Numbers 21-36, Deuteronomy 1-5

It strikes me as I'm reading, the deep and perhaps hidden significance of the serpent in Old Testament lore.  In Genesis the serpent was always interpreted to be the Devil in disguise, tempting Eve into enacting original sin, cursed by God ever after to wriggle on its belly, and there are other passages about this sorry fate.  And yet in Exodus God also has Moses and Aaron turn the staff trick of transforming it into a serpent, and the image returns in Numbers in an equally famous episode that the medical establishment later adopted, of serpents that God had sent against his continually mischievous people and then the one he asks Moses to place upon a staff to cure them.

So which is it?  Are serpents representations of evil, or are they perhaps after all agents of God?  The Old Testament is littered with God testing his people, who are constantly failing (except Abraham with his near-sacrifice of Isaac, which seems to be the defining point for the foundation of Judaism).  Maybe this whole time we've been misinterpreting the serpent in the garden.  Maybe God always intended man to become aware of his regular duties, which he'd already been given anyway, to be lord and master of the earth much as God is Lord of everything else (and man).  God has a terrible time accounting for all the ways mankind disappoints him, including his own chosen people, and spends a lot of time smiting them in the early books.  He could have just as easily done the job the first time, but didn't.  Sometimes failure is permanent, but the larger point is that God is constantly testing mankind.

And his agent that first time was a serpent.  Put aside the curse he levels against it.  He continues using serpents in the books that follow.  I'm not trying to upend theology here, but these things keep coming to me.  (Don't smite me!)

Anyway, Numbers gets a ton more interesting with the introduction of and narrative that follows Balaam for a while.  There's this whole story of this prophet who exists entirely outside of the Hebrew lineage, an independent phenomenon in direct communication with God.  His whole story is how he gets out of having to condemn the Hebrews as they continue their journey toward the promised land.  It's like the Bible suddenly splits off into an entirely new story filled with its own mythology, right in the middle of the Moses arc.  His own lord and master is displeased each time Balaam reports what God has told him, that he keeps evading the prospect of taking out the Hebrews.

Unfortunately, his narrative ends abruptly, we switch back to Moses, and the next and last time he's brought up Balaam is summarily executed as a collaborator with the enemy, even listed as a villainous presence who actively conspired against the Hebrews.  There's apparently even something about it in Revelation.  The guy's whole reputation is entirely slandered, even though he clearly was working the opposite of how he ends up being perceived, and to make it all the worse, probably no one outside of devoted scholars are even aware today that he ever existed.  Not cool.  So that's another way my ruminations on the Bible will deviate from the record.  Balaam represents an important development in the history of God's interaction with mankind.  He's confirmation that God didn't just pal up with Abraham and his descendants.  And another way in which Moses kind of ended up doing his own smiting along the way, when God failed to do it himself.

There's an interesting phrase to be found here, "son of man," that is associated with repentance, which is another thing later Christians could probably call their own from the earliest books even though they mostly seem concerned with the prophetic later ones.

The classic pagan god Baal is referenced for the first time, as are Hebrew judges, which becomes important later, notably in the books of Judges.

A man named Phinehas manages to talk God out of another round of smiting, which puts him on a certain kind of level with Moses, who managed the fete earlier (and himself then proceeded to smite in the same righteous manner).  This seems significant.  His name, however, has since been forgotten.  Making a note of it here all the same.

Jericho is referenced for the first time.

A second census is carried out, now that a considerable amount of smiting has occurred..  God is also asked to consider women as capable of inheriting property, which he grants.  So that's another positive indication for women in the face of a number of other examples that don't paint them in such favorable light.

Joshua is officially deemed Moses' successor.  God outlines the holy days.  The Judaic tradition of holy war continues, presaging the Crusades and much of what Islam has become.  The exiles start to settle down, which initially causes God discomfit, but he decides to play along.  Canaan, the promised land, is identified as such.  High priests are referenced for the first time, another thing Christians will definitely recognize.

Deuteronomy, the fourth book of Moses and fifth of the Old Testament, begins with something Numbers had done in a different way, recapping the journey to this point.  The Deuteronomy version highly favors the most favorable Judaic interpretation of events.  It also comes in the form of a great speech on the part of Moses, who had initially beggared God to ask for someone else (i.e. Aaron) to do the talking because he was a poor public speaker.  Here he has no problem at all, and seems to relish the role.

The descendants of Esau and Lot are encountered, who are not part of the Hebrew exiles from Egypt.  They are part of separate traditions.  Imagine a Bible that includes their stories as well, or even Balaam's.

The most striking element now seems how easily war-like and conquer-happy the Hebrews are at God's behest.  They sound like Alexander the Great, or Attila the Hun, that sort of phenomenon.  They fight and beat everyone, and assume their territory for their own, a small (relatively speaking) scrappy band of warriors always good for a fight.  You could easily make a movie about Moses and do almost nothing but warfare.

The ten commandments are referenced again, specifically as a covenant.  My interpretation of them will continue to be in the air.  The familiar ones end up being reiterated, in case you'd forgotten, although at that point are not spoken of in relation to a covenant.  God, as I will argue for now, seems far more interested in emphasizing the way to worship him than the moral codes that dominate the latter of the traditional ten commandments, some of which he goes to great lengths to interpret given specific circumstances again and again, such as murder.

That is all for now.