Yesterday came and went and I had no energy to sit and read Numbers, never mind to respond to what I had read. So today, in part, I'm playing catch up, with four chapters rather than the usual two.
These chapters certainly make for strange reading, and it is necessary to work a little to find things to reflect on.
What Price a Life?
This section seems to involve more than a few head counts, some involving the whole people and others just the priestly clans. The redemption of the first born - the perpetual ordinance to ensure that the passover was never forgotten - is here commuted to the dedication of the priestly clan to God. The head count of males aged 1 month or over within that clan comes to 22,000. A head count of all the first borns of the other tribes comes to 22, 273 - I love the precision! So there is a problem - a shortfall. This shortfall has to be offset, and it is done with a payment of 5 shekels a head for each of the additional males counted - a total of 1365 Temple/Sanctuary shekels. I can't find an accepted definition of how much the shekel may have been worth, but it may have been around 12g (see here) which, if gold would have a current scrap value in the order £250-300. So maybe in total somewhere around £350,000.
Setting aside the numerical values, which are difficult to translate into contemporary worth anyway, there remains the very real question of the price of a human life. Way back, I recall teaching a group of engineers about some HSE safety assessment principles and noting that, effectively a financial value was applied to a human life. One of the group was furious - how dare anyone put a price on a life. But it happens all the time. Decisions to approve drugs or medical treatments are driven by price. Increased safety provision for transport or leisure facilties is driven by cost-benefit considerations. Employers will consider the likely return on investment when recruiting staff. Insurance and pension providers depend on valuations of human life to determine premiums and charges.
Sobering stuff. And of course, as we journey through Lent we recall that, at least in some understandings of atonement, God continues to put a price on human life... it's just that now that price is already paid by Christ.
Delegated Responsibilities
The detailed lists of the clans of the levites, and the tasks assigned to them can feel rather dull to read. But actually if we strip back the details, we can see that this is incredibly sensible and practical stuff. The Tabernacle and all its accoutrements have to be carefully packed up and transported from one place to the next. Rather than a free for all, risking damage or loss, each person has a clearly assigned task. Rather than squabbling over who got to carry the more obviously important items, everyone is valued and needed. It doesn't actually matter if your job is to carry the tent pegs or the ark, the candlestick or the curtains, you are needed. Only by everyone playing their part, fulfilling their responsibility can the job be done.
I'm also struck at the very clear definition of the ages of those who are to undertake this physical work - those aged 30 to 50 - which presumably ensures a reasonable level of fitness/strength and a suitable degree of maturity. Given that Moses is now reckoned to be well in to his 80s, it is curious that other men of his own age find no mention here.
As well as their practical responsibilities, the clans are assigned their places within the camp, on each of the four sides of the tent, and within the compass of the remaining people. I find this circular arrangement quite telling, it may suggest a degree of egalitarianism (if there's such a word)... that this theocentric arrangement is somehow 'level' not 'hierarchical', that role not status determines physical location. Or am I just reading in an idealised version of Baptist ecclesiology that I want to find??
Leprosy, Jealousy and Other Rules
In a decidely hotchpotch collection of texts, which must surely have been drawn together at some point, we find rules on diverse topics. From how to manage infectious diseases (ritualised quarantine for those with leprosy) which at least seems to make some sense, to the barbaric ritual humiliation of a woman whose jealous husband thinks she may have been unfaithful. From the financial restitution for an unspecified wrong to the complex ritual separation of those taking a nazarite vow.
Just to note one sentence that really annoyed me, which was in the horrendous account of the way the wives of jealous men were to be treated. It ends up saying "The man shall be free from iniquity but the woman shall bear her iniquity". Does this mean, as it seems to, that if he she was judged innocent, he gets off scot free? That's what it sounds like. And there is no justice there. I am reminded of the way that "witches" (quote marks deliberate) were subject to drowning as a means of demonstrating their innocence not so many hundred years ago. I am reminded how late on in our society came equal opportunities legislation and how, even now women, among others, continue to be victims of discrimination and injustice.
I'd like to chop that bit out of the Bible - except that if I did, I could no longer be affected by it and caused to think.
And a Blessing
Just when you have slogged through the long list of numbers, and wondered what on earth all these rules were about, comes a beautiful surprise...
The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you;
the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.
The Aaronic blessing, which I for one use in services marking rites of passage from infant blessing to funerals.
In the midst of all we struggle to understand. Despite all that we do or fail to do. In good times and hard times. This blessing, ordained by God to be spoken over the stiff-necked people of Israel.
Perhaps, today, instead of getting tied up in knots about the minutiae of the tricky bits of the text, we do well simply to receive that blessing afresh, spoken over us, and over all we love.