I finished Leviticus today!
In the last two chapters of Leviticus, God tells the Israelites of the reward for obedience and the punishment for disobedience. After giving them all of his laws, God now gives them the final contingencies of his plans for them. Essentially, the blessing is of abundance, peace in the land, fertility, and prosperity- essentially a "name", the same covenant made with Abraham and his descendants. The punishment is the opposite of this covenant blessing: disease, famine, God's rejection, death and infertility, conflict and death. Then God says to Israel, in Lev. 26:29, "You will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters." I am a little confused and disturbed by this. I read Dante's Inferno last year, and the eating of cannibalism of one's children reminds me of Dante's allegorical use of the character Ugolino in the frozen river of hell, Cocytus, where Ugolino gnaws at the head of Ruggieri for eternity. Ruggieri in life, had locked Ugolino with his children into his tower in the Muda. There his children died of starvation, and after their death and because of his hunger and madness, he ate his children to survive. That empty madness is what I thought of when I read that passage.
Leviticus ends with the phrase, "These are the commands the LORD gave Moses on Mount Sinai for the Israelites."
Numbers is a whole new ball game for me. I am not looking forward to reading this book. My impression is that it a huge, repetitive list of hard-to-pronounce names and very little plot. So far, I am afraid that my fears have been confirmed. Of interest, in each tribe of Israel, God appoints one man to take a census of that tribe and then lead that tribe. They are Elizur, Shelumiel, Nahshon, Nethanel, Eliab, Elishama, Gamaliel, Abidan, Ahiezer, Pagiel, Eliasaph, and Ahira. According to my study Bible, most of these names contain reference to God. I think probably the prefix, Eli-, and the suffix -iel, is what it was referring to. So, these men represented God among the tribes... could be one interpretation. Then there is a repetitive list of names and populations, and the instructions for the layout of the camp.
Hopefully, I will have more interesting stuff tomorrow. Thank the Lord I am still able to keep up with my reading and continue on learning about Him.
1760 pages to go!
No comments:
Post a Comment