​1 Samuel and 2 Samuel were originally one book so it is no surprise that 2 Samuel picks right up where 1 Samuel ended, with another rendition of the death of Saul. (The account of Saul’s death in 2 Samuel 1 differs from that in 1 Samuel 31 because the Amalekite fabricates his role, a lie which cost him dearly!)

David appears in every chapter of 2 Samuel (although in chapter 14 he is referred to simply as “the king”). He is the man appointed by God to “shepherd My people Israel” and to “be a prince” over them (5:2). As we watch David become king, first over the tribe of Judah and eventually over all the tribes of Israel, and then reign as king, the same four themes that we saw in 1 Samuel reappear.

• There is no God besides or like Yahweh. “There is no God like you,” David confesses when God makes a covenant with him, “and no God besides you” (7:22).
• God knows and assess all human actions. God knew what David had done to Uriah and sent Nathan to report to David, “thou art the man” (12:7).
• Yahweh is sovereign over the affairs of mankind and often reverses situations based on His assessment. Thus, God sovereignly turns the sage counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness (15:31, 17:14).
• No one prevails apart from God’s favor, blessing, and empowering. David, in his song of thanksgiving in chapter 22, repeatedly acknowledges God as the reason for all of his many successes. Absalom, who did not have God’s favor, could not ultimately prevail in his rebellion against his father David.

For the most part, the first twelve chapters of 2 Samuel feature David in a very positive light. He asks and receives the Lord’s direction, his kingdom is established, he prospers in battle, and his leadership extends even over foreign nations. All begins to change when he sins with Bathsheba and murders her husband. “The thing that David had done displeased the Lord” (11:27), and no one—not even David—will escape the consequences.

Although some of these negative consequences are first felt in 2 Samuel 12, when the baby conceived with Bathsheba dies, the real consequences begin in chapter 13. From here to virtually the end of the book, David deals with one problem after another. The prophet Nathan spoke truly when he said the sword would never depart from David’s house (12:10). By the end of 2 Samuel, two of David’s sons have been killed, and David has faced and put down two rebellions. And chapter 24, the last in the book, records yet another sin of David when he takes a census of the military men in his kingdom.

There’s a very important takeaway from 2 Samuel’s frank portrait of David’s sinfulness: David may be a great king—very possibly Israel’s greatest king in terms of his godliness—but he is not a perfect king. He may be a shepherd for God’s people but he is actually a type of a greater Shepherd. Through David will come an even better king, one foreseen in the covenant God makes with David in 2 Samuel 7. God’s covenant with David marks one of those Himalayan peaks in Scripture in that God guarantees a dynasty for David forever. “Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before you. Your throne shall be established forever” (7:16). How can a descendant of David rule forever? The answer, of course, is that God is looking into the future and beholding a future descendant of David who, as the long-awaited Messiah, will fulfill the prophecies uttered as early as Genesis 49:10 that when He comes to whom the kingship belongs, all the peoples will be gathered to him. He is the descendant whom David will call “my Lord” (Psa. 110:1).
​
A final theme in 2 Samuel is that God’s wrath against man ultimately works to His praise (Psa. 76:10). Solomon, a son who humanly speaking should never have been born, is especially loved by God and chosen to succeed David (12:25). David’s numbering the fighting men results in the hasty purchase of and sacrifice on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite, which will become the future site of the Temple (24:18-25; 2 Chron. 3:1). Grace does not make it better that we sinned, but it ensures God gets praise in the end. God deserves praise for any successes achieved in life and praise for any failures that He somehow turns for good.

​1 Samuel is the first half of what was originally one book (the book of Samuel). 2 Samuel continues the storyline begun in 1 Samuel. 1 Samuel takes the reader on a journey from the birth of Samuel to the death of Saul. Both Samuel and Saul are key leaders in 1 Samuel and play chief roles in the transition from the Judges Era to the Monarchy Era. Samuel is the last of the judges. Saul is the first of Israel’s kings (if we discount the self-claimed king, Abimelech, of Judges 9). 1 Samuel also introduces us to David. He appears for the first time in 1 Samuel 16 when Samuel anoints him as Israel’s next king, and he appears in every chapter thereafter except for chapter 31. (David also appears in every chapter of 2 Samuel except chapter 14.)

These three men (Samuel, Saul, and David) are the three main human characters in 1 Samuel. All three are leaders, so leadership is very naturally a theme of 1 Samuel. The prayer-song of Hannah, Samuel’s mother, in 1 Samuel 2 anticipates the lessons on leadership that will play out in the remaining pages of Samuel. She begins with the uniqueness of God (2:1-2) and, second, moves from that to the conclusion that God knows and assesses all human actions. Third, Yahweh is sovereign over the affairs of mankind and often reverses human situations based on His assessment (vv. 4-8). Finally, no one prevails apart from God’s favor, blessing, and empowering (vv. 9-10).

These four themes recur in the stories of 1 (and 2) Samuel. I cite a few examples below but hunt for more as you read through the book yourself.

God remains God even when Israel acquires her first king. Saul may be king but his actions are weighed in the balances and found wanting. A brother not even worth calling from the sheep pen is anointed as Israel’s next king in the midst of his seven older brothers (16:11-13). Saul loses God’s blessing when he chooses to disobey and his personal life and reign unravel. These are lessons that all leaders do well to remember!

These same lessons crop up in the lives of more minor characters in the book. Hannah herself experiences God as her Rock in His delivering her from the ignominy of barrenness (1:19-20; 2:1-2). Godly Eli finds himself rebuked by God for his failures as a father and sees the demise of his family. Samuel walks with God and rises from obscurity to nation-wide prominence as a prophet of God (3:20). Jonathan prevails in his battles with the Philistines because he fights with God’s favor (see chapter 14).

One issue that arises in 1 Samuel 8 is Israel’s request for a king. If it was God’s will for Israel to have a king, then why does God regard Israel’s request as a rejection of Him? The answer is twofold: the timing and the motive of the request. As we saw in Ruth, God was at work in providing a king for Israel. Israel jumped the gun. Samuel may have been old but he lived on for another couple of decades—long enough to anoint David as Saul’s replacement. Second, Israel’s motive in wanting a king was wrong. They wanted to be like all the nations (8:5, 20). They desired a king to fight their battles so they were not so directly dependent on God’s intervention. God, however, never intended Israel’s king to be his own man, ruling independent of Him.

Ultimately, Saul reveals himself to be exactly such a king. He may be physically impressive but he seems to lack any kind of genuine relationship with God. As you read about Saul, look for troubling signs: he does not even know who Samuel the prophet is. He takes his cue from what’s happening around him or what his people are saying rather than what God has commanded. He builds his first altar to the Lord in a time of desperation. He begs Samuel to worship with him primarily in order to save himself from embarrassment.
​
By contrast, God chose David because of what He saw in David’s heart. “Man looks on what his eyes can see, but Yahweh looks on the heart” (16:7). David is by no means perfect—as even the stories of 1 Samuel reveal—but his heart is wholly turned toward Yahweh and because of this he experiences the help, favor, intervention, protection, and empowering of the Lord. As you read of his harrowing days as a refugee, keep track of the many ways in which God providentially cared for him. David is a leader worth emulating and will ultimately become the standard by which all future kings of Israel were measured. David becomes the most mentioned human character in the Bible and a central figure in the lineage of Messiah.

It is fitting that we read Judges and Ruth on the same day since there are many reasons why the two books belong together. One is that both describe events that happened during the period of Israel’s history when judges ruled the land. Another is that Ruth picks up where Judges ends: the two closing stories in the book of Judges both feature Bethlehem, David’s hometown and the birthplace of Jesus, and so does the book of Ruth (Judges 17:7-9; 19:1-2, 18; Ruth 1:1-2, 19, 22; 2:4; 4:11). In addition, the same author (Samuel the prophet is our best guess) most likely wrote both books. But there’s something else that links the two books: Ruth provides—or at least hints—at God’s answer to a major problem during the Judges era and anticipates a coming transition for the nation of Israel. Let me explain.

A major reason for the spiritual quagmire into which Israel falls during the Judges Era is lack of godly leadership. Israel did right as long as Joshua and his generation were alive, but when that generation died out, Israel turned to the worship of Baal and forsook Yahweh, their God, who had brought them out of Egypt (Judges 2:7-13). Now to be honest, Israel had sown the seeds for future idolatry by their failure to fully drive out the Canaanites (as Judges 1 recounts), but it was after the death of Joshua and his fellow leaders that they reaped the disastrous harvest of apostasy.

Apostasy led to chastisement, chastisement to repentance and cries for help, and cries for help to judges given by God to deliver them from the enemy nations God had used as an instrument of chastisement. These judges then led Israel out of their apostasy, only to have Israel fall back into it when the judge died. Thus, the cycle repeats itself six times in the book of Judges—and perhaps twelve times, if we include the six “minor judges.” Each of the six cycles is introduced by a phrase something like what we find in Judges 2:11: “And the children of Israel did what was evil in the eyes of Yahweh and served the Baals” (see 3:7, 12; 4:1; 6:1; 10:6; 13:1).

But the judges themselves growingly evidenced spiritual problems. Israel’s fifth judge, Gideon, makes a golden ephod that trips up Israel spiritually (8:27), and his son by a concubine incites a civil war (ch. 9). Jephthah is a great warrior and exhibits tremendous courage but comes across as rash both in his vow and in the way he created conflict with the Ephraimites after his victory over Ammon (11:31; 12:2-4). Samson, the final judge mentioned in Judges, is the worst of all—super strong in body but terribly weak in his flesh! You can outline his life in terms of his various women!

When we reach the final two stories in Judges (chs. 17-21), we are ready for the assessment given by the author four times that “there was no king in Israel” (17:6; 18:1; 19:1; 21:25). All four times—twice explicitly and twice implicitly—he links the lack of a king with the spiritual condition of the times. The author’s point? Israel needs a king—a godly king—to lift Israel out of its spiritual morass and national chaos. Is there any such king in the works?

Genesis 49:10 reveals that God’s design was for Israel’s kings to come from Judah. We see glimpses, even in Judges, that God intended Judah to lead the nation of Israel (see 1:1-2; 20:18). Caleb, for example, was an outstanding early Judahite whose courage was contagious (1:12-20). But where is the king of Judah who will deliver Israel from her enemies and, most importantly, turn her to the Lord her God? Enter the book of Ruth, which depicts how God is working behind the scenes, even in a climate of apostasy, to bring forth His king. Remarkably, the very last word of Ruth is David (4:22). In providing for Naomi, God is actually providing for the entire nation. Much as David is the last word of Ruth, David is God’s “decisive word” for Israel’s apostasy during the Judges Era.

​His grace, not Israel’s apostasy, has the final say.

The book of Joshua is perhaps best grasped if we view it as a drama that has four acts.
 
Act I -- The Crossing of the Jordan
Chapters 1-5 recount the crossing of the Jordan River. The Lord’s opening command to Joshua is to “cross over the Jordan” (1:2) and the words cross over (or pass over, KJV) occur almost thirty times in these five chapters.
 
One fascinating detail is the timing of when Israel crosses over the Jordan River and enters Canaan. Forty years to the day after they left Egypt, they eat for the first time the produce of the Promised Land (5:11).
 
Crossing the Jordan was a major faith-builder for the second generation of Israelites. It did for them what crossing the Red Sea did for the first generation and also lifted Joshua to a position of lifelong respect in Israel’s eyes comparable to what Moses had enjoyed (4:14). In addition, it spoke volumes to the people of Canaan as to how mighty Yahweh--Israel’s God--really was (4:24; 5:1).
 
One other important emphasis in Joshua begins in these chapters and continues throughout the book: Joshua’s commitment to following the instructions given by Moses (see 1:13; 4:10; 8:31, 33, 35; 11:12, 15, 20; 14:5; 17:4; 20:2; 21:2; 22:2). (Moses’s name is mentioned more times in Joshua than in Deuteronomy.) Joshua will only succeed in his monumental task of bringing Israel into the Promised Land if he carefully follows the Law of Moses (1:7-8). For this he will need courage (1:6-7, 9 ,18).
 
Act 2 -- The Conquest of Canaan
Chapters 6-12 record the actual conquest of Canaan. Five major battles are detailed, plus some other activities, with a final list of 31 conquered kings. Repeatedly, the Lord fights for Israel and hands their enemies over to them (see 6:2; 8:1, 7; 10:8, 14, 42; 11:8). Because Israel is absolutely dependent on the Lord to give them victory, they only win when He fights for them, as the first Battle for Ai reveals.
 
Reading the list of 31 conquered kings in chapter 12 may not overwhelm you with excitement, but conquering each of those kings required effort, risk, struggle, trust, obedience, and courage. Every day we fight battles that require the same. As you read through the list, ask yourself how many victories you have won today? How about this week? Could you make a list of 31 recent victories in your life?
 
Act 3 -- The Distribution of the Land
Chapters 13-21 document the distribution of the land to the various tribes. Keys words in these chapters are words like inheritance (over 40 times) and divide (six times). The detailed listing of where each tribe received its inheritance may not be riveting to you as a reader, but think of the importance for the twelve tribes of Israel who had waited forty years for the moment when they would receive land that they could call their own. Imagine the excitement and challenge as each tribe and family settles into their respective allotments. But alas! Little hints here and there suggest that Israel was not as diligent as they should have been in dispossessing the Canaanites (see 13:13; 15:63; 16:10; 17:12-13, 16-18). Their small failures at the beginning reap big consequences over time.
 
The verses that provide the best summary of the entire book of Joshua are at the end of Joshua 21 (vv. 43-45). Key themes from those verses are worth tracing all the way through the book of Joshua:

1. Israel’s conquest of Canaan was the fulfillment of a covenant sworn with Israel’s founding fathers hundreds of years later 
2. Israel took possession—God gave them the land and handed their enemies over to them but Israel had to fight and take it 
3. God kept all of His promises during the conquest of the land

As verse 45 concludes, “None from all the good promises that Yahweh promised to the house of Israel failed; all were fulfilled.” Any failure was Israel’s, not God’s. Truly, God fulfills all His promises of victory to those who trust and obey.
 
Act 4 -- The Call for a Commitment
Chapters 22-24 contain various farewells and ends with the death of Joshua. Before Joshua dies, he challenges Israel in their covenant commitment to the Lord. As you read Joshua 23:1-13, underline all the references to “these nations.” Joshua knows what will trip Israel up in the future!

In Joshua 24, God reviews all that He has done for Israel throughout its history—note the repetition of “I.” What He now asks from Israel is, if not easy, quite simple: “Now therefore fear Yahweh and serve Him in sincerity and in faithfulness” (v. 14). It’s a choice that Joshua had already made for himself and his family: “but as for me and my house . . . we will serve Yahweh” (v. 15).

​Are you willing to make the same choice?

Deuteronomy 11-34 continues the same plea for Israel to devote themselves totally to the Lord that we saw in Deuteronomy 1-10. Many of the details true in Deuteronomy 1-10 are still true here. Israel is still on the Plains of Moab. Moses is still preaching, at least through chapter 30. And he is still urging Israel to careful conformity to the God who has loved and chosen them.

The best way to summarize Deuteronomy 11-34, and really the book as a whole, is the statement in Deuteronomy 30:20 that Israel is to “love Yahweh your God, to obey His voice, and to cling to Him because He is your life and your length of days so that you may dwell upon the land which Yahweh swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give to them.” Many of the emphases in Deuteronomy connect in some way to these words.

1. Love Yahweh your God.
The emphasis on loving Yahweh (and Yahweh loving Israel) is a marked distinctive in Deuteronomy.  God does not just want obedience. Nor does He just want sacrifices—as if Israel can appease God by tossing Him a bull now and then. He wants Israel to cling to Him in love (11:1; 13:3; 19:9; 23:5; 30:6, 16, 20; 33:3).

2. Obey His voice.
One expresses love for God by obeying His voice. We noted before the emphasis on careful obedience to God’s words that marks Deuteronomy. God’s words are not meaningless or empty—they are Israel’s life (32:47).  Obedience to God necessitates intolerance for disobedience to Him. The phrase “purge the evil from your midst” (“put the evil away from the midst of thee,” KJV) is almost unique to Deuteronomy (13:5; 17:7, 12; 19:19; 21:21; 22:21-22, 24; 24:7). Israel must insist on conformity to what God wants. Helpful to Israel’s obeying God is remembering. As you read Deuteronomy, note how many times Israel is to remember what God has done for them or not forget the commandments He has given them (e.g., 4:9, 23, 31; 15:15; 16:3, 12; 24:9, 22; 25:17, 19; 32:7).

3. Cling to Him as your life and length of days in the land.
God is their life and length of days in the land He is giving them. Moses, in Deuteronomy, is preparing Israel not just to enter the land, but to live in it. The land itself is a gracious gift of God, first promised to Abraham hundreds of years earlier (Gen. 12:7). Therefore, life in the land must be done God’s way or not at all. That’s what the curses and blessings are all about in Deuteronomy 27-28: life in the land will be good or bad depending almost entirely on what they do with their God and His words. The theme of living long in the land is distinctively Deuteronomy’s (e.g., 4:40; 5:16, 33; 11:9; 22:7; 25:15). There is no life in the land apart from God. Israel will decidedly not enjoy peace in the land if they follow their stubborn heart (29:19; 30:17-18). Conversely, to follow God and to choose His ways is the ticket to joy and blessing. Multiple times in Deuteronomy, God encourages Israel to rejoice in the land He is giving them (12:7, 12, 18; 14:26; 16:11, 14; 26:11; 27:7). God intends Israel to enjoy His good gifts. Life in the land is an abundant one, if lived in the path of obedience.

4. Choose Life.
Finally, Deuteronomy 30:20 is in the context of Moses’ final plea for Israel to make a decision. Deuteronomy 29-30 calls for a covenant commitment very similar to what God sought from the first generation at Mount Sinai. Only here, on the Plains of Moab, the consequences are stated a bit starkly. “Today, I call upon heaven and earth as a witness against you that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing, therefore choose life in order that you and your offspring may live” (30:19).
​
These key themes in Deuteronomy have many parallels for New Testament believers. Just as God instructed Israel how to live in the land, He instructs us how to live in Christ. The pathway to the abundant life is to cling to Christ and to His words. Christ and His words are our life! Like Israel, we also are to love God and exhibit our love to Him through our obedience. As we do so, we are to rejoice in the Lord and enjoy all that it means to be Christ’s. Our experience can be that of Israel’s: “How enviously happy you are, O Israel! Who, like you, is a people saved by Yahweh?” (33:29a)

​Today’s reading brings us to Numbers 22-Deuteronomy 10. Admittedly, the break at Deuteronomy 10 is a bit artificial since it is not the end of Moses’ sermon! At most, Moses takes a breath and keeps on preaching. But as you read through Numbers 22-Deuteronomy 10, here are four important things to look for.

1. A time of transitions.
Numbers 22-36 portrays a time of transitions. First, Israel transitions from traveling to a more settled existence in preparation to enter the Land of Canaan. In Numbers 22:1, Israel arrives on the plains of Moab near the Jordan. They will not leave the Plains of Moab again until they prepare to cross the Jordan River (Joshua 3:1-2). Israel’s wilderness wanderings are over. More than thirty-eight years have passed since Israel sinned at Kadesh Barnea (see Deut. 2:14). God uses the last remaining months of the forty years to prepare Israel’s second generation to enter the Promised Land. Look for some of these final instructions in Numbers’ closing chapters. 

A second transition is from the generation that came out of Egypt to the generation that will conquer Canaan. Numbers 22-25 recounts two final incidents in the transition from the first to the second generation: God’s turning of Balaam’s curse to blessing, and Israel’s fall into immorality at Baal Peor. But by the time of the second census in Numbers 26 (the first was in Numbers 1), not a man counted in the first census is still alive, other than Joshua and Caleb (26:64). 

A final transition is the commissioning of Joshua to be Moses’ successor (Num. 27:12-23). In less than a year, Joshua will be Israel’s leader.

2. A opportunity for review.
The Plains of Moab also becomes a opportunity for review. Moses’ review in Deuteronomy 1-10 intermingles Israel’s recent history (see especially chs. 1-3) with lessons they should have learned from these experiences (see chs. 4, 8-9) and reminders of the basic regulations God had given Israel at Mount Sinai forty years earlier (see chs. 5-7, 10). The Plains of Moab becomes almost a second Mount Sinai—a second giving of the law (“Deuteronomy”). Moses’ recital of these things, however, is neither rote nor   dispassionate but rather an ardent preaching of them with the intent of motivating Israel to obey. 

3. A call to careful conformity to the divine will.
Moses, through his preaching, wants to prevent a second Kadesh. Moses fears this in Numbers 32, when Reuben and Gad approach him to ask whether they can receive their inheritance to the east of the Jordan (vv. 6-8). His concern is not just that Israel might not enter the land but that they might not be able to stay in the land (33:5-6). Just as sin kept them away from the land for a generation, sin will catapult a future generation out of the land, if they fail to heed God’s instructions (8:19-20).

Israel, in fact, must give careful heed. As you read through Deuteronomy, look for words like “take heed,” “take good heed,” “take care,” “be careful,” “carefully,” or “observe”—all ways of appealing for careful conformity to the divine will. No book in the Old Testament urges Israel to careful obedience more than Deuteronomy. Moses knows Israel needs urging. They, like us, are prone to wander from the Lord. Moses is not exaggerating when, in the midst of a litany of Israel’s many disobediences, he says, “You have been rebellious against the Lord since the day I have known you” (9:24). 

4. A God who faithfully loves Israel and is to be wholeheartedly loved by them.
Israel should practice careful conformity to the divine will of God because He has loved them and their fathers enough to give them the Promised Land. Earlier books in the Pentateuch imply God’s love for Israel but Deuteronomy makes it explicit (7:7-8; 10:15). His undeserved love is reason enough to give Yahweh the obedience, reverence, and worship He deserves. 

An even greater reason is who Yahweh is. In and of themselves, Israel is nothing great. They are not powerful or many. They are not pious or godly. What makes Israel great is Israel’s God and the revelation of Himself that He has privileged them with. He is Israel’s praise (10:21). “For what nation has a God near to it like Yahweh our God whenever we call upon Him. And what great nation has statutes and righteous judgments like all this law that I am setting before you today?” (4:7-8). The God who has attached Himself to Israel is unique. “There is none besides Him” (4:35). He is God of gods and Lord of lords—the God who is great, mighty, and awesome (10:17). 

Perhaps no verse says it better than what the Jews call the shema: “Hear, O Israel, Yahweh our God is one Yahweh” (6:4). The God who is Israel’s . . . He alone is Yahweh. His uniqueness demands Israel’s total devotion, as the shema goes on to prescribe. “Therefore, you shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (v. 5). 

Moses’ call for Israel to love their God like this is not idealistic hyperbole. It is the key to their survival as a nation in the land to which God is about to give to them. 

​Numbers 1-21 is about more than just numbers, although it mentions plenty of those.

These chapters act as a travelogue that records Israel’s travels from Mount Sinai to the Transjordan area just east of the Promised Land. As they travel from place to place, what happens in those different places reflects where the people of Israel are in their spiritual journey.

As you read these chapters, track the different places in Israel’s travels where significant events occur. Ask yourself whether you are in a place like that right now in your spiritual journey.

Numbers 1-10 begins at Mount Sinai. Essentially no time has passed since Exodus 40, when Moses set up the tabernacle on the first day of the first month at the beginning of Israel’s second year out of Egypt (compare Numbers 7:1 with Exodus 40:2, 17). Fifty days after Moses set up the tabernacle, Israel will leave Mount Sinai. Numbers 1-10 record the events of those fifty days—a census, offerings for the altar, organization of the camp, consecration and duties of the Levites, instructions for marching, and first official commemoration of the Passover.

When, in Numbers 10:11, the cloud lifts off from above the tabernacle for the first time, the excitement in the camp must have been electric. We are bound for the Promised Land!

But each place to which they then journey begins to show the true spiritual state of Israel. Numbers 11 records two places, and the name of each memorializes what happened: Taberah (“blaze”), where the Lord’s anger blazed against Israel for their complaining, and Kibroth-hattaavah (“graves of craving”), where Israel buried the people who had sinfully craved meat from the Lord. At Hazeroth (ch. 12), Miriam and Aaron criticize Moses. All of this is a prelude to the watershed event at Kadesh Barnea (chs. 13-14), where Israel forfeits the privilege of entering the Promised Land and is sentenced to 40 years of wandering until an entire generation dies off. Kadesh Barnea has come to be synonymous with an appalling lack of faith in the God who, to this point in Israel’s experience, had done everything He had promised. Yet a hint of God’s grace peeks through in Numbers 15:2: “Speak to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘when you enter into the land that you will inhabit, which I am giving to you . . .’”  That proclaims hope for the future: God may be writing off the first generation, but He is not turning from His promises.

As you read Numbers 15-19, note the significant lack of place names. Places do not matter too much at this point since they have gotten off track from God’s intended plan for them. However, it seems like wherever they go, rebellion characterizes them (Numb. 16-17).

Numbers 20 finds them back at Kadesh, but almost forty years have passed—“the first month” of Numbers 20:1 is the first month of the fortieth year! Here again, in Numbers 20-21, we encounter places of failure and death: Meribah, where Moses and Aaron do not honor God in front of the Israelites (20:1-13); Mount Hor, where Aaron dies (20:22-29); and an unknown area east of Edom, where God provided a bronze serpent (21:4-9). But, encouragingly, Numbers 1-21 ends on a victorious note. God may have decreed the death of the first generation but He was very much present to help the second generation move toward and (ultimately) into the Promised Land. Hormah (“destruction”) becomes a place where Israel’s enemies at Arad are defeated (21:1-3). Heshbon and Bashan both become Israel’s as they soundly defeat and annihilate the kings living there (21:21-35). The first generation’s catastrophic loss due to sin is not the last word; grace is, if the second generation will learn to trust and obey.

So at what place are you in your spiritual journey? Is it a place of preparation and anticipation (like Mount Sinai)? Complaining (Taberah)? Criticism (Hazeroth)? Unbelief (Kadesh)? Or the cusp of victory (Hormah)? 

God in His grace, if you will allow Him, will meet you where you are and take you where should be!

​What it Means to be God's in Leviticus 1-27

I am Yahweh. 
You are mine. 
Therefore, you are to do things my way in every aspect of life. 

These three sentences encapsulate the essence of Leviticus. Several key passages in Leviticus help bring these themes into focus. Mark them in your Bible and keep them in mind as you read through the 27 chapters of Leviticus.

• “I am Yahweh, your God. You shall therefore consecrate yourself and be holy, for I am holy . . . . For I am Yahweh who brought you up from the land of Egypt to be your God. Therefore, you shall be holy for I am holy” (11:44a, 45).
• “You shall be holy because I, Yahweh your God, am holy” (19:2b).
• “And you shall be holy to Me for I, Yahweh, am holy, and I have separated you from the peoples in order to be Mine” (20:26).
• “Therefore, you shall keep my commandments and do them. I am Yahweh. And you shall not profane My holy name in order that I may be sanctified in the midst of the children of Israel; I, Yahweh, am the One who sanctifies you, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God. I am Yahweh” (22:31-33).
• “And I will walk among you and will be your God, and you will be My people. I am Yahweh your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt from being their slaves. I also broke the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect” (26:12-13).

Repeatedly, God asserts that He is Yahweh and that Israel belongs to Him. They are therefore to demonstrate in every aspect of life their consecration to Him. That is at the heart of what it means to be holy—the key word that occurs 152 times in Leviticus. Understanding this will help unlock everything you then read in Leviticus. 

1. God regulates the gifts that His people offer Him.
God regulates the gifts that His people offer Him (chs. 1-7). They bring the gifts and offerings that He prescribes, in the way that He prescribes, and when He prescribes. A God like Yahweh is not to be approached nonchalantly or carelessly. You approach Him with the gifts that He has designated to be offered and you offer them with the help of the mediators, the Levitical priesthood, that He has provided (chs. 8-10).

2. God determines what makes a person clean or unclean.
In addition, God determines what makes a person clean or unclean and how a person who has become unclean becomes clean. He is to be sanctified in what Israel eats, in what they touch, in the way they deal with infectious diseases, or mildew-type growths (see chs. 11-15). Uncleanness is such a problem that one day every year, the Day of Atonement, is set aside to cleanse Israel and the tabernacle from the past year’s filth (ch. 16). “On this day atonement shall be made for you to cleanse you. You shall be cleansed from all your sins before Yahweh” (16:30). Blood is required to make atonement and be cleansed from impurity (17:11). The blood is the concrete symbol of the life of a creature. By offering its blood, you are taking its life. Death--bloody death--is the price for cleansing from sin.

 3. God expects obedience to His ordinances.
Finally, God expects Israel to live by His ordinances. As you read through Leviticus 18-27, take special note of how many times God alludes to  My ordinances, My statutes, and My commandments. Israel was not to walk in the ways of the nations around them; they were to walk in God’s ways. The land in which they would live was God’s (25:23) so they were to follow His rules for working it. Their fellow Israelites were God’s (25:42, 55) so they were to treat them accordingly. If Israel chose to sin, God would choose the chastisement. If Israel chose to obey, God would pour out the rewards. 

Leviticus has application for New Testament believers.

​Being God’s, in whatever period of time you live, means you do things His way in every aspect of your life. As 1 Peter 1:15 summarizes, “But as the One who called you is holy, you yourselves also be holy in all your conduct.”

We, like Israel, are to be fully God’s in every aspect of life so that we may “proclaim the excellencies of the One who has called us out of darkness into His marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). 

Exodus 19 is a very important transition in the book of Exodus because it marks the official arrival of Israel at Mount Sinai, where they would halt in their journeying for a little over eleven months. (Numbers 10:11 chronicles their departure from Mount Sinai eleven months later.)

Two very significant events in Israel’s early history occur at Mount Sinai and are recounted for us in Exodus 19-40.

1. God calls Israel to Himself in a covenant.
The time at Sinai begins with chapters 19-24 in which God calls Israel to Himself in a covenant, referred to as the Sinaitic, Mosaic, or even Old Covenant. This covenant formed the twelve tribes of Israel into a theocratic nation whose king was Yahweh. Exodus 19:4-6 summarizes the covenant’s basis, privileges, purposes, and responsibilities, and the rest of chapters 19-24 sees the covenant propounded, enacted, and ratified.

Through this covenant, God was bringing to Himself a nation who would belong to Him in a very special way, be fully devoted to Him, and radiate a knowledge of Him to other nations.

Exodus 24 gives us a glimpse into Israel’s very special privilege when, after the covenant is ratified, the leaders of Israel see God and eat and drink in His presence (v. 11). However, God never intended Israel to gorge themselves on the privileges of knowing Him without caring for the nations around them; in binding Himself to Israel, God purposed for them to be a “kingdom of priests” (19:6) that through His blessing on them all the families of the earth would also be blessed. This blessing is not material in nature, but rather God's plan to justify the Gentiles by faith--it is a pre-preaching of the Gospel (Galatians 3:8). 

2. God comes to dwell in the midst of Israel.
Just how serious God was in drawing Israel to Himself as His unique possession becomes clearer in Exodus 25-40. Minutiae related to the construction of the tabernacle fill these chapters, but these details should not obscure the primary purpose of the Tabernacle as stated in Exodus 25:8: “and they shall make a sanctuary for me that I may dwell in the midst of them.” The Tabernacle provided the place where God dwelt in the midst of Israel.

As you read through the instructions for and the construction of the Tabernacle—the details are repeated both times—keep your eyes open for one of the most significant details of all: they made everything “just as the Lord commanded.” This statement is repeated seventeen times in chapters 39-40. Israel’s obedience in following the Lord’s instructions was critical because they were following a pattern the Lord had given Moses (25:40), and that pattern was a copy of things in the heavenlies (Heb. 8:5). The Tabernacle was a reality, but it was also a symbol of a greater reality, a “true tabernacle, which the Lord constructed, not man” (Heb. 8:2).
​
Israel’s effort to conform to the divine pattern paid off in the end: “the glory of Yahweh filled the tabernacle” (40:34). God had moved into the dwelling place Israel had sacrificially made for Him and in so doing, a key purpose of His in bringing them out of Egypt had been fulfilled. “And I will dwell among the children of Israel, and I will be their God. And they shall know that I am Yahweh their God who brought them out of the land of Egypt in order to dwell in the midst of them. I am Yahweh their God” (29:45-46, emphasis mine). 

​The expression “God of Israel” occurs only once in Exodus 1-18, but these chapters are full of who this God is and what He does for the Israel to whom He has so powerfully, graciously, and faithfully attached Himself.

1. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
First, the God of Israel is identified as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (3:6, 15-16). He is identified with them because He made a covenant with them. That very covenant is the reason He moves to deliver Israel from Egypt (2:24). As the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, a continuity is maintained: the God of Israel who is about to deliver them from Egypt is the same God Almighty who worked so powerfully in the lives of the patriarchs. “This is my God, and I will praise Him; my father’s God, and I will lift Him up” (15:2b). Being the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob also suggests that He is the living God. Hundreds of years later, He is still God. That He is still their God also implies that they—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—are still alive, as Jesus deduces in his discussion with the Sadducees: “He is not the God of the dead but of the living” (Matt. 22:32). 

2. His name is Yahweh, The One Who Is.
Second, these chapters deepen our understanding of Yahweh (or Jehovah) as the name of the God of Israel. God has multiple titles or appellations: God, God most high, God almighty, Lord, Lord of hosts, and many others. But He has only one name—Yahweh—and that name is clearly revealed in the Exodus from Egypt in a way that it had not been revealed before. The name Yahweh is related to the Hebrew verb of being. That’s why God explained His name to Moses at the burning bush as “I am that I am” (3:14). Essentially, the name Yahweh means “He is.” And if He is, then He is always the same. He is what He was and He is what He will be. A key point in God’s deliverance of Israel from Egypt is that the same God who made a covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is still alive hundreds of years later and able to fulfill the promises He made to them. “I have remembered My covenant; therefore, tell the children of Israel, I am Yahweh, and I will bring you out from under the forced labor of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from bondage to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment” (6:5b-6).

3. He humbled Pharoah and the land of Egypt.
Third, Yahweh, the God of Israel humbles Pharaoh and brings Egypt to its knees. The Egyptians themselves voice their concern to Pharaoh, “Do you not yet realize that Egypt is destroyed?” (10:7). Egypt was destroyed because of the ten plagues that the God of Israel brought upon it because of the obstinacy of Pharaoh’s heart. “I know that the king of Egypt will not allow you to go except by a powerful hand” (3:19). God’s was the powerful hand that freed Israel from Pharaoh and from their bondage (see 13:3, 9, 14, 16). Every year, Israel was to commemorate the Passover, when God struck down every firstborn in Egypt but passed over the houses of the Israelites (12:24-27). All the might of ancient Egypt proved no match for Israel’s God. Even Moses’ father-in-law Jethro comes to faith in Israel’s God as a result of the acts of great power poured out on Egypt: “now I know that Yahweh is greater than all the gods of Egypt” (18:11). 

4. He brought Israel out of Egypt.
Fourth, the God of Israel not only humbles Pharaoh and all Egypt with him but brings Israel out of Egypt, just as He promised Moses at the burning bush. God’s action in bringing Israel out of Egypt is frequently heralded in the Old Testament as one of His greatest works on behalf of His people. “Out of Egypt, I called My son” (Hos. 11:1). What God did in bringing Israel out of Egypt and delivering them from the Egyptian army at the Red Sea was intended by Him to foster undying, undeviating confidence and  trust in Him. If He could deliver them from Egypt, then He can provide for them during their travels and He can surely bring them into the land He promised to their forefathers. Too often in its history, Israel forgot the realities they celebrated so joyfully after their escape at the Red Sea, “Who is like you, O Yahweh, among the gods? Who like you is glorious in holiness, being revered with praises, doing wonders? You stretched out your right hand; the earth swallowed them. You will lead with your faithful love this people you redeemed. You will guide them by your strength to your holy habitation” (15:11-13).