Numbers 4

Chapter 4. God’s Provision for Their Wilderness Life, Notwithstanding Their FailureGod did not immediately reject them because of their fearful disobedience, but, at the intercession of Moses, He forgave their sin and renewed His covenant for the next generation, and even continued still to manifest His presence with the disobedient through all the period of their wilderness life. He did not permit them to enter the land of promise, for He knew that their spirit could not be trusted, and that their children must be taught by their example the fearful guilt and peril of unbelief and disobedience. So He condemned this entire generation to wander, and at length to die in the wilderness; and promised that their children who they feared would become a prey to their enemies, should be triumphantly led into the land which they had refused to enter (Numbers 14:31). Yet even during these dreary years of fruitless journeying, His long-suffering presence still continued with them. “Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people” (Exodus 13:22). He led them daily like a patient mother, still forgiving their continued provocations and manifesting to them, with every occasion, fresh un-foldings of His marvelous love and foreshadowings of the gospel of salvation which was afterward to be revealed.

Section I: The Sacrifices Renewed

Section I—The Sacrifices RenewedNum_15:1-41The first of these gracious manifestations is recorded at length in the chapter immediately succeeding the account of their rebellion (Numbers 15:1-41). This chapter consists of a series of directions for sacrificial ordinances which were to be offered “after you enter the land I am giving you as a home” (Numbers 15:2). These directions included the ordinance of the burnt offering, and sin offering, the drink offering, the grain offering and various oblations of thanksgiving as well as special sacrifices for disobedience and error. God’s Confidence in Their Future The most striking thing connected with these renewed ordinances is the form in which they are introduced in the very first sentence of the chapter, immediately after the terrible story of their sin and exclusion from the land. The Lord begins to address them quietly as though nothing had occurred, and as if taking it for granted that they were to enter the land and that indeed it was already given to them. “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Speak to the Israelites and say to them: “After you enter the land I am giving you as a home”’” (Numbers 15:1-2). Of course He is now addressing the new generation. But when we remember that the nation was one in all its generations, the language affords an incomparably beautiful type of that transcendent mercy in which He deals with the sinner under the gospel, recognizing the sin which has been confessed and put away as something not only blotted out, but wholly ignored, and treating him in the language and reckoning of faith as a new creature, and as though, indeed, the promises of Christ were already fulfilled. God, therefore, speaks of us in the New Testament as already seated with Christ in heavenly places, and living with Him in our eternal inheritance, and He bids us thus “Count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Jesus Christ” (Romans 6:11).

Section II: The Priesthood Renewed

Section II—The Priesthood RenewedNum_16:46-50The priesthood of Aaron and his sons is established anew, and the rebellion of Korah, Dathan and Abiram is met not only by their judgment, but by the most emphatic and glorious vindication of the true priesthood. This was done first by that stirring incident through which the awful plague, that had spread in the congregation after judgment of Korah, was immediately stayed by Aaron’s intercession. Standing between the living and the dead with his golden censer in his hands, and the smoking incense rising from it, God recognized his typical intercession as He still recognizes the pleadings of His risen Son, our Great High Priest. The hand of judgment was arrested and the work of death instantly ceased in the terrified camp after 14,700 people had fallen under the avenging stroke (Numbers 16:49). The Blooming and Budding Rod (Numbers 17:1-13) Next the authority of Aaron’s priesthood was forcibly and vividly set forth by the public test in which each of the tribes of Israel was called to bring a rod and lay it in the tabernacle of the congregation before the Lord, that He might choose from among them in the sight of all the people the one that was to represent the true priesthood. This was accordingly done, and as the rods were laid before the Lord, lo, the rod of Aaron burst into buds and blossoms, and even as he gazed the blossoms had ripened into almond fruits. And as Moses brought out the rods and handed them to the men who had brought them, they saw, with awe and submission, the seal which Jehovah Himself had placed on the ministry of the chosen tribe and the priesthood of Aaron and his house. This memorable sign was also designed to be for us a type of the priesthood of Jesus, and hence the blooming rod of Aaron was ordered to be laid up and kept in the ark as the memorial for future generations. How beautifully this expresses to the believing heart the living priesthood of our Great Advocate. It is not a dry and withered rod, but one which is full of life and vital energy and fruitfulness. “He always lives to intercede for them” (Hebrews 7:25). Again, Christ’s priesthood, like that budding and blossoming rod, is ever fresh in its blessings. Day by day and moment by moment it brings to us new blessings as we need them. He is ever presenting us before the throne, and His mercies are new every morning as the fresh blossoms of the spring. We have not to live on stale experiences, but His unlimited resources are continually calling forth for us the fresh supply of every need from the fullness of His Father’s love and power. What is so fragrant as the sweet breath of summer flowers? And so His prayers are ever ascending in contrast with our unworthiness and sinfulness, the odor of a sweet-smelling savor, bringing us acceptance and making us unto God a sweet savor of Christ; so that even our very prayers, when mingled with His incense, are treasured in the heavenly chambers in vases of sweet perfume before the throne. There are, however, not only blossoms, but fruits, and so our Savior’s priesthood is intensely practical, bringing us real help which is reproduced in the fruits of our holy life. “I have prayed for you,… that your faith may not fail” (Luke 22:32), He said to Peter. And because we have a great High Priest, we are likewise invited to “Approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Hebrews 4:16). The fruit on Aaron’s rod seems to have appeared almost instantly after the buds and blossoms. In a moment the promise was turned into maturity, reminding us how quickly the intercession of our blessed Master ripens into realization. The prayer is turned to praise and blessed fulfillment (Numbers 17:1-13). The Support of the Priesthood (Numbers 18:1-15) This beautiful symbol of the priesthood was followed in the 18th chapter by a series of important ordinances respecting the priestly office, which refer to both the offerings and the provision which was to be made for their support. We have already referred to these provisions in connection with chapter 1. The Lord was to be their inheritance, and they were to have no definite part in the allotment of the land, but a recognition of their right in the tithes of the people and the sacrificial gifts, especially the wave offerings which were to be their portion. You, your sons, and your father’s family are to bear the responsibility for offenses against the sanctuary, and you and your sons alone are to bear the responsibility for offenses against the priesthood. Bring your fellow Levites from your ancestral tribe to join you and assist you when you and your sons minister before the Tent of the Testimony. (Numbers 18:1-2) I myself have put you in charge of the offerings presented to me; all the holy offerings the Israelites give me I give to you and your sons as your portion and regular share. (Numbers 18:8) I am giving you the service of the priesthood as a gift. (Numbers 18:7) You will have no inheritance in their land, nor will you have any share among them; I am your share and your inheritance among the Israelites. I give to the Levites all the tithes in Israel as their inheritance in return for the work they do while serving at the Tent of Meeting. (Numbers 18:20-21) This also is yours: whatever is set aside from the gifts of all the wave offerings of the Israelites. I give this to you and your sons and daughters as a regular share…. I give you all the finest olive oil and all the finest new wine and grain they give the Lord as the firstfruits of their harvest. All the land’s firstfruits that they bring to the Lord will be yours…. Everything in Israel that is devoted to the Lord is yours. (Numbers 18:11-14) Thus the true priesthood was permanently established, and through all the wanderings of the wilderness their access to God was uninterrupted. So even the imperfect life of God’s people does not prevent the blessings which flow to us from our Gracious Advocate and our access to God through Jesus Christ. The loss is immeasurable, and yet there is much left through His long-suffering grace, even for His unfaithful Church, and His erring children.

Section III: The Red Heifer

Section III—The Red HeiferNum_19:1-22The most impressive of all the ordinances provided for the wilderness life of Israel was that which is known as the ordinance of the red heifer, described in Numbers 19, and referred to explicitly in Hebrews 9:13, as the special type of the provision which Christ has made for our continual cleansing and keeping amid the defilements of our earthly journey. For the Wilderness

1. The place where this is introduced in the book of Numbers, rather than in Leviticus or Exodus, shows that it was designed to prefigure God’s provision for our wilderness life. It is not a type of our justification, but of the daily cleansing which the believer may continually claim through the constant intercession and sprinkled blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. It represents to some extent the same idea as the washing of the disciples’ feet by the Master just before the passover (John 13). He there taught His disciples distinctly that this did not mean the same as their original cleansing, which had already been fully accomplished and is expressed by the word “washed,” in the Greek Louo, which literally means to bathe the entire person; but rather that partial cleansing of the hands and feet rendered necessary by the defilement of a single day, and expressed by the Greek work Nipto. The language of the Apostle John, “The blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin” (1 John 1:7), or rather, keeps cleansing us from all sin, describes this daily cleansing prefigured in the ordinance of the red heifer. The Type of Christ
2. The selection of the heifer was expressive of the person and sacrifice of Christ. She was to be red, and the rabbis tell us that there must be no single hair of any other color. She must also be without blemish of any kind, and must never have come under the yoke (Numbers 19:2). This was fulfilled in the spotless purity of the Lord Jesus, and in the fact that He was under no obligation on His own account to suffer for sin, or to take the place of the criminal; but was purely voluntary in His sacrifice, and able through His perfect righteousness to make atonement for the guilty. The unmixed color of the living victim vividly portrays the sufferings of Christ, and the emphatic truth that His one business was to be the sacrifice for sins. His mission was all pure crimson. He had not two aims—to please Himself, and save men. He only came to redeem a lost world.
3. The heifer was next taken outside the camp and slain, so Christ was crucified outside the gate as an outcast and a criminal (Numbers 19:3; Hebrews 13:12).
4. The blood was then sprinkled seven times before the Tent of Meetings, implying the offering of Christ’s life is a perfect satisfaction for the guilt of man and a complete ransom for the soul and its forfeited inheritance (Numbers 19:4; 1 Peter 1:19). The Burning
5. The heifer was then burned to ashes—every part of her body, including the skin, the flesh, the blood, the intestines. And along with her flesh were consumed cedar wood, hyssop and scarlet wool, which the priest was commanded to take and cast amid the burning of the heifer. This is an extremely beautiful part of the type and demands our close attention (Numbers 19:6). The scarlet wool which was burned with the heifer evidently implies the sin—the sinful nature of the believer which it is our privilege to crucify with Christ and cast in the committal of faith into the flames of His burning, and know that it is reckoned dead and consumed through the power of His grace. Not only are our past transgressions put away, but our old self is thus crucified with Christ (Romans 6:6; Romans 8:4). But still further, the cedar wood and hyssop which were also cast into the burning represent, not the sinful part, but that which may be called the natural life in every one of us, and which the apostle expresses in 1 Corinthians 2:14 as the “man without the Spirit,” or as it is in the Greek, “the psychical man.” This is not the scarlet wool. It is not the gross and coarse flesh of lust, and yet it is human nature, which has all passed under the curse, and must all be crucified and restored as a resurrection life. The cedar represents the strongest side of nature, and the hyssop the least. The latter was the most insignificant of the plants of Palestine. So these two extremes of the natural world are introduced in the account of Solomon’s writings as describing the whole extent of the natural world. We are told that he wrote of everything “from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of walls” (1 Kings 4:33). It is a lesson that we are very slow to learn that there is much more than sin to be crucified in the entire sanctification of the soul; the whole self must go, from the strength of the cedar to the frailest fiber of the climbing hyssop. The great hindrance to the consecration of many is their strong intellect and will; and the snare of others is the little clinging hyssop of their affections, or sentimental weaknesses; all must be cast into the fire on the altar, and the life come forth anew, in Christ alone, if we would walk in consistent holiness. The Ashes
6. The ashes of the heifer were then carefully collected and preserved, to be laid without the camp in a clean place and mixed from time to time with water for the purifying rite, known as the water of cleansing during their entire wilderness journeys. This represents that which the death of Christ continues to mean for us in our daily experience, in addition to its complete atonement, once for all. There is something in the cross which throughout all the ages is an abiding power in the sanctification of Christ’s people. The sacrifice cannot be offered anew; but the essence of that sacrifice, like the ashes of the heifer, may be continually applied for our perpetual cleansing. It is of this that the apostle says, “The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God” (Hebrews 9:13-14). So again the Apostle Peter speaks of us as those “who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood” (1 Peter 1:2). This is something that continually accompanies our obedience. The clean place where the ashes of Christ have been preserved outside the camp is the right hand of God (1 Peter 1:2), whence the Holy Spirit continually brings us the fresh cleansing of His sprinkling blood, and we appropriate it by living faith. The Water of Cleansing
7. The water of cleansing which was sprinkled with the ashes implies this very truth in connection with the Spirit’s ministry. Water is always the symbol of the Holy Spirit, and the mingling of the ashes and the water teaches us that the divine Spirit must bring to us the efficacy of Christ’s death. There is a hidden and pungent truth lying back of the figure of water and ashes which will be quickly understood by those that have ever noticed the effect of their combination. There is no substance in the world more intensely consuming and bitter to the taste than lye, which is just a combination of water and ashes, and indeed, the material out of which commerce manufactures the very substances for cleansing. All this implies that the cleansing of the soul is not painless, but often involves the keenest conviction of sin and Crucifixion of self, under the searching touch of the Great High Priest. He will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the Lord will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the Lord, as in the days gone by, as in former years. (Malachi 3:2-4) We Need a Sinless Savior
8. The water of cleansing was to be applied by a clean person. This certainly cannot mean any human priest or even the worshiper himself, but teaches us that our High Priest with His holy hands is ever ready to sprinkle us as often as we come in contrite faith, with His cleansing blood, and His Spirit’s purifying power. And so this experience of abiding holiness and continual cleansing is connected by the Apostle John with the priesthood of Christ Himself. “My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One” (1 John 2:1). “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Defilement
9. The causes of defilement for which this ordinance was to be applied were extremely suggestive. They were chiefly for persons who became defiled by touching the dead (Numbers 19:2, etc.). This represents the presence and influence of the carnal nature which the apostle describes as the “body of death” (Romans 7:24) hanging about the soul, unless it is wholly laid off. The corpse of the victim, as in ancient times, was chained to the body of the murderer (Romans 7:24). A poor criminal in St. Louis told the chaplain of his prison one day, that every night in his dreams he saw the body of the man whom he had slain fastened to him by ropes and dragging him down into a horrible vortex, and that he could not shake it off. So many souls are carrying themselves as weights of corruption and death, and there are no sources of defilement so terrible as those that come to us from our sinful nature. Sometimes the touch of the dead comes from our taking back, in recollection and reflection, our former and our forgiven sins. This always contaminates the conscience. Sometimes from not wholly leaving off the old man and reckoning ourselves dead indeed, by the habit of faith. It is only as we refuse to count him our true self that we can be free from his contagion. It is the believer’s privilege to hand him over to Christ, to be by Him held and slain. But if for a moment he forgets this in the wild assaults of natural impulse, and allows a fear to assert itself and intimidate him from his new vantage ground, he will become defiled and unable to hold his victory. More frequently the touch of the dead arises from yielding to the instigations and desires of the flesh, either willfully, or under sudden or hasty temptation. Of course, such yielding is always sin, and brings contamination and condemnation; and there must be instant cleansing, or there will be a complete loss of communion and peace. These two considerations are the most important elements in a life of victory over the flesh, and they are both emphasized again and again in the sixth chapter of Romans, which is the very manual of this teaching. “Do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires” (Romans 6:12), is the apostle’s statement of the one; and, “count yourselves dead to sin” (Romans 6:11), is the equally important direction in respect to the other. If, for a moment, either of these is disobeyed, the soul will be swept by the breath of evil, and must instantly repair to the water of separation before its purity and communion can be restored. Happy indeed are they who have learned this secret of continual cleansing. It is further implied, however, that defilement may come unconsciously from the elements of evil that are around us constantly in a sinful world. Every open vessel which had no covering bound upon it was unclean. The air was so full of contagion that in order to avoid it even the vessels had to be closed. This is intensely true in Christian life. The soul must keep its doors locked, or it shall be continually denied. Some natures are so open to everything that comes, that they just absorb the floating particles of evil that are in the air, even as in some manufacturing cities the purest linen absorbs the coal soot from the atmosphere. Walking as we ever do through such an atmosphere, we must just live in the blood and Spirit of Christ as the very elements of our spiritual existence, even as the pebble in the running brook is kept ever shining with the freshness of the crystal stream. This was what Jesus meant when He said to His disciples: “You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you” (John 15:3); and then added with solemn emphasis, “Remain in me, and I will remain in you” (John 15:4).

Section IV: The Waters of Meribah

Section IV—The Waters of MeribahNum_20:1-11There was yet one more provision for the wilderness life, shadowing forth the fullness of the Spirit’s grace for our Christian pilgrimage. It comes in due order, in the 20th chapter of Numbers. At first it seems to be a repetition of the miracle recorded and explained in the former passage, in connection with the smiting of the rock in Horeb (Exodus 17). On careful inspection it will be found that this is essentially different, both in the facts and in the spiritual significance. There the rock was opened for the first time by the rod of the lawgiver; here, the command was, not to strike or open the rock, but simply to speak to it, and the water would instantly flow forth from the cleft already made, once for all. As we have already seen in the previous chapter, the error of Moses consisted in disobeying this simple command, and striking instead of speaking to the rock. The Spirit’s Fullness The lesson pertaining to our present theme is the significance of this water as a type of the Holy Spirit, for the deeper and fuller supply of our spiritual need in our wilderness life. We are beautifully reminded that the fountain is still open, and that the influence of the Spirit is at the call of faith whenever the exigencies of life require His special manifestation. Instead of murmuring as they did, and as we still often do in our hours of testing, it is our privilege to come to the open fountain and simply speak the word of believing prayer and trusting confidence, and the abundant grace of the unwearied and unlimited Comforter will be poured out in all its fullness whether for cleansing, for refreshing, for enduing power, for warfare or for work. We must also bring with us the rod of the Great High Priest, claiming blessing in the name of Jesus and in reliance upon His intercession. The Holy Spirit expects us to trust Him just as fully as we trust the Lord Jesus, and to take His gifts in the spirit of confidence, praise and rejoicing. They who do will always find Him ready to “open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it” (Malachi 3:10). The abundance of the Spirit’s grace is implied by the overflowing waters, which came even in answer to their complaints. The Church has never proved the fullness of divine grace and blessing as God longs to manifest it and does wherever He can find a heart large enough to trust Him for His immeasurable resources. The Desert Song In the following chapter another incident is added in connection with the water of Meribah, which throws a good deal of light on a subject which otherwise would be obscure. Then Israel sang this song: “Spring up, O well! Sing about it, about the well that the princes dug, that the nobles of the people sank— the nobles with scepters and staffs.” Then they went from the desert to Mattanah. (Numbers 21:17-18) When they came to Beer on the border of Moab, the people gathered around in a circle upon the sand, while the nobles of Israel with their staves dug a cavity in the sand and began to sing around it these words in responsive chorus, “Spring up, O well! Sing about it, about the well that the princes dug, that the nobles of the people sank— the nobles with scepters and staffs.” Venturing to connect this isolated passage with the previous accounts of their supply of water and the suggestive references to this subject in the Psalms and elsewhere, it seems reasonable to assume, and indeed is almost implied by the references to this water, that the stream which flowed from the original rock never ceased to follow them through the desert. It ran beneath the sands, a subterranean river, even when its course could not be traced upon the surface; and that here, having lost the visible channel, they just tapped it through the dry sand with their staves and found it still flowing beneath their feet and springing forth at the touch of their staves and the voice of their songs, with its former exuberance and abundance. If this is true, what heavenly instruction and consolation does it administer for the life of faith. Traveling like them over the sands of life, we often lose the sensible converse and manifest presence of the Divine Spirit. But faith may ever know that our life is still hid with Christ in God, and the hidden streams are flowing unobstructed beneath our feet. All that is necessary is for us to take the pilgrim’s staff which is just the promise of God, and then sing the song of faith, “Spring up, O well,” and lo, the fountains shall answer to our songs, and the desert shall blossom as the rose and we shall have the new song of answered prayer to add to the praise notes of faith.

Section V: The Bronze Snake

Section V—The Bronze SnakeNum_21:4-9This remarkable type completes the symbolical figures under which God represents to them the provisions of His grace for our spiritual needs and trials in the Christian life. Our Lord Himself has recognized it in the third chapter of John as the type of Himself. It represented to them the idea of divine deliverance from the stroke of disease and death through the sting of Satan and the malignant poison of sin. Their murmuring was visited by the attacks of fiery serpents, and death again filled the camp with horror and real cause for complaints. But the sin and need of the people only furnish, as ever before, a new occasion for the resources of grace and power. Their sufferings were typical of the trials that come to us from the stings of Satan both in the soul and the body, and the remedy unfolds the most precious principles of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Christ Our Deliverer

1. The serpent of bronze was in the likeness of the fiery serpent that had stung them. So the Lord Jesus, our Deliverer, has come to us in the likeness of sinful flesh.
2. The serpent of bronze was the figure of the fiery serpent robbed of its sting. And so the Lord Jesus Christ has despoiled the tempter of his power to harm us, and nailed him to His cross as a sort of scarecrow, merely the figure of the serpent, without life or venom or power to harm. “Having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross” (Colossians 2:15).
3. The lifting up of the serpent of bronze was a type of Christ’s crucifixion on the cross and His uplifting as the object of faith for the tempted and suffering soul. Look and Live
4. The look by which the sufferer was brought into healing contact with the symbol is naturally fitted to be the type of living faith, and is constantly referred to as a figure of that vital contact by which we receive the efficacy of Christ’s life and death. Intrinsically, the laws of vision are fitted to bring the object on which we gaze as an actual image into the eye which looks upon it. While I look at the sun, the sun is in my eye. And so, while I look at Christ, Christ is in my heart by direct reflection. Looking at Medusa’s head turned the gazer into stone. Looking all night on the skeletons of the dead, the greatest of modern painters came forth to transcribe the vivid vision on his imperishable canvas. Looking on the glory of God, the face of Moses shone with its reflection. Looking constantly at a scene upon the street, it becomes so fixed upon the eye, that, if we look upon the sky, we shall see it written there. Looking at the lives of the lovely or the beloved, we grow unconsciously like them. And so, looking unto Jesus, we absorb His very life and we grow into His likeness. The bronze snake was the type of Christ as a Savior for the guilty sinner, as a Deliverer for the tempted, as a Healer for the sick. The poor lost sinner can look up to Him and find the poison withdrawn and the serpent powerless to sting. So, also, the sick and suffering body can draw from His resurrection body, by the steadfast gaze of living trust, His resurrection and renewing life. Let us take this, as well as the fountains of Meribah and the flowing streams of Beer, as a lesson for the wilderness. And, “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2), so we too shall endure the cross, scorn its shame, and sit down at the right hand of the throne of God (Hebrews 12:2).