You shall love the Lord your God with
all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.
(See Important Quotations Explained)
Summary
Throughout Leviticus, Israel remains encamped
at Mount Sinai while God appears in the Tent of Meeting, dictating
to Moses his specifications regarding the Jewish ceremonial laws.
The laws are extremely detailed, outlining every aspect of how and
when religious offerings are to be presented to God. God gives the
instructions himself, and his voice comprises the majority of the
text. A brief narrative interlude describes the anointing of Aaron
and his sons as Israel’s priests. At the ceremony, God appears and
engulfs the altar in a burst of flames, eliciting shouts of joy
from the people. Soon after, God also sends fire to consume two
of Aaron’s sons when they neglect to make the right preparations
for approaching the altar.
God lists various types of forbidden sexual
behavior and discusses foods and physical conditions that can make
a person unclean. Uncleanliness can result from things such as bodily
discharge or touching a dead carcass. An unclean person must leave
the Israelite camp or undergo physical cleansing, waiting periods,
and religious sacrifices. Typically, sexual sins are punishable
by death, but God also instructs the Israelites to kill a man who
blasphemes, or curses God’s name. Of all his restrictions, God places
particular emphasis on the prohibition against eating meat with
blood still in it: doing so will result in banishment, not only
from Israel but from God’s graces as well.
In the end, God promises to give Israel great abundance
and success if it obeys these laws. If Israel is disobedient, though,
God will send destruction and famine and “abhor” the Israelites
(26:30). But the laws
in Leviticus also set aside an annual Day of Atonement during which
the priest is to offer sacrifices for the forgiveness of the entire
nation. As long as the Israelites confess and repent for their sins,
God promises to keep his covenant and never leave them.
At the beginning of Numbers, Israel prepares to continue
the journey from Mount Sinai to the promised land. God devotes one
of the twelve tribes, the Levites, to assist Aaron in the work of
the priesthood, maintaining and watching over Israel’s religious
articles. After dedicating the Tabernacle, which houses the Ark
of the Covenant, the Israelites leave Sinai, guided by the movements
of a cloud that rests over the Tabernacle. Entering the desert,
the people begin to complain about everything from the lack of interesting food
to Moses’s leadership.
Moses sends spies into Canaan to explore the promised
land. Upon returning, two of the spies, Joshua and Caleb, report
that Israel can successfully conquer the Canaanite people with
God’s help. However, some of the spies incite an uprising, arguing
that it will be impossible to take the land from the Canaanites
and that Israel should return to Egypt instead. God plans to destroy
the people for their lack of faith, but Moses intervenes and convinces
God to forgive them. God relents but delivers a heavy curse. He announces
that the current generation of Israelites, with the exception of
Joshua and Caleb, will not be allowed to enter the promised land.
Moses leads the people back toward the Red Sea to wander in the
wilderness for a period of forty years.
Another revolt occurs when three men grow jealous of
Moses’s leadership. God plans to destroy the entire nation because
of the men’s jealousy, but Moses persuades God to destroy only the
guilty parties. Moses warns the people that the men will die as
a result of their own disobedience. God causes the ground to open
and swallow the men, but the Israelites blame Moses and Aaron for
the incident. Very angry, God sends a rapidly spreading plague through
the crowd, killing thousands. Aaron runs out into the crowd and
holds up the priest’s censer to atone for Israel’s wrongdoing, stopping
the plague in its destructive path.
