Numbers 36 Bible Study | Episode 833

December 18, 2024

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

Numbers 36 Bible Study | Episode #833

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

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Transcript

This is Chad Harrison, and you're listening to hope alive, applying God's word to your daily life. Hi, this is Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and have been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open up his word to you and allow you to see him and to know him and to know his will, that you might glorify him and that you might walk in faith and power each and every day, especially today, in Jesus name. Well, good morning. Welcome to Lake Community Church's morning Bible study. We are in numbers, chapter 36. It is the last chapter of the Book of Numbers. We are finishing up the book of Numbers. We'll be doing deuteronomy starting tomorrow. But the Book of Numbers is a. Well, in many ways, an intensely practical book. It is one of those books in the Bible where you see God giving instruction on how the children of Israel are to live. There. There are some historical events that take place during this time that are written down. The book of deuteronomy is much the same, very similar, except for there is preparation being made to enter into the promised land. And so there are some issues that arise and some things that need to be handled. These are. These are historical books, but they're also books of the law, meaning there's a lot of. A lot of legal questions that are answered and issues that are handled. And so they. They kind of lay the foundation for the rest of God's word. In fact, they really do. That's what they're. That's what they're here for, is to give us a foundation, a historical understanding. The books of the Pentateuch, the five books written by Moses, they're to give us a history up to. Up to Israel entering into the promised land, and they're to present God's law, God's. God's plan for his people, and God's holiness. And so when we're studying these things, it's. It's kind of exciting. It is. It's one of those things where when you get to the end of the book, you go, well, wow. And. And the truth is, the books of the Pentateuch, there are. There are. In my mind, there are four books in the Old Testament that are longer than the five books of the PentaTeuch. They're psalms. There is Isaiah, Jeremiah, and I think Ezekiel are longer than the book, five books of PentaTeuch. So when you study these books, they're five of the nine longest books in the Old Testament. And considering we did psalms first, we've really done six of the nine longest books in the Old Testament and longest books in the Bible, because the New Testament doesn't have books with 36 chapters in them. The longest is Matthew with 28. And so as we study through these books, we have really gotten to, when we finish deuteronomy, we will have gotten through about 35% of the chapters in the Bible. With six books of the Bible, we will have one 11th of the Bible. We will have finished a third of the chapters of the Bible. And so it's kind of momentous for us. It's one of those fun times. And you go, well, how does it end? Well, the book of deuteronomy, I mean, numbers ends well, kind of like it began. It's very practical. They're during this book, as we've read through it, there were some young ladies who came to Moses. They were the Daughters of Zelavihad and Zelophehad. Easy for me to say. And they didn't have any brothers, and they didn't want to lose their father's inheritance from their family. They didn't want it to be passed on. And they asked God, they asked Moses to ask goddess, as it were, God would prefer for them to come up on the mountain and meet with him, but they asked Moses to ask God if they could retain their land for their family. And God said, yeah, that's a very practical thing now, as it actually being is placed into practice. As it is, it raises an issue, and that's what we find here. And God handles the issue, and it's one of those just, this is how we should fix problems. It says now, the chief father of the families of the children of Gilead, the son of Mikir, the son of Manasseh, of the families of the sons of Joseph. So basically, it's the many of the families of the sons of Joseph came near Manasseh's family. This tribe of Manasseh, who was a son of Joseph, came near to speak before Moses and before the leaders, the chief fathers of the children of Israel. And they said, the lord commanded my lord Moses to give the land as an inheritance by lot to the children of Israel. Meaning God told them to split up the land among the tribes and among the clans of the tribes. So God. That's true. And my lord was commanded by the lord to give the inheritance of our brother Zelevihad to his daughters, which happened also. So they got two issues. In the legal profession, we call this a conflict of laws, meaning there's some issue between these two laws and how they're practically done. And we need to figure out how to deal with that conflict. Usually it's a conflict between federal law and state law, or maybe a local ordinance and a state law. It's one of those things that just kind of happens. And so you got a problem. We're supposed to divide these up according to the, you know, the tribes and the clans. And then we've got these daughters who are able to take their inheritance from their father because they don't have any sons. And that was right and just for that to happen. But the problem is, now, if they. Verse three. Now, if they married to any of the sons of other tribes of the children of Israel, then their inheritance will be taken from the inheritance of our fathers, meaning they'll be taken from the tribe of Manasseh, and it will be added to the inheritance of the tribe into which they marry. So let's say they married into Benjamin, and so their land would move from Manasseh or that tribe's people to Benjamin. So it would be taken from the lot of our inheritance. And then when the children of the jew, when the jubilee of the children of Israel comes, meaning when the land goes back to its original owners, and we'll deal with Jubilee down the road, and we have already, it says, then their inheritance will be added to the inheritance of the tribe into which they married. So their inheritance will be taken away from the inheritance of the tribe of our fathers, which means we're going to have a big old mess with all this land being taken in between all these tribes. And so we got to deal with that. What, what in the world are we going to do with this? This is a problem. It's a conflict of laws. It's a conflict of rules. Moses, then Moses commanded verse five. Then Moses commanded the children of Israel according to the word of the Lord, saying, God gave him an answer. What the tribes of the son of Joseph speaks is right. So when he said, when the daughters came with the problem that they're losing their land out of their family and that they should be able to inherit, inherit the land, God said, that's right. And then he comes back when the sons of Manasseh come in and they say, well, we're going to lose this land from our tribe as we were allotted by God, God comes back, and what he says, what the sons of Joseph speak is right, so they're both right. What happens when they're both right and it seems like it doesn't work? Well, we do the practical thing. We do the thing that's logical. Oftentimes, when you're studying scripture, this is a principle of interpretation. When you're interpreting scripture, the easiest or best interpretation, meaning the one that is not as strained as the others, is usually the right interpretation. Oftentimes we go with the strained interpretation because we like it better. It seems better, it seems to teach better. We want it to be that way. But the truth is that as you're studying through scripture, the easiest interpretation, meaning the one that is not strained, seems logical, is the right interpretation. You go, well, God's infinite and he's intricate, and so it's got to be a little bit strained and difficult. No, no, no, no. You're right. God is infinite and he's intricate and he's unknowable by the human mind. That's true. But he wrote his word so that we might know him. So he took into account all those factors when he wrote it, and he wrote it so that we might understand him. He didn't write it to hide it from us. He wrote it to enlighten us with it. And so those two factors are important. When you're studying scripture, the easiest, most logical interpretation is usually the right interpretation. Notice to come up with these hidden things when the answer is obvious and before us. And so God is that way here. And there's an easy answer to this problem. It says, then the Lord commands, concerning the daughters of Zelefa, say, so we're gonna. We're gonna add a refinement to these rules. Let them marry who they think best. But they may marry only within the family of their father's tribe, meaning they can only marry a man from Manasseh. They can't marry a man from Benjamin or Judah. They can't do it. They got them. If they're going to take the land, the possession of the land's inheritance, then they've got to marry within their tribe. That's a. That's a fair answer. It's a logical answer, is how I fix the problem. Uh, you gotta remember, each tribe had, like, 5600,000 men. It's not like you had. You've narrowed it down too much. And by the way, they live around the men of their tribe. They don't live around the men of the other tribes because they're in different places. They got a different allotment of land, and they didn't have, uh, they didn't have the Internet, so they weren't on social media trying to find a husband, uh, up in the northern part of Israel. When they're in the southern part of Israel, they didn't have that. They knew people from their area, and they usually married them. I do want you to notice that it says, let them marry who they think best. Notice their father has passed. They have no brother. They choose their husband. This is not a normal arrangement for marriage. For this time. For this time in history, women did not get to choose all who they married. But God says, for the daughters of Zelda Fayette, they get to choose. But if they're going to take the inheritance, they have to choose someone from their father's tribe. Verse seven. So the inheritance of the children of Israel shall not change hands from the tribe to tribe. For every one of the children of Israel shall keep the inheritance of the tribe of his fathers. Meaning we get the. We get the benefit of our parents. Walk with God. There is a. There is a passing down of their anointing. There's a passing down of the promises. There's a passing down of the promises of God. And you do get the benefit of your parents blessing. You did. Whether you walk in it, whether you take advantage of it is a whole different story. But you do get the advantage of it. It says and everything, the daughter who possesses an inheritance in the tribe of the children of Israel shall be the wife of one of the family of the fathers of the tribe, so that the children of Israel each may possess the inheritance of their fathers. Thus, no inheritance shall change hands from one tribe to another. But every tribe, to the children of Israel shall keep its own inheritance. Hmm. That's intensely logical. That is the answer. It is. It's easy. Just as the lord commanded Moses, so did the daughters of Zelafad and Mahlah and Tisra and Haglah and Milcah and Noah. And the daughters of Zelophe were married to the sons of their father's brothers, meaning they were married to someone in their tribe. Not. Not their necessarily their uncles, but that people that are in their tribe, they were married into the families of the children of Manasseh, the son of Joseph, and their inheritance remained in the tribe of their father's family. Simple. These are the commandments and judgments which the lord commanded the children of Israel by the hand of Moses in the plains of Moab, by the Jordan across from Jericho. So we have arrived exactly where we need to be to get ready to go into the promised land. Now, are we going in? No, we got to wait the 40 years Moses is going to pass away. Uh, there's going to be some other issues that come up. They're going to have to fight a few more battles, and then they're going to enter into the promised land. All these things are very important. All these things are going to be dealt with, and we are going to deal with the book of Deuteronomy in detail over several, several weeks. Who's kidding? Several months. We're going to deal with it over several months and we're going to see what God has to say. It is a. It is a fabulous book of the Bible, and I'm looking forward to going through it myself. It is. It is a. It is a exciting. It's. It's two chapters shorter than the numbers is 34 chapters. So if you think about it, it'll probably take at least 34 weeks to go through it. So we're going to spend the rest of this year and the first part of next year doing the Book of Deuteronomy, and then we'll be off and running in Joshua. So I am. I'm so excited to do this. It has been a, it's been a pleasure to do it. It's been fun to do it. And we are, we are slowly but surely covering the whole word of God. And by the way, we. When we do this, we, we. Kathleen, over time, she's about a year behind. She makes these into podcasts, and you can find those podcasts if you do, if you listen to podcasts, you can find them on hope Alive by Chad Harrison. It's our Bible study put in podcast form. It's cut up and maybe a little bit more refined than the actual Bible study here on Facebook. But if you want to just start following through that or offer it to a friend, I would just go to hope alive on any podcast app that you have. And if you look it up, hope alive and Chad Harrison, you'll find it. And you can find each and every Bible study there as you go today. I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you, that he'll make his face to shine upon you, and that he will give you hope and peace today in Jesus name.