Hebrew Bible: Numbers

1) God tells Moses to carry out a census of the people of Israel. God tells Moses to exclude the Levites from the census, and put them in charge of the Tabernacle.

2) God tells Moses how the people of Israel should arrange their camp.

3) God tells Moses that the Levites should keep guard over the people of Israel as well as looking after the Tabernacle. God says that he is now taking the Levites instead of every firstborn child. God tells Moses to do a census of all the male Levites.
God tells Moses to do a census of all of Israel's firstborns, and repeats that he is taking the Levites instead of the firstborn people, and  taking the Levites' cattle instead of the firstborn cattle. God tells Moses to collect money from all the firstborns, to be given to the priesthood.

4) God tells Moses to carry out more censuses, and describes the duties of the different tribes.

5) God tells Moses to get rid of every unclean person from the camp.
People who commit sins should confess them and make restitution.
"And every contribution, all the holy donations of the people of Israel, which they bring to the priest, shall be his. Each one shall keep his holy donations: whatever anyone gives to the priest shall be his.”
God gives instructions on how to test for adultery.

6) God explains the Nazirite Vow
"When either a man or a woman makes a special vow, the vow of a Nazirite, to separate himself to the Lord,  he shall separate himself from wine and strong drink. He shall drink no vinegar made from wine or strong drink and shall not drink any juice of grapes or eat grapes, fresh or dried. All the days of his separation he shall eat nothing that is produced by the grapevine, not even the seeds or the skins." Etc

7) Lots of animals are sacrificed.

8) God tells Moses to cleanse the Levites, in preparation for them belonging to God.
"Thus you shall do to them to cleanse them: sprinkle the water of purification upon them, and let them go with a razor over all their body, and wash their clothes and cleanse themselves."
A Levite shall retire from service at the age of 50.

9) The people of Israel celebrate Passover.
"On the day that the tabernacle was set up, the cloud covered the tabernacle, the tent of the testimony. And at evening it was over the tabernacle like the appearance of fire until morning. So it was always: the cloud covered it by day and the appearance of fire by night. And whenever the cloud lifted from over the tent, after that the people of Israel set out, and in the place where the cloud settled down, there the people of Israel camped. At the command of the Lord the people of Israel set out, and at the command of the Lord they camped. As long as the cloud rested over the tabernacle, they remained in camp."

10) God tells Moses to make two silver trumpets, which shall be used to summon congregations and break camp.
The people of Israel leave Sinai and enter the land of Paran.

11) The Israelites complain about their misfortunes. God hears them and gets angry. He sets fire to their camp, and burns some of the outlying parts. Moses prays, and the fire dies down.
The people of Israel want to eat meat: they are getting sick of eating manna all the time.
God gets angry, and Moses gets upset. Moses asks God why he has dumped the burden of the people onto him alone.
God tells Moses to gather 70 elders; God will split the burden between Moses and them.
God tells Moses that he will provide meat for his people:
"Therefore the Lord will give you meat, and you shall eat. You shall not eat just one day, or two days, or five days, or ten days, or twenty days, but a whole month, until it comes out at your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you."
God sends quail from the sea and has them fall around the camp, a day's journey on each side and about 36 inches deep. The people who gathered it and ate were killed by a plague from God, because he was angry at them.

12) Miriam and Aaron speak against Moses. God hears them, gets angry, and tells them and Moses to go to the tent of meeting. 'Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all people who were on the face of the earth.'
God comes down to earth in a pillar of cloud, and says to M&A:
"If there is a prophet among you, I the Lord make myself known to him in a vision; I speak with him in a dream. Not so with my servant Moses. He is faithful in all my house. With him I speak mouth to mouth, clearly, and not in riddles, and he beholds the form of the Lord. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?”
God departs, and turns Miriam leprous as he leaves.
Aaron begs Moses for forgiveness, and Moses asks God to heal her. God says she must kicked out of the camp for seven days.

13) Moses sends spies to the promised land to find out what it's like and whether its inhabitants are strong or weak, few or many.
Forty days later the spies return and report that the land flows with milk and honey, but its inhabitants are very strong and their cities are heavily fortified. And the sons of Amak, descendants of the Nephilim, reside there. (The Nephilim are a race of giants introduced in Genesis, and they should have been killed off by the Great Flood.)

14) The people grumble against Moses and Aaron; they think the situation is hopeless. The spies say that God will help them get the land as long as they obey his laws. The people decide to stone them to death. God intervenes by revealing his glory at the tent of meeting.
God asks Moses:
“How long will this people despise me? And how long will they not believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them? I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they.”
Moses calms God down by asking him what the Egyptians will think if he kills all the Israelites. Won't they think it was because he was unable to deliver them to the promised land? Moses reminds God that he is supposed to be "slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love".
God agrees not to kill all Israelites. Instead, he will just ensure that everyone who grumbled against him and is over twenty years old will die in the wilderness before reaching the promised land.
God kills the spies with a plague because they reported the promised land negatively.

15) God gives more instructions on how to sacrifice animals correctly.
A man is found gathering sticks on the Sabbath day. He is arrested and stoned to death at God's command.

16) Korah, a Levite, starts an anti-Moses rebellion. The rebels confront Moses and Aaron.
"You have gone too far, sons of Levi!” warns Moses.
Later, God tells Moses and Aaron to get away from the tents of the rebels, because he is going to destroy them. Moses calmly warns the people: “Depart, please, from the tents of these wicked men, and touch nothing of theirs, lest you be swept away with all their sins.”
The rebels stand at the doors of their tents with their wives, children and babies.
The earth opens up and consumes them and all of their belongings, sending them down to Sheol.

[Sheol is the Hebrew Underworld; the New Testament calls the underworld Hades or Tartarus; the name 'Hell' is derived from Norse mythology].

The next day more people try to rebel against Moses and Aaron. God decides to kill the rebels with a plague. Moses tells Aaron to quickly get some of sacred fire from the altar and burn incense on it to calm God down and stop the plague. Aaron does so, and manages to stop the plague after it has killed 14,700 people.

17) God tells Moses to gather the staffs of the elders of the tribes, and have each staff labelled with its owner's name. He tells Moses to deposit the staffs in the tent of meeting, and that the staff of his chosen leader shall sprout.
Aaron's staff sprouts overnight: it produced buds, blossoms and ripe almonds.
God tells Moses to keep the staff in the ark of the covenant, 'as a sign for the rebels'.

18) God details the duties of priests and Levites.

19) God gives more instructions about purification and what to do with unclean things. E.g.
“This is the law when someone dies in a tent: everyone who comes into the tent and everyone who is in the tent shall be unclean seven days. And every open vessel that has no cover fastened on it is unclean. Whoever in the open field touches someone who was killed with a sword or who died naturally, or touches a human bone or a grave, shall be unclean seven days."

20) Miriam dies and is buried.
The people run out of water and shout at Moses & Aaron. God tells Moses to hit a certain rock with his staff. Moses does so, and water comes out.
The Israelites want to pass through the kingdom of Edom, so they send a message to King Kadesh, who refuses them entry.
The people turn away from Edom and journey to Mount Hor, where Aaron dies and his son, Eleazar, is made high priest.

21) The Canaanite king of Arad attacks the Israelites and takes some as prisoners. The Israelites retaliate and destroy all the Canaanite cities.
The Israelites set off from Mount Hor to go around the Edom, They become impatient and start questioning God.
God sends fiery serpents to kill some of them so they know who's boss. Moses makes a bronze serpent statue which prevents people being killed by the serpents' bites.
They keep travelling.
Messengers are sent to Sihon, king of the Amorites, asking for permission to pass through his land. He refuses entry, gathers his army, and attacks the Israelites. Israel wins and conquers the land. 'They captured its villages and dispossessed the Amorites who were there.'
Then they head to Bashan.
King Og of Bashan assembles his army and prepares to defend his land from the Israelite horde.
God tells Moses to do as they did with the Amorites. 'So they defeated him and his sons and all his people, until he had no survivor left. And they possessed his land.'

22) The Kingdom of Moab starts to worry about the oncoming Israelites.
“This horde will now lick up all that is around us, as the ox licks up the grass of the field.” says Moab, the country.
Moab teams up with Midian, and decide that their last hope is to convince the wizard/sage/oracle Balaam to curse Israel.
God tells Balaam that the Israelites are with him. Balaam refuses to curse them.
Balak, king of Moab, offers him cool things. Balaam again refuses.
The next morning, Balaam saddles his donkey and accompanies the princes of Moab back home. This makes God angry. He sends an angel to block his way.
The donkey sees the angel and freaks out. Balaam hits the donkey 3 times, then thinks about killing it.
“What have I done to you, that you have struck me these three times?” asks the Donkey.
“Because you have made a fool of me. I wish I had a sword in my hand, for then I would kill you.”
“Am I not your donkey, on which you have ridden all your life long to this day? Is it my habit to treat you this way?”
“No.”
Balaam notices the angel, who informs him that the donkey just saved his life: if she hadn't freaked out and turned away, the angel would have killed him. The angel tells Balaam to only say God-approved words to Balak.
Balaam arrives at Moab and meets with Balak. They sacrifice some animals together.

23) Balaam sacrifices some animals and blesses Israel. Balak is outraged, but he asks again for Balaam to curse Israel. Balaam again sacrifices some animals and blesses Israel.

24) Balaam blesses Israel again. Balak gets angry and tells him to f&*^ off. Balaam decides to bless Israel again, then list all of the places that they will defeat and dispossess. Then he does back home.

25) Some of the Israelites gets a bit too friendly with the Moabites, and bow down to their gods. Bad move. God tells Moses to kill them, and sends a punishing plague for good measure.
One of the Israelites even gets married to a Midianite. Bad move. Phinehas son of Eleazar kills the Israelite man and the Midianite woman by stabbing them with a spear through their bellies.
The plague, which had killed 24,000 people, stops. God tells Moses that Phinebas did the right thing and is blessed.

26) God tells Moses to do a census, to figure out how many people survived the plague, and how many are able to go to war. Moses carries out the census.

27) God tells Moses that Joshua is to succeed him as leader of Israel.

28) What to sacrifice on a daily basis; what to sacrifice on the Sabbath day; what to sacrifice on a monthly basis; what to sacrifice during Passover; what to sacrifice during the Feast of Weeks.

29) What to sacrifice during the Feast of Trumpets, on the Day of Atonement, and during the Feast of Booths.

30) Laws about vows, eg.
“If a woman vows a vow to the Lord and binds herself by a pledge, while within her father's house in her youth, and her father hears of her vow and of her pledge by which she has bound herself and says nothing to her, then all her vows shall stand, and every pledge by which she has bound herself shall stand. But if her father opposes her on the day that he hears of it, no vow of hers, no pledge by which she has bound herself shall stand. And the Lord will forgive her, because her father opposed her."

31) God tells Moses to attack the Midianites. One thousand men from each tribe go to war. They kill all the male Midianites, even Balaam who had blessed them. They take the women and children captive. They plunder their livestock and their goods. They burn their cities to the ground.
Moses gets angry at the army officers because they weren't ruthless enough; he commands them to kill all the male children and non-virgin women. He then instructs them on how to divide the plunder.

32) The tribes of Gad and Reuben decide to settle in Gilead; they don't want to go all the way to the promised land; this place seems nice enough. Moses and God get angry at them. Gad & Reuben promise to help Israel conquer the promised land, then come back and settle here.

33) Israel's journey is recounted, from Rameses to Moab. They are now camped by the Jordan river, the border to the promised land.

34) God describes the borders of the promised land, and explains how the tribes are to divide it between them.

35) God tells Moses that each tribe must give up some of its land to the Levites, 48 cities in total, and that some of the cities will be Cities of Refuge, where manslayers, people who kill by accident, are allowed to live.

36) God tells Moses that females are allowed to inherit their father's possession, so that each tribes' wealth stays within the tribe.

END OF NUMBERS.