The Lord 's Preparing The First Generation

In the Old Testament, the Israelites were seen as people who failed to listen to God’s commandments. Despite knowing beforehand that they would be punished for their disobedience, they still continued to commit sin. God tried to deter their misbehavior by promising them many blessings, but it worked to no avail. Due to the insubordination of the Israelites, He made sure that the promises He made to them would be withheld and that they would face consequences.

Jonathan Sacks, the author of a book ‘The Home We Build Together,’ emphasizes that covenant is a core of the biblical politics, especially in such a way to make the Tabernacle, for us to make a society which respects each others in a diversity. Sacks said that the Tabernacle was made by all Israelites with their voluntariness, devotion, and equality as a common project through covenant regardless of any ethnicity, religion, and culture, which made them have the identity that they build it together and belong to it (Sacks, 138). Therefore, being left as a story to be commemorated to them and give them a gradual changes with personal and social creative constructions, covenant is not just a religious concept, but rather it is zeitgeist to lead

Numbers comes next in the Pentateuch, following Leviticus. Numbers shows the journey and God guiding Israel. Through Israel’s documented journey new laws are given to the people, to understand this in its context the reader must remember; Israel’s adults that saw God part the red sea were now dead, with exception of two. This in-turn spawned a new generation brought up by the direction of the Lord. The new adults would serve God in their new land and in doing this God had fulfilled the promise He and Abraham made.

It was after the escape, did the followers of Moses wander into a desert. Unified by the laws given from God to Moses. The laws were called the commandments. These commandments that were given from God describe

One should consider God’s intent for the Tabernacle in the first place: “Let them construct a sanctuary for Me, that I may dwell among them” (Exodus 25:8) The purpose of the Tabernacle was so that God may have a place to dwell among His people. God could not dwell with His people unless their sins were atoned for. The

The Hebrews served a monotheistic God, who they called Yahweh. He is an all-powerful and non human like being. They believed he made them in his image and gave them dominion over the earth. Their God was unlike any other gods at the time because he was friendly, compassionate, forgiving and all-powerful. God gave the Hebrews structure, a background, hope, and purpose. Every society needs rules to protect and keep the community in line. God gave Moses the ten commandments which they lived on.1 The Hebrews created the Bible a sacred book containing their lives and relationships with God. The Bible gave the Hebrews an understanding of how the world and humankind emerged. They also believed in an afterlife. Heaven for people who lived a righteous life and Hell for people who lived an unholy life in the eyes of God. So the Hebrews had a set of laws follow and hopes to believe in. This unified the Hebrews because they had the same goals, beliefs and obligation to suppress their desires for the well being of God and their society.

Leviticus is a law book which demonstrates the concerns of peoples' daily life. The book has got detailed rules that regulates the offering of the sacrifices, the tasks of priests, the sexual, the calendar of the liturgy, the dietary as well as, the economic practices the Israelites were practicing not forgetting the ritual and the moral holiness. The book of Leviticus manages to offer the children of the Israel, an instruction of how one can live to become part of Christ, people who are ever holy, "be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy" (19:2). In short, Leviticus offers the vision of being holy to God as it also issues a call to a living that is holy to those who are in a covenant with God. However the shape

Moving on, from what Richter named the barrier (people, time, and space), chapter three contains the outworking of God through the five men discussed before. As she states, “the biblical writers consciously organized their material in a systematic fashion in order to communicate certain central truths.” The author briefly details the aspects of the covenants within the Old Testament surrounding Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David. Taking, in turn, each of them and expositing them in a way that shows the redemptive story that is taking place. “For each of these characters was called to mediate a covenant between God and humanity”. Tying into the culture of the people, God used the fallen and difficult Israelite culture to set up his redemptive plan the would show to be faithful, even to a faithless people.

1. Compare the narratives of Israel’s wilderness sojourn in Numbers with the summary presentations in Psalms 78 and 106.

According to the tradition, God entered into a covenant or contract with the tribes of Israel, who believed that Yahweh had spoken to them through Moses. The Israelites promised to obey Yahweh and follow his law. In return, Yahweh promised to take care of his people,” (Spielvogal 38). The covenant between the Israelites and Yahweh could only be fulfilled by obedience to the law of God” (Spielvogal 38). “The Israelites believed that certain religious leaders or holy men, called prophets, were sent by God to serve as his voice to the people. These “men of God” went through the land warning the Israelites that they had failed to keep God’s commandments and would be punished for breaking the covenant: “I will punish you for all of your iniquities.” (Spielvogal 38,39). Family was the center of the social structure for Hebrew life. Family was made up of blood related individuals living in a common place. Marriage was also important to the Hebrew family. Similar to Hammurabi’s Code, some Hebrew people accepted polygamy, while the majority rejected it, and believed monogamy was preferred form of marriage. What makes Moses so different from Hammurabi is that Hammurabi’s codes are still used today, but mainly in the Middle East, while The Ten Commandments that Moses was given by Yahweh still have a

God gave his “chosen people”, the Jews, 613 rules or commandments through Moses called the Torah. Moses then wrote down what God had told him. They are the books of the bible in the Old Testament that make up the Torah: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. There are so many rules and laws in the Old Testament that many believe God didn’t intend for us to be able to follow them. The idea was to get the Jews to realize they weren’t perfect and needed to be saved. God sent down his Son in flesh to be an example of how to live and love. Jesus came down

This lead the reader question why God did not provide defined rules, or expectations, prior to the commandments? Previous covenants focused on God’s obligations: to not destroy mankind again and to provide Abraham offspring and the land of Canaan, whereas Exodus focused on Israelite responsibilities (p. 114). In the end, the reader found Exodus a “rite of passage” that displayed God’s trust in the Israelites and a formalized relationship with God.

Within this conflict, the two groups that define the direction of the conflict are: the twelve spies and the angry group of followers. Examining the group of twelve spies which was established by God via Moses, their charge was to investigate the land of Canaan that God was preparing to give to the children of Israel. Specifically, Moses directed the spies to see what the land was like, to see if the people were weak or strong, to identify the population size, to identify the quality of the land, and to describe the state of the cities. Moses further encouraged his leadership team stating “be of good courage” and bring back a sample of your work, i.e. “bring some of the fruit of the land” as cited in Numbers chapter 13. Acknowledging the spies charge and dependence upon one another, this group is “a collection of individuals who are interdependent” given their instructions to collectively investigate the land of Canaan (Johnson and Johnson, 2013, p. 6). Even more, Moses defined clear goals and expectations for the group of spies. As reflected by

It tells of God’s sovereignty. It shares “God’s law” How the people are to act, worship, eat, build the temple, behavior towards God and others, etc.

2. What do these passages about the Abrahamic covenant tell you about God's relationship with people?