The book of Deuteronomy and some final thoughts from the Torah before moving on. We will come back later to a few stories in the Torah that I didn't have room for yet.
“Other” than the Ten Commandments, is what I mean. (That’s next week.) There are a lot. Some rabbinic traditions say 613 in total. I just wanted to give an overview of some of them.
Numbers 14:1-25. The people hear about the enemy and give up. Moses begs God to not kill them all.
Numbers 13-14. God commands that 12 people from Israel go spy out the land they are to invade and bring back a report of the geography, people and resources. (It’s a recon mission.) What could go wrong?
Is it OK to be repetitive sometimes? You better believe it! Every verse of this Psalm (26 of them) ends exactly the same: “for his steadfast love endures forever” (ESV).
Canaan is the land WEST of the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Israel’s mission was to conquer Canaan and take that land as their own. And they did. But they also picked up some other land on the way, on the EAST of the Jordan.
It is where the Israelites wandered after leaving Exodus. Sometimes it is translated as “desert”; I think “wasteland” is a good sense also.
It’s not really about numbers! The original Hebrew name of the book is “In the Wilderness,” and that’s a better name. This book is about Israel’s 40 years in the wilderness (at least 38 years of it). Yes, there are some numbers, too, but that’s like ten percent of the book.
"Into the Wilderness" is the original Hebrew name for what book?
Every 50 years, Jews hit the RESET button on life. Servants were set free, debts were forgiven, and farming paused for two years.