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- [00:00]
A
Foreign. Welcome back to A Year in the Bible with Daily Grace. This is Shelby and Scott and today we're in numbers four through six. Scott, one thing I find challenging about numbers other than just like the lists in it is actually pronouncing the names because even when I'm reading silently, I'm pronouncing them in my head. So we have some names to stumble over today. We have Levites, we have Kohathites, we have Merarites, we think we're pronouncing that right. We looked it up before, so yeah, we checked it. So can you help us understand these chapters that contain all these really challenging things, four through six?
- [00:41]
B
Yeah, these chapters and really going back to chapter three are all about the Levites. And those groups you mentioned, like the Kohathites, the Merarites, they're all Levites, just branches within the Levites. And to appreciate the Levites role, I thought it'd be helpful to read Leviticus 26:11 12 where God says, I will place my residence among you and I will not reject you. So he's talking about the Tabernacle there and he says, I'll walk among you and be your God and you will be my people. And that language of God walking among them is actually the same language used in Genesis 3 of God Walking out of the garden with Adam and Eve. And there's actually a lot of parallels we can't get into between the Garden of Eden and the Tabernacle. But essentially the Israelites are as they're traveling to the promised land, they've got like this kind of miniature Garden of Eden going with them. And this is the first time since Eden that God has taken up residence among his people. Now of course there's still danger because the Israelites are sinners. So there's an inherent danger of them dwelling close to a holy God. But that's where the Levites come in. Like the Levites helped to mediate God's presence to sinful people by offering sacrifices, by helping keep the camp pure. And that's what chapters five and six, which you read about today are covering. And so you know, these chapters, the topics kind of seem to bounce around a little bit. But the Levites are essentially called to help keep the camp of Israel pure so that God's anger wouldn't be unleashed on the Israelites. And Israel was in the words of Leviticus, to be holy, just like God was holy.
- [02:13]
A
Yeah, I love that callback to Leviticus because just coming out of that book we talked a lot about Clean and unclean about holy and common. And so here we see the Levites living out those laws that were given in Leviticus. And in numbers 26, I think we see a pretty well known verse come in. Right?
- [02:32]
B
Yes. Yeah. At the end of chapter six, you've got the Aaronic blessing is what it's sometimes referred to. So God instructs Aaron and the priests to pronounce this blessing. May the Lord bless you and protect you. May the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. And may the Lord look with favor on you and give you peace. And I love this, Shelby. It's just this beautiful picture of what God wants His people to experience by being near Him. Like he wants the Israelites to experience favor and protection, his pleasure, his attention and peace. And I think as Christians reading this passage, like we get to read this and realize this is a reality we live in, to be blessed by God in this way. Like the New Testament, for example, talks about Jesus being our high priest, in fact, a superior high priest to Aaron, who purifies us, who makes a once for all sacrifice for us, and then ushers us into the presence of God. And because of Jesus, we get to experience what this blessing entails. That God does shine his face on us. He is gracious to us. We have peace with God and Jesus has made it possible for us to dwell in the. For God to dwell in our midst, for God to walk among us. And so I just, I find this blessing so encouraging to read and just really slowly meditate on. So I'd encourage everyone just take a few minutes just to read it slowly and just dwell on it.
- [03:58]
A
Yeah, absolutely. And that's gotta be my takeaway from these chapters. You think about, like the Lord's face shining on you, and for me, it's just like a picture of the sun. And we've had some like cloudy, gloomy days over the past month and then you have a really sunny day. It just feels like it brings life back into your soul. And so the fact that that blessing is not something that we're chasing, but something that God has given us in Christ, oh my goodness, that is like such a joy. And so I'm just going to meditate and think on that a little bit more today after these chapters. All right, thanks, Scott. Well, we will have more from the Book of Numbers tomorrow.
- [04:41]
C
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- [05:03]
B
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