Deuteronomy 3

Deuteronomy 3:21

I commanded Joshua at this time, saying, 'Your eyes have seen all that the Lord you God has done to these two kings; so the Lord shall do to all the kingdoms into which you are about to cross.

This links nicely with my previous chapter comments.  Then, I was speculating that if God had taken them through the land where their distant relatives have settled after driving out the native inhabitants, if they would have been more trusting as their turn came up.  Here, God has now shown them that he will give them victory, and is telling Joshua that more is to come.

This also seems to be the passing of the baton from Moses to Joshua.  His name has come up before as Moses' successor, but this seems more concrete somehow.  I guess it comes down to the phrase "you are about to cross."  Moses doesn't include himself in this, confirming that he is not going to be allowed to make the journey.  That leaves Joshua to go it alone, as it were, and he is being commanded to proceed.  Moses knows his time is over, and it's time for Joshua to take what he has seen and turn it into his own faith.

Deuteronomy 2

Deuteronomy 2:21

a people as great numerous, and tall as the Anakim, but the Lord destroyed them before them.  And they dispossessed them and settled in their place,

Moses/God is definitely rubbing the Israelites' noses in their fathers misdeeds with this aside.  He does this a couple times in the chapter, breaking the flow of the history each time.  The only reason I can think of to do so is to remind the people of how their parents messed up.

Their parents wouldn't invade the Promised Land because they were afraid of the Anakim.  However, here God is, reminding their kids about how He had promised land to others of Abraham's kin, and they had faced opposition just as powerful as that which the Israelites had balked at going against, but God had given them victory where the Israelites got nothing but exile for their doubt.  I wonder, if God had decided to take them through these lands as a long way around to the Promised Land, would they have still rebelled?

Deuteronomy 1

Deuteronomy 1:22

"Then all of you approached me and said, 'Let us send men before us, that they may search out the land for us, and bring back to us word of the way by which we should go up and the cities which we shall enter.'

I read this and went, "hold on."  I remember when the spies were sent, and there's not a word about the people asking for it.  God commanded Moses to send the spies.  This makes me ask what's going on here.

While some might take this as revisionist history, I have to assume that we're getting another part of the story.  If I'm stitching things together correctly, the people asked for spies to be sent, and Moses inquired of the Lord.  God said to do it, and off them went.  The rest we know.

Numbers 36

Numbers 36:8

Every daughter who comes into possession of an inheritance of any tribe of the sons of Israel shall be wife to one of the family of the tribe of her father, so that the sons of Israel each may possess the inheritance of his fathers.

Again, the rules of special inheritance crop up for clarification.  The rule set down here, that women who inherit must marry within their tribe, does make logistical sense.  I can picture the situation a few generations in if this were not set up.  There would probably have been enough women inheriting from their fathers and then marrying outside their tribe to have really fuzzed up the tribal boundaries.

However, I can think of many people who would consider this rule oppressive, being forced to marry from inside your tribe.  But that's not how the people of the time normally thought.  Clan structures were very intricate at the time, and marriages were often arranged.  So a woman marrying a distant (or occasionally not-so-distant) cousin wasn't unheard of.  Whatever it might have done for the bloodline as we look at it in modern genetics, it did keep the family strong.  Also, given contemporary travel methods (foot or animal), keeping the family close together was almost a necessity.  So I personally have no disagreement with how this command worked out.

Numbers 35

Numbers 35:30

'If anyone kills a person, the murderer shall be put to death at the evidence of witnesses, but no person shall be put to death on the testimony of one witness.

I find this an interesting legal decision. The testimony of one person for murder is not sufficient.  There must be at least two people for condemnation.  Today, one person's testimony is often sufficient for a conviction, even if that person is a child.  With modern forensics, there are many cases where no witness is necessary.  However, back then, it took at least two people to prove murder.

Why require two, and not one?  The simple answer would be that one is much easier for a murder to lie, and say someone else did it.  However, if you have two people giving the same testimony, lying would be a conspiracy, which is always harder to pull off.  It's easier to find gaps in their stories, or one may chicken out.  It can still be abused, as we see later on in the Bible, but by having two or more witnesses, the likelihood of false conviction is greatly reduced.  God gave the people remarkable forethought on this command.

Numbers 34

Numbers 34:18

You shall take one leader of every tribe to apportion the land for inheritance.

Since I'm getting over being sick, this was a nice chapter to start with, because I only have one little question:  why do you need a leader for each tribe?  If Joshua and Eleazar are deciding the tribes by lot, what do these leaders do?

I'll freely admit I don't understand the lot process all that well.  I've seen several explanations, and have no idea which one is correct.  However, for none of them are many people required.  All the versions I've heard really only require one person, maybe two.  So what are the leaders for?  Do they just take the results back to their people, to let them know?  Or was it that the tribe would be chosen, then that tribe would get to decide their location, like my dorm did when we moved buildings?  I honestly have no idea what the answer is to this question, but it does pique my curiosity.

Numbers 33

Numbers 33:55

But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then it shall come about that those whom you let remain of them will become as pricks in your eyes and as thorns in your sides, and they will trouble you in the land in which you live.

Somehow, statements like this never before caught my attention in the way it just did.  Usually, when I read about how the Israelites were supposed to drive the people out of the land, but failed to, it's just a reminder of how they messed up, and suffered the consequences because they didn't listed to God.

This time, however, the broader implications hit me.  This isn't just about obeying God, though that's certainly also true.  It's about why we need to keep ourselves from sin in general.  If we allow ourselves to accept sin, it weakens us.  It makes us more complacent to permit other sins, or to enlarging the one we're committing.  If we are to be as God has called us to be, we must allow no compromise.

Numbers 32

Numbers 32:17

but we ourselves will be armed ready to go before the sons of Israel, until we have brought them to their place, while our little ones live in the fortified cities because of the inhabitants of the land.

This is a very honorable agreement that the two tribes come to.  They are able to leave their families behind instead of dragging them off to the war camp, in exchange for leading the charge to war.  They have, at this moment, now gained the most, so they are taking the most risk.  Meanwhile, their families are able to start building lives years before the other tribes.

One thing that confuses me is how they need to live in fortified cities because of the inhabitants.  Weren't they commanded to eradicate all the inhabitants?  Or does that command only apply somehow to those across the Jordan?  While I'll grant that they didn't do any better beyond the Jordan than before, why were any spared, much less in a condition to threaten the Israelites?  Are they worried about outside raiders, perhaps?  I don't think so, but I guess it's possible.

Numbers 31

Numbers 31:49

and they said to Moses, "Your servants have taken a census of men of war who are in our charge, and no man of us is missing.

If I'm reading this right, they are saying that they did not lose a single man in battle.  11,000 went off to war, and 11,000 came back.  It's not clear if there were any people wounded, but their fatality rate was 0.0000%.

This is amazing.  To put this into context, the average casualty rate in warfare during American Colonial times was about 20%.  After the Civil War, casualty rates were about 10%, decreasing until WW1 to well under 1%, after which it jumped back up to 1%.  Since then the numbers have been even lower.  Mortality rates among casualties vary widely, but could probably still be averaged as 30-50%.

However, never has there been a battle fought in memory for which the fatality rate has been zero.  With the ancient weapons of the time, primarily what gamers today would call "melee weapons", casualty and fatality rates are much higher than today's "ranged weapons" like guns.  If two people fight on the battlefield back then, one of them is going to go down, and probably be killed.  But for all victories to be one-sided, with no losses, can only be considered a miracle of amazing mercy.

Numbers 30

Numbers 30:5

But if her father should forbid her on the day he hears of it, none of her vows or her obligations by which she has bound herself shall stand; and the Lord will forgive her because her father had forbidden her.

I'm not quite sure what kind of vows they're talking about here.  I can think of several types that might apply:  vows of chastity, or commitment to a particular man, or to some task she shall perform, or some type of commitment of service to God all would seem possible.  I'm honestly not sure which type it might be, given how vague the text is, but I'm guessing that the service to God is the most likely.  Perhaps serving in the temple, or doing some particular undesirable duty.

Whatever the vow was for, it's interesting that an unmarried woman does not have final say.  Her father must agree, or at least not immediately object, for her vow to be binding.  Until the time of her marriage, a woman is not apart from her family, but subservient to her father's will.  Later in the chapter, it says the same thing about husbands to their wives.  So while God does permit women equality in some circumstances (like inheritance when there are no sons), they are not completely independent.