't have any sons,
but I also only have one kid.
I have a daughter.
You know that this is a time where you're, like, having a lot of kids when,
oh, man, someone with no sons.
Weird.
It's been, like, 35 years, and, like, we have not encountered this yet.
What are we going to do?
Yeah, what are we going to do?
Yeah, it lists their names out here, kind of unique names, too.
One of them is named Noah.
So if any of you are expected parents out there and you have a daughter, then there you go.
Here's some Bible names for you.
Noah.
Or you could go with Hogla.
That's another possibility there in verse 1.
Not that I would suggest any one of those names for your girl, but anyway, they're listed there.
Moses goes to consult, and God tells him, basically, all right, here's what happens in this unique situation.
You're going to, if a man dies and he leaves no sons, then the inheritance goes to the daughters.
And then if he has no daughters, then the inheritance goes to his brothers.
Well, if he doesn't have any brothers, then it goes to his uncles, to his father's brothers.
and then if he doesn't have any if his if his father i guess was a single child then it just
goes to the nearest relative so this is the way that they took care of the situation this was a
a relatively unique situation i'm assuming although we have a couple of other
somewhat parallel situations that occur later in in the old testament where something like this
happens and what would what what would happen presumably then would be okay the inheritance
goes to these daughters and then when the daughters marry and presumably have sons that
inheritance would pass to to their sons and it would then resume in the paternal lineage but
anyway that's that's one um somewhat unique situation that arose where moses had to consult
god and ask okay what do we do about this and that was that was the answer yeah which is actually
for this for this time that's fairly progressive that israel said yeah the daughters can inherit
possessions and land and everything of their father. That was not necessarily the norm for
all the cultures there. No, it certainly was not. I mean, and it highlights, even though the Bible
often gets a really bad rap about being anti-woman and uber patriarchal, it does often make
provisions for the care of daughters, care of wives, who are in this particular culture
often overlooked and have things taken away from them. So in Israel, there was always concern for
men, women, sons, daughters, widows, widowers. No one was to be simply
treated as if they didn't matter. That's why you have the ongoing concern throughout the Old
Testament for widows and orphans, because they had no one to take care of them. There was no
social network, social safety net to take care of them. And so all of Israel was to have a concern
for all the other Israelites. They were understood to be one family. And so everyone was supposed to
be on the lookout for for everyone else and and in this particular case in this particular concrete
example we have the israelites looking out for sisters who had no brothers to inherit so they
were they were to be taken care of and the family land then was to remain in their family yeah
obviously for us we're like well yeah of course that wasn't the cult like culturally and i don't
just mean like within israel but like within all the surrounding cultures that wasn't a yeah of
course scenario no absolutely absolutely not and so you israel once more proves its uniqueness
and its concern for all of its citizens and relatively speaking a very compassionate view
of those who are often disenfranchised in the ancient in the ancient world all right so that
takes us through verse 11 of uh chapter 27 now uh we we kind of switch gears here for uh for a few
verses and uh talk about moses and joshua so as you know moses at this point is uh is is very old
and both his brother and his sister both aaron and miriam have already died we read about their
deaths in the last few chapters and moses realizes he knows he's not getting to the promised land
because of uh his rebellion there at the at the waters of uh of meriva which we talked about a
episodes ago. So he's concerned about what's going to happen after he dies. And it's interesting
here because what's going to happen is done at the instigation of Moses. So this is Moses
kind of taking the lead and trying to figure out what's best for Israel when he's no longer there
to lead them. So it's a little bit, it's a different scenario than what we encountered
with Aaron. Now, if you remember in the death of Aaron, God basically said, Hey, it's time for
Aaron to die. Aaron's good. Aaron's going to die. And so take Aaron up to, to the top of this
mountain and, and you and Moses, Moses, you and, uh, uh, Eliezer, you go with him. And when you
get to the top of the mountain, take off Aaron's sacred vestments and put them on his son who will
then inherit his his dad's office as high priest and then aaron's going to die there so this was
all done at the uh at the instigation of god god set everything up said this is what's going to
happen now in this particular case it's different because uh god is moses is going to approach god
and ask for a successor to take his place so here's how it starts out first of all god speaks
to moses and he says to go up on top of this mountain and to see the land which he's going
to give the israelites and he says when you've seen it you too shall be gathered to your people
as your heir as your brother aaron was and then he in verse 14 he recounts the reason that moses
will not enter the promised land because of his rebellion there at uh at the waters because god
did because he did not treat god as holy before the eyes of of the israelites so after he says
this now let me stop for a second keep in mind moses is not like about to die in the next chapter
this is just like it's it's going to happen soon uh we still have all the deuteronomy to get moses
still has a really really long sermon to deliver before he breathes his last but it's gonna it's
going to in the in the broad scope of things it's going to happen pretty soon so god tells us to
moses more or less say says it it's it's drawing near your final day is drawing near so verse 15
what does moses say moses approaches god and says it's it's it's pretty fascinating the language he
uses here so i'll just read it he says may the lord the god of the spirits of all flesh appoint
a man over the congregation who will go out and come in before them and who will lead them out
and bring them in that the congregation of the Lord may not be like sheep, which have no shepherd.
So that's what Moses says. Then God responds this way. He says, take Joshua, the son of Nun,
a man in whom is the spirit and lay your hand on him and have him stand before Eliezer the priest
and before all the congregation and commission him in their sight. And you shall put some of
your authority or some of your majesty on him in order that all the congregation of the sons of
Israel may obey him. And then it goes on from there to the end of the chapter. Now, I find this
fascinating for uh for a number of reasons uh the the most immediate one is the language that's used
uh moses says he doesn't want he doesn't want to die without a successor because if if that happens
then the congregation may not will be like sheep which have no shepherd no one who's fairly
familiar with the scriptures can hear that kind of language without their their mind immediately
jumping to the ministry of jesus right matthew chapter 9 verse 36 jesus looks out over the
multitude and he sees that they are downcast downtrodden distressed and he says like sheep
which have no shepherd which i looked this morning and in the greek of matthew 9 36 and
then in the greek translation of this verse in numbers 27 it's almost exact so there's no doubt
that when Jesus says that, that they're like sheep without a shepherd, he has in mind Numbers
chapter 27, verse 17. So he's drawing from, he's lifting that phrase in the Old Testament
to refer to the situation that he sees happening in Israel at the time of his ministry.
which is even more fascinating when you when you consider the fact that Joshua who was appointed
as Moses successor is the Hebrew name of Jesus so Yehoshua is is the Hebrew name Joshua and that
also is the the name of Jesus so that this there that's the beginning of this beautiful typology
this interconnection between Joshua and Jesus and the various ways in which God uses them both to
bring his people into the into the promised land but i find it most fascinating because when moses
asked for a succession he says i don't want them to be like sheep without a shepherd so
so god says all right i'll give them jesus i'll give them joshua who will lead them into into
the promised land yeah and so this of course then is just more of what we've been talking about where
Joshua is not Jesus, but he sure is a representation in name, in title.
You literally have Moses saying, could you send a good shepherd?
And the answer is yes, eventually.
And for now, I'm going to have a stand-in.
I'm going to have a foreshadow.
He's going to have the same name.
It's not an accident.
Because you are like we said, sin can't enter the promised land, Moses can't enter the promised land, yet only sinners enter the promised land.
So Moses, as a representative of the law, cannot get people into the promised land.
Can't happen.
God won't let it happen because the law can't enter the promised land.
Can't get you in.
It can't go there.
It's got to be buried outside.
What will, in fact, lead people to the promised land?
Oh, well, that would be Jesus.
That would be Joshua.
What can get a bunch of sinners?
It's not like all the rest.
I mean, all the rest of these people are not, they're not righteous people.
I mean, if anyone earned the right to go to the promised land, it's Moses.
But God says, no, you're a representative of the law,
so I can't have you leading the people in.
What I will have is Joshua, is Jesus, the good shepherd.
I'll have him, and with him in front, sinners may inherit the land.
that's what's going that that's what's all going to happen and it's all set up it's it's like yeah
it's the it's the waters thing that god points to is like this was sin but on top of that look
the law was never going to get you here in the first place and and moses as paul would refer to
him you're a ministry of death not a ministry of life so you so you can't be you can't be the one
that leads them then yeah amen that's it all right and that's a great way to that's a great way to
wrap up that is it we will uh be back next week for for more of this you know we didn't zoom
through as much as we thought we actually found a couple of things to yeah we covered two chapters
but yeah there's uh i didn't go i don't think we didn't get quite as far as i thought we might
look at us there's always next week we have more things to say than we know
all right chad well we will see you next week all right see you then
We'll be right back.
