Using Young's Literal Translation Bible Readings 365 for serious Bible students

We must remember, as we go forward with Yahweh, that we are to love Him, and obey His commands. We are to remember what He has won for us. Though we cannot see with our physical eyes our deliverance from Egypt, nor our escape from slavery which we were not aware we were trapped in, the spiritual oppression we lived under which is invisible to our mind's physical eye, we must know and remember that...

The thief doth not come, except that he may steal, and kill, and destroy; I came that they might have life and have [it] abundantly. John 10:10 Following our baptism, there will be threats to the abundant life that God promises us but God will dispossess them of any hold they have on what He wills to give to us, if we follow Him and do not go ahead of Him outside of His authority and command. God...

When we have chosen to love the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind and with all our strength and we follow Jesus through baptism into the land which He brings us into which we are going in to possess, then God will cast out many nations from our presence. This is not a physical taking of land nor dispossessing of nations in the world, but is a spiritual tru...

When we have turned to following Jesus, we cannot take with us anything of our past life which will lead us away from Him and our obedience to His teaching. We have to be utterly ruthless to cut off every thing that is not of God and not of His teaching, every influence, every input, every teaching however appealing, however attractive and benign they might seem to us. Everything that is not of Go...

Those who do not believe in God, who have not received of His Spirit, who are determined to persevere in the thinking of their own minds, who are not open to hear, who harden their hearts against God and His truth and His Son and all that He has done for us, prevent the truth from setting them free. They are captured in a time warp, in a world of ignorance and foolishness, as Proverbs 12:8 says "A...

God will destroy evil from the world by the word of His mouth. Our fight is not against flesh and blood but against spiritual powers that oppose God and seek to interrupt and interfere and negate what God seeks to plant and grow and nurture. God tells us not to fear for, as with Sihon king of the Amorite, Og, king of Bashan cannot stand against God "into your hand I have given him" and we have the...

Deuteronomy begins: "These are the words which Moses hath spoken unto all Israel". No-one has an excuse for not hearing unless they do not have the opportunity to hear. "How then shall they call upon Him in whom they did not believe? and how shall they believe on Him of whom they did not hear? and how shall they hear apart from one preaching?" Romans 10:14 "So then faith is by a report and the rep...

The huge number of Levites who will serve God are provided for by the sons of Israel. Their food is from the offerings to God and in Chapter 35 of Numbers God commands that they are provided with 48 cities, including 6 cities of refuge, and areas of grazing land around them of a specific measurement, two thousand cubits east, south, west and north of each city. Imagine that a nation was so served...

How astonishing it is that the journeys of the sons of Israel are recorded with such precision and extant now in the writings of the Bible - 'and Moses writeth their outgoings, by their journeys, by the command of Jehovah: 42 journeys and 40 years of journeying from the morrow of the first Passover to the border of the Jordan. It may take us many years to come to a knowledge of the truth, the trut...

Remembering that the Bible is written by the Holy Spirit by the hand of human beings who are filled with the Spirit, and is to be read with understanding given by the Holy Spirit and in no other way, we must know that the war that we are in, is not against flesh and blood, but against the powers of this dark world. Therefore, in our growing into maturity, into perfection in our Christian life, if...

Notice that the command from God regarding the rest that the people were to have on the first day of the month was from doing 'servile work'. The Jewish authorities over the years following had defined what kind of work this might mean, so that plucking heads of grain in order to eat and picking up your mat that had been your bed, because you were healed and could now walk, were forbidden, as also...

When Moses is faced with a request or a question, his response, as ours should be, is to bring the cause before Jehovah. Jehovah alone is trustworthy to give the answer we need. No human reasoning can give us this. We do well to be humble before the Lord our God and express our need of Him. The daughters of Zelophehad, whose father had no sons, request to have a possession in the midst of the bret...

Balaam as a prophet of God must only say those words which God says to him. "Go with these men; and only the word which I speak unto thee - thou dost speak." Balak, the King of Arad, the Canaanite, thinks that God can be demanded of to do as Balak requires Him to do. All he has to do is give sacrifices as Balaam instructed him to do. He is used to bribing, or demanding what he wants from people. W...

The families of the sons of Israel are numbered by name. This astonishing record of people, 601,730, is a testament to God of how He knows and holds people in his heart, by name. "I have called you by name, you are mine" and also it is a marvel that such a record should be taken and kept: I know of no other from such a period of history, that has preserved records so precisely taken from such a la...

God is a God who covenants with HIs people and is faithful to keep His promise. In Numbers 21, a vow is made by Israel with God " 'If Thou dost certainly give this people into my hand then I have devoted their cities.' and Jehovah hearkeneth to the voice of Israel and giveth up the Canaanite (Numbers 21 v 2, 3) The Bible is not a history book or a sociology book or an economics book. Nor is it a b...

Forgiveness of sin is costly: it costs the life of a living being in our place, which gives all its blood, its life, for us. This is not some strange god which we invent that needs to be appeased and to which a sacrifice has to be made, the life even of a child, a son or daughter, in order to bring rain or good harvest or victory or whatever reason our evil hearts imagine in this invented duty to...

It is vitally important that the way in which the Passover is carried out is exactly as God commanded, for in every detail Jesus will fulfil what happens in this event. Between the evening of the 14th day and the evening of the 15th day, "between the evenings" the sons of Israel prepare the passover, "according to all that Jehovah hath commanded Moses, so have the sons of Israel done." This obedie...

Sin separates us from God. David says in Psalm 32: "Oh the happiness of a man, to whom Jehovah imputeth not iniquity. And in whose spirit there is no deceit. When I have kept silence, become old have my bones, Through my roaring all the day." When we roar against others, the plank in our own eye too great to see our own sin; when we are sharp to look for fault in an other, yet are silent about our...

Numbers 13:1-14:45 When we read the Bible, the Holy Spirit will often highlight, or draw to our particular attention something we are reading. Moses was told to choose as the spies, princes, leaders of the people, "one man for the tribe of his fathers ye do send, every one a prince among them". They were not chosen for their skill in spying, for their age or ability, but as "every one a prince". T...

There is something about the identical repetitions of the giving by the 12 tribes to God for the Levites in their service of the tabernacle and their offerings for the dedication of the altar that is powerfully important. Repetition is always important in the Scriptures but the repetitions here underline that no tribe is different, that all are equally significant and important to God, that their...

What can we do if we are married and our spouse suspects we are guilty of adultery? They can spy on us, they can watch over us with suspicion, they can stand away from us and hold their love away from us. Whatever is done, the closeness is gone, the intimacy is gone, the trust is gone. God gives a way to clear away such suspicion and restore the marriage. What does this mean spiritually, for all S...

The precision of God's instructions for the work of the moving and setting up of the Tabernacle is that of a mighty adminstrator, a perfect Director, giving clarity and decisive commands of great authority to the leaders he has chosen to work under Him: Moses and Aaron and the princes who were heads over their tribes, also as chosen by God. When we follow God's commands, we are secure, we are well...

Numbers are not numbers to God: each one of us is individually named and each one of us is individually known and each is counted and each is precious to God. "I have called you by name, you are mine." How awesome it is, that the people of Israel were counted, by their families, by the house of their fathers, in the number of names, by their polls - that is individually - and there is order in the...

The Church, meaning all churches, has introduced many "traditions of men" which has in some cases led to excommunication from the church while ignoring the Word of God which contradicts those traditions or gives a different teaching to follow which is God's way. "This people with the lips doth honour me, and their heart is far from me. and in vain do they worship Me, teaching teachings, commands o...

God's plan for human beings day by day was that we should have a sabbath of rest every week: "six days shall you work and do all that you have to do and the seventh day you are to rest." Every week was to have a "sabbath of rest" at the end of the week: a day in which no work was done, "in all your dwellings". No servile work was to be done. If we had a weekly schedule like this, wouldn't we be he...