In December 2019, we started writing notes on Genesis 1 and posting them to Twitter in the hope of engaging with others and learning from the many biblical scholars who use that platform. We have continued, slowly, to work our way through the narrative portions of the books of the Bible that lead up to Caleb’s story, where he is first mentioned in Numbers 13. As we transition to Leviticus in August 2022, we want to share these notes with you in a more accessible form.
Twitter’s limitations force changes, so there are differences between these, which we took as we read and studied, and what we tweeted out. Because they were written for Twitter, they contain artifacts that make less sense in a webpage format. We hope you will bear with some of the awkwardness to see the process we’re using to understand and re-tell a richly informed version of Caleb’s story.
To find the tweet thread as we posted it, you can go to Twitter and search for ‘@kalevcreative’ plus a hashtag in the title or keywords from the body of the section you’re interested in.
Please read, share, and comment or engage with us on Twitter or via email. We will do our best to respond. In the end, we hope to understand where Caleb’s story fits in the larger narrative, what role he plays in God’s plan for Israel and the nations, and what we can learn from him.
#Bible #Leviticus A look back
In Genesis, God creates an ordered system culminating in humans’ and God’s 7th day rest. God places them in a garden in Eden where he will be present with them. Humans rebel and begin a cycle of judgment and God’s preservation and restoration of a remnant to dwell with him in a land he chose for them. God chooses one family to partner with. We meet generations of individuals until one has twelve sons, the roots of a nation. Genesis ends in an Eden-like land but not the one God had promised.
In Exodus, a human power enslaves the descendants of God’s chosen family, and God judges to preserve his people through signs. He brings them through a wilderness to Mount Sinai where he gives them law and instructs them in building a place where he can dwell and meet with them. Yet, at Exodus’ end, Moses, a leader with a unique relationship with God, cannot yet enter the tent of meeting.
In Leviticus, we look forward to moving further in, to gain access to God’s meeting place. To some scholars, it appears that Leviticus is structured with that movement in mind - the events of the book (especially if we include the end of Exodus) take place in locations progressively closer to the Most Holy Place where God’s presence rests. We receive instruction on how to invite and sustain his presence, to avoid breaking the relationship and inviting judgment. When we’ve learned relationship, we’ll finally be ready to move toward the promised land…
#Bible #Leviticus 8-9 #Form and #Sacrifices
We’ll continue to focus on the narrative portions of the text, so for us, Leviticus will be short.
Anthropologist Mary Douglas in her book Leviticus as Literature proposed that the book is structured in a manner analogous to the Tabernacle, with its two narratives corresponding to the two curtains that divide the tent complex into its three parts, with the sizes and contents of the sections of Leviticus corresponding to the sizes and functions of the divisions of the Tabernacle.
https://www.thetorah.com/article/leviticus-as-a-literary-tabernacle
Exodus ends with Moses unable to enter the Tabernacle. Leviticus guides us through the ceremony and behavioral limitation necessary to move inward and have ongoing relationship with God.
First in the narrative, the priests prepare, the high priest donning clothing that, as @carmenjoyimes has pointed out, appears as an inside-out version of the Tabernacle, with the most ornate work, precious metals and stones on the outside. Moses anoints the priests and “the tabernacle and everything in it” with oil.
Moses consecrates the altar with a series of sacrifices, then the rest of the action in chapter 8 takes place at the entrance to the “Meeting Tent.” The priests’ ordination lasts seven days during which they cannot leave the vicinity of the entrance. Echoing Noah and Moses language, “…Aaron and his sons did all the things the Lord had commanded…”
On the eighth day, Aaron and his sons prepare a series of sacrifices “according the standard regulation”, “just as Moses commanded.”
“Moses and Aaron then entered into the Meeting Tent. When they came out, they blessed the people, and the glory of the Lord appeared to all the people. 24 Then fire went out from the presence of the Lord and consumed the burnt offering and the fat parts on the altar, and all the people saw it, so they shouted loudly and fell down with their faces to the ground.” (Leviticus 9:23-24, NET)
#Bible #Leviticus 10 Nadab and Abihu #Judgment
“…Aaron’s sons, Nadab and Abihu, each took his fire pan and put fire in it, set incense on it, and presented strange fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them to do. So fire went out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them so that they died before the Lord.” (10:1-2, NET)
As with Cain’s Gen 4 unsatisfactory sacrifice, there is not much detail. This event appears part of an emerging pattern – in the narrative, when God gives a new paradigm, people rebel and are quickly exiled/killed.
Arguably Gen 3 begins it.
In Exo 16-17, the people rebel against God’s provision for food and water, then the Amalekites attack.
In Exo 32, even as Moses is receiving the law, the people rebel with the Golden Calf. Moses responds by telling the Levites God has told them to kill their brothers, and they do, “about three thousand men.”
Here, Nadab and Abihu act against God’s command, so fire goes out from God’s presence to consume them.
It is possible these events correlate with the three-part structure of the Israelite camp
–the people complain about God’s personal provision for them and outsiders attack
-the people rebel concerning the worship of God and Levites attack
-the priests fail to honor God’s instructions for his holy space and fire from God’s presence destroys them
We see similar responses in future narratives
Numbers 14 death of mutinous tribal leaders
Numbers 15 death for gathering wood on Sabbath
Numbers 16 death of mutinous Korahites
Numbers 21 deaths by poisonous snakes
Numbers 24 deaths of sexual rebels
Joshua 7 death of disobedient Achan
2 Samuel 6 death of Uzzah who touched the Ark of the Covenant
In the New Testament, the Acts 5 deaths of Ananias and Sapphira
The quantity and pervasiveness demonstrated by this incomplete list undermine efforts to disassociate God from the death penalty for rebellion. Apart from the Numbers accounts, which all follow God’s declaration the Numbers 14 rebellious generation would die in the wilderness, these deaths often come at the inauguration or re-establishment of a new paradigm - newly in the wilderness, new covenant, inauguration of the Tabernacle, first city conquered in the Promised land, recovery of the Ark of the Covenant, early days of the church.
The repetition of similar circumstances suggests God’s purpose is to exemplify the seriousness of the new agreement. It has value to him. He will defend it, even at the cost of human life, which he has repeatedly expressed he values. Life with God depends on adherence to God’s agreements. When they’re violated, sometimes life is the cost.
In his Leviticus commentary, Jacob Milgrom assesses that Nadab and Abihu’s rebellion took place at the entrance to the tent, and when they were consumed, they fell inside.
Moses designates relatives of Aaron to carry their bodies out by their clothes to a place outside the camp, similar to what was prescribed for the remnants of sacrificial animals.
#Bible #Leviticus 24 Israelite-Egyptian #Judgment
In Leviticus 24:10-16, another narrative interrupts the ceremonial instructions and legal code.
In the passage that precedes it, we’ve read instructions for what should be done just outside the Most Holy Place – lighting of the lampstand and instructions for the making and replacement of the bread on the table.
The narrative concerns a man who, during a fight, misused God’s name and cursed. The Israelites detain him, and God pronounces a sentence of death by stoning. Here, the Israelites are responsible for the defense of God’s name by collectively carrying out the death penalty.
The regulations that follow the narrative are identified as having been spoken from Sinai – the place God met with Moses, perhaps analogous to the Most Holy Place in the Tent of Meeting – and concern living in Canaan, not the wilderness they are currently traversing, things that that are to happen once the conquest of the land is complete.
At the end of Exodus, Moses could not enter the tent. As we have moved through Leviticus, our location as readers progressed with Nadab and Abihu to the door of the tent, then inside with the regulations for the lamp and table, and now focus on the those given at Sinai regarding God’s name, life and death, and dwelling in the land God has promised.
We’ve received what is needed to dwell with God enduringly in the land and dire warning of what will happen following the failure to do so. The book ends with instructions for redemption and tithes.
“These are the commandments which the Lord commanded Moses to tell the Israelites at Mount Sinai.” (Leviticus 27:34, NET)
#Bible #Leviticus #Structure
@L_MMorales, L. Michael Morales in chapter 1 of Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord? dwells extensively on the structure of Leviticus and its position within the Pentateuch. I strongly recommend the book and will not attempt to duplicate all the relevant passages here, but for Caleb’s story some points are worth highlighting:
“Thematically, there is…good reason to believe the Pentateuch is structured concentrically. Genesis and Deuteronomy both end with a patriarch (Jacob, Moses) blessing the twelve tribes before dying outside the land, and Exodus and Numbers have many parallel events, framing Leviticus as the central book”.
“M. Smith persuasively demonstrates a symmetrical shaping of Exodus and Numbers by studying their geographical and temporal markers… The itinerary notices in Exodus and Numbers balance one another with six notices charting the Israelites’ journey from Egypt to Rephidim, the station before Sinai (Exod. 12:37a; 13:20; 14:1–2; 15:22a; 16:1; 17:1) and six notices following the Israelites from Sinai to the plains of Moab in Numbers (Exod. 19:2; Num. 10:12; 20:1, 22; 21:10–11; 22:1), manifesting a correspondence between the journey to and from Sinai.”
Morales finds Leviticus to be the center of the Pentateuch and quotes others who identify Lev 16 regarding the Day of Atonement as the center of Leviticus. References to geography and chronology in the text of Exodus-Leviticus-Numbers assist in our perception of progression through the wilderness with a long pause at Sinai, where we progress into the Tabernacle as it becomes not just God’s dwelling place, but, when his commands regarding his presence are observed, a place to meet with him.
As we re-focus on the wilderness in Numbers, we will keep an eye on parallels with Exodus to help us understand events’ significance.