Numbers 33

Some scholars say this chapter is the work of someone who compiled the list from other chapters in Numbers along with excerpts from Exodus and Deuteronomy. Yet this is the only material in Numbers that claims Moses wrote it.

Nisan is the name of the first Jewish month of the year. It’s when Jews celebrate one of their most revered holidays: Passover. The month falls around Eastertime, in March or April. Jesus went to Jerusalem to observe Passover when he was arrested and crucified. The Israelites followed a lunar calendar, with every month starting at the first tiny crescent after the new moon. A new moon is when the moon is hidden behind earth’s shadow for one day. The sun, moon, and earth are aligned, with earth in the middle.

There are 42 sites listed in this report. The location of most sites is unknown. Seventeen sites are mentioned nowhere else in the Bible but here in Numbers 33. Even the location of Mount Sinai at what Egyptians call Jebel Musa (Mountain Moses) is based only on an ancient tradition.

Many Bibles say “Red Sea.” But the Hebrew words are yam suph, “sea reeds.” Later in the story, Moses and the Israelite refugees will escape through a path God makes in this body of water. Scholars usually track Moses and the Hebrews escaping Egypt by walking southeast, out of the Nile Delta fields and toward the Red Sea and the Sinai Peninsula. They would have passed through lake regions along what is now the Suez Canal, which connects the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. These lakes and ponds reportedly had reeds growing along the banks, like the ones the Bible says grew along the Nile River and helped anchor Baby Moses in a basket (Exodus 2:3).

It’s unclear where Mount Hor was. There’s a long tradition that connects it to Jebel Nabi Harun (Mountain of Prophet Aaron), roughly a day’s walk south of Edom’s capital city of Petra. Some scholars say that mountain was well inside the country of Edom, which is where the Israelites were forbidden to go. Another contender is Jebel Madurah. It was about a two-day walk northwest of Petra. The mountain is southwest of the Dead Sea, along what would have been the border of the Promised Land and Edom.

July or August.

The name in Hebrew is Abel-shittim, which church folks wouldn’t want to read out loud in a worship service. It literally means “field of acacia trees,” or an acacia grove. Hence, “Acacia Grove.” You’re welcome.

More literally, they were to throw or draw “lots.” The “lots” may have been stones or animal bones marked in a way that produced random outcomes for “yes” or “no” answers, or for determining who goes first in a group. The idea is like throwing dice, with the high number going first. It’s also a little like “heads” or “tails” from a coin toss.