Have you ever been reading through your Bible, come up against a genealogy or other such list of stuff you either don’t care enough about or don’t have the mental capacity to parse through it at the moment so you just skip it? I think we all have. We find ourselves continuing in our Unread Tales series with a book that is downright filled with stories and ideas we’ve heard about. I could have done any of them, as many folks don’t realize they are even in Numbers in the first place. But instead, I want to stop skimming those lists. There might actually be something to all of the numbers in Numbers after all.
Podcast (bardandbible): Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
Fun theory about the firey serpents: may actually have been guinea worms. The only way to remove that parasite, even today, is to let it slowly crawl out of your foot, wrapping it around a stick, and the entire time it feels like your leg is on fire. It lasts for weeks. Guinea worms were endemic to the region the Israelites were in at that time. So looking at a serpent wrapped around a stick may well have been a great comfort. Like, “Oh, this is curable. I just have to follow these instructions and I will be cured.”
Also, Mike, thank you for an excellent episode. I also wonder if the point of the census wasn’t just to let the individual know they counted (both literally and figuratively) but also to let the people know each other. Like, God already knows you. Do you know each other? How well?
Makes me look at some of the book very differently, thank you.