Reading: Numbers 8-10, Psalm 42

Alright everyone, we’ve got the camp organized, dealt with the annoying details and the constantly complainers, and we’re ready to go, right? Well, we are really, really close, but we’ve been camping here at Sinai for an entire year, so it’s about time for the Passover feast. Going to have to do that first.

Before leaving Sinai, God has just a few more things to tell the people of Israel. First of all, apparently the lamps of the tabernacle lampstand had not yet been lit. God tells Aaron to fire them up, which he does. There is a little section about the purification and ordination of the Levites, followed by some rules about their length of service at the tabernacle. The purification ceremony should be familiar by now: animals are identified with the people being purified, are sacrificed, and atonement is made through the blood of the animal. There are a couple of extra things added here which we saw in various places in Leviticus: they wash their clothes and shave their hair. The hair shaving is symbolism for new birth, and the washing of their clothes is another purity ritual. The Levites are placed before God and the people of Israel and confirmed to be the stand-ins for the firstborn of Israel and so to occupy a special place in society as servants of the priests and the tabernacle.

Then there are some details. The Levites are to serve in the tabernacle only between the ages of twenty five and fifty. We don’t know how exactly this worked in the days of the tabernacle, but we know that what resulted during the temple era was the Levites studied the laws and practices until the age of twenty five, then they entered service, then when they aged out they became teachers of the next generation.

Once the Levite ceremony is done, God tells the people to celebrate the Passover. It has been an entire year at Sinai, so the Passover has come again. For the most part this comes off without a hitch, but there is one small hangup: there are some people who are ritually unclean because they had contact with a dead body. They know that God ordered everyone to observe the Passover, but they also know that God takes being ritually unclean very seriously. So they go to Moses and asks what to do. God gives them a pretty simple response: celebrate it a month from now. The Passover is all about the reminder of what God did for Israel when he rescued them from Egypt. Apparently the time and date are flexible to the condition of the celebrants, but it is still important that they do it, and if they do not, they are guilty before God. It is interesting to note that the camp of Israel does not leave Sinai until these unclean people have had a chance to celebrate the Passover. God isn’t leaving anyone behind.

Finally the people are ready to set out. God makes it clear when they are to depart: the cloud of God’s glory, which has been hanging out in the tabernacle, will rise and move, indicating that it’s time to go. But the camp is really big by this point (over 600,000 men and their families), so God has Moses make some silver trumpets which they are to blow whenever the cloud moves, letting the entire camp know what is going on.

And so they set out. After spending a year in the wilderness camped around the mountain of Sinai, the people of Israel are finally headed for the promised land. It is not a terribly long journey, and they are set up for action. These people have seen incredible things- from the plagues in Egypt, to manna in the desert, to hearing the voice of God in the wilderness, to the glowing face of Moses and the glory of God settling on the tabernacle. They have been given the signs of hope for a new life in a land promised by their God to their ancestors. Tomorrow we will see that though many generations have past, these people are still honest bearers of the name Israel, for they will struggle with God and man to the end of their lives.