March 6, 2020: Day 34 – Numbers 34

We get the boundaries for the promised land laid out in this chapter.  It is less about the tribes and what their territories will be and more about the territories themselves and the geographic boundaries that the new nation will represent.  It is in this chapter where the leadership is laid out for Israel with Eleazar and Joshua each taking their respective places.  Eleazar is the chief priest and Joshua takes up the civic and military duties.  The other names that are listed represent the leaders of each of the tribes.

We are coming to a close in the book of Numbers and soon we will find ourselves inching towards I and II Kings.  It will be interesting to see how God never really wanted to have a king to lead the people, because there is such a temptation to make the king as close to god as anyone on the face of the earth.  That is what happened with all the tribes around them, so God wanted to avoid that.  But we see that the transition from judges to kings that God relents and gives the people what they want.