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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.

We'll go ahead and get started. We're going to get started here in just a moment. We'll be picking up in Numbers chapter 34, verse 1. So we are finishing up the book of Numbers, and I don't feel super motivated to spend a ton of time on catching us up because, as we mentioned last time, here in these last few chapters, these are sort of odds and ends, right? Here as we get to the end of Numbers, Deuteronomy, we'll talk about that more next time. we'll have an introduction. Deuteronomy is kind of its own thing, its own unit. It has a function within the whole of the Torah, but it's kind of its own thing. And so the sort of main arc that started at the beginning of the book of Exodus is now ending here at the end of the book of Numbers. And the book of Numbers, as we've said many times on our way through, is made up of a whole bunch of different types of material, right? All kind of put together, all related to this 40 years primarily the 40 years that uh the israelites spent wandering in the desert and so there's been sort of we call legislative materials commandments about certain things there's been narrative portions one chapter we read last time was just a big summary of everything that happened from exodus until here right like so we've had census two different sense uh sensei senses senses anyway we've got two of those uh a whole bunch of different stuff and so what we've got here in these last three chapters really is our last sort of batch of of odds and ends um we're at the point where that whole generation has died off the only people from that generation still alive even aaron and miriam have died are moses joshua and Caleb and Moses has been told and knows he is about to die. And that's going to help set the stage for what happens in Deuteronomy. But so now we're just sort of wrapping everything else up here at the end of Numbers. So with that, by way of brief introduction, unless anybody has any leftover questions, comments, or mid-20th century war propaganda they'd like to discuss, we'll go ahead and pick up in Numbers chapter 34, verse 1. Now, the Lord spoke to Moses saying, command the children of Israel and say to them, you shall come into the land of Canaan and it shall be your inheritance, the land of Canaan with its borders. So in what we're about to read, God is setting out the borders of Israel's inheritance. You may notice that there's going to be a whole bunch of things that aren't included in this. Now you remember, back in Genesis, when he talked to Abraham, he said that his seed would inherit this big swath of land, right?

From the Euphrates to the Nile, right? This huge chunk. He said, your descendants, your seed will inherit that. Never said Israel will inherit that. Never said Jacob's sons would inherit that, okay? He promised this subsection. This is going to be reiterated when we get into Deuteronomy. Not very far into Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy chapter 2. We'll probably get to it next week. Where the Edomites, for example, are also Abraham's seed. They're descended from Abraham. Part of that land promised to Abraham, God gave to them. the Moabites the Ammonites also part of Abraham's seed through Lot part of that land God gave to them part of that land God is going to say in Deuteronomy he gave to the Philistines that part that goes down toward Egypt and he is going to make very clear Deuteronomy that he gave those to those descendants of Abraham, not to the Israelites. And spoilers, when we get to the end of Joshua, and they're done taking some portion of this land, it's going to say, thus, God fulfilled all the promises to Abraham about the land. Done. And dusted. More than 3,000 years ago. so there are no outstanding land promises to anybody who calls themselves Israel by outstanding I mean there are no promises from God for any land to anyone who calls themselves Israel after the end of the third millennium BC, or second millennium BC, and number two, no one called Israel was ever promised more land than what we're about to read but even this isn't still outstanding this is fulfilled at the end of Joshua according to Joshua which is in the Bible so according to the Bible read it if you hold political office anyway your southern border shall be from the desert of sin to the border of Edom so your southern border shall extend eastward to the end of the salt sea and your borders shall go around from the southern side of the ascent of the Akrabim, continue to sin and be on the south of Kadesh Barnea. Then it shall go to Hazen Adar and continue to Asmon and the borders shall go around from Asmon to the brook of Egypt and its termination shall be the sea. The sea being like the Mediterranean Sea.

going across to the Dead Sea going up to the border of Edom they don't get the Edomites land the Edomites get that land as part of their inheritance from their father Abraham as for the western border you shall have the great sea for a border this shall be your western border well yeah okay didn't stop us Dutch but it did stop the Israel now this shall be your northern border from the great sea you shall measure your border along the mountain range, and from the mountain range, you shall measure your border to Hamat, and its termination shall be the borders of Zadad, and the border shall proceed to Ziphron, the termination shall be Hazan-Anon, this shall be your northern border. So guess what that doesn't include? That doesn't include what's now Lebanon, when at the time was Phoenician territory. You shall measure your eastern border from Hazar-Inan to Shaphan, and the border shall go down from Shaphan to Riblah on the east side of Ain, and the border shall go down to Bela behind the Sea of Chinnereth from the east. The Sea of Chinnereth is the Sea of Galilee. The border shall go down along the Jordan, and its termination shall be the Salt Sea. This shall be your land with its surrounding borders. Yeah. Yeah, Salt Sea is the Dead Sea. so that is the maximal amount of territory aren't they already outside those borders though

with manasseh and the other couple tribes well yeah yeah

they've already got well yeah but they're not going to take all of this so um but so this is the maximal amount notice a bunch of things right this is respecting the borders of other territories some of which were established by God according to Deuteronomy some of them like the northern border are just other pagan countries but notice again God is giving them a particular piece of land not as much as you can take right not like well hey start here but if things go well as you head north or south you know hey just keep going No, you know, like, take what you get. No, no, no, no, no, it's a very particular, right? It's a very particular piece. Now, as I just mentioned, and we'll be talking about this more when we go through Joshua, but they're not going to take all of this. Nevertheless, Joshua is going to say the promise is fulfilled. so it's almost like it's almost like God can offer you something but you can fail to receive it by being faithless which might kind of shape what say St. Paul is doing in Romans right the fact that Christ to salvation secured an inheritance for us If we fail to receive it because we're faithless, that doesn't mean God didn't keep his promise. That means we were faithless, which is kind of his main theme in the whole book of Romans. That God keeps his promises, but the faithless fail to receive them. St. Paul's not getting that from nowhere. St. Paul knows the Torah really well. right and so he knows like look god could say here it is going

take it and they can fail to go and take it but that doesn't mean oh well perpetually like someday if you get the gumption you could go take it then no promise fulfilled right some of you received it some of you didn't the ones who received it were the ones who were faithful the ones who didn't who didn't that's their faithlessness not god failing to keep his promise okay but so this is the maximal promise this is the most promise you could get out of the bible this is the most land you could get out of the bible ever promised to someone called israel no more than this this has become really important really recently unfortunately Is there any of that that's east of Jordan? No. So that territory that they took from Og and Sihon was extra. That was not part of what was promised to them. No, God let them keep it for as long as they kept it, but it was not part of the promise, right? And they didn't take it from the Moabites, right? Og and Sihon took it from the Moabites. and they went in. So the way that works, how does that work in terms of the Moabites? Well, the Moabites were faithless, as we saw with Balak, right? They're not worshiping the God who brought them to that land and gave it to them anymore, right? And the giant clans coming and taking that land from them, they should have worshipped the true God, got out there routed those giant clans and taken that land back but they didn't right and so someone else coming in and routing those giants and taking that land was part of God's judgment on Moab right using the Israelites but there's going to be problems there later in the book of Judges so we'll come back to that whole situation it gets uglier a guy named Jephthah but yeah who is not a saint people love it when I point out that various judges were not saints that's some people's favorite thing to lose their minds over okay then Moses commanded the children of Israel saying this is the land you shall inherit by lot in the manner the Lord ordered Moses to give it to the nine tribes and to the half-tribe of Manasseh, for the tribe of the sons of Reuben and the tribe of the sons of Gad, according to the houses of their fathers and the half-tribe of Manasseh, received their allotments.

The two tribes and the half-tribe received their allotments beyond the Jordan, opposite Jericho, from the south towards the east. Another quick note on that. Like I said, we will come back to it. But, uh, who, who gave them that land? Moses did, right? You notice Moses doing that here is treated the same as God doing it, right? Um, and so this is just a note. We've seen this all the way through when we've talked about Moses authority, but Moses has the authority to bind in Toulouse. God gave him that authority to rule on these things. He's accountable to God. We talked about how harshly he was dealt with when he disobeyed God in terms of striking the rock, right? That's the flip side of it. God gives you a lot of authority, you are held to a much higher level of accountability. But he does have that authority, right? He has the authority to rule on that. And since he ruled on that, that's the way it is, even though God didn't say expressly that. Again, the Lord spoke to Moses saying, these are the names of the men who shall divide the land among you as an inheritance. Eliezer, the priest, and Joshua, the son of Nun. You shall take rulers, one from every tribe, to divide the land for the inheritance. Now, these are the names of the men from the tribe of Judah, Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, from the tribe of Simeon, Shemuel, the son of Emahud, from the tribe of Benjamin Eladad, the son of Chislon. From the tribe of Dan, a ruler, Buki, the son of Jogli. You may notice a difference with the names of the people from the tribe of Dan. Remember we commented on them not really being Semitic people. From the sons of Joseph's tribe, a ruler from the tribe of the children of Manasseh,

you

Haniel, the son of Ephod, a ruler from the tribe of the sons of Ephraim, Kamul, the son of Shiftan, a ruler from the tribe of Zebulun, Elisaphan, the son of Parnak, a ruler from the tribe of the sons of Issachar, Paltiel, the son of Azan, the ruler from the tribe of the sons of Asher, Ahuhud, the son of Shalomi, a ruler from the tribe of Naphtali, Pethahel, the son of Amahud. These are the ones the Lord commanded to divide the inheritance among the children of Israel in the land of Canaan. I mean, you could, I wouldn't name my kid Buki. Also, no same thing either, maybe Jog. Yeah, Jog. If you have twins, Buki and Jogli, yeah. But so the other note on this, notice who the elder from the tribe of Judah is. Caleb, yeah who's a Kenizzite which are one of the giant clans that they're going to go wipe out how is he an elder of the tribe of Judah because it didn't matter if you were biologically descended from the person Judah they didn't have a concept of biological descent when you became an Israelite You didn't just become a vague general Israelite. You became part of a particular family and a particular clan and a particular tribe. And by virtue of that, now he's a descendant of Judah. That's why Dan can be people who aren't even Semitic and still be a tribe of Israel. Still call themselves the descendants of Dan. right so people are assimilated in that way right this is not dissimilar to joining the church right i have to i have to sometimes explain this to people who have mainly been exposed to something like orthodoxy on the internet uh that's uh that you don't just join you no one joins the orthodox church you join an orthodox church and by virtue of joining that church you are part of the orthodox church but the orthodox church is made up of orthodox churches that are made up of local churches that are made up of individual parishes right and israel was the same way. You didn't just become an Israelite. You became a member of a family that's part of a clan, that's part of a tribe, that's part of Israel. And by virtue of being a member of that

family, that made you an Israelite. So if you are a member of a parish that is under the oversight of an Orthodox bishop, by being a member of that parish, you are a part of the Orthodox Church. right but you don't just join this big universal thing this is one of the one of the problems that has beset western Christianity since the medieval period has been an inability to reconcile the universal and the particular in terms of their church structures you've had one side pulling toward universal and another side even before the protestant reformation and another side pulling towards the local and the particular right you get the ultra modernists and the nationalists and you get these different movements right and then of course once protestantism breaks out protestantism becomes entirely particular right it becomes dozens of different movements right and national churches in northern europe and things right whereas and like everything that happens with the protestant reformation with all these tensions in the west then that causes the roman catholic church to move really far in the other direction toward the universal right to where you get to a point where it's questionable whether you even belong to a particular parish like there's one you attend because it's closest to you right but there's not a sense that you can't walk into any right any church anywhere and it doesn't matter right like it's purely the universal purely the one bishop purely the right whereas the orthodox church has always maintained this balance between the universal and the particular that goes back to the structures of israel Thank you. Listen next time as Father Stephen DeYoung continues his study of the scriptures on the whole counsel of God. Father Stephen's email address is wholecouncil at ancientfaith.com. That's wholecouncil at ancientfaith.com.