Numbers: Faith, Law, and History

God’s Promise

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Lesson : God’s Promise

Genre:

Track: 62

Dictation Name: RR181AH62

Location/Venue:

Year:

Let us worship God. O give thanks unto the Lord. Call upon His name. Make known His deeds among the people. Sing psalms unto Him. Talk ye of all His wondrous works. Glory ye in His holy name. Let the heart of them rejoice that seek the Lord. Let us pray.

O Lord, our God, we thank thee that thou who hast called us has made us thy people, hast also ordained that, even in the face of all trials and troubles, we should rejoice in thee, for thou art He who dost make all things work together for good to them that love thee, to them who are the called according to thy purpose. Give us grace therefore so to walk day by day in the confidence of thy mercy and government, that in all things we may be more than conquerors in Christ who loved us and gave his life to redeem us. In His name we pray. Amen.

Our scripture is Numbers 33, and our subject: God’s Promise. “These are the journeys of the children of Israel, which went forth out of the land of Egypt with their armies under the hand of Moses and Aaron. And Moses wrote their goings out according to their journeys by the commandment of the Lord: and these are their journeys according to their goings out. And they departed from Rameses in the first month, on the fifteenth day of the first month; on the morrow after the passover the children of Israel went out with an high hand in the sight of all the Egyptians. For the Egyptians buried all their firstborn, which the Lord had smitten among them: upon their gods also the Lord executed judgments. And the children of Israel removed from Rameses, and pitched in Succoth.” Then, the verses following give their travels through verse 49, so let us turn to verse 50.

“And the Lord spake unto Moses in the plains of Moab by Jordan near Jericho, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye are passed over Jordan into the land of Canaan; then ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their pictures, and destroy all their molten images, and quite pluck down all their high places: and ye shall dispossess the inhabitants of the land, and dwell therein: for I have given you the land to possess it. And ye shall divide the land by lot for an inheritance among your families: and to the more ye shall give the more inheritance, and to the fewer ye shall give the less inheritance: every man's inheritance shall be in the place where his lot falleth; according to the tribes of your fathers ye shall inherit. But if ye will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you; then it shall come to pass, that those which ye let remain of them shall be pricks in your eyes, and thorns in your sides, and shall vex you in the land wherein ye dwell. Moreover it shall come to pass, that I shall do unto you, as I thought to do unto them.”

Numbers 33:1-49 is a recapitulation of Israel’s journey from Egypt to the Jordan. It is recorded by Moses as an historical record. It has, as its purpose, to remind Israel how many years they spent in the wilderness because of their unbelief and rebellion. There are three sections to this recapitulation.

First, Moses cites the march from Egypt to Sinai in verses 1-15. Then second, he lists the twenty-one encampments from Sinai to Kadesh. Their thirty-seven years of wandering are recorded in the encampments of verses 19-36, from Rithma to Kadesh. Finally, and third, the move from Kadesh to the Jordan are given in verses 37-49. Now this is an historical record. It is an unflattering one, because it is a reminder to them that God kept them in the wilderness until the older generation died as a judgment on their unbelief. It is, therefore, a reminder of sin.

This is echoed in Daniel 9 where Daniel confesses the long history of Israel’s hypostases. It is again the background of the public confession of sins in Nehemiah 9. Psalm 106 is a great rehearsal of this same journey and sin. Israel, past and present, is presented as a people presuming on God’s grace, and failing to keep His covenant and its law. Because confession is necessary before restoration, Psalm 106, a part of the music of the temple and synagogue, was a constant reminder that Israel was a straying and apostate people, and God’s mercies, many as they are, do not go on unendingly where men persist in their sin.

As Kirkpatrick commented on Psalm 106, “The national history is one long history of failure to understand God’s purpose and a resistance to His will.” We cannot understand man nor history except for this fact. People love their own lives, rather than the truth of God if they are outside of sin. Lying is natural to their being. It gives them a sense of power, the ability to deceive others, to play games with the lives of others. Therefore, they love and believe a lie, and that’s their punishment. They love to lie, and God’s punishment, we are told, is that they love but then they also believe a lie.

It’s an interesting fact that so many of the great con men of history who, before World War 1 when a million dollars was vast wealth, conned people out of millions, and lost it all to other con operators, because they were always suckers. One such con artist, by the way, who has influenced history profoundly, a man who always made a pretense of poverty, was Karl Marx. His income, he was married to a woman from the German nobility, was better than that of the average English gentleman. He constantly lost whatever money he got, had begged and borrowed, and was being permanently supported by Engels, his associate, on get-rich-quick schemes, trying to be a capitalist in a hurry.

It is curious that verse 12 of our chapter is a favorite among devout Jews to this day, because Elim had twelve springs of water, we are told, and seventy palm trees. This is allegorized to symbolize the twelve tribes of Israel and the seventy elders of the Sanhedrin. This kind of interpretation, common to both synagogue and church, replaces meaning with symbolism. Now all campsites are listed in verse 8. We read that they journeyed three days at one point. Obviously, they did not travel day and night. It is the important campsites that they stayed a time that are listed, and those that were on their journey, so that the encampment on the short of the Red Sea after the destruction of the Egyptian army is not listed. Some of these campsites are still identifiable, so that by taking a map and drawing a line, one can get a general idea of their migration. Others, because there has been no further history of consequence attached to those names and sites by Israel or any other people, have been forgotten and cannot be located with any assurance.

Joseph Parker, in commenting on this chapter, made a telling statement about history and biography in four words. He said, “Life is twice written.” It is written once and authoritatively and perfectly as God knows it. It is written again in another form in man’s memory and man’s records. This journey and the various accounts of it by the Bible, give us in Numbers and elsewhere, God’s statement about it. Man’s histories are usually written in contradiction to God’s realities.

James Phillip writes about the word “journeys” in verse 1, that it is sometimes rendered “stages.” Another commentator has seen the Hebrew word rendered “journeys” or “stages” as related to the Hebrew word meaning “plucking up,” that is, taking up tent pegs before resuming the march.

Now, there is an interesting fact about this wilderness journey. They were sentenced to remain in the wilderness forty years. Their journeys were, in part, to locate grazing lands. On more than one occasion, they were close enough to Egypt to make an easy return to it possible. In their rebellion against God and Moses, they could have easily separated themselves and returned to their land of captivity. They whined again and again on how much better it had been in Egypt before Moses led them out, but they had many opportunities to return. They were at points, where it would have been easy to go back. They could have walked away from the encampment and made their way back to Egypt, but they never did. Whiners and liars love to give voice to their evil disposition. They don’t want to be taken seriously about it. Their attitude was like that of many, many people today. Their lust was for the securities of slavery, together with the advantages of freedom, so men move and act today. Their whole lives are a lie, because they refuse to face up to what they are, and they mask their demands for slavery as expressions of freedom and independence. Israel never returned to Egypt physically during its wilderness years, but it remained in Egypt spiritually.

This travel account is interrupted by a reference to the death of Moses near the end of their travels in verses 38 and 39. In spite of his earlier weakness, Aaron had become a faithful high priest, and God here required that we take note of his death as an important event.

In verses 50-56, God gives instructions concerning Israel’s treatment of the Canaanites. Israel had come from Egypt, which morally was far superior to Canaan, although their religion was a wretched one. Canaan was a place of radical depravity. It was apart from private and personal sins, given to religious prostitution, including religious sodomites and religious bestiality. A Church of England scholar of more than a century ago summed up God’s requirements in these words: “Consider therefore, that the one great duty of Israel in taking possession of his own land, was wholly to dispossess the natives as being enemies of God and of his worship. Second, that Israel was further requires to abolish all their monuments of idolatry however pleasing and interesting. Third, that the command to exterminate seemed hard and was ungrateful, no doubt to most of Israel. Fourth, that as a fact, the command to extirpate was not obeyed. Fifth, that as a fast, the other command was not obeyed wholly. Sometimes graven images were served. Sometimes, high places turned to the worship of the Lord to the great detriment and danger to the true faith. Sixth, that the remnants of the heathen if spared, were to become pricks and thorns, that is, constant and dangerous annoyances to them and would vex them, and seventh, that the end of such unfaithfulness, if not amended, would be to expatriation.”

God, as the landlord of Canaan and all the earth, gave a specific order for the eviction of the Canaanites. Their way of life is often described in scripture as an abomination. In fact, their religious artifacts that have been dug up have been kept in back rooms in museums. God, as Lord over all, can and does evict nations repeatedly in history. He gives a specific command to Israel to do so. Citing Winterbottom again, of what was to be done: “Consider again with respect to Canaan, first, that Israel was to possess it because God had given it to them. It was His, and He chose to do so. No such title was ever granted to any people. Second, that the grant of Canaan to Israel implied all necessary succor in conquering and occupying it, else had the name of God been disgraced. Third, that the division of the land was so ordered that equality should as far as possible be preserved and favoritism be made impossible. Fourth, that the holy Land was delimited before they entered, that the boundaries are, to a considerable extent, unknown. Fifth, that the limits marked down were apparently the natural limits of Canaan without any reservations. Sixth, that the land actually occupied by Israel was both larger and smaller than delimited, not reaching so far from the north to the south, yet not so straight from west to east. Seventh, that Kadesh, a famous memory, was specifically included in the southern frontier. Eighth, that the land was allotted to the people by Eleazar their priest, and Joshua, their captain. Ninth, that together with them, there acted princes from each tribe that justice might be manifestly done to all.”

God required that all links with paganism be broken. The land was not merely to be occupied. It was to be cleansed. Failure to cleanse the land would mean troubles, and finally, dispossession. Israel is required to obey because God is the Lord, the sovereign. The opening words of the Ten Commandments and a prefix to all the law is, “I am the Lord thy God.” God as the sovereign creator has the absolute right to require whatever He wills, and no man can stay His will. In verse 55, Israel is told, “But if you will not drive out the inhabitants of the land before you, then it shall come to pass that those which ye let remain shall be pricks in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and shall vex you in the land wherein ye dwell.” This is a conditional curse. The terms are spelled out, and the people are told exactly what the consequences of their disobedience are. Matthew Henry observed, “Let us hear this and fear. If we do not drive sin out, sin will drive us out if we be not the death of our lusts, our lusts will be the death of our souls.” God does not allow any compromise of His sovereignty. Men try to lay down rules as to how God should act to be truly God, and this is blasphemy. God tells us who He is. We cannot prescribe a character for God in terms of our thinking, but this is what most men do.

Perhaps the words of G. Campbell Morgan on verse 56 are the best conclusion. “The most solemn word of all is the last uttered, ‘and it shall come to pass that as I thought to do unto them, so will I do unto you.’ In these words is revealed an abiding principle, that God’s election to blessing is never a person’s without reference to conduct, but rather a character which expresses itself in obedience to His will.” It is a modern heresy to believe that all of God’s promises must be sweetness and light. God is not a politician running for the presidency. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God, we give thanks unto thee that thou hast spoken to us clearly, plainly, unmistakably in thy word, and thy word is truth. O Lord, our God, keep us from believing men and our own hearts, lest we fall into believing and loving a lie. Give us grace to grow in thee, in thy truth, in obedience to thy law word, that in Christ Jesus we may be more than conquerors. In His name. Amen. Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Audience] George Bush, by law is probably nothing but a murderer.

[Rushdoony] Yes, he is most of all, an ungodly man. That sums of everything, whatever his particular sins are. He had made clear before he took the presidency, in conversations with John Lofton, whom he saw often the, while his mother believed in the Bible, he did not.

[Audience] With his power and prestige, he could probably make a phone call and withdraw the United Nations’ troops anywhere in the world.

[Rushdoony] Of course, but he is the one who put them there, and he is the one who invited homosexuals into the White House to celebrate the gay rights bill. Yes?

[Audience] When God changes one’s heart and your desire becomes to fulfill His law and be obedient, and you read about Saul and Saul’s heart was changed when God chose him to be king, and Saul denied God and was disobedient, and God was angry, He changed his heart back again. My question is this: I thought predestination was constant, that once you’re changed, you’re never changed back. Well, was Saul changed back?

[Rushdoony] Very good question. King Saul was chosen by God as a punishment to Israel, and God was the king of Israel. He is the king of the nations, Lord over the nations, and God incarnate, Jesus Christ, is spoken of as king of kings, Lord of Lords. Now, they were warned what life would be like under kings, human kings, as against God, but they went ahead and so God gave them a king after their choice. Now, this did not mean that he was predestined to salvation. God predestined him to be the first king of Israel, and we have an interesting fact that when Saul was possessed by the Holy Spirit, it turned him into a mad man, for a brief time, because he did not have a heart that was conformed to God and His word, to obedience, to faith. So, when the Holy Spirit took him over, Paul stripped naked and groveled, but he prophesied and God humbled that proud man and used him in a way that made him an object of public shame. So, we must distinguish between predestinating a man to an office and to eternal salvation.

[Audience] did say though that God said, and I forget who he was speaking to, a prophet he was dealing with, he said We have a good man to select as king. True, it was a punishment, definitely a punishment because they wanted to take .{?}. victory and all that stuff, but he did the same thing with David. David, he said, once he wanted to {?} Saul, and {?} with Saul, he said that David was a good man, and then David denied Him by using a man to be killed so he could have a woman, and it confuses me sometimes on whether once they were predestined, you know, I can’t . . .

[Rushdoony] Alright, now Saul was a goodly man, we are told, because he stood head and shoulders above others. In other words, he was a giant. He was a fairly capable military leader, but he was not a godly man. Now David was a godly man who did sin, who sinned in committing adultery with one of his general’s wives, and then having the general lead a foray in which he was sure to be killed. But Saul never repented of a single sin, never repented to God, but Psalm 51 gives us one of David’s prayers of repentance, and when you read that, you know he was a man of God. He committed a fearful sin, but he was also a man with a great deal of humility then{?} self-knowledge. So, there’s a world of difference between the two.

[Audience] He repented immediately.

[Rushdoony] Yes

[Audience] I do recall that. He repented immediately.

[Rushdoony] When he was confronted by the prophet, Nathan, he immediately confessed his guilt, and one of the interesting things is that he named a son who was born shortly thereafter, Nathan. This would be a perpetual reminder to him of his sin, and apparently he retained Nathan to be the preacher in the court, because we see him, Nathan, in the court at the time that David was seriously ill. Yes?

[Audience] Saul showed his heart before he died. {?} he consulted with the witch of Endor instead of consulting the law in the book that he had, from God’s word. That showed his true heart right there.

[Rushdoony] He didn’t pray to God. He didn’t repent. All he wanted to know from the witch of Endor was the future, and that was an act of godlessness.

[Audience] He used repentance to get what he wanted, because he kept telling David that he was sorry, that he was trying to kill him, you know. And he’s bringing back to his table, and back to his home and then he tried to kill him again. Consistent.

[Rushdoony] St. Paul speaks of two kinds of repentance. A repentance unto death and a repentance unto life. A repentance unto death is when you’re sorry because what you have done leads to ugly consequences for you. So, you’re not sorry you did it, you’re sorry that what you did didn’t work out the way you wanted it to. If it had worked out otherwise, you would have been glad for the evil that you had done, but a sorrow unto life is when whether it works out for you or not, you know you’ve sinned against God and you repent. Are there any other questions or comments? If not, let us conclude with prayer.

O Lord, our God, how great and marvelous thou art. Thou hast, in thy sovereign mercy, in thy grace, made us thy people, given us great promises for time and eternity, and hast assured us that thou wilt never leave us nor forsake us so that we may boldly say, “I shall not fear what man may do unto me.” Teach us to walk by faith. And now go in peace. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost bless you and keep you, guide and protect you this day and always. Amen.

End of tape