Numbers

This book has more interesting quotes than Leviticus. Some are quite popular with those who don't care for the Christian line that God is Love. Read and learn...

Num 8:5,6 - The LORD spoke to Moses, saying: Take the Levites from among the Israelites and cleanse them. Thus you shall do to them, to cleanse them: sprinkle the water of purification on them, have them shave their whole body with a razor and wash their clothes, and so cleanse themselves.
A couple of interesting things here: First, the priesthood was to be kept isolated from the rest of the people, to be held in reverence by the people, considered "cleaner" then regular folks. Also, I have learned that Egyptian priests kept themselves shaved of all bodily hair as part of their "purity." This suggests to me that some of this ancient Hebrew religion was copied directly from that of Egypt.

Num 11:18-20 - And say to the people: Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, and you shall eat meat; for you have wailed in the hearing of the LORD, saying "If only we had meat to eat! Surely it was better for us in Egypt." Therefore the LORD will give you meat, and you shall eat. You shall eat not only one day, or two days, or five days, or ten days, or twenty days, but for a whole month - until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you - because you have rejected the LORD who is among you, and have wailed before him, saying "Why did we ever leave Egypt?"
Isn't this a little bit over-reacting? Is it asking too much from an omnipotent god to have a little variety in daily food? Apparently it was in this case!

Num 11:31-34 - Then a wind went out from the LORD, and it brought quails from the sea and let them fall beside the camp, about a day's journey on this side and a day's journey on the other side, all around the camp, about two cubits [3 feet] deep on the ground. So the people worked all that day and night and all the next day, gathering quails; the least anyone gathered was ten homers; and they spread them out for themselves all around the camp. But while the meat was still between their teeth, before it was consumed, the anger of the LORD was kindled against the people, and the LORD struck the people with a very great plague. So that place was called Kibroth-hattaavah [Graves of Craving] because they buried the people who had the craving.
You want variety? I'll kill you with variety! I find it interesting that in Exodus, this same event (it seems) is presented in a far different light.

Num 12:6-8 - And he said, "Hear my words: When there are prophets among you, I the LORD make myself known to them in visions; I speak to them in dreams. Not so with my servant Moses; he is entrusted with all my house. With him, I speak face to face - clearly, not in riddles; and he beholds the form of the LORD. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?"
I thought someone in the New Testament said no one had seen God? Here is another little clue that some experts think points to the idea that Moses, instead of being a historical figure, might instead be a sun-god, transformed to a legendary hero when Judaism changed from a pagan, polytheistic religion to something closer to its present form.

Num 14:9 - Only, do not rebel against the LORD; and do not fear the people of the land, for they are no more than bread for us; their protection is removed from them, and the LORD is with us; do not fear them.
Perfectly good Zionism, folks. Outsiders are not human - they're food!

Num 15:32-36 - When the Israelites were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks on the sabbath day. Those who found him gathering sticks brought him to Moses, Aaron, and to the whole congregation. They put him in custody, because it was not clear what should be done to him. Then the LORD said to Moses, "The man shall be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him outside the camp." The whole congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him to death, just as the LORD had commanded Moses.
Bottom line: Don't even think of gathering sticks on a Saturday! Interestingly enough, this event took place well after the law and commandments were handed down. Any who broke the law concerning the sabbath were condemned to death. So why was there confusion about what to do with this evil, stick-gathering threat to God?

Num 16:23-35 - And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying: "Say to the congregation: Get away from the dwellings of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram." So Moses got up and went to Dathan and Abiram; the elders of Israel followed him. He said to the congregation, "Turn away from the tents of these wicked men, and touch nothing of theirs, or you will be swept away for all their sins." So they got away from the dwellings of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram; and Dathan and Abiram came out and stood at the entrance of their tents, together with their wives, their children, and their little ones. And Moses said, "This is how you shall know that the LORD has sent me to do all these works; it has not been of my own accord: If these people die a natural death, or if a natural fate comes on them, then the LORD has not sent me. But if the LORD creates something new, and the ground opens its mouth and swallows them up, with all that belongs to them,then you shall know that these men have despised the LORD.

As soon as he finished speaking all these words, the ground under them was split apart. The earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up along with their households - everyone who belonged to Korah and all their goods. So they with all that belonged to them went down alive into Sheol; the earth closed over them, and they perished from the midst of the assembly. All Israel around them fled at their outcry, for they said, "The earth will swallow us too!" And fire came out from the LORD and consumed two hundred fifty men offering the incense.
This is supposed to be justice? Or is it possible this story was inserted for use by priests in scaring the ignorant into obedience? Another possibility is that this story was created as part of a propaganda war between the priests and the temple musicians (the ones who wrote the Psalms). Korah and his cohorts represented the "musical" faction, and got their comeuppance at the end of the story. In Psalms, note the verses that tell of God's disdain for animal sacrifices.

Num 23:19 - God is not a human being, that he should lie, or a mortal, that he should change his mind. Has he promised, and will he not do it? Has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?
So God doesn't change his mind or lie. Read further along in the Bible: there are places where God changes his mind, and sends "lying spirits"!

Num 25:3,4 - Thus Israel yoked itself to the Baal of Peor, and the LORD's anger was kindled against Israel. The LORD said to Moses, "Take all the chiefs of the people, and impale them in the sun before the LORD, in order that the fierce anger of the LORD may turn away from Israel."
So changing one's religion is a good reason to impale a person? And it looks like impaling only the chiefs was violence and blood enough to keep God from killing everyone.

Num 25:6-9 - Just then one of the Israelites came and brought a Midianite woman into his family, in the sight of Moses and in the sight of the whole congregation of the Israelites, while they were weeping at the entrance of the tent of meeting. When Phinehas son of Eleazar,son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he got up and left the congregation. Taking a spear in his hand, he went after the Israelite man into the tent, and pierced the two of them, the Israelite and the woman, through the belly. So the plague was stopped among the people of Israel. Nevertheless those that died by the plague were twenty-four thousand.
Might as well appease God by throwing virgins into a volcano! One has to wonder at this display of xenophobia, though. After all, there were laws in place (ostensibly from God) that allowed these warriors of God to marry outsiders. One needs to wonder what the problem could have been with this?

Num 31:25-30 - The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, "You and Eleazar the priest and the heads of the ancestral houses of the congregation make an inventory of the booty captured, both human and animal. Divide the booty into two parts, between the warriors who went out to battle and all the congregation. From the share of the warriors who went out to battle, set aside as tribute for the LORD, one item out of every five hundred, whether persons, oxen, donkeys, sheep, or goats. Take it from their half and give it to Eleazar the priest as an offering to the LORD. But from the Israelites' half you shall take one out of every fifty, whether persons, oxen, donkeys, sheep or goats - all the animals - and give them to the Levites who have charge of the tabernacle of the LORD.
God divides up the booty from the genocide of the Midianites, and keeps (among other things) some virgin girls for himself? What can he do with them? What does it mean they were an offering to the LORD? You think the priests could have had something in mind??

Num 36:1-9 - The heads of the ancestral houses of the clans of the descendants of Gilead son of Machir son of Manasseh, of the Josephite clans, came forward and spoke in the presence of Moses and the leaders, the heads of the ancestral houses of the Israelites; they said, "The LORD commanded my lord to give the land for inheritance by lot to the Israelites; and my lord was commanded by the LORD to give the inheritance of our brother Zelophehad to his daughters. But if they are married into another Israelite tribe, then their inheritance will be taken from the inheritance of our ancestors and added to the inheritance of the tribe into which they marry; so it will be taken away from the allotted portion of our inheritance. And when the jubilee of the Israelites comes, then their inheritance will be added to the inheritance of the tribe into which they have married; and their inheritance will be taken from the inheritance of our ancestral tribe.

Then Moses commanded the Israelites according to the word of the LORD, saying, "The descendants of the tribe of Joseph are right in what they are saying. This is what the LORD commands concerning the daughters of Zelophehad, 'Let them marry whom they think best; only it must be into a clan of their father's tribe that they are married, so that no inheritance of the Israelites shall be transferred from one tribe to another; for all Israelites shall retain the inheritance of their ancestral tribes. Every daughter who posesses an inheritance in any tribe of the Israelites shall marry one from the clan of her father's tribe, so that all Israelites may continue to posess their ancestral inheritance. No inheritance shall be transferred from one tribe to another; for each tribe of the Israelites shall retain its own inheritance.'"

The daughters of Zelophehad did as the Lord commanded Moses. Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Noah, the daughters of Zelophehad, married sons of their father's brothers. They were married into the clans of the descendants of Manasseh, son of Joseph, and their inheritance remained in the tribe of their father's clan.
The first covering of a loophole. How could God's original law have a LOOPHOLE? Also, it appears that land posession was more important than love or the happiness of mere daughters. So the daughters ended up marrying (it appears) their first cousins. This does nothing but increase the stagnation of the gene pool.