NUMBERS
(Answers)
Updated 12/2023
CHAPTER 1
- a. Moses was to number all
males twenty years old and above who were able to go to war. b.
603,550.males twenty years old and above who were able to go to war. c.
The Levites were selected by God to do His work in the tabernacle.
CHAPTER 2
- Moses was to arrange the
tribes in four groups (3 tribes in each group), one group north, south,
east, and west.
CHAPTER 3
- God chose the Levites as His,
instead of the firstborn of all Israel, man or beast.
- a. There were 273 in
difference. b. The other tribes had to pay five shekels for each one to
Aaron and his sons.
CHAPTER 4
- The sons of Kohath carried
all the holy items of the tabernacle.
- The articles of the
tabernacle were holy and could not be touched, or someone would die.
- The sons of Gershon were to
carry all the curtains of the tabernacle.
- The sons of Merari carried
all the framework of the tabernacle.
- The sons ranged from 30-50
years old.
CHAPTER 5
- a. The husband would take
his wife to the priest and she would be tested there by drinking holy
water mixed with dust from the tabernacle. b. The guilty woman's thigh
would rot and her belly would swell. She also would not be able to have
children.
CHAPTER 6
- A Nazirite could not cut his
hair, drink wine or grape juice, eat grapes or raisins, or touch any
defiled thing for an appointed time.
- A Nazirite wholly served the
Lord and remained pure for his appointed time.
CHAPTER 7
- Twelve leaders, one from
each tribe brought offerings to anoint the tabernacle.
- The oxen and carts were used
to carry the curtains and framework of the tabernacle.
- The sons of Kohath were to
carry the holy things used in the tabernacle on their shoulders.
CHAPTER 8
- The Levites became God’s in
place of all the firstborn of Israel, man or beast.
- The Levites aged 25-50 years
old.
CHAPTER 9
- An unclean or unavailable
person would keep the Passover in the second month.
- Israel would move when the
cloud above the tabernacle moved, no matter when or how long.
CHAPTER 10
- Israel had stayed at Mt.
Sinai for eleven months (See Exodus 19:1).
- The trumpets were blown to
let the people know to meet at the tabernacle and to let the Israelites
know when to journey.
CHAPTER 11
- The people complained they
had no meat to eat.
- a. Moses was to choose
seventy proven and known men of God who could help him. b. God put His Spirit on the men
who would help Moses.
- Quail were provided for the
Israelites.
- Those who thought they were
better off in Egypt were killed with a plague, even while they ate.
CHAPTER 12
- Miriam and Aaron criticized
Moses because of the Ethiopian wife he had taken and were envious of his
position.
- God made Miriam a leper
(for seven days) foe speaking against Moses.
- God described Moses as the
most humble man in all the earth, faithful, and to whom He spoke plainly.
CHAPTER 13
- a. Twelve men went to spy
out the land of Canaan, one from each tribe. b. The men saw the land was
fertile, flowing with milk and honey.
- a. Most of the men reported
the land was good but there were giants there who were stronger than they.
b. They were afraid of the people there and had no trust in God.
CHAPTER 14
- Caleb and Joshua came back
with a good report and wanted to go in and take it.
- God wanted to disinherit the
people.
- He pleaded for God's mercy
and reasoned that the nations would say that God was not able to bring His
people up to the land.
- God decided that all those
who had been numbered in the census, twenty years and older, would not
enter into the land of Canaan.
- It would be forty years
before Israel would enter the Promose Land, one year for each day the
spies had been in the land.
- Caleb and Joshua would be
the only two of the spies who would enter the land.
- They spies who gave the bad
report were killed by a plague sent from God.
- a. The people decided to go
into the land of Canaan on their own. b. They were attacked by the
Amalekites and the Canaanites and driven back.
CHAPTER 15
- There was one law and one
custom for both the stranger in Israel and the Israelites.
- The congregation would offer
a young bull for the burnt offering, the grain offering and the drink
offering according to ordinance, and a kid goat for the sin offering for
unintentional sin.
- An individual who sinned
unintentionally would offer a female goat in its first year as a sin
offering.
- A person, native or stranger,
who sinned intentionally, would be completely cut off from his people.
- A man picking up sticks was
commanded by God to be stoned to death for not keeping the Sabbath holy.
- Tassels were attached to
their garments to remind them to obey the commandments of God and not to
follow their own hearts.
CHAPTER 16
- a. Korah, Dathan, Abiram,
and 250 elders rebelled against Moses and Aaron. b. God wanted to kill the
whole congregation of Israel.
c. Moses pleaded with God to punish only the ones who had sinned. d. God opened the ground up
underneath the ones who had rebelled and they and their families and all
that they had went into the pit alive. The 250 elders with censers were
consumed with fire.
- a. Moses and Aaron were
blamed for their brothers’ deaths. b. God sent a plague to kill the ones
who complained.
- a. 14,700 people died in
the plague God sent. b. Moses
sent Aaron to offer atonement to God, and then it stopped.
CHAPTER 17
- The rod that budded would be
the person God had chosen to serve between He and the Israelites.
CHAPTER 18
- All the offerings would be
for the use of the Levites. It would be their inheritance from the Lord.
- A tithe of the best of all
that the Levites received would go to the priests.
CHAPTER 19
- a. Ashes of a red heifer
was mixed with water for purification of sins. b. The ashes of the heifer
for the purification mixture were stored outside the camp of Israel in a
clean place.
CHAPTER 20
- Miriam died at Kadesh.
- The people had no water to
drink.
- a. God sent Moses to a rock
to receive water out of it.
b. Moses was angry at Israel's complaining and did not hallow God
before them as the One who is providing the water for them. c. Moses and
Aaron would not lead the people into the land promised to them.
- a. The people of Edom.did
not let Israel cross the Jordan.
b. Edom is the descendants of Esau, Jacob's brother. (Gen 25:30)
- Aaron died at Mount Hor.
CHAPTER 21
- a. The people had no food
and water and were tired of the manna. b. God sent snakes to kill the people.
- a. The Amorites would not
let Israel pass through their land. b. The Amorites attacked Israel but
were severely defeated.
- a. Og, king of Bashan came
out against Israel. b. The
people of Bashan were defeated by Israel. There were no survivors.
CHAPTER 22
- Balak wanted to hire Balaam
to curse the Israelites so he could defeat them.
- Balaam did not do as God
had instructed him but rose to leave with the last group of men instead of
waiting on them to come to him.
- The Angel of the Lord spoke
to Balaam through the donkey.
- The Lord came to kill
Balaam.
CHAPTER 23
- Balaam could not curse
anyone God would not curse. He continued to bless Israel.
CHAPTER 24
- Balaam desired to have the
gifts and honor that Balak would give him.
- Balaam attempted to use
sorcery the first two times to curse Israel but it did not work. He would
then turn to God to listen to Him perhaps to entice God to curse Israel.
- The star to come is King
David but also is a reference to the Messiah.
CHAPTER 25
- The people of Israel
married the Moab women and fell into worshiping Baal.
- The leader or judge of each
tribe was to kill all those under them who had committed harlotry.
- Phinehas the son of Eleazar
had great zeal for God.
- 24,000. people died in
God’s anger.
- Phinehas received an
eternal priesthood and a covenant of peace.
CHAPTER 26
- Moses and Aaron were to
take a new census of the Israelites who are old enough to go to war.
- The children of Korah
remained. (These must have heeded the warning of Moses when he told them
to get away or be consumed with Korah).
- There were 601,730 males
old enough to go to war.
- According to the size of
their tribe they would receive their portion of the inheritance.
- a. Only two people remained
of the first census. b. Caleb
and Joshua were the two that remained since the first census. Everyone
else had died. c. Joshua and Caleb were the two
zealous for God and did not bring back a bad report on the land that had
been spied out.
CHAPTER 27
- a. The daughters of
Zelophehad had no inheritance because there were no sons of their father
among them. b. If a man had
no sons, his inheritance would go to his daughters or the closest living
relative.
- a. Joshua would lead the
people into the land of promise. b. Moses had not hallowed God at the rock
in Kadesh and was soon to die.
CHAPTER 28-29
- The people were reminded of
each offering they were to observe; the daily offering, the Sabbath
offering, the monthly offering, the Passover offering, the feast of first
fruits, the Feast of Weeks, the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement,
and the Feast of Tabernacles.
- One hundred ninety-nine
animals were sacrificed during the Feast of Tabernacles - Thirty on day
one; twenty-nine on day two; twenty-eight on day three; twenty-seven on
day four; twenty-six on day five; twenty-five on day six; twenty-four on
day seven; ten on day eight.
- Moses was going to die. A
new leader and a new generation of people were about to go into the
Promised Land. They needed to be reminded of the ordinances of the
offerings.
CHAPTER 30
- A man who made a vow unto
the Lord had to do according to his word.
- If a woman, under her
father’s authority, makes a vow only her father could break her vow.
- The daughter must keep her
vow if her father does not overrule her vow.
- A husband can overrule his
wife’s vow as soon as he hears of it.
- The divorced and the
widowed woman have no man over them to overrule their vow.
- If a husband does not
respond to his wife’s vow, he allows her vow to be kept.
CHAPTER 31
- a. The men brought back all
of the women of Midian who had caused them to sin by worshiping idols. b.
Balaam counseled the people of Midian to commit this harlotry with Israel.
c. They were to keep alive only the women who had not known a man.
- The spoils were shared
equally between those who had fought the battle and those who did not go
to fight.
- The men gave a special
offering to the Lord because they had come back with no one missing.
CHAPTER 32
- a. The tribes of Rueben,
Gad, and the ½ tribe of Manasseh. wanted their inheritance early b. The three tribes would fight
the enemy first with Israel on the other side of the Jordan so Israel
could take possession of the promised land..
CHAPTER 33
- Israel was to drive out all
the inhabitants of the land and destroy all their molded images, idols,
and places of worship.
- If Israel did not
completely drive out the inhabitants and destroy their idols, they would
be harassed by the people and destroyed by God.
CHAPTER 34
- The tribes of Rueben, Gad,
and a half tribe of Manasseh settled on the east side of the Jordan.
- Eleazar the priest, Joshua,
and one leader of each tribe were used to divide the land.
CHAPTER 35
- The Levites were given
cities to dwell in and land for their cattle, herds, and animals.
- The Levites would be
distributed proportionally throughout all the land of each tribe. (Today,
Christians are distributed as the salt and light all over the world.)
- a. A city of refuge was
where a person could seek protection if they had accidentally killed
someone. b. There were six
cities set up for refuge. (Three on the east side of the Jordan and three
oin the west.)
CHAPTER 36
- The daughters of Zelophehad
faced a diminishing inheritance. If they married outside their own tribe,
their inheritance would be drawn away from their father's tribe. They
would eventually have no inheritance for their father's tribe. It would go
to the new tribe of whom they married.
- The daughters of Zelophehad
were to marry only within their father's tribe. This became a statute for
a daughter who received an inheritance whose father had no sons.