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Come and study the Holy Scriptures with us as Fr. Stephen DeYoung teaches verse-by-verse on the podcast The Whole Counsel of God. Fr. Stephen holds a Ph.D. in Biblical Studies and is an Orthodox priest serving at Archangel Gabriel Orthodox Church in Lafayette, Louisiana.

Chapter 33, verse 1. Now, these are the stages and the journeys of the children of Israel who went out from the land of Egypt by their armies under the hand of Moses and Aaron. Notice, by their armies, right? That's just, again, big group. The word actually means just big groups of people, right? They're multitudes, right? Yeah, and yes, this is from Egypt to Moab. So this is our story so far. This is a quick recap, right? So I said we're in the end game of numbers, right? We're coming to the end of this whole narrative, and so we're getting kind of these recaps and things, right? They departed from Ramses in the first month on the 15th day of the first month on the day after Pascha. That's the nice thing about the Orthodox Study Bible translation. The day after the Passover, right? The day after Pascha. The children of Israel went out with a high hand before all the Egyptians. But the Egyptians were burying from among themselves all who died, whom the Lord struck down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, and the Lord executed vengeance on their gods. Now notice, that little thread hasn't dropped out. Remember, God said right before the Passover, right before the 10th plague, the plague on the first word, he said, tonight I pass judgment on all the gods of Egypt. And looking back on it now here at the end of the journey in Numbers, still that same language. This is when God smote the Egyptian gods. I won't go into it as much as I did last time people can go back and listen to that if they want to but let me point out that if these are a bunch of fictional characters that's not that impressive the story of when God took down Sherlock Holmes not that impressive God being real Sherlock Holmes not so much we know he's more powerful because he exists um then the children of israel departed from ramses and camped in sukkot they departed from sukkot and camped in ethem which is part of the desert they departed from ethem and camped at the mouth of hahirot which is opposite baal zaphon and they camped opposite migdol they departed opposite hahirot and passed through the midst of the sea into the desert and they went three days journey through the desert and camped at Mara. I don't know if you're remembering any of these episodes, right? Crossing the Red Sea. Mara, remember, that's where the bitter waters were. Those are the wooden. They became drinkable. They departed from Mara and came to Elam. This is sort of like right before the season finale, right? They give you the previously on, right? They give you all the clips, right? Like leading up to. at Elam. There were 12 springs of water and 70 palm trees. They camped there by the water. They departed from Elam and camped by the Red Sea. They departed from the Red Sea and camped in the Desert of Sin. They departed from the Desert of Sin and camped at Dofka. They departed

from Dofka and camped at Ahush. They departed from, sorry, Alush and camped at Rephidim, where there was no water for the people to drink. And that's where we struck the rock. They departed from Rephidim and camped in the Sinai Desert. They moved from the Sinai Desert and camped at Graves of Lust. There's a wild translation. So I've mentioned before that even at the time where they're doing the Greek translation of the text in the third century BC, there were Hebrew words, especially the Torah, that were already sort of antique, and they didn't know exactly what they meant. met and so this is a place name that wasn't even a hebrew word originally and so the rabbis trying to translate it into greek did their best and came up with graves of lust because that's actually a pretty good translation of the greek uh but yeah you'd remember that wouldn't you like if we had had actual graves of lust right like they departed from graves of lust and camped at hazerot how boring must hazerot have seen by comparison they departed from hazerot and camped at rithma they departed from rithma and camped at ramon perez they departed from ramon perez and camped at libna they departed from libna and camped at rissa they departed from rissa and camped at Kehelatah. They departed from Kehelatah and camped at Shefer.

They departed from Shefer and camped at Harada. They departed from Harada and camped at Makalot. They departed from Makalot and camped at Tahat. I know you're on the edge of your seat. They departed from Tahat and camped at Terah. They departed from Terah and camped at Mithka. They departed from Mithka and camped at Hashmonah. They departed from Hashmonah and camped at Mozerot. They departed from Mozerot and camped at Bene Jakan. They departed from Bene Jakan and camped at Horha. Wow, there's a good one. Hor Haggad, Hor is probably supposed to be Har there. It's probably supposed to be mountain, mountain Haggad. They departed from Hor Haggad and camped at Yotba. They departed from Yotbata and camped at Abrona. They departed from Abrona and camped at Ezion-Geber. They departed from Ezion-Geber and camped in the Desert of Sin. Wait a minute. we already saw that one because remember they got there and then had to go wander in the desert for 40 years and that's what all those names I've just been reading were them going around in circles and now we're back at the desert of sin where we were a little while ago they departed from the desert of sin and camped in the desert of Paran this is Kaddish they departed from Kaddish and camped at Mount Hor near the land of Edom. We're almost caught up. Now we're getting into stuff that's been in the last several chapters of Numbers. Then Aaron the priest went up at the command of the Lord and died there in the 40th year of the exodus of the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt in the fifth month on the first day of the month. We talked about that because Aaron dying was sort of the marker of the beginning of that original exodus generation dying off. Aaron was 123 years old when he died on Mount Hor. Now this was the time when the Canaanite king of Arad and this man dwelt in the land of Canaan heard the children of Israel were coming. That's just pure dramatic foreshadowing. That's Chekhov's Canaanite king. Got to wait for Act 3. See that go off. Then they departed from Mount Hor and camped at Zalmona. They departed from Zalmona and camped at Punan. They departed from Punan and camped at Obot. They departed from Obot and camped at Ijabarim at the borders of Moab. Remember, because they had to go around Edom because the Edomites wouldn't let them go through. right and so then they came up to the east of Moab they departed from Ejabarim and camped at Dubon God they departed from Dubon God and camped at Almon Diblataim they departed from Almon Diblataim as far as you know I'm pronouncing that correctly and camped in the mountains of Abarim before Nebo they departed from the mountains of Abarim

and camped west of Moab by the Jordan opposite Jericho They camped by the Jordan between Bait Jessamote, as far as the Abel Acacia Grove, west of Moab. And now we're right back where we were before we started the chapter, right? But there was our recap of all the places they stayed along the way. That's an exciting chapter.

Yes.

Well, we can just think about all the fun we had and all the friends we met along the way through. It's worth it for Graves of Lust. Three books of the Bible, yeah. Well, yeah, the Graves of Lust is that clip you see in that series of clips that you don't remember. You're like, wait, what? And so you go back and try to find it. Yeah, the scene that's in the trailer that's not the actual movie, yeah. Now the Lord spoke to Moses, west of Moab, by the Jordan, opposite Jericho, saying, Speak to the children of Israel and say to them, You are crossing over the Jordan into the land of Canaan. Then you shall destroy all the inhabitants of the land before your face, and you shall remove their high places. And as for all their molten idols, you shall destroy these, and you shall remove all their pillars. You shall also destroy all the inhabitants of the land and dwell in it, for I give you their land as an inheritance. So pillars, remember, were also cultic sites, right? They would build stacks of stones, usually is what these pillars are, or just one large standing stone. And those would be inscribed as this is the place where this happened, some mythic event, right? This is the place where Baal defeated, you know, whoever, right, et cetera, et cetera. They would make pilgrimages to those sites. They would offer sacrifices there. They would anoint the stones. This was all part of the pagan religion. So the idea here is that, notice how many words go to... take out the inhabitants and how many words are devoted to wipe out their religion. So the real goal here is the destruction of certain pagan religions and religious practices. We'll see that more as we keep going, but you can see it a little here, right? You're going to push out the inhabitants, but you're going to destroy all this stuff. If they don't destroy all this stuff, then it's pointless. Why? Well, other people will start doing the religious practices, including the Israelites, right? And God doesn't see Israelites burning their children alive to a pagan god as better than Canaanites doing it. What God wants is no more people sacrificing children to pagan gods, right? That's the goal. is it like a unique thing for them to be tearing down these five places or did pagans do that to other pagans no they did not pagans did not tear them down and that's why this has to be given as a special command no pagans repurpose them pagans would sort of absorb because paganism is really one religion right like bale worship and zeus worship and ray worship in egypt are not different

religions the same religion just aimed at different gods and so there are different ways to repurpose it so sometimes you know we get the whole idea of a pantheon people didn't actually worship pantheons right individual cities and places at individual gods but when you have big imperial city conquer smaller cities right well now well this little city's god is the big god of the big city's grandson right for you know uh this larger more important city their goddess is now his daughter and that's how these so that's one way of assimilating their worship uh sometimes if they sit seem similar to some god they already knew about right it's like when alexander the great gets to mount herman right or actually what better example when he gets to uh when he gets to uh what would become antioch on the orontes river the city of antioch uh he finds this bale shrine there he's like oh storm god sounds like zeus right so he just says oh this is a shrine to zeus the thunderer zeus boanerges right so he's like this is just another sort of version of zeus right so they'd incorporate them that way too but they didn't feel the need to like oh i'm gonna go wipe out this shrine to bale because he's a competitor of zeus usually didn't even rededicate they just joined in the rituals like so like alexander just went and offered sacrifices to Zeus Boanerges there and similar stuff when he went to Egypt right they did the ritual which I won't describe in detail here because you know children present to make him pharaoh I'm being literal about that but to make him pharaoh and then you know he's just okay cool I'm you know the son of Horus you know like that's so yeah so they would just assimilate things that's how we get seuss and jupiter and yes that's how we get this idea that oh yeah that's the roman name for yeah yeah uh so they had different ways of assimilating it but they didn't feel any need unless they were doing something that they found really grotesque it's like the romans we talked about when we were galatians we talked about the priesthood of kybale and how the priests when they reached a certain level would like castrate themselves and stuff and like wear women's clothing and the Romans found that just gross despicable and so they didn't want to assimilate that really they sort of barely tolerated it

like but yeah yeah exactly oh yeah the Romans found lots of stuff repugnant the Romans found the Phoenician uh offering infants as doing infant sacrifices to be repugnant so they did a lot of other things that we find equally repugnant but they had a certain you know uh sense of of uh they considered themselves better than certain things we'll put it that way so yeah with the exception of if i mean there are a few exceptional instances like that uh but for the most part pagans did not do that and so that's why because the israelites even though they're called to be different are still living in this world that's why That's why we're going to see as we go through the Old Testament, they're not really going to do that, right? And they're going to try to do different things, either try to worship these gods alongside Yahweh, the God of Israel, or they're going to try and say, oh, no, this is Yahweh, the God of Israel, right? Like they did with the golden calf. They're going to try to assimilate things in different ways. But they're being told not to do that. And the reason why, remember what we read last chapter, or this chapter, about the Egyptian gods, right? It's not that they don't exist. It's not that they're actually rivals to God, and God is, like, jealous, right? It's that these are what we would call demons. These are unclean spirits. These are spiritual powers that mean to destroy humanity. And their worship is destructive. And some of their worship is so destructive that these tribes that are doing it, human sacrifice and this other need to be done away with. Right. But any worship of it is going to lead you to destruction. Right. And horror. Right. And so God is saying, do not do this. Right. And so you need to destroy these places so it won't even be a temptation. There won't be a high place of bail for you to go to. right you won't be tempted to go do that right because you can understand how somebody it's like the lives of myself and my children literally depend on me having a good harvest would it hurt so much for me to also you know just in case i i throw a little over here to bail too you could see how that temptation would be there well if there's no high place to bail around that temptation isn't there yeah yeah think of how hard it is for us to fast on wednesday and friday okay and like literally nothing depends on that therefore you shall inherit their land by lot among your tribes to the larger you shall give a larger inheritance to the smaller you shall give a smaller inheritance their everyone's inheritance shall be whatever falls to him by lot you shall inherit according to the tribes of your

fathers but if you do not destroy the inhabitants of the land from before your face it shall be that those whom you let remain shall be thorns in your eyes and arrows in your sides and they shall be at enmity with you in the land where you dwell okay those are very interesting very interesting uh analogies right because notice it isn't a thorn in your side which we hear more often thorns in your eyes right or an arrow in your side it's not just something that's very painful but it's something that's not going to like kill you immediately but it's hard to get out and it's going to continue to do damage and that's where it's going that's where it's leading but it's going to be long and slow and painful right so it's not just this is going to lead you to destruction It's this is going to lead you down a dark, painful, miserable road that ends in your destruction. So God is saying, don't do that. Don't do that. But notice, he doesn't say, I will stop you from doing that. He doesn't say, I will force you not to do that. He just warns them. This is the consequence. This is what will happen. Moreover, it shall be that I will do to you as I thought to do to them. Right? So again, Israelites sacrificing their children to demons is not better than Canaanites sacrificing their children to demons. So God is saying, you do those same things. i'm gonna have to do the same thing to you to stop you from doing this horrible evil that right now i'm doing to them through you to stop their evil so this isn't how how is israel different or special compared to the canaanites it's not that they can get away with more right god's saying you're not going to get away with anything more you do these things you'll have the same result they're getting this warning that the canadites didn't get yeah they're having this revealed to them having this laid out in front of them here is the correct path here is the path that leads to life laid out right in front of them it was never explained to these canadites in the same way never laid out the same way and

all these warnings. Here's where this leads. Here's where sin leads. Here's what's going to happen. All laid out to them very plainly, which never happened to these Canaanites. So they're, if anything, more responsible. And this idea right here, right, we find all over in the New Testament, but this is what structures like the beginning of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans. Chapter one, he's talking to the Gentiles. Here's all the crazy psycho stuff you guys did. back when you were roman pagans right and he's like even you even know as pagans that a lot of this stuff is you know that's why he uses terms like unnatural and he's like you know this i mean even from your perspective you know this is wrong right you know this is this is insane but then in chapter two he turns to the israelites and says hey yeah you guys had the torah the sacrifice you God gave you all these things. How'd you guys do? Oh, oops. You guys did the same stuff. And when you guys do it, it's way worse. Right? It's way worse when you guys do it because you had it all laid out to you. You knew better. Not you should have known better. You knew better. Right? And you still did it. Right. And so this then plays into first Corinthians when St. Paul says, you know, do not associate with the following kinds of people. And he lays out a bunch of sins. And then he says, by this, I don't mean people out there in the world who are doing those things. Right. Because then you'd have to, like, leave the world. You'd have to leave earth. Right. To get away from it. He says, I'm talking about people in the church. I don't know how people call themselves Christians. And then do these things. Why? Because it's way worse. Right? It's way worse. And so that last verse is sort of chilling as it is to the Israelites. I'll do to you what I'm going to do to them. That is a warning to us too. Right? The fact that we're God's people means we know better, right? We're going to be held to a stricter judgment than all those people outside the church who don't claim to be Christians, who we like to point at and say how evil and sinful they are, and we're not like them, even though secretly a lot of us are more like them than we want to admit. So this is part of that judgment thing again, right? This is that part of the core of what it means not to judge, right?

That we don't look for examples of people who are worse than ourselves to try and make ourselves feel better about ourselves. Rather, we judge ourselves and try to be better and do better ourselves based on what God has given us, right, to be able to do that. So we will leave off here. And Lord willing, next week we will finish the book of Numbers because there are three chapters left. It's material like this. So, but I'm not promising anything because who knows what rabbit trails we may go down. But thank you, everybody.

Listen next time as Father Stephen DeYoung continues his study of the scriptures on the whole counsel of God. Fr. Stephen's email address is wholecouncil at ancientfaith.com. That's wholecouncil at ancientfaith.com.