"Take a census of the whole Israelite community by their clans and families, listing every man by name, one by one." (1:2)This book contains, among other things, the instructions for doing this and the results. There are a lot of people here. 1:45 tells us "All the Israelites twenty years old or more who were able to serve in Israel’s army were counted according to their families. The total number was 603,550." If we extrapolate a bit and and in an equal number of females and then an estimate of those under 20 it's probably not far off to figure that there were about a million and a half people together out here in the Sinai wilderness. I can't imagine the logistical problems of managing this many people and organizing travel plans. There was no text messaging, email or Facebook so how did Moses get his communications out to the people. When the scripture says something like, "Then the LORD said to Moses, 'Speak to the Israelites and say to them...'" like it does in 5:11, what must that entail? Those few words imply a LOT of work!
I was also interested in the work of the Kohathites in chapter 4. "This is the work of the Kohathites at the tent of meeting: the care of the most holy things." (4:4) However, Aaron and his sons had to go into the tabernacle and cover everything in there.(4:5-13) They were the only ones allowed to actually see these things.
After Aaron and his sons have finished covering the holy furnishings and all the holy articles, and when the camp is ready to move, only then are the Kohathites to come and do the carrying. But they must not touch the holy things or they will die. The Kohathites are to carry those things that are in the tent of meeting. (4:15)Sounds like a pretty risky task to me. They were supposed to carry them but they couldn't touch them. In fact 4:20 says "...the Kohathites must not go in to look at the holy things, even for a moment, or they will die.”
We go to worship every week and "look at the holy things." We talk about "coming into the presence of God" and do it pretty casually. When some people think of this, their reaction is that we shouldn't be so casual about it...that God deserves our reverence, respect and awe. It's true, God does deserve our reverence, respect and awe. It's also true that these OT instructions seemed designed to show us how utterly holy God is and how utterly unworthy we are to even come near to Him. But it's equally true that Jesus came near. The curtain that hid the Most Holy Place in the temple from view was torn from top to bottom when Jesus died on the cross (Matthew 27:51). The beauty of our worship today is that, while God hasn't changed (He still deserves our reverence, respect and awe.) we have. We have been changed by the blood of Christ. He has made it possible for us to "look at the holy things" and still live. Not only does God deserve our reverence, respect and awe...He also wants us to be close. He calls us "friend."
We can be comfortable in God's presence.
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