BibleProject - Five Women and Yahweh’s New Law – Numbers E7

Episode Date: September 12, 2022

In the third movement of Numbers, five sisters approach Moses with a legal case not covered in God’s laws: Without any brothers to inherit their father’s land, their family inheritance will be lost unless women are allowed to receive an inheritance too. Yahweh agrees with these five women, setting an important precedent for not just how Israel was to engage the laws of the Torah but for later followers of Jesus as well. Join Tim and Jon as they discuss the story of Zelophehad’s daughters and Jesus’ fulfillment of the law.View full show notes from this episode →Timestamps Part one (00:00-19:55)Part two (19:55-33:05)Part three (33:05-55:24)Part four (55:24-01:12:30)Referenced ResourcesThe Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, Ludwig Koehler and Walter BaumgartnerInterested in more? Check out Tim’s library here.You can experience the literary themes and movements we’re tracing on the podcast in the BibleProject app, available for Android and iOS.Show Music “Defender (Instrumental)” by TENTS"Long Lost Friend" by Sam Stewart"Limitless" by chromonicciSound design (untitled) by Tyler BaileyThis episode was produced by Cooper Peltz with Associate Producer Lindsey Ponder. It was edited by Dan Gummel, Tyler Bailey and Frank Garza. MacKenzie Buxman provided the annotations for our annotated podcast in our app.Powered and distributed by Simplecast.

Hey, this is Cooper at Bible Project. I produce the podcast in Classroom. We've been exploring a theme called the City, and it's a pretty big theme. So we decided to do two separate Q and R episodes about it. We're currently taking questions for the second Q and R and we'd love to hear from you. Just record your question by July 21st

and send it to us at infoatbiboproject.com. Let us know your name and where you're from, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds and please transcribe your question when you email it in, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds, and please transcribe your question when you email it in. That's a huge help to our team. We're excited to hear from you. Here's the episode.

We're beginning the third and final movement of the scroll of numbers. This movement begins with a seemingly insignificant little story. It's about the daughters of a man named Zalif Khan. You see, Zalif Khan dies in the wilderness and he has no sons, just these daughters. Which means when Israel gets to the promised land, and the land is dispersed among all the tribes of Israel, every family gets a portion, but Zalif Khan, he won't have a son to inherit his portion. So the five daughters come before Moses and all the leaders of Israel

and they say, you know what? This doesn't seem right. Why should our branch of the family tree be cut off from the Eden land just because we're women? But the thing is, this is how God instructed Israel

to disperse the land, to the sons. What you have is this group of daughters who are bringing to Moses and Yahweh, the fact that there's a gap in the laws of the Torah. There's a scenario that the laws don't address and the laws as currently stated will lead to what they're trying to say is injustice. A whole branch will be lost from the family tree just because women can't inherit land and what God says is they are right. There shouldn't be a family that loses possession

of the land just because there isn't a patriarch. This all takes place in an ancient patriarchal setting. What made these women think that they could approach Moses and make an amendment to the law? There is a narrative in the Torah that talks about male and female as partners ruling over the Eden land together. And that's the Garden of Eden story. God's original command in Genesis 1 was to male and female. Let them rule.

Within the logic of the Torah, these daughters are to be seen as appealing to God's core original heartbeat for the partnership of male and female over the land. It's important to remember where this is all heading. Israel is to be a kingdom of priests and a new abundant garden land. It's a big nationwide reboot of Adam and Eve's original calling to be God's priests in the abundant garden of Eden. And so if this generation is like a new Adam and Eve, there is no coincidence that you

have here a story about men and these women saying, hey, we can possess and have responsibility over the land too. I'm John Collins. This is Bible Project Podcast. Today Tim Mackey and I begin the third movement of the School of Numbers. In a quick apology, you're going to notice as we begin talking that when we recorded, I was dealing with a bit of a sickness. Thanks for joining us. Here we go. Hey Tim.

Hey John. Hello. Hi. So we're in the third movement of numbers. Yeah, totally. Yep. Bommi Bar in Hebrew. Bommi Bar.

Yes, in the wilderness. Otherwise known by the thrilling title of the book of numbers. Man. Yeah, we have been talking our way through the book, which has a lot of parts, stories, laws, poems. Really, this girl has it all in the Torah. In this last movement consisting, essentially from chapters 26 to 36 of numbers, it has among what for most people are probably the least interesting stories in the Torah.

Fantastic. And my goal over the next three conversations is to show you that this is actually so cool and fascinating the stuff that's going on in here. Okay. So that's my mission. Should we choose to accept it? That's a great challenge. I'm excited to see how this goes. Yep. Maybe first, let's take an overview.

Just to catch the big picture, shall we? Yeah. Sweet. Okay. So, numbers has three large movements. And the number scroll itself is the third scroll of a three-scroll mega unit at the heart of the Torah. So the Torah has five scrolls. Think of it like a sandwich. Tour meaning the first five books of the Bible. First five books of the Old Testament, Hebrew Bible. The outer books, the Genesis scroll, and the Deuteronomy scroll.

So the first and the fifth match as a frame around the Torah in in all kinds of ways and we've kind of talked about that before. And then the first Genesis scroll tells the story from human to the death of Joseph and the And at the end of the Genesis scroll, Jacob the patriarch speaks a promise of blessing and hope over his children with the hope that they'll go back into the land. The Deuteronomy scroll ends with the descendants of Jacob, now a network of tribes, and they are waiting outside the land to still go into the land to fulfill that hope that Jacob died hoping for at the end of the Genesis scroll. So similarly, you have

Moses dies at the end of Deuteronomy, speaking words of blessing and hope for the 12 tribes waiting for them to go into the land. So it's a very intentional design parallelism between Genesis and Deuronomy. That's the frame around the Torah. Then in the middle of the Torah, our three scrolls, Exodus, Leviticus numbers. Exodus begins with slavery in Egypt and then it's the first movement, their liberation from slavery.

Second movement of Exodus is going through the wilderness on the way to Mount Sinai, and then the third movement is their apt Mount Sinai. Matching that is another little mini sandwich within the sandwich. So matching Exodus, you hop over Leviticus, and go to the fourth scroll, which is where we've been with Bommidbar in the wilderness. And so what's cool is how the movements of the number scroll is designed as a mirror opposite of Exodus.

So the last movement of Exodus is about the building of the Tabernacle, where God dwells among them. The first movement of numbers is about the arrangement of the camp of Israel around the Tabernacle at its center, and there's all this parallelism between it. The middle of Exodus is about wandering through the wilderness, two-moutesign eye. The middle of Numbers is about wandering through the wilderness, leaving Mount Sinai, and there's matching wilderness grumbling stories. Then that's what we talked about, the last kind of three conversations, the wilderness, where a bellion stories.

So what's interesting now is that the first section of Exodus, which was all about Pharaoh's dread of Israel, he attempts to curse them and kill them off three times. These are the enslavements of Pharaoh at the beginning of Exodus. But then on the third attempt of Pharaoh's attempt to kill Israel, God raises up a deliverer for Israel, and that's the person that Moses. Interestingly, the wilderness journeys of Israel culminate with another king being fearful and dreadful of the Israelites, and that's the King of Moab. And so he also has three attempts where he tries to curse and destroy Israel. Does that make sense? Yes. Yes, it makes sense. I am really worried this is hard to follow.

Oh, okay. Auditorially. Yeah, yeah. Is that a word auditory-ally? But, okay, so this makes a lot sense. So what you're saying is Genesis and Deuteronomy the beginning and the ending of the Torah Mm-hmm. They match. Yeah, and they're like outer frames Mm-hmm. That leaves in the center of the Torah three scrolls Exosophidicus and numbers and they kind of work as one big mega unit You could think of it as the big meat patty, and the bun of the Torah. Totally.

But there's a lot of complexity in how these are designed. And in fact, Exodus scroll on one side and the number scroll on the other side, Leviticus is right in the middle, they match each other. And all sorts of ways.

It's like when you zoom into the middle of the sandwich and you realize there's not just one layer of protein in there, or meat, or beyond beef. There's actually three. There's three patties in the middle. And lo and behold, the middle of the middle is it's like, okay, here's what it is.

Two slabs of tofu, with vegan cheese in the middle. So the two matching slabs of tofu are Exodus and Numbers, and the vegan cheese is Leviticus in the middle. Yeah, yeah. So there's a sandwich within the sandwich, almost to like, once you get into the meat of the Torah sandwich, you realize I'm dealing with the new sandwich. Yeah, exactly. You're like, once you get into the like meat of the Torah sandwich, you realize, I'm dealing

with the new sandwich. Yeah. And so the sandwich now within the sandwich is exosophidicist numbers. The new pieces of bread, per se, are exos and numbers and the new meat patty is levitticus. Yeah. I mean, this is how fractals work. You're like, you're looking at a fractal at one level and you see a sandwich. You move into the fractal and lo and behold, there's another sandwich. Exactly. That's a sandwich fractal. That's right. And so what you're showing us is that Exodus and Numbers match in all sorts of ways in

reverse. So like Exodus moves forward and the Numbers does the same movement but then backwards. Backwards. So in Exodus, they start with the showdown with a king, the king of Egypt, they go through the wilderness, and then they get two Sinai, and they get the Tabernacle instructions. Yeah, the end of Exodus, that's right.

So the Tabernacle can be in the middle of the camp. Okay. And then we hang out in Leviticus and the meat of this sandwich, and then when we get out to the other side, we reverse. The tabernacle is kind of established the order of it. And then they go through the wilderness. And then what you're saying is this third movement in numbers is matching the first movement in Exodus.

Yeah, the transition from the second to the third movements of numbers matches the way that the Exodus scroll begins. Yeah, correct. And so we ended our last conversation with the stories about Bailem, the pagan sorcerer, and what I didn't highlight, but I'm highlighting it here because we're at the hinge between the second and the third movement of numbers is that in numbers the king of Moab, a guy named Balak, it says that he has dread of Israel in his land because they are many and too mighty and it's exactly the same words used to describe Pharaoh

at the beginning of Exodus. Where Pharaoh looks at the Israelites and is like, these guys are really wonderful. He says the exact same thing. Yeah, he's immigrants in my land or many and two mighty and he has dread of no. Oh, wow, okay. It's a really unique word, use at just these two points in the Torah to describe these two kings responding to Israel

as the fruitful multiplying people. So it's a clear hyperlink saying, hey, what's happening with the King of Moab, Balaq, is we're riffing off of all the themes and ideas that we established with this other king who was horrible and enslaved Israel. That was the King of Egypt. That's right. And the King of Egypt in Exodus, chapter 1 and 2, makes three attempts to destroy Israel,

and the third attempt blows up in his face, because it results in baby Moses floating into his house. Dude, check this out. Similarly, the King of Moab makes three attempts to curse Israel through hiring a pagan sorcerer, and it's the third attempt that really blows up in his face because it's the third attempt that results in the curse turning into a blessing, and the third blessing is a promise that God makes

that a seed, a royal seed, will come up out of the waters of Israel. No joke. Oh, wow. Yeah, that's right, you read that. Yeah, Moses came up out of the waters into the House of Pharaoh, signaling the future defeat of Pharaoh in the waters. So now the third attempt of the King of Moab, there's a promise of a future seed, royal seed, who will come up out of

the waters to be a victorious king over Israel's enemies. Okay. So the future king from the line of Israel that will rule the nations is set on analogy to Moses, who was brought up by God to bring victory over Egypt. So the past Exodus deliverance is now being set on analogy to a future Exodus deliverance through a future king. Well, that's really significant because it's hugely significant. Because at this point in the story, they've been liberated. Yeah. You know, they have the trouble and the wilderness, but they're past that now and they're

going to go into the promised land. It almost kind of feels like, great, the story's winding down. Mm-hmm. Like, we're getting towards the end. Yeah. Yeah. Like, if we're watching a movie, you would feel it like, okay, we're moving, we're about to like find the end of this movie. The resolution is coming. There's kind of one last showdown and then it's over. But here then all of

a sudden, you're saying by putting this blessing from Balum about the seed that's going to come. It's kind of like saying, hey, stay tuned. There's going to be a new... New Exodus with a new Moses. With a new Moses. Yeah, totally. And this is all setting us up for the scroll on the other side of Deuteronomy that's going to match this ending of numbers, which is about the new Moses is Joshua, whose name means Yahweh brings salvation. So just as, yeah, just as Moses was to Egypt, so now a new Moses will be to the nations that are opposed to God's purposes.

And this is all setting us up for the book of Joshua, in the entrance of the Israelites into the Promised Land, which is what the final movement of numbers is all about, which is going to be about when you go into the land. Here's how I want you to begin to prepare to be a holy people in the land, because all you've been is a holy people enslaved or a holy people in the wilderness. So we need to prep the people to live under the rule of a new Moses who will guide Israel by God's wisdom and instruction. And that's what this final section of numbers is about, but the story of Baelom is this pivot.

What this is, its immelity. The wilderness has become like a purifying flood that has allowed all the Israelites who didn't want to enter into the good land of God's promise and rebelled against him seven times over in the wilderness. Seven rebellions. Yep, that's the generation that is dead except for 3. Moses, Joshua, and Caleb, and Moses himself was going to die. And so, as we pivot and we wave goodbye to the Balom stories,

what we're going to come across in this new movement is a new census that will number the new generation of the second generation. And it matches numbers chapter one, which is why the book of numbers is called the Book of Numbers. Yeah, because there's two census... Oh, is this the census? What do you say? Whoa, census.

Senses. Yeah, that can't be right. That's like octopuses. Octopuses. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I'm with you. I've heard it's actually not octopi. Oh, really? Octopuses? No, no, it's not octopuses. Octopuses. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I'm with you.

I've heard it's actually not octopi. Oh, really? Octopuses? No, no, it's not octopuses. That's for sure. Let me look at Census plural. Sensai. Sensai.

So, the fact that there are two Sensai in the Torah. And the first one appears in Numbers chapter one, numbering the generation that came out of Egypt. The second one appears at Numbers Chapter 26, numbering the children of the Exodus generation, who are now going to be the ones to enter into the Promised Land. And those two census lists kick off the first and then the third movements of the Numbers scroll. So it's actually kind of sticks out. So yeah, the book of numbers is actually really exciting and fascinating, but it has a lot to do with keying into the literary design of the number scroll,

but to understand the literary design of the number scroll, you have to see the sandwich within the sandwich of the Torah. Yeah. Now, the book of numbers is designed the way that it is as a mirror opposite of Exodus on the other side. Yeah. And without seeing that parallelism and the design parallels the book of numbers feels and reads to most people like a jumble of narratives and laws that it's really hard to understand their sequence. That's one thing I've noticed by talking a lot

about literary structure, it's helped me appreciate why it feels like sometimes stories are random or feels out of sequence or feel, yeah, just natural in a way. That's exactly right. In other words, and remember, this was many conversations ago. In the first movement of numbers, the stories are actually out of chronological sequence. Like there's chronological notes in numbers one through twelve, and they're all out of

order. So some things that happen like this was a month ago, but then you skip a month forward, then you skip two months back. And it's because, especially in the Torah in general, there's a macro sequence, like a macro time sequence, going from creation to the death of Moses outside the land. But when you get internal to each scroll, the organization and sequencing of stories and literary units

is often out of chronological sequence. So there's some other guiding principle for why these scrolls are arranged the way they are, and symmetrical design in order to invite the reader to meditate on things that are paired in symmetrical designs is one of the main features of the Torah. Yeah, so there's a lot of payoff for understanding the design of numbers. So that's kind of nerdy stuff and it requires also whiteboard drawings or charts. So we've tried to nerdy stuff and it requires also whiteboard drawings or charts. So we've tried to do that verbally. But what we're going to do is transition into

the final movement of numbers, which we've kind of been teeing up thematically. It's about the exosgeneration is almost completely dead except for Moses, Joshua and Caleb. And so we're going to restart that generation with a new census and then the last 11 chapters of numbers are about preparing the next generation for life, not in the desert but for life looking forward in the promised land. Okay. Okay, so you won't be surprised that there are three main sections to these last chapters of numbers, 26 to 36. There's three sections to the third movement. There's three...

Yeah, there's a lot of material, a lot of really diverse stories and laws in this section. And I still have some work to do on the literary organization of this. So I think where I've landed is kind of its native design, but I'm still tweaking the edges. So what I'd like to do actually is just kind of, I'd like to zoom in on some little groups of stories and kind of show how when you read stories next to each other and compare them, you can see bigger themes emerging. And the major theme of this is how is the next generation to live

in the Promised Land when actually almost all the laws of the Torah are given to Israel while they're in the wilderness or at Mount Sinai. And that's cool. But the laws are, many of them are specified for people who are living on the go in a nomadic lifestyle. And the land is going to be a settled existence. Okay, so we're going to get a whole lot of new laws. Yeah, the sections full of laws, interspersed with narratives.

Now so far for laws, we first got the 10, the sections full of laws. Okay. Interspersed with narratives. Now so so far for laws, we first got the 10, the big. Oh, yeah. Yes. Yep. At Mount Sinai. At Mount Sinai. Then we got 42 more. Yep. What was that called the scroll of the covenant? Covenant code or the scroll of the covenant. Yeah, that's what it's called in Exodus 24. Okay. And then that's it, right? For a little bit. Well, no, then you get all the instructions about the tabernacle. Then you get all the instructions about the tabernacle. Yeah.

And the commands to build and specifications of how to build, all those are given by God to Moses. And those are numbered among the 613 commands of the Torah. So those are laws in the Torah. And then you get the building of the Tabernacle, and then in Leviticus, you get all sorts of laws related to the ritual around the Tabernacle. Yep, the sacrificial rituals around it. So how to do the sacrifices, how the priests work within the space.

That's Leviticus one through seven. You also get a bunch of then holiness and purity laws. Correct. work within the space. That's Leviticus 1 through 7. You also get a bunch of then holiness and purity laws. Correct. Right in the center of Leviticus, right? Yeah, the center of Leviticus is about how to purify the Israelites through water rituals and sacrificial rituals from any contamination that comes from contact with death through bodily fluids and all that.

And is that it? Are we done with laws? No, that's the Leviticus 11 through 15 leading up to the day of atonement. Then the last third of Leviticus is about moral holiness, moral purity of the people, and then about their ritual calendar that creates a set of rhythms where they live... Oh, all the feast days. It's the fractals of the Sabbath. Yeah. So the seven day turns into monthly, turns into annual, turns into seven,

and then seven times seven with the Jubilee. And so those are all among the 613 commands of the Torah. Okay. Yeah. And then we get into numbers and we have the census. Mm-hmm. We are the, is the commands about how to order around the tabernacle or those counted in the six and thirteen?

That's right. Yep. Yeah. And how to make the camp richly pure as they travel through the wilderness. Yep. And then the second movement of numbers, there's really not any laws there. There are, we just didn't talk about them because there wasn't time. But actually, there's three blocks of laws matching the three big blocks of rebellion stories. There's seven rebellion stories, but they're arranged in three blocks, and each block, there's rebellion stories followed by a collection of laws.

And it's so cool, like how that section works, but we don't have time to talk about it. Okay. Okay. So there's been a lot of law. Yes. And you're saying, though, that all of it kind of has in mind being a wilderness people. Yes. Yeah. All those laws are, well, I'll say almost all of them are locked into the wilderness setting.

And so what you get here, some in the second section of numbers, but all now in the last is culminating how the wisdom of the laws given to the wilderness generation needs to be transformed into wisdom and guidance for life in a settled land. All of a sudden, we have a new context. Yeah. Actually, this is hugely significant for this last section, because what we're going to see is how laws, principles, and wisdom of the laws given to the wilderness generation are

going to be picked up and transformed. And because the context is changed, and that's actually what makes this section so fascinating. Okay. So that's the big idea, is that this is going to be a group of narratives and laws all pointing towards preparing to live in the land. And just one last macro note before we look at some stories and laws is that this generation is being set on analogy to Adam and Eve who were taken from the land of the dust and death, human in Genesis 2 was formed out of the dust outside of the garden, outside of Eden. And then God picked them up and rested to them, who was no as name as a verb. He rested them in the garden he planted and said, the trees, the abundance, it's all yours, but he gave one command about one item of obedience that

was trust. So through all kinds of hyperlinks, this generation, which is now the younger generation, the children, who need to learn. Good from bad. Good from bad. And so, it's as if this is like humanity. Uh-huh. Being reborn. At the gate of Eden.

Hmm. They're about to go in and God's saying, okay, when you go in, here's how I need you to live so that you can truly have life. Because if you don't live this way, you're gonna find yourself exiled unto death. The first Eden had one simple rule. That's right. Tony of the tree of no good and bad. Yeah, and he gave it to the human after he put them in. Here, it's inverted. They're in the wilderness, outside still, about to go in.

And they're going to get a lot of rules, yeah, totally. But anyway, that's the analogy between Eden and the Promised Land, Israel and human outside Eden is going to be drawn upon and developed in multiple parts of this. So Eden, Eden everywhere, man. It's like, if you don't get Eden, you don't get the Hebrew Bible. It's like a key to unlock the mysteries. Okay, all right, should we dive in, look at some stuff?

Let's do. Okay. So I'm gonna have us just look at the first three stories that essentially make up chapters 26 and 27, and this is all going to be focused on the next generation. So chapter 26 begins, it says, then it came about after the plague, and that's the another wave of divine, the last wave of God's justice against the rebellious generation. There was a final rebellion.

Was that the Bronze Snake one? No. The final culminating rebellion was after all the blessing that God spoke on Israel through Baylam. They have one more rebellion. It's actually outside the Seven. Oh. It's the Eighth, and it replays the Golden Calf. And so there's a lot of death and idolatry and ritual sex happening. And it's an important story, but we don't have time to talk about everything. So after that whole

debacle, that was like, it registers the last gasp of the rebellious generation. After that, Yahweh spoke to Moses and Elazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, so Aaron died. The first high priest is dead now, it's his son, in his place, saying, take a census of all the congregation of the sons of Israel from 20 years old and upward by their father's household, whoever is able to go to war in Israel. And so they go on to take the census. And it's essentially verbatim how they do it is verbatim to all chapter one of how they took a census of the previous generation. The one thing it's interesting here is that multiple times in the census as they're listing through clans or tribes, basically any time they come

to a clan or tribe that was involved at one of the rebellions from earlier in the book, it'll stop and summarize the story. Oh. So it's a census that's telling you about the next generation contrasting them to their ancestors, saying, listen, this next generation, they didn't, you know, they were kids. So they watched their parents do stupid stuff, but this generation, you know, was spared from all of that. So it's lots of retellings of that, but what's really interesting at one point when you get to the clans of the two sons of Joseph, you get to verse 33 and you get to this one

sub-clan of Manasseh who is a son of Joseph. And you learn about this guy named Zelof-Had. Zelof-Had. It's hard to say it in English. And you know, I'm just... I forget what it means. So I'm looking it up real quick here. I'm looking up Colerbaum-Garner, Hebrew Airmeric Lexicon, Ville Testament. The meaning of this personal name is uncertain. That's always fun to see. Oh, interesting. Oh, okay. That's right. It's made up of two Hebrew words. At least the consonants are. Cell is the word for shadow or refuge, and then Pachad is the word from something that's terrifying. So a shadow from terror. That's what Martin Note. It's like a vampire.

Martin Note. Yeah, interesting. Yeah, a shadow from the terrors. Yeah. What a cool name. Refuge. That's a from like villain name. Why not?

No, but it means he's a refuge. He's the refuge from the terror. Oh. So you'd like name, it's like your dad. It's like kind of what, you know, like a protective mother or father is to their shadow means refuge. Shadow is a key biblical image of refuge. Oh yeah, yeah, not shadow in the bad sense, like what place of darkness? Yeah. It's shadow, like what a tree provides from the sun. Okay. It's a pretty refuge.

Shade. Oh yeah, there we go. Shade's a better term. Yeah. Shade from the terrors. Shade from the terrors. What a rad name. Zell of God.

That is a good name. Anyway, okay, there's this guy Zell of God. Don't name your kid Zell of God. He's just, he's gonna have a hard time. There's this guy named Zell of God. And what you learn is he has no sons, but only daughters. And the names of his daughters were machla, noa, hoglah, milka, and tirza. And there's lots of debate about the meanings of these daughters' names.

Like milka means queen, noa means delight. That's not noach. That's a different one. Like milka means queen, Noah means delight. That's not Noah, that's a different one. It's not Noah in terms of rest, it's Noah and it means something delightful or beautiful. Hogla, forget what Hogla means. Tears that means like a sparkly something, pleasure or beauty. And magla and hogla, I think maglas machla is a noun, at least spelled with the same letters as the word sickness, so that doesn't really fit. Anyway, they have interesting names, and at

least a number of them are names of like beauty and sparkle and queen. And you're like, what, why am I being told this information? So it's a preview for the next story. Oh, okay. This is gonna happen after the census list. So okay, there's a guy with no sounds, only daughters. And then you're going to hear at the end of the census, all the way down here, that you get the the summaries of the census and the numbers, the last lines are there was not one among them who were numbered in the previous census by Moses and Aaron. All that generation died except Caleb and Joshua. And this is the next little preview for another story to come. So there's a little triad

here that begins the section. You get the census, what follows next is a story about that guy Zellophah and his daughters. And then what will follow is a story about that guy Zellofchard and his daughters, and then what will follow is a story about Joshua. This is all about the next generation. Okay, so here's the story. The story's rad, man. So the daughters of Zellovchad, the son of Hefer, the son of Gilad, son of Machir, son of Manasa, from the family of Manasa, from the son of Joseph. Yeah, we already learned that part of that. Yeah, exactly. That's right. So it's a hyperlink. It's like a latch linking it up to

the previous chapter. His daughters came near, and in case you don't remember, here's the names of the daughters again, they list them, and they stood before Moses and Ellos are the priest and all the leaders at the door of the tent. So they come to the little Eden hotspot. Yeah, that's about as far as they can go. Totally, yeah.

So I think the point is, they're coming to the center of Yahweh's presence, they're coming before Yahweh. And here's what the daughters say. They say, listen, our father died in the wilderness. He wasn't among the group that gathered themselves to rebel in the rebellion of Korah. But, you know, he died for his own sins, like all that generation did.

Then the last thing they say is, but he had no sons. Now here's the thing. Why should the name of our father be withdrawn or missing from among his family just because he had no sons? So give us the land possession among our father's family. Let's ponder on this.

There's some assumptions that work among their request. They're really important that make their requests stand out. Yeah. Well, just the cultural norm of you pass on your inheritance to your sons. Yep. And your daughters don't get anything. Right. Your daughters would marry into other families and be part of their inheritance. That's right. In other words, the biblical narrative assumes and takes place in a patriarchal social structure. So the narrative assume that because that was the cultural context for ancient Israel. Would it be then that Zalaf-Had has to do that right? Yeah, it's actually, I think it looks like in English you might try Zelova Had. Zelova Had.

But it's Zelova Had. Zelova Had. Had. Yeah, we got clear throat. Zelova Had. Yeah. He has an inheritance from his dad. He's going to have a future land inheritance. This is all about the land. Oh, it's about a future land inheritance. This is all about the land.

It's about the future land inheritance. Yeah. Because yeah, they're in the wilderness. They don't have any land. Yeah. That's right. They're going to divide up the land by clan. Correct.

And so everyone's going to get their own piece of it. Yeah. And so they're here saying, hey, we're not going to get a piece of our father's land. Mm-hmm. In fact, no one is because he has no son. Yeah. And that's a shame. Yeah. Yeah. Why should our branch of the family tree be cut off from the Eden land just because we're women? And he didn't have any sons. That's their argument. So, okay. so here's what's fascinating.

What you have is this group of daughters who are bringing to Moses and Yahweh the fact that there's a gap in the laws of the Torah. There's a scenario that the laws don't address and the laws as currently stated will lead to what they're trying to say is injustice. A whole branch will be lost from the family tree just because women can't inherit land. That's their argument. So here's what's fascinating about the story.

Verse 5. So Moses brought their case before the Lord. That word case, it's the word mishpoth. It's a legal argument So they they went to the door of the tent of meeting because that's where you bring a case to Yahweh. Mishpoth is the word for justice Justice? Yeah. Yeah. So in argument Advocating for just relations in the community. Okay. So in Hebrew Justice and a case for justice are the same word. Correct.

Yeah. So this is so rad in many ways, because it's like Moses didn't spot this gap in the Torah. Isn't that interesting? Yeah. It's the people in the community. And as their context is changing, right? Like the culture is changing. We're going to go from a nomadic migrant camp to settled life in the land, and the laws that may have served previous generations don't address this new circumstance that none

of us could have foreseen. Has there been laws about how land is dispersed so far in the Torah? Oh, well, actually, there was a law just given in Numbers 26. I just didn't take time to read it. It's right near the end, which is saying, Hey, when you go into the land, divide up the land for each tribe by the population numbers of the tribes. So the census numbers kind of match land amounts by proportion and divide them by law and assign them to the tribes.

And so the assumption here is that, you know, all the names listed in the list were men. Yeah. And so the next story is about this group of daughters who say, uh, hey, our names weren't put in the role. Right. And when the land gets divided, so that's our argument. But what's the narrative's drawing attention to the fact that they have a mishpot, they have a case for justice, and if their case is neglected, their argument is that there will be a wrong

that will happen in our community, and Moses didn't spot it. Who spotted it is these five daughters. So Moses brought their mishpoth before Yahweh and Yahweh spoke to Moses saying the daughters of Zellof-Had are in the right You will surely give them an inheritance possession among the brothers You will transfer the inheritance of their father to them. So first God addresses this particular case and says, they're right. This would be wrong. For a family to not get land just because it will be women

who won't be the owners and overseers of that land. So let's change that, let's address that in this case. And then in verse eight, it turns into a general law. We're watching the formulation of law, legal reasoning. So God says, in fact, tell all the sins of Israel, if any man dies and has no son, then the inheritance will go to his daughter. But let's say they have no daughter. Give the inheritance to the father's brothers.

And then it starts working down the chain of relatives all the way down and that's the story. It ends in verse 11. If his father has no brothers, gives his inheritance to the nearest relative. Yeah, to the nearest relative. Yeah, yeah. This will be a new statute ordinance to the sons of Israel and that's the end of the story. I think this narrative is hugely significant. of the story. I think this narrative is hugely significant. Yeah. Yeah. Well, first of all, it's a narrative about how the laws of the Torah are not comprehensive. They don't cover every possible scenario. So what does one do? When the laws of the Torah don't address a certain area of life. Well, what you do is you go, this is what Jesus is doing. You go to the laws as wisdom. And you say, well, what are the heart of the laws all about?

Well, hold on. Moses is going straight to Yahweh. Oh, yes. Okay. Solid point. And we ran into this with the Passover. Oh, yeah. That's right. Exactly. Oh, in fact, what the guys say at Passover is, why should we be withdrawn from the community? It's the same thing that the daughters say. Yeah, so the Passover thing is hyperlinked. Is hyperlinked? Okay, and that was when the, was this in Leviticus, where Passover is done in the second week

of the New Year. Yep, first month, yeah. But then there's all these like purity laws given to them about hey, if you're like richly impure, you gotta go outside the camp. And then someone's like, wait, hold on a second. What if I'm richly impure during Passover? Yeah.

I can't go and do Passover, I have to be outside the camp. Like that's ridiculous. Like Passover is important. And then Moses like, yeah, let me bring this to God. Exactly. In other words, there are unforeseen circumstances and we don't have a law for this. So Moses goes before God and gets a new revelation that is based on the wisdom inherent within the earlier commands, but it's a new formulation. Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah. Yep. So this narrative is actually in a matching position now here in the last movement of numbers. Oh, is it? Okay. Yeah, so those are matching narratives within the number scroll. Oh, those are both in numbers. Yep. Those both in numbers the Passover narrative was in the bun. Got it. Of the numbers scroll sandwich. Yeah, numbers is itself a new sandwich. A new family.

Yeah, the wilderness narratives are in the middle. Yeah. And now we're in the bun on the bottom. And then they have matching narratives that are mirrors of each other. And these are the two ones. And there are two stories. And the first one is about those guys in Passover. In this story, it's about these daughters and the possession of land and the right of ownership over land. So what Moses

does is he gets divine guidance for this new situation. Before we get to Jesus, like this, you know, let's say I'm a second temple Jewish person reading this. And I'm reading this and I'm noticing, okay, there's all these laws, it's not comprehensive. They are being interspersed between narratives. These laws are teaching me something. And then you get to these two stories. And then let us just say this one, we were like,

wow, okay, there's gonna be situations where the lock code that I have is not comprehensive enough. And in which case, what do I do? And here, you go, okay, well, you have our priest king guy. Yes, yeah, right. You have a prophet. Priest-profit king guy. The priest-profit king guy.

Yeah. Go and talk with God and update the code. All right, easy peasy. As long as you've got the Prophet Prius' King Guy. That's right. Ready to roll. Exactly. Okay, perfect.

Yeah. And note, like I've been told multiple times our Prophet Prius' King Guy is about to die. Yeah. So this is like one of the last things he does. So, yeah. Okay, so let's just register that point. The laws are incomplete. And there will be moments when we come up against the law

that doesn't address the situation. Or if we just applied the laws we had from the past, it will actually result in injustice. Not because the law wasn't good in its context, but because our context is changed. This narrative is drawing explicit attention to the fact that God's commands were given in context, and that when the context changed, it requires divine wisdom to hear how the heartbeat of earlier laws needs to be applied in new ways. Here, it's about gender dynamics and the possession of land.

Here's where I think the atom and even the Eden stuff fits in here is that what's the logic here? Up till now, land possession in Israel has been talked about within the patriarchal framework that was just common to the ancient Near East and ancient Israel. But then these daughters bring their case, and what God says is, they are right. There shouldn't be a family that loses possession of the land just because there is a patriarch. What if there are young women who can become matriarchs and exercise rule and authority over a piece of land in the clans, and God says that is right?

So the question is, is God turning back to some wisdom principle in an earlier law? And there isn't a law that addresses this, but there is a narrative in the Torah that talks about male and female as partners ruling over the Eden land together. And that's the Garden of Eden story. And the seven day narrative in Genesis 1, and then its compliment in the Eden story of Adam and Eve in the Garden. This is my interpretation, my case of what's going on here, is that this narrative is showing some like young Eve figures, and now we're outside Eaton,

and they're coming and saying, what, only Adam gets to rule the land and have land passed down. God's original command in Genesis 1, and commission was to male and female. Let them rule and be fruitful and multiply. So I think within the logic of the Torah these daughters without knowing it, but I think for the reader these daughters are to be seen as appealing to God's core original heartbeat for God's core original heartbeat for the partnership of male and female over the land. And that's what these daughters appeal to,

and God says they are right. That is what I want. What I want is sons and daughters who can rule and have responsibility in the land together and the God updates the law. That's remarkable, man. At least I think that's remarkable. But do you see the steps I'm taking there?

Yeah, I do. What does God mean when he says they are right? What he means is the things don't change here. There will be something happens that's wrong. Yeah. That's the implication. You could say that what's happening here is that the right that

That their family clan shouldn't die out. Mm-hmm. And so Because of that they get to keep the land. Yeah, but then it's gonna pass on to their sons Right? Oh, yes, yes, but remember their argument is why should the name of our father be withdrawn from among his family? Because he had no son, that's one. Yeah. And then the second argument, there is give us land possession among the father's brothers. So in other words, name and land, the assumption is being able to be settled in a land with a family connected to the family name, flourishing in the land,

that that shouldn't be dependent on only having male inheritors. Yeah. There should be male and female inheritors who can keep the family name and the flourishing family in the land. But just to be you know, the pushback on it is what I would imagine the argument back would be it's only given to the women as a concession when there wasn't men to get it. And then when there is now gonna be new kiddos, it's gonna go to the men again.

If they have sons, yeah, that's right. So it's like protecting the name of the family clan, but it's not all of a sudden saying like, hey, yeah, look, it doesn't matter. Male or female, it's gonna pass down equally. Like, it doesn't make this massive change. What you're saying, in Genesis 1, you're saying your reading is,

is there's an equality there. God created human as male and female. Yeah, that's right. As the image of God, He created them. So both of them are the image of God, male and female. Yeah, that's right. As the image of God he created them. So both of them are the image of God, male and female. And we've talked about this too where you see in the narrative where Adam, the human was split in two and given his, Azar, his like delivering help, delivering helper.

Yeah. So the one becomes two. You just get the sense of like the significance of the equality. Now that's a rabbit hole because you could read a lot of new testament letters and it feels like there's a sense of some sort of patriarchy. Yeah. Yeah. And you can read the New Testament letters and see a lot of mutualistic quality. Yeah.

In those same letters, within the same letter. Yeah. Yeah, that's not a rabbit hole we're going down. We're just trying to read the Torah on its own terms. So what I could get to here, which is really cool, is like, yes, the law of God is not shown as complete. And we have these narratives that are like teaching us something about what do you do when you come into a situation where the law isn't complete. Whether that's the

context changing or is just that things are a little bit more nuanced than the law is prepared to instruct for. In which case, and this is the second narrative we've seen this, you have your profit-preased king figure go and talk with Yahweh and give you an updated law. Yeah. There's a second point, which you're saying here, which is the gender dynamic of daughters and sons. Yeah.

And that's really fascinating. And so let's just put a pin in it and just say, like, that's really cool, fascinating thing that in this very a pin in it and just say like that's really cool fascinating thing that in this very patriarchal setting, you would get a story like this. Yeah, yeah. And I think, well, let me, I wanna pull up the pin and look at it a little more.

Pull it up. That's right. And I think this is often the dynamic, especially that modern readers have, and especially modern Christian readers have when we read the laws of the Torah. Because we're sitting thousands of years forward, post Jesus, post Pentecost,

and what we can see is that the Spirit has been leading God's people on a journey that has had genuine steps forward in terms of a more perfect realization of the ethic and of the good in the communal life of God's people. What I'm saying is that the laws of the Torah are not a perfect expression of the ideal will of God for all people all times everywhere. This law is saying the laws were given addressed to certain moments and then as you watch the law of God and the instruction of God develop and then get developed in the teachings of Jesus, Jesus, right,

explicitly says, I haven't come to set aside the Torah and the prophets, but to fill them full. It's like the Torah and the laws are like a cup, but there is still more, there's still more fullness Laws are like a cup, but they're still more. They're still more fullness to what they're pointing to. And so the sermon on the Mount is the point where Jesus takes the earlier laws, pushes their logic and the heartbeat of their wisdom even further. And so I think what's happening here is we have a moment

within ancient Israel where that dynamic is already in place. In other words, Jesus wasn't innovating by saying there's a wisdom to the Torah that takes the wording of the laws, but then uses that as a launch pad to explore their wisdom and apply them in ways that are even more faithful to their meaning. And that's the dynamic happening here. even more faithful to their meaning. And that's the dynamic happening here. Yeah, okay. But Moses doesn't go back to Genesis,

Chepherds wanted to. No, he could like. And say like, okay, you know what, there's wisdom underneath this. And this is part of the Torah. And so, yeah, you guys could have land. He goes to Yahweh. He goes to Yahweh.

That's right, that's right. But what we see Jesus do, So yeah, you guys can have land. He goes to Yahweh. He goes to Yahweh. That's right. But what we see Jesus do, he takes the Torah and he finds wisdom principles and he says, we can use the wisdom of the Torah to fill full what God wants for us to be complete. Yeah, but I'm saying it's a little different than that even. What I'm saying is the structure of the Torah invites the reader, not Moses invites the reader to see this generation going into the land with all kinds of parallel to Adam and Eve in Eden. And so if this generation is like a new Adam and Eve, there is no coincidence that you have here a story about men and these women saying, hey,

we can possess and have responsibility over the land too. So what I'm saying is the fact that it is a story about men and women having a shared responsibility over the new Eden land. This is this story's way of recalling that shared responsibility of Adam and Eve over the garden. So that's not something that I'm saying the people in this story are doing or thinking, but the construction of the Torah in the way this generation set on analogy to Adam and Eve, I think is a part of the story's meaning for the reader based on what the author's doing. for the reader based on what the author is doing. And once you see that, then you can see that,

oh, Jesus is like the fulfillment of a long tradition of biblical authors and prophets saying that the laws of God are perfect and good and wise, but true wisdom can never be locked into just one context because context always change as creation develops. And so you're going to need to depend on the laws, the wisdom of the Torah, to take you into new territory so that you can discern God's will even when there are no laws that apply.

Or the laws as originally were to don't apply, which means unique, got wisdom to see how they apply in new ways. And that's what this story is about. Yeah, so for some reason, I think I just like this one as much as I like the Passover one back earlier because it's a cool hyperlink between Genesis 1 and 2 and this generation in the land. It's about male and female who shared responsibility over the land. And then also, it's showing a dynamic in the Torah itself that Jesus clearly saw and saw himself fulfilling and caring forward when he said,

I didn't come to set aside the Torah and prophets, but to fill them full. And that's his introduction to the six case studies where he says, you've heard it said in the Torah, and I say to you, what God wants us to do is take the wisdom of the laws and take it further into the new creation. And yet Jesus doesn't give us some sort of comprehensive rulebook for being human or how to take wisdom principles forward. No, it has three. All the way.

There's a certain amount in the Mounts, only three chapters. But man, it's like there's a universe in those three chapters. There's a universe of wisdom for all of life. There's not a universal law for all of life, but there's a universal wisdom derived from the loss. Okay, so let's cash this out. Yeah. I want to be a person who listens to God's voice, Shema, a Shema heart. Can listen and then if God says, this is the way, I'm like, okay, that's the way.

I don't have a Moses figure who's coming down off a mountain and saying, like, hey, I got an update. Here's the new, like, here's the new lock code. I can't go to, you don't think you have one? I haven't. Yeah, I mean, do I have one? I think you do. What do I do?

Yeah. I have it really? Yeah, I think he's sustaining your existence, right? This very moment. You're talking about God himself. Talking about the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God. Toilet.

I mean, I'm kind of trying to catch you off guard a little bit, but I think that's what Jesus and the apostles would want us to. Okay, but there's a difference between, like, here's a guy, we can all see him. Yeah, right? Yes, okay. There he is. That's an important difference. We all can see this, dude.

He can go up the mountain and we can come to him and be like, hey, Moses, like, here's the situation. I want to do Passover. I'm unclean. Mm-hmm. Like, what do I do? Mm-hmm. Or you can imagine it's like, hey, Moses, like, here's the situation.

Like, my wife died and whatever, you know, whatever the situation is and you're like, what should I do? Mm-hmm. And then Moses, like, that's a good question. I'll be back. And then I watch him go up the mountain, come back down and he goes here's the law and we can look like sweet. Awesome. Yep. Yep. Just tell us what to do. Moses it would be great if I didn't have to exercise any like moral reasoning

for thinking of my own. Just give me the instruction. I'm being facetious obviously. Well, you're making that sound like it's a bad thing to ask Moses, but here like this is like... No, he told me. It's great if you have a Moses, that's right. Yeah, in person to go ask, that's right. And so, that guy doesn't exist. Or me, he does exist, but like the relationship isn't such that he's like standing there in the flesh

and that you can talk to him, right? Yes. What you're saying is Jesus is the greater than Moses, who has given us a spirit. Yeah. So we have Jesus is clearly presented as a new Moses prophet, priest king figure. The sermon on the Mount is him doing, in his day, what Moses was doing right here. And then for us, post-resurrection and pentacost, the Spirit sent by the Father and the Son to be the presence of Jesus in our midst, I think, is our equivalent of the Prophet,

Priest Kang, that we consult. Hmm. I mean, think, yeah, think this all the way back to years ago, our series on the Book of Acts. This is precisely a parallel set of problems that apostles faced in the first decade of the Jesus movement, which is Jesus' Israel's Messiah, to create a remnant among Israel to participate in the renewal of Israel so that the nations can be blessed. And within the Hebrew Bible, that is mostly depicted as nations incorporated into the national ethnic entity that is Israel. And what starts happening on the ground is that non-Israelites

happening on the ground is that non Israelites start following the way of Jesus and the spirit that came upon Mithianic Jews starts falling on Cornelius, a Roman centurion in his family. Right? I mean, that's the dynamic. Yep. It surprises them. Yeah. And so the way they go consult. Well, then the question on the ground is, do these non-Jewish followers of Jesus need to be circumcised? Be circumcised and follow the ritual feasts and... That's right. Yeah. Because the laws as stated, say they're supposed to do Sabbath, get circumcised, ecocher. Yeah. Like that's what the laws say. The Torah of God says that. So what they do is their version of, like what the daughters do here.

Mm. Their version is what we call the Jerusalem Council in Acts chapter 15. Yeah. But all the way starting back in chapter 10, leading up to it, of the book of Acts. So what they do is they get people from all sides of the experience. They get the Jerusalem leaders, they get people who think the laws say. Right? Non-Israelite is relight. We all have to live by the laws of the Torah.

And then they get people who think that there's the spirit pushing us in a new direction and they get non-Isory lights who actually have been filled by the Spirit and are following Jesus in these communities up in Antioch and they all come together and pray and read the Bible and debate and argue and then they collectively discern what the Prophet Priest King is telling them. Well that's not happening anymore. What's not happening anymore? This collective discernment was the spirit. What? What do you mean? It's not?

Well, I mean... Do you think it happens all the time? I would like to believe it does, but what you seem to see is just a fracturing of... Yeah. Like... Oh, no. God wants this over here, and it's very clear. And so we're going to build this tradition and we've got it right. And then another group saying like, no actually God is saying this. And then they don't come together and pray and read the Bible. And instead

everyone kind of just goes their own way. Sometimes it is. Sometimes they do, John, and sometimes they have, and sometimes they do. Sometimes they don't, and sometimes they haven't. You sound like a monster. And this is the journey, the debacle, and the beautiful thing that is the history of the Jesus movement. I'm not saying that the history of Jesus followers

throughout the world have embodied this perfectly. What I'm saying is the biblical narrative offers us a model in ideal and resources for how to do this work. And whether or not we do it or have... You think it's possible. You think it's like... I have to think it's possible. Or else I don't really want to be a Christian. I have to think it's possible. Or else I don't really want to be a Christian. I have to think it's possible. But when you look out at the landscape of Christendom, there's a lot of cool, beautiful things. Yeah. But you gotta agree that like,

there is a lot of fractured. Of course. Yes. As much if not more than harmony and agreement. I mean, just look at history. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. But we also live outside Eden, and every one of these councils that we might attempt is, you know, full of factors, personal desire, ambition, traditionalism. Genuine like trying to adapt the way of Jesus to some sort of foreign or antithetical story or world view. I'm not saying it's easy, I'm saying it's complicated.

This was a conflict that these daughters introduced. They brought a legal case to the 10th of Yahweh. Yeah, and it was a big deal in Acts. It was a conflict that these daughters introduced. They brought a legal case to the 10th of Yahweh. Yeah, and it was a big deal in acts. It was a huge deal. During the council. I mean, that was a massive decision. And I'm sure everyone wasn't down with it. But I'm not saying it's simple.

I'm not trying to, but I'm just trying to say, there is this ideal and a model given within the biblical story for what the community is to do when it faces these moments. This feels significant for some people maybe this won't feel significant, but I think for many people, especially someone who comes from my background, where if you see something like an axe where they have to kind of figure it out, you would say, well, yeah, like in the Bible, there was still, you know, the Spirit was working, things were getting figured out.

But then it all came to a close, and now our only job is to just follow what the Bible says. Like that was, you know, my tradition. And so the Spirit's not gonna come and like tell you some new thing. In fact, that's super dangerous. Like that's where you're going to get heresy. That's where you're going to like and yeah, and the whole thing could fall apart. Totally. But let me just insert what the Apostles discern in Jerusalem is, oh my gosh, this is not a new thing. What they find in the scriptures is the realization of not something new but something very old. In other words, what they discover is that, oh my gosh,

incorporation of non-Israelites, it might feel new, but actually it's a deep, it's the logical conclusion hidden so deep within the biblical story that until we came to this moment we didn't ever see it. I see. And so you're saying the same thing with this story here where Moses, you know, he goes the Yahweh, but in the Torah, there's a reader of the Torah, you're like, well, I've read Genesis 1 and 2, male and female both are inheritors of the land together as partners. This is not new at all. We're not innovating here. This is not new at all.

This is not innovation, I see. It's more perfectly realizing the deep interlogic of God's will throughout the soul. And that's what my tradition would say. It was like, yeah, the spirit will talk, but he'll never contradict. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Descriptors. Right. But contradict on what level on the surface level wording of the laws of the Torah

Well, that's where it gets tricky right because then you have to decide like what exactly right I'm not trying to simplify it. I'm trying to simplify what the ideal is and that this dynamic is Anticipated within the biblical story. I'm not saying that actually pulling this off is simple. But yeah. You have hope. You have hope that the people of Jesus can, in like new ways, come together and read the Bible and pray and hear from the Spirit and go, oh, yes, this is here. We hadn't seen it.

Like we can all stack hands and say, God is telling us something new that is old. I have hope and I have to have hope. I don't have optimism. But I've talked about this before. I have to have hope. There have been these moments in the history of the Jesus movement, and I have to believe that there will continue to be, and that all of those moments, so rare as they are, are

pointers forward to a new creation where people can live and discern the will of God together in a way that unites and creates peace. I have to believe that, otherwise. I mean, I used to say otherwise, I'll just go skateboarding or play golf or something, but it's like, what's the point of that? So I have to have hope that this is possible, and I've had little tastes of it in local church communities that I've been a part of. We see little moments of unity and God speaking new wisdom that's actually old, you know. But I think this is what has made the dynamic

of the Jesus movement what it is as a world changer throughout history, not always perfectly, of course not always perfectly, because it's humans and we're outside of Eden. But anyway, can I just draw attention to the fact that we're having this conversation based off the story in numbers 27 versus 1 through 11 about the daughters of Zalofkhad. I love the Hebrew Bible man. I just, it's so awesome. Anyway. And you were gonna show us, I think, three stories.

Yeah, you know what? Yeah, the story that we'll look at next about Joshua will actually set us up for some other things going on in this section of numbers. But I think this was perfect. When God's people transition generations and are on the horizon of new circumstances, it requires new wisdom to find the old wisdom that was always there. And that's what the story is all about, the section of the book of numbers, otherwise known

as in the wilderness. Thanks for listening to this episode of Bible Project Podcast. Next week, we continue in the third movement of numbers, and we look at Moses passing the baton of leadership to a man who's going to inherit Moses' splendor, a man named Joshua. The ideal human figure, the high priest, is depicted as a shiny shimmery figure, and then Moses is depicted as a shiny shimmery figure, and so Joshua here is depicted as someone

with this blender of Moses too. Today's show was produced by Cooper Peltz and edited by Dan Gummel and Tyler Bailey, Lindsay Ponder, with the show notes. Ashlyn Heiss and Mackenzie Buxman have provided the annotations for our annotated podcast in a rap. Bible project is a crowdfunded nonprofit and we exist to experience the Bible as a unified story that leads to Jesus. And everything that we make is already paid for by thousands of people just like you. So thank you for being a part of this with us. Hi, this is Andre and I'm from Cape Town, Sarafika.

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