Numbers 26-36: Men Who Established an Ancient Society Don't Mandate Our Beliefs Today

The remainder of the book of Numbers essentially outlines the decisions that had to be made when the Israelites stopped wandering through the wilderness and established more permanent settlements.  There were a few legal issues to iron out, there were festivals to be established, and there were borders to be set, and every tribe needed to be given a place to settle without the whole of the Israelite community erupting into petty squabbles about who should have which plot of land.  The first step was to count everyone again, so that land could be apportioned based on a group's size.

Of course, they still had to kill the people who were inhabiting the land they were going to be handing out, but those folks really didn't count as "people" per se, since they weren't Israelites.  In fact, Numbers 35 deals specifically with murder and how to legally distinguish between actual murders and accidental deaths.  In this context, Moses (speaking for God) says, "Do not pollute the land where you are. Bloodshed pollutes the land, and atonement cannot be made for the land on which blood has been shed, except by the blood of the one who shed it."  We must assume that this is only in reference to Israelite blood, since shedding the blood of people from whom they usurped the land didn't seem to be a concern.  In fact, the Israelites are warned that if they try to inhabit the land peacefully in community with the Canaanites, God will destroy them.  More on that in a moment.  

Two distinct legal matters arise in these final chapters.  One has to do with the preservation of wealth, and the other has to do with the value of a man's word.  There was a man named Zelophehad who died, leaving behind five unmarried daughters and no sons.  According to what had been established, this man's wealth would revert back to his tribe, leaving nothing for the daughters apart from the compassion of their relatives.  So, the daughters brought their complaint before Moses, and Moses consulted with God, and God proclaimed a legal order of inheritance which all Israelites were thenceforth to follow.  

This presented a snag, however.  Some men of Zelophehad's tribe were concerned that if these daughters were to marry men from other tribes, their father's wealth would be shifted into the coffers of these other tribes as well, and they wanted to ensure that Zelophehad's wealth stayed in his own tribe.  So Moses made another proclamation (on God's behalf) that no inheritance should pass from one Israelite tribe to another, meaning that if the daughters wanted to keep their father's wealth, they would have to marry someone from their own tribe.  Which they did.  

This is an important bit of legal precedence that needed to be established.  It is curious, though.  Aside from wondering why the Israelites needed all this wealth if they were just going to slaughter everyone they encountered and plunder the remains, one wonders why God didn't see this coming.  An omniscient god would certainly have known that this issue would arise, but there is nothing mentioned about how to handle an atypical inheritance until these daughters raise their concern.  Even then, the response is imperfect because it allows for a loophole that has to be closed by another proclamation.  While it's necessary to set these guidelines, it's apparent that it was people setting the guidelines and not an all-powerful supreme being.  Once more, the concept of God is invoked to dissuade argument and shift responsibility from a fallible human ruler to an infallible being that could send plagues if you made a fuss.

The other legal matter that is dealt with in Numbers 30 has to do with vows.  If a man makes a promise, he should keep it.  Simple enough.  We get that in one sentence.  If a woman makes a promise, it becomes more complicated.  We need three or four paragraphs to understand the consequences of a female's promise.  It makes sense in the context of a male-dominated culture, but like so much of biblical regulation, it stops making sense when translated to twenty-first century society.  Thus, the concept of the Israelite's god stops making sense.  

If God is assumed to be eternal, unchanging, and constant -- and if the Bible is assumed to be the infallible, inerrant documentation of what God thinks and wants from people -- we are confronted with the fact that whoever drew these conclusions about women thinks of them as "almost-but-not-quite people".  We also are confronted with the fact that any non-Israelite is even lower in status than women -- shedding their blood doesn't pollute the land, it secures property rights.  The New Testament addresses this conundrum, but then we face the issue of scripture being wrong or misguided about something, which is tough for some people to stomach.  

At a certain point, we have to face the obvious truth that Israelite men wrote these words in a very specific place at a very specific time for a very specific purpose.  They were trying to establish a new culture, a new society that promised for them security of power and wealth, but that also promised for all of its citizens a sense of the sacred, a life made more meaningful by participation in a holy culture.  Every decision they made was focused on preserving that ideal.  But they were imperfect human decisions of a certain place and time, not rules for all people throughout eternity. 


It is still possible to believe in a deity today, even a deity that is congruous with biblical truth, but one must distinguish where the line is between truth and cultural perspective.  So much of the Old Testament narrative is about what Israelites should believe about themselves in order to maintain a cohesive cultural identity.  So little of it thus far has been about anything approaching the divine.  It's just insecure men trying to make wise decisions and avoid the pitfalls of other cultures around them.  The further one digs into the biblical narrative, the more one sees that there is not a single, consistent depiction of God throughout.  It is not specific enough to claim belief in "the God of the Bible," because even the biblical view of God changes.  A certain kind of deity was seen as valuable to the men who were establishing Israelite culture.  They needed an unassailable authority that enforced conformity, provided for the ruling caste of priests, and condoned swift and brutal justice.  That kind of god is not necessary for us today. 

So if you're going to choose to believe in something, at least believe in something that makes sense.  If you believe in God, then accept that he gave you your brain for a reason.  Think about your beliefs and what those beliefs actually mean for the way you live your life.  You become little more than a tool when your beliefs are determined by whoever is screaming the loudest, most fear-inspiring message at the moment.  You have the capacity for more depth than that kind of impassioned reactivity.  Beliefs that denigrate women or people from different cultures are not going to help you create anything meaningful in the world.  You will be much better served by beliefs that recognize human value and inspire you to have a positive impact on the lives of those around you.  I believe that everyone has the potential to be aware of what matters most, even though that awareness can be a challenge.  I also believe meeting that challenge is the heart of human spirituality.