Well, that's it - Numbers is done. I will say this for it: it defied expectations, and that is meant in both positive and negative lights...
On the plus side, there actually were some narrative interludes which I wasn't expecting, so that was good - provided a good break from the statistical ramblings in the rest of the book, and some of the stories were genuinely interesting and well worth reading.
On the other hand, a book of statistics and figures, while boring, is likely to be fairly middle-of-the-road and not hugely incendiary or offensive. Numbers wasn't. It was occasionally boring, to put it mildly, but it was an incredibly challenging read in places, on a variety of levels.
As you may have guessed from the summarizing, blog-equivalent-of-a-clip-show post so far, Numbers doesn't exactly end with an earth-shaking bang. Like the other books of the Pentateuch, it just... ends.
It's almost like they weren't really ever meant to be separate books at all...
Since that gif is likely going to be a touch distracting (but majestically so, no?) I'll make my final (only?) point fairly brief.
Most of chapter 35 describes a facet of the cities devoted to the Levites that I think is pretty cool, and it seems (to me) to go a long way toward demonstrating that God really is taking cultural limitations and situations into account when crafting His laws.
With all the violence and whatnot I described in yesterday's post, it's perhaps not surprising that there didn't exactly need to be a lengthy jury trial before someone would brutally avenge a killed relative/friend/neighbour/passer-by. Instead of outright prohibiting this, God instead institutes the notion of 'cities of refuge' where those accused of, essentially, manslaughter can hide out until a trial can be arranged, or the whole thing blows over. It doesn't work for those guilty of premeditated murder, mind you, and it comes along with a pretty detailed discussion about what counts and premeditated murder, but it's nice to see something build in for the guys that just nudged a potted plant off a wall and accidentally offed the cousin of a raging avenge-a-holic...
Anyway, on to Deuteronomy...
I remember Deuteronomy (vaguely). I found it extra dull and repetitive. Lots of lists of laws again. It's where I gave up when I did my attempted read-through of the Bible back in high school.
ReplyDeleteYeah I'm not setting the bar very high for my expectations there either. Although I am slightly more optimistic after being pleasantly (and unpleasantly) surprised by Numbers.
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